Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning [Hardcover]

Ackermann Me (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 17, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1588340406 | ISBN-13: 978-1588340405 | Edition: First Edition

The year 2002 marked the 100th anniversary of the first installation of air-conditioning. During the past century, it has become a staple of American life; 83% of US homes are now air-conditioned. In this engaging social history, Marsha Ackermann explores how the idea of “cooling” became firmly embedded in the social perceptions and expectations of Americans, transforming our definition of comfort and the way we live, work, and play.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marsha E. Ackermann lectures in history at Eastern Michigan University.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian; First Edition edition (April 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588340406
• ISBN-13: 978-1588340405
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,205,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's "Kool" in here! August 3, 2002

By stackofbooks

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Marsha Ackermann, the author of this wonderful book, is a historian. She leads us on a wonderful historical tour of air-conditioning in America. Ackermann starts in the early `20's with a geographer, Ellsworth Huntington, who strongly believed that "people of European races (because of milder, temperate weather) are able to accomplish the most work and have the best health". His racist views, tempered by the more moderate ones of C.E.A.Winslow, a prominent public health professional, laid the groundwork for a societal shift in the acceptance of air-conditioning.

The Carrier Corporation, a major manufacturer of air-conditioning units, started off by plugging the units to luxury establishments such as hotels and movie "palaces". These beckoned the public with posters that promised that it was "Kool inside".

It was only as recently as the 50's (after the second world war), that air-conditioning made inroads in the home market. Advertisement appeals were made to women and later to men to a point where now the air-conditioning unit is ubiquitous in American society.

I was fascinated and alarmed to see how architectural features that provide relief from heat, such as "sleeping porches, sun parlors, and large windows" have been, over the years, thrown entirely away from the home development equation. Instead what we have most often are uniform houses that are easy to build and that have no "interior partitions that block the flow of conditioned air".

Even though Ackermann herself acknowledges in the end that she dislikes air-conditioning, her book is not a strident case for or against it. At times the book reads annoyingly like her thesis dissertation (with too much visual clutter from footnotes), but the endlessly fascinating topic keeps you glued....

I want to put in a special word for the absolutely charming pictures (many of them are photographs from the `50's) that Ackermann generously sprinkles throughout the book. They tell a wonderful story all by themselves and supplement the text very well.

"Cool Comfort" expertly chronicles the history of air-conditioning in America. It is fascinating to read how sharp marketing and advertising, when the time is ripe, can turn a product from the luxury fringes to an item that is increasingly considered indispensable. In that sense, the lessons learned from this account can well be applied to almost any product society can now "never live without". Read more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A little light on technology but interesting history July 3, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Interesting overview of the history (particularly the marketing) of air conditioning. How the invention was moved from an industrial setting to eventually being marketed as a device almost necessary to protect one's health was telling (especially curious is the bizzarre "igloo of tomorrow" concept pushed at world's fairs.) I would of liked to see a bit more of a technological description (I don't really know how air-conditioning works, and after reading this book I still don't) but I learnt a lot about this now ubiquitous entry into our lives.
The author may indeed not like air conditioning, but what can you say about an invention that has made people think that there is actually something unnatural about the climate of the place you have chosen to live.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting overview... but reads like a dissertation... July 19, 2002

By R. Weisenbacher

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Author Marsha E. Ackerman's book, "Cool Comfort- America's Romance with Air-Conditioning," is a fasicinating overview of Americans desire to be cool and comfortable vs. those who say that sealing up a house is "unhealthy". Although Ackerman doesn't delve into any technological aspects of air-conditioning (such as the development of centrifugal chillers to the modern compressors of today), she does delve into the psyche of Americans and their views-- both pro and con-- about Air-Conditioning. My only "gripe" is that Ackerman's book, which started out as her PhD dissertation that she revised, still reads as a "stilted" dissertation. The book tends to keep the reader at "arm's length" rather than to allow the reader to "cozy up" to the subject.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth a Repeated Reading March 11, 2007

By Chris Longhorn

Format:Hardcover

After first reading this book, I was certainly tempted to agree with other reviewers who believed this to be merely a diatribe against Air Conditioning in any form. However, after I read more widely around this subject (including Gail Cooper's "Air Conditioning America"), I've changed my stance somewhat.

What the author is attempting to do is show the Air Conditioning industry in all its facets (technology, marketing, production, sales and politics - amongst others) and how it developed. This development, taking place during the early and middle parts of the last century as it did, by necessity used and reflected the economic, class, racial and engineering influences which the industry operated within. As such, it has much to offer in understanding commerce, manufacturing and the way the population is manipulated (sometimes with full knowledge and culpability, sometimes not) by the advent of new products and services which pervade our everyday lives. This pervasion is sometimes so subtle, so every-day and mundane that we don't grasp the finer nuances of its influence while unquestioning held in its thrall.

Marsha has in this reviewer's opinion succeeded in demonstrating the social and economic events which the technology of Air Conditioning created and was subject to. Granted, some of the racial places the narrative gets dragged to seem a little over-the-top, but never the less race WAS an issue in the development of the market for Air Conditioning and because the more emotive energy which usually clouds an attempt to make an objective assessment of what amounted to "racist marketing" is dissipated in this study, it is all the more illuminating....

My main criticism is that these (actually quite profound) areas of investigation aren't fully drawn out - as another reviewer said, this is a rather "thin" book.

But certainly one worth a deeper assessment than may at first meet the eye. Read more ›