Invention Playlist 3: Air Conditioning, Part 3

Air conditioning has had a profound impact on modern life -- and in more ways than you might realize. In this trio of Invention episodes, Robert and Joe explore pre-AC cooling methods, the invention itself and the many ways it changed the shape (and temperature) of our lives.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's episode is brought to you by Slack. Before there
was podcast, there was radio, Before that, the stage and
before that. You get the idea. Things evolve, Technology changes
and we do too. So now we can listen to
a show wherever, whenever. However, why should our work be
any different? Why can't we work with more freedom, more flexibility,

(00:22):
more choices. That's how Slack works. It's a digital headquarters
that works how you work, and Slack is where the
future works. What's up, guys? I'm a shop Bloud and
I am Troy Millions and we are the host of
the Earnier Leisure podcast when we break down business models
and examine the latest trans and finance. We hold court

(00:42):
and have exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names
of business, sport, and entertainment, from DJ Khaled to Mark Cuban,
Rick Ross and Shaquille O'Neil. I mean a lum not.
That list is expansive listening as our guests reveal the
business models, hardships and triumphs and their respective fields. The
knowledge is in death and the questions I'll always delivered
from your standpoint. We want to know what you want
to though. We talked to the legends of business, sports,

(01:02):
and entertainment, about how they got their start, and most importantly,
how they make their money. Earnie a Leisia is a
college business class mixed with pop culture. I want to
learn about the real estate game, unclears, how the stock
market works. We got you Interested in starting a trucking
company or vendor machine business. Not really sure about how
taxes or credit work. We got it all covered. The
Earnie Leisure podcast is available now. Listen to Ernie Leisure

(01:24):
on the Black Effect Podcast Network, I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. After the Uprising,
the Death of don Ye, Dion Jones was nominated for
the n double a CP Image Award for Outstanding News
and Information Podcast. The eleven part series investigates the hanging

(01:49):
death of Ferguson protester Donye Jones. Listen on the I
Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts, and
then please vote for your favorite podcast at vote dot
n a A CP Image Awards dot net. Welcome to Invention,

(02:09):
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Invention.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with part three of our exploration of air conditioning.
And what do we talked about in the last couple
of parts. Uh, Well, we we took a journey. We
first of all, we we started in uh, in the

(02:30):
ancient world, and we talked about just how people have
approached living in hot environments, in in hot cities, especially uh,
you know, since the dawn of human civilization. Yeah, and
some of these solutions for dealing with the heat before
the invention of air conditioning were cultural. They were like
about you know where life takes place, and you know

(02:52):
where you do certain things and under what conditions. And
other solutions would be more architectural, like we talked about
that ingenious solution Shan from ancient Persia involving the wind
catchers and the underground channels of water called the cannots
that would cool the air that flowed through buildings that way.
And of course, millions of people in hot climates around
the world still don't have air conditioning today, and they

(03:14):
use older techniques and strategies to deal with the heat.
So a lot of these things we're talking about are
not things of the past. They're just, uh, they're less
a part of culture in places where air conditioning is
now prevalent. But then, of course we got into the
invention of the true air conditioning system, right. We talked
about John Gory, the doctor from Appalachical of Florida who

(03:36):
developed a chemical process for manufacturing ice for the purpose
of cooling hospital rooms. Also we talked about the ice King,
Frederick Tutor in the ice trade, which was a fun diversion.
And we also talked about Willis Carrier, the American inventor
who created a dehumidification process for industrial printing spaces. But
then of course quickly realized that this technology could be

(03:58):
used to cool and dry the air for human comfort
in homes and businesses. And that's sort of that that's
the money insight, right that, you know, the rubbing the
fingers together moment. And so of course this luxury had
massive appeal when it was new. Having a cool building
during the sweltering days of August imagine when that was
a near total novelty. Yeah, And so this episode is

(04:21):
going to to look at how this novelty unfolded, particularly
in the United States, but also looking at some examples
from elsewhere in the world, UH to show how it
ends up transforming. UH society to a certain extent, certainly,
and and also transforming a number of other aspects of
our modern life. I think you could argue that the

(04:42):
legacy of air conditioning is one of the most underappreciated
technological influences shaping the last hundred years of especially American culture,
but culture probably all over the world. I mean, certainly
for those of us who grew up with it. You know,
if you if you grew up in time during which
air conditioning was readily available, if you grew up, uh,

(05:04):
you know, privileged enough to to have access to air
conditioning all the time, and of course if you lived
in an environment where it was a practical necessity, because certainly,
as was well discussed, there are plenty of places in
the world where you don't need an air conditioning system
even a window unit, or if you do, you rarely
need to employ it, So maybe you have less of

(05:26):
an appreciation for it in those places. Yeah, I was
actually to talk. I was just out of town for
a little while. I went on a vacation to England
and France, and they're pretty much all the places we
stayed and did not have air conditioning. And it was
you know, this was during September, still pretty warm outside
while we were there, but we just opened the windows

(05:46):
up and nice cool air flows in all all the time.
And like, it's amazing the difference between the difference of
opening a window in Paris versus opening a window in
Atlanta on a summer evening, which is just like, you know,
it just lets the swamp air right in. It doesn't
seem to cool enough. Yeah. Yeah, places also kind of

(06:07):
mind Hawaii or at least parts of why. You'll you'll
find a lot of people living happily without an air
conditioning system just because you have a regular, you know,
dependable temperature more you know, year round. But also you
get a nice specific breeze, which is less the case
in a lot of places around the world where you know,

(06:27):
you open a window and it just doesn't seem to
relieve very much, especially if you live in one of
these houses that has not been designed to create cross
breezes and all that, right, houses that have been designed
to depend upon air conditioning. Yeah, so uh yeah, we're
gonna pick up more or less where we left out
off then. And so this new invention was impressing people.
People were thinking a lot about how to roll it out.

