Home heating networks during the Industrial Revolution helped create
the modern dependence on fossil fuel energy in America.
Home Fires tells the fascinating story of how changes in home heating
over the nineteenth century spurred the growth of networks that helped
remake American society. Sean Patrick Adams reconstructs the ways in
which the "industrial hearth" appeared in American cities, the methods
that entrepreneurs in home heating markets used to convince consumers
that their product designs and fuel choices were superior, and how
elite, middle-class, and poor Americans responded to these overtures.
Adams depicts the problem of dwindling supplies of firewood and the
search for alternatives; the hazards of cutting, digging, and drilling
in the name of home heating; the trouble and expense of moving materials
from place to place; the rise of steam power; the growth of an
industrial economy; and questions of economic efficiency, at both the
individual household and the regional level. Home Fires makes it clear
that debates over energy sources, energy policy, and company profit
margins have been around a long time.
The challenge of staying warm in the industrializing North becomes a
window into the complex world of energy transitions, economic change,
and emerging consumerism. Readers will understand the struggles of urban
families as they sought to adapt to the ever-changing nineteenth-century
industrial landscape. This perspective allows a unique view of the
development of an industrial society not just from the ground up but
from the hearth up.
