For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80

July 28, 2016: This WBIR documentary special coincided with the 80th anniversary of Norris Dam, TVA's first dam and one of the first experiments of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal." We examine the history and future of the dam that drastically changed the physical and social landscape of East Tennessee. Thousands of photographs, rare recordings, and interviews tell the story of a project that brought hope to an area at the expense of 14,000 people forced to abandon their ancestral homes, dig up their loved ones' graves, and drown their communities in a new lake for the greater good of society. http://bit.ly/2YZVtBM

Below is a list of the content of the special broken into four main blocks. Click the listed time to go directly to a segment.

00:00 James Agee montage, 1935 Fortune Magazine
01:21 Introduction: Norris Dam and rural electricity
03:03 George Norris vs. Henry Ford
04:50 Mountaineer life before the dam idea
08:37 TVA is born and first leaders appointed
11:58 Creating public support through media and meetings
14:46 Dam designs begin and workers hired
18:23 Tease: Rare look inside the dam
18:36 Vignette: prior dam proposals
18:55 Constructing a dam and new society
24:21 Meeting and relocating mountaineers
27:35 Moving mills
28:02 Digging up graves
31:29 Tease: newly discovered film and mountaineers
31:50 Finishing the dam, lights come on
34:48 Final holdouts and farewells
38:47 Vignette: Native American archaeology
39:03 Norris today, original vision versus reality
42:11 Vignette: Hooked on electric power
42:46 Mountaineer descendants' major generation gap
46:03 Conclusion: concrete and humanity
47:08 Final credits

Видео For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80 канала WBIR Channel 10