(06:50):
Industrial buildings and hospitals were some of the first to
jump in their hospitals, not surprising since the hospital plays
into the origin story itself. And then, of course, uh,
you're you're probably wondering, well, who was the first person
to put one of these puppies in their home, because
obviously that's the reality most of us, or a lot
of us anyway, live in Well, Charles Gates, son of

(07:12):
industrialists and UH and gambler John Gates, was the first
to set one up in their home in nineteen fourteen.
And get this, Minneapolis, Minapolis, what not in Florida, not
in Texas or that's strange? Well, hey, I mean because basically,
we're looking at a time during which to have a

(07:32):
home air conditioning system was a manner matter of just
pure privilege and in luxury and uh, and that's not
going to be confined by you know, geographic constraints. But man,
in Minneapolis, I mean, how many years, how many months
of the year would that even be useful? Well, it
also makes me wonder how many months the year could
you depend on this thing to work? Because because one

(07:53):
of the point, one of the things we're going to
touch on here is how some of these systems were
were a little problematic, so innovations in the nineteen twenties
would make them smaller and more more affordable and to
allow the tech to spread. But as Marcia E. Ackerman
points out in her book Cool Comfort, which is an
excellent book about the UH the history of of air

(08:15):
conditioning UH in the United States, she points out that
in the early twentieth century especially, there were not many
places where an investment in a costly a C system
would give you a return on your investment. UH except
for quote, huge halls in which multitudes assembled for entertainment. Okay, yeah,
because I mean otherwise it is just a matter you've

(08:36):
got to be this this super rich individual who can
just blow a whole bunch of money on an air
conditioning system. You need something where you're actually going to
be able to make the money back on it. And
of course this leads us inevitably to theaters, and she
points out that there were some early success stories even
before this point with just traditional theaters, such as UH
an eight eight performance by Edwin Booth and yeah, uh

(09:01):
related to the other Booth actor really yeah, yeah, they
were brothers, I believe, UM. But rather different individuals, and
Edwin Booth, you know, and a famous individual within uh
you know, the acting scenes, certainly of New York City.
So but anyway, there was an eighteen eighty performance by
Edwin Booth on a hundred degree day in New York

(09:22):
City's Madison Square Theater and it was described at the
time by English novelist Mary Duff's hardy um and it's
you know, because she was really impressed with it. And
it's like here you go into this theater and it's
it's sweltering outside and it's cool inside. Because generally if
you within a time before air conditioning, what happens when
a whole bunch of people gathering in in closed space
to watch performance. Okay, so that's a teen eight and

(09:44):
that's before Willis carriers. So they must have been using
some more primitive method to cool the theater there. Yeah,
but there were there were also a lot of failures
during this time and and certainly in the decades to follow,
getting the early twentieth century, you know, despite the realization
that a c could really turn things around for sweaty
spectator events. Also in the early twenties century, they were

(10:04):
public health initiatives to legislate ventilation in places like this
in order to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses like tuberculosis.
So this brings us, of course to the movie theaters,
because it's the movie theater of where we're going to
see the real rollout of air conditioning. You know, a
lot of this was during the Great Depression as well,

(10:24):
you know, a time of of of great economic hardship.
So there would there would have been new a C technology,
but people wouldn't have had a lot of excess income
to spend on installing them in their houses exactly like,
so that the technology is really coming on board, but
there's a very little market for for home use. But
theaters saw a return on their investment by deploying them,

(10:46):
and some think that the air conditioning helped usher in
the golden age of Hollywood. That's really interesting. Now, not
to discount all those B movies of the nineteen thirties
or the newsreels or the shorts, because you know, what
better time than the Great Depression to escape into the
realm of cinema while also staying abreast of current events.
But on top of that, it was actually cool inside,
It was dry inside, even better, right, uh. And this

(11:09):
has also been presented as part of the origin of
the summer movie blockbuster. Okay also makes sense. Yeah, And
if you go on to YouTube or you know related
site and you look around, you can find some wonderful
promos from this era that heavily advertised the air conditioning.
I found one from nineteen forty the nineteen forties advertising

(11:30):
the theater as the coolest place in town. Yeah. I
checked out these links you sent. Oh one of them.
It starts with the line if nature is wonderful, then
our air conditioning system is out of this world hyphenated.
Somebody hyphens in English texts at the time, especially in ads,
but also I in a different article I was reading,
I found a reference to a nineteen twenty six ad

(11:51):
for a movie theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, which said
the proud management had the temperature down so low that
ladies in evening dresses almost froze. Another thing that I
noticed about these ads is some implicating that cool air
conditioned air is somehow clean, as opposed to what I

(12:12):
guess like dirty warm air. We talked to the previous
part of the series about why cold water psychologically seems
cleaner than tepid water? Is something similar going on here?
Like does it feel like cold air coming out of
the air conditioner? Is is sterile? Is clean somehow? I
mean you can still catch you know, TV being circulated
through it. I'm sure, yeah, yeah, I think. I mean,

(12:35):
I guess it comes down to just the feeling that
it is refreshing and refreshment is good refreshment, and then
we equate that with health, and you know, we probably
buy into some of these old concepts like the asthma
theory to some extent, even if we're not familiar with
the term, Like there's a legacy of the kind of
of that kind of belief. And I'm as guilty of
it as anyone. Like I remember as a kid, like

(12:56):
like I would, I would love to just stick my
face against the air condition and just taking the cold air.
I wouldn't do that with the with the heat, but
with the cold air. It was just this feeling that
this was pure, you know, even though it obviously wasn't.
This is a funny memory. I remember when I was
much younger, during times when I was having anxiety, like

(13:17):
you know, I was freaking out about whatever my little
mind was freaking out about back then. But I remember
leaning over an air conditioner and breathing the cold air
coming out of the vent. Somehow was anxiety relieving to
me with a little mask. I did not have a mask,
but yeah, I don't know why that was. But at

(13:38):
any right, this became just part of the theater offering.
And as Ackerman points out in her book quote, by
promising to do more for comfort and health than simply
move air around, air conditioning reinforced the novelty, modernity, and
luxury of the movie going experience. This is so interesting
because it could be another one of the many ways

(13:58):
that we don't often consider brute force technological realities influencing
media throughout history. You know, we like to think of
movies and books and recorded music and all that solely
as products of the creative process by the artist. You know,
they're just they're creative output. But these works of art
and forms of entertainment are they're highly influenced by brute

(14:20):
facts about the physical conditions under which they were produced
or under which they are experienced by the audience. And
we talked about this in our Motion picture episode Yeah
you want you want to? You probably prefer the idea
that people were just enraptured by these these cinematic marvels
taking place, and not so much that well they they're
they're groin was just super sweaty and they're just tired

