Life without microwaves, coffee makers, toaster ovens.... how did they used to live like that?? LOL.
Isn't that it! Also:
Mechanical refrigeration.
Information Age real time media and communication stream
s.
Personal pocket-able mass data storage.
Even as a child of the Fifties, I find it hard to grasp how profoundly our trade, ensuring the safe flow of electrons, has altered life as it was. I thought I knew a fair amount, but two things greatly expanded my appreciation for the cultural and personal changes electricity has brought.
First, finally, 20 years into my career, I read a biography of Nikola Tesla, specifically, Margaret Cheney's
Tesla: Man Out Of Time. The world that Tesla invented the first practical AC motor in is, simply, alien, electrically, compared to today.
Second, having read of Tesla, finding myself working in an 1880 Cass Gilbert Victorian house in historic St. Paul, MN, on a snowy night before Christmas Eve Day. The Cathedral Hill power grid went down for about an hour (in the 1980s it was still 2400 V and rickety in good weather), and the Grand Hill location I was in fell dark and silent. The snow absorbed the vehicle engine sounds of the city. The 60 cycle hum of machines inside the house fell silent. The artificial light of the still-energized surrounding city, reflected off the low snow clouds, illuminated the night of Grand Hill like a full moon, except a light snow was falling. Not being able to work, I stood, looking out of century old windows, across a small park, and watched as candles and oil lights began to illuminate the interiors of the neighboring homes. What blew my mind was the quiet. In those long moments, the sound of the fire in the fireplace on the other side of the room, and the two kids playing, contentedly, with blocks (Legos), in its light, came completely into the foreground. . . I realized I was experiencing the moments of an era when this 1880 house was brand new, and there was no Grid . . . Then the house phone rang.
