‘No Longer the Preserve of Townsfolk’: Female Electrical Mediators in Northern Scotland and the Craibstone School of Rural Domestic Economy, 1923–1939

Abstract

This article examines the role of rural women as electrical mediators in the north of Scotland during the interwar years, focusing on the activities of female representatives of the Craibstone School of Rural Domestic Economy (CSRDE). During this period, female teachers and students working for the CSRDE adopted and promoted electrical appliances, fostering enthusiasm for electrification among women living in the north of Scotland. Notably, at the Highland Show in 1935, students from the CSRDE entertained thousands of visitors by demonstrating appliances from an ‘all-electric’ kitchen, stimulating a trend for domestic electrical displays at future Highland Shows. Significantly, this article adds to the historiography of the electrification of Scotland, which has hitherto been dominated by male actors. Beyond Scotland, scholars have argued that affluent urban women framed electrification as an opportunity for liberation from the domestic sphere. However, using the records from the CSRDE, I recover the overlooked attitudes of rural women and show that they did not conceive of electrical appliances in the same light. This article provides an insight into the vital, yet forgotten, mediating role that rural women performed between the electrical industry and consumers.