The Sad Irons

Robert Caro's history of the Texas Hill Country prior to electrification

One of the tragedies of modern education is that fascinating subjects are routinely transformed into boring drudgery by listless teachers more concerned about policies, procedures, and standardized test scores than captivating the minds of young people. If history is taught as a collection of dry facts and figures, one cannot expect students to do much more than memorize what is needed to pass the next exam. But history comes alive when the story is told through the eyes of the people who lived through it.

Robert Caro’s loyal readers are used to waiting several years for new books to appear. Caro’s genius is not the number of books that he writes but the extreme degree to which he focuses his attention on a subject. Best known as a biographer, Caro is really a first-class historian who covers the lives of his subjects through the trials and tribulations of the times. Caro’s biography of Robert Moses is actually a history of power in the early to mid-twentieth century. In the same way, his four volume biography of Lyndon Johnson tells the story of America from the dust bowl days of the Great Depression through the tumultuous advances of the civil rights movement.

The image of a historian sitting in a wood paneled library poring over source material is not necessarily inaccurate. All great writers are prolific readers skilled at the art of assimilating disparate information from a wide variety of sources.

But when it comes to telling the story of human beings, there are things one cannot learn solely from books. Robert Caro’s devotion to his subject was so extreme that he and his wife relocated from New York City to the Texas Hill Country for several years in order to better understand Lyndon Johnson’s view of the world. Through this experience, Caro was also in a position to better understand the lives of ordinary Americans who lived in conditions modern readers find unimaginably primitive.

I recently returned to The Path to Power, the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, because I recalled that he covered the electrification of rural areas in Texas during the Great Depression. I am trying to better understand the challenges of electrification in rural areas during our own times given the hazards of above-ground power lines in western states prone to fire.

Several electric utility companies, including Pacific Gas & Electric and Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s PacifiCorp subsidiary, have large networks of transmission lines in rural areas and have been blamed for sparking fires. Is it economically viable for utilities to relocate power lines below ground in sparsely populated areas?

I can’t say that revisiting The Path to Power provided insight on our current challenges in the west, but I do think it is worth the time to discuss Robert Caro’s captivating history of the lives of ordinary people in Texas Hill Country prior to electrification. For all of his flaws, no one did more than Lyndon Johnson to bring a semblance of modernity to his constituents, many of whom were so isolated from the world that they had very little interest in electricity and had to be convinced of its utility.

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Fear of the Wires

“They were afraid of the wires. The idea of electricity — so unknown to them — terrified them. It was the same stuff as lightning; it sounded dangerous — what would happen to a child who put its hand on a wire? And what about their cows — their precious, irreplaceable few cows that represented so much of their total assets? … They would say, ‘What’ll happen if there’s a storm? The wires will fall down and electrocute the cattle.’ Or they were worried that the wires would attract lightning — which would kill the cattle.”

— The Path to Power, p. 524-525

A quick search on Redfin for properties in the Texas Hill Country, to the west of Austin, reveals homes built on breathtakingly beautiful land, in many cases with equally breathtaking prices. Robert Caro does an outstanding job of describing the beauty of the land that attracted settlers in the nineteenth century, beauty that blinded the first inhabitants when it came to evaluating the soil and water conditions needed to support an agricultural existence.

With modern conveniences such as paved roads, electricity, and internet connectivity, today’s residents of Hill Country can savor the beauty of the land while remaining connected to the rest of civilization. During the depths of the Great Depression, however, Johnson City High School nearly missed basketball season on more than one occasion because the school could not even afford a basketball!¹

At a time when electricity had been integral to the lives of Americans living in cities and towns for decades, almost no one in Hill Country had power. In 1927, a few towns were “electrified” but since it was not economically viable to build electric lines which cost nearly $3,000 per mile, these towns were powered by thirty horsepower diesel engines that could barely generate enough voltage for ten watt bulbs. These engines only operated from sunset to midnight so ordinary household appliances like refrigerators would not be useful even if adequate voltage existed.²

Outside of these few towns, there was no electricity at all.

Hill Country residents had limited exposure to the world outside their communities and many people never traveled more than a short distance from where they were born.³ The lack of information, with newspapers being scarce, had the effect of making people unaware of the benefits of electricity. Many people were under the impression that the main use case was lighting.

Perhaps being unaware of the conveniences enjoyed by other Americans made life more bearable, but it also caused widespread skepticism and fear, not only about the potential risks associated with electric lines but the possibility of losing control of the land through easements that would have to be granted to the electric utilities. The utilities were not interested in extending power due to insufficient population density and the poverty of the region. Even if lines were built, who could afford the minimum monthly charge of $2.45 for twenty-five kilowatts at a time when store owners found that any merchandise that cost over a dime was likely to go unsold?⁴

By the time Lyndon Johnson was elected to Congress in 1937, he had spent many years in Washington as a Congressional aide, so of course he was fully aware of the benefits of electricity. His rural upbringing also allowed him to relate to the tough lifestyle of his constituents that could be alleviated with access to power. Beyond that, electricity was the key to productivity improvements that could increase incomes.

