Climate Control: Further Reading
The following links and documents relate to the BackStory episode “Climate Control: A History of Heating & Cooling”, originally broadcast in March of 2010. You can listen to the entire episode here.
18th Century
- Benjamin Franklin’s 1744 pamphlet “Account of the New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire-Places“
- Benjamin Franklin recalls his invention of the Franklin Stove in his autobiography
- A history of radiant heating and cooling, beginning in the first century, B.C. (PDF)
- Coping with cold in colonial Virginia
19th Century
- “Conquering Winter“: an article by Howell Harris, plus his extensive web space on the cast-iron stove
- “The Favorite Poison of America“: Andrew Jackson Downing on the evils of stoves
- Excerpts from the letters and diaries of Frederic Tudor, 19th-century ice mogul
- Gavin Weightman’s excellent book, “The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story“
- The heritage of HVAC
20th Century
- The Chairman of the Air Conditioning and Refrigerator Institute discusses early AC, beginning with early 20th-century “atmospheric theaters”
- The story of the experimental 1950s “air-conditioned village” in Austin, TX, plus the results of the experiment
- An interview with air conditioning historian Marsha Ackerman
- Air conditioning as emblem of American malaise: Henry Miller’s Air Conditioned Nightmare
- Who needs heat? Not these 21st-century New Yorkers…much like their predecessors at the turn of the 20th century
- Cold House Journal, the blog of a couple who spent one winter in Maine with “almost no heat”
- You’ve just experienced the warmest decade on record
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Climate Control: A History of Heating & Cooling | BackStory with the American History Guys :
[...] to dig deeper into the history of heating and cooling? Check out this list of resources compiled by the History Guys to learn [...]
Quote -- September 13, 2011 @ 4:31 pm



