75th anniversary
Eitell Sease, a member of Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative, is interviewed about his memories of the early days of electric cooperatives.
Photo by Van O'Cain
As a young staffer for the S.C. Senate in the 1980s, one of my favorite job perks was sitting on the benches along the back wall of the chamber and listening to senior senators swap stories during filibusters. There was usually just enough truth in each story to glue the tale together. Names might be changed to protect the innocent (if the “innocent” were still alive or revered in death). Usually there was a lesson about human nature to be learned. Lessons like:
- There is no interest like self-interest
- Pigs get fed, but hogs get slaughtered
- You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar
One of my favorite stories was that of a writer coming to rural South Carolina as part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) in the late 1930s. Putting out-of-work historians, teachers, writers and librarians to work, the New Deal program aimed to capture a portrait of America before it slipped away. The young, Ivy League-educated writer was traveling a broad geographic swath of the blackjack country of the Midlands, asking rural folks to reflect on the single most significant invention or development in their lifetime. As could be expected, airplane travel and the radio ranked high on his cumulative list.
When he hit Cassatt, he got a new “most significant” invention. A sharecropping farmer allowed that screen wire had to be it. To us now, mesh wire screens for windows are expected and often overlooked. To the farmer, it was the only barrier between mosquitoes fogging him, a horsefly painfully biting him as he tried to sleep, or flies in the Sunday lunch gravy. Life was that much simpler and enjoyable with screen wire.
I imagine that same writer would have found a similar endorsement of electricity if he went back five or 10 years later. Electrification in rural South Carolina wasn’t just about opening the doors to the new icebox or using the wringer washing machine; it was about opening a door to a new life. South Carolina was, and still is, an open canvas for progress and prosperity. We think our electric cooperatives have been tireless artists on that canvas, and we thank you for that. Much like the screen wire in Cassatt, electric cooperatives provide an often-overlooked necessity that is vital to our well-being.
Your electric cooperative, in conjunction with 19 others across the Palmetto State, is working with historian Dr. Lacy Ford of the University of South Carolina to capture the history of the electric cooperatives as a social movement. Cooperatives were a ground-up push for a quality of life that is so basic now—running water, electric lights and a Kelvinator.
We need your help. This book, set for publication in 2016 to commemorate our 75th anniversary, is about people, not lines and poles. We are addressing themes such as churches and schools as the organizational focal point of cooperatives, the issues of race and culture affecting cooperative growth, and the role Clemson “Ag Agents” played in spreading the cooperative message. If you have any original documents or artifacts that can help us connect the co-ops to the evolution of South Carolina, we would love to hear from you. Do you have the transcription of a prayer from an early co-op meeting, official documents from Clemson Extension regarding electrification, or minutes from a community meeting in which cooperative organization was discussed?
If you have something that might help us out, click here to tell your story or email Van O'Cain or Jackson Shuford. You can also call us at (803) 739-3048.
As members of an electric cooperative, you’re more than just customers. Since the 1930s, you’ve been the architects of advancement in South Carolina. It’s time to tell your story.
