1 00:00:04,966 --> 00:00:09,966 ♪ ♪ 2 00:00:13,300 --> 00:00:15,466 NARRATOR: In September 1980, 3 00:00:15,466 --> 00:00:18,433 the Department of Energy was in the midst of building 4 00:00:18,433 --> 00:00:21,300 a revolutionary house. 5 00:00:21,300 --> 00:00:25,066 A recent energy crisis 6 00:00:25,066 --> 00:00:27,733 and early warnings about global warming 7 00:00:27,733 --> 00:00:29,733 had helped to bring the project about. 8 00:00:29,733 --> 00:00:33,333 Located in Carlisle, Massachusetts, 9 00:00:33,333 --> 00:00:36,633 the remarkable new structure was to have solar heat, 10 00:00:36,633 --> 00:00:39,633 solar hot water, solar-powered appliances, 11 00:00:39,633 --> 00:00:43,233 and, in theory, would even sell the excess energy it produced 12 00:00:43,233 --> 00:00:46,500 back into the grid. 13 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:50,333 To pull it off, the D.O.E. made a most unusual call, 14 00:00:50,333 --> 00:00:53,633 to an 80-year-old retiree down in Florida. 15 00:00:53,633 --> 00:00:56,066 Her name was Mária Telkes, 16 00:00:56,066 --> 00:00:57,800 and some 40 years earlier, 17 00:00:57,800 --> 00:00:59,566 the Hungarian physicist 18 00:00:59,566 --> 00:01:01,600 had put solar on the map-- 19 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:04,600 so famously, in fact, that she went by the nickname 20 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:06,633 the Sun Queen. 21 00:01:06,633 --> 00:01:09,700 ♪ ♪ 22 00:01:09,700 --> 00:01:11,400 MICHELLE ADDINGTON: She was ahead of her time, 23 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,300 and she was asking the right questions. 24 00:01:14,300 --> 00:01:18,933 We have this amazing thermal source with incredible power. 25 00:01:18,933 --> 00:01:21,466 Why have we not harnessed it? 26 00:01:21,466 --> 00:01:24,300 ANDREW NEMETHY: She saw something that I don't think 27 00:01:24,300 --> 00:01:25,800 anybody conceived of at that point. 28 00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:28,066 She imagined that the world could 29 00:01:28,066 --> 00:01:30,833 get free power from the sun. 30 00:01:30,833 --> 00:01:32,266 I mean, if one person's vision 31 00:01:32,266 --> 00:01:35,033 is here, her vision was way out there. 32 00:01:35,033 --> 00:01:39,133 A.L. HU: Telkes believed that there was a moral imperative 33 00:01:39,133 --> 00:01:42,933 to understanding solar energy, not just as 34 00:01:42,933 --> 00:01:45,800 an alternative, but as a way to kind of live our lives. 35 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:49,366 I would like to show you some very simple things 36 00:01:49,366 --> 00:01:50,933 like a house. 37 00:01:50,933 --> 00:01:53,933 The sun's energy is absorbed 38 00:01:53,933 --> 00:01:56,566 and is transformed into heat. 39 00:01:56,566 --> 00:01:59,833 DANIEL BARBER: What Telkes showed us was that 40 00:01:59,833 --> 00:02:02,966 this ambition to think differently about energy sources 41 00:02:02,966 --> 00:02:05,800 not only changes the way that we build, the way that we 42 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,466 produce heat, the kind of technologies of those systems, 43 00:02:08,466 --> 00:02:10,666 but also shifts our expectations, right? 44 00:02:10,666 --> 00:02:12,933 Shifts the way that we think about living in a house. 45 00:02:12,933 --> 00:02:15,400 NARRATOR: Telkes came out of retirement to help 46 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:17,866 make the Carlisle house a success. 47 00:02:17,866 --> 00:02:19,966 When it came to all things solar, 48 00:02:19,966 --> 00:02:21,933 her passion bordered on obsession. 49 00:02:21,933 --> 00:02:25,100 Her vision was as legendary as her engineering, 50 00:02:25,100 --> 00:02:28,600 but her ambition came at a cost. 51 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:30,300   NEMETHY: Mária was a solar evangelist. 52 00:02:30,300 --> 00:02:31,866 Now, like a lot of evangelists, 53 00:02:31,866 --> 00:02:35,966 she was pushing her vision very strongly. 54 00:02:35,966 --> 00:02:38,000 Anybody who disagreed with that vision 55 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,300 kind of rubbed up against her the wrong way. 56 00:02:40,300 --> 00:02:42,433 OLIVIA MEIKLE: This was not something 57 00:02:42,433 --> 00:02:43,800 that would've been easy as a woman, 58 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:46,633 but she was determined to change the world 59 00:02:46,633 --> 00:02:49,033 in the face of what must have been enormous odds. 60 00:02:49,033 --> 00:02:53,400 SARA SHREVE-PRICE: Telkes knew you can't just wait for society to be ready. 61 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:56,333 You need to sell them on this idea. 62 00:02:56,333 --> 00:02:58,366 You need to convince them that this 63 00:02:58,366 --> 00:02:59,766 is the time for the idea. 64 00:02:59,766 --> 00:03:02,733 If we want the sustainable future, 65 00:03:02,733 --> 00:03:05,900 we don't just need the technology. 66 00:03:05,900 --> 00:03:08,333 We need to want the technology. 67 00:03:08,333 --> 00:03:10,400 ♪ ♪ 68 00:03:24,066 --> 00:03:29,200 ♪ ♪ 69 00:03:45,466 --> 00:03:48,900 ♪ ♪ 70 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:03,100 (horn blasting) 71 00:04:08,466 --> 00:04:10,600 NARRATOR: Mária Telkes, 72 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:13,333 32, physicist, 73 00:04:13,333 --> 00:04:16,366 had just arrived from her native Hungary. 74 00:04:16,366 --> 00:04:18,733 Her immigration papers gave her height 75 00:04:18,733 --> 00:04:20,533 and marital status, 76 00:04:20,533 --> 00:04:23,100 but said nothing about her most distinguishing trait of all. 77 00:04:23,100 --> 00:04:26,333 Telkes was a scientist on a mission, 78 00:04:26,333 --> 00:04:29,166 and had traveled to the United States for one reason, 79 00:04:29,166 --> 00:04:31,700 and one reason alone. 80 00:04:33,333 --> 00:04:35,200 By the early 1930s, 81 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:38,300 America was in the throes of a solar revolution 82 00:04:38,300 --> 00:04:41,433 that had been going on for more than 50 years. 83 00:04:41,433 --> 00:04:45,100 In 1884, the first experimental solar panels 84 00:04:45,100 --> 00:04:47,466 had gone up on a New York City rooftop. 85 00:04:47,466 --> 00:04:51,100 Four years later, the American chemist Edward Weston 86 00:04:51,100 --> 00:04:53,433 developed the world's first solar cell, 87 00:04:53,433 --> 00:04:56,666 while, on an ostrich farm in Pasadena, 88 00:04:56,666 --> 00:04:59,366 one inventor installed a giant solar motor, 89 00:04:59,366 --> 00:05:01,166 some 35 feet across, 90 00:05:01,166 --> 00:05:03,500 that pumped enough water from the local well 91 00:05:03,500 --> 00:05:06,900 to make the dry California ground a verdant paradise. 92 00:05:08,033 --> 00:05:10,400 In any single issue of "Scientific American," 93 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:11,766 subscribers might read 94 00:05:11,766 --> 00:05:14,066 about a solar printing press that could reel off 95 00:05:14,066 --> 00:05:15,600 500 copies an hour, 96 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,100 or a host of solar gizmos 97 00:05:18,100 --> 00:05:20,333 that did everything from pumping sewage 98 00:05:20,333 --> 00:05:22,400 to distilling alcohol. 99 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:24,533 At the turn of the century, 100 00:05:24,533 --> 00:05:27,233 there were so many solar hot water heaters in homes 101 00:05:27,233 --> 00:05:29,733 in Florida that one resident remarked, 102 00:05:29,733 --> 00:05:33,100 "I can't remember a house on the block that didn't have one." 103 00:05:33,100 --> 00:05:35,100 IVAN PENN: It was this age 104 00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:37,166 of all this talk about solar. 105 00:05:37,166 --> 00:05:39,200 It's about 1905. 106 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:41,433 Albert Einstein is looking at what they called 107 00:05:41,433 --> 00:05:43,500 the photoelectric effect: 108 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:47,200 the release of electrons when light hit metal, 109 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,666 which is essential in using solar to make electricity. 110 00:05:51,866 --> 00:05:54,600 By 1931, 111 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:57,533 Edison is in a conversation with Henry Ford, 112 00:05:57,533 --> 00:06:00,600 and he says, "I'd put my money on the sun 113 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:02,266 and solar energy," 114 00:06:02,266 --> 00:06:04,833 in how we ultimately are going to power the world. 115 00:06:04,833 --> 00:06:07,500 SHREVE-PRICE: Telkes is passionately interested 116 00:06:07,500 --> 00:06:10,566 in trying to chase the power of the sun. 117 00:06:10,566 --> 00:06:13,200 In the United States, in the 1930s, 118 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:17,000 there are some really interesting projects. 119 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,033 But there haven't been giant successes, 120 00:06:19,033 --> 00:06:22,233 and I think she sees that as a real possibility. 121 00:06:24,166 --> 00:06:27,733 NARRATOR: Telkes had been obsessed since she was a girl. 122 00:06:27,733 --> 00:06:29,566 The brilliant daughter of wealthy Hungarian bankers, 123 00:06:29,566 --> 00:06:31,933 born December 12, 1900, in Budapest, 124 00:06:31,933 --> 00:06:35,533 she'd explain, "I was only 11 when 125 00:06:35,533 --> 00:06:38,000 "I became intensively curious about chemistry. 126 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,066 "I purchased test tubes and chemical glassware, 127 00:06:41,066 --> 00:06:44,200 and a small garden house became my laboratory." 128 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:46,800 From the beginning, she had bold plans 129 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:48,733 to put her science to work. 130 00:06:50,300 --> 00:06:52,300 ADAM ROME: Telkes, growing up in Hungary, 131 00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:54,466 coal was the dominant form of energy. 132 00:06:54,466 --> 00:06:56,333 Coal is incredibly polluting. 133 00:06:56,333 --> 00:06:57,766 You could have days, 134 00:06:57,766 --> 00:06:59,633 in the middle of the day, when it seemed like night, 135 00:06:59,633 --> 00:07:00,966 or that, like an eclipse, 136 00:07:00,966 --> 00:07:03,266 where you couldn't see the sun. 137 00:07:03,266 --> 00:07:05,000 So there were people 138 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,266 early in the 20th century 139 00:07:07,266 --> 00:07:10,466 who did imagine a coal-less future. 140 00:07:10,466 --> 00:07:13,666 And Telkes, growing up in that time, 141 00:07:13,666 --> 00:07:17,000 begins envisioning alternative sources of energy. 