(14:41):
of walking around and swamp pants. But that's sort of
coming at it from the opposite perspective. I mean, we
talked a lot about physical realities influencing the early days
of film from the production side, right, you know, like
about the the standard lengths and you know, whether they
had sound with them and all that, and that influenced
conventions of genres early on, or the fact that there
was no film editing early on. But then, uh, this

(15:05):
is coming at it from the other side. Just like
the conditions under which films are shown had something to
do with the business of film in those days, which
ultimately dictated something about what kinds of films were successful
and what kinds of films were made. I mean, I'm
thinking about how if I was just going into a
theater to get out of the heat, and that's all
it was, what would I what what kind of movie

(15:26):
would I want to see? I might just want to
see whatever movies longest or or indeed, like just give
me a block of stuff. It can be films, that
can be sure, it's it gonna be the newsreel. I'll
just set for whatever. Uh just just just show it
to me and let me cool down a little. So
according to the U. S Department of Energy, uh A
C units started making their way into theaters in the

(15:47):
nineteen twenties, and the earliest systems, though, were simply heating
systems that were modified with refrigeration equipment, which managed to
cool the lower seats but left the balcony muggy and sweltering,
and there are even accounts of people on the lower
levels having to wrap their feet in newspaper paper to
stay warm again while people in the balcony sweated it out.

(16:08):
And it wasn't until ninety two that Carrier installed the
first true theater a C system in the Metropolitan Theater
in Los Angeles, and then the Rivoli Theater in New
York got an updated version in Nino and uh there
he proudly advertised at the time that they kept their
theater cooled to a constant sixty nine degrees fahrenheit or

(16:30):
twenty six degrees celsius. That is, I mean to each
their own but that is too cold. Yeah, I think
once you get lower if you're talking about fahrenheit, once
you get lower than the low seventies, what the heck
are you doing? Yeah, Like, I'm not one to turn
the thermostat in my own house down anywhere near that low.
And and if I go into a place that is that.

(16:51):
I mean. The other thing is like, you're not going
to be dressed for it. I mean, I'm I think
we all have experienced a cold theater before, so I
mentioned a lot of us know that if you're going
to a movie theater, do you bring a hood, do
you bring a jacket, etcetera. But but I'm imagining these
like people hot on the street looking to get out
of the heat and set down for a couple of
hours and watch the cinema and then uh, and then

(17:12):
they get in there and they're just gonna be like
chilled to the bone, right because they're not dressed for it.
They didn't bring blankets with them. It's a it's a
three dog theater experience. Yeah. Other theaters would boast that
it was quote twenty degrees cooler inside, which in some
cases was apparently arguable, though that there were theaters where

(17:33):
people complained about the cold or said they actually became
ill because of the cold. There were even charges of
a c abuse. What does that mean that they were
just just chilling people out too much? Okay, yeah, this
apparently didn't I've been assaulted with an air conditioning unit. Yeah, yeah,
I mean. And also the whole time they're using icicles
and egg lue decorations and the promotion of it. I

(17:55):
saw some wonderful pictures where it is they're just really
driving at home, like come into the winter wonderland off
this theater. And there was apparently a lot of back
and forth and this Acraman goes into more detail about
it with you know, certain crusaders for warmer theaters, uh,
you know, really getting some pressed. But then but but
the thing is it didn't apparently hurt ticket sales in
any like real meaningful way. And Acraman points out that

(18:17):
the first drive in movie theater opened in June three
in Camden, New Jersey, and became a major force, of course,
you know, in the nineteen fifties, a major cultural force,
very popular, but their popularity challenges the notion that people
only wanted a chilly movie going experience, uh, which most
cars of the time, or maybe all cars at the time,

(18:39):
we're not air conditioning, right, Yeah, and the generally you're
turning your car off, turning the engine off. You're not
running the the A C the whole time, right, It's
it's about watching a film more or less outdoors. And
then it wasn't just movie theaters during the Great Depression.
Apparently restaurants, bakeries, libraries, and museums eventually began uh experience

(19:00):
meanting with you know, enhanced air conditioned environments and saw
enhanced traffic because of it. Department stores came into their
own as well, and Ackerman she hilariously describes the uh
department stores as basically being quote theaters of things like that.
But of course you can't really charge admission to a

(19:20):
department store, so you get less of a return on
an investment that way, and she mentions like accounts of
people who went to the department store to stay cool
and just like went around trying on dresses they couldn't
afford in order to just to get out of the heat,
but not really you know, you know, spending that much
money there. Oh, I don't know, I mean I can

(19:41):
see you get more people into the store exposed to
the merchandise, and I would I would find it hard
to believe you don't end up selling more somehow that way. Yeah,
And then I think most I imagine that, you know,
stores are going to to realize that, you know, maybe
they're not going to sell a big, expensive dress to
somebody on their first visit, but maybe they're smaller things
they can sell. There's uh, you know, food and drink,
et cetera. Maybe what you gotta do is you gotta

(20:04):
pair air conditioned interior with really pushy salespeople. Now, it's
also important to note that while ticket prices and locations
made a c movie theaters especially a great distraction for
a lot of people during these these decades that were
discussing here, this was certainly a part of American life.
It was affected by segregation definitely. Ackerman points out that

(20:25):
until the nineteen sixties, overt policies and local customs made
movie theaters far less accessible to black audiences, especially in
the South. We're talking poor seats, alternative viewing times, and
also just alternative theaters altogether. And quote movie theaters and
ethnically or racially segregated neighborhoods generally lacked the palatial appertinences,

(20:48):
including air conditioning of the big downtown movie houses. This
is another one of those areas that people might not
even think about the legacy of segregation and racial disparity
and access to to you know, technology is basic access
to climate control comfort. Yeah, all right, well that note,
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back, we're going to continue to look at the

(21:09):
impact of air conditioning technology. Today's episode is brought to
you by Slack. Before there was podcast, there was radio.
Before that, the stage and before that. You get the idea.
Things evolve, technology changes, and we do too. So now
we can listen to a show wherever, whenever. However, why

(21:33):
should our work be any different? Why can't we work
with more freedom, more flexibility, more choices. That's how Slack works.
It's a digital headquarters that works how you work, and
Slack is where the future works. Being a real estate
agent isn't about listing houses, It's about connecting to people.

