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The Nation's Pulse
The Air-Conditioned Daydream
Making summer in the city a bit more endurable.
Most all technological innovations are alleged to have radically altered civilization. The printing press, the steam engine, the television, the personal computer, the automobile — the list is endless. Of course, whether one considers these changes for the better depends largely on one’s Weltanschauung. The radio, for instance, can be seen as a delightful invention — an accessible device for playing joyful music. Or, one might look upon it — as I do — as a plague of biblical proportions, as a vile disseminator of noise pollution and a destroyer of the social medium of live, do-it-yourself music-making. Usually, the truth lies somewhere in between.
Both cases can be made with regard to the efficacy of the air-conditioner, an appliance much prized here in the drought-stricken, unseasonably hot and muggy Mississippi Valley.
What can possibly be wrong with an air-conditioner, you ask? If you have to ask, you are doubtless unfamiliar with the vast literature of the anti-AC’ers, a small, but dedicated group who disdain air-conditioning for its devastating effects on the environment and on communal activities. “Saying goodbye to AC means saying hello to the world,” writes Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World. Others see the machine as a metaphor for the triumph of all things artificial. “Darkness and obscurity are banished by artificial lighting, and the seasons by air conditioning,” cried Gilles Ivain in his “Formulary for a New Urbanism.”
For such as these, Willis Carrier’s invention was the coup de grâce for our Front Porch Republic. Before air-conditioning, the storyline goes, everyday life was more convivial and Americans were more neighborly. Homes were built with porches, where our ancestors rocked in the warm evenings and chatted happily with neighbors strolling casually down tree-canopied sidewalks. Before air-conditioning, people knew how to relax and took long summers off in the country or at the seaside. At least the wealthier people did.
Few would deny that with the advent of the air-conditioner we have become more indoor-oriented and more isolated from our neighbors. We know the names of all the characters on the evening television shows, but not the names of the family living across the street. The air-conditioner provides us an excuse to be idle. Before the air-conditioner, it was often too hot to remain indoors, so getting out and participating in one’s community — softball, PTA meetings, or just fishing with a friend — was a necessity. Needless to say, without air-conditioning there would be no shopping malls. No summer school. No steel skyscrapers. No sorrow. No death.
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare Theory, however, has at least one major flaw. Because of their expense, air-conditioners were turned on mostly in summer, so nothing was to prevent Americans from returning to their old front porch-sitting ways the rest of the year. Nor would the possession of air-conditioning have prevented Americans from inviting friends over to sit in their artificially cooled living rooms to chat and play cards, if that’s what they really wanted to do. No, it seems more likely that the oft-maligned television had more to do with the decline of socializing and civic associations than AC.
THAT’S A RELIEF, because I would hate to think ill of my air-conditioner. When I first moved in into our 120-year-old inner-city, two-story brick home with my lovely neo-bohemian wife, the joint lacked — among other amenities — air-conditioning. And Trina had no intention of turning our home into a giant Frigidaire. I can put up with a lot of the eccentricities of inner-city living — the crime, the litter, the droopy drawers — but I cannot abide St. Louis’ hellishly humid summers — not without central air. Even my wife’s neo-bohemian friends visiting from mild San Francisco and Portland allowed how they could never live in the Midwest without air-conditioning. That clinched it. Last summer we purchased two Carriers, one for upstairs and one for the downstairs.
Besides making me a whole lot easier to live with, the air-conditioning comes with an additional benefit. Since the AC (and the fear of burglars) forces us to shut our windows, street noises are now at a minimum. Goodbye brawls and boom cars. Hello sweet, sweet sleep.
I’ve read enough Jane Jacobs to know her views on the importance of vibrant city streets. (And, trust me, there is no more vibrant residential street in America than ours.) I am even willing to grant she may be right about the importance of having busy, lively streets — up until, say 10 p.m. After that, I’m just grateful to have my new energy efficient AC to block out all that wonderful street life.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 7.26.12 @ 6:57AM
A surprising number of buildings in Toronto have no air conditioning, including the large, comfortable buiding where I live. The buildings are 40 years old and can barely handle the power requirements of modern life such as stoves, refrigerators, computers, televisions and microwave ovens. (I can't run the microwave and the dishwasher together; it will blow a fuse. Remember fuses?) Fortunately, for a person from Atlanta, there are only 4 or 5 days in the summer that require air conditioning. 85 degrees here is an "Extreme Heat Emergency" and weather people run around waving their arms and screaming. Until our economy crashed and made electric power freely available (at a very high price), our Premier often broadcast PSAs begging people to turn OFF their AC in hot weather, and instead take up their beds and walk to City Hall, where they could sleep on the floor with a crowd of strangers, just like the homeless do. Now that we're all unemployed, there's plenty of AC for all who have access to it at home, and frankly, my two fans generally keep me as cool as necessary. In Atlanta we kept our AC at 80 lest we go bankrupt by fall. Heat Emergency, hah!
JimH| 7.26.12 @ 7:49AM
The worst thing that can be said about air conditioning is that it made Washington D.C. habitable year round and thus was a major contributor to the growth of government.
Otis, my man!| 7.26.12 @ 2:51PM
True
But on the other hand, air conditioning did contribute to economic boom times further South, beginning in the 1950's.
When I lived in New Orleans, old-timers told me that up until the late 1940's when A/C was installed, department stores on Canal Street would close from June through September because it was simply too hot inside for employees to work and people to shop. Can you imagine what a wet blanket on the local economy that must have been?
The last bastion for Malaria in the U.S. was the Gulf South and it was not entirely eliminated in America until around 1950. The advent of air conditioning was a contributing factor to that elimination because it allowed people to sleep inside with the windows closed so that mosquitos couldn't get at them as easily.
The only people I know who are anti-AC are the ususual parochial liberals who live in the Great White North.