142 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:19,600 NARRATOR: By the time she was 24, 143 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,033 Telkes had earned a doctorate in physical chemistry 144 00:07:22,033 --> 00:07:23,633 from the University of Budapest. 145 00:07:24,666 --> 00:07:28,166 "It is the things supposed to be impossible that interest me," 146 00:07:28,166 --> 00:07:29,733 Telkes would explain. 147 00:07:29,733 --> 00:07:33,233 "I like to do things they say cannot be done." 148 00:07:33,233 --> 00:07:34,833 ♪ ♪ 149 00:07:34,833 --> 00:07:36,466 In May 1932, 150 00:07:36,466 --> 00:07:38,533 Telkes arrived in Cleveland, 151 00:07:38,533 --> 00:07:41,200 where by day, she had gotten a job as a researcher 152 00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:43,033 at a biomedical facility. 153 00:07:43,033 --> 00:07:46,700 But by night, she was developing and refining a device 154 00:07:46,700 --> 00:07:50,566 called a thermopile to convert sunlight into electricity. 155 00:07:50,566 --> 00:07:53,500 Her work caught the attention of the press, 156 00:07:53,500 --> 00:07:55,466 and in 1934, she was hailed 157 00:07:55,466 --> 00:07:57,700 as one of the most interesting women of the year, 158 00:07:57,700 --> 00:08:01,066 alongside a tennis champion, a Rockefeller, 159 00:08:01,066 --> 00:08:04,633 and child actress prodigy Shirley Temple. 160 00:08:04,633 --> 00:08:07,500 As one reporter who met her at the time remarked, 161 00:08:07,500 --> 00:08:11,700 "Miss Telkes is a scientist-- everything else bores her." 162 00:08:11,700 --> 00:08:12,933 NEMETHY: She was adventurous. 163 00:08:12,933 --> 00:08:14,600 And she came over to the United States 164 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:16,033 and basically fell in love with it. 165 00:08:16,033 --> 00:08:18,600   She loved the country and she loved the freedom 166 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,500 that she had to use her immense skills 167 00:08:21,500 --> 00:08:23,433 and her vision for whatever she came up with. 168 00:08:24,866 --> 00:08:28,400 NARRATOR: Now, in April 1938, out in Boston, 169 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:30,600 she heard about an exciting new project starting up 170 00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:33,200 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 171 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:36,733 The Solar Energy Fund launched to bring together 172 00:08:36,733 --> 00:08:39,100 the very best minds on the solar question. 173 00:08:39,100 --> 00:08:41,966 As university leaders told the press, 174 00:08:41,966 --> 00:08:44,433 "The store of energy in our familiar fuels, 175 00:08:44,433 --> 00:08:46,633 while great, is not inexhaustible." 176 00:08:46,633 --> 00:08:50,033 So it was high time for bold new thinking. 177 00:08:50,033 --> 00:08:52,166 Telkes immediately wrote to them, 178 00:08:52,166 --> 00:08:54,166 "I read with great interest 179 00:08:54,166 --> 00:08:56,200 "the announcement of the solar project. 180 00:08:56,200 --> 00:08:58,866 May I have the opportunity of a personal interview?" 181 00:08:58,866 --> 00:09:01,833 Her timing couldn't have been better. 182 00:09:01,833 --> 00:09:04,700 Her new thermopile could, by her own estimation, 183 00:09:04,700 --> 00:09:07,733 turn sunlight into power some ten times more efficiently 184 00:09:07,733 --> 00:09:09,500 than any existing technology. 185 00:09:11,066 --> 00:09:13,433 When she initially wasn't offered a position, 186 00:09:13,433 --> 00:09:16,966 she traveled to Boston with her prototype, 187 00:09:16,966 --> 00:09:20,233 determined to impress the all-male committee. 188 00:09:20,233 --> 00:09:23,300 The gambit worked, and, in July 1939, 189 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:26,200 she got the job. 190 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:29,166 But just as it was all falling into place, 191 00:09:29,166 --> 00:09:32,700 everything changed. 192 00:09:32,700 --> 00:09:33,833 (bombs whistling) 193 00:09:33,833 --> 00:09:37,466 (explosion roars) 194 00:09:37,466 --> 00:09:41,600 As war broke out across Europe, Asia, and the United States, 195 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:43,333 it unleashed an energy crisis 196 00:09:43,333 --> 00:09:45,833 the likes of which the world had never seen. 197 00:09:45,833 --> 00:09:50,433 By June 1943, petroleum reserves on the East Coast 198 00:09:50,433 --> 00:09:52,600 dropped to an all-time low. 199 00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:56,700 People needed a ration card just to fill up the tank. 200 00:09:56,700 --> 00:09:58,866 Okay, it's an A card, three gallons. 201 00:09:58,866 --> 00:10:00,966 NARRATOR: And were forbidden from driving faster 202 00:10:00,966 --> 00:10:02,666 than 35 miles an hour, 203 00:10:02,666 --> 00:10:05,766 known henceforth as "Victory Speed." 204 00:10:05,766 --> 00:10:09,200 Making matters worse, Nazi U-boats 205 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,300 were sinking so many oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico 206 00:10:12,300 --> 00:10:14,800 that beaches were stained ink-black. 207 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:16,266 ROME: World War II 208 00:10:16,266 --> 00:10:20,100 accentuates the sense that a reckoning is coming. 209 00:10:20,100 --> 00:10:23,333 It really was partly a war about resources. 210 00:10:23,333 --> 00:10:24,866 (film music playing) 211 00:10:24,866 --> 00:10:27,100 FILM NARRATOR: Use trains. 212 00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:29,100 Use bus lines. 213 00:10:29,100 --> 00:10:31,266 Share cars going to work. 214 00:10:31,266 --> 00:10:34,233 ROME: And so it's this incredible period 215 00:10:34,233 --> 00:10:36,066 of government promotion of conservation. 216 00:10:36,066 --> 00:10:39,066 So people were hyper-conscious of their fuel use. 217 00:10:39,066 --> 00:10:41,500 And for a while, this idea really mattered 218 00:10:41,500 --> 00:10:43,700 for a lot of Americans. 219 00:10:46,866 --> 00:10:50,500 NARRATOR: Telkes's solar dream was more urgent than ever, 220 00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:52,233 but the M.I.T. solar project was put on ice 221 00:10:52,233 --> 00:10:53,766 for the duration of the war. 222 00:10:53,766 --> 00:10:57,600 The entire team was reassigned to help with the war effort, 223 00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:00,133 and Telkes threw herself into the work, 224 00:11:00,133 --> 00:11:01,966 alongside her collaborator, 225 00:11:01,966 --> 00:11:03,700 the head of the Solar Energy Project, 226 00:11:03,700 --> 00:11:07,466 a chemical engineer named Hoyt Hottel. 227 00:11:07,466 --> 00:11:09,366 Two years younger than Telkes, 228 00:11:09,366 --> 00:11:11,533 Hottel had blazed his own brilliant path, 229 00:11:11,533 --> 00:11:14,733 enrolling at Indiana University at the age of 15, 230 00:11:14,733 --> 00:11:16,000 and pursuing his own 231 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:19,166 research just as single-mindedly as she did. 232 00:11:19,166 --> 00:11:21,300 They clashed right from the start. 233 00:11:21,300 --> 00:11:22,500 BARBER: Hoyt Hottel 234 00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:24,400 was an ambitious young scientist 235 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:25,733 doing a lot of good 236 00:11:25,733 --> 00:11:27,266 sort of basic scientific research. 237 00:11:27,266 --> 00:11:30,066   But he was certainly not somebody 238 00:11:30,066 --> 00:11:31,833 who was interested in rocking the boat. 239 00:11:31,833 --> 00:11:35,400 MEIKLE: For Hoyt Hottel, science is about knowledge. 240 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:37,833 He's very interested in big, 241 00:11:37,833 --> 00:11:40,233 important academic ideas. 242 00:11:40,233 --> 00:11:43,566 But he is not very interested in 243 00:11:43,566 --> 00:11:46,600 how any of these things might apply in the world. 244 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:48,300 Whereas for Mária Telkes, 245 00:11:48,300 --> 00:11:50,266 science is about making lives better, 246 00:11:50,266 --> 00:11:52,233 making the world better. 247 00:11:52,233 --> 00:11:55,700 She is interested in science from a humanitarian perspective. 248 00:11:57,433 --> 00:11:59,966 NARRATOR: Now Hottel and Telkes were trying to solve 249 00:11:59,966 --> 00:12:01,833 an urgent problem. 250 00:12:01,833 --> 00:12:03,800 Combat in the Pacific was seeing 251 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:05,933 hundreds of men shot down every week, 252 00:12:05,933 --> 00:12:10,366 and entire crews were sometimes adrift for days at a time. 253 00:12:10,366 --> 00:12:11,833 The assignment was for a small, 254 00:12:11,833 --> 00:12:14,933 portable device that could transform salt water 255 00:12:14,933 --> 00:12:17,066 to something that the boys could drink. 256 00:12:17,066 --> 00:12:19,266 Telkes immediately saw the opportunity 257 00:12:19,266 --> 00:12:21,500 to use the power of the sun. 258 00:12:21,500 --> 00:12:25,600 Here is the limitless ocean with its salt water, 259 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,233 which is unfit for drinking. 260 00:12:28,233 --> 00:12:30,366 Solar stills were developed 261 00:12:30,366 --> 00:12:32,966 to produce fresh water from sea water 262 00:12:32,966 --> 00:12:36,066 with a simple device which looks like a bubble. 263 00:12:36,066 --> 00:12:39,666 NARRATOR: The solar still was ingenious in its simplicity. 264 00:12:39,666 --> 00:12:42,100 As the sun evaporated the sea water, 265 00:12:42,100 --> 00:12:45,333 it turned to vapor inside the bubble before recondensing, 266 00:12:45,333 --> 00:12:48,400 having left all the salt behind. 267 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:49,800 MEIKLE: She comes up with 268 00:12:49,800 --> 00:12:53,966 a very innovative and completely practicable model, 269 00:12:53,966 --> 00:12:56,566 and it is now up to Hottel, as the head of the project, 270 00:12:56,566 --> 00:13:00,166 to actually manufacture the device 271 00:13:00,166 --> 00:13:02,900 that Mária Telkes has invented. 272 00:13:04,866 --> 00:13:07,000 NARRATOR: By the summer of 1945, 273 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:08,300 as combat wound down 274 00:13:08,300 --> 00:13:10,833 in the Pacific, the government had already 275 00:13:10,833 --> 00:13:14,166 placed an order for 100,000 solar stills, 276 00:13:14,166 --> 00:13:15,300 but not a one 277 00:13:15,300 --> 00:13:18,066 had made it down the assembly line. 278 00:13:18,066 --> 00:13:20,633 Meanwhile, back at M.I.T., 279 00:13:20,633 --> 00:13:22,633 Hoyt Hottel, ever the perfectionist, 280 00:13:22,633 --> 00:13:25,533 kept switching manufacturers and quibbling with Telkes 281 00:13:25,533 --> 00:13:27,366 over design details, 282 00:13:27,366 --> 00:13:29,466 unwilling to commit until he believed 283 00:13:29,466 --> 00:13:31,966 his exacting standards had been met. 284 00:13:31,966 --> 00:13:34,566 Telkes is counting lives that could've been saved 285 00:13:34,566 --> 00:13:37,366 every month that this is delayed. 