Wisdom & More: Rendered Obsolete: The Pennsylvania Oil Boom & the U.S. Whaling Industry

Join us for our annual lecture series, Wisdom & More, held every Thursday evening in March! Series is sponsored by CSR Services, LLC. On Thursday, March 13, researcher and professor Jamie L. Jones, Ph.D., will provide a virtual presentation entitled “Rendered Obsolete: The Pennsylvania Oil Boom & the U.S. Whaling Industry.” The Pennsylvania oil boom of the 1860s brought a new illuminating oil into the marketplace that slowly drove whale oil out of business. But at the same time, the oil boom brought new opportunities to whaling laborers from Nantucket and New Bedford. In this talk, Jones discusses the surprising points of connection between whaling and the petroleum business in the nineteenth century, and explores the lessons this history might hold for energy transition in the twenty-first century.