Nows and Forevers

I was going through a thrift shop the other day when I saw something that I hadn’t ever seen before: A nearly century-old air conditioner.

Yep, that’s right. A nearly century-old air conditioner.

I collect old radios, so every once in a while I’ll stop by places to see if there are any of interest. The thrift shop looked promising, although I didn’t find any radios. Instead, sitting on a table, was a two-foot by one-foot walnut cabinet with four panels and an electric plug. Like vintage radios I have seen, it, too was made by Philco, a long ago manufacturer of radios, TVs and, I guess, air conditioners.

All for $300. I didn’t plug it in to see if it still had some Depression-air cooling inside: I know enough about electrical devices not to plug them in without taking safety precautions. That’s for the experts, of which I’m certainly not one.

The tag said it was from 1931, although doing a quick search through the web, it might be a little younger than that. The brand name remains — it’s owned by Philips — but the company itself is long gone.

Which got me thinking: How old are air conditioners?

Pretty old, turns out. The first air conditioner was made in 1902 by Willis Carrier, whose name would go on to be on untold millions of air conditioners. The name air conditioner wouldn’t come about until 1906 and it wouldn’t be until 1929 that the first room-sized air conditioner would be out. The first window unit would come in the early 1930s but they would be too expensive until the late 1940s, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The more you know.

In any event, I passed up the chance to buy some air conditioning history.