Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T01:21:24.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Carbon-Consuming Home: Residential Markets and Energy Transitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Christopher Jones
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Home heating and lighting markets have played crucial and underappreciated roles in driving energy transitions. When historians have studied the adoption of fossil fuels, they have often privileged industrial actors, markets, and technologies. My analysis of the factors that stimulated the adoption of anthracite coal and petroleum during the nineteenth century reveals that homes shaped how, when, and why Americans began to use fossil fuel energy. Moreover, a brief survey of other fossil fuel transitions shows that heating and lighting markets have been critical drivers in other times and places. Reassessing the historical patterns of energy transitions offers a revised understanding of the past for historians and suggests a new set of options for policymakers seeking to encourage the use of renewable energy in the future.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 790 - 823
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Adams, Sean P. Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Bartholomew, Craig L., Metz, Lance E., and Bartholomew, Ann M.. The Anthracite Iron Industry of the Lehigh Valley. Easton, PA: Center for Canal History and Technology, 1988.Google Scholar
Binder, Frederick Moore. Coal Age Empire: Pennsylvania Coal and Its Utilization to 1860. Harrisburg, PA: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1974.Google Scholar
Black, Brian. Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Bone, John Herbert A. Petroleum and Petroleum Wells, with a Complete Guide Book and Description of the Oil Regions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1865.Google Scholar
Bowers, Brian. Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Boydston, Jeanne. Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Brewer, Priscilla J. From Fireplace to Cookstove: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Byrne, John, Schulz, David A., and Sussman, Marvin B., eds. Families and the Energy Transition. New York: Haworth Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Castaneda, Christopher J. Invisible Fuel: Manufactured and Natural Gas in America, 1800–2000. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.Google Scholar
Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House, 1998.Google Scholar
Childs, C.G. The Coal and Iron Trade, Embracing Statistics of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: C.G. Childs, 1847.Google Scholar
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books, 1983.Google Scholar
Crosby, Alfred W. Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.Google Scholar
Daddow, Samuel Harries, and Bannan, Benjamin. Coal, Iron, and Oil, or, the Practical American Miner: A Plain and Popular Work on Our Mines and Mineral Resources, and a Text-Book or Guide to Their Economical Development. Pottsville, PA: Benjamin Bannan, 1866.Google Scholar
Eaton, S.J.M. Petroleum: A History of the Oil Region of Venango County Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: J.P. Skelley & Co, 1866.Google Scholar
Erni, Henry. Coal Oil and Petroleum: Their Origin, History, Geology, and Chemistry. Philadelphia: H.C. Baird, 1865.Google Scholar
Freese, Barbara. Coal: A Human History. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publications, 2003.Google Scholar
Henry, J.T. The Early and Later History of Petroleum, with Authentic Facts in Regard to Its Development in Western Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Jas B. Rodgers Co., 1873.Google Scholar
Herbert, John H. Clean Cheap Heat: The Development of Residential Markets for Natural Gas in the United States. New York: Praeger, 1992.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Roger, ed. Boys and Their Toys?: Masculinity, Technology, and Class in America. New York: Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Roger, and Mohun, Arwen, eds. His and Hers: Gender, Consumption, and Technology. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Hunter, Louis. A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780–1930: Steam Power. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Knies, Michael. Coal on the Lehigh, 1790–1827: Beginnings and Growth of the Anthracite Industry in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. Easton, PA: Canal History and Technology Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Landes, David S. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. London: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Lerman, Nina E., Oldenziel, Ruth, and Mohun, Arwen, eds. Gender & Technology: A Reader. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
McElwee, Neil. The National Transit Co., Standard Oil’s Great Pipeline Company. Oil City, PA: Oil Creek Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Melosi, Martin V. Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America. New York: Knopf, 1985.Google Scholar
Miller, Donald L., and Sharpless, Richard E.. The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Nevins, Allan. Study in Power. New York: Scribner, 1953.Google Scholar
Nye, David E. Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Nye, David E. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Powell, Howard Benjamin. Philadelphia’s First Fuel Crisis: Jacob Cist and the Developing Market for Pennsylvania Anthracite. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Roberts, Robert. The House Servant’s Directory: Or a Monitor for Private Families. Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1827.Google Scholar
Rose, Mark H. Cities of Light and Heat: Domesticating Gas and Electricity in Urban America. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Schurr, Sam H., and Netschert, Bruce Carlton. Energy in the American Economy, 1850–1975: An Economic Study of Its History and Prospects. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Sieferle, Rolf Peter. The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge: White Horse Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Smil, Vaclav. Energy in Nature and Society: General Energetics of Complex Systems. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Smil, Vaclav. Energy in World History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Smil, Vaclav. Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects. Santa Barbara,CA: Praeger, 2010.Google Scholar
Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.Google Scholar
Tarbell, Ida M. The History of the Standard Oil Company. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904.Google Scholar
Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860. New York: Rinehart, 1951.Google Scholar
Taylor, R.C. Statistics of Coal. Philadelphia: J.W. Moore, 1855.Google Scholar
Tobey, Ronald C. Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Tower, Walter Sheldon. A History of the American Whale Fishery. Phildelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1907.Google Scholar
Warde, Paul. Energy Consumption in England and Wales, 1560–2000.Rome, Italy: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto di Studi sulle Societa del Mediterraneo (ISSM), 2007.Google Scholar
White, Josiah. Josiah White’s History, Given by Himself. Philadelphia: Press of G.H. Buchanan Company, 1909.Google Scholar
Williamson, Harold Francis, and Arnold, . The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination 1859–1899. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E.A. Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Adams, Sean P. “Warming the Poor and Growing Consumers: Fuel Philanthropy in the Early Republic’s Urban North.”. Journal of American History 95, no. 1 (2008): 69–94.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, Bateman, Fred, and Weiss, Thomas. “The Regional Diffusion and Adoption of the Steam Engine in American Manufacturing.” Journal of Economic History 40, no. 2 (1980): 281–308.Google Scholar
Brewer, Priscilla. “We Have Got a Very Good Cooking Stove”: Advertising, Design, and Consumer Response to the Cookstove, 1815–1880.” Winterthur Portfolio 25, no. 1 (1990): 35–54.Google Scholar
Carlson, W. Bernard. “The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements.” Proceedings of the Canal History and Technology Symposium 7 (1988): 175–206.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred Dupont. “Anthracite Coal and the Beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the United States.” Business History Review 46, no. 2 (1972): 141–80.Google Scholar
Galloway, James A., Keene, Derek, and Murphy, Margaret. “Fuelling the City: Production and Distribution of Firewood and Fuel in London’s Region, 1290–1400.” Economic History Review 49, no. 3 (1996): 447–72.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Dolores. “Reassessing the Power Patterns of the Industrial Revolution: An Anglo-American Comparison.” American Historical Review 87, no. 5 (1982): 1237–61.Google Scholar
Hirsh, Richard. “Historians of Technology in the Real World: Reflections on the Pursuit of Policy-Oriented History.” Technology and Culture 52, no. 1 (2011): 6–20.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Sheila, and Kim, Sang-Hyun. “Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea.” Minerva 47 (2009): 119–46.Google Scholar
Jones, Christopher F. “A Landscape of Energy Abundance: Anthracite Coal Canals and the Roots of American Fossil Fuel Dependence, 1820–1860.” Environmental History 15, no. 3 (2010): 449–84.Google Scholar
Melosi, Martin V. “Energy Transitions in the Nineteenth-Century Economy.” In Energy and Transport: Historical Perspectives on Policy Issues, edited by Daniels, George and Rose, Mark, 55–69. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1982.Google Scholar
Pratt, Joseph. “The Ascent of Oil: The Transition from Coal to Oil in Early Twentieth-Century America.” In Energy Transition:Long-Term Perspectives, edited by Perelman, Lewis, Giebelhaus, August and Yokell, Michael, 9–34. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian. “Clio’s Lost Tribe: Public Policy History since 1978.” Journal of Policy History 12, no. 3 (2000): 369–94.Google Scholar