286 00:13:37,366 --> 00:13:40,800 And that's not the way that Hoyt Hottel sees the world. 287 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:42,666 It's probably one of the reasons why 288 00:13:42,666 --> 00:13:45,300 they were at loggerheads with each other, is, 289 00:13:45,300 --> 00:13:48,000 you know, one person, very specific, 290 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:49,666 very, very methodical. 291 00:13:49,666 --> 00:13:51,800 And another person saying, "No, 292 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:53,200 we, we need to run real quickly." 293 00:13:54,700 --> 00:13:58,300 That's about as far apart as you can get, for two scientists 294 00:13:58,300 --> 00:14:00,433 who are interested in working on the same thing. 295 00:14:01,700 --> 00:14:03,333 NARRATOR: Despite being hailed in the press 296 00:14:03,333 --> 00:14:05,433 as a major scientific breakthrough, 297 00:14:05,433 --> 00:14:08,100 the solar still was never deployed in combat. 298 00:14:08,100 --> 00:14:11,900 By the time the design hit the desk at the patent office, 299 00:14:11,900 --> 00:14:14,100 the war was over. 300 00:14:14,100 --> 00:14:16,600 But if Telkes was frustrated with the delay, 301 00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:18,566 there was no record of it. 302 00:14:18,566 --> 00:14:22,700 She already had her eye on an even bigger challenge. 303 00:14:22,700 --> 00:14:25,633 ♪ ♪ 304 00:14:25,633 --> 00:14:28,966 (people talking in background) 305 00:14:28,966 --> 00:14:31,566 NARRATOR: Everywhere in the year 1945, 306 00:14:31,566 --> 00:14:33,233 people were picking themselves up 307 00:14:33,233 --> 00:14:35,733 and getting acquainted with a brave new world. 308 00:14:35,733 --> 00:14:39,066 The art was iconoclastic. 309 00:14:39,066 --> 00:14:40,466 ♪ ♪ 310 00:14:40,466 --> 00:14:42,933 The philosophers were radical. 311 00:14:44,433 --> 00:14:47,400 And the architects were promising nothing short 312 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:49,600 of a spectacular utopia, 313 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:51,866 as a wave of Modernism swept the nation, 314 00:14:51,866 --> 00:14:54,600 from Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian style 315 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:56,933 to Fred Keck's House of Tomorrow, 316 00:14:56,933 --> 00:14:59,733 to Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Dwelling. 317 00:14:59,733 --> 00:15:02,700 SHREVE-PRICE: Modernism draws on 318 00:15:02,700 --> 00:15:06,633 this belief that technology is an answer, 319 00:15:06,633 --> 00:15:08,600 that we're going to shake off 320 00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:11,366 the old 19th-century past, 321 00:15:11,366 --> 00:15:14,633 and we're going to go into this new world 322 00:15:14,633 --> 00:15:18,033 structured by these technological capabilities 323 00:15:18,033 --> 00:15:19,933 that we never could have dreamt of before. 324 00:15:21,033 --> 00:15:22,833 NARRATOR: There was a particular interest in houses 325 00:15:22,833 --> 00:15:24,800 that could be more energy-efficient, 326 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:26,566 since, though the fighting had ended, 327 00:15:26,566 --> 00:15:29,300 the wartime scarcities had not. 328 00:15:29,300 --> 00:15:32,033 NEMETHY: There was a real sense of energy insecurity. 329 00:15:32,033 --> 00:15:34,733 And all of a sudden, here comes Mária Telkes 330 00:15:34,733 --> 00:15:36,433 saying solar could be the answer. 331 00:15:37,466 --> 00:15:39,966 NARRATOR: Telkes's latest idea was to double down 332 00:15:39,966 --> 00:15:42,100 on turning the M.I.T. solar project 333 00:15:42,100 --> 00:15:44,100 into a laboratory for developing 334 00:15:44,100 --> 00:15:46,633 a radical kind of experimental house, 335 00:15:46,633 --> 00:15:49,966 one that would be heated entirely by the sun. 336 00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:54,400 The term "solar house" dated to 1940, 337 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:56,700 when an article in the "Chicago Tribune" had announced 338 00:15:56,700 --> 00:15:59,133 "a new type of suburb home." 339 00:15:59,133 --> 00:16:01,666 There were a few so-called solar houses 340 00:16:01,666 --> 00:16:03,000 already in existence, 341 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:05,900 some in the Midwest, one in Colorado. 342 00:16:05,900 --> 00:16:09,966 Making it all possible, was a new kind of technology-- 343 00:16:09,966 --> 00:16:12,733 a revolution in the form of a glass window. 344 00:16:12,733 --> 00:16:15,200 FILM NARRATOR: The modern insulating window 345 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:16,533 delivers year-round comfort. 346 00:16:16,533 --> 00:16:19,066 Keeps rooms cooler in summer, warmer in winter, 347 00:16:19,066 --> 00:16:21,200 with big cash savings on your fuel bills. 348 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:23,933 NARRATOR: The public fell in love with the cost savings 349 00:16:23,933 --> 00:16:26,433 and efficiency of the new insulated glass, 350 00:16:26,433 --> 00:16:28,633 and suddenly, by the late 1940s, 351 00:16:28,633 --> 00:16:31,733 so-called solar homes were everywhere. 352 00:16:31,733 --> 00:16:33,733 SHREVE-PRICE: If you would've opened a magazine 353 00:16:33,733 --> 00:16:35,566 on any given month, 354 00:16:35,566 --> 00:16:37,133 you would have seen an article 355 00:16:37,133 --> 00:16:39,033 on solar housing about as commonly 356 00:16:39,033 --> 00:16:40,400 as you would see one today. 357 00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:45,900 NARRATOR: As popular as the first generation of solar houses was, 358 00:16:45,900 --> 00:16:47,300 they all had a big issue: 359 00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:49,966 no matter how well they worked on sunny days, 360 00:16:49,966 --> 00:16:52,733 not a single one could hold heat overnight. 361 00:16:52,733 --> 00:16:55,700 "The critical problem of solar energy," 362 00:16:55,700 --> 00:17:00,133 Telkes explained, "is storage." 363 00:17:00,133 --> 00:17:03,400 Thermal energy storage was seen as the Holy Grail 364 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:05,500 for solar power. 365 00:17:05,500 --> 00:17:08,566 ADDINGTON: Telkes was incredibly farsighted 366 00:17:08,566 --> 00:17:12,566 in focusing on the storage problem. 367 00:17:12,566 --> 00:17:14,433 Harnessing that huge amount of energy, 368 00:17:14,433 --> 00:17:17,333 which then disappears over the course of a day, 369 00:17:17,333 --> 00:17:19,500 is not something that's readily done. 370 00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:22,333 NARRATOR: As the leader of the solar project, 371 00:17:22,333 --> 00:17:24,733 Hoyt Hottel had proposed one answer: 372 00:17:24,733 --> 00:17:27,233 water-- widely available, 373 00:17:27,233 --> 00:17:30,033 comfortably familiar, and, possibly, 374 00:17:30,033 --> 00:17:32,900 good enough at retaining heat to pull it off. 375 00:17:32,900 --> 00:17:35,233 Hottel himself drew up plans 376 00:17:35,233 --> 00:17:39,233 for an experimental structure to test a number of variables. 377 00:17:39,233 --> 00:17:40,900 Designed to maintain a comfortable 378 00:17:40,900 --> 00:17:43,333 72-degree temperature through the winter, 379 00:17:43,333 --> 00:17:45,400 the building would eventually go by the name 380 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:47,266 Solar One. 381 00:17:47,266 --> 00:17:50,100 HU: The Solar One house featured an array of collectors 382 00:17:50,100 --> 00:17:52,166 on the roof, covered by glass, 383 00:17:52,166 --> 00:17:54,400 and then there were copper tubes that were sort of 384 00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:56,133 absorbing the heat of the sun. 385 00:17:56,133 --> 00:18:00,166 And that was being brought down to a tank of water 386 00:18:00,166 --> 00:18:02,866 that was underneath the house. 387 00:18:02,866 --> 00:18:04,633 This was a huge tank of water, 388 00:18:04,633 --> 00:18:07,233 because water does retain heat, 389 00:18:07,233 --> 00:18:09,500 but the system didn't work very efficiently. 390 00:18:09,500 --> 00:18:10,833 MEIKLE: You would have to have 391 00:18:10,833 --> 00:18:13,566 an economically unfeasible amount of hot water 392 00:18:13,566 --> 00:18:15,500 to make this work. 393 00:18:15,500 --> 00:18:18,833 Mária Telkes comes at this from a totally different perspective. 394 00:18:18,833 --> 00:18:21,733 She's very fascinated with phase change materials. 395 00:18:21,733 --> 00:18:24,333 NARRATOR: Phase change materials: 396 00:18:24,333 --> 00:18:27,266 chemical compounds able to store and release energy 397 00:18:27,266 --> 00:18:30,866 as they pass from solid to liquid to vapor. 398 00:18:30,866 --> 00:18:34,566 In the lab, Telkes had recently been experimenting 399 00:18:34,566 --> 00:18:37,566 with a phase change chemical called Glauber salts, 400 00:18:37,566 --> 00:18:39,800 after the Hungarian scientist 401 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:42,733 who discovered them way back in the 17th century. 402 00:18:42,733 --> 00:18:45,566 ADDINGTON: Glauber salts are quite extraordinary. 403 00:18:45,566 --> 00:18:48,266 As they absorb the solar radiation from the sun, 404 00:18:48,266 --> 00:18:49,733 they liquify. 405 00:18:49,733 --> 00:18:52,833 If you wanted to sort of, like, use the heat from that, 406 00:18:52,833 --> 00:18:56,700 then you allowed them to solidify. 407 00:18:56,700 --> 00:18:59,733 NARRATOR: Telkes's recent tests suggested that the salts 408 00:18:59,733 --> 00:19:01,233 were much more efficient than water, 409 00:19:01,233 --> 00:19:03,366 and that they could potentially hold heat 410 00:19:03,366 --> 00:19:05,166 for more than a week at a time. 411 00:19:05,166 --> 00:19:07,800 She reasoned that they might be made to work 412 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:11,200 like a radiator and solar battery all in one. 413 00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,700 But something about her idea worried Hoyt Hottel. 414 00:19:14,700 --> 00:19:17,400 The salts were an unknown quantity, 415 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:19,733 and a new experiment would take staff and students 416 00:19:19,733 --> 00:19:23,366 away from other projects that he deemed more worthwhile. 417 00:19:23,366 --> 00:19:25,766 Underlying it all was the fact 418 00:19:25,766 --> 00:19:28,133 that he didn't buy into her vision. 419 00:19:28,133 --> 00:19:30,533 "A healthy pessimism," he once said, 420 00:19:30,533 --> 00:19:32,333 "is better than rosy optimism 421 00:19:32,333 --> 00:19:35,466 for approaching the problem of solar heating." 