Authority in the Valley: TVA in Wild River and the Popular Media, 1930–1940

The scene is the grand opening of a hydroelectric, "cash register" dam.(1) A speaker announces the accomplishment of power finally being brought to "the Valley." It could be the beginning of a text or film on any number of U.S. work projects based in river basin accounting. Then the initiator of the plan leans over, covers the microphone, and whispers in the speaker's ear, "I didn't say bring light to the Valley; I said Bud' Light." The dumfounded speaker responds, "No wonder we're over budget!" This 1988 television advertisement for Anheuser Busch appeals to one of the nation's greatest mythical icons: the dam and its accompanying effort to make natural resources fulfill human needs. The dam is merely one in a long line of mythic symbols that embody the American desire to tame and subdue natural forces. In fact, because these dams are such a symbol of their builders' vision, one could even accuse Anheuser-Busch of infringement for trying to use these behemoths to sell another product. Similar to the television public viewing the Bud commercial, the American president in the early 1930s, one Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also was guilty of giddy excitement at the thought of the potential contained in U.S. natural resources. To FDR, these resources were more crucial in 1930 than ever before. They became a major plank in a national effort to cut waste.(2) Nature not being used to help human society was largely classified in the category of waste. This is a view of natural resources that is based in conservation. However, this viewpoint also validates historian Warren Susman's assessment of the 1930s culture, when he writes: ...there was in the discovery of the idea of culture and its wide-scale application a critical tool that could shape a critical ideal, especially as it was directed repeatedly against the failures and meaningless of an urban-industrial civilization. Yet often it was developed in such ways as to provide significant devices for conserving much of the existing structure. (164) During the 1930s, FDR realized the utility of the popular media in spreading ideas and information, many of which dealt with the conservation of natural resources. This led to a cultural discourse that encompassed a great deal of the popular media and introduced many Americans to the ideas of conserving natural resources. During the 1930s, river valleys became a popular method of selling ideas and establishing governmental authority. However, it remains relatively unclear why FDR and others believed that river basins offered the most logical units for economic planning. One of the most respected early voices regarding the use of natural resources, George Perkins Marsh had foreseen this extension of humans' impact on the landscape when he wrote in 1864 that: The extension of agricultural and pastoral industry involves an enlargement of the sphere of man's domain, by encroachment upon the forests which once covered the greater part of the earth's surface otherwise adapted to his occupation. ... Thus man is compelled to extend over the unstable waters the empire he had already founded upon the solid land. (iv) In spite of Marsh's early allusions, government planners knew of other methods for creating the jobs, electricity, and other benefits that would be generated by these dams. Therefore, it becomes evident that the main impetus behind these water projects may have been the iconic appeal of the act of stopping a river and spanning it with a dam. By showing that government planners could administer authority over such natural power, the government could hope that Americans would entrust it to do the same with them. A time of little hope could quickly change if Americans witnessed such exhibitions of power and authority. In order for Americans to buy into the New Deal's vision of national progress, the government needed to first establish symbolic authority in other realms. Rivers offered this opportunity; however, it would only be effective if word of these accomplishments reached the American public. …