Question

Minimum of 800 words of essay about History Of Oil Industry and developments in the U.S. Through years 1870-1919.

Answer 1

As the reputation of the oil and its value grew, settlers in the region constructed dams of loose stones on their property to confine and gather the floating oil from springs. In the mid-1840s, one entrepreneur, Samuel Kier, noticed the similarity between the oil prescribed to his ill wife and the annoying substance that was invading the salt wells on his family's property outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kier began bottling the substance in 1849 and marketed it as a mysterious cure-all available throughout the northeastern U.S. Although he still acquired the oil only by skimming, Kier's supply quickly exceeded demand because of the constant flow of oil from his salt wells. With the excess supply, he began the first experiments to use the substance as an illuminant, or a substance that gives off light. With this and other developments, the culture of expansion and development was beginning to focus on petroleum as a valuable resource.

The discovery of petroleum's usefulness to the birth of the industrial age required the influence of those outside of the oil-rich Pennsylvania region. Dr. Francis Brewer, a resident of New Hampshire, traveled toTitusville, Pennsylvania in 1851 to work with a lumbering firm of which he was part owner. During the visit, Brewer entered into the first oil lease ever signed with a local resident. Instead of drilling directly for oil, however, Brewer merely dug trenches to convey oil and water to a central basin. Upon his return to New England, Brewer left a small bottle of crude oil with Dixi Crosby, a chemist at Dartmouth College, who then showed it to a young businessman, George Bissel.

Petroleum's similarity to coal oil immediately struck Bissell. He signed a lease with Brewer to develop the petroleum on the lumber company's land, but before the operation could begin, Bissell needed to attract financial backing of $250,000. This would not be easy since neither he nor anyone had yet recognized the extent of petroleum's utility, although some of the risk could be assuaged by scientific explanation of petroleum, still a curious substance to many. Benjamin Silliman, Jr. of Yale University provided some of this scientific backing in a report released in April 1855. Silliman estimated that at least 50 percent of the crude oil could be distilled into a satisfactory illuminant for use in camphene lamps, and that 90 percent of the distilled products held commercial promise. On September 18, 1855, Bissell incorporated the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of Connecticut, the first organization founded solely on the speculation of the potential value of the oil beneath and around the Oil Creek valley.

From this point forward, petroleum's emergence became the product of entrepreneurs

Answer 2

All available time series indicate a remarkable rate of growth for the American petroleum industry from its inception in 1859 to World War I. Domestic production of crude oil was over 100 times as large in 1914 as in 1865. From 1879 through 1889, output of crude oil grew at approximately the same rate as the domestic production of fuels and
minerals. From 1889 through 1914, however, crude oil production increased over 7.5 times compared with a growth of 3.3 times in the output of fuels and 2.9 times in the output of minerals..

Output of refined products expanded even more rapidly than output of crude oil did, reaching a total in 1914 some 138 times larger than production in 1865. Output of refined products also grew at a much faster rate than the physical output of afl manufacturing, which increased some 11 times during those years. The value of crude as a proportion
of the value of total mineral fuels rose from 15.3 per cent in 1879 to 23.0 per cent in 1914. Since the relative importance of mineral fuels to total minerals rose from 38.2 per cent to 51.6 per cent during those years, the value of crude as a
percentage of the value of total minerals also rose, from 5.8 to 11.8. The net and gross added by refining rose, respectively, from $9 million and $27 million in 1879 to $71 million and $147 million in 1914. The value of crude (at wells) as a proportion of total value of refined
products ranged between 27.2 per cent and 47.4 per cent; in contrast, the net value added by refining varied only between 14.6 per cent and 20.3 per cent. Only the value added by materials (other than crude) showed a sharp drop from about 31 per cent in 1879 to a range varying roughly between 18 per cent and 20 per cent from 1899 through 1914. Despite this trend, expenditures by the industry for purchase of materials outside the industry rose from $18.6 million in 1879 to $75.5 million in 1914.

From this point forward, petroleum's emergence became the product of entrepreneurs