“Modern” Grandma meets Sam Insull

By
Branko Terzic

“Our grandmothers were more modern than we are, they had a wireless iron 300 years ago!” (caption translated from this posting on the internet this week)

Well, that’s not exactly correct.

The iron shown was hardly “modern”, it required hot coals and a hot stove nearby. Ironing clothes with this contraption was hot and heavy work requiring setup time and clean up time for every use.

When Samuel lnsull, Thomas Edison’s business manager in New York, brought electricity to Chicago initially the only service provided was electric lighting. This meant that electricity was bought in the evening and not much during daylight hours.

Someone showed Insull an electric iron to replace the unit in this photograph, and it is reported he bought 15,000 of them. They had a light bulb fitting which allowed the iron to be connected to the overhead or wall light socket. Rather than sell the units Insull gave them away to households. This created electricity demand during daylight hours and probably earned the gratitude of thousands of homemakers, housekeepers, and tailors.

Having built load this way Insull asked his engineers to look around for other off peak uses which would build load on existing power plants without requiring new generation.

Up to that time it was considered uneconomic to string electric lines along rural roads to farmers. Insults engineers determined that some dairy farms could be served as their peak demand was early morning hours when they could do milking.

Insull, creator of the public utility “holding company” structure, was later prosecuted for securities law violations in a highly publicized trial. The publicity from the Insull trial and problems arising from holding companies are widely remembered and frequently referenced. What is seldom mentioned is that Insull, eventually, was found “not guilty.”

Probably, by that point the average Grandma didn’t care.