What was coal used for in the 1800s

Where did the vast quantities of fossil fuel go? What changes did fossil fuels produce? Railroads and steamships burned vast quantities of coal, but they also hauled it to other consumers.

Most major American industries—steel mills, textile factories, and so forth—thereafter began to use immense amounts of coal, either directly in steam engines and furnaces, or indirectly via electricity produced in coal-burning generating stations. America's industrial ascendancy was an unmitigated disaster for the environment. In the countryside, coal-burning machines such as steam shovels, tractors, and dredges ripped into the earth, yielding short-term profits at the expense of soil erosion and other long-term problems.

Cities and towns, meanwhile, were becoming notoriously polluted by fossil-fueled railroads, industries, and homes see Primary Source Cincinnati Account [] and Primary Source Pittsburgh Painting [].

Coal's impact was particularly dramatic in the industrial sector, but fossil fuels were also changing people's domestic lives in important ways. Start with the electric- or cable-powered streetcars that Americans increasingly used to travel between work, home, downtown shopping districts, and peripheral amusement grounds.

Then move to the houses and apartments in which Americans increasingly used coal for cooking and heating. Poorer folks were compelled to buy cheaper, dirtier coal, which they consumed directly, and wealthier folks increasingly enjoyed the benefits of coal-derived manufactured gas and electricity.

Gas and electricity helped keep the homes of elite Americans clean, warm, and bright; at the same time, they fostered a dream of modern domesticity in which gas stoves, light bulbs, phonographs, telephones, radios, and other devices and appliances labored to cook, enlighten, entertain, and communicate. Yet the pipes and wires responsible for transmitting gas and electricity led back to plants and stations that polluted industrial districts and adjoining working-class neighborhoods.

Coal made homes less expensive to heat, and brought down the price of metal goods that required heat to produce. To meet the growing demand, coal mines sprang up in other regions of Britain.

Deeper mines were prone to flooding, so steam engines were developed to power water pumps. Canals were dug to transport coal to the cities. Both were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution that followed. By the s, a new generation of more efficient and less fuel-hungry steam engines was powering a surge in economic growth. Freed from the need to be close to mines, steam engines could be used almost anywhere. That led to the emergence of new industrial centres and bigger factories with more specialized machines.

Demand for labour spurred migration from the countryside to the cities. By the end of the century, the canal network — followed a few decades later by the railway — allowed bulk movement of coal, food and manufactured goods. Although Britain was the first nation to make the transition to coal, it was a slow process. In Germany and France, which were less densely populated and had extensive forests, wood remained the primary source of energy until the s.

In the United States, coal overtook wood only in the s. For the industrializing world, the move to coal brought enormous benefits. More people were better off and had access to a wider range of goods. Expanding rail networks and steamships transformed trade and offered ordinary people greater mobility. But there were also drawbacks. Even as coal was in the ascendancy, new sources of energy began to make their mark.

Town gas derived from coal became available for lighting and heating in the early nineteenth century, initially in London. But connecting to the gas supply was costly, and its use was limited to urban areas.

Gaslights made city streets safer and changed working practices and leisure activities — including sleep patterns. Later that century, paraffin kerosene — the first product of the newly exploited Pennsylvania oil fields — provided a cheaper alternative to whale oil for lighting poorer homes and those in rural areas.

By the late nineteenth century, another type of power was poised to make its debut: electricity. Coal-fired power stations appeared in Europe and the United States in the s, first for lighting and then to power trams and trains. Industry followed in the first half of the twentieth century.

By the advent of the Civil War, coal industries appeared in at least twenty states. Throughout the antebellum period, coal mining firms tended to be small and labor intensive.

The seams that were first worked in the anthracite fields of eastern Pennsylvania or the bituminous fields in Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio tended to lie close to the surface. In the bituminous fields outside of Pittsburgh, for example, coal seams were exposed along the banks of the Monongahela and colliers could simply extract the coal with a pickax or shovel and roll it down the riverbank via a handcart into a waiting barge.

Once the coal left the mouth of the mine, however, the size of the business handling it varied. Proprietary colliers usually worked on land that was leased for five to fifteen years — often from a large landowner or corporation. The coal was often shipped to market via a large railroad or canal corporation such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Competition between mining firms and increases in production kept prices and profit margins relatively low, and many colliers slipped in and out of bankruptcy.

Since most antebellum coal mining operations were often limited to a few skilled miners aided by lesser skilled laborers, the labor relations in American coal mining regions saw little extended conflict. Early coal miners also worked close to the surface, often in horizontal drift mines, which meant that work was not as dangerous in the era before deep shaft mining.

In less developed regions, proprietors often worked in the mines themselves, so the lines between ownership, management, and labor were often blurred. Most disputes, when they did occur, were temporary affairs that focused upon the low wages spurred by the intense competition among colliers.

