Creating the Twentieth Century

by Vaclav Smil

  The other key qualitative energy shift that was pioneered by the United States was the rising share of fossil fuel energy consumed indirectly as electricity. This share rose from, obviously, zero in 1881 to about 4% by 1913, surpassed 10% by 1950 and by the year 2000 was nearly 35% (Smil 2003). Finally, higher productivities in all energy industries translated into lower prices of fuels and electricity. Trends for crude oil and electricity were particularly impressive. When expressed in constant dollars, U.S. crude oil prices in 1910 were about 90% lower than during the early 1860s (see figure 1.9), and GE’s household tariff for lighting fell by the same amount just during the two decades between 1892 and 1912.

  Before leaving the subject of high-energy civilization, I must stress that all of the trends that began during the Age of Synergy and that I describe in this section either had continued for most of the 20th century or are still very much with us. Global shares of biomass energies fell to about 25% by 1950 and to no more than 10% by the year 2000 (Smil 2003). Per capita energy consumption still keeps rising even in the world’s most affluent economies: during the 1990s it went up by nearly 5% in the United States and by almost 15% in Japan (BP 2003). Efficiencies of major energy conversions are still improving, although some techniques (gas-fired furnaces, aluminum smelting, the Haber-Bosch synthesis of ammonia) are now approaching their thermo-dynamic limits.

  Transition from coal to hydrocarbons continues as the global share of crude oil and natural gas in the world’s primary energy supply rose from less than 40% in 1950 to about 65% by the year 2000. Higher shares of fossil fuels are being converted to electricity: the global mean was 10% by 1950 and about 30% by the year 2000 (Smil 2003). And prices of crude oil, now the single most important fossil fuel worldwide, were falling until the early 1970s when the OPEC’s actions suddenly reversed that secular trend—but their 1985 collapse returned them during the 1990s to levels that, when expressed in constant monies, were no higher than they were during the early 1920s or the late 1890s (see figure 1.9).

  Mechanization and Mass Production

  Higher energy flows used with increasing efficiencies by new prime movers were the key for the sweeping mechanization of tasks that ranged from crop harvesting to office work and from manufacturing to household chores. Even in the United Kingdom, this process got fully underway only during the Age of Synergy: at the time of the 1851 census the country’s traditional craftsmen still greatly outnumbered machine-operating factory workers as there were more shoemakers than coal miners and more blacksmiths than ironworkers (Cameron 1985). Mechanization made mass production the norm in all modernizing economies as it began to deliver food surpluses and affordable consumer goods while cutting the labor hours and enhancing the quality of life. Again, all of these trends are still very much with us, now in advanced stages in affluent countries but still in midstream in such large modernizing economies as Brazil or China.

  After 1870 the mechanization’s reach grew ever more comprehensive, encompassing fundamental (steelmaking) as well as trivial (toy making) procedures. Enormous expansion of machine tool manufacturing brought the mechanization of tasks that ranged from wire drawing and twisting to metal milling and shaping. Mechanization transformed activities that were both ubiquitously visible (internal combustion and electric motors displacing horses in cities) and largely hidden. An excellent example in the latter category is the speed with which electricity-powered mechanical cutting diffused in the U.S. coal mining: from nothing in the early 1880s to about 25% by 1900 and to half of all produced coal by 1913 (Devine 1990b). The process was completed by the early 1950s when about 95% of all underground U.S. coal was cut from seams mechanically.

  But the first area where mechanization, and other new modes of production, made the greatest difference to an average consumer was in the production of food. The combination of better machines (inexpensive steel plows, efficient harvesters and threshers), increased fertilizer use, improved storage, and cheaper long-distance transportation brought steady increases in agricultural productivity. In the United Kingdom, Samuelson (1893) calculated that between 1861 and 1881 more than 110,000 farm workers were replaced by about 4,000 skilled artisans that were making new field machines and another roughly 4,000 people who operated them. But, as with the energy transition, the United States led the way, and pages could be filled with impressive comparisons of requirements for physical labor before the Age of Synergy and by its end, when an increasingly mechanized activity was able to provide food surpluses by employing a shrinking share of the population (Schlebecker 1975; Smil 1994).

