Heating

Heating. Homes and public buildings in early America depended on a central hearth or open fireplace for heating. The hearth provided a gathering place for the family and served for cooking as well as heating. Many families heated only one room during the winter; even so, fireplace heat often proved inadequate. Cast‐iron stoves did not come into general use until the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Even Benjamin Franklin's famous Franklin stove of the 1740s, while efficient, had not been widely adopted. By the 1830s, however, cast‐iron stoves became popular as the scarcity of firewood in urban areas converged with improvements in stoves themselves and the increasing accessibility of stoves and coal.

Centrally installed coal‐fired furnaces appeared in the homes of wealthy Americans during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Built‐in steam or forced‐air heating systems did not become the norm until well into the twentieth century, however, when furnaces powered by other fuels, such as natural gas, electricity, and heating oil, became available. As urban areas and the middle class grew and utility companies expanded their distribution networks in the twentieth century, especially after World War II, heat consumption in homes and public buildings kept pace.

The steady increase in heating consumption ended in the early 1970s. With the energy crisis and a slowing of improvements in heating technologies, consumers became increasingly concerned with fuel and energy efficiency. “Alternative” heating methods, such as passive solar heating, became popular, although they represented only a small percentage of heating sources. By the early 1990s, natural gas led the heating fuels, followed by electricity, fuel oil, and all other sources.

Throughout the history of heating, older technologies have overlapped with new ones. Consumers in abundantly wooded rural areas continued to use fireplaces even as urban dwellers adopted stoves. Coal furnaces coexisted with cast‐iron stoves, and gas and electric furnaces overlapped with coal. As late as the 1950s, coal and wood were still widely used heating fuels. Moreover, in a nation as vast and diverse as the United States, wide regional differences have existed in the choice of heating devices and fuels. In warm climate zones, heating has been less of a concern than keeping the indoors cool.

Shaped by markets and institutions, heating technologies have in turn influenced cultural standards. For example, eighteenth‐century Americans largely rejected stoves because of cost, perceived dangers, and the abundance of wood fuel for fireplaces. In the twentieth century, by keeping rates low and advertising to targeted groups, utility companies encouraged Americans to consume more heat. Whereas eighteenth‐ and even nineteenth‐century Americans endured smoky and unevenly heated homes and public buildings, by the post–World War II era Americans had become accustomed to automatic heating (and, increasingly, cooling) systems, and were taking a well‐regulated and comfortable indoor environment for granted.
See also Electrical Industry; Electricity and Electrification; Environmentalism; Energy Crisis of the 1970s; Petroleum Industry; Refrigeration and Air Conditioning; Urbanization.

Bibliography

Susan Strasser , Never Done: A History of American Housework, 1982, pp. 50–67.
Mark H. Rose , Cities of Light and Heat: Domesticating Gas and Electricity in Urban America, 1995.

Libbie J. Freed