One Hundred Years of Cool

In the midst of a sizzling summer, here's a short piece (3:10) on Weekend Edition Sunday (8/6/2006) celebrating 100 years of air conditioning--an interview with Deborah Hawkins, Chairman of the Air Conditioner and Refrigeration Institute. There's also a short, opening segment with Gail Cooper, author of Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960, broadcast last Friday on Boston's WBUR. Cooper briefly discusses traditional, old-fashioned ways people used to beat the summer heat, including summer cabins. Swimming surely was another way, as was summer drinks, foods, and clothes. Students might have their own thoughts on life without air conditioning, even though some may never have known such a world. NPR has a whole page on summer diversions, including these two delightful pieces by Gilliam Kohl on lemonade stands (3:39) and Bonny Wolf on jello molds (2:55). Everyone has something to add on summer foods or other ways of coping with the heat.

In the interview with Cooper, there's a brief discussion of (hard to believe) the possible negative consequences of air conditioning, focusing on the possible social, not environmental, consequences. Here's an article, How Air Conditioning Changed America, that might frames the issue.

What Is a Museum?

Harriet Baskas’s entertaining piece, What Is a Museum? (All Things Considered, 8:13), raises the question of definition: What constitutes a museum? Does it have to have a real (brick-and-mortar) existence, or can it just exist virtually (online)? There is much to play with on this single issue. Surely, no one would claim that a business has to have brick-and-mortar form to be a business—think of Amazon.com. Yet, for some, museum seems to be a different matter, perhaps because the word itself seems to carry a certain level of cultural authority: Not just any old place where things are collected but a place where certain things are collected in a certain (proper?) way. Students often are asked to write definition papers, and here is as good a place as any in which to begin such an assignment.

But there is much more here, as the virtual museums mentioned here are utterly delightful places, including American Dime Museum, Gallery of Skate Park IDs, and the Guide to Whistling Records. These are fun places to visit and open up the endlessly fascinating topic of roadside attractions and our general interest in oddities. The Museum of Online Museums, mentioned in the piece, is a good place to start exploring--another is RoadsideAmerica.com-- although many students may have knowledge of more local, even family collections. Let the fun begin!