High Tension

An account of Franklin Roosevelt’s battle against the power industry to bring electricity to rural communities in the United States. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in the depths of the Depression, high tension―or high voltage―power lines had been marching across the country for decades, delivering urban Americans a parade of life-transforming inventions from electric lights and radios to refrigerators and washing machines. But most rural Americans still lived in the punishing pre-ele