announcer: next, history and environmental studies professor brian black tells us how world war i led to a dramatic worldwide increase in the use of fossil fuels, especially petroleum. professor black also discusses the experiences of a young u.s. army colonel named dwight eisenhower during a 1919 cross-country motor convoy, and how it influenced his later support for a national highway system. national world war i museum and memorial cohosted the event with the linda hall library and the dwight's di presidential library museum and boyhood home. >> brian black is one of the faculty who spearheaded the creation of an environmental studies major at penn state altoona where he currently serves as the head of the arts and humanities division. emphasizes on the landscape and environmental history of north america, particularly in relation to the application and use of technology. used the book pennsylvania oil boom of the of rapid a case study industrialization, and the cultural history of petroleum use in the 20th century, and what it revealed about american environmental ethics and presidents. he has -- precedents. industrialined intensity during the civil war era, as well as the impact of modernism and land-use planning on the modern environmental movement. professor black received his doctorate from the university of kansas and 1996. this evening, he will address how world war i informed the 20th century's use of energy , andes including petroleum the enduring impact on our environment and climate today. give a warm welcome to professor brian black. [applause] thanks everyone. thank you for being hard-core audience to come out on an evening like this. thank you kamil, and everyone from putting together this program. i truly am impressed by the -- and i havels not been to this facility, so i am impressed at first as to how i was part of a conference that traveled through the asiago plane. the world war i conference. i have to tell you, the memorial reminds me so much of some of the memorials you see there. it is wonderful that we have that and on the museum. in terms of me, i was really pleased when camille contacted me because i had a piece of the new york times with this page. what we have, i think, is an opportunity tonight. i museumthe world war for taking advantage of this to bring new historical things in as well. a group ofg with historians who really change some basic ideas about how you tell stories about the past. see, this becomes an moretunity to get into issues. i hope in our questions and answers that you feel free to ask me for more specifics about this. among you may be people in the audience who know more than i do. i will also be happy to talk about the macro version of what i will be speaking about as well. the other point, because i am trying to introduce you to some literature, some ideas, i do include a fairly lengthy quote on here. for --be leaving them up so that you can have time to read them at the. thank you for being here. of july 7, 1919, a 28-year-old tenant colonel in the u.s. army, dwight d set out on a volunteer cross-country road trip to evaluate the emerging system of roadways in the u.s.. findings were instrumental in targeting priorities that the u.s. would follow over the 20th century. in particular, sources of power provided a logic for expansion and development that was reminiscent of pioneer wagon trains of previous generations. the old convoy -- started me thinking about two lane roads. this is one of the things i felt deeply about. i made it personal, an absolute decision to see the nation benefit by. ofhis ensuing experience u.s. military leader presidents, i personalized and personified the american drives to drive. oversaw the when he historic interstate highway act. discern the unique, high energy existence that defines american life for the ensuing decades. this event spans and importance. after expanding our currently energy position from fox -- fossil fuels, by discerning trade emissions from the passport often, events that we already know such as world war i avast --onvoy that all all of a submerged. transitions can be seen to arrive from a number of different factors including supply and technological information -- innovation. their required cultural acceptance and precipitation as participation to achieve species altering changes to our existence. informed by our new knowledge about climate change, scientists and historians have begun to call our current geological epoque the -- an era when the action of one species, the human, has come to have an impact on the and fired -- the entire earth. historian efforts to define the area make world war i a -- and even the old convoy standout as a transformational moment in shaping the thomistic economy of the american century. foundation, the infrastructural priorities that guided this era in the u.s. and derived from a road trip, assumed a limitless supply of crude, and cleared a right of way high-energy existence. commodity, black gold reached the first decade and a half of the 20th century in a most precarious and awkward situation. after its discovery in pennsylvania in the 1860's, massive discovery of petroleum suddenly compounded the world's supply, particularly in the u.s. in texas in 1901. various innovation left petroleum with only scant utility at times. tipped it from being an increasingly abundant commodity that spurred a full-blown energy transition? certainly, personal transportation offered remarkably rich areas of potential for global growth. market, the competitive for powering trucks and cars in the first decade of the 1900s made the internal combustion engine powered by gasoline a most unlikely suitor. particularly due to the complex