Chapter 307: Preparing for the World Expo
At the 404 Institute in Houston, Sheffield was trying hard to express his interest in the application of electricity. Edith Rockefeller had returned to Chicago, and he took the opportunity to return to his Texas base camp, yawning all the way.
The backward transportation of this era wasted a lot of precious time of the slave owner. He once thought that a company only needed a base camp, but it was far from enough. It involved the principles of industrial allocation and resource proximity. Especially since the joint company was a conglomerate model enterprise, he wanted to do it himself, so he would constantly wander around major cities, such as Los Angeles, New Orleans, Houston, Austin, and Arlington.
Even now, he seemed to hear Anne, who was about to graduate, calling him from the girls' dormitory in Austin.
"Electricity has changed our lives, and Mr. Tesla understands this better than anyone else!" After a long yawn, Sheffield opened his eyes and said listlessly, "But as a businessman, I still have a say in the prospects of electricity applications. In order to facilitate the lives of citizens, home appliances will sooner or later become an important part of family life. As the population increases, we need more job opportunities, which is why I continue to promote emerging industries."
In fact, the old industries in the United States are all in their own hands, and various trusts gather together, so it is not easy to intervene. Many small industry trusts are actually owned by the same boss. Sheffield was forced to start creating jobs, hoping that the United Company would layout the emerging industries and achieve overtaking.
First of all, in the automotive field, cars have huge development prospects in the future. Compared with railways, they are more flexible and can directly deliver people or materials to their homes. Compared with horse-drawn carriages, they are faster, easier to maintain, and cheaper.
The convenience alone can solve many problems. Everyone needs a certain amount of private space. To be honest, no one likes to be watched when they do bad things. Except for actors in some movies. Cars are equivalent to a private space for activities, which is much more powerful than railways.
In the 1920s, the three pillars of the industrial development of the United States were the automobile industry, which was the largest industrial sector in the United States. At that time, the United States had a population of over 100 million and a stock of 25 million cars, which meant that there was one car for every four to five people. Considering that at least half of the population was women, this was equivalent to one car for every two to three people. If we exclude minors...
Before World War II, the United States had become a veritable automobile kingdom, and the current automobile industry is in the hands of Sheffield, a slave owner. He not only killed Ford, the original automobile king, but also killed the city of Detroit.
With a strong automobile industry production line, New Orleans' real estate has no worries about not being able to sell, because the population is constantly pouring in, and the automobile industry is providing job opportunities for people to make money. If both points are achieved, it will bring prosperity to the real estate. If a place does not have a pillar industry, just speculating on housing prices is gambling. If it succeeds, it is good, but if it really collapses, you can't even cry.
At least in the next thirty years, the real estate in New Orleans will not worry about depreciation, it will only rise and not fall. If the villas, apartments and buildings built before are full, it will be even better. The land near New Orleans belongs to slave owners like Sheffield, and the meat will rot in the pot. The biggest beneficiary is still Sheffield himself.
It can be said that as long as the automobile industry develops steadily for ten or eight years, Sheffield can rely solely on the development of the automobile industry to chat and laugh with Morgan and Rockefeller and show its battle-hardened side.
The inherent value of the car and subsequent technological improvements have made it the best means of personal transportation as the world becomes more urbanized.
In fact, even Rockefeller Jr. expressed his strong support for Sheffield's pioneering spirit. If every city, every town, and every village were connected by roads, and these roads were full of such gas guzzlers, of course, more importantly, the fuel tanks of these gas guzzlers were filled with gasoline from Standard Oil Company.
Seeing that Standard Oil's profits were rising every quarter, how could Rockefeller not support the booming automobile industry? He even publicly called for every citizen of the United States to have a car of his own, as such a life would be the true American century.
This is the rhetoric, is it intended to deceive certain people? Because as we all know, Morgan is the behind-the-scenes owner of many railways, and the two sides have just had a contest over the steel industry.
With the success in the automotive industry, Sheffield naturally began to prepare to enter the home appliance industry. In fact, many home appliances have already appeared a long time ago, and now all it needs is one person to integrate them. The current job of the Tesla team is to manufacture stable transformers. After all, due to the emergence of Southern Electric, the voltage standards in the north and south of the United States have become different.
