Today the “digital divide” limits opportunities for poor families. In 1935 President Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration to bridge an “electrical divide” that left 90% of farm households burdened by their lack of access to centrally generated power. After overcoming many initial hurdles, an aggressive program of technical and financial innovation made the REA one of the most popular and successful New Deal efforts. By 1943 it had loaned almost 500 million dollars (equivalent to about 9 billion dollars in 2020) to local governments and electric cooperatives that extended power lines serving millions.

Rural families enthusiastically connected to the expanding grid to reduce the burdens of physical labor and pierce the darkness with lighting that replaced dangerous kerosene lamps. The first household appliance purchases were typically a light-weight electric iron, and a radio that delivered news, entertainment, weather forecasts and farm commodity reports to formerly isolated people. “The night the lights came on” was a momentous anniversary for generations of farm families, ranking in importance with births and marriages.