Summer and movies go together like peaches and cream. And that association is not just the product of Hollywood marketing: movie theaters were among the first places to install central air conditioning. In the early decades of the 20th century, the public flocked to the movies to escape August heat waves, and the tradition has stuck.

In this episode, the History Guys consider the advent of air conditioning, and explore its far-reaching implications on everything from architecture and leisure to demography and politics. They also look at what happened when stoves became widely available in the mid-19th century, and how technology altered Americans’ way of life. How did America become the “land of comfort”? And what lessons does the history of climate control hold for us today?

Guests Include:

• Dan Filene, blogger at Cold House Journal
• Howell Harris, Professor of History at Durham University
• Gail Cooper, Associate Professor of History at Lehigh University

Further Exploration

• Resources galore! Peruse a list of outside sources compiled by the BackStory team to offer a more complete picture of the history of heating and cooling in the United States, and consult the bibliography of sources used in the making of this episode.
• Listen to individual show segments.

Even Further

• See the discussion that helped shape this episode.

Rambles Through Our Country — An Instructive Geographical Game for the Young, 1890.

The red state/blue state representation of the U.S. was originally intended to tell us something about electoral politics. But it has come to stand in for a lot more than that. So how did that map’s cultural meaning come to be so fixed?

In the spirit of this question, we’re devoting this episode of BackStory to maps, and asking how the ways in which Americans have charted space illustrate the ways in which they’ve understood themselves socially. Over the course of the hour, the History Guys explore the layered meanings of several key maps. These include a map that helped forge sectional alliances in the lead-up to the Civil War; a colonial-era map that illustrates how Native Americans understood space; a collection of maps that Woodrow Wilson thought might lead to world peace; and an 1890 map designed to minimize conflict over natural resources in the American West.  And – the History Guys uncover the curious story of the map that gave America its name.

Guests Include:

• Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame
• Susan Schulten, Professor of History at the University of Denver
• S. Max Edelson, Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia
• Wes Reisser, Adjunct Professor of Geography at George Washington University
• Donald Worster, Professor of History at the University of Kansas

Further Exploration:

View the maps featured on this episode.

Listen to individual show segments.

Delve into some of the outside resources pulled together by the BackStory team in order to illustrate the full scale of the history of mapping in the United States, and take a look at a bibliography of sources used in the making of this episode.

Even Further:

See a listing of music used in this episode.

Read the listener comments that helped shape this episode.

Historian David Nye discusses the origins of Americans’ ample appetites for energy.

Excerpted from: From Whales to Wind: A History of Energy

Historian Ann Norton Greene explains why the “Age of Steam” was also the Age of Horses.

Excerpted from: From Whales to Wind: A History of Energy

Three decades after Jimmy Carter donned his famous cardigan and asked us to go on an energy diet, the US is consuming more than ever. In this episode, BackStory takes on big oil (and big whales, trees and water)!  Historian David Nye discusses the origins of our gluttony for energy, and historian Anne Norton Greene explains why the “Age of Steam” was also the Age of Horses.  Join us on our power trip!

Show Highlights:

• The Age of Horses — Historian Ann Norton Greene explains why the “Age of Steam” was also the Age of Horses.
• Energy Gluttons — Historian David Nye discusses the origins of Americans’ ample appetites for energy.

Related Links:

• Brush up on consumption and production of different energy sources.
• Find out more about the new Energy Secretary.
• Read a review of Anne Greene’s “Horses at Work.”
• Learn about our complex relationship to Technology.
• View the 1953 video “A is for Atom.”
• Watch Jimmy Carter’s 1977 energy crisis speech
• Powering the 18th century

It seems that Americans are finally waking up to the reality of climate change, but scientists tell us it may be too little, too late. This may be the most far-reaching environmental threat Americans have ever faced, but it’s certainly not the first. In this hour, we consider the history of American anxieties about the environment. Historian Bill Cronon weighs in on when “nature” became a thing to protect and not to fear. And we travel up to Shenandoah National Park to look for remnants of the communities displaced to make way for Nature. Also — Mother Nature’s gender, Populist politics, and the merits of an apocalyptic mindset.

Related Links

See what environmental historian Bill Cronon is up to!

Hear more stories of the removal from the Shenandoah Valley…

Take a look at an interactive timeline of environmental history.