  Between 1860 and 1914 the share of the U.S. farming population was halved to just below 30% of the total, average time required to produce a ton of wheat declined by about 45% to less than 40 hours, and the largest farms could produce it with less than 10 hours of labor (Rogin 1931; McElroy, Hecht, and Gavett 1964). New large grain mills (the first one with automatic steel rollers was built by Cadwallader Washburn in 1879) produced superior flour, and Andrew Shriver’s introduction of the autoclave (U.S. Patent 149,256 in 1874) to use pressurized steam for the sterilization of food increased the capacity of canning 30-fold compared to the traditional method (Goldblith 1972).

  New imports and mechanization made food cheaper also in Europe and in the United Kingdom. By 1880s even working class English families were adding not just jam, margarine, and eggs to their regular diet but also canned sardines, coffee, and cocoa (Mitchell 1996). Bowley’s (1937) detailed account shows that compared to the 1860s, the average food basket of English families in 1913 contained three times as much meat and cheese, twice as much butter and sugar, and four times as much tea. And there were also significant increases in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, new imports of bananas and oranges, and the growing popularity of chocolate. And the paragon of stores that sell gourmet food opened in Paris at Place de la Madeleine in 1886, when Auguste Fauchon began to offer an unmatched selection of delicacies.

  The second most important area where mechanization had the greatest impact on the quality of life for the largest number of people was in providing affordable infrastructures for better household and public hygiene. Modern plumbing, whose diffusion was supported by the latest scientific discoveries of waterborne pathogens, had enormous cumulative impacts on the reduction of morbidity and on the increase in longevity. Cheaper mass-produced metals, reinforced concrete and more powerful, more efficient electric pumps made it easier to build dams, conduits, and pipes and to bring treated drinking water (a process that became possible only with inexpensive large-scale production of chlorine) into dwellings and take the wastes out.

  Continuous chlorination of drinking water began in the early years of the 20th century. Trenton, New Jersey, had the first large U.S. facility in 1908, and by 1910 the country had nearly 600 treatment sites serving i.2 million people; by 1948 some 80 million Americans drank chlorinated water supplied by nearly 7,000 utilities (Thoman 1953). Chlorination brought rapid reduction in the incidence of waterborne infections, particularly of typhoid fever, whose pathogen, Salmonella typhi, was identified in 1880 by Karl Joseph Eberth. U.S. typhoid mortality fell from about 30/100,000 in 1900 to less than 3/100,000 by 1940, and the disease was virtually eliminated by 1950 (USBC 1975).

  The first wave of building municipal sewage plants dates to the 1870s, and by 1913 most large Western European cities (North America lagged behind) had either sewage fields, settling tanks, grit removal, screens, or combinations of these techniques (Seeger 1999). There were other environmental health gains made possible by new techniques. Replacement of horses by engines and motors eliminated enormous volumes of excrement from cities, and this, together with paved streets, also greatly reduced the amount of airborne particulate matter. Although fuel-derived outdoor air pollution remained a serious urban problem for decades, the situation would have been much worse without more efficient stoves, boilers, and turbogenerators. Indoors, electric lights replaced air-polluting gas jets, and more affordable (and better qual
ity) soap made more frequent washing of hands possible. As we now know, this simple chore remains the most cost-effective means of preventing the spread of many infectious diseases.

  With adequate food supply and basic hygiene claiming a declining share of disposable income, rising shares of consumer expenditures began to shift first to purchases of more expensive foodstuffs (meat intake rose steadily), prepared meals, and drinks and then to acquisitions of an ever-widening array of personal and household goods whose quality was improving as mechanized mass manufacturing was turning out identical items at unprecedented speed. As Landes (1969:289) put it, “[T]here was no activity that could not be mechanized and powered. This was the consummation of the Industrial Revolution.” Ingenious machines were designed to bend leather for shoes or steel wire for paper clips, to blow glass to make light bulbs or to shape milk and beer bottles.