Reports

A Cursory Review of the Schuylkill Coal, in Reference to Its Introduction into New-York, and the Other Atlantic Cities. New York: Geo. F. Hopkins, 1823.Google Scholar
Bull, Marcus. Experiments to Determine the Comparative Value of the Principal Varieties of Fuel Used in the United States, and Also in Europe and on the Ordinary Apparatus Used for Their Combustion. Philadelphia: Judah Dobson, 1827.Google Scholar
Comparative Calculations, and Remarks on Internal Improvements by Roads, Canal, and River Navigation; Illustrative of the Advantages to Be Derived from the Improvement of the River Lehigh. Philadelphia: Printed by William Brown, 1821.Google Scholar
Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Review. Washington, DC: Energy Information Administration, 2008.Google Scholar
Peckham, Stephen Farnum. Report on the Production, Technology, and Uses of Petroleum and Its Products. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1885.Google Scholar
Philadelphia Committee on U.S. Census 1870. Manufactures of the City of Philadelphia. Census of 1870. Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1872.Google Scholar
Report of Messrs. Wright and J.L. Sullivan, Engineers, Engaged in the Survey of the Route of the Proposed Canal from the Hudson, to the Heat Waters of the Lackawaxen River, Accompanied by Other Documents, & C. Philadelphia: Printed by John Young, 1824.Google Scholar
Report of the Committee of the Senate of Pennsylvania upon the Subject of the Coal Trade. Harrisburg, PA: Henry Welsh, 1834.Google Scholar
Secretary of the Treasury. Report on Steam Engines. Washington, DC: Thomas Allen, Printer, 1838.Google Scholar
Silliman, Benjamin. Report on the Rock Oil, or Petroleum, from Venango Co., Pennsylvania: With Special Reference to Its Use for Illumination and Other Purposes. New Haven, CT: J.H. Benham, 1855.Google Scholar
The Cherry Run Petroleum Company, Venango County, PA. Philadelphia: Printed for the Company by J. Richards, 1863.Google Scholar
Thirteenth Annual Report, Made by the Board of Trade, to the Coal Mining Association of Schuylkill County. Pottsville, PA: Benjamin Bannan, 1845.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Electrical Industries: Central Electric Light and Power Stations, 1917. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920.Google Scholar
U.S. Geological Survey. Mineral Resources of the United States, 1901. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902.Google Scholar

Dissertations

Johnson, Arthur Menzies. “The Development of American Petroleum Pipelines: A Study in Private Enterprise and Public Policy, 1862–1906.” Thesis, Vanderbilt University. Published for the American Historical Association by Cornell University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Jones, Christopher F. “Energy Landscapes: Coal Canals, Oil Pipelines, and Electricity Transmission Wires in the Mid-Atlantic, 1820–1930.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.Google Scholar
Powell, Howard Benjamin. “Coal, Philadelphia, and the Schuylkill.” PhD dissertation, Lehigh University, 1968.Google Scholar