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Back to the Middle Ages

“Sometimes I would get awfully discouraged. When I first moved there [to the Hill Country], I felt like a pioneer lady, like one of the women who had come here in covered wagons. I said, if they could do it, I could, too. But it was very hard. After you spent all morning lugging those big buckets [of water] back and forth, you felt more like an ox or a mule than a human being. Portland [near Corpus Christi, Texas] was just a little town. It was no great metropolis. But moving from Portland into the Hill Country was like moving from the twentieth century back into the Middle Ages.”

— Mary Sue Smith, The Path to Power, p. 515

Perhaps the Middle Ages is a bit of an overstatement, but it’s important to understand the type of life that had to be endured without access to forms of energy required for a modern existence. The only source of affordable stored energy available to Hill Country residents prior to electrification was biomass, specifically the cedar that grew in abundance throughout the region.

Cedar was abundant but burned rapidly which required large amounts to be collected and chopped. The heat generated was welcome in the colder months of the year, but wood had to be used year-round, even in the scorching Texas summer, because there was no other way to cook, can vegetables and fruit, wash clothing, or bathe. For thousands of years, humans relied on burning biomass for energy, so in this sense, Hill Country families shared much in common with people living centuries earlier. Even the wood stoves used by these families were poorly designed and difficult to use.

Without electricity, the work associated with collecting water was formidable. Homes had to be built far from natural watercourses due to the risk of flooding and wells were typically deep. Without electricity, water had to be hauled up out of wells by hand and transported to the home. A family could easily require two hundred gallons of water per day. The weight of two hundred gallons of water is 1,668 pounds, all of which had to be retrieved and transported by hand, most of it by women.

Caro’s description of laundry day brings together all of the drudgery of Hill Country farm life before electrification. All washing would be done outside, in all sorts of weather conditions. Several washtubs and washboards were used in a complicated process that replicates, through human effort, the steps that even washing machines of the 1930s could perform with relative ease. The wash had to be done separately for sheets, white clothing, colored clothing, and for dish towels.

It was backbreaking work, and that’s before the clothes were ironed, quite literally, with blocks of solid iron that weighed six or seven pounds. These irons had to be heated to the correct temperature by placing them on the wood stove, with much care taken to avoid getting soot on them, and to ensure that they were not too hot, yet hot enough to properly get creases out of clothes. Since irons lost their heat relatively quickly, most women had several irons heating at the same time. Many lacked wooden handles and inevitably caused bad burns.

Photo Credit: Adkins History

In just thirteen pages, Robert Caro does a masterful job painting a picture of what life was like for families that had to rely on the same form of energy used by humans for thousands of years, lacking access to the conveniences that other Americans had started to take for granted during the early decades of the twentieth century.⁵

But beyond questions of comfort, lack of electricity made it very difficult for farms to operate and lack of refrigeration caused a great deal of spoilage of farm products such as milk, eggs, meat, fruit, and vegetables. It is easy to see why electrification was such a priority for Lyndon Johnson. Bringing electricity to his constituents would deliver comforts of life that voters would be eternally grateful for in addition to improving the farm economy throughout Hill Country.

Lyndon Johnson was determined to make it happen.

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The House is on Fire!

“I’ll get it for you. I’ll go to the REA [Rural Electrification Administration]. I’ll go to the President if I have to. But we will get the money!”

— Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power, p. 524

Texas Hill Country was not unique in lacking electricity in the mid-1930s. Six million of the 6.8 million farms in America had no access to electric power. Almost ninety percent of Americans who lived in rural areas still relied on wood stoves, kerosene lamps, and the sad iron.⁶ In contrast, by the 1930s, electrical appliances had eased the lives of city residents for several decades.

By the 1930s, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves, radios, and air circulating fans were all common household appliances. In addition, electric pumps made running water and modern bathrooms possible for households that relied on wells for water. More than comfort, these items also saved an enormous amount of time which could be redirected to more productive tasks. Farm families were clamoring for access to power, but the economics made it difficult.

As Robert Caro documents, electric utilities were generally not enthusiastic about running lines to rural areas and some exaggerated the costs involved in doing so. The problem was not just the cost of running electric lines but the lack of population density. To generate an adequate return on investment, electricity usage had to justify the capital investment of installing and maintaining the lines. In sparsely populated regions, it was doubtful that electricity usage would be high enough to justify the investment, even in cases where families could afford power.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President on a platform of relieving the poverty brought about by the Great Depression and he wasted no time implementing his programs, known as The New Deal, upon taking office in 1933. As a junior Congressman upon his election in 1937, Lyndon Johnson was not a major player when it came to enacting New Deal programs, but he had a special talent for getting as much money out of these programs for his constituents as humanly possible.