(21:54):
I need to find new buyers every day, so I
promote my listings using radio commercials from my heart at
builder dot come now every time I have an open house.
It's a full house. A custom radio ad from my heart.
I Builder is the fast, affordable way to drive customers
to your business. Put the power of radio to work
for you. Get started now at i heeart at builder

(22:15):
dot com. What's up, guys, I'm a Shop Aloud and
I am Troy Millions and we are the host of
the Earn Your Leisure podcast where we break down business
models and examine the latest trans and finance. We hold
court and have exclusive interviews with some of the biggest
names of business, sport, and entertainment, from DJ Khaled to
Mark Cuban, Rick Ross and Shaquill O'Neil. I mean our

(22:35):
alumni lists expansive listening as our guests reveal their business models,
hardships and triumphs and their respective fields. The knowledge is
in death and the questions are always delivered from your standpoint.
We want to know what you want to know. We
talked to the legends of business, sports and entertainment about
how they got their start and most importantly, how they
make their money. Earn you A Lesia is a college
business class mixed with pop culture. Want to learn about

(22:57):
the real estate game, unclears, how the stock market works.
We got you interested in starting a trucking company or
a vendor machine business. Not really sure about how taxes
or credit work. We got it all covered. The Earnie
Leisure podcast is available now. Listen to Ernie Leisure on
the Black Effect podcast Network. I Heart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back.

(23:23):
So the impact of air conditioning technology is huge, and
we can see it in various ways. So on the
individual level, certainly it made it easier and or more
comfortable to live in hotter regions of the earth, and
you know, and on the other hand, it also meant
that the climates that once forced us out socializing amongst
each other, be it at a pond step well, or

(23:45):
just from porch to porch in the neighborhood, now forced
us inside either into communal a C environments such as
some of the ones we've discussed, uh, you know, hopefully
like a museum or something, or or perhaps a library.
But but it also I just put us in there
in our own individual a C caves, cut off from
everyone else, perhaps with that television or that radio to

(24:07):
keep this company. This media socialization, which you know, remains
I think a detrimental aspect of our society to this day.
That's a depressing thought. Yeah, but of course, now our
stuff are, our technologies mobile, so it's not even confined
via by air conditioning. I do want to make a
quick health note. We mentioned u tuberculosis earlier. Uh, there

(24:29):
are a few different health problems that are associated with
air conditioning, most notably Legionaire's disease caused by the Legionella
bacteria or a few different by you know, all varieties
of Legionella bacteria. Uh, and uh, you know. It also
can contaminate hot water tanks, hot tubs, and cooling towers.
But contaminating the water in an air conditioning system is
certainly one of the factors. So not to not to

(24:52):
scare everyone about air conditioning, but again it is not
properly maintained. Yes, it is susceptible to this sort of thing. Now.
One of the ways that we already sort of hinted
that there was a legacy to air conditionings in the
way that it made many former adaptive techniques of our
cultures and our architecture obsolete in some cases, right, Yeah,

(25:14):
it enabled architectural designs that wouldn't have worked as well
or at all in a pre air conditioning world. This
includes a suburban tract housing. One of the greatest examples, though,
is the advent of steel and glass skyscrapers a C
cool towers of the modern age that without that a
C would not make as much sense. Yeah, there have

(25:34):
even been opinions from architects about the the impact of
air conditioning on sort of the the aesthetic design of
large buildings. I was reading a Chronicle of Higher Education
article that decided a quote from the architect Eli Jacques
Khan in nineteen sixty where con said, quote, the period
of individualistic, imaginatively decorated skyscraper towers has ended. All of

(25:57):
this modern equipment, including the cooling towers for air conditioning systems,
takes space and the logistical area was at the top
of the structure, resulting in a bulky and not too
handsome mass. So he's totally grossed out by the architecture
that results from having to put large air conditioning units
on the roofs of large buildings, which just results in

(26:20):
sort of boxy buildings instead of the beautiful skyscrapers that
he liked and designed. Yeah, you wanted to be like
the sky temple. Uh to gozer at the time, you know,
otherwise you're I mean, really it really? I think that
does come back to the to the point like what
is the legacy of of of human uh constructed monoliths.
The top of it needs to be the peak of

(26:40):
a mountain. It needs to be a holy place for
the world of of humans meets the world of the gods,
and it doesn't. It just ruins it if you put
an air conditioning system on top of a zigaratte, right right.
But even if you're not a priest of the urban zigaratte,
if you're not obsessed with the design of sky, you know,
skyscrapers like khan Is, I mean, you can definitely see

(27:01):
the way that it affected architecture at a smaller scale. Yeah. Yeah,
when you come down to materials, certainly, even you don't
even have to talk about the giant skyscrapers. There's a
point brought up in a really cool Mental Floss article
Life Before air Conditioning by one miss Selenia. I. Somehow
I think that's a moniker. I have to ask to
ask Will about that one. Uh. But this article points

(27:24):
out the caves and underground housings are a natural means
of controlling temperature. But that means that thick brick and
stone construction is a good way to duplicate the same
principle in our constructions. But air conditioning meant that you
didn't have to depend on thick materials like this as much.
Housing could be far cheaper. High ceilings were no longer

(27:45):
as essential to keep things cool, upper floors were not
just for the evening. You could live in the attic
if you wanted to, because you could. You could just
plug in a superpowered a C and you're good to go.
You could sleep inside during the summer, you know, with
your television burn right next to you, right well, I mean,
another way to think about it is that air conditioning

(28:06):
also affected the planning of cities because air conditioning makes
it more feasible for hot climate areas to have high
density housing, you know, so like you can you can
have tall rise apartment buildings in Florida or something, whereas previously,
I mean, trying to imagine that without air conditioning sounds
pretty hot. Yeah, So you're changing the house, you're changing neighborhoods,

(28:29):
you're changing cities, and and just on the level of
an individual house, It's important to note that houses are
not just physical structures. They are social structures, and you
cannot alter the physical domicile without also altering the shape
of life within it. Change the shape of the house,
and you might, you know, think everything's gonna be just
like it was before, but it's it's gonna be a

