Shifting Narratives of Electricity and Energy in Periods of Transition

Articles

A way out of darkness: Thinking about the future of Spain through the promises of electricity and energy abundance, 1898–1931

Visiting Research Fellow. Centre for History and Philosophy of Science. University of Leeds / “Juan de la Cierva – Incorporación” Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Contemporary History Department. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
D.Zapico[at]leeds.ac.uk / daniel.perezz[at]uam.es


This article historicizes electricity and energy abundance and their relation to the reconfiguration of political power in a context of (self-perceived) national decline. It analyses how electricity was used to generate a whole series of social narratives on national modernization and, most…

Electricity, modernity and tradition during Irish rural electrification, 1940-1970

Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland.
sorchaobrien[at]gmail.com
@_sorcha
@electricirishhomes


The arrival of widespread domestic electricity in rural Ireland was spread over two decades in the 1950s and 1960s, where the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) rolled out an electrical grid across the State. This energy transition was warmly welcomed by the women of rural Ireland, particularly for…

Manual and Electrical Energies in the Visualisation of “Electrical Calcutta”, c. 1890-1925

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Stavanger
animesh.chatterjee[at]uis.no
@electricpunkah


Through examinations of domestic servants in electrical advertisements and writings this article looks at the imaginations and realities of visions of an “Electrical Calcutta” at the turn of the twentieth century. It argues that the diverse conceptions of an “Electrical Calcutta” were intimately…