“But then again, it’s good enough for Southern Electric to break even now. I haven’t made a penny in several years.” Sheffield let out a long sigh.
"But more people will express their gratitude to you, William." Tesla began to express his respect. The reason why he did not make money was that Southern Electric was still expanding towards the more sparsely populated central and western regions in order to bring larger areas into the radiation range of the Southern Power Grid.
Southern Electric's profits in the southern states could not be compared with those of the northern electric companies, and it had to invest money to enter the Great West. Sometimes, Sheffield felt that his greatness was comparable to that of a state-owned enterprise, just like an old cow that eats grass and produces milk, and was worthy of being a moral model of capitalists in the United States.
Different voltages will naturally lead to the emergence of household appliances with different voltages. This is not entirely a bad thing. In fact, think about it, the transformer alone can be sold for money. Isn’t this a new industry?
Transformers are also not new and are actually closely related to the emergence of alternating current. Lucien Golar and John Dixon Gibbs demonstrated a device called a "secondary hand generator" in London and then sold the technology to Westinghouse Electric Company in the United States. This may be the first practical power transformer, but it is not the earliest transformer.
In the competition between power plants that should output direct current and alternating current, one of the advantages of alternating current is that it can use transformers. Transformers can convert electrical energy into a high voltage, low current form and then convert it back again, thus greatly reducing the loss of electrical energy during transmission, making it economical to transmit electrical energy over longer distances. In this way, power plants can be built far away from where electricity is used. Most of the world's electricity goes through a series of transformers before it finally reaches the user.
"There is still plenty of time. As long as you make all kinds of preparations, you will definitely have the opportunity to make a splash around the world. Just leave it to me how to promote it." After a series of visits, Sheffield was very satisfied with the progress of the institute. After all, the faculty is strong, and it is just integrating and optimizing many existing products. The purely technical difficulty is not particularly high, and it will not delay Tesla for much time.
As for this blockbuster event, it is actually very easy to organize. It just requires a World Expo. In fact, many people don’t know that there is no specific year for the World Expo. As long as someone organizes enough people, it can be held. In Sheffield’s memory, there was even a time when the World Expo was held twice in the same year.
But if no one remembers it, it can be said that in three to five years, no one will remember the use of this thing. As an emerging power in this era, the United States is very enthusiastic about this. However, France is more enthusiastic than France. Although France has repeatedly suffered setbacks in its competition with the British Empire for world hegemony, it is very enthusiastic about showing the good side of France, which is probably equivalent to what later generations call soft power.
The United States really became interested in the World Expo after World War II, when the world was in ruins. The United States suffered no losses in World War II, and at that time there was an urgent need for the whole world to know the special status of the United States. Citizens wanted to point at their noses and publicize everything about the United States.
So far, no country has said it will host any World Expo this year. Sheffield can completely take the initiative to propose hosting a World Expo with the Louisiana state government.
In fact, the slave owners didn't care whether the World Expo was successful or not. They just used the name of the World Expo to fool the citizens of the United States. After all, didn't the American century still need the recognition of some European powers? At present, the citizens of the United States are still very interested in the reactions of European powers. According to a sentence in the Chinese military book, this is the people's heart that can be used. The name of the World Expo is enough to attract the attention of many citizens.
Considering the climate of New Orleans, Sheffield set the date for the event to be held at the end of the year. At the latitude of New Orleans, it is summer all year round, so any season would be fine. But before that, he needed to resolve the issues of women's rights and black people first.
Because they needed a legitimate occasion to cover up and formally give the southern state governments a reason to take action against black people. If the southern black people were embarrassed because of the World Expo, which was watched by the whole world, wouldn’t it be a disgrace to the entire United States? Wouldn’t they need to rectify social order? If the women’s rights movement happened to expose the atrocities of southern black men against black women while they were thinking this, wouldn’t it be a warning to the southern states?
So in order to hold the World Expo as scheduled, would the southern states have to do something special and show their efficiency in sending black criminals to prison? As for the federal government, if the South was still in chaos after 30 years of the Civil War, wouldn't it be a slap in the face of the federal government? So the federal government would probably take a tacit attitude towards the actions of the southern states.
(End of this chapter)
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