In the 18th century, Americans burned a lot of wood to keep their homes warm. But everything from a log cabin to a brick house had an open fire place with a chimney made of brick or stone. These open fires were quite inefficient. As Adams notes, houses in the Northern states would burn ten to fifteen cords of wood per year (a cord being a pile of stacked wood 4x8x4 feet in size). The amount of effort that went into chopping down trees, sawing them in smaller pieces, and then splitting those pieces into firewood must have been immense. What Adams highlights however is the effort needed to ship and market firewood in the city. As forests near the large cities were depleted, firewood was shipped in from farther and farther away. Boston, Philadelphia, and New York had large regulated networks of cordwood suppliers. As firewood became harder to procure, Americans sought heating solutions.
Book Review: How Americans Kept Warm in the 19th Century
Book Review: How Americans Kept Warm in the 19th Century
Recent Publications
- Common Law Liberalism: A New Theory of the Libertarian Society (Oxford University Press, 2024)
- “Diversity and Group Performance,” Encyclopedia of Diversity, Springer, 2024
- “Evading and Aiding: The Moral Case Against Paying Taxes,” with Christopher Freiman and Jessica Flanigan, Extreme Philosophy, ed. Stephen Hetherington, Routledge (2024)
- “Online Sports Betting Giants Place Their Bets Against Growing Rivals”
- “Liberal Tolerance for an Illiberal, Intolerant Age”
Recent News
- Business as a Force for Good: MBA Students Support Hurricane Helene Victims Through Ethics Project
- Advocacy group concerned pay-for-plasma clinics expanding to Ontario will hurt voluntary donations
- Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore, Debating Democracy (University of Zurich’s UBS Center, 2024)
- Jason Brennan “Everything Wrong with Democracy” on the Alex O’Connor Podcast (January 28, 2024)
- On the affirmative action ruling, the Supreme Court got it half right