system of processing and delivery is required. spectrum of compounding uses, the tipping point to alter petroleum's status can truly be seen to have been a great war. providing proper context to world war i requires historians to consider the context it that is provided by the resources that is informed by my special environmental mystery. resources that were transformed by the great war, energy and particularly petroleum, which had exploded onto the global illumination market in the last four decades of the 19th century, present the most revealing narrative. a proper accounting of the war's context must enumerate these complications of flexible fuel petroleum. however, this is just part of the story of the converging technical innovation and cultural desire that result in crude's emerging importance. a variety of global economic and regional, political and social factors converged on world war i era to catapult the modern environmental commodity of petroleum to new standards of value. indeed, by the end of the conflict, petroleum had become a commodity of global essential.e, even of course, developed nations therefore needed to consider accessibility as a matter of national security. colonization, or through the activities of governments and transnational corporations, access to group -- access to crude became both a requirement and a predictor of global power in the first decade of the 20 century. in the origins of the modern world, robert marx joined others in describing the global human ofthe 19 teens and 20's going through a great departure. writes that world war i shucked the imperial order to its foundation and had major consequences for the shape of the 20th century world. the combination of rapid industrial and population growth in the 20th century redefined human's relationship to their environment and clearly separated them from the rhythms and constraints of what he called the biological alter gene. the old way of doing things. energy transition moves from foundational shifts such as the technology to create synthetic fertilizer, for both agriculture and military use, explosives, and also commercial transportation. in the case of energy use, we see new technologies of the era provide a time a place as well as an intensification of human impacts and potentialities. john mcneil writes the worldwide energy harvest increased by about five times in the 19th century, and 16 times in the 20th. at a definingsits precipice of this shift in our species. deforestation and mining to the expansion of automobile use and the internal combustion event -- internal combustion engine, world war i plays a formative role indeed as a divider between 19 and 20th century ways of life. scala -- scale of energy you sent of elliman. humanolars reorient the story to better reflect these mobile distinctions in the ways people live, world war i also becomes the gateway then to the high-energy existence that defines what we now call -- epoque,geological mcbeal and others, the human condition becomes one of perpetual service. two earth's natural rhythms and balance. at the core of this he writes, an environmental history of the 20th century qualifies as a peculiar century because of the screeching acceleration of so many processes that bring ecological change. deployed morely energy since 1900 then in all of human history before 1900. you have to sit down to really ponder the significance of it. addition, mcneil also distinguishes the period of acceleration through the adoption of fossil fuels by a few societies that will begin to industrialize pickard -- industrialize. you see this incredible rise coming after the period, which of course we know and receive visualized as a different thing. the energy transition from the world war i era only succeeded because of the advancement of additional technologies that enhanced the impact of new sources of power. historian christopher jones discusses the multiplying effect of such related, or ancillary technologies as intensification. to mineral --ip the shift from mineral based sources that governed the 19th century, and broadened its impact. systems inew energy mind, the summary impact of the great war of petroleum usage emerges as many layered and complex, but altogether transformative undoubtedly. transition,r this however, was set prior to the conflict and it -- and did not involve a revolution of personal transportation. the imperative of winning world war i, can tripping the allies to thrust many technologies into the action was scant preparation. at the heart of these technologies was a new prime mover. ironically, just as the use of electricity expanded to replace --roleum comic the 20th century brought a massive spike in oil supplies. around 1901tarted was literally at times a market with hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude, and left industries searching for ways to put black gold to use. leaving these trends, innovators including henry ford worked to perfect the internal combustion engine, what i will refer to as ice. such an engine combusted petroleum in a controlled fashion and directed its power to engines that can be used for a variety of purposes. primary among base of course was the effort to reliably power engines that would move devices that would move us. combustion was one of the most glaring -- of the ice technologies. with frequent unexpected explosions creating fear among toy consumers, in addition implementing and representing a unique infrastructure ranging from filling stations and gas pumps to roads and bridges seemed daunting. ice was simply one of the many competitors trying to replace human's relied this on airpower which was viewed as incapable of expanding to meet the