The Secret Past of Our Modern Life

Since I am all ready interested in the sciences, it wasn’t a leap to research the history of electricity. I knew all the technical and science aspects but not how it was adopted into the U.S. and the world. The idea was to choose a topic that is related to today but one that we take for granted or don’t necessary ask, “What is the history of this”? I thought it would be very interesting to research how it became so deeply in every aspect of our life. I knew Edison invented the light bulb and little bit on Tesla but not the relationship between the two. Or how F.D.R. used R.E.A. to make electricity spread across the U.S.

I watched documentaries about the subject, although they weren’t very specific into my topic I gathered a lot of information from them. Over the course of about 2 to 3 months I compiled a document of the information, including essays that were used for another project. Also, finding primary sources such as actual legislature and real footage, by the way of the Internet which is where the other facts came from. They helped the video aspect as-well. The other archival footage was really helpful in explaining facts and it gave a sense of the past - since most of them where made in the 1930-1960’s. Most of the information for the video was from articles and secondary sources. 

I choose to do a video to be more engaging and entertaining than just a website with text and pictures. As well as, it would be a more creative project that just facts and point of views in words. I represented themes visually and let people actually see what happened in history with footage. I tried to make it more of an entertaining movie rather than me just talking about facts on facts. Instead of trying to visual the scenes in your own head. For the programs, I used iMovie to make the video. The video is from various websites, mainly youtube, mostly primary. I compiled the video with dramatic scores, and near the era music, to get into the time of what it was like back then.

After the introduction the project goes into the three parts of the NHD theme, Revolution, Reaction and Reform. The revolution part is the first steps of electricity and how it was started. That sparked, no pun intended, an electricity race across the country and it primarily between two minds who had different ideas on the topic. The Reaction part of the project is how Edison reacted to Tesla, what he did to try to squash Tesla’s ideas and inventions. By electrocuting an elephant and making the electric chair. Finally the reform part is when the government, F.D.R., got involved and how they implemented it across the country. There is no conclusion because I wanted the audience to make their own conclusions, to think about the video and how it relates to their life.