Part four in the series
By Kathleen Davis, EL&P Associate Editor
May 16, 2002 — I learned something new in the midst of 1952.
While flipping through the 1950s archive, I ran across a June 1952 report on “electrical living” entitled “the fifth freedom.” I read the title three times. I looked for an explanation of the title within the report, but, alas, there was none. For some reason, the connection was assumed.
I was stumped. I stared at the black and white photos of pasty children getting proper Vitamin D from sunlamps and warmth from circulating air heaters. It didn’t help.
I turned to our managing editor and posed this question, “How many freedoms are there?”
Of course, she was at a loss, especially since I hadn’t prefaced the question with anything but silence. However, we began to discuss how many freedoms there might be, and from what they may be taken.
We came up with our most probable source: The Declaration of Independence. Those forefathers talked at length about freedoms. However, the numbers didn’t quite gel. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and the big and loopy Hancock only gave us three self-evident rights (or freedoms, as we were interpreting them): life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
If those were our three freedoms, and electrical living was the fifth freedom, what goes down in the place of number four? I repeated to myself “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“That’s three, right?” I asked our managing editor.
“Yes, three,” she replied.
We were back to square one.
After much research, we finally found the source of those four freedoms: a speech delivered by Franklin Roosevelt before Congress in 1941, a fabulous speech, a speech of angst and honor.
“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere,” he stated. “Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”
The words are so powerful, it is no wonder they still echoed clearly and succinctly in the collective consciousness of early 1950s America. In that speech, Roosevelt lays the foundation of his four freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religious worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.
Indeed, those make a solid foundation to top with the positives that electricity has brought to society.
That old adage really is true: You learn something new every day. On that particular day, I didn’t just learn more about the history of our magazine, I learned more about the history of our nation.
Read more…
Part one, the 1920s
Part two, the 1930s
Part three, the 1940s
More information on EL&P’s 80th anniversary can be found in May’s commemorative issue at https://www.elp.com.
Kathleen Davis is an Associate Editor for Electric, Light & Power Magazine, a PennWell publication. She can be reached at [email protected].