422 00:19:35,466 --> 00:19:37,866 MEIKLE: Hottel worried about whether Glauber salts 423 00:19:37,866 --> 00:19:40,266 will be useful or will work at all, 424 00:19:40,266 --> 00:19:43,466 but Mária Telkes is not somebody who's going to be told no. 425 00:19:43,466 --> 00:19:46,800 She is a woman who believes in her own abilities, 426 00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:49,433 and she's going to do whatever she can do 427 00:19:49,433 --> 00:19:50,866 to make that happen. 428 00:19:52,766 --> 00:19:54,366 NARRATOR: By the fall of 1946, 429 00:19:54,366 --> 00:19:56,633 Telkes had brought Hottel around 430 00:19:56,633 --> 00:19:59,466 and won his approval for a new structure, 431 00:19:59,466 --> 00:20:02,166 staking her reputation on the technology 432 00:20:02,166 --> 00:20:03,633 she'd been developing. 433 00:20:04,766 --> 00:20:06,700 More of a laboratory than a house, 434 00:20:06,700 --> 00:20:09,766 Solar Two abandoned its predecessor's homey façade 435 00:20:09,766 --> 00:20:13,433 for a wall of vertical solar collectors. 436 00:20:13,433 --> 00:20:15,466 Inside was a series of seven compartments, 437 00:20:15,466 --> 00:20:16,966 each behind a refrigerator door, 438 00:20:16,966 --> 00:20:19,266 each running a different trial, 439 00:20:19,266 --> 00:20:21,466 testing everything from construction materials 440 00:20:21,466 --> 00:20:23,600 to heat retention. 441 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:26,633 But there were problems from the start. 442 00:20:26,633 --> 00:20:28,300 BARBER: From the perspective of, 443 00:20:28,300 --> 00:20:30,700 say, rational, scientific experimentation, 444 00:20:30,700 --> 00:20:33,033 the project didn't really work. 445 00:20:33,033 --> 00:20:34,700 It leaked. 446 00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:37,733 It... the salt, the chemical solutions themselves leaked. 447 00:20:37,733 --> 00:20:40,300 The, the heating systems leaked, the refrigerator doors leaked. 448 00:20:40,300 --> 00:20:44,166 I mean, everything was a bit more leaky than, than desired 449 00:20:44,166 --> 00:20:46,633 to maintain good experimental conditions. 450 00:20:46,633 --> 00:20:49,900 NARRATOR: To Hottel, the leakiness and loss of heat 451 00:20:49,900 --> 00:20:52,233 were, in his words, "excessive," 452 00:20:52,233 --> 00:20:54,700 and he was unconvinced by the Glauber salts, 453 00:20:54,700 --> 00:20:58,133 which he concluded were more trouble than they were worth. 454 00:20:58,133 --> 00:21:01,466 MEIKLE: It's a major failure, but very much framed as 455 00:21:01,466 --> 00:21:03,933 her failure, not a team failure, 456 00:21:03,933 --> 00:21:07,800 and a particularly embarrassing failure, 457 00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:12,666 which, again, is, is... seems a very 458 00:21:12,666 --> 00:21:15,200 disproportionate response 459 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:19,433 to what is a pretty standard scientific failure, 460 00:21:19,433 --> 00:21:21,633 that, "We tried it, it didn't work-- next." 461 00:21:21,633 --> 00:21:25,533 NARRATOR: Hottel now believed he'd been proved right. 462 00:21:25,533 --> 00:21:28,533 And with the failure of Solar Two as ammunition, 463 00:21:28,533 --> 00:21:32,166 Telkes was removed from the solar project altogether. 464 00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:35,666 Yet she was undeterred. 465 00:21:35,666 --> 00:21:40,166 Being sidelined only entrenched her confidence in her own ideas. 466 00:21:40,166 --> 00:21:41,933 "Conservative engineers treat this subject 467 00:21:41,933 --> 00:21:45,400 with near derision," she remarked doggedly. 468 00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:47,966 "But sunlight will be used as a source of energy 469 00:21:47,966 --> 00:21:49,900 sooner or later." 470 00:21:49,900 --> 00:21:54,266 She had only one question: "Why wait?" 471 00:21:55,500 --> 00:22:00,400 (car engines puttering) 472 00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,500 In Boston, while Telkes was figuring out her next move, 473 00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:05,700 there was, on the other side of the city, 474 00:22:05,700 --> 00:22:08,466 an architect as unique in their field 475 00:22:08,466 --> 00:22:10,966 as Telkes was in hers. 476 00:22:10,966 --> 00:22:13,100 Her name was Eleanor Raymond. 477 00:22:13,100 --> 00:22:14,600 BARBER: Eleanor Raymond was 478 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,900 a woman who had built arguably the first modern-designed 479 00:22:18,900 --> 00:22:20,666 structure in the Northeast. 480 00:22:20,666 --> 00:22:23,600 She was not held back by the traditional styles 481 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:26,600 that were quite prevalent in New England at the time. 482 00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,166 She was an architect when women didn't do that. 483 00:22:29,166 --> 00:22:30,900 She was one of the first women 484 00:22:30,900 --> 00:22:32,733 to become an architect in Boston. 485 00:22:32,733 --> 00:22:36,000 And she was gay, as was generally acknowledged. 486 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,533 She had a full-time partner in the '40s. 487 00:22:38,533 --> 00:22:42,266 And so she was a groundbreaker in so many ways. 488 00:22:42,266 --> 00:22:45,400 HU: Eleanor Raymond was very much like Telkes, thinking about 489 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,166 innovation and making new things. 490 00:22:48,166 --> 00:22:50,800 She was already kind of pushing the boundaries 491 00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:52,200 of what a house could be. 492 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,666 NARRATOR: Back in 1940, Raymond had built a house 493 00:22:55,666 --> 00:22:57,533 made entirely of plywood. 494 00:22:57,533 --> 00:23:00,266 The first of its kind in the world, 495 00:23:00,266 --> 00:23:02,633 the experimental structure had been commissioned 496 00:23:02,633 --> 00:23:05,933 by Amelia Peabody, a wealthy Boston philanthropist 497 00:23:05,933 --> 00:23:08,100 whose support for innovative architecture 498 00:23:08,100 --> 00:23:10,966 was but one of her many passions. 499 00:23:10,966 --> 00:23:13,566 NEMETHY: Telkes had been searching for 500 00:23:13,566 --> 00:23:16,266 an "angel," that was the actual term that she used. 501 00:23:16,266 --> 00:23:20,633 She wanted to find an angel who was going to fund her efforts. 502 00:23:20,633 --> 00:23:23,933 She discovers Amelia Peabody, 503 00:23:23,933 --> 00:23:27,766 who had the wealth and the standing to sponsor projects. 504 00:23:27,766 --> 00:23:30,300 NARRATOR: There was money for the Boston Museum of Science, 505 00:23:30,300 --> 00:23:32,466 for new medical research, 506 00:23:32,466 --> 00:23:34,700 for injured military veterans, 507 00:23:34,700 --> 00:23:37,733 and for the renovation of the Old North Church. 508 00:23:37,733 --> 00:23:41,566 Now, in the summer of 1947, over at M.I.T., 509 00:23:41,566 --> 00:23:44,733 Telkes had been shunted off into the Metallurgy Department, 510 00:23:44,733 --> 00:23:47,966 but remained laser-focused. 511 00:23:47,966 --> 00:23:50,100 She was going to build a sun-heated home 512 00:23:50,100 --> 00:23:53,200 not for experimental data collection, 513 00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,766 but for an actual family to live in. 514 00:23:56,766 --> 00:24:00,200 MEIKLE: This is a completely new way of doing this. 515 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,333 This isn't a shed on the grounds of a university. 516 00:24:04,333 --> 00:24:07,866 This is a real test of the concept. 517 00:24:07,866 --> 00:24:10,266 It wasn't sort of following what you would consider 518 00:24:10,266 --> 00:24:14,133 to be the normative ways that we would fully test 519 00:24:14,133 --> 00:24:16,066 and fully develop, 520 00:24:16,066 --> 00:24:19,733 before sort of leaping into a technology 521 00:24:19,733 --> 00:24:22,866 that is actually meant to be in people's homes. 522 00:24:22,866 --> 00:24:25,466 NARRATOR: Without M.I.T.'s approval, 523 00:24:25,466 --> 00:24:27,866 Telkes wrote to Raymond and Peabody. 524 00:24:27,866 --> 00:24:30,300 At first, Peabody wasn't convinced. 525 00:24:30,300 --> 00:24:32,500 "There is little prospect of me building 526 00:24:32,500 --> 00:24:36,566 another house at present," she replied to Telkes in August. 527 00:24:36,566 --> 00:24:39,166 But then came the winter of 1947. 528 00:24:39,166 --> 00:24:42,000 As temperatures dropped 529 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,566 and a blizzard buried Boston in snow, distribution problems 530 00:24:45,566 --> 00:24:48,733 and labor unrest left the entire Northeast 531 00:24:48,733 --> 00:24:51,900 facing a crippling coal and heating oil shortage. 532 00:24:51,900 --> 00:24:53,700 BARBER: There was no heating oil 533 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:55,900 in a frigid winter, and you can imagine 534 00:24:55,900 --> 00:24:57,966 that people were not only cold, but also scared, 535 00:24:57,966 --> 00:24:59,333 and also wondering, 536 00:24:59,333 --> 00:25:00,900 what are we doing as a country? 537 00:25:00,900 --> 00:25:03,933 How are we going to sort of work ourselves through this 538 00:25:03,933 --> 00:25:05,966 kind of transition to the postwar world? 539 00:25:07,933 --> 00:25:10,400 NARRATOR: By early spring, as the crisis receded, 540 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:13,500 Telkes convinced Amelia Peabody to support 541 00:25:13,500 --> 00:25:16,100 the world's first solar-heated home. 542 00:25:16,100 --> 00:25:19,566 Raymond celebrated it as a "historic moment," 543 00:25:19,566 --> 00:25:21,366 adding in a letter to Telkes 544 00:25:21,366 --> 00:25:24,033 that it was a "thrilling time" for all. 545 00:25:24,033 --> 00:25:26,200 SHREVE-PRICE: Telkes realizes at M.I.T., 546 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,100 if everyone else isn't going to let you be part, 547 00:25:29,100 --> 00:25:31,700 you need to find kindred spirits. 548 00:25:31,700 --> 00:25:33,833 And they developed this sort of dream team, right? 549 00:25:33,833 --> 00:25:35,233 Of the engineer, the architect, 550 00:25:35,233 --> 00:25:36,466 and the funding source. 551 00:25:36,466 --> 00:25:39,100 I call them, like, this visionary troika, 552 00:25:39,100 --> 00:25:40,533 who, you know, got together 553 00:25:40,533 --> 00:25:42,900 to do something that nobody else had, had done. 554 00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:45,233 NARRATOR: Their plan was for a two-story, 555 00:25:45,233 --> 00:25:49,933 five-room dwelling, perfect for one postwar family. 556 00:25:49,933 --> 00:25:53,000 But nowhere in those 800 square feet 557 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,566 would there be any space whatsoever 558 00:25:56,566 --> 00:25:59,133 for a furnace. 