needs of the modern era. across-the-board, early automobiles were experimenting with a poor ramification for safety and reliability. in fact, electric batteries show the most promise for personal 1900s,rt during the particularly in urban areas in the northeast. model t made the personal automobile universally available after 1907, at a cost of around $400 per unit. in 1912, thomas edison released the electric version that ford believed would define american transportation. i changed the war future of american transportation. far from technical infrastructure such as battery charging stations, the world war i battle front began as a scene from the 19th century. pulled wagons and pigeon carriers, handwritten messages. newin the war, unproven technologies were released directly onto the battlefield. war, trucks, the tanks and other devices powered by gasoline has supplanted animal power. ice, andbility of specifically of gasoline about won the day. as someone said, -- was completely separate uses. merging from petroleum's additional -- initial developing in the 1860's, subsequent decades brought international develop and increased supply. a unique petroleum culture then took shape, allowing expanded production and availability are at such a moment part they created by technical and corporate innovation and partly by new rules for the nationstates and ideas of individual autonomy. a revolutionary assortment of new uses for crude. the popularity of kerosene had jettisoned illuminationalue, -- in both the u.s. and great britain, the energy transition was openly maneuvered and manipulated by the political and military establishment. as early as 1910, petroleum emerged as a strategic tool for ensuring global power. the first application for petroleum in this regard was ensuring naval supremacy. politically, the british effort at naval conversion was eventually led by winston churchill. who began as a member of parliament, and by 1910 had become the president of the trade. although he did not begin on the side of naval expansion, the early teens brought churchill a clear advantage -- an education on the advantage of oil. refueling at sea, these are the kind of advantages he later , as a coal ship used of her coal, increasingly large numbers of men had to be taken if necessary from the guns to shovel coal from remote and inconvenient bunkers to bunkers near to the furnaces or to the furnaces themselves, thus weakening the fighting position of the ship at perhaps a most critical moment in the battle of the use of oil made it possible in every type of vessel to make more gunpowder and more speed for less. by 1912, the policy had been put into place because churchill recorded in the world's greatest ships of thereme navy on which our life must depend for fed by oil and could only be fed by oil." the emphasis of churchill and britain's military strategists focused on the great benefits to their naval superiority, however their decision also marked a defining moment, a new era in the culture of petroleum by association, committing their fleet to petroleum meant consistent and reliable supply of crude had just become one of the most important commodities on earth. security depended on it. also by association, any nation wishing to compete with britain had to follow suit. new energyg this era, britain forced any competing nations to also consider oil. level, u.s.st leaders debated the implications of converting their military. theirularly to petroleum conversations had begun in the late 1800s, and took on greater urgency as britain emerged in global affairs. wonunited states had significant advantage in the naval conversion, of course. in the early 1900s, american oil fields produced approximately one third of the world's oil. approached all. such strategic decisions from the basic realization that it worlde only nation in the that could power its military with petroleum, and largely the ability to supplied with its own reserves. ultimate autonomy which would then become known as energy independence. although this was an obvious advantage over other nations, the american situation also required a new type of relationship between business and government. given such critical importance, petroleum supply demanded federal oversight. overabundance, this control was often referred to as conservation. churchill who was seems to have most clearly formed the necessary new vision of the 20th century. when he proclaimed to the house thatmmons on june 17, 1914 this afternoon we have two deal not with the policy of building oil driven ships or using oil as uponcillary fuel, look out the wide expanse of the oil regions of the world. two gigantic corporations, one at either hemisphere stands in the new world there is the standard oil. in the old world, the great combination of the shelf at the royal. for many years it had been the policy of the foreign office and the indian government to preserve the independent additional oil interests of the persian oil fields. to develop as well as we could, and above all to prevent it being swallowed by others. in the last two or three years the consequence of these new uses, which had been found for the soil, there was a shortage of this article. which this world has only lately begun to see. that is the reason why crisis has gone up and not because of -- evily-disposed gentlemen. be -- onportance would a global stage almost immediately. petroleumal navy to in the 1913, he forever compromised the nation's energy autonomy. written has neither domestic oil or existing supplies in its colonies. bp with its access to oil in the persia, became the option to ensure the future. leftine construction had bp inpersian pp in -- deep debt. to