During its first convention, the NELA set up a formal structure that included a constitution and a governing body made up of elected officers using committees to carry out the interests of its members.

Part of Insull's speech[4] stunned attendees as he promoted the idea that electric companies were natural monopolies that should be regulated at the state rather than local level.

Exhibitions that included dazzling displays of lighting and the latest electric appliances were modeled after the wildly popular 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

The conventions with its lighting exhibitions quickly became a major promotional tool for the electric industry that NELA would soon represent as membership expanded nationwide over the next few years.

At this convention discussions were held about how to run a central power station, what kinds of members could join and debates between Electric arc vs. incandescent lighting.

During their 1889 convention in Chicago, the NELA statistics bureau pointed out that there were now 2.7 million arc and incandescent lights in the country or nearly a tenfold increase in three years.

The highlights included presentations on legislation, long-distance transmission, electric heating, advertising methods and remote control of appliances.

NELA's conventions played a prominent role in bringing manufacturers, engineers and central station companies together to share information about issues the newly emerging industry faced.

[10] In 1893, NELA's St. Louis convention had its first paper on Alternating Current, a presentation by Nikola Tesla[11] that drew a large crowd[12] and the morals of corporations.

The presentation on Corporate Morals was NELA's first paper mentioning the tension between private vs. public ownership of electric generating facilities.

From 1894 until the end of the century, 42 formal papers and five lectures were presented at NELA conventions on technical subjects from Lightning arresters, meter rates, lighting large cities to electrical safety issues.

The highlights included presentations on legislation, long-distance transmission, electric heating, advertising methods and remote control of appliances.

In June 1905, J.R. Crouch, a prominent leader of the lamp industry (who helped form Nela Park) took the proposal to the National Electric Light Association's convention in Denver Colorado.

After investigating the proposal for a year, NELA agreed to a three-year test period that set aside .02% of the industry's national income for the Co-operative plan with Crouse in charge.

[21] On March 23, 1906, 65 representatives from major east coast electric companies met to hear Crouse's latest presentation on the Co-operation campaign that had been given a $60,000 budget to proceed for 3 years.

NELA then created a new Commercial Section committee with a budget of $30,000 for the Co-operative Electrical Development Association's office in New York City.

One public reaction to this was the growing number of cities like San Francisco, Cleveland and Seattle that built their own power stations.

In September 1912 industry leaders met at the NELA's Association Island (located on Lake Ontario) and agreed to restart J.R. Crouse's national public relations campaign as laid out in 1906.

Doherty from the association Island meeting setup its bylaws including the twenty board of governors placed in charge that were selected from across the entire electrical industry.

Besides the regular convention where the papers and reports were shared, many other events took place, including daily ceremonies at the Expo with special light shows, parades, tours, and evening balls.

A specially lit electric temple was erected in downtown Union Square, while addresses by industry leaders, regulators and politicians covering a wide variety of topics including the state of the west coast's massive hydro-electric development.

Besides being two weeks later than usual, it just happened to coincide with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors vote the day after the convention that gave away 30 years of work by the city to build its own municipal power facility.

On May 26, 1898, after years of political struggle, San Francisco passed a new city charter[32] calling for the public ownership of all utility services.

[33] The city identified a candidate site in Yosemite National Park for the construction of a new water and power supply known as Hetch Hetchy.

It would take years of fighting the water company, private interests and John Muir before the dust settled and construction began in 1914.

Norris, along with former Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot, U.S. senators, house members, "leaders of radical organizations and movements" came together to plan a government ownership drive.

The industry's decades-old "propaganda" campaign[44] which was led by NELA and the very largest holding companies actively worked to undermine public ownership of power stations, using every conceivable strategy and medium.

The report states that "the record establishes that, measured by quantity, extent, and cost, this was probably the greatest peace-time propaganda campaign ever conducted by private interests in this country.

The multiple volumes and thousands of pages of exhibits and testimony on the subject was summarized by Jack Levin in one of the few books to have ever been written about the results of the FTC's investigation.

Four days later, Insull's massive Middle West Utility empire failed to obtain a critical loan from National City Bank.