HU Professor Publishes Energy in American History Encyclopedia
Themes include energy and the U.S. economy, energy technologies and infrastructure and the creation of the U.S. power grid
HUNTINGTON, Ind. — Dr. Jeffrey B. Webb, professor of history at Huntington University, and Dr. Christopher R. Fee, professor and Graeff Chair of English at Gettysburg College, have published a two-volume reference work through Bloomsbury Publishing on the history of energy in the United States. Titled Energy in American History: A Political, Social, and Environmental Encyclopedia, the book tells the story of energy’s critical role in America’s growth and development from the colonial era to the present day.
The two volumes include 250 separate articles from over sixty scholars on a wide range of themes, such as energy and the U.S. economy, energy technologies and infrastructure and the creation of the U.S. power grid. Other themes include major energy transitions from wind and water to fossil fuels to renewables, domestic energy policy and U.S. foreign relations and the transformation of American life through electrification and energy-fueled transportation revolutions. Readers will enjoy stories about the many different scientists, inventors, engineers and business moguls who worked tirelessly to supply energy to a growing nation. They will also read the stories of those who bore the cost of ill-considered methods of extracting, transporting and consuming energy in the earliest stages of America’s major energy transitions.
Well-known figures like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse and John D. Rockefeller appear in the book, as do lesser known but important characters. The largely unheralded people who made the nation’s energy systems include inventor Frank Shuman, who pioneered new technologies of solar energy around the turn of the twentieth century, and entrepreneur Emma Summers, who helped build California’s oil industry and sparked the modern development of Los Angeles. The two volumes include a general introduction, bibliography, primary documents, chronology and a number of images, all totaling 900 pages.
Webb described the project this way: “We wanted to create a resource that anyone can use to understand the background behind complex issues regarding energy technology, energy economics, the politics of energy development and energy’s impact on society and the environment, given their impact on the way we live and work today.”
The book is available through the publisher’s website and major online retailers. Webb and Fee also co-edited Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in American History, 2 Vols. (ABC- CLIO, 2019) and American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore, 3 Vols. (ABC-CLIO, 2016).