  Impressive rise of retailing can be illustrated by higher revenues as well as by the number and variety of stores. Berlanstein (1964) collated interesting statistics about the growth of retail outlets for Ivry-sur-Seine, a Parisian working-class suburb: between 1875 and 1911 the number of clothing stores per 1,000 inhabitants nearly quadrupled while the number of grocery stores quadrupled and that of stores selling drink and prepared food rose 4.5 times. And, as already noted, consumers without access to richly stocked urban stores (see figure 1.11) could rely on progressively greater choice available through mailorder shopping, an innovation that was pioneered in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844–1913).

  After 1890, mass consumption, particularly in the United States, began to embrace many nonessential manufactures whose falling prices made them soon broadly accessible. The Age of Synergy was thus the time of the democratization of possessions, habits, and tastes as machines, gadgets, and pastimes spread with often dizzying pace. Unfortunately, as Veblen (1902:84) noted, there is also a near universal tendency toward excessive consumption:

  The basis on which good repute in any highly organised industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength … are leisure and conspicuous consumption. Accordingly, both of these methods are in vogue as far down the scale as it remains possible.

  Premiere places of conspicuous consumption were new large department stores where customers could get lost amidst the artful displays of goods. Zola captured this milieu with unsurpassed perfection. As Octave Mouret, director of Au Bonheur des Dames, surveyed the enormous crowd of females filling his store on the occasion of the Great White Sale, he was aware that “his creation was introducing a new religion, and while churches were gradually emptied by the wavering of faith, they were replaced in souls that were now empty by his emporium” (Zola 1883:416). More than a century later, the only notable difference is that huge department stores have been displaced by much larger shopping centers sheltering scores or hundreds of smaller stores under one roof. And the modern habit of walking around in visibly branded clothes or with other prominently labeled merchandise also goes back more than a century: in 1899 Louis Vuitton began to put his elegantly lettered initials on his hand-crafted products, and this practice is now imitated across all price ranges.

  But in retrospect, it is clear that the most important item of conspicuous consumption and expanding accumulation was the ownership of cars. No other mass-produced item turned out to have such wide-ranging effects on the structure and performance of affluent economies, on the spatial organization of society, and on so many social and cultural habits. Only a few hundred rich eccentrics would buy the first motor cars in the early 1890s; only thousands of well-off doctors, businessmen, and engineers were eager to get one of Olds’s early models a decade later—but nearly half a million individuals and families made that purchase every year just before WWI began. Extraordinarily large productivity gains were behind the car’s rapid mass penetration. Data from Ford cost books show that 151 hours was needed to make a car in 1906, 39 in 1914, and 37 in 1924 (Ling 1990)—but productivity was rising in every sector of the economy.

  In 1909 Thomas B. Jeffrey, a Wisconsin manufacturer of the Rambler car, noted that the “mortgage has gone from the Middle Western farm, and to take its place there is the telephone, the heating system, the water supply, improved farm machinery, and the automobile” (cited in Ling 1990:169). By the mid-1920s car making became America’s leading industry in terms of product value, and it has retained this primacy throughout the 20th century. During the late 1990s, U.S. car sales were more than 20% of all wholesale business and more than 25% of all retail, and automakers were the largest purchasers of steel, rubber, glass, machine tools, and robots. Adding crude oil extraction and refining, highway construction and maintenance, roadside lodging and eating, and car-dependent recreation activities leaves no doubt that automobiles have been the key factor of the Western economic growth. No other machine has done so much for the still spreading embourgeoisement and the rise of the middle class.

  By the time American car sales reached hundreds of thousands a year, many newly mass-produced goods were quite affordable—but the range of accumulated personal possession was still fairly limited. As we have seen, all of the products that had eventually become such inalienable ingredients of modernity—electric lights, telephones, cars—were yet to diffuse to most of the population, and there were large differences even among neighboring countries. For example, by 1913 there were 26 people per telephone in Germany, but in France the ratio was still almost 135 (Mitchell 1998). The same was true about basic living conveniences: in 1913, fewer than 20% of Americans had flush toilets.