559 00:26:02,166 --> 00:26:03,733 A few weeks later, 560 00:26:03,733 --> 00:26:06,966 Raymond drove Telkes through the countryside beyond Boston, 561 00:26:06,966 --> 00:26:09,466 studying their prospects before choosing a site 562 00:26:09,466 --> 00:26:11,833 on Peabody's sprawling 800-acre property 563 00:26:11,833 --> 00:26:14,000 in Dover, Massachusetts. 564 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:18,333 Come summer, Raymond invited Telkes 565 00:26:18,333 --> 00:26:20,466 out to her house on the coast in Gloucester. 566 00:26:20,466 --> 00:26:24,066 "We had an entertaining time," Raymond wrote in her diary, 567 00:26:24,066 --> 00:26:28,400 but with Telkes around, it was all science, all the time. 568 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,600 "A versatile lady," Raymond concluded, 569 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,966 "and an amusing one-- in small doses." 570 00:26:33,966 --> 00:26:35,766 She was very entertaining, 571 00:26:35,766 --> 00:26:39,333 but she was a woman who wanted to be the center of attention. 572 00:26:39,333 --> 00:26:40,700 And you might say she was 573 00:26:40,700 --> 00:26:42,533 unsteerable away from her vision. 574 00:26:42,533 --> 00:26:44,266 People didn't know what to make of her. 575 00:26:44,266 --> 00:26:46,966 Mária had a few idiosyncrasies. 576 00:26:46,966 --> 00:26:49,400 Her mind was somewhere else, 577 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,800 it was not on these everyday things. 578 00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,466 She did not cook, she did not sew. 579 00:26:54,466 --> 00:26:59,700 She was visionary, and thinking about projects and problems, 580 00:26:59,700 --> 00:27:02,000 and the other things didn't matter. 581 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,766 NARRATOR: Now, with construction underway, 582 00:27:05,766 --> 00:27:07,166 Telkes could hardly wait, 583 00:27:07,166 --> 00:27:10,166 suggesting to Raymond that a "speeding-up spell" 584 00:27:10,166 --> 00:27:12,933 be used when the slightest delay was encountered. 585 00:27:12,933 --> 00:27:15,766 Built by a team of local carpenters 586 00:27:15,766 --> 00:27:17,366 out of strange and new materials, 587 00:27:17,366 --> 00:27:21,233 the Dover Sun House was designed to be different from the start. 588 00:27:21,233 --> 00:27:24,366 NEMETHY: It was unusual and radical. 589 00:27:24,366 --> 00:27:27,600 So everything about that house was 590 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,766 sort of created out of whole cloth. 591 00:27:29,766 --> 00:27:33,400 NARRATOR: Finally completed in November 1948, 592 00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,000 and painted red to match the average New England barn, 593 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:38,300 Raymond arranged for 594 00:27:38,300 --> 00:27:40,600 a group of students from a local women's college 595 00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:42,533 to do the interior design. 596 00:27:42,533 --> 00:27:45,433 Even the new age furnishings were meant to prove 597 00:27:45,433 --> 00:27:46,666 beyond a doubt 598 00:27:46,666 --> 00:27:50,700 that this was the house of the future. 599 00:27:50,700 --> 00:27:53,033 Now only one thing was missing. 600 00:27:53,033 --> 00:27:56,100 The boldest solar experiment ever attempted 601 00:27:56,100 --> 00:27:59,000 officially launched when, on Christmas Eve, 602 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,800 a family of three showed up and moved in. 603 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,900 Their arrival at the Dover Sun House 604 00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:08,733 was practically a miracle in and of itself. 605 00:28:08,733 --> 00:28:10,733 NEMETHY: Mária was a second cousin of my father, 606 00:28:10,733 --> 00:28:13,233 but I don't know that they knew each other 607 00:28:13,233 --> 00:28:14,633 very well. 608 00:28:14,633 --> 00:28:17,766 My parents fled Hungary when the war ended 609 00:28:17,766 --> 00:28:20,166 and the Soviet soldiers started coming. 610 00:28:20,166 --> 00:28:22,966 We were one of the last people to get across the border 611 00:28:22,966 --> 00:28:24,600 before the border closed. 612 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:25,800 Mária must have learned 613 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,466 that we were here in the United States. 614 00:28:28,466 --> 00:28:31,733 She was a very savvy PR woman and she may have 615 00:28:31,733 --> 00:28:34,100 realized it was a savvy marketing maneuver. 616 00:28:34,100 --> 00:28:36,566 That was part of why she selected us 617 00:28:36,566 --> 00:28:38,566 to live in the house. 618 00:28:38,566 --> 00:28:39,966 My parents, coming to a new country, 619 00:28:39,966 --> 00:28:41,466 but I can only imagine what they thought, 620 00:28:41,466 --> 00:28:43,000 "We're gonna live in a solar house." (laughs) 621 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,100 "Okay, what is a solar house?" 622 00:28:45,100 --> 00:28:48,566 SHREVE-PRICE: For Telkes, it's a pretty ambitious idea 623 00:28:48,566 --> 00:28:49,900 that you are going to 624 00:28:49,900 --> 00:28:53,900 put a family with a little kid into this house 625 00:28:53,900 --> 00:28:55,900 with this technology that maybe works, 626 00:28:55,900 --> 00:28:57,466 but you don't know for sure. 627 00:28:57,466 --> 00:29:00,400 And so it's, it's not just an experiment in, 628 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,600 do these salts work? 629 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,633 It's an experiment in, is this a nice way to live? 630 00:29:06,633 --> 00:29:08,200 ♪ ♪ 631 00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:09,566 NARRATOR: On the inside, 632 00:29:09,566 --> 00:29:11,833 there was the part of the house for the Nemethys, 633 00:29:11,833 --> 00:29:14,133 with vast windows and a lovely kitchen. 634 00:29:14,133 --> 00:29:17,300 And then, barely concealed, 635 00:29:17,300 --> 00:29:19,333 there was the tech: 636 00:29:19,333 --> 00:29:21,133 large stores of Glauber salts, 637 00:29:21,133 --> 00:29:24,966 some 4,275 gallons in all, 638 00:29:24,966 --> 00:29:27,233 that worked without a peep, a hiss, or a hum, 639 00:29:27,233 --> 00:29:29,633 mostly behind the scenes. 640 00:29:29,633 --> 00:29:30,866 NEMETHY: The upper floor 641 00:29:30,866 --> 00:29:33,533 was almost entirely the heating system. 642 00:29:33,533 --> 00:29:35,633 So these big windows, which are 12 feet tall. 643 00:29:35,633 --> 00:29:39,300 And then all this ducting that would collect the heat 644 00:29:39,300 --> 00:29:42,233 and then blow it down into the cans of Glauber salts. 645 00:29:42,233 --> 00:29:43,533 ADDINGTON: These salts, they'd absorb 646 00:29:43,533 --> 00:29:45,666 the heat from the sun, they liquify. 647 00:29:45,666 --> 00:29:49,200 And they would sit there in that molten phase. 648 00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,300 The way that it released the heat, 649 00:29:51,300 --> 00:29:53,333 you'd have air blowing across the salts, 650 00:29:53,333 --> 00:29:56,200 and when they solidified, they gave up their heat. 651 00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,333 If you don't want the heat, the air is shut off. 652 00:29:58,333 --> 00:30:01,300 That part, very, very simple type of system. 653 00:30:01,300 --> 00:30:03,300   NARRATOR: The Nemethys, meanwhile, 654 00:30:03,300 --> 00:30:05,800 were to track every minor modulation. 655 00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:06,900 MEIKLE: Telkes says, 656 00:30:06,900 --> 00:30:08,633 "You're going to be the guinea pigs, 657 00:30:08,633 --> 00:30:10,333 "but you're also going to be the scientists. 658 00:30:10,333 --> 00:30:13,300   "You're going to be monitoring all of the progress, 659 00:30:13,300 --> 00:30:14,933 "giving us all of the information, 660 00:30:14,933 --> 00:30:16,233 "all of the data that we need. 661 00:30:16,233 --> 00:30:17,466 "What's the temperature every day? 662 00:30:17,466 --> 00:30:18,966 How is everything working?" 663 00:30:18,966 --> 00:30:20,800 I think my father sort of enjoyed it. 664 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:22,166 I mean, he knew a lot about it. 665 00:30:22,166 --> 00:30:24,766 He got down into the nitty-gritty of 666 00:30:24,766 --> 00:30:27,633 the temperature and the angle of the sun. 667 00:30:27,633 --> 00:30:29,733 It gave him, probably, a sense of purpose. 668 00:30:29,733 --> 00:30:33,400 NARRATOR: Despite the dreadful New England weather, 669 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,133 this time, Telkes's gamble paid off. 670 00:30:36,133 --> 00:30:38,700 "When the door opened," Raymond remembered, 671 00:30:38,700 --> 00:30:41,333 "I was greeted with a flood of warm air that I knew had to 672 00:30:41,333 --> 00:30:43,233 "have come only from the sun, 673 00:30:43,233 --> 00:30:45,900 and that was really thrilling." 674 00:30:45,900 --> 00:30:47,466 By March, 675 00:30:47,466 --> 00:30:51,633 the little family had made it through the worst of winter-- 676 00:30:51,633 --> 00:30:55,133 all without a single drop of oil. 677 00:30:55,133 --> 00:30:57,933 Every day, I send you a thousand times 678 00:30:57,933 --> 00:31:00,400 more power than you use in a year. 679 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,733 Anybody working on getting power direct from 680 00:31:02,733 --> 00:31:04,400 Ol' Blowhard here? 681 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:05,900 (laughs) Oh, yes, but not nearly enough. 682 00:31:05,900 --> 00:31:07,933 There's other important research 683 00:31:07,933 --> 00:31:09,900 in changing sunlight into power. 684 00:31:09,900 --> 00:31:13,466 (continues): Dr. Mária Telkes has designed a model house in Massachusetts 685 00:31:13,466 --> 00:31:15,700 in which solar heat is ingeniously collected, 686 00:31:15,700 --> 00:31:20,033 stored, and distributed throughout the whole house. 687 00:31:20,033 --> 00:31:22,533 NARRATOR: Practically overnight, the Dover Sun House had become 688 00:31:22,533 --> 00:31:25,300 one of the most famous buildings in the country. 689 00:31:25,300 --> 00:31:28,800 "The house is so different," the "Boston Globe" admitted, 690 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,200 "that you would not, on first sight, take it to be a dwelling. 691 00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,633 "But right now, it is probably the most 692 00:31:33,633 --> 00:31:35,633 important house in the temperate zone." 693 00:31:35,633 --> 00:31:36,900 SHREVE-PRICE: The Dover Sun House 694 00:31:36,900 --> 00:31:39,633 is really built with publicity in mind. 695 00:31:39,633 --> 00:31:41,633 It's an experiment, 696 00:31:41,633 --> 00:31:44,866 but it's an experiment for the world to see. 697 00:31:44,866 --> 00:31:45,933 NARRATOR: First came the press, 698 00:31:45,933 --> 00:31:49,333 then the eager onlookers. 