I wonder if Tesla got this much grief when he was involved with those hydro electric projects at Niagara Falls.
There was probably a big WHALE OIL lobby that was totally against it.
Not really. The market for whale oil had been destroyed decades before by the eevvill men who found a much cheaper and better source of light in kerosene for rural areas, and gas lighting in towns.
The guys selling kerosene might have had some theoretical incentive to oppose electrical lighting, but the market for petroleum products was exploding in all directions. So the people with real incentive to oppose electricity would have been those with capital invested in the gas lighting systems.