Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority is invoked as the precedent for a proposed Missouri Valley Authority in Montana. Its brief appearance makes it a reference point in a political contest over a regional development plan, rather than a separately narrated institution with its own scenes or activities.

A Model for the Missouri Valley Proposal

The novel identifies the Missouri Valley Authority as the counterpart to the Tennessee Valley Authority. It gives no further account of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s organization, programs, or operations; its significance here rests on the comparison built into the proposed Montana project.

Political Context and Significance

The Missouri Valley proposal became a point of conflict in Montana. In 1944, Burton K. Wheeler claimed that Communists were behind the Missouri Valley Authority and sided against liberals with Montana Power Company and Anaconda Copper Company in helping defeat the plan. The novel then links the defeat to Wheeler’s loss of the remaining Montana Democratic support and his defeat in the 1946 Senate primary. The Tennessee Valley Authority thus enters the narrative indirectly, as the named counterpart against which a contested regional plan is defined.