| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Gail Cooper. Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900–1960. (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology, number 23.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1998. Pp. x, 228. $35.00.

Gail Cooper's study is a welcome addition to the history of technology and urban history. Its strength lies in mapping out fundamental engineering and marketing issues about a technology that has had a profound impact on the very nature of inside environments. The book also is a first step in revealing the impact of air conditioning on urban life. 1

Cooper employs the records of the Carrier Engineering Corporation to argue that "Only with the appearance of air conditioning did engineers and architects believe that a totally artificial indoor environment, independent of the natural climate, was a possibility" (p. 1). The implementation of air conditioning in the early twentieth century revolved around interrelated issues: "what form the technology would take" and "who would determine that configuration" (p. 3). Two engineering and design traditions converged, one interested in a centralized system integrated into the structure of buildings and a second, more flexible and mobile approach—a machine-in-the-window device. Setting up her study in this fashion, Cooper engages an important issue in the history of technology: that is, the propensity to design and construct centralized systems at the expense of modularity and individual control. It is a classic issue clearly presented, and one that raises important questions not only about engineering philosophy but also about consumer preferences. Cooper avoids a progressive view of technology, preferring to concentrate on several contested choices that led to diverging paths for producing "man-made weather." . . .

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