13 Facts About Leland Olds

Leland Olds was an American economist interested in labor, development of public electric power, and ecology.

Leland Olds studied mathematics at Amherst where he was influenced by the social work movement and the Social Gospel.

Leland Olds was a graduate student at Union Theological Seminary and then served as pastor of a small Congregational church in Brooklyn before spending some months in the army.

In 1936, Leland Olds served on Roosevelt's Presidential Inquiry Commission on Cooperative Enterprise in Europe.

Leland Olds was a deeply religious and idealistic man, who after a long search for a worthy cause to give purpose to his life, had completely dedicated himself to the public power fight.

Wide availability of cheap power was crucial, Leland Olds felt, for the social well-being of the mass of the American people.

Leland Olds believed in the "complete passing of the old order of capitalism".

Complementary to his cooperative beliefs, Leland Olds was "very much consumer oriented".

Leland Olds believed that, together with regulation and community owned power generation and distribution, consumer cooperation was the key to a fair power policy.

In 1927 Leland Olds advocated the operating of all hydropower utilities as "giant consumer cooperatives".

The Leland Olds hearings were seen by many as a template for later McCarthyite purges.

Leland Olds was instrumental in setting up the Basin Electric Power Cooperative, although this took its final form after his death.

Leland Olds was married to textile artist Ruth Reeves from 1916 to 1922.