• It's easy to take that icy cold air for granted...

These days, it’s easy to take air conditioning for granted. Today, more than 87 percent of U.S. households are now equipped with air conditioning, and it’s a standard for customer-facing businesses across the country.

But air conditioning wasn’t always the ubiquitous, practical requirement it’s seen to be today. It used to be a rare luxury, reserved for only the wealthiest citizens and most advance

The real story might surprise you.

The Early History of Air Conditioning

Air conditioning didn’t exist in Ancient Egypt, but the civilization’s buildings did utilize a wide range of passive air cooling techniques. Those techniques worked their way through the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, the Middle East, and even as far as Northern India.

After that, a number of scientists made major advancements in refrigeration and cooling. For example, William Cullen (a professor from the University of Glasgow) was able to use vacuums to evaporate liquids in 1748. About a century later, Florida doctor John Gorrie created a miniature steam engine to produce cool air to reduce patient discomfort from tropical illnesses.

However, it wasn’t until 1901 that the first prototypical air conditioning unit, powered by electricity, was built.

At the turn of the century, Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Company was well-known for their high-quality color printing, thanks to their advanced machinery. But those machines were suffering from consecutive summers of extreme heat; the high temperatures caused pages to swell, resulting in smudged and blurry printing. They needed a cooling solution.

Willis H. Carrier, an experimental engineer, proposed a system that could reduce the temperature and humidity around these machines. Essentially, he took a high-powered industrial fan to blow hot air over a set of steam coils that were filled with cold water. Excess humidity in the air would condense due to the low temperature of the coils, thus creating colder air.

This “first air conditioner” worked as intended. The printer’s capabilities were returned to normal. But more importantly, the people operating the machine felt more comfortable – which opened the door to further opportunities.

By 1922, Carrier had polished his design, introducing the Centrifugal Refrigeration Compressor – a closer analogue to modern air conditioners.

Cultural Attitudes Toward Air Conditioning

Carrier’s invention took off quickly. Soon, business owners (especially those working in hot, uncomfortable industrial settings) were clamoring to get an air cooling unit of their own installed – and journalists in the press wrote stories celebrating the invention. So why didn’t John Gorrie’s earlier steam engine invention get the same kind of attention?

One explanation is that cultural attitudes took a major turn around this time in American history. Throughout the 1800s, Victorian and purist attitudes explained that any type of air cooling technology was a violation of God’s will – a Frankenstein-like abomination that manipulated the natural order of things. But by the early 1900s, machinery was highly popular and used for a wide variety of different functions.

Still, air conditioning was viewed as a tool to lower the discomfort of harsh working environments until one critical breakthrough – the arrival of air conditioning in movie theaters. Cooling machines for movie theaters greatly increased the popularity of attending movies in the summer, turning theaters into a kind of escape from the harsh summer heat. In fact, air conditioning may be responsible for the development of the “summer blockbuster” phenomenon.

Thanks to the popularity of air conditioning in theaters, the general public became more accepting of the technology – and more eager to get it for their own homes.

Toward Modern Air Conditioning

These days, nearly every business in the country has a commercial AC unit. And it’s not expensive or difficult to have one installed. So how did we get to this point?

In 1945, Life magazine published a story about the future of air conditioning, noting that “After the War it Will be Cheap Enough to Put in Private Homes.” That prediction came true. Over time, different engineers discovered and implemented different breakthroughs that would make the technology more efficient, cheaper to produce, and more accessible for residential owners. And thanks to the “keeping up with the Joneses” competitive mentality of the 1950s (and high rates of consumer spending), a single person in a neighborhood buying an AC unit would inspire countless others to run out and buy one as well.

Recent developments in AC technology continue to make progress. Modern units are smaller, more powerful, more efficient, better for the environment, and are less expensive as well. And as long as you take good care of your equipment with regular maintenance, you can expect your system to last many years. Just don’t forget about air conditioning’s humble and strange beginnings.