699 00:31:49,333 --> 00:31:50,800 NEMETHY: On Wednesdays and on Sundays, 700 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,300 from 2:00 to 5:00, 701 00:31:52,300 --> 00:31:53,766 we would give tours of the house. 702 00:31:53,766 --> 00:31:56,666 So we had to have the house nice and neat and clean. 703 00:31:56,666 --> 00:31:58,200 We would open up the house and the people would come in 704 00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:00,766 and my father would answer questions, 705 00:32:00,766 --> 00:32:02,866 and then they would look at my mother smiling, 706 00:32:02,866 --> 00:32:04,800 as she had a great smile and was very personable. 707 00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,000 So, you know, for three hours, it was a little bit like 708 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:09,366 living in a fish bowl. 709 00:32:09,366 --> 00:32:11,700 The house was closed at 5:00, but my father once 710 00:32:11,700 --> 00:32:13,133 told a story about 711 00:32:13,133 --> 00:32:15,433 people who were up in the attic where they could see 712 00:32:15,433 --> 00:32:17,333 where all the solar panels were. 713 00:32:17,333 --> 00:32:18,866 (chuckling): And they were still up there 714 00:32:18,866 --> 00:32:20,333 after, after the tour had closed. 715 00:32:20,333 --> 00:32:23,600 NARRATOR: From January through August 1949, 716 00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,966 more than 3,000 people trekked to Dover. 717 00:32:25,966 --> 00:32:28,166 Increasingly, Telkes herself was at 718 00:32:28,166 --> 00:32:30,200 the center of the media frenzy. 719 00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:34,533 NEMETHY: I'm not surprised that that happened. 720 00:32:34,533 --> 00:32:37,600 Mária was exotic, partly because of her accent, 721 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,433 partly because she was attractive, she was vivacious, 722 00:32:41,433 --> 00:32:43,700 and she was a tremendous promoter. 723 00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:47,533 ♪ ♪ 724 00:32:47,533 --> 00:32:49,566 MEIKLE: She's not just a scientist. 725 00:32:49,566 --> 00:32:53,766 She's glamorous, she's entertaining, she's fun. 726 00:32:53,766 --> 00:32:57,300 A lot of the society writers, especially, will describe her as 727 00:32:57,300 --> 00:33:01,266 a "stunning blonde Hungarian scientist" 728 00:33:01,266 --> 00:33:05,566 or a "stunning auburn Hungarian scientist." 729 00:33:05,566 --> 00:33:09,733 So it's very telling to see how she is talked about, 730 00:33:09,733 --> 00:33:12,633 but at the same time, she was going to use 731 00:33:12,633 --> 00:33:15,266 that attention to move the project forward. 732 00:33:15,266 --> 00:33:18,033 NARRATOR: Over the next three years, Telkes continued 733 00:33:18,033 --> 00:33:21,000 to make headlines, this time with the culmination 734 00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,333 of her wartime research: 735 00:33:22,333 --> 00:33:25,800 a solar desalinator over 50 feet long 736 00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,366 that could churn out 44 gallons of drinking water a day. 737 00:33:29,366 --> 00:33:32,400 Then, in Chicago in 1952, 738 00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,033 Telkes won the inaugural award 739 00:33:34,033 --> 00:33:36,000 from the Society of Women Engineers, 740 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,200 and her work was celebrated at the Statler Hotel. 741 00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,433 Next came an honorary degree from St. Joseph's College. 742 00:33:43,433 --> 00:33:48,700 By now, Telkes's fame extended well beyond the United States. 743 00:33:48,700 --> 00:33:51,033 NEMETHY: My parents had a clipping service, 744 00:33:51,033 --> 00:33:53,233 so any time Mária Telkes showed up anywhere, 745 00:33:53,233 --> 00:33:54,433 we were sent clippings. 746 00:33:54,433 --> 00:33:57,566 We got them from the "Hindustan Times," 747 00:33:57,566 --> 00:33:58,966 we got them from German newspapers, 748 00:33:58,966 --> 00:34:02,233 we got them from all around the world. 749 00:34:02,233 --> 00:34:04,233 MEIKLE: She acquires one of my favorite nicknames, 750 00:34:04,233 --> 00:34:07,600 the Sun Queen, which is such a good example 751 00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,000 of her interaction with the public, right? 752 00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,966 If you have someone named the Sun Queen 753 00:34:11,966 --> 00:34:14,633 talking to you about solar power, 754 00:34:14,633 --> 00:34:16,500 it just got way more exciting. 755 00:34:16,500 --> 00:34:20,500 (rain pelting) 756 00:34:20,500 --> 00:34:22,433 NARRATOR: Meanwhile, back in Boston, 757 00:34:22,433 --> 00:34:26,466 the M.I.T. solar project had been operating for 14 years, 758 00:34:26,466 --> 00:34:29,200 with three experimental houses, 759 00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:31,100 but not much discovered. 760 00:34:31,100 --> 00:34:34,766 And now, Hoyt Hottel had had to watch as Telkes's 761 00:34:34,766 --> 00:34:38,700 private project captured the imagination of the world. 762 00:34:38,700 --> 00:34:41,900 MEIKLE: Everyone is thrilled about the Dover Sun House 763 00:34:41,900 --> 00:34:44,733 except the men at M.I.T. 764 00:34:44,733 --> 00:34:47,900 Even though this is not affiliated with M.I.T., 765 00:34:47,900 --> 00:34:49,100 they are furious 766 00:34:49,100 --> 00:34:51,233 that she is getting attention for it, 767 00:34:51,233 --> 00:34:54,200 and the way they're talking about it in letters 768 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,200 behind the scenes is really illustrative. 769 00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,133 There's a lot of use of words like, 770 00:34:59,133 --> 00:35:01,200 "She refuses to submit." 771 00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,033 "She won't be controlled." 772 00:35:04,033 --> 00:35:06,733 SHREVE-PRICE: "She is too aggressive." 773 00:35:06,733 --> 00:35:09,900 "She is pushy." 774 00:35:09,900 --> 00:35:13,100 Essentially, it reads like the problem is 775 00:35:13,100 --> 00:35:14,566 that she is an assertive woman, 776 00:35:14,566 --> 00:35:18,866 and there is just no forgiving her for that. 777 00:35:18,866 --> 00:35:22,300 NARRATOR: On June 30, 1953, 778 00:35:22,300 --> 00:35:25,466 Mária Telkes was fired from M.I.T. 779 00:35:25,466 --> 00:35:29,166 The report which had led to her termination concluded, 780 00:35:29,166 --> 00:35:32,366 "It is hoped that the Telkes incident 781 00:35:32,366 --> 00:35:35,000 is now effectively closed." 782 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,833 SHREVE-PRICE: To be assertive enough to have any success 783 00:35:39,833 --> 00:35:44,200 in this world that is dead set on not encouraging 784 00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:48,033 people like you to do the things that you do, 785 00:35:48,033 --> 00:35:50,800 how could you get anywhere in that world 786 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:57,633 and not be labeled a troublesome woman? 787 00:36:00,133 --> 00:36:01,533 (people clapping in rhythm) 788 00:36:01,533 --> 00:36:04,300 (audience clapping in rhythm, drum beating) 789 00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:11,733 (band playing) 790 00:36:11,733 --> 00:36:14,300 WOMAN: Now, the dream of tomorrow! 791 00:36:14,300 --> 00:36:16,600 (music continues) 792 00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,466 NARRATOR: By the early 1950s, postwar scarcities were over 793 00:36:20,466 --> 00:36:23,133 and Americans were being told that the space-age future 794 00:36:23,133 --> 00:36:24,633 they'd been promised was close at hand. 795 00:36:24,633 --> 00:36:28,900 The veterans of World War II were now starting families. 796 00:36:28,900 --> 00:36:31,900 They were buying new houses and new cars, 797 00:36:31,900 --> 00:36:33,533 and absolutely everything in between. 798 00:36:33,533 --> 00:36:35,966 ROME: There's this tremendous push 799 00:36:35,966 --> 00:36:38,033 for mass-produced house stuff. 800 00:36:38,033 --> 00:36:40,300 I call it the suburban- industrial complex, 801 00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:43,000 that once you own a home, you're going to buy 802 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,366 a zillion other things, 803 00:36:44,366 --> 00:36:48,333 from appliances for the kitchen to lawnmowers. 804 00:36:48,333 --> 00:36:50,700 It goes on and on and on. 805 00:36:50,700 --> 00:36:52,500 BARBER: The postwar period was one where 806 00:36:52,500 --> 00:36:53,733 the consumption of everything 807 00:36:53,733 --> 00:36:55,066 just exploded, right? 808 00:36:55,066 --> 00:36:56,366 I mean, just shot straight up. 809 00:36:56,366 --> 00:36:58,700 FILM NARRATOR: You'll find a scene like this 810 00:36:58,700 --> 00:37:01,333 in nearly every village, town, and city 811 00:37:01,333 --> 00:37:03,266 throughout the country. 812 00:37:03,266 --> 00:37:06,466 SHREVE-PRICE: In the 1950s, you lived this life of postwar ease. 813 00:37:06,466 --> 00:37:12,100 And so in a world of abundance, consuming inefficiently 814 00:37:12,100 --> 00:37:15,133 becomes part of being American. 815 00:37:15,133 --> 00:37:17,633 ♪ ♪ 816 00:37:17,633 --> 00:37:21,533 NARRATOR: American was at a crossroads, and Mária Telkes forged ahead 817 00:37:21,533 --> 00:37:24,133 on her own distinctly different path. 818 00:37:24,133 --> 00:37:27,800 In the fall of 1953, she left Boston, 819 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,166 and found a new position at New York University, 820 00:37:30,166 --> 00:37:32,366 as well as a welcome distraction 821 00:37:32,366 --> 00:37:34,766 in the form of a brand-new challenge. 822 00:37:34,766 --> 00:37:37,166 FILM NARRATOR: Here on the campus of New York University, 823 00:37:37,166 --> 00:37:39,500 Dr. Telkes and a student assistant 824 00:37:39,500 --> 00:37:42,400 bring the solar stove outdoors to a sunlit location. 825 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,000 Both the simplicity and light weight of the stove 826 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,466 are apparent. 827 00:37:45,466 --> 00:37:48,866 NARRATOR: Able to reach temperatures of 400 degrees 828 00:37:48,866 --> 00:37:51,166 and costing only four dollars, 829 00:37:51,166 --> 00:37:53,700 the Telkes oven was small enough to carry, 830 00:37:53,700 --> 00:37:56,500 yet could cook a complete dinner for a family of four. 831 00:37:56,500 --> 00:38:01,766 By her side was her new research associate, Stella Andrássy. 832 00:38:01,766 --> 00:38:04,866 OLGYAY: Stella Andrássy was my grandmother. 833 00:38:04,866 --> 00:38:07,766 She was the one who would do field trials with these things, 834 00:38:07,766 --> 00:38:10,933 then come back and give Mária feedback on it. 835 00:38:10,933 --> 00:38:13,766 And they'd work on it, try another design. 836 00:38:13,766 --> 00:38:18,300 I remember being by the swimming pool, my grandparents' house, 837 00:38:18,300 --> 00:38:22,166 and my grandmother making dinner made from the solar stove. 838 00:38:22,166 --> 00:38:23,833 Everything would be cooking while we were 839 00:38:23,833 --> 00:38:26,000 in the swimming pool, swimming around. 840 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,633 NARRATOR: Solar oven devotees could even turn to a cookbook, 841 00:38:29,633 --> 00:38:32,300 written by Andrássy herself. 842 00:38:32,300 --> 00:38:34,933 There were recipes for sun-baked chicken 843 00:38:34,933 --> 00:38:38,633 and soupe soleil and peach pie. 844 00:38:38,633 --> 00:38:41,233 Telkes, meanwhile, did her best to capture 845 00:38:41,233 --> 00:38:42,966 the attention of the press. 846 00:38:42,966 --> 00:38:44,866 "Everything," she told one reporter, 847 00:38:44,866 --> 00:38:48,333 "seems to taste so much better when it is cooked by the sun." 848 00:38:48,333 --> 00:38:52,066 And she'd tell anyone who'd listen that the solar oven 849 00:38:52,066 --> 00:38:55,533 was designed to change the world. 850 00:38:55,533 --> 00:38:56,833 BARBER: Telkes realizes 851 00:38:56,833 --> 00:38:59,800 what technological innovation can do 852 00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:02,433 is not provide some sleek, beautiful car 853 00:39:02,433 --> 00:39:03,733 for the rich and famous. 854 00:39:03,733 --> 00:39:06,466 What technology can do is dramatically improve 855 00:39:06,466 --> 00:39:08,333 quality of life, and especially for those 856 00:39:08,333 --> 00:39:11,333 who have fewer capacities to do that on their own. 857 00:39:11,333 --> 00:39:15,200 Of course, the stove is not for the regions where you have gas 858 00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,100 or electricity freely available. 859 00:39:18,100 --> 00:39:20,466 This is primarily for the tropics. 860 00:39:20,466 --> 00:39:25,766 Stoves such as this would be available at a very low cost. 861 00:39:25,766 --> 00:39:28,466 People may have a new lease on life 862 00:39:28,466 --> 00:39:31,333 and improve their civilization. 863 00:39:31,333 --> 00:39:34,100 ADDINGTON: Telkes continues to demonstrate 864 00:39:34,100 --> 00:39:36,566 her deep care for humanity. 865 00:39:36,566 --> 00:39:40,833 She really imagined this as revolutionizing 866 00:39:40,833 --> 00:39:42,633 the way that people lived. 867 00:39:42,633 --> 00:39:47,133 NARRATOR: Now, in November 1955, 868 00:39:47,133 --> 00:39:50,600 Telkes was off to Arizona, stove in tow. 869 00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,600 She was joining 1,000 other scientists 870 00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,100 from 35 countries for the first-ever 871 00:39:57,100 --> 00:40:00,633 World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy. 872 00:40:00,633 --> 00:40:06,466 The theme was "The Sun at Work," and the mood was ebullient. 873 00:40:06,466 --> 00:40:08,366 "Remember when people were worrying about 874 00:40:08,366 --> 00:40:10,966 running out of fuel?" one journalist enthused. 875 00:40:10,966 --> 00:40:14,300 "Now the prospect is that there will be more power 876 00:40:14,300 --> 00:40:16,766 at hand for as long as life exists on Earth." 877 00:40:16,766 --> 00:40:21,100 There were enough solar gizmos to fill a fairground-- 878 00:40:21,100 --> 00:40:23,433 everything from a solar telephone from Georgia 879 00:40:23,433 --> 00:40:26,266 to a solar car engine from Italy. 880 00:40:26,266 --> 00:40:29,566 Telkes met with colleagues from solar research programs 881 00:40:29,566 --> 00:40:34,300 recently started in Minnesota, Wisconsin, France, and Israel-- 882 00:40:34,300 --> 00:40:38,200 and old friends were there as well. 883 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:39,900 It was inevitable that Hoyt Hottel 884 00:40:39,900 --> 00:40:42,333 and Telkes would eventually cross paths, 885 00:40:42,333 --> 00:40:44,466 as they did now under the desert sun. 886 00:40:44,466 --> 00:40:47,900 But as Hottel gave his lecture on solar heating, 887 00:40:47,900 --> 00:40:51,133 it was what he left unsaid that could have changed the world. 888 00:40:51,133 --> 00:40:55,266 Recently, the federal government had come to M.I.T. 889 00:40:55,266 --> 00:40:58,800 with a request for help with an unprecedented new venture. 890 00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,200 They wanted to build an all-solar neighborhood, 891 00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,200 something to show the world, 892 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,800 and to trial the technology on a bigger stage. 893 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,466 But Hottel was dubious. 894 00:41:10,466 --> 00:41:12,100 Hoyt Hottel built his whole identity, 895 00:41:12,100 --> 00:41:15,833 his whole reputation, around thinking stuff wouldn't work, 896 00:41:15,833 --> 00:41:19,733 and loudly being the voice of skepticism 897 00:41:19,733 --> 00:41:22,766 on project that he's supposed to be championing. 898 00:41:22,766 --> 00:41:26,533 NARRATOR: And there was something else feeding his apprehension. 899 00:41:26,533 --> 00:41:30,466 Telkes had been involved in the inception of the idea, 900 00:41:30,466 --> 00:41:32,500 and Hottel was well aware that he'd need to 901 00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:35,766 work with her again if they were now to attempt it. 902 00:41:35,766 --> 00:41:38,466 And so he turned it down. 903 00:41:38,466 --> 00:41:41,733 "Our team," stated the reply, 904 00:41:41,733 --> 00:41:43,833 "does not feel ready for demonstration housing." 905 00:41:45,133 --> 00:41:48,200 SHREVE-PRICE: A neighborhood built with government backing? 906 00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,666 What kind of an opportunity would that have been? 907 00:41:51,666 --> 00:41:54,033 It just breaks your heart to think 908 00:41:54,033 --> 00:41:57,366 that he would turn this down 909 00:41:57,366 --> 00:42:01,866 specifically because he didn't want her involved. 910 00:42:01,866 --> 00:42:05,033 (people talking in background) 911 00:42:05,033 --> 00:42:07,300 NARRATOR: Despite the setbacks and the roadblocks, 912 00:42:07,300 --> 00:42:11,133 Telkes remained steadfast in her belief in a solar future. 913 00:42:11,133 --> 00:42:14,400 As the years rolled on, Mária Telkes's 914 00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:18,133 "solar life," as she called it, became increasingly nomadic. 915 00:42:18,133 --> 00:42:22,700 She moved to Princeton, then Virginia, then Delaware. 916 00:42:22,700 --> 00:42:24,766 Everywhere, she continued to push 917 00:42:24,766 --> 00:42:28,100 her vision of solar-heated homes for the masses. 918 00:42:28,100 --> 00:42:31,366 She actually talked about mass-producing solar houses, 919 00:42:31,366 --> 00:42:33,900 which was, you know, considered probably 920 00:42:33,900 --> 00:42:36,566 a very radical and, and bizarre idea then. 921 00:42:36,566 --> 00:42:38,566   NARRATOR: She put together a pitch 922 00:42:38,566 --> 00:42:41,100 for the production of a solar house that would cost 923 00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:45,100 only $10,000 and could be prefabricated in great numbers. 924 00:42:45,100 --> 00:42:47,466 "All of the people with whom I have discussed 925 00:42:47,466 --> 00:42:49,933 the house expressed a great deal of interest," 926 00:42:49,933 --> 00:42:51,833 one construction company responded, 927 00:42:51,833 --> 00:42:53,866 "but the cost of the solar equipment 928 00:42:53,866 --> 00:42:56,366 scared everyone to death." 929 00:42:56,366 --> 00:42:58,900 It's just another example of how she really was 930 00:42:58,900 --> 00:43:00,333 kind of indomitable. 931 00:43:00,333 --> 00:43:01,900 She said, "Fine. 932 00:43:01,900 --> 00:43:04,633 "I will go find other places to do this, 933 00:43:04,633 --> 00:43:08,533 "I will find other ways to pursue these things 934 00:43:08,533 --> 00:43:10,633 that I think could be important." 935 00:43:10,633 --> 00:43:15,166 NARRATOR: She would go on to develop solar houses for private industry, 936 00:43:15,166 --> 00:43:17,633 and, later, the University of Delaware. 937 00:43:17,633 --> 00:43:19,466 And through it all, she kept in touch with 938 00:43:19,466 --> 00:43:21,433 Eleanor Raymond and Amelia Peabody, 939 00:43:21,433 --> 00:43:25,300 sending them copies of her latest research papers, 940 00:43:25,300 --> 00:43:26,900 and briefing them on her newest plans 941 00:43:26,900 --> 00:43:28,033 for putting the sun to work. 942 00:43:28,033 --> 00:43:30,400 ♪ ♪ 943 00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:32,966 But as Telkes looked to the future, 944 00:43:32,966 --> 00:43:35,700 in Dover, the dream had begun to crumble. 945 00:43:35,700 --> 00:43:38,733 As the radical little Sun House neared 946 00:43:38,733 --> 00:43:40,966 its sixth birthday, problems had emerged 947 00:43:40,966 --> 00:43:43,333 that were increasingly impossible to ignore. 948 00:43:43,333 --> 00:43:45,966 Twice already, the solar collector 949 00:43:45,966 --> 00:43:50,933 had had to be completely rebuilt, and that wasn't all. 950 00:43:50,933 --> 00:43:53,200 My mother called up and said, "We're freezing in here." 951 00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,800 And so they gave us some electric heaters 952 00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,533 that we ran, and when the people came 953 00:43:58,533 --> 00:44:00,033 in to tour the house, we hid the electric heaters. 954 00:44:00,033 --> 00:44:01,933 That was the reality of it. 955 00:44:01,933 --> 00:44:06,266 ADDINGTON: There were a lot of moving parts that were subject to failure. 956 00:44:06,266 --> 00:44:08,333 And unfortunately, many of them failed. 957 00:44:08,333 --> 00:44:10,600 There was corrosion in the materials. 958 00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,066 There was a lot of difficulty with the glazing systems. 959 00:44:14,066 --> 00:44:17,433 The concepts were spot on. 960 00:44:17,433 --> 00:44:19,566 The, the ideas were absolutely brilliant. 961 00:44:19,566 --> 00:44:21,766   But once these systems started failing, 962 00:44:21,766 --> 00:44:23,600 it couldn't heat the house. 963 00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:28,366 NARRATOR: Finally, Amelia Peabody wrote to Telkes to give her the news. 964 00:44:28,366 --> 00:44:31,066 She was going to install a furnace. 965 00:44:31,066 --> 00:44:35,200 "I am sure that this will be a blow to you," she wrote, 966 00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:37,933 "but I don't think it's doing the reputation of the house 967 00:44:37,933 --> 00:44:41,766 "any good to have it so cold that it is unlivable. 