The first such action in the anthracite industry occurred in July of when workers from Minersville in Schuylkill County marched on Pottsville to protest low wages. This short-lived strike was broken up by the Orwigsburgh Blues, a local militia company. In John Bates enrolled 5, miners and struck for higher pay in the summer of Reports of disturbances in the bituminous fields of western Pennsylvania and Ohio follow the same pattern, as antebellum strikes tended to be localized and short-lived.

Production levels thus remained high, and consumers of mineral fuel could count upon a steady supply reaching market. The most important technological development in the antebellum American coal industry was the successful adoption of anthracite coal to iron making techniques. Since the s, bituminous coal or coke — which is bituminous coal with the impurities burned away — had been the preferred fuel for British iron makers. Once anthracite had nearly successfully entered American hearths, there seemed to be no reason why stone coal could not be used to make iron.

As with its domestic use, however, the industrial potential of anthracite coal faced major technological barriers. In British and American iron furnaces of the early nineteenth century, the high heat needed to smelt iron ore required a blast of excess air to aid the combustion of the fuel, whether it was coal, wood, or charcoal. The density of anthracite coal resisted attempts to ignite it through the cold blast and therefore appeared to be an inappropriate fuel for most American iron furnaces.

Anthracite iron first appeared in Pennsylvania in , when David Thomas brought Welsh hot blast technology into practice at the Lehigh Crane Iron Company. The firm had been chartered in under the general incorporation act. Anthracite coal became a fixture in seaboard cities up and down the east coast of North America — as cities grew, so did the demand for coal.

As wood, animal, and waterpower became scarcer, mineral fuel usually took their place in domestic consumption and small-scale manufacturing. The structure of the industry, many small-scale firms working on short-term leases, meant that production levels remained high throughout the antebellum period, even in the face of falling prices.

In , American miners raised 2. Although prices tended to fluctuate with the season, in the long run, they fell throughout the antebellum period. Annual production in also passed twenty million tons for the first time in history. Increasing production, intense competition, low prices, and quiet labor relations all were characteristics of the antebellum coal trade in the United States, but developments during and after the Civil War would dramatically alter the structure and character of this critical industrial pursuit.

The most dramatic expansion of the American coal industry occurred in the late antebellum decades but the outbreak of the Civil War led to some major changes. The fuel needs of the federal army and navy, along with their military suppliers, promised a significant increase in the demand for coal. Mine operators planned for rising, or at least stable, coal prices for the duration of the war. Their expectations proved accurate.

Even when prices are adjusted for wartime inflation, they increased substantially over the course of the conflict. Over the years to , the real i. In response, the production of coal increased to over twelve million tons of anthracite and over twenty-four million tons nationwide by The demand for mineral fuel in the Confederacy led to changes in southern coalfields as well.

What do we use coal for? Electricity is the main use. Last year 88 percent of all the coal used in the United States was for electricity production. Other energy sources used to generate electricity include nuclear power, hydropower, and natural gas. Another major use of coal is in iron and steelmaking. The iron industry uses coke ovens to melt iron ore. Coke, an almost pure carbon residue of coal, is used as a fuel in smelting metals.

The United States has the finest coking coals in the world. These coals are shipped around the world for use in coke ovens. Coal is also used by other industries. The paper, brick, limestone, and cement industries all use coal to make their products. Contrary to what many people think, coal is no longer a major energy source for heating American homes or other buildings.

Less than one percent of the coal produced in the U. Coal furnaces, which were popular years ago, have largely been replaced by oil or gas furnaces or by electric heat pumps.

Coal and the Environment. When coal became an important energy source for American industry over a century ago, concern for the environment was not at the forefront of public attention. For years, smokestacks from electrical and industrial plants emitted pollution into the air.

Coal mining left some land areas barren and destroyed. Automobiles, coming on strong after World War II, contributed noxious gases to the air. Eventually, as the effects of pollution became more and more noticeable, Americans decided it was time to balance the needs of industry and the environment.

Federal laws passed in the s and 70s, namely the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, required industries to reduce pollutants released into the air and the water. Laws also were passed that required coal companies to reclaim the land destroyed by strip mining.

Since the passage of these laws, much progress has been made toward cleaning up the environment. The coal industry's most troublesome problem today is removing organic sulfur, a substance that is chemically bound to coal.

All fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, contain sulfur. When these fuels are burned, the organic sulfur is released into the air where it combines with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide.

Sulfur dioxide is an invisible gas that has been shown to have adverse- effects on the quality of air we breathe. It also contributes to acid rain, an environmental problem that many scientists think adversely affects wildlife especially fish and forests.

However, the coal industry is doing something to solve this problem. One method uses "scrubbers" to remove the sulfur in coal smoke.