(28:49):
little different. I think that's a really good point. I mean,
our architecture shapes our lives. Yeah, the rooms were in
determine what kind of things we do in them. Uh,
there's this classic thing like why does everybody end up
in the kitchen at a party? There is some reason
for that, And there's something about kitchens that you know,
people filter in that way. Yeah, they all And yeah,

(29:11):
hopefully you have some sort of like an island situation
in the kitchen for people to gather around. Uh yeah,
otherwise you're just gonna be sitting on the stove or something.
That does make me wonder though, And I didn't see
this reflected in any of the sources we're looking at,
but obviously one of the strategies to keep your home
cooler was that you would have the kitchen in another building,

(29:33):
So where would people gather there? Is that that was
more the age of the sitting room, I guess, or yeah,
I guess so, or I mean again, we've talked about
outdoor cooking is one way of dealing with the heat. Um,
you know, like the idea of the barbecue tradition or
grilling out that seems to be a thing that people
like to do in the summer. I mean, on one hand,
it's like it's a nice, you know, warm weather outside,

(29:54):
so people hang out outside. But then on the other hand,
it's like you're not having to do your heating up
of the food would inside the house, which is great.
And furthermore, you can think about, you know, the the
association of outdoor cooking techniques specifically with hotter climates, like
you know, the barbecue and the grill out. These are
common in the US South, and I think they come

(30:17):
from those hot weather traditions. I wonder how air conditioning
has affected the prevalence or the prominence of the cook out. Well,
it certainly means you can you can duck in and
out right now, speaking of city planning, another aspect of
of all of this is you have all this air
conditioning running in the buildings, it suddenly gives you a
little more license to neglect the maintenance of green spaces

(30:39):
and trees, which of course they're providing shade and finding
more than shade though, I mean, they're they're they're part
of your natural environment. That's why you've seen in many cities,
including our own city there they have been initiatives over
the years to like to make sure that the areas
that have been that have lost their green spaces. Uh there,
you know you can plant some trees there again and
actually bring these places back to life once more. But

(31:02):
from like a purely air conditioning standpoint, you don't really
need those trees out front. Really they're there, the trees
that are, you know, lining the sidewalk around the skyscraper,
what what purpose are they they playing here? Just something
you have to clean up after, right. I love that
mentality that sees anything alive as a nuisance. Yeah. Like

(31:24):
and people say, well, you know it's it's help, it's creating,
helping to create the air you breathe, and're like, no, no, no,
the air I breathe comes out of event in the wall. Right,
those could be parking spaces, parking spaces for God's sake,
So so you know, we haven't gotten into, you know,
and we're not going to get into all the details
of air conditionings impact, but hopefully, like so far, we're

(31:44):
able to to drive home sort of the ripple effects
here that that really touched on just about every aspect
of society. Now, another one of these ripple effects we've
already alluded to, and that is going to become more
and more salient as time goes on, I believe, is
the energy consumption. And so the energy consumption and the

(32:05):
concurrent carbon outputs created by air conditioning demands. Yeah, absolutely,
air conditioning depends on electricity. And as Lucas Davis of
UC Berkeley pointed out in in the Global Impact of
air Conditioning Big and Getting Bigger, we've seen hot regions
of the world grow hotter, uh, and hot regions of

(32:26):
the world grow richer. And as these trends continue, it
just adds to the energy demands of keeping cool. For instance, uh,
they wrote that more than sixty million air conditioners are
sold each year in China, and again this was when
this was written as as as in a typical window
unit uses ten to twenty times as much electricity as

(32:47):
a ceiling fan. On top of that, they depend on
refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gases. Uh. Davis argues that
carbon legislation and carbon taxing are probably the best way
to avoid falling off the carbon cliff here, even as
the technology grows more energy efficient and you know, better
energy sources come online to aid. But yeah, this is

(33:07):
but we often don't think about just the I mean,
you probably think about your own energy, uh, you know,
costs road concerning air conditioning. I mean it's it's hard
not to when you look at the power bill for
a particularly hot summer month, but you have to realize
that that's happening in every house, you know, in the
in you know, throughout this city. And as other parts
of the world get more of the air conditioning bug themselves,

(33:30):
you're just going to see more of that. Yeah. And uh,
and it's also not just in the houses, but these
large industrial or commercial spaces, which I think are a
huge part of the footprint. But yeah, I mean it's
it's one of these binds you're in. I mean, like
it's hard not to to love and appreciate the the
comfort provided by air conditioning if you live in a

(33:52):
hot climate, especially in the summer. But another thing that
should be pointed out here when you said a typical
window a C unit, which is probably gonna be using
less energy than like your big central A C unit
um uses ten to twenty times as much electricity as
a ceiling fan. The other side of that is that
ceiling fans are incredibly energy efficient. I mean, you get

(34:12):
a really good bang for your buck in terms of
how much cooler they make you feel compared to how
much energy they use. So another way to think about
this is, you know, if you've got your A C unit,
you're trying to be energy conscious, but also you're like,
I don't know if I can beat the heat in
the hottest days without it. I mean, you know, think
about at what point you can deal with just having

(34:33):
the ceiling fan on, and then at whatever point where
you can't hack it anymore, well, then you know, you
go to your A C. God. But if you're a
C is like mine, like sometimes you reach that point
and you're like, I don't think you can catch up.
It's too late. Yeah, I should have been fighting this
battle all day, despite you know the problems involved with that.
Uh yeah. So and then of course you just grow

(34:54):
accustomed to air conditioning. I guess that's the other side
of it as well. Well. I just meant to emphasize
ceiling fans very good, big thumbs up to ceiling fans
in in my opinion. Oh yeah, And then of course
you can flip the switch during the during the winter
and use them to know more to you know, quite
to push warm air back down. All right, we're gonna
take one more break, but when we come back, we're

(35:17):
going to continue to look at the way air conditioning
changed the world. I'm John Gonzalez, the host of Sports
Illustrated Weekly. Sports Illustrated has delivered the best storytelling in
sports for seventy years, first in the pages of the magazine,

(35:37):
then on SI dot com, and now that tradition continues
on a new podcast. Each week, we'll dive deep into
the best stories from around the sports world. We'll ask
the questions that we're all wondering and push for the
answers we all want. Everything from investigating the Super Bowls
impact on l A to examining white booing is as
big a part of the fan experience as cheering it's words.

