What do you think?
Rate this book
History of the Urban Environment
Refining Nature: Standard Oil and the Limits of Efficiency
The Standard Oil Company emerged out of obscurity in the 1860s to capture 90 percent of the petroleum refining industry in the United States during the Gilded Age. John D. Rockefeller, the company’s founder, organized the company around an almost religious dedication to principles of efficiency. Economic success masked the dark side of efficiency as Standard Oil dumped oil waste into public waterways, filled the urban atmosphere with acrid smoke, and created a consumer safety crisis by selling kerosene below congressional standards.
Local governments, guided by a desire to favor the interests of business, deployed elaborate engineering solutions to tackle petroleum pollution at taxpayer expense rather than heed public calls to abate waste streams at their source. Only when refinery pollutants threatened the health of the Great Lakes in the twentieth century did the federal government respond to a nascent environmental movement. Organized around the four classical elements at the core of Standard Oil’s success (earth, air, fire, and water), Refining Nature provides an ecological context for the rise of one of the most important corporations in American history.
Local governments, guided by a desire to favor the interests of business, deployed elaborate engineering solutions to tackle petroleum pollution at taxpayer expense rather than heed public calls to abate waste streams at their source. Only when refinery pollutants threatened the health of the Great Lakes in the twentieth century did the federal government respond to a nascent environmental movement. Organized around the four classical elements at the core of Standard Oil’s success (earth, air, fire, and water), Refining Nature provides an ecological context for the rise of one of the most important corporations in American history.
- GenresHistory
192 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2017
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 23, 2020
What never gets talked about when we mention John D. Rockefeller? The incredible environmental impact of the oil giant. This innovative look in the rising field of environmental history traces how Rockefeller's empire wrecked the Cuyahoga River, which led to its numerous fires that helped bring the nation's image of Cleveland down, to the impact on soil, air, and the number of fires in homes brought by kerosene. An interesting final chapter looks at the company town of Whiting, IN and how the Calamet region of Indiana. Along with U.S. Steel and the railroads that brought raw materials, the landscape of the peaceful hunting region of Greater Chicago disappeared, along with the algae blooms and the mass killing of alewife fish, you learn yet of another region wrecked by Standard Oil.
The only knock on the book was it was so short. I feel that a much larger investigation into the environmental impacts of one of the largest corporations of all time. With a limited focus on Cleveland and then one other city this book is hopefully a start for future historians to look at the impact we have on the land we live.
The only knock on the book was it was so short. I feel that a much larger investigation into the environmental impacts of one of the largest corporations of all time. With a limited focus on Cleveland and then one other city this book is hopefully a start for future historians to look at the impact we have on the land we live.
Displaying 1 of 1 review