AEC
For over sixty years rural electric cooperatives have been getting better and better at offering electricity to rural people. Rural electric cooperatives have had a lot to do with improving people's lives today. Rural electric cooperatives have had a major impact on life as we know it from the day from when they first got started, what they are doing today, and what they will do in the future. Rural electric cooperatives have had a vivid history in America. It has been a long road to get to where they are today. When they first started, people's living conditions might have been considered primitive. Rural electric cooperatives first got started when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. One of its eight principles was rural electrification project funds (History of Rural Electrification). People were amazed by the possibilities and effectiveness of electricity. Farmers could use electricity to power their grinders and milkers and lift hay into barns.