You've really broken down the story. It sounds like something you'd do for a college class. Like you said, just casually reading you don't really think about that stuff so in depth. I like how you described the three women.
You mentioning electricity in relation to the copper made me think of a documentary I watched last night on Prime about George Westinghouse. Pretty interesting. Of course it goes into the rivalry with Edison over the AC vs DC electricity. His ideas won out when he got the contract to light the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. But of course that's an entirely different subject. But we can pretend that Val sold his copper to Westinghouse.
The LT version definitely sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.