prevent -- to convince parliament to help churchill said, if we cannot get oil, we cannot get corn. we cannot get commodities necessary for great britain. parliament approved his plan to purchase a 51% stake in bp for 2.2 million pounds. maintaining and developing oil supplies soon became a critical portion of the british colonial effort. global use of petroleum grew by 50% during world war i. which exacerbated the difficulty of managing the global supply, the catalyst for many of these changes in the culture was consequent on a global scale. in the determining human transportation future, for example, the british explanation old war one relied on the use of vehicles. and the electric power alternatives that were succeeding in the consumer market simply could not meet the flexibility required. during world war i the manufacturer of automobiles for civilian uses was virtually halted as the energy was -- as the industry was mobilized to produce vehicles. the role of automobiles for use in the war effort emerged immediately, and a fleet of taxicabs were used to bring troop reinforcements forward during the battle of the marne in 1914. it is estimated that 125,004 used on there battlefield in world war i. truck production was doubled, even though the american auto industry was required to make other products as well, such as shells, guns. vehicle nate holley out the industry to increase production during the war. vehicle need -- to $1200 from the government for the purchase of a vehicle. which stipulated, petroleum. -powered vehicles. u.s. manufacturers established the standard for truck in 1916, and consequently began exporting vehicles to the front. kirsch reinforced and accelerated the standardization of the peacetime truck. trucks -- theric total number of commercial vehicles produced in the united states. in 1909. 11% wasof the fleet in 1909 electric. mobility on the u.s. homefront was influenced in basic ways by the needs of the war. in the u.s. a strain on the railroads fueled the military to trucking long-distance and to call for the roads that these routes made necessary. in addition, most trucks were manufactured in the midwest. and needed to be brought to the eastern seaboard for shipment. from 1917 to 19 -- 1918 it is estimated -- trucks made this trip. act916 the federal road focused federal funds on roads that would help farmers get their products out of the rural areas with more ease and flexibility. following the war, standard practices within the industry included the use of long-haul forcedg over railroads, the appropriate sphere of the electric truck to grow smaller. although proponents of electrics pushed for separate spheres of transportation with separate technologies, business owners could not support hybrid fleets. in making their decision for the internal combustion powered auck, as this is accepted cost-benefit scenario that allowed them to succeed across the board. even if another technology made more sense for short hauling. decisions that help to determine the future pattern in human mobility. during world war i, having a crude toabundance of manage but the united states in a powerful position. no matter what regulatory choices it made, it was a war, write historian daniel jorgen. these machines were powered by oil. when the war broke out military strategists that strategy was organized about -- around horses. such primitive modes dominated the fighting in this transitional conflict. throughout the war the energy transition took place from horsepower to gas power trucks and tanks. and, of course, ships and airplanes. innovations put new technologies into immediate action on the horrific that'll field. battlefield. there was the british that overcame trench warfare by devising a vehicle that was powered by the internal combustion engine. churchill was given credit for bringing the project under hits -- it's codename -- tank. --n other british cap british politicians wish to continue with other practices. decisive use arrived in august 1917. when a squadron of 500 british tanks broke through the german lines. the british expeditionary force that went to france in 1914 was supported by a fleet of 827 motorcars and 15 motorcycles. i'm giving you a lot of numbers here. by war's end, the british army included 50 6000 trucks, 23,000 motor cars, and motorcycles. superiorered flexibility on the battlefield, however their impact on the land-based strategy would not be fully felt due to the continued revlon's of fighting. -- methods of fighting. in the air and sea, the change was more obvious. red baron and the others, primitive airplanes required that the pilot pack his own sidearm and use them for firing at his opponents. would ben, the devices used for delivering explosives. apply this new strategy to the bombing of england. his plan, and later with aircraft. over the course of the war, the use of aircraft expanded remarkably. , italy's 55,000 planes 20,000. the united states, 15,000. germany, 28,000. disagreement over using petroleum at sea helps to exacerbate existing conflicts leading up to the war. use of petroleum in the ships n called at jurge stalemate. with only one battle primarily involving, however part of the explanation for this is the great chasm that separated britton's petroleum powered shipping fleet from the coal burning one of germany. it made little strategic sense for germany to confront the british navy. the tactic ofused submarine warfare. the submarines ran as diesel powered ships, which were capable of briefly diving for tax -- four attacks. when the allies took renewed measures to prosecute the war in 1918, petroleum was a weapon on everyone's mind. petroleum conference was pooled to control all oil