For many areas, particularly the more agrarian states, it took years to get the benefi ts of electricity. It was often a very expensive endeavor to install and many households choose to stick to the traditional ways of doing things. Since then electricity has become a necessity. Blackouts now mean the halting of all work and an extreme inconvenience to all, sometimes even resulting in fatalities. “Today, we have become accustomed to rapidly changing technology and how it affects our lives. Imagine less than a century ago, most North Carolinians lived without electricity,” David Reid, the museum (WHICH MUSEUM) administrator, said.

The new exhibit at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex, which is a traveling exhibit from the North Carolina Museum of History, highlights the tremendous difference in pre-electric and post-electric devices. “It looks at how electricity was life altering to the people of this country and of this area. People don’t realize that less than a century ago many parts of north Carolina did not have electricity. Cities had it at the beginning of the 20th century but rural areas didn’t get it for as late as the 1940s,” Reid said.

Reid explained the exhibit as having three cases. One of them talks about the development of electricity and Edison creating the light bulb, and once he invented the light bulb how he had to create an electrical distribution to get the power across communities. Another case has electrical appliances and the tools being replaced by these electrical appliances such as clocks, toasters, fans, items like that. And the third case has to do with how all of that was promoted. How companies like General Electric advertised to try and get people to buy their products and promoted the use of electricity, unlike today where we have advertising for people to conserve electricity.

Once electricity was wide spread there was a huge surge in the invention of electrical appliances intended to make house work easier for the stay at home moms. This exhibit will show the pre-electricity devices side by side with the electrically driven ones to give their patrons a more complete understanding of how drastically life changed with the use of electricity. “What we do after people look at the items in the exhibit, is to then go over to the Poe house and think about as they walk through the house how life would change for the Poes as electricity was introduced and they started acquiring electrical appliances. Because the house dates from 1897 and we interpret it up to ww1 so that would be the time that electricity would be introduced to the house,” Reid explains.

This exhibit will be on display until Sept. 16 at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex on the corner of Bradford and Arsenal avenues. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and on Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.ncculture.com.

Photo: The new exhibit at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex, which is a traveling exhibit from the North Carolina Museum of History, highlights the tremendous difference in pre-electric and post-electric devices.