(36:00):
Illustrated Weekly is here to bring you the entertaining tales
you can't get anywhere else, the kinds of stories that
make you smile and laugh, clap and cry, marvel, think,
and fall in love with sports all over again. Sports
Illustrated Weekly is available every Wednesday on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

(36:21):
Subscribe now. Conquer your new year's resolution to be more
productive with the Before Breakfast podcast. In each bite sized
daily episode, time management and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam teaches
you how to make the most of your time, both
at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions

(36:42):
you need to get more done with your day. Just
as lifting weights keeps our body strong as we age,
learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron.
Listen to Before Breakfast wherever you get your podcasts. Hello,
and welcome to our show. I'm Zoie de Channel and
I'm so excited to be joined by my friends and
cast meats Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to recap

(37:03):
our hit television series New Girl. Join us every Monday
on the Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll share
behind the scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes
revealed the truth behind the legendary game true American and
discuss how this show got made with the writers, guest stars,
and directors who made the show so special. Fans have
been begging us to do a New Girl recap for years,

(37:24):
and we finally made a podcast where we answer all
your burning questions like is there really a bear? In
every episode of New Girl? Plus each week you'll hear
hilarious stories like this at the end, when he says
you got some schmid on your face. I feel like
I pitched that joke. I believe that. I feel like
I did. I'm not on a thousand percent I want
to say that was I tossed that one out. Listen

(37:47):
to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright,
we're back, so, I guess. So we were just going
to talk about a couple more things here about the
legacy air conditioning. We know that the legacy of air
conditioning has been huge, but I was reading a paper
by the American historian Raymond Arsenal about the impact of

(38:09):
air conditioning on the culture of the American South. Uh
And this paper was originally published in the Journal of
Southern History in nineteen eighty four. It's called the End
of the Long Hot Summer. The air Conditioner and Southern Culture,
and Arsenal talks in this paper about how the air
conditioner should be thought of as one of the biggest

(38:30):
factors shaping the evolution of the American South in the
twentieth century. So, on one hand, he says, well, it
created a lot of Uh. It basically created a lot
of economic opportunity where it wasn't before. Like it drew
in immigrants from other places in the United States to
come to the South and work there, a lot of

(38:51):
different kinds of buildings and businesses to take up route
there because buildings could now be air conditioned. But over
this time, the way people viewed air conditioning transition from
quote from a luxury to an amenity to a necessity
where you know, people more and more all the time
think of it as something that's not like nice to have,

(39:11):
but something you've got to have. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean today,
especially in the United States, you travel somewhere perhaps abroad, uh,
and you you find out that it's something that a
room is not air conditioned, or a vehicle it's not
air conditioned. Uh. Yeah, and it feels a bit like
like like hearing that there's gonna be no running water
or no, you know, no toilets or something along along

(39:32):
those lines. Yeah, totally. That's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy,
as we've been alluding to before, because the more the
more we come to take air conditioning for granted, the
more we build our lives around it and make it
harder and harder to live without it. Yeah, and indeed
build out into places where it would not make sense
to live without it. I mean, for instance, you think

(39:53):
like some of these really hot days we had this summer, uh,
and how they impacted say, say, people living in Phoenix, Arizona.
You know, and it's certainly especially if you're dealing with
older individuals. I mean, there were you know, and are
people that are having to live out on the streets.
You know, there becomes a real concern, a health concern.
The high temperatures. Oh yeah, they like hot days can

(40:15):
kill people, they do all the time. And so air
conditioning one of the things says that you know, air
conditioning did in many ways measurably improved life, Like it
cut down on deaths related to hot weather. Um. But
on the other hand, he's talking about how a lot
of the cultural differences and traditions that are associated with
communities that live in hot climates, including the American South,

(40:38):
are a result of the hot climate. You know, they're
not it's not just incidental. It's like, you know, like
the cookout tradition. You know, it's a result of the
fact that there's hot weather. And with the introduction of
air conditioning, many of the distinct cultural features that define
cultures in hot climates diminish over time. And so he

(40:59):
sort of argued is that climate control has to some
extent homogenized the United States as a culture and reduced
to sort of reduced some regional variations that were derived
from differences in temperatures throughout the year. Um And if
Arsenal is correct in his thesis about the American South,
obviously this effect would not just be an American phenomenon.

(41:22):
Is similar thing could be happening anywhere that air conditioning
pervades hot climates, changing cultural practices and ways of life
along with it. Yeah, it just it basically changes the
equation for for modern living. Yeah. Now we've talked a
little bit about the commercial growth that results due to
air conditioning technology, especially in hotter regions, say of the
United States in the post war period. But another thing

(41:44):
to think about is that a c ends up, you know,
proving essential in the computer age is a way to
keep these machines from overheating. Oh yeah, I mean we're
filling our living spaces also with these machines that are
dumping a lot of heat constantly. Mean, I wonder how
much how much a computer heats up a non air

(42:05):
conditioned room or a bunch of computers. Yeah, I'm sure
there's some stats on that left to look and certainly
how how and to what extent has changed over the years. Yeah. Now,
there are other strange ways the legacy of air conditioning
could be even more powerful than it first seems. For example,
there are a bunch of uh, there are a bunch
of little threads of social science research about heat and

(42:27):
climate control and various social outcomes at the broad level
that are correlated with heat and access to air conditioning.
For example, I was reading a September article by Jeff
Asher in The New York Times that examines a bunch
of existing data on the possible or supposed links between
weather and crime. Now, when looking at stuff like this.