supplies and travel. the u.s. entry into the war made this organization necessary because it had been supplying such a large portion of the allied efforts such far -- thus far. the worlds away supply, the u.s.'s reddest weapon in the world war i may have been crude. woodrow wilson appointed the nation's first energies are, whose responsibility was to work in the close quarters -- ar, whosecz responsibility was to work in close coordination. this explanation for our massive transition to petroleum usage could not stop at the battlefield. however, with the wartime infrastructure in place in the was, the army's intrigue domestic applications. inspired efforts to find out if motor vehicles could withstand the trip across the u.s.. wouldlso hoped the convoy function as a demonstration of a new era. more importantly, with proper infrastructure, with the american public be convinced that the internal combustion engine reliably could guide our future? 's convoy displayed the technology that helps to win the war. roadsso the importance of and bridges, which could only be achieved through the radically new commitment of tax dollars for infrastructure. of 191970rical event event -- events of 1919 sadly emerges at -- that celebrated the soldiers in the convoy. about the speeches need for roads and infrastructure to support the new technology. andts on harley-davidson's indian motorcycles sent a half-hour ahead to inspect road conditions. nebraska engulfed 25 trucks from the convoy and in utah many were stuck in massive sand drifts. allowed in california the convoy to return to their top speeds, 10 miles per hour. 62 days after leaving washington, the convoy reached .an francisco crossed san francisco bay and concluded in lincoln park. activities at events such as concerts and street carefullyhile also enumerating specific details of the constant mechanical difficulties with their vehicles. the novelty of such travel also participants to record their rates of progress. this one from july 9. the quotas, a very good, made 57 miles in 11 and one third hours. during the expedition -- the need for a network of connected roads and bridges. eisenhower's report to army leaders focused mostly on mechanical difficulties and the conditions of the patchwork of existing roads, imported a mix roads,d and unpaved bridges, and narrow passages. some bridges were too low for trucks to pass under. eisenhower pointed out that the roads in the midwest were impracticable. but the roads in the east were sufficient for truck use. eisenhower singled out a western ,ection of the lincoln highway with routes through utah and nevada, as being so poor it warranted a thorough investigation before government money should be expended. he praised california for having paved roads. he observed that the different grades of road determined much of the convoys of success. tot this is been enough compel such a massive transition? ike's education had just begun. it is rare for a historian to be able to so clearly trace the development of an idea such as roads. timeer, i followed up his in the convoy being assigned the importance of french roads. jerry world war ii he studied and experience the revolutionary german roadways. revelation -- the revolutionary german roadways. , during worldte war ii i had seen the superlative system of german audubon. the national highways crossing the country. largely by chance, ike's military service had bought him a global expertise on civil engineering and how it could be used to guide the future of the country. president, i u.s. created the president's advisory committee. on the national highway system, which resulted in the grand plan. funds toon of federal build a vast system of enter -- interconnected highways. the client committee also warned of the need for large-scale evacuation in the cities, in the event of nuclear war. if evacuation was required, the roads could be reversed to make population withdrawal orderly. the ihsnd of the 1950's was well on its way to the more roads that miles of it encompasses today. the transformation had occurred in just decades. easily within one man's lifetime. behind thehand utility of this national infrastructure was independent fuel. the success of ike's vision ended on a reveille. the convoy presents a prime example that energy transitions are no simple flip of a new switch, following a discovery or adoption of new sources of power. competition and influence determined that the ice with power autos of the future -- but that was just beginning. this energy choice was reinforced and supported by public will. political decisions. and loss, such as zoning. americans determined that the 20th century would be powered by fossil fuels such as petroleum. in the marketplace provided them the flexibility to create a landscape of drive-through's and filling stations. over the course of human history, each new energy source on innovation and scale. fossil fuels allowed us to do more work, to accomplish more. today and energy transition beckons, and promises not necessarily more power, but a more sustainable, smarter future. this revolution is not just in the sources of power, it is also in how we think about energy. 1919,rior to july 7, eisenhower read the patterns and trends and forecasted that the american future would be built around cheap crude. the oil discovered in texas and elsewhere allows his generation to dream of future -- unfettered. today the pattern feeding our energy transition are more nuanced. thatding limited supplies require political, military, and strategic considerations. and clear knowledge that burning greatly impacts earth's environment. and it is challenging for such a transition to occur organically, because vested interests marked the levers of government to resist a market-driven ice toion, such as from electric powered vehicles. of the 1919essons -- to is the demonstrate demonstrate that energy transitions have occurred and that they often were directed by choices that grew organically. the final lesson of ike's road trip is to ask, where is our path?tions's how do we find it? how do we should -- how do we ensure it can break through the marketplace and which visionary leader will guide us? thanks very much. [applause] cracks you are welcome to go to either side of the stage, or there is a mike. if you are unable to get there, just raise your hand and i will come to you. >> thank you for your talk. while you have posed this question, in your own opinion, is the beginning of these last couple of decades, have you been seeing anything akin to the convoy to spur on this new century? i feel like i do. thanks for that question. it gets to that idea we are investigating here. , make the argument that especially if we look at the personal transportation marketplace -- cars -- that we see a whole different shift after the 1970's. longenergy historians have criticized our reaction to the supply's ofe oil the 1970's. one of the things we learned is how unpredictably they play out. sometimes they take a long time. that, andto allow for not to expect that switch. that quick switch. then you look at something like the availability of hybrid and electric vehicles in our society today. that is transformation. many of us might not drive them right now, but there -- their availability is a watershed change. that is something we can point to, and i think we had a lot of use of regulations and legal possibilities to ensure that even more of the vehicle sector would go in that direction. certainly that is changed in the last few years, which is another lesson that the political vagaries of energy transition. we certainly see a shift, beginning in the 1970's in the availability, the choice that consumers had in terms of the vehicles they drive. >> hi. how much was dividing up some of the colonies of the ottoman empire on the minds of the different powers at the versailles negotiations? prof. black: very much. was ay knowledge, that very specific part of the strategy. land, but inp the the reserves that they knew were there. very much. that is a good point to bring up. >> the churchill quote from 1914 anglo-persian, which became bp, apparently at the time they were obviously established, avedon, wasn't part of the empire at that time? prof. black: that was british product. .t was involved in that regard that is very much where we see the transition planning out as the politics, as the geopolitics was already beginning to shape the modern world at that point, between wars. talk item's administration, that was the turning point when personal vehicles overtook trains. so, do you see the flip back to public transit happening in the century? prof. black: we do see it more often, where it is possible in urban areas. we have seen transition to light rail and the streetcar design we see in many cities now. that is a throwback technology that works very well. but it is limited in how it can be put to use across the vast stretches of the united states. it is not something that can be totally transformational, that is definitely we see something , urban arrows looking toward. >> ride will be available in our lobby if you think of additional questions. thank you for joining us here this evening. please come back and another round of applause. [applause] >> 75 years ago this month the united states, great written, and the soviet union to discuss a post-world war ii germany and a liberated europe. today at 4:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv's railamerica, the 1945 documentary of that meeting, the conference. >> i come from the crimean conference with the belief we have made a good start on a world peace. before have the major allies been more closely united. not only in their war aims, but also in therapy seems. histories weoral will talk with medal of honor incipient -- recipient herschel. the marines around me jumped up and started firing their weapons into the air. screaming and yelling. i really thought everybody had lost their mind. i cannot figure out what was going on. dan, i caught onto up was doing looked, andhen i glory.as old >> explore our nation's past on american history tv, on c-span3. >> tonight on q and a, how south sudanese video game developer louis is bringing peace and conflict resolution to the refugee experience to a wider audience. >> as someone who has been my country as a country that has over 73% of the population is under the age of 30. these are all young people and they were raised up in the war. when i was playing grand theft auto i was like, how bout if young people from sudan start playing this videogame? not because it is too violent, but because it is the same thing happening in my country. about crediting -- creating a video for peace? >> tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and a. >>, johnson county community college professor tai edwards teaches a class about the expansion of the united states during the spanish-american war and the acquisition of hawaii. she examines the goals of the u.s. in gaining new territory and the debates at the time about having an overseas empire. prof. edwards: all right. today we are talking about u.s. empire abroad. and i'm going to start with the question like always. so let's start with a question. so the question for today is why did the u.s. become a global empire? why did the u.s. become a global empire? why did the u.s. become a global empire? ok. why did the u.s. becom