Occam's Tool| 7.26.12 @ 4:42PM
Hey, I live in the Great White North. Hell, to get to my house, you fly to Fargo and head NORTH!
On terribly hot dog days of summer days like today, when it hits 70 degrees, I love my air conditioner.
Occam's Tool| 7.26.12 @ 4:45PM
Serously, up here in the woods within 100 miles of the Canadian border, we get about 2 weeks of 90 degrees a year, and maybe 4 to 6 weeks of 80s.
One can dress up in the winter. But there's only so many clothes a man like me can take off before the ladies start fainting... (of what, I'm not sure)
Occam's Tool| 7.26.12 @ 4:48PM
The temperature outside today, at this minute, in my town is 70 degrees. I'm going home, boys, after I go to Walmart to pick up a new laptop.
Petronius| 7.26.12 @ 6:50PM
Good point. You may have an ice cube.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 4:35PM
Thank you, Pete. By the way, sir, should you find yourself in upper NW Minnesota sometime, give Ken (Old Texican) or ConChef a ring before going---they know me, and I will treat you to a beer and steak.
The same holds true, of course, for Mr. Orlet. The winters are dealt with by: 1) hiring a man to snowshovel my driveway ( about $35.00/pop, or between $500-$700 yearly. My summer lawn service runs about $65.00/wk, so it is a continuous drain), 2: wearing an appropriate Land's End Parka, and 3) getting Thinsulate 100 gram gloves (my actual ones vary from 100-200 grams on various surfaces---the best ones you can get in Walmart are 40 gram gloves, so I order these online). I wear thick socks, but my driveway is always scraped down smooth, so I don't worry about boots. As I am weirdly cold intolerant and heat sensitive, I don't worry about long underwear, either. My winters are spent reading and drinking hot chocolate, and my summers are spent working and swimming when I can, and going for long walks around the circle of houses that we live on.
We also have the geothermal heating and cooling set up which takes a lot of drain off the main heating and cooling unit.
My life is quite good.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 4:35PM
Keep in mind that by snowshovel I mean truck with plow.
EastTexasRancher| 7.26.12 @ 8:04AM
I was born in South Texas where heat and humidity were oppressive. Then, due to asthma, we moved to a ranch in the beautiful Texas hill country, where the air is much drier. Still, we moved during the famous 1950's drought, so everything was dry, and hot, and oppressive, and there were no colors in my childhood.
I left for college at 17 and moved to a dorm, where I first encountered air conditioning. I was so cold the first week, that mother made the 90 mile trip carrying me four heavy blankets to cover up with when I slept.
My folks, on the other hand, did not air condition their ranch house until 1989, when I begged my Dad to air-condition the entire house (a feat in a 1930's house), for my mother's sake. In her early 40's she had suffered a blood clot in her left leg and she wore Jobst stockings. By noon each day, due to heat, her leg was so swollen it was painful to see.
The day Dad finished the job, he called me and said, $10,000 later, he had finished it. But, he did not like air conditioning. He said that cooling a house was not natural and that it made him lazy. By that he meant when he came in from working on his ranch, the cool was so seductive, he didn't want to leave.
His manner of cooling himself down was to drink hot coffee, which, he said, cooled him internally.
As for me. I don't think I could do without air conditioning now!
Pecos Pete| 7.26.12 @ 9:07AM
I was raised in west Texas and remember well the cooler temps provided by wet cheese cloth draped over open windows.
EastTexasRancher| 7.27.12 @ 8:03AM
That would work in West Texas. We used something they called swamp coolers while living at Ft. Huachuca, Az. With its cool moist air, and mounted on the flat roofs of the houses, the "swamp coolers", were wonderful. Here in E. Texas the humidity is as oppressive as it was in S. Texas. They only difference is that we have rain and more trees and things are wonderfully green here.
c. j. acworth| 7.26.12 @ 8:25AM
It gets pretty warm and humid up here in New Hampshire, too, esp. in July. I work nights, and would have a hard time getting a good days sleep w/o AC. Sure it adds to my electric bill, but I make up for it by not overheating the house in the winter, when I run my pellet stove at about 62 degrees. I'm more comfortable with cooler temps than heat.
Bob Grant| 7.26.12 @ 10:03AM
Awww,
Thank God for that beautiful compressed/expanded gas running through those funny little copper pipes throughout my house.
bill glass| 7.26.12 @ 10:16AM
Good, humorous, informative....but, once you use 'Weltanschauung' in a piece, what's left?
Kingofthenet| 7.26.12 @ 1:03PM
I got a 12,000BTU in my Apt in the city....I can make igloos inside with that thing, it's wonderful!
Occam's Tool| 7.26.12 @ 4:47PM
Sorry, King: under Obama you are using too much power---you need your office and home semi-tropical, like his.
Butch| 7.26.12 @ 2:30PM
When they write the definitive history of the South (lots of the Southwest, too), no telling the importance that will be assigned to air conditioning. It changed everything: Houston was unlivible, so was Phoenix, and that's just for openers.
Mr. Orlet, been to St. Louis many, many times on business. Really the worst of both worlds: cold with big snows in winter, suffocating heat and humidity in summer. Don't see how you did without this essential of life for so long. Enjoy!
Petronius| 7.26.12 @ 3:02PM
Careful Chris. In your neighborhood the ambulatory claw machines will tear out the unit and sell it for scrap the day after they find out you have it.
Picwa| 7.29.12 @ 4:38PM
We had power outages that lasted several days when the hurricanes came through Florida several years ago. Slept in the living room sofa bed with windows open on opposite walls, woke up with slimy sweat over the entire body. Everything, everything was perpetually moist. We can live without AC--also without anesthesia, electricity, or the internal combustion engine but life would be harder, dirtier, and shorter.