When They Hid the Fire

Commenting on the electrical exhibits on display at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Henry Adams wrote that electricity was “but an ingenious channel for conveying somewhere the heat latent in a few tons of coal hidden in a dirty engine house kept carefully out of sight” (p. 112). Daniel French mines cultural history and the history of science and technology to explore the consequences of this narrow but important idea. French is interested in how electrification, by providing light and heat, eliminated the fire and flames that had long been part of people's everyday lives. Electricity was viewed as clean and smoke-free; it was unlimited and inconsequential, thereby altering awareness of its consumption. The separation of consumption from production made electricity appear mysterious and utopian. Electrification rendered the environmental consequences of never-ending energy consumption largely invisible, producing an “energy exceptionalism” (p. ix). Electricity was a Progressive Era panacea, a technological solution to reconcile the need for greater energy consumption with the desire for a clean environment

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Commerce · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Economy · Electrical engineering · Electricity · Electrification · History of technology · Natural resource economics · Panacea (medicine · American Environmental and Regional History · Engineering · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

• Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2019

  Francesco Luzzini•Isis•2019

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