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Bringing Light to Rural America
Louisan Mamer recalls how the Rural Electrification Administration brought electricity to U.S. farms in the late 1930s, with help from the "circus "show
Before electricity came to rural America
in the late 1930s, millions of farm families relied on the dim light of kerosene lanterns
to milk their cows or to read around the table after dinner. Washing, ironing and cooking
were done without the benefit of electricity. Meals were cooked on wood stoves. There were
no refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, radios, or bathrooms equipped with running water. In
fact, more than 5 million U.S. farms had no electric service at all.
But in 1935, Roosevelt signed the order to set
up the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Its goal was to bring electricity to
rural America. A year later, Congress approved and Roosevelt signed into law - the Rural
Electrification Act, ensuring the REA would receive regular appropriations and full status
as a government agency.
For millions of Americans, that legislation
changed life forever. In the midst of the Great Depression and its high unemployment, the
REA - with the help of newly formed electric coops - set out to hook up electricity across
the nation. With that daunting task came the need for education. Millions of rural
Americans knew nothing about using modern electrical appliances or electrical safety.
Enter Louisan Mamer. Hired in the fall of 1935,
Mamer was one of the first employees of the REA. Assigned to educate Americans about using
electricity in their homes, Mamer experienced first-hand the sweeping efforts that lit up
this country. She toured the country with REA’s "circus," or Farm Show,
tours under a grueling schedule, giving lectures and demonstrations on home lighting and
wiring. Under the road show's circus tent, husbands sat with their wives on hard benches
for hours to watch and learn from REA specialists such as Mamer. The circus sparked such
intense interest among the farm women that REA had to set up an information booth to
distribute printed information.
War clouds caused REA to shut down its
enormously successful show in 1941. By then, the agency had toured 26 states and
introduced new and more efficient electrical uses to nearly a million rural Americans.
In 1975, Kathryn Vanzant of REA’s
Information Services Division interviewed Mamer - then assistant chief of REA's training
branch - on her career at REA. (Mamer retired from the REA in 1981.,) Here are excerpts
from that interview.
Vanzant: How did you
hear about REA?
Mamer: I saw a clipping in the
newspaper. A new program had been established. It seemed a wonderful thing to me as a farm
girl that rural areas could get electricity.
Vanzant: What was
the first item that most homes obtained when they were "hooked up"?
Mamer: Of course, they wanted
ceiling lighting. Farm women wanted an iron and sometimes a radio. In the South they
wanted a refrigerator, and in the North, a washing machine.
Vanzant: How did REA
first put you to work?
Mamer: I produced about
four handouts. We made some contacts with women's clubs and national women's
organizations. I also worked on some speeches. The thought was that some of the people
working for REA at that time did not have rural backgrounds, they appreciated any thoughts
or ideas that rural people could contribute. I remember our first Administrator, Morris
Llewellyn Cooke, emphasized in most of his speeches that the coming of rural
electrification would help to decentralize industry into rural areas, to take up the slack
of underemployment and unemployment that resulted from the mechanization of agriculture.
And Congress had emphasized this in the passing of the legislation. Development of the
rural areas is, I believe, something we should still be working on.
Vanzant: What was the evolution of the
REA Farm Tour?
Mamer: From its small start in the Midwest, it
traveled over the U.S. and went on for four years. In December of '41, we had Pearl
Harbor and World War II. The Farm Tour then turned into an Electro-Economy Tour, which was
designed to help the war effort. The emphasis was on the production and conservation of
food, the home use of food dehydration and drying. We taught canning and freezing, home
grinding of whole grains, and making fruit from these techniques. Gas shortages during the
War eventually shut that down.
The large mass type of educational project had
not been used and was not really considered effective for educating people. It was thought
that smaller groups worked better. But there was some research in Iowa that showed you
could take people in large groups like the Farm Tour and teach them something. It was not
just a promotional tour but had educational value.
Vanzant: One of the early tools
used by the REA to get the word out to the people was the REA Farm Tour. How did the
concept of the Farm Tour originate?
Mamer: It was difficult to locate
equipment to use in educational work, especially in Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. Farm
production equipment just wasn't available in the small towns. There were few dealers. A
co-worker of mine, Daniel Teare, an agricultural engineer, and I hit upon the idea that if
we could get this equipment from manufacturers, we could take it from one place to another
provided we had a truck, and could figure out a way to show it. And by the summer of 1938,
we had worked out the Farm Show idea.
Vanzant: Do you recall your
first REA Farm Show?
