Company Towns: 1880s to 1935

This turn toward conservation and energy efficiency was the first crisis, of three, that would shock the electric utilities during the Carter era. Their business model, long premised on endlessly increasing consumption linked to endlessly increasing production of ever cheaper electric power tied, in turn, to the construction of ever bigger, more te

The ideology of frugality, the interests of factory owners, and the availability of surplus labor via immigration inevitably suppressed wages. With wages stagnant and production increasing, the system went out of balance and finally, in 1929, went into a deep crisis.