Small, local wind turbines provided early electricity for rural farms and homes in the US, prior to rural electrification efforts in the 1930s and 40s that expanded the national grid. One way to bring them back in a more sustainable, efficient (and hopefully socially acceptable) form? Locally crafted, wooden designs: “the company’s mission is to make the countryside – especially farms but also small villages – self-sufficient in terms of power production by designing more beautiful and locally produced wind turbines that people don’t complain about.”
They also discuss integrating small wind and solar, with some beautiful results:
On this day, 11 September 1913, Spanish civil war and resistance activist Maruja Lara was born in Granada. A domestic worker, she spent her childhood in Brazil and Argentina before returning to Spain. She escaped the fascist zone at the start of the civil war and briefly joined a militia until she worked as a nurse in one of the worker-run hospitals in Valencia. She also became active in the anarchist feminist Mujeres Libres group. Interned in a fascist concentration camp in 1939, she escaped and worked in a factory where she and other women set up an underground resistance group. Despite arrest in 1955, she remained active until her death aged 98.
We have produced some merch commemorating the Mujeres Libres to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/spanish-civil-warhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1207985832719898/?type=3
