These days, we take air conditioning for granted (until it stops working.) We simply expect that when we walk into our homes, they will be cool. It hasn’t always been that way. Even after the first air conditioner was created, it was a long while before home air conditioners were created.

Before the 20th century, American’s fanned themselves to keep cool. I’m sure they had some really intricate hand fans! Once electricity was revealed, it wasn’t much longer before oscillating fans were invented.

The very first large scale, electric air conditioner was made in 1902 by a 25 year old man named Willis Carrier. The system wasn’t perfected by any means at that point. It simply pulled humidity out of the air, which was helpful for his job at the printing plant. He improved his invention in 1922 by adding a central compressor. Memorial Day weekend, 1925, American’s were able to experience air conditioning on a large scale. It was introduced to them within the walls of the Rivoli Theater in Times Square, New York. The movie business did really well during that time. In part, the introduction of air conditioning helped with that.  People poured in theaters to escape the brutal summer heat.

In the 1930’s, air conditioning was introduced into places like department stores and offices. This helped tremendously with productivity at work. I presume people were happy to be at work in those days since they typically didn’t have air conditioning at home. By 1965, only about 10% of homes had the luxury of air conditioning. Imagine that, for every 100 people only 10 had air conditioning. As of 2007, about 86% of American’s had air conditioning in their homes.