“We’re New — We Don’t Have Any Customs”
Two films about the Tennessee Valley Authority stress its utopian promise and the lives that had to be destroyed to fulfill it.
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Construction of Fort Loudoun Dam on the Tennessee River began in 1940 and was completed in 1943. It still generates 151 megawatts of electricity a day.
If you want to be moved in complex ways by the lost ideal of great American infrastructure as a boon to a democratic society, I can recommend a film experience for you. First, watch the 1944 documentary short Valley of the Tennessee. It pays tribute to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federally owned utility […]