City of lights, city of pylons: Infrastructures of illumination in colonial Hanoi, 1880s–1920s

Abstract

This article traces the early stages of urban electrification in the French protectorate of Tonkin (in Vietnam’s north) from the late 1880s to the late 1920s. It focuses on Hanoi, where in 1895 the French entrepreneurs Hermenier and Planté secured a concession for lighting the streets of the soon-to-be capital of French Indochina. Before long, the city’s fast-paced development and the concomitant rise in demand for both public and private lighting necessitated contractual amendments and further capital investment in the upgrading of the power station and grid extensions. In 1902, Hermenier converted the business into a joint stock company named the Société Indochinoise d’Électricité with the aim of enabling further growth and geographical expansion. Contractual arrangements were frequently renegotiated and adjusted to new circumstances. However, electricity supplies kept lagging behind the fast pace of demand growth. During the post-First World War years of colonial economic expansion, power failures and blackouts became a routine occurrence and were a frequent target of press coverage. It was only in the late 1920s that electricity supplies improved and turned Hanoi into a city of lights. Although the majority of Vietnamese residents remained excluded from private electricity access throughout the colonial period, electric power quickly became a fact of everyday life for an emerging Vietnamese urban bourgeoisie and served as a marker of modern sophistication. Plans for an interconnected distribution network in the Tonkin delta subsequently also triggered hopes for an electrified future for the countryside.