Mamer: Yes. It was in rural Iowa near
Anamoso. A cooperative, Maquoketa Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, was the first stop of
the Farm Show. Then we moved to another location near Davenport, Iowa. The next year, the
tour was expanded to more states. It was gradually expanded to cover most of the states
that were electrified at that time. They made two stops a week with the shows. After it
got rolling, it became a pretty big traveling circus.
Vanzant: How many people
normally attended?
Mamer: That first year, 500 - as many as
800 - but we became more skilled in publicizing it and we eventually got a audience that
ran as high as 10,000.
Vanzant: When the "circus"
first began, were you the only woman on the REA Farm Tour?
Mamer: Yes, the first year.
Vanzant: How were
the arrangements for the Farm Shows made?
Mamer: Arrangements were made
through the local rural electric cooperatives. Approval for expenditure of money for
participation in the shows was obtained by vote from the boards of the cooperatives.
Publicity materials were made available to co-op managers, and advance publicity for
newspaper editors, radio announcers and appliance dealers were also made available. Often,
we met before the shows with local mayors, county officials and Extension workers.
Everyone who could help was contacted. Later, an advance person was hired to conduct all
publicity campaigns prior to our setting up the Farm Tour in an area.
Louisan Mamer, the first woman on REA's "circus" or Farm Show crews, gives a home lighting demonstration in the late 1930s. This photo was featured in, "The Next Greatest Thing: 50 Years of Rural Electrification in America," published in 1985 by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. (Photo courtesy of NRECA)
Vanzant: What demonstration
did you particularly organize and conduct during the two-day tour?
Mamer: We would usually
move into a town over the weekend. Having made the move and set up the tents and gotten
ready for the show during the daytime, say, on a Monday, that night we would have the home
electrification specialist (which was my job) demonstrate lighting equipment. I believe
the next morning we had a laundry equipment demonstration at about 10 a.m., and in the
afternoon, we demonstrated small appliances and some kitchen and laundry planning along
the way. The last evening, the home electrification specialist conducted a big cooking
duel between two local men. That was a highlight of the whole program.
Vanzant: What event drew
the greatest response?
Mamer: The program of the last
evening - the cooking. Of course, at the same time, there were programs of primary
interest to the men. In rural areas, you can't say that, really, because farm men and
women are both concerned with the income-generating production of food on the farms. The
women were interested in the demonstration of electric brooders for chickens, poultry
house lighting and also dairy equipment, if they were dairy farmers. At that time, people
wanted to motorize all of their hand-driven equipment, like corn shelters, grinders,
different types of things. They determined it would make everything easier if this were
done.
Vanzant: What was the role
of women in obtaining electric service in the rural areas?
Mamer: They did a lot of the legwork in
signing up members in rural electric cooperatives. I think perhaps in almost every rural
home, there was a realization by the men and women, too, that the drudgery of home-making
in rural areas must be lightened. If the woman wasn't trying to get electricity to make
her burden lighter, maybe her husband was anxious to relieve her. So the need in each home
was to lighten the load of farm women. This was killing women at an early age. Look in the
old cemeteries and you'll see that there were maybe two wives for one farm man. This heavy
load of doing everything by hand the hard way, and bearing a lot of children, was killing
women far earlier than they die today.
Vanzant: Do you think that
the Rural Electrification Program would have succeeded to the extent that it has if
another vehicle besides the cooperative had been used to spread electricity throughout
rural areas?
Mamer: Probably not, because the
cooperative vehicle involved people in signing up, organizing and running the coop.
Policy decisions and the member committees all involved people. These involved people
would then be more interested in what the co-op was doing and could participate in its
activities and thus get more from it. Another angle to the whole cooperative program is
that the non-profit benefit of being served by member-owned organizations helped reduce
the spread between production costs and the price people got for whatever they were
selling. If the energy costs could be kept as low as possible, then the spread would be
greater between the food or the livestock and what they could get for selling it, which
would mean more income. 
Editor's Note: Mamer is 87 years old and lives in a Washington, D.C. co-op with her husband, Arthur C. Hagen.
Four Inducted into Cooperative Hall of Fame
Some 350 people gathered April 22, 1998 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the induction of four distinguished cooperative leaders into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. The inductees were:
Selected by two committees of national co-op
leaders, these new inductees join 94 others in the esteemed Cooperative Hall of Fame. The
Cooperative Hall of Fame recognizes those individuals whose contributions to the
cooperative form of enterprise have been "genuinely heroic." It is the highest
honor given in the cooperative community
Established in 1974 by the National Cooperative
Business Association, the Cooperative Hall of Fame is housed in Washington, D.C., and is
administered by the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF). CDF is a national non-profit
foundation dedicated to promoting community, economic, and social development through
cooperative enterprises founded on self-help and mutual aid.
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