Acidus wrote:

This article examines how people, companies, and cities dealt with the issue of whether or not to electrify communities at the turn of the century.

I love the historical examination of how society confronted and debated something we take for granted now.

If you're interested, the book to read is Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930, by Thomas Parke Hughes. It is the definitive treatment of the subject.

From Amazon:

Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It describes large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.

Through the limited preview at Google Books, you can find an interesting discussion on pages 297-299 about Giant Power, over which the Governor of Pennsylvania battled the head of the Pennsylvania Electric Association. The PEA argued against the proposal at hand, saying:

The very clear purpose of this plan is to take from any electric service system the benefits it thus far accrued by reason of able management, successful financing, painstaking research work, [and] courage in the replacement of apparatus ... Private initiative is to be driven out of the electric service companies and [to] be supplanted by a political plan based upon a socialistic theory and offering all the possibilities of the construction of a state-wide, all powerful, political machine.

It sounds like the contemporary health care debate ...

RE: The utility of The Utilities