Flashback: Episode 3 "AC/DC" (Sneak Peek)

was a huge problem. Carrier was the son of a farmer and something of an eccentric genius, the kind of head in the clouds guy who would occasionally pack a suitcase with just a handkerchief inside, or order a three course meal and not take a bite. Carrier had just graduated from Cornell when he was asked to find some way to fix the company's printers. He molled over the issue for weeks. Then one day, as he was standing on a foggy railroad platform contemplating the missed around him,

an idea struck him. Carrier solution not only solved the printer problem, it changed the world, and his invention continues to have ripple effects today that impact everything from the comfort of your living room, to the size of your government, to even possibly the outcome of the U S elections this fall. Welcome to Flashback, a podcast from AZZI about unintended consequences. I'm your host in history instructor Sean Braswell.

Up until about a hundred years ago, a climate controlled environment was a fantasy, the stuff of science fiction novels. Mark Twain once said that everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Well, in two Willis Carrier finally did something about it. Today's episode is about something most of us take for granted, air conditioning, but it's really about the power of comfort. Comfort can

move mountains, and more importantly, it can move people. Every summer, millions of tourists and school children descend on Washington, d C. To take in the sights and sounds of the nation's capital, and every summer millions wish they had decided to visit during a different time of year. Hundreds of thousands of people celebrating Independence Day in the nation's capital will face

dangerous heat temperatures in Washington. Monuments and the lofty words inscribed upon them just don't seem to matter as much when you're baking in a pool of your own sweat. Very hot, it's really gross, silly hot. It's warm today these days, at least you have the option of going to a museum or some other air conditioned area. But let's go back in time for a moment, back to a simpler time, a far less comfortable time. It can be hard for us today to imagine Washington, d c.

Or many places in America before climate controlled building. In the days before air conditioning, American life during dangerously hot weather wasn't all that different from American life during beautiful cool weather. Salvador Basil is a social historian an author of Cool How air conditioning changed everything, And this was because people in those days were operating under a Victorian standard. They did their best to act as if they didn't

notice the heat. They were trained this way from birth. But a stiff upper lip didn't prevent one from feeling the heat or being affected by it. So every newspaper in America during the summer months had its daily column of heat prostrations and heat strokes and heat fatalities. It was an unusual for thousands of people to die during a major heatwave. No one thought much of this. The upper floors of office buildings, including Manhattan's dazzling new skyscrapers,

were like ovens. Most theaters lacked ventilation or windows, and audience members baked in the summer months, but it went beyond that. Getting a night sleep was usually impossible. Some people went so far as to climb to their rooftops for a breath of air, where a few of them fell asleep and rolled off to their deaths. To cope with the heat during the day, people would congregate outdoors

in the shade or at a swimming pool. They drink ice drinks on porches, take a quick dip in public fountains, take naps under trees and parks, and the nation's capital was especially hot as soon as the plaster was dry. Everyone in the federal government realized that Washington was one of the worst places to locate the nation's capital, and it didn't take long for America's leaders to avoid the capital. Many presidents used to skip town during the summer months.

Teddy Roosevelt like to go bear hunting in Colorado. Calvin Coolidge once took his entire family, five canaries, two dogs in a pet raccoon to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Members of Congress also stayed clear of d C in the middle of the sun where but working there was still a miserable experience. A member of Congress would collapse and then possibly die at other law makers simply assumed that he had been done in by the temperature. Members of Congress did their best to cope with the heat.

Lawmakers would adjourn for the day if the temperature got too uncomfortable. They all adopted white linen suits. One congressman became famous for the fact that at a certain point in the calendar he would remove his two pay and spend the rest of the time bald uh. They drank a great deal of lemonade made for them in the cloak room, along with other beverages, and if things got really tough, they would sneak down to the Capital Basement, where there was a room of bathtubs, and they would

take a quick plunge to restore themselves. Sometimes even that was not enough, but a number of those men dropped dead anyway, And the buildings didn't help. There were rooms without air, there were rooms without windows. One Congressional chamber was so notorious for heat that everyone called it the oven. The result was absolutely unbearable, and it would be unbearable for the next seventy years. As they kept trying to tinker with the system, nothing helped, at least until Willis Carrier.

Let's go back to that foggy railroad platform in N two. Now, fog is really nothing more than water droplets that have condensed out of the air, and as you may know, cool air cannot carry as much water as warm air can. So Carrier realized that if you could pass warm air across a refrigerated object, then you could cool that air down, reducing its humidity level, which in turn would cool the surrounding air as well. Carrier built what he called the

Apparatus for treating air. It worked wonders for the Brooklyn company that hired him, and this did indeed lower the humidity in the printing plant. Interestingly, at the same time time the temperature came down, employees wanted suddenly to eat their lunch in the workroom, and Carrier realized that he was onto something. Of course, Carrier's invention not only removed the humidity from the printing room, it also chilled the air. But still this was considered something for business purposes, not

for the average person. But then Hollywood came calling. Up until that point, moving pictures had always taken a huge loss during the summer. No one wanted to spend the hot months in a theater with no ventilation. By the late nineteen twenties, the idea of summer movies was firmly established. Hollywood was rolling in money, and an amazing thing happened.

For the first time in human history, people anywhere knew that they had a place to go to escape from the heat, and that costs nothing more than the price of a movie ticket. This was momentous. Theaters advertise their a c with marquees frosted over with fake snow penguins and polar bears, signs with hanging icicles. Sometimes they just propped the lobby doors open wide and let the gush

of cold air sweep over passers by. Remember you can enjoy great motion picture entertainment all summer long in cool comfort at this dinner. For decades, most Americans experienced air conditioning only in large commercial spaces like movie theaters, department stores, and hotels. Finally, in the early nineteen fifties, it made its way into the home. R C A America's finest air conditioner goes quietly about its business of keeping you comfortable.

Air Conditioning in the nineteen fifties was not only a comfort item, but it was a real homeowner's status symbol. Whether it was a central system or a window unit, everyone knew that you had it, and everyone was rushed. Within five years, Americans were installing more than a million units a year. For many the home a C unit was a revelation. At the age of six, an aunt of mine bought two air conditioners, which was a scandal in the family because air conditioners were only for rich people.

But I also noticed that at the next family party, everyone flocked to her living room and stayed there. So I sneaked over to the machine and put my hand out to the grill, and there was cool air, and I was hooked. Ever after, America's new addiction set off an extraordinary chain of events. Places in the country that had seemed uninhabitable during summer now had millions of new residents, places like Washington, d C. Now, most objects tend to

expand when they are heated up. Next, though, we find out how the US federal government did not start to truly expand until it was cooled down. Do you have an interesting tale about unintended consequences from history or your own life, Please share with us by emailing flashback at AUSI dot com. That's flashback at o z y dot com. We all need a break from the constant cycle to

learn something new, to gain new perspectives. The Great Courses Plus streaming service is an excellent resource to expand our knowledge on a variety of subjects or pick up a new hobby. I've been enjoying the Great Courses Plus while researching this season of flashback. Lectures like Playball, the rise of Baseball is America's pastime, History of the Supreme Court, and Battlefield Europe have helped me connect the dots on

several stories from history. Right now, they're giving our listeners a special limited time offer a free month of unlimited access to their entire library. Sign up now through our special U r L go to the Great Courses Plus dot com slash as. That's the Great Courses Plus dot com slash o z Y the Great Courses Plus dot

Com slash as. To listen to this episode in full, click the link in the show notes or search your podcast app for flashback history's unintended consequences, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday,