ヴァイマル期ドイツにおける都市の電化プロセス : フランクフルト・アム・マインを事例として

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This article shows the socio-economic dynamism of urban electrification--the diffusion of electricity as necessary energy in urban life--with a case study of Frankfurt during the Weimar period. Before World War I, electric lights were a luxury so that less than 10% of households used them. But the situation changed in the 1920s. In the period of relative stability, electricity for lighting shifted from being a luxury to becoming necessary energy. This was due to a new rate system intended to benefit small-scale consumers. Besides the adoption of a new rate system, advertisement also played an important role. A case in point was the 'Lichtfest' (Light Festival) held in 1927 to boost the illumination of show windows. It contributed not only to spreading the use of electric lights but to innovating illumination techniques in general. With the spread of electric lights in urban life, a completely electrified life came to be considered as an ideal. However, such a lifestyle was just a utopia, adopted only experimentally in newly developed suburban residential areas. The gap between ideal and reality was not owing to the negative attitude of consumers toward the new lifestyle, but to the electricity rates, which were still too high for daily use of electrical appliances.
2005-07-25