If inventors, engineers, and industrial managers are the main characters in the history of American technology, they are far from the sole makers of that history. They must share the job of determining whether and how their innovations are adopted with consumers, corporations, and broad social, cultural, and economic factors—including politics and ideology. Since a great public-works project involves so much technology affecting so many people, serious political and ideological conflicts are likely to play a big role both in its birth and in its later direction. A classic example of this is the great quarrel that developed in the top administration of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) through a half-dozen years, reaching a dramatic climax in 1938.

The crisis came in 1938, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was at the lowest ebb of his political fortunes since the beginning of his Presidency. He had recently lost his famous battle for legislation that would have let him pack the Supreme Court with liberal judges, and in the process he had lost considerable power in Congress. Moreover, the recovery from the Great Depression had come to a jarring halt the previous summer, succeeded by one of the swiftest economic declines in American history, and he simply could not make up his mind what to do about it. Yet he remained, as ever, seemingly devoid of doubt and continued to serve up generous portions of joie de vivre and hearty confidence when troubled subordinates came to him with their complaints and anxieties.

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