On May 11, 1935, Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the Rural Electrification Administration. Roosevelt took the position that since most of the country’s power was generated by hydroelectric projects driven by America’s rivers, the power ultimately belonged to the American people. The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 limited the scope of activities for large holding companies and attempted to break up what Roosevelt considered to be monopolistic interests.⁷

In 1936, the REA began offering inexpensive loans to electric cooperatives established by farmers and also started to offer families loans to allow them to wire their homes and purchase appliances.⁸ After initial controversy over extending loans to private sector utilities, Congress approved such loans in May 1936. This resulted in a half million farms gaining access to electricity within eighteen months with hundreds of thousands of additional farmers forming REA funded rural electricity cooperatives.

The problem for Hill Country was very low population density. The REA would not make loans in areas where electrical lines would serve an average of less than three farms per mile. Before Lyndon Johnson took office, Hill Country residents made little headway convincing the REA to loosen its lending requirements. But Lyndon Johnson refused to take no for an answer. After little more than a year in office, Johnson had the clout to win an exception from the density rule after a meeting with Roosevelt:

“In later years, Johnson told many stories — each different — of what he said to the President, and what the President said to him when Corcoran finally, after considerable difficulty, obtained an audience for him. According to his story on one occasion, Roosevelt picked up the telephone while Johnson was still in the room, called Carmody and said, ‘John, I know you have got to have guidelines and rules and I don’t want to upset them, but you just go along with me — just go ahead and approve this loan … Those folks will catch up to that density problem because they breed pretty fast.”

— The Path to Power, p. 527

On September 27, 1938, the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, which apparently still exists today, received a telegram with news that the REA had approved a loan of $1,322,000 which was soon increased to $1.8 million in order to build 1,830 miles of electric lines to serve 2,892 Hill Country families.⁹

Although the process of running lines throughout Hill Country took longer than residents would have liked, conditions quickly changed. Many people were still highly skeptical and suspected that the lines would never be electrified. Suspicion of government was widespread and there was still some reluctance to sign up and have houses wired. But homes were prepared for electricity and the lines were connected.

In November 1939, the lights came on. Upon returning home on the evening the lines were electrified, one Hill Country resident thought that her house was on fire!¹⁰

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Conclusion

Lyndon Johnson’s rise to power is a remarkable story, one that Robert Caro has taken over four decades to document in four long volumes. At the age of 87, Caro is still hard at work on the final volume of this epic saga. Although framed through the life of one man, Robert Caro tells the story of America over several decades in the middle of the last century. The story of Texas Hill Country is just one of many examples.

Energy is fundamental to human life, and cheap access to electricity is fundamental to anything resembling modern life. Whatever you might think of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s ability to extract as much as possible from New Deal programs, it is undeniable that Johnson had extraordinary success serving the interests of his impoverished constituents. Electrification was a key step in his path to higher office and much greater power in the decades to come.

The difficulty of providing utilities to rural areas has not disappeared over the past eight decades. In recent decades, the drive to use renewable forms of energy has also involved significant costs. The history of Berkshire Hathaway Energy shows that private capital is available to meet these goals, but this capital is provided based on implicit trust that an acceptable rate of return will be allowed by regulators.

Warren Buffett made the following comments in his 2020 letter to shareholders:

“BHE’s decision to proceed [with its renewable energy investments], it should be noted, was based upon its trust in America’s political, economic and judicial systems. Billions of dollars needed to be invested before meaningful revenue would flow. Transmission lines had to cross the borders of states and other jurisdictions, each with its own rules and constituencies. BHE would also need to deal with hundreds of landowners and execute complicated contracts with both the suppliers that generated renewable power and the far-away utilities that would distribute the electricity to their customers. Competing interests and defenders of the old order, along with unrealistic visionaries desiring an instantly-new world, had to be brought on board.”

Fires in western states have been blamed on utilities in recent years. After an unfavorable jury verdict in June 2023, PacifiCorp reported that its cumulative estimated probable losses associated with the fires is $1,018 million as of June 30.¹¹ PacifiCorp intends to appeal the jury verdict.

There isn’t much in The Path to Power that sheds light on the ultimate liability of utilities accused of contributing to wildfires, but it is never useless to go down interesting rabbit holes. Hopefully this review of a small part of The Path to Power has been interesting for readers. I highly recommend all of Robert Caro’s books.

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1. The Path to Power, p. 498

2. The Path to Power, p. 502-503

3. The Path to Power, p. 514

4. The Path to Power, p. 498 and 525. The cost of 9.8 cents per kilowatt in the 1930s was astronomical. As a point of comparison, last month I used 419 kilowatts and was charged $61.03, equivalent to 14.6 cents per kilowatt. According to the BLS CPI Calculator, the inflation adjusted equivalent of 9.8 cents in 1937 dollars is $2.07 in 2023 dollars.

5. The Path to Power, Chapter 27, “The Sad Irons”, pages 502-515.

6. The Path to Power, p. 516

7. Interestingly, the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) was still in force at the time Berkshire Hathaway acquired its stake in MidAmerican Energy in 2000. This resulted in the convoluted ownership structure that prevented consolidation of MidAmerican’s results on Berkshire’s financial statements until PUHCA was finally repealed in 2005.

8. The Path to Power, p. 520

9. The Path to Power, p. 527

10. The Path to Power, p. 528

11. Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s Q2 2023 10-Q, p. 23