Promotion, Competition, Captivity: The Political Economy of Coal

Abstract

“Coal is, perhaps, the most indispensable article used by man. Without it, in time, we should return to a state of barbarism.” So proclaimed the president of Pennsylvania's Pequa Railroad and Improvement Company in 1849. The importance of coal, the official explained, lay in its utility as an energy source, for which he hailed it as unsurpassed: coal was “‘hoarded labor’”—a “treasure reserved by nature to promote and perfect our civilization.” The railroad official's florid tribute to the mineral fuel was hardly disinterested: the Pequa Railroad had ambitious plans to ship a great deal of coal. Yet it effectively underscored the enormous role of coal in nineteenth-century America. It was an age in which, as countless industry boosters proclaimed, coal was king.