One House Electrified

[continued from here]

As we've seen, Hobart decided against extending its electrical service to Ainsworth in February 1916. So for the time Ainsworthites continued using kerosene lamps, washboards and hand-operated washing machines, stove-heated flatirons, and all the other old-fashioned inconveniences.

Gust Lindborg decided to take matters into his own hands with respect to his own property. In November, the News reported that Gust had "installed a Western Electric lighting system for his home, blacksmith shop and hall, which includes forty-five lights in all."

Forty-five lights! They must have shone like a beacon in that kerosene-lit countryside.

I'm not sure exactly what his lighting system consisted of. I have found a Western Electric Company catalog from 1916 advertising small systems called plants for home lighting, available in two sizes:

Plant No. 9 is large enough to light the average farm residence having 25 to 30 connected lights. Plant No. 10 will light a residence having 40 to 50 connected lights. An electric iron, a toaster stove, electric fan or similar small electrical devices can be operated from either plant.

The components of these systems were a generator, switchboard and storage battery, varying in size and capacity. I can't tell from the catalog how the generator would be powered. (The catalog can be found here but you have to download the DjVu plug-in to view it.)

This electrical system likely did not make much difference to Anna Lindborg's workload — she just had better lighting, of an evening, as she went about doing her work the old-fashioned way. I have the feeling that had Gust urged to buy her, say, an electric iron, she would have refused to lay out any of their carefully saved money on such a luxury when she could manage quite well with her old flatiron.

[To be continued]


Sources:
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 23 Nov. 1916.
♦ Western Electric Company. 1916 Year Book. New York: Western Electric Company, Incorporated, 1916. Published electronically by Princeton Imaging, 2004.