Without air-con we鈥檇 be packed in worse conditions than bananas (Image: Ashely Cooper/Aurora Photos)
It was a fight between vested interests and institutional boneheadedness, but as Cool: How air conditioning changed everything explains, common sense won out
鈥淎N ATTACK dog of a tycoon鈥� looms large in Salvatore Basile鈥檚 charming history of a new technology and its struggles with vested interests. , made a fortune in the 1830s cutting ice from New England rivers and lakes, only to be bested 鈥� eventually, and not without a fight 鈥� by a technology that promised to chill rooms using, of all things, steam power.
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Needless to say, Cool is also about popular scepticism. 鈥淲hen it came to a contraption that could 鈥榗ool the air鈥�,鈥� Basile writes, 鈥渘ot only did many people not understand why it was necessary, but plenty of them scoffed at the notion that such a thing could even exist.鈥�
Above all, Cool is about institutional boneheadedness. Basile鈥檚 targets are predictable, but they only have themselves to blame. Just what were late 19th-century doctors thinking when they doled out advice on tolerating heat and cold?
Theatregoers, overheated by the crowds, found themselves struggling to breathe as hundreds of gas-jet lights gobbled up what little oxygen was left in the auditorium. Nonetheless, Basile recounts, 鈥渨oolen and flannel undergarments were sternly recommended for the summertime, and the health profession advised perspiration-drenched people never to remedy the situation by removing any clothing since 鈥榠nternal congestion of the abdominal organs and other evils鈥� might result鈥�. According to US medical advice of the day, 鈥渢he best way to endure heat is to drink as little as possible鈥�.
Much fun, too, is had at the expense of Washington鈥檚 staffers and politicos, gasping for breath in grandiose, cast-iron, glass-roofed buildings in a city that was, according to legend, a hardship post for foreign diplomats because it was located 鈥渁t the bottom of a topographical saucer where moist and motionless air settles with smothering compression鈥�.
Science and reason won out in the end, of course, even if the pioneering Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America was forced to market its machines as air 鈥渃leaners鈥�, rather than as air 鈥渃oolers鈥�.
In the end, the sheer intensity of early 20th-century urban life made air-conditioning a necessity. The interiors of New York鈥檚 skyscrapers, switchboard rooms and television studios could be literally blistering. Our sceptical and sweaty species was finally forced to accept that 鈥渁 bunch of humans is entitled to treatment as good as that usually accorded a bunch of bananas鈥�, as the then Chicago Daily Tribune put it.
The technically minded reader might feel a little short-changed by Basile鈥檚 short, sharp micro-history, but the essentials are all here: the problems of humidity, the risks posed by different refrigerants, and so on. And because 28 out of the 30 largest cities in the world today are in tropical climates, there will probably be a sequel soon.
Fordham University Press
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he birth of the cool鈥�
