Fueling the Economy

Alyssa Henry

Lit. Analysis

Mrs. Baker

17 February 2017
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Oil has made a huge impact on the world. The industry has always been one of the

largest, and with new advancements in technology, it continues to grow. The 1920s were a

stepping stone to some of the techniques and uses of oil practiced today because it contributed

much more than just the processing of oil. Timing played a huge factor in the oil boom; it paved

the way for competition, and gave rise to new methods that produced oil more efficiently.

The time between wars set the stage for a boom in the oil industry. They are said to be a

time of rapid expansion for the oil companies (Early). One of the biggest factors that lead to

the boom was Henry Ford's automobile. Because they were now able to produce more cars in

less amounts of time, they became more affordable for people to buy. These cars needed to run

on gas, which lead to a high demand for oil.

Another contributor was the invention of the blowout preventer. Designed and invented

by James Abercrombie and Harry Cameron, this device allowed the drill to control the pressure

of the upcoming oil. In Texas, Abercrombie experienced the dangers of uncontrollable blowouts

himself and described them as a roar like a hundred express trains racing across the

countryside, the well blew out, spewing oil in all directions (Ending). Their invention

created a safer and more effective way to drill oil.

With high demands and money on the line, competition soon arose. There were many

companies that were producing oil, and each strived to have the best and most affordable

product. The Shell company pushed passed many others, and by the end of the 1920s Shell was

the worlds leading oil company, producing 11% of the globes crude oil supply (Early).

This competition led to greed and bribery which were present at the time of the Teapot Dome

Scandal when oilmen Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny bribed the secretary of interior
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Albert Fall to lease them the two oil fields in California controlled by the Navy. The government,

controlled by Harding, allowed this to happen because they helped him get installed. The lies and

bribery soon fell apart because there were too many people involved. One journalist wrote of the

Senate hearing, it had all the atmosphere of a murder trial, combined with the bated breath

excitement of the opening of King Tuts tomb(Grimes).

Many new methods were put into practice in the 1920s. The first synthetic gasoline was

created by two German coal researchers by using the Fischer-Tropsch method. The process

helped meet the increasing demand for gasoline as automobiles were becoming more of a

standard. There were always questions on how to improve the automobile, and the new

developments of gasoline were the answer. In 1921, Charles Kettering of General Motors

discovered that adding lead to gasolines eliminated the occurrence of engine knock (Raymond).

Oil pushed the boundaries of innovation, and allowed for the time to prosper.

All those advancements were still not enough because companies were always trying to

make the offshore drilling of oil a reality. It finally happened in 1928 when Louis Giliasso found

an efficient way to drill in the wetlands of Texas and Louisiana (Vietor). His transportable barge

allowed a rig to be assembled in as little as one day. This meant that oil could be drilled in places

that were not accessible with the equipment that was available before, and opened new doors of

possibilities for oilmen in the 1920s.

Oil was not just a product that was produced in the 1920s. It was a product that fueled the

U.S. economy, and made the inventions of other technologies possible. Its said that, In

telephony, air transport, trucking, and natural gas transportation, the 1920s were years of rapid

expansion and chaotic competition(Vietor). The time period was ideal because of the large
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growth in technological inventions, and the drive of men to not be content with what they had

before. The evolution of oil during this time period was one of the biggest in history, and still

continues to grow. Just as the automobile ran on gasoline, so the 1920s ran on the Oil Industry.
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Works Cited

The Early 20th Century. Shell Global, 2013,

www.shell.com/about-us/who-we-are/the-early-20th- century.html.

Ending Oil Gushers - BOP. American Oil and Gas, ASME, July 2003,

aoghs.org/technology/end- of-gushers/.

Grimes, William. There will be Scandal. The New York Times, 13 Feb. 2008,

www.nytimes.com/ 2008/02/13/books/13grim.html.

Raymond, Lee R. Petroleum Technologies Timeline. Greatest Achievements,

www.greatestachieve ments.org/?id=3675

Vietor, Richard H.K. Contrived Competition. Business History, Oct. 1994, pp. 1. Academic

OneFile,

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