The hot summer weather of the past few days brought up a bit of history: this is the 100th anniversary of air conditioning. It was in 1902 that a heating company engineer named Willis Carrier cranked up a machine in Brooklyn to condition the air in a printing plant. You see, printers had a problem with hot, humid air. It did all kinds of weird things to paper, and that played havoc with printing. That's where it started. But it didn't take long for all kinds of people to realize that beating the heat in summer paid real dividends.
An advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post in 1949 asked: "Why have most great inventions and advances ... come from temperate zones?" The answer: "Because for centuries tropical heat has robbed men of their energy and ambition. There was no air conditioning." Here in Gainesville one movie theater put in air conditioning in the 1950's and changed the way we lived. Instead of sitting on the porch at dark and having a conversation, or for younger people, courting, we all went to the cool movie.
Air conditioning was first installed in businesses, and to a large degree in Southern businesses, where they pleased customers and improved productivity. People who worked in an air conditioned atmosphere soon wanted air conditioning at home. And now more than 80 percent of American homes have air conditioning, and a higher percentage than that in the homes of the South. There is no doubt that air conditioning changed the economy of the South, where it contributed to a sharp increase in productivity from the office to the factory floor. In fact, if someone wanted to identify the one factor that has contributed most to the economic development of the South, the 100-year-old invention of air conditioning would have to be considered.
This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.
Monday
August 4th, 2025
8:29AM