  Regardless of the differences in the specific national rates of technical progress, cities everywhere were the greatest beneficiaries. Progress in sanitation, communication, and transportation solved or eased the three sets of key obstacles to their further growth. In turn, cities had the leading role in stimulating innovation and facilitating its diffusion (Bairoch 1991). The Age of Synergy was thus overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon, and this generalization is true not only about the outburst of technical inventiveness but also about the period’s incredible artistic creativity. Just try to extend the experiment played with the absent inventions to music, literature, and painting created during the two pre-WWI generations.

  Imagine that we would not have any, or most, compositions by Brahms, Bruckner, Debussy, Dvorak, Gounod, Mahler, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky. Imagine that the novels, stories, and poems of Chekhov, Kipling, Maupassant, Rilke, Tolstoy, Twain, Verlaine, Verne, Wilde, and Zola would not exist. Remove from the world of images the paintings of French impressionists and the canvases that immediately preceded and followed that glorious era: gone are all or most of the works of Braque, Cézanne, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Signac, and van Gogh.

  This admirable outpouring of artistic creativity (particularly its fin de siècle phase) helped to widen the opportunities for visiting art exhibitions and for attending musical performances. But every pastime became more popular as leisure became a widely shared social phenomenon only during the two pre-WWI generations, when its many forms became a notable part of the process of modernization (Marrus 1974). Some of its manifestations were captured in such unforgettable impressionistic masterpieces as Pierre-August Renoir’s Déjeuner des canotiers (1881 oil painting of a boating party gathered around a canopy-covered and wine- and fruit-laden table) or Georges Seurat’s pointillistic gem Un dimanche après-midi a l’Ille de la Grande Jatte that was painted in 1884-1885 and depicts Parisians enjoying a summer afternoon along the banks of the Seine.

  Costs of these leisure activities varied greatly. Even some simple pastimes were rather expensive. To ride the first great wheel built by George W. Ferris (1859-1896) for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago (figure 6.12) cost 50 cents at a time when a Chicago laborer was paid 15 cents per hour (BLS 1934). But this was a popular safe thrill, and during the 20th century it was replicated by hundreds of eponymous structures, most recently by the world�
�s tallest Ferris, London’s Millennium Wheel. Other pastimes were cheap: Frank Brownell’s 1900 Brownie camera cost a dollar, a perfect gift for children to take snapshot of their friends and pets.

  And the Age of Synergy saw the birth of pastimes that targeted the largest possible passive participation as well as of elite pursuits that required not just a great deal of money but also uncommon skills. Animated cartoon films (introduced in 1906) are an excellent and enduring example of the first category, America’s Cup of the other. America’s unbroken string of pre-WWI Cup victories generated a great deal of public attention in its defense, and in 1914 experts were delighted when the tradition of secrecy was lifted and technical details of competing yachts became available before the race (Anonymous 1914), which the war’s outbreak postponed until 1920. And, of course, the Olympic Games were reborn in 1904.

  FIGURE 6.12. George Washington Ferris supported his 75-m-diameter wheel by two 42-m steel towers, and the nearly 14-m-long axle was the single largest steel forging at that time. Two reversible 750-kW engines powered the rotation of 36 wooden cars, each with 60 seats. This original Ferris wheel was reassembled at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, and it was scrapped two years later. Reproduced from Scientific American of July 1, 1893.

  Extensive contemporary writings dealt with many negative consequences of mechanization and mass production. People who reacted with condemnation and outrage to their often appalling surroundings included not only social critics (from Thomas Carlyle to Karl Marx and from John Ruskin to Matthew Arnold) and perceptive novelists but also dedicated photographers who documented urban squalor and misery (Riis 1890). As Kranzberg (1982) rightly noted, this bleak interpretation of industrialization was still prevalent among many scholars a century later. Some modern critics have argued that industrialization deepened, rather than relieved, human poverty and suffering; others regretted the “irretrievable destruction of much of the beauty of the countryside” and the “loss of the peacefulness of mind which the gentle and unaltering rhythm of country life can bring” (Fleck 1958:840).