Discussing American Things as we approach the 250th anniversary of the country

In 2015, the Washington Post declared that the refrigerator was history's greatest invention, but also noted this important point: "Europe to America: Your love of air-conditioning is stupid."

With the recent news of mounting deaths due to heat in Europe, the latter position is becoming somewhat embarrassing.

Back in 2019, the Smithsonian actually published a positive piece on the American invention of air conditioning: The Unexpected History of the Air Conditioner

The invention was once received with chilly skepticism but has become a fixture of American life

Working inside an office during a heatwave in June. A dinner party in July. Buying chocolate in August. If you talk to Salvatore Basile, author of the book Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything these things wouldn’t have happened in America without the ability to cool the temperature around us.

“It has shaped our world to the extent that people can carry on very normal lives during the hot months, which would not have happened before,” Basile says.

Today, almost 75 percent of U.S. homes have air conditioning, but for an appliance that has become a near necessity for Americans, one of the first of its kind was surprisingly unconcerned with human comfort.

At the turn of the 20th century, humidity threatened the reputation of Brooklyn’s Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Company’s high-quality color printing. After two summers of extreme heat disrupted business and caused swelling pages and blurry prints, the printing company found that a nascent cooling industry could offer help.

Willis Carrier, a 25-year-old experimental engineer, created a primitive cooling system to reduce humidity around the printer. He used an industrial fan to blow air over steam coils filled with cold water; the excess humidity would then condense on the coils and produce cooled air.

“Not only did it solve the problem, but [the cool air] started to make people comfortable, and then the lightbulb went off,” Basile says.

Even Carrier knew that his initial invention was not the most effective way to control humidity and continued tinkering with the technology. By 1922, Carrier had created the safer, smaller and more powerful Centrifugal Refrigeration Compressor, the precursor to modern air conditioning. At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, one of the first practical centrifugal refrigeration compressor’s dating to 1922 is held in historic recognition of Carrier’s feat.

Experts are quick to point out that crediting Carrier as the father of modern cooling technology would overlook decades-long efforts by other inventors who used refrigeration to make hot days more productive or comfortable, though. Long before Carrier was even born, University of Glasgow professor William Cullen evaporated liquids in a vacuum thus creating refrigeration technology as early as 1748. . .

The story of the Florida doctor is interesting. And then there is the contribution of the movies to air conditioning . . .

Another kind of American inventor, Martha Stewart, published A Brief History of the Refrigerator. The refrigerator is not all-American, but was refined here. This completes both of WaPo's 2015 topics above, I guess.

What is your favorite American invention?

General Motors refrigerator from 1954

[📹 antiqueappliancerestorations]pic.twitter.com/EIhpyfbttx

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 28, 2025

Less Standard American History

A lot of history buffs check in at this site, but Powerline posted a link to an interesting compilation of potentially important figures in American history:

47 Heartbeats Away from the Presidency

A menagerie of 80 VPs, Speakers, Presidents Pro Tem, and Secretaries of State and Treasury who were first-in-line to inherit the White House from 47 presidents

These 80 included:

A general who won the Nobel Peace Prize and also wrote a musical piece performed by classical masters. Fifty years later, with lyrics added, it topped the Billboard charts for six weeks, making an R&B singer the first African American with a #1 hit. Other recordings featured Louis Armstrong, Art Garfunkel, Van Morrison, Merle Haggard, Cass Elliot, Freddy Fender, and countless others. (Videos below.)

A person of color who predated Barack Obama and Kamala Harris by nearly a century.

A Jewish Christmas tree farmer who lived next-door to a future president who also grew Christmas trees.

A man whose friends claimed (almost certainly wrongly) that he was actually President of the U.S. for one day.

A world-class plant geneticist whose sharp leftward turn and involvement with astrology and mysticism may have cost him the presidency and who learned botany from George Washington Carver, who lived as a guest in his house.

One who was so despised by his fellow senators that he derailed a presidential impeachment.

A 20th century diplomat who had been a right-hand man to Abraham Lincoln and was a poet, novelist, and naturalist.

A man who rose from stock clerk at GM to Chairman of U.S. Steel in 12 years.

Several Confederate officials and/or military officers.

A general described by Winston Churchill as “the noblest Roman of them all.”

A dying man who spent almost all his heartbeat-away time in Cuba.

A wit who said, “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

Another who said the vice presidency “wasn’t worth a bucket of warm piss.”

You’ll meet these and many more in the chronology below. . .

American history - never boring. Can you identify any of these individuals by the brief statements above, without checking the substack? Have you studied the lives of any of the persons above?

Powerline also remembers D-Day

WEEKEND

The Week in Pictures: Pulling Pelley Edition

On the whole, it’s been a good week. It’s not every week that serves up the kind of supreme schadenfreudey goodness that comes from the firing of the pompous CBS News blowhard Scott Pelley, with more to follow. Less noticed was that NPR laid off most of its climate change reporters this week, too. If NPR is giving up on the climate crusade, it is well and truly over. The strong showing of Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt (fingers crossed about those “late” votes) is also cheering, though it will still be an uphill fight to November. England continues to spiral down the drain, but after their George Floyd-in-reverse moment, I am cheered to see anti-police riots in Birmingham. Oh, and props to DOCTOR Jill Biden for providing more free entertainment with her memoir. Can Hunter’s memoir be far behind? And Obama’s library opened, with a structure that looks like it belongs in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Music

John Phillip Sousa marches have become part of America. From the Greenville Concert Band in 2023:

March: Semper Fidelis . . . John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)

John Philip Sousa composed 136 marches between the years 1873 and 1931, and he described this march as his best one. Memorable and powerful in every respect, Semper Fidelis, composed in 1888, is the official march of the United States Marine Corps and takes its title from the motto of the Corps: “Always Faithful.” The special importance of this march is shown by the fact that Semper Fidelis was played as a funeral march when the Marine Band accompanied John Philip Sousa’s body on his way from the Marine Barracks to the Congressional Cemetery in 1932.

What is your favorite fun American music?

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, May 30, No, patriots, there is not an Israeli Bioterrorist on the loose in Vegas

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

UPDATE: A cursory search didn't show anything dramatic in the news about the scheduled June 4 state court appearance for the property manager still charged with improper disposal of hazardous waste.

posted by K.T. at 11:16 AM

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