968 00:44:41,766 --> 00:44:44,866 The experiment is over." 969 00:44:44,866 --> 00:44:46,566 NEMETHY: My mother was interviewed 970 00:44:46,566 --> 00:44:50,466 for a book about what it was like to live in the house, 971 00:44:50,466 --> 00:44:53,433 and she told the truth, which was, after a few years, 972 00:44:53,433 --> 00:44:54,833 it was not working very well. 973 00:44:54,833 --> 00:44:59,933 Mária basically upbraided my mother for telling that story 974 00:44:59,933 --> 00:45:04,300 and, uh, she cut off, you know, contact with my parents. 975 00:45:07,333 --> 00:45:08,866 NARRATOR: But Telkes refused to see 976 00:45:08,866 --> 00:45:11,266 the end of the experiment as a failure. 977 00:45:11,266 --> 00:45:12,966 She kept working on refinements, 978 00:45:12,966 --> 00:45:16,400 kept trying to recapture the attention of the press. 979 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,100 BARBER: She was disappointed 980 00:45:18,100 --> 00:45:20,033 and spent a lot of time and, and wrote a bunch of articles 981 00:45:20,033 --> 00:45:22,166 arguing that, in fact, it was a success, 982 00:45:22,166 --> 00:45:24,000 and here's all the reasons why, 983 00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,766 and the sort of things that were figured out. 984 00:45:25,766 --> 00:45:27,133 ADDINGTON: She believed she was right, 985 00:45:27,133 --> 00:45:29,433 and she believed she had an answer, 986 00:45:29,433 --> 00:45:30,966 and she believed it was heroic. 987 00:45:30,966 --> 00:45:37,633 And it's hard to dislodge people off those train tracks. 988 00:45:37,633 --> 00:45:40,033 NARRATOR: But the reality was even harder 989 00:45:40,033 --> 00:45:43,300 to stomach than the failure of the Dover house. 990 00:45:43,300 --> 00:45:46,433 The structure had been designed to be the poster child 991 00:45:46,433 --> 00:45:48,233 of the solar revolution. 992 00:45:48,233 --> 00:45:53,266 The fallout augured poorly for that future. 993 00:45:53,266 --> 00:45:55,833 ADDINGTON: Architecture took this hard turn 994 00:45:55,833 --> 00:45:58,833 away from solar technologies. 995 00:45:58,833 --> 00:46:01,966 For decades, uh, architects did not want to touch 996 00:46:01,966 --> 00:46:05,600 anything that involved a solar technology. 997 00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,366 They remembered it as, as failures, 998 00:46:08,366 --> 00:46:10,600 uh, as systems that, that didn't deliver 999 00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:11,966 what they were supposed to deliver. 1000 00:46:11,966 --> 00:46:15,700 More than any other solar experiment, 1001 00:46:15,700 --> 00:46:19,900 nothing else would even get close to the Dover Sun House 1002 00:46:19,900 --> 00:46:22,200 in terms of media coverage. 1003 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,266 The double-edged sword is, if there is a failure, 1004 00:46:25,266 --> 00:46:27,233 there is just no forgiving that. 1005 00:46:27,233 --> 00:46:31,700 NARRATION: The bad news about America's most famous solar house 1006 00:46:31,700 --> 00:46:33,733 came at the worst possible time. 1007 00:46:33,733 --> 00:46:36,733 The American economy was roaring, 1008 00:46:36,733 --> 00:46:39,966 and all that growth required an entirely different 1009 00:46:39,966 --> 00:46:43,233 source of power, one that was already close at hand. 1010 00:46:43,233 --> 00:46:46,000 ♪ ♪ 1011 00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:47,900 ROME: In the '50s, energy becomes the most abundant 1012 00:46:47,900 --> 00:46:50,100 and cheapest in American history. 1013 00:46:50,100 --> 00:46:52,633 We have a whole new petroleum economy. 1014 00:46:52,633 --> 00:46:55,933 NARRATOR: New technologies, new politics, 1015 00:46:55,933 --> 00:46:59,200 and the recent opening of the oil fields of the Middle East 1016 00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,233 so oversupplied the United States, 1017 00:47:01,233 --> 00:47:03,600 that petroleum was now in everything-- 1018 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,633 from paint to pesticides. 1019 00:47:06,633 --> 00:47:08,866 BARBER: We were overwhelmed by the flow of oil. 1020 00:47:08,866 --> 00:47:10,766 The fossil fuel world that we live in 1021 00:47:10,766 --> 00:47:12,066 was not inevitable. 1022 00:47:12,066 --> 00:47:13,566 It was actually a really aggressive 1023 00:47:13,566 --> 00:47:16,400 political and economic project 1024 00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:18,433 to base everything on petroleum. 1025 00:47:18,433 --> 00:47:23,233 We're going to enlist corporations in pursuing 1026 00:47:23,233 --> 00:47:24,800 our geopolitical aims, we're going to provide 1027 00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,400 ridiculous subsidies to fuel corporations for decades. 1028 00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,333 We're going to build houses that require fuel 1029 00:47:31,333 --> 00:47:33,600 and require fuel for you to drive to them. 1030 00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:36,566 I mean, we are completely dependent upon this flow of oil. 1031 00:47:36,566 --> 00:47:39,466 ROME: During the '50s, the amount of energy 1032 00:47:39,466 --> 00:47:43,800 used in a home goes up something like 400%. 1033 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,733 It's a staggering amount, and no one's worried about that, 1034 00:47:46,733 --> 00:47:49,366 because it's so cheap, it's abundant, it's so reliable. 1035 00:47:49,366 --> 00:47:52,400 NARRATOR: The research pioneered by Telkes 1036 00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,100 and the grand vision she'd sold 1037 00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:58,100 just as masterfully as the technology she designed 1038 00:47:58,100 --> 00:48:00,300 was soon all but forgotten. 1039 00:48:00,300 --> 00:48:04,466 The solar wave was over. 1040 00:48:04,466 --> 00:48:07,466 The age of oil had arrived. 1041 00:48:07,466 --> 00:48:10,766 ♪ ♪ 1042 00:48:19,900 --> 00:48:21,733 NARRATOR: In November 1995, 1043 00:48:21,733 --> 00:48:24,666 Telkes traveled back to her homeland. 1044 00:48:24,666 --> 00:48:27,466 Since the fall of Dover, she'd hardly stopped working, 1045 00:48:27,466 --> 00:48:30,966 doing research with NASA and the Department of Energy, 1046 00:48:30,966 --> 00:48:33,566 patenting several dozen inventions, 1047 00:48:33,566 --> 00:48:37,966 and inspiring a new generation of solar scientists. 1048 00:48:37,966 --> 00:48:39,166 ROME: Mária Telkes personally 1049 00:48:39,166 --> 00:48:42,033 never lost faith, never lost hope, 1050 00:48:42,033 --> 00:48:45,333 and continued to work on finally realizing this dream 1051 00:48:45,333 --> 00:48:48,833 of a solar future into the 1990s. 1052 00:48:48,833 --> 00:48:52,300 NARRATOR: The trip to Hungary was her first time back 1053 00:48:52,300 --> 00:48:55,800 since she'd left for America in the spring of 1932, 1054 00:48:55,800 --> 00:49:00,000 and, as it turned out, it was also her last. 1055 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,700 On December 2, in Budapest, 1056 00:49:03,700 --> 00:49:06,766 ten days shy of her 95th birthday, 1057 00:49:06,766 --> 00:49:09,000 Mária Telkes died. 1058 00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:14,600 SHREVE-PRICE: It's hard not to think about what might have been. 1059 00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:17,066 Would it have been an amazing ending 1060 00:49:17,066 --> 00:49:20,366 if Telkes was able to transform the world? 1061 00:49:20,366 --> 00:49:22,533 Yes! I wish we'd had that ending. 1062 00:49:22,533 --> 00:49:26,933 But maybe one way to see this story is, if you lay 1063 00:49:26,933 --> 00:49:32,166 the groundwork, then someday, when the crisis is big enough, 1064 00:49:32,166 --> 00:49:34,700 or the society is finally ready, 1065 00:49:34,700 --> 00:49:38,366 someday, at least that groundwork's there. 1066 00:49:38,366 --> 00:49:42,033 MEIKLE: When you look at the number of hurdles she had to jump, 1067 00:49:42,033 --> 00:49:45,733 and the number of things she was prevented from accomplishing, 1068 00:49:45,733 --> 00:49:48,033 it becomes really frustrating. 1069 00:49:48,033 --> 00:49:50,466 The solar panels on everybody's roofs, 1070 00:49:50,466 --> 00:49:53,900 those don't happen unless she's doing this research. 1071 00:49:53,900 --> 00:49:56,333 She's laying all the foundation for 1072 00:49:56,333 --> 00:50:00,200 pretty much everything now that we do with solar. 1073 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,333 Telkes helps to kind of represent and embody 1074 00:50:03,333 --> 00:50:05,566 a sort of struggle for how to think differently. 1075 00:50:05,566 --> 00:50:08,866 And I think that insistence, in a sense, that it's 1076 00:50:08,866 --> 00:50:12,333 the obligation of the scientific community to bring benefits 1077 00:50:12,333 --> 00:50:15,033 to a wide swath of the population 1078 00:50:15,033 --> 00:50:17,200 makes Telkes a kind of guiding light for us today. 1079 00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:21,400 ADDINGTON: Given the fact that now the issue of energy 1080 00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:25,300 comes with consequences for our civilization, 1081 00:50:25,300 --> 00:50:29,000 I think she would be shocked that we are still 1082 00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:30,700 not fully embracing 1083 00:50:30,700 --> 00:50:35,100 the most powerful thermal force that we have in the universe. 1084 00:50:35,100 --> 00:50:39,833 NEMETHY: Her vision for the future of the world, for solar heat, 1085 00:50:39,833 --> 00:50:42,200 still remains important in so many different ways today. 1086 00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:47,266 She certainly wrapped our family into it somehow, 1087 00:50:47,266 --> 00:50:51,233 so we became part of that large vision that she had. 1088 00:50:51,233 --> 00:50:53,600 I owe her a debt of gratitude. 1089 00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:57,166 Our family owes her a debt of gratitude. 1090 00:50:57,166 --> 00:50:59,833 I moved away in the '70s. 1091 00:50:59,833 --> 00:51:02,566 Eventually, the house fell into disrepair, 1092 00:51:02,566 --> 00:51:06,433 so basically, they tore it down. 1093 00:51:06,433 --> 00:51:09,333 And unfortunately, because the house doesn't exist anymore, 1094 00:51:09,333 --> 00:51:11,600 and that era is over, 1095 00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,333 people really, you know, they'd forgotten about it. 1096 00:51:13,333 --> 00:51:15,966 ♪ ♪ 1097 00:51:15,966 --> 00:51:18,800 But she absolutely fits in that category of people 1098 00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,600 who deserve to be recognized today 1099 00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:22,800 for, for what they accomplished 1100 00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:26,066 and what they saw when nobody else did. 1101 00:51:26,066 --> 00:51:29,133 ♪ ♪ 1102 00:51:33,100 --> 00:51:38,133 ♪ ♪ 1103 00:51:52,100 --> 00:51:57,133 ♪ ♪ 1104 00:52:12,166 --> 00:52:17,200 ♪ ♪