Air Conditioning

AIR CONDITIONING

AIR CONDITIONING. Mechanical air conditioning made its first appearance at the turn of the twentieth century. Defined as the control of temperature, humidity, cleanliness, and distribution of air, it largely grew out of successful efforts to control humidity levels indoors. Systems were custom designed for each installation and were used to either add moisture to the air or remove the excess depending upon the application. Two basic types of air conditioning were marketed: comfort air conditioning for establishing the optimum conditions for human comfort, and process air conditioning for setting the most favorable atmospheric conditions for industrial processing.

One of the first comfort air conditioning systems was designed by Alfred Wolff for the trading room of the New York Stock Exchange in 1902, while Willis Carrier installed a process air conditioning system in the Sacketts-Wilhems Printing Company the same year. Carrier has long been air conditioning's most famous engineer due in part to his pioneering status and in part to the visibility of his company, which established a dominant place in the industry first through its engineering expertise and then through its strong patent position.

For decades mechanical air conditioning systems were used primarily to correct the atmospheric conditions created by deleterious man-made environments such as crowded auditoriums and schools or dry, overheated factories. Process air conditioning far outstripped comfort air conditioning as the most lucrative market for the first fifteen years after its invention. Air conditioning systems were installed in various processing facilities such as munitions, candy, pasta, film, and textile factories to stabilize the handling properties of hygroscopic materials which absorbed moisture from the air. In fact, the term "air conditioning" was coined in 1904 by the textile engineer Stuart Cramer, who advocated the new technology over the old-fashioned practice of "yarn conditioning," which re-lied on adding moisture to the materials themselves rather than the air.

Comfort air conditioning eventually blossomed as an outgrowth of the mechanical ventilation systems required by state law in schools, theaters, and auditoriums. Large crowds of people in a single room invariably created un-pleasant atmospheric conditions that early public health officials believed to be unhealthy as well. However, it was not until builders became more concerned with comfort than with health that air conditioning thrived. One of the first film exhibition companies to exploit the appeal of comfort air conditioning was Balaban and Katz, which in 1917 equipped the Central Park Theater in Chicago with a system that was widely imitated. Operating expenses for these systems were kept low by recirculating a portion of the air from the theater, and the new patent pool, Auditorium Conditioning Corporation (anchored by Carrier Engineering Corporation and four partner companies), controlled that technology, receiving royalties on an estimated 90 percent of new air conditioning installations until the company was dissolved in 1945.

With the onset of the Great Depression, manufacturers of household appliances joined traditional air conditioning companies in pursuit of the residential market. Older air conditioning systems relied upon a water supply to cool either the machinery or the air, but around 1932 engineers at the De La Vergne Machine Company developed the air-cooled compressor, which freed air conditioning from its plumbing connections and accelerated the development of the air conditioner as a discrete plug-in appliance. Residential air conditioning now came in two basic types: a central air conditioning system, tied to the house with plumbing connections and air distribution ducts, and a window air conditioner that the consumer could install anywhere there was an electrical outlet.

Widespread adoption of air conditioning in homes and office buildings waited until the post–World War II building boom. The appearance of new designs, such as the block office building with extensive interior space that had no access to windows, meant that mechanical ventilation was a necessity. Air conditioning, with its provision for cooling, was an advantageous choice to counter the heat of large glass windows, high levels of interior lighting, numerous occupants, and increasing use of office machines. This combination of design and use of modern office buildings meant that nearly all required cooling no matter how moderate the local climate. In the home, the decision whether or not to buy air conditioning was often made by speculative builders rather than the individual consumer. Beginning around 1953, builders of tract homes routinely included air conditioning in their developments, underwriting the cost of the equipment by eliminating traditional design features such as high ceilings, overhanging eaves, and cross ventilation, which had originally helped homeowners cope with hot weather. This conscious substitution of air conditioning for passive cooling techniques made modern homes, like modern office buildings, dependent upon their mechanical systems. By 1957, the use of air conditioning in homes and offices shifted peak usage of electricity from the traditional high mark of December to August's cooling season.

The widespread adoption of air conditioning was accompanied by changes in the public's standard for comfort. Before air conditioning, consumers planned food, clothes, work, and entertainment around ways to mitigate the impact of hot weather. With a technological alternative, those hot-weather rituals declined, and their usefulness has been supplanted by a greater concern with privacy, efficiency, and unconstrained choice which makes them seem poor alternatives. Air conditioning has not only underwritten modern architectural design in the postwar era but also a modern lifestyle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackermann, Marsha E. Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air Conditioning. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.

Arsenault, Raymond. "The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Comfort." Journal of Southern History 50 (1984): 587–628.

Cooper, Gail. Air Conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900–1960. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Ingels, Margaret. Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning. Garden City, N.J.: Country Life Press, 1952. Re-print, New York: Arno Press, 1972.

Gail Cooper