The American Petroleum Industry — A 1920 Snapshot of the Early Oil Age

Published just over 60 years after America's first commercial oil well, The American Petroleum Industry captures petroleum science at a remarkable point in its development.

Written by Raymond Foss Bacon and William Allen Hamor of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, this enormous technical work attempted to document virtually the entire petroleum industry as it existed in the early 20th century—from the geological origins and distribution of petroleum to drilling, refining, chemistry, engineering, and industrial economics. Contemporary McGraw-Hill literature described the two-volume work as a comprehensive summary of then-current petroleum knowledge and practice.

Volume I alone includes sections on the geochemistry and geology of petroleum, the distribution of petroleum in the United States, oil-well technology, production, transportation, storage, and related subjects. The work quickly became a technical reference: a 1917 Kansas Geological Survey publication, for example, was already citing Bacon and Hamor's treatment of petroleum production.

Today, the book is particularly interesting as a document of how scientists and engineers understood petroleum before a century of fossil-fuel use revealed its enormous atmospheric and environmental consequences. It records the technical optimism of an era when petroleum was principally understood as an extraordinary geological resource and engineering problem rather than a major driver of global climate change.

This is not the 1916 first printing. Although the title page bears the original 1916 publication date, the copyright page identifies this copy as the fifth printing, March 1920.

Details: The American Petroleum Industry, Volume I. Raymond Foss Bacon and William Allen Hamor. McGraw-Hill Book Company. First edition, fifth printing, March 1920. Red cloth hardcover.

Condition: Fair antique condition. Significant wear and fraying to the cloth at the head and foot of the spine, edge and corner wear, and general age-related wear. Interior appears substantially better preserved, with expected toning. Volume I only. See photographs for exact condition.