(42:48):
I do want to avoid something that that that actually
Raymond Arson oh talks about in his article, which is
he calls it mono causal climate, a logical determinism, you know,
basically like looking at the climate or the weather as
like the one cause it causal factor in you know,
broad social trends. Yeah, you see this from time to
time where it's like hot cultures are like this, old

(43:11):
cultures are like this, U and sometimes there is you know,
in specific areas, there's I think there's more of a
case to be made, like I don't know, when you
start talking about spices and food and some of that
comes into you know, availability of spices as well. Oh. Absolutely,
it's it's certainly got to be the case that there
are influences of climate and temperature on culture. I think
that's undeniable. It's just that you want to avoid what

(43:33):
he calls the mono causal you know, climate alogical determinism
where the temperature is the cause of social outcomes. Uh
So we would be careful not to do that, but
look at like possible links or where where the temperature
could be a factor on broad social outcomes. And one
example is the long running documented link between hot weather

(43:55):
and crime, hot weather and murder rates, for example. Uh So,
it's seems to be the case that if you just
chart an American city across a year, you're very likely
to see a pattern where the hotter it is, the
more people get murdered. Asher writes. Quote in Philadelphia, for example,
there were two point six shooting victims per day on

(44:15):
average when it was cold, three point four on pleasant days,
and four point four on hot days. And that's for
a period I think of the mid two teens um
And so this really does seem to be related to temperature,
because while the rates of indoor shootings stay mostly the
same throughout the year, the rates of outdoor shootings increase

(44:36):
noticeably the hotter it is interesting. Well, one of the
things that you know about crime, that is true, people
have a negativity bias about trends and crime. People always
think things are worse than they've ever been. There's more crime,
there's more violent today in the United States. That that
is not true at all. Violent crime has been dropping
for decades in the United States. Murder rates are at

(44:57):
a you know, multi decade low. Uh So. Uh but
also there's something interesting going on there you don't want
you certainly don't want to overstate potential causality, But I
wonder if could increased access to air conditioned homes in
the summer partially contribute to decreases in crime over time,
to decreases in violent crime over time, because you know,

(45:19):
if if you're seeing that there is some impact of
like people being outside in hot weather on hot days
with rates of violence, could access to air conditioned interior
interior spaces actually play some role there for some inside
with the television, so then they're they're safer, but then
they feel less safe because they're watching, uh, the murders

(45:42):
that are occurring exaggerated and just chewed upon on the television. Well,
I do think TV TV coverage definitely contributes to that
negativity bias and people's beliefs about crime and things like that,
whatever the actual reasons, you know, whether air conditioning or
climate control or any thing has anything to do with
it at all. Uh, it is certainly the case that

(46:03):
you know, violent crime is that, uh, you know, an
exceedingly low point compared to historical trends in the United States.
So don't buy into that it's always worse, you know,
it's worse than it's ever been idea right, of course,
the other day they're into spectrums. The air conditioning is
is not going to solve all the world's problems. Um,
though there were I did. I did read a few

(46:24):
little snippets here about some granted, I think they were
into all individuals that were part of the carrier corporation
or other refrigerator companies, refrigerator or air conditioning companies. They
were making like a case that like that we can
do it, this can this about world peace. And I
think the particular argument was not like social but it
was more like, hey, we're arguing we're getting into all

(46:45):
these scuffles over resources, but if we have enough air conditioning,
then we can get all the resources from all the
places and then we won't find anymore, which you know
has not turned out to be the case. Yeah, yeah,
don't buy into that. And now are interesting bit of
social science data that I was looking at about air

(47:05):
conditioning is the same article by Jeff Asher points it out,
by the way, an interesting piece of research by Harvard
Kennedy School Associate professor Joshua Goodman, who found a correlation
between cooler temperatures and increased academic performance. Quote, students scored
lower when they just experienced a hot school year than

(47:25):
when they just experienced a cool school year. But that
air conditioning in schools mostly eliminated the influence of heat
on academic performance. So you have an unusually hot school
year that tends to hurt academic performance if your school
is not air conditioned. Uh. And this sort of just
intuitively makes sense to me. It's like, you know, it's
hot weather, it seems like it's harder to focus on

(47:47):
mental tasks and things like that. Um, but that air
conditioning inside the schools mitigated this effect. Interesting. Yeah, I
mean I every time I pick up my son from
school from his elementary school, Uh, he'll come out and
you know, off and like hold his hand when walking
from the school door, and his hand will be so
cold from the air conditioning inside. But but yeah, I'm

(48:10):
all for it being there if it, you know, it
gives them the environment they need to learn. And with
all these social science findings, I think we should always
be careful not to read too much into single findings
until there's been a lot of replication and analysis or
findings by others in the field. So I think it's
best to sort of treat these as interesting preliminary findings.
I will I will say this, like, if you're in

(48:31):
a cool environment and you're prepared, you have a greater
ability to regulate your own temperature. You know, you can
always put on a jacket or a hoodie right in
a in an overly air conditioned space, no matter what
the you know, the realities of the energy consumption are there. Likewise,
in a hot space, there's generally only so much you
can take off, and there is an absolute limit to

(48:52):
what you can take off, you know, the social decorum aside. Right.
But but if either of these findings are on the
right track about like academic performance or crime, I mean,
you wonder in what other ways could temperature and climate
control be changing our society and our culture that you know,
we're not appreciating or haven't been studied numerically in these ways. Yeah.

(49:14):
Another thing to keep in mind is just different cultures
are also going to have a different relationship with being
cool and being hot, things that have evolved due to
their you know, just their cultural exposure to different temperatures
or sometimes even ideas. I didn't get too far into
this because there's I wasn't encountering a lot of scholarship
about it. But for instance, when we've talked a little

(49:34):
bit about you know, the rollout of air conditioning in
uh in in in China, and you know, there are
some interesting ideas about like what cold and hot mean
within traditional Chinese uh, medicine, etcetera, and uh and so
you know that that's one possibility to look at, like
how does how does that play out in a culture
that has certain values historically attached to say warm and cold. There, Oh,

(49:58):
I want to know more about, well, what what are
the values? I mean some of it gets into two
to yin and yang and you know and so forth. UM.
But some of the papers I was finding where I
was hesitant really include them because they were like from
the mostly from the seventies and eighties, and they were
dealing with like very rare cases of people with UM

(50:19):
they were experiencing frigi phobia, like a fear of cold
air and an aversion to air conditioned spaces and uh.
And so these papers were tying like these rare cases
in with potentially looking at potentially how some of these
ideas within Chinese culture affected these individuals. And I believe.
I believe it was like in China and Taiwan, and

