Thursday Open Line


On these scorching hot summer days, with the nation’s average warmest day of the year coming up within a week, most of us welcome ducking in from the heat into a cool office, business, or home. For this, we can thank Willis Carrier, who in the depths of winter in 1906 received a patent for what he called an “apparatus for treating air.” His idea has fundamentally changed the way most Americans live, and the Carrier name is still prominent among air-conditioning manufacturers. The invention did not come into widespread use until after World War II. Even by 1960, only 12 percent of homes in the U.S. were equipped. Today, 89 percent of all new, single-family housing in the U.S. is air-conditioned. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy from the American Community Survey at <www.census.gov>.