Longtime electric industry ‘spokesman’ Reddy Kilowatt got his start at Alabama Power

By: Mark Kelly

Reddy Kilowatt was born in Alabama.

A cartoon character that ultimately became the “spokesman” for more than 300 electric utilities in the United States and abroad, Reddy was the most recognized trade symbol of the electric industry for more than half a century. His first appearance was in a 1926 advertisement for Alabama Power in The Birmingham News. This year is the 90th anniversary of Reddy being patented by the government and his breakout out as a national and international symbol for the electric industry.

Reddy was the brainchild of Ashton B. Collins Sr., then an assistant commercial manager for Alabama Power. At the time, the company was concerned with bringing electricity to rural areas and, as historian Leah Rawls Atkins wrote in her 2006 history of Alabama Power, finding “ways to sell appliances to a public that was still uneasy about the use of electricity.” In a meeting early in 1926, Collins was tasked with creating a display that would help accomplish those objectives, beginning at the Alabama Electrical Exposition, an event he was organizing in his capacity as president of the Alabama Electrical League.

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