Covering Niagara: Studies in Local Popular Culture

Electricity from Niagara Falls: Popularization of Modern Technology for Domestic Use

ELECTRICITY FROM NIAGARA FALLS Popularization of Modern Technology for Domestic Use NORMAN R. BALL INTRODUCTION In the early decades of the twentieth century, readily available electricity generated by the waters of the Niagara River didn’t just sell itself.1 Various groups had to be sold on the use of electricity. People had to learn why they might want electricity and what they could do with it. In this study I begin by establishing why electricity at Niagara Falls was so controversial and provide some necessary background to attitudes toward electricity in the Niagara Frontier,2 then examine how it entered mainstream life, particularly the lives of women in the home. My interests here should lend a deeper understanding of the history of one of the world’s great tourist destinations. The Canadian Niagara Power Company pioneered large-scale hydroelectric generation at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and in 1905 the Rankine Generating Station started producing electric power for regional customers.3 At that time Canadian Niagara had the world’s largest generators, turbines, and electrical production capacity, and pioneering companies had to do everything possible to stimulate demand for electricity in order to recoup their heavy capital investments . As part of this process, Canadian Niagara launched a clearly defined strategy aimed at promoting greater use of electricity in the home. They succeeded in popularizing electricity for home use—in the kitchen and wherever one ate electrically prepared meals. Canadian Niagara’s efforts to win women over to electricity began with advertising, special offers, and electric cooking demonstrations, and culminated in the showroom and cooking school that opened in the new company headquarters in Fort Erie, Ontario, in 1928. 311 312 Borderline Matters Technological change occurs within a context, and earlier events had helped create an atmosphere of controversy and mistrust of electricity generated at Niagara Falls. By the 1890s, when technology emerged that would invite investment in large-scale hydroelectric power generation at Niagara Falls, the Falls had suffered through decades of rancorous debate over the future of North America’s most heavily visited natural site. Should the Falls be primarily a scenic wonder and site for spiritual rejuvenation? Or should it be a centre for massive industrial development along with tawdry, carnival -like tourism? In the 1880s, after enduring years of organized pressure, the State of New York and the Province of Ontario succumbed and each established a park, at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. However, neither park answered the basic question that bedevilled Niagara: Could beauty, some semblance of nature, and enjoyable mass-tourist experiences coexist with industrial development at the Falls?4 The Ontario park did not receive any government funding and desperately needed to sell hydroelectric power generating rights to finance a free park for tourists. But the prospect of large generating stations, reduced water flow over the Falls, and images of overhead power lines reignited smouldering resentments over the future of Niagara Falls, Ontario. There was more. In the early 1890s, technology was changing so quickly that disagreement continued over the type of technology to use. The financial stakes were very high and a brutal public scare campaign, launched by Thomas Edison, which included electrocuting live animals, raised public fears. In short, Niagara Falls, Ontario, was already a very controversial place by the mid- to late nineteenth century. The prospect of electricity generated from the waters of Niagara was misunderstood and feared, circumstances that made the potential use of electricity in the home a daunting promotional task. In choosing to explore the culture of domestic electricity through the Canadian Niagara Power Company and its customers in places such as Niagara Falls, Bridgeburg, Fort Erie, Ridgeway, and Crystal Beach, I am expressing a strong belief in the value of cultural studies based on regional experiences with technology. Such studies yield a more nuanced understanding of social and technological change than do the macroscopic studies of provincial or national trends. Regional studies remind us that in a societal context, technology is less about devices themselves and more about what happens when technology becomes part of a community and daily life. THE ROCKY ROAD TO POWER FROM THE FALLS When Father Hennepin first encountered the Falls in 1678, they were so huge, so loud, so mist-shrouded, and so dissimilar to anything he had experienced , that exaggeration was the only tool to capture what he had seen and experienced. He wasn’t, as some...