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April 3 - April 10: TVA - ELECTRICITY FOR ALL

(This activity was created by Stanlee Brimberg, Bank Street School)

You will do this exercise with a group.

Overview: The controversy surrounding the Tennessee Valley Authority
was profound and complicated. It raised constitutional, economic, social,
philosophical and ethical issues. Once students become familiar with the
facts and the issues by reading and studying the material in the collection
and other material you provide, they will be in an excellent position to
debate these issues.

Objectives -- to help students: In this activity you will:

1.Acquire information about TVA
2.Understand that, depending on a person's identity and situation
(social, educational, economic), he or she would have a different
opinion about TVA
3.Develop understanding for all the points of view about TVA
4.Learn to make compromises to resolve disputes.

Resources: Documents from "TVA: Electricity for All" and the Image and
Document Libraries of the New Deal Network (http://newdeal.feri.org).

Collection Background: Materials concerning TVA in the Image and
Document Libraries of the New Deal Network include editorial cartoons,
advertisements, the Tennessee Valley photographs of Lewis Hine,
dramatizations, and articles from The Nation and Opportunity Magazine.

Exercise:


Step One.  Meet briefly with your small group. Each individual should quickly choose an identity from the list below. (In a classroom setting, you would divide the class into seven sections and assign each section one of the characters.)

• A TVA Head Administrator. Although you have been appointed to your post by the Roosevelt Administration, you may not agree with your co-administrators.
• The head of a privately owned utility or coal company in the region. 
• A poor white tenant farmer living in the Tennessee Valley who will have to move because of dam construction. He may or may not find a new home.  He may or may not find work with TVA.
• A poor African-American farmer who may or may not find work with the TVA.
• A Congressional representative who believes that government ought to stay out of people's lives, whether they are rich or poor. 
• The owner of a company that manufactures electrical appliances.
• A woman whose husband has been hired to work on the construction of the Norris Dam. Her family now has electricity and can now afford to buy several electrical appliances, including a stove, a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, several light fixtures, and a radio.

Step Two.  Working as an individual, use the resources available in the TVA collection to find information that clarifies the point of view of your character. Look for facts, opinions, reasons, and explanations, including testimony (oral history). You might want to develop a chart listing the pros and cons to TVA from the perspective of your character.

Searching tips: Useful information can be found in three separate areas:

TVA: Electricity for All (http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/index.htm) presents an
overview.

The Image Library (http://newdeal.feri.org/library/index.htm).

The Document Library (http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/subject.htm). 

Resources in the two libraries are often cross-referenced by subject. You may find helpful information by pursuing a subject other than "Tennessee Valley Authority."

Although the site does not have global keyword searching capabilities, remember that your Internet browser can search a given document for keywords.  This may speed your search. 

Step Three.  Review your evidence and prepare and post a short statement on BlackBoard  about the TVA, from the point of view of your character. Your statement should include a concluding segment that expresses support for TVA, or opposition to it, or a combination of support and opposition.

Step Four. Meet again with your small group to share your presentations and discuss the activity.

Step Five.  The whole class will meet (face-to-face and online in the Speakeasy Cafe) to share presentations and sum-up what we learned and what questions still need to be explored.