Harrison, Conor M. (Author)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kirsch, Scott
Pickles, John
Reyes, Alvaro
Pickles, John
Popke, Jeff
Reyes, Alvaro
Valdivia, Gabriela
Popke, Jeff
Valdivia, Gabriela
Publication date: 2014
Language: English
Edition Details: Advisor: Kirsch, Scott; Committee Members: Pickles, John, Popke, Jeff, Reyes, Alvaro, Valdivia, Gabriela.
Physical Details: 363 pp.
Many towns in eastern North Carolina face a number of challenges common to the rural South, including high rates of poverty and diminishing employment opportunities. However, some residents of this region also confront a unique hardship--electricity prices that are vastly higher than those of surrounding areas. This dissertation examines the origins of pricing inequalities in the electricity market of eastern North Carolina--namely how such inequalities developed and their role in the production of racial and economic disparities in the South. This dissertation examines the evolving relations between federal and state agencies, corporations, and electric utilities, and asks why these interactions produced varying social outcomes across different places and spatial settings. The research focuses on the origins and subsequent development of electric utilities in eastern North Carolina, and examines how electricity as a material technology interacted with geographies of race and class, as well as the dictates of capital accumulation. This approach enables a rethinking of several concepts that are rarely examined by scholars of electric utilities, most notably the monopoly service territory, which I argue served as a spatial fix to accumulation problems in the industry. Further, examining the way that electric utilities developed in North Carolina during the 20th century brings to the forefront the at times contradictory relationships among systems of electricity provision, Jim Crow segregation, the Progressive Era, and the New Deal. Such a focus highlights the important role that the control of electricity provision played in shaping racial inequalities that continue to persist in the region. With most urban areas were electrified in the 1930s, the research also traces the electricity distribution lines as they moved out of cities through rural electrification programs, a shift that highlights the state as a multi-scalar and variegated actor that both aided and impeded electrification efforts by various institutional and corporate entities. Ultimately, I argue that the historical geography of electricity is a critical factor that must be considered in order to adequately understand and address the issues of inequality and poverty that continue to persist in the region.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 76/01(E), Jul 2015. Proquest Document ID: 1612601582.
Similar Citations
Article
Zylstra, Geoff D.;
(2011)
Whiteness, Freedom, and Technology: The Racial Struggle over Philadelphia's Streetcars, 1859--1867
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001230757/)
Book
Richard F. Hirsh;
(2022)
Powering American Farms: The Overlooked Origins of Rural Electrification
(/p/isis/citation/CBB557771102/)
Article
Golec, Michael J.;
(2013)
Graphic Visualization and Visuality in Lester Beall's Rural Electrification Posters, 1937
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001201121/)
Article
Golec, Michael J.;
(2013)
Poster Power: Rural Electrification, Visualization, and Legibility in the United States
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001214378/)
Article
Richard Hirsh;
(2018)
Shedding New Light on Rural Electrification: The Neglected Story of Successful Efforts to Power Up Farms in the 1920s and 1930s
(/p/isis/citation/CBB703099958/)
Thesis
Leah Suzanne Glaser;
(2002)
Rural electrification in multiethnic Arizona: A study of power, urbanization and change
(/p/isis/citation/CBB106960735/)
Article
Apelian, Colette;
(2012)
Modern Mosque Lamps: Electricity in the Historic Monuments and Tourist Attractions of French Colonial Fez, Morocco (1925--1950)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001251045/)
Book
Caddoo, Cara;
(2014)
Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001552220/)
Book
Boyd Hope, Gary;
(2007)
Railways and Rural Life: S. W. A. Newton and the Great Central Railway
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000951755/)
Article
Dangerfield, David W.;
(2015)
Turning the Earth: Free Black Yeomanry in the Antebellum South Carolina Lowcountry
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001422239/)
Book
Alex Cummings;
(2020)
Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy
(/p/isis/citation/CBB094263781/)
Article
Protschky, Susie;
(2012)
The Empire Illuminated: Electricity, “Ethical” Colonialism and Enlightened Monarchy in Photographs of Dutch Royal Celebrations, 1898--1948
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001200589/)
Book
Turow, Joseph;
(2021)
The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet
(/p/isis/citation/CBB102529253/)
Book
Brian Jordan Jefferson;
(2020)
Digitize and Punish: racial criminalization in the digital age
(/p/isis/citation/CBB018434400/)
Book
Archambault, Julie Soleil;
(2017)
Mobile secrets: youth, intimacy, and the politics of pretense in Mozambique
(/p/isis/citation/CBB236409518/)
Book
Paulitz, Tanja;
(2012)
Mann und Maschine: Eine genealogische Wissenssoziologie des Ingenieurs und der modernen Technikwissenschaften, 1850--1930
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001212336/)
Article
Edwards, Clive;
(2014)
Multum in Parvo: “A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place”. Modernism, Space-saving Bedroom Furniture and the Compactom Wardrobe
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001201109/)
Article
Lee, Jung;
(2013)
Invention without Science: “Korean Edisons” and the Changing Understanding of Technology in Colonial Korea
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001320534/)
Chapter
Christopher A. Reed;
(2010)
Advancing the (Gutenberg) Revolution: The Origins and Development of Chinese Print Communism, 1921–1947
(/p/isis/citation/CBB952241806/)
Chapter
Ling Shiao;
(2010)
Culture, Commerce, and Connections: The Inner Dynamics of New Culture Publishing in the Post-May Fourth Period
(/p/isis/citation/CBB216434082/)
Be the first to comment!