In the late 1940s, I found myself in Boston.  I had always thought of Boston as being among one of the cooler climes.  But this was in August and I found myself sweating profusely.  As a final resort, I repaired to a movie theater that offered some sort of cooling.  I am not sure at this time whether the term “air conditioning” had been invented.  But at any rate I found myself trying to be cool and watching a movie called “The Babe Ruth Story.”  You will recall that the owners of the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.  Bostonians have always contended that that [sic] is why they won no pennants for something in excess of 50 years.  But the air conditioning, such as it was, in the movie theater was not much help and shortly thereafter I returned to the hotel, which was also without air conditioning.
Before we go further, it might be helpful to deconstruct the term “air conditioning.”  It was a term that came into general use, according to my memory, sometime in the 1930s.  Basically it applied to fans that moved the air, which was a bit better than nothing.  The fact of the matter is that if we refer to heating in the winter, why should there not be a word called “cooling” in the summer?
It was in this period of time when there were movies that were shown to people in automobiles.  There was no such thing as an air-conditioned movie theater at that time, so the next best thing was to go to movies whose patrons never left their cars.  Similarly, there was widespread eating in automobiles.  Rather than going into a restaurant on the hot days in August, people would gather at drive-in restaurants to consume a meal.  I have had some of those meals and I must report that they were a bit less satisfying than the meals served in restaurants.
The United States is not a tropical country yet a part of it has sections where the temperature will reach the upper nineties Fahrenheit during the summer.  And so a lively business had sprung up post-World War II in the so-called air conditioning business.
Now before we go further, I have no great quarrel with the term “air conditioning.”  It seems to me that if we have heat in the winter, why do we not have coolness in the summer?  But we are stuck with the term air conditioning.  So much so is this the case that any house offered for sale need only use the initials AC to announce that it is air-conditioned.
Europeans for whatever reason have determined that there is not much of a need for air conditioning.  Over the years I have spent several summer weeks in Europe and I tend to agree with the Europeans.  Not long ago I asked my great and good friend Sven Lernevall to take a look at the houses that were offered for sale in Stockholm.  He reported back that of 33 or 34 residences offered for sale, none of them advertised that they were air conditioned.  But the fact of the matter is that Americans do not wish to be troubled by high temperatures.  They insist upon having their homes and offices cooled.  I suspect that there is a reason why Europeans advertising a house for sale for example in Stockholm would not offer air conditioning whereas in this country in Texas and in some sections of Florida the heat becomes insufferable and air conditioning is a must.
Now, look at it this way.  To use myself as an example, I grew up in an un-air-conditioned home and had no idea about air conditioning until I bought a new house in New Providence, New Jersey.  The house cost $26,000 in 1957.  It was a new home and I thought that even here in New Jersey, which is above the torrid zones, I could escape without air conditioning.  But nonetheless, after a few years I thought that it was necessary to air condition the house.
Now, as I say I grew up in homes which were un-air-conditioned.  I attended schools that were un-air-conditioned.  I went to doctors’ offices that were un-air-conditioned.  In short, until after I returned to this country in 1946 or 1947, there was no such thing as air conditioning.  Once the move started to air-condition homes and offices, there was no stopping it.  I suspect that today, if a home were offered for sale with a sale price being above $20,000, it would have no takers without air conditioning.
I think that is probably enough on the subject of cooling our homes and offices.  We turn now to the heating side of this equation.  Apparently Europeans and Israelis, to name two examples, are much hardier folks than the average American.  I offer two examples.  Sometime in the late 1970s, I was invited to a new home to attend a party with several of my colleagues from the Irish Telecommunications Authority.  As the end of the evening approached, we were seated in the living room around a small small small peat fire that projected no warmth to the inhabitants.  But the Irish paid no attention.  Apparently they had come equipped with sweaters or perhaps they are simply tougher than Americans.  I remember to this day the cold creeping on my shoulders and hoping that soon the evening would come to an end.
Similarly, on another occasion I was invited to a home in Israel.  That home was in Jerusalem.  Apparently, as in the case of the Irish home, it had no central heat.  My teeth did not really chatter but they were within one millimeter of chattering.  In this country, the question would have been, “Shall we set the heat at 75º or a little higher?”  That was not the way it was done in Ireland or in Israel.
So as I said, I was raised in a home without air conditioning and as far as the heat went, it was a function of our well being.  We were well enough off to buy coal, which tended to last all evening.  But when we had to depend upon wood, the fire in the furnace would peter out about midnight.
And so I do not recall “the good old days” when it comes to heating and cooling.  Even here in New Jersey, which is well beyond the torrid zones, I have found it necessary to air condition my homes and to provide them with furnaces that are in good order.  But if we are to take the examples of the Irish and the Israelis, who seem to have no central heating in their homes or offices, it appears then that the Americans have indeed gone soft.  If the rest of the world challenges us on our alleged softness, I would remember the cold nights in Missouri, where I was born, when the fire petered out at about midnight.
In the summer, the temperatures in the great state of Missouri would often approach 100ºF.  Because St. Louis is under the influence of the humidity of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River as well as the Merrimac River, all of which contributed to misery for its citizens.  Taking one thing with another, I do not long for the days of summer when we had no cooling devices.  I am glad that those days are gone.
Similarly, in the winter I do not long for the days when it was necessary to stoke the furnace in the hope that it would not run out before daybreak.  It is alleged that this country has an endless supply of natural gas so the winters are pretty much taken care of.  Electricity feeds our air conditioners in the summer, so that is taken care of too.  But whether or not Americans have gone soft, I plead no defense.
I suspect that visitors to our homes and offices in this country might think why we make such a big deal about our heating and cooling.  On the other hand, if we can cool our homes and offices, it lends much to the effort to make our lives a bit more pleasant.  So with that thought, I conclude that it may be that Americans have gone soft, but what are you going to do about it?  When the temperature reaches 100ºF in the summer or when the temperature goes to 20ºF in the winter, I am greatly pleased by the sound of the air conditioner in the summer and the furnace in the winter.  If that makes me a softie, I would say, “So be it.”   I am comfortable and that is all that matters.
E. E. CARR
October 22, 2012
Essay 708
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Kevin’s commentary: Man, as an essay-categorizer this one put me in a bit of a pinch. I have a tag for these essays that I really enjoy using called “Objections to Modernity” but this one is just the opposite. However, celebrations of modernity isn’t going to be nearly a big enough theme to merit its own topic, so I guess in the end I will file it under the “objections” tag anyway but have this little clarifying note to explain that decision.
Meanwhile I always appreciated the value of AC, having grown up in a part of Texas that routinely hangs out at over 100 degrees for several months at a time. Until I went to college in the Midwest, I actually had no idea that buildings without AC were even things that existed.  The notion of one had simply never occurred to me. The other side of this coin though was that heating was pretty much unnecessary, but just under three weeks ago I moved down to a house in Mountain View whose owner does not believe in turning on the heating. Turns out that a 63 degree house is pretty miserable, so I’m now the proud owner of a space heater and I too could not be happier with it.