The History of Air Conditioning

The first really affordable window units hit the market in 1951, which put air conditioning on the way to becoming almost ubiquitous in the United States. Ray Hound started air conditioning its buses in 1940 and in 1942, power plants in the U.S. started implementing summer peaking to handle the increased electricity demand caused by all this air conditioning. Even though John Gorey's first attempt at creating a cooling system was all about patients in a hospital, hospitals were slow to adopt air conditioning. By 1962, only 15% of hospital patient rooms in theUnited States were air conditioned.