(50:41):
perhaps there was a case in Singapore they were looking
at um but in in any way, it's one of
those things that I wouldn't want to certainly wouldn't want
to blow it out of proportion because I think we're
talking about very rare cases of people with with with
a with a with a mental illness. Yeah, but but
to what extent that is exasperated by ideas that are
present in a given culture. I mean, I guess it's

(51:03):
open for debate, but I would want to I would
want to read more about that before I said anything
more definitive. But it does serve as it like an
interesting just side example of like, well, here's an idea
of what cold and heat mean. Here's a way it could, uh,
in extreme cases present itself. But then how does it
end up presenting itself in more in milder cases, you know,
and and and more just sort of uh, you know,

(51:25):
ambiently throughout a culture. Another thing I would think would
probably be hugely significant that we haven't really examined at
all is how air conditioning affects fashion. Yeah, like what
what people wear in what kinds of spaces, what's acceptable
to wear. Yeah, I mean I certainly wouldn't think think

(51:49):
of it as much as fashion, but like I generally
prefer to wear a hoodie. Uh and air conditioning allows
me to do that year round, you know. Climate control
allows me to do it year round. But then artificial
climate tends to demand that you do it, you know,
so you generally, you know, especially if you have an
office job, you're having to dress for an artificial environment

(52:10):
and then also perhaps for the environment that exists between
the artificial environments that you spend your time. Our office
environment is very strange because you get um so it's
like artificially cold of course in the summer because it's
air condition but then at certain times of day, if
you're by the window, you become an ant under the
magnifying glass and that totally throws everything off too. Yeah, yeah,

(52:34):
this is I don't think there's any like passive solar
design employed here. And then of course the studios themselves
get really hot. Sometimes the studios here are that sweaty
growing you mentioned earlier. Well, there you have an air
conditioning A three partner here. Again, we weren't able to
cover everything in the history of air conditioning, or certainly
with the refrigeration which is at times intertwined with it

(52:57):
with the history of air conditioning. But hopefully we touch
done some of the key ideas and perhaps we've we've
presented enough information that will that will, you know, make
you stop and think about the air conditioning that you
use in your life, maybe value it a little bit
more and realize that in many cases you know it
is it is more of a luxury. Um. But we

(53:18):
would love to hear from everyone out there, like what
is your relationship with air conditioning? Have you ever lived
without it? Uh, particularly have you ever lived without it
in a hot climate? And how you know, what did
you do to manage it? We have already heard back
from some listeners on this, and I'm hopefully we'll get
to roll these out on a listener mail in the future. Yeah.
We heard from at least one listener who grew up

(53:38):
in India and who talked about their experience not even
uh thinking of sweat as a bad thing the way
most Americans do. Yeah, Yeah, there's this kind of American
thing to think of, like any any sweat that is
occurring without your consent, is is a travesty, you know,
like like sweat is the thing that that happens on

(53:58):
my terms. Yeah, I I admit I I fall totally
into that gid. Like I am cool with being sweaty
if I'm like hanging out outside, you know, or I'm
working outside or something like that. Can't stand being sweaty
if it's like what's the word, It's like if you're
sweaty on your way to work or something, that's just
the worst. Yeah. Well, we've also had lots of media

(54:21):
to really drive this home, right, lots of deodorant commercials
that really just drive home how gross it is to
be sweaty. There's something wrong with your body. Yeah, And
I think I used to buy into that more. Now
I'm more of the mind that like like like feeling
sweaty like feels good. Like I think part of that
was from like sweating on my own terms, But then

(54:41):
I did enough of that where I'm like, oh, I'm
not even like really exerting myself, but it's hot out,
I'm sweating. It feels good to sweat. Um So, and
then of course it's you know, you're not going to
you're generally not going to smell bad until later anyway,
like that fresh sweat is not the problem. But I
would also love to hear from any went about the
movie theaters. How cold do you like your movie theater? Um?

(55:04):
Are you one of these people that would prefer to
have to wear a winter coat? Uh? And then Uh,
I know we've heard from some folk when we talked
about the Tingler on our other show stuff to Blow
your Mind, we heard from some people who went to
the theater back in the day. So I would love
to hear from any you know, older members of the
listening audience out there that might be able to chime
in about theaters of old. What was it like going

(55:25):
back then and in the war between the Chili movie
theater and the the outdoor Um? Uh, drive in cinema?
Which do you prefer? Oh, it's got to depend on
what you're seeing right that there. Yeah, there's some films
that are more suitable for the drive in right. Yeah,
let's be movie territory. Yeah, I saw, I think I

(55:47):
saw the mcgruber movie the drive in. Oh, I guess that.
I guess that's a good one. I've I've only seen
I think I've only seen like classic horror films at
the Drive in um No. I also saw the Grindhouse
movies at the Drive and that was fun, the double feature.
We are fortunate enough in Atlanta that we do have
we still have a drive in theater that folks can

(56:08):
go to all right. In the meantime, if you want
to check out other episodes of Invention, head on over
to invention pot dot com. That is where you'll find it.
If you want to check out our other show, Stuff
to Blow your Mind, that's Stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com and you can find both of these shows
wherever you get your podcasts and wherever you do get
your podcasts that just make sure you rate and review us.
Bring all the stars, bring all the love please uh

(56:30):
huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com.

(56:51):
Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm
Paris Hilton and this is Trapped in Treatment a weekly
podcast of shocking survivor experiences and stories from an industry

(57:12):
plagued by controversy. With my host Caroline Cole and Rebecca Mellinger,
we will uncover the truth of one team treatment facility
each season. First up, Provo Canyon School. This one is personal.
Listen to Trapped in Treatment on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is

(57:34):
Roxanne Gay, the host of The Roxanne Gay Agenda, the
bad feminist podcast of your dreams. Each week I talked
to an interesting person about feminism, race, writing in books,
and art, food, pop culture, and yes, politics, we can't
escape politics. Listen to the luminary original podcast, The Roxanne

(57:55):
Gay Agenda every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Mama, what
does the chicken say? Uh? Draft diraffe? Really? Giraffe? Giraffe.

(58:18):
You're not gonna get it all right. Just make sure
you know the big stuff, like making sure your kids
are buckled correctly in the right seat for their agent's eyes.
Get it right visits n h S a dot gov
slash The Right Seat brought to you by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the AD Council