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One thing not mentioned in the other thread is factories, especially ones with large rotating devices (saws, belts, etc) that could harm you if touched accidentally, will use 3 phase fluorescent lighting... Single phase fluorescent lighting flickers and will often cause the stroboscopic effect to occur where in a spinning object, say a saw blade, appears to be stationary because it's only being illuminated by 1 phase.
Supposedly 3 phase 120V is becoming more common in newer residential. I haven't seen it myself yet though. It's required in any building with an elevator.
I've heard there used to be a cheap 3 phase 120V delta system where there would be a floating 120V pair that bridged the hot ends of the 2 standard 120V phases, but it was more dangerous so it got phased out.
As I understand it basically every home except the dirt poor with an active kitchen in the 60s had a refrigerator. Farms away from the grid (there was a big rural electrification program post WWII) typically had either an ice box or a propane powered fridge. Many farms had 6, 12, or 32V generators and or windmills for lighting, small appliances, radio and TV.
My grandparents built a 3 room vacation cabin(the 1st room was a cook shed) up north out of salvaged barn wood in the 60s. Two of those rooms were just bare framing on the inside all the way up to the mid 90s when I first visited. Electricity reached there in 1973 and they wired it up and got a used 1960s fridge for it that lasted into the 2000s...I don't know if the relatives changed the fridge and stove at the same time because one failed, or because they were sick of old appliances.
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