Andrew Moss — History and Enterprise

Introduction

Postbellum industrial growth becomes clearer when its energy industries are compared rather than treated as a single success story. Between 1870 and 1900, American coal and petroleum output expanded substantially, but at different rates. Petroleum’s faster proportional growth did not mean that coal was disappearing. The comparison instead reveals simultaneous expansion in two sectors serving different markets. Its central finding is deliberately limited: physical output measures the enlargement of productive activity, while questions about profits, living standards, and the distribution of gains require additional evidence.

The years 1870–1900 provide a thirty-year comparison entirely within the assigned postbellum period. Keeping the endpoint at 1900 also prevents later petroleum developments from determining the interpretation of nineteenth-century evidence. The question is how rapidly these two industries expanded, and what that comparison can legitimately reveal about economic change.

Methodology and Sources

This study uses data from the National Bureau of Economic Research coal series (available through FRED) and the Energy Information Administration’s annual crude-oil series. The coal data is in millions of short tons, and the oil data is in thousands of barrels. One important note: the coal series combines anthracite shipments with bituminous production, so it shows overall coal activity, not just mine output. This analysis keeps that definition instead of treating all data as mine output.¹

Each series is indexed to 1870 = 100 by dividing a later observation by its 1870 value and multiplying by 100. Percentage growth equals the ending value divided by the starting value, minus one, multiplied by 100. Indexing permits comparison of proportional expansion without equating tons with barrels. It does not convert either commodity into a common measure of energy, monetary value, or economic contribution.

A. Piatt Andrew’s government report offers another way to check the data. In his minerals table, he lists coal in long tons and petroleum in gallons. The comparison requires converting these units: one long ton is 1.12 short tons, and one petroleum barrel holds 42 gallons. If the numbers match after conversion, it increases confidence in the data, but it does not prove the sources are independent, since historical reports can use the same original data.²

David Freedman’s discussion of John Snow emphasizes relevant evidence and the importance of testing explanations against observed conditions. This study therefore employs descriptive calculations without asserting that expansion in one industry caused growth in the other. Popp and Fellman describe research and writing as repetitive procedures and report that interviewees voice concern about mistaking sequence for causality. In this context, their approach requires revising the narrative when intermediate observations complicate endpoint comparisons. The narrative functions to explain the evidence, but cannot substitute for showing a causal relationship.³

Analytical Assessment

Coal production grew from 33.0 million short tons in 1870 to 269.7 million in 1900, which is about 8.17 times its initial level, or a 717.3 percent increase. Petroleum went from 5.261 million barrels to 63.621 million, about 12.09 times its initial level, or a 1,109.3 percent increase. Over thirty years, coal grew at about 7.25 percent per year, and petroleum at about 8.66 percent per year. These averages cover the whole period and do not mean growth was steady every year.⁴

The intermediate observations sharpen that interpretation. Petroleum’s index reached about 499.6 in 1880 and 871.0 in 1890, then 1,209.3 in 1900. Coal’s corresponding indices were 216.7, 478.2, and 817.3. Petroleum’s especially rapid early expansion slowed in the final decade: its increase from 1890 to 1900 was approximately 38.8 percent, compared with coal’s 70.9 percent. Thus, the thirty-year ranking conceals a reversal: coal grew faster in the last decade.⁴

Sean Patrick Adams explains how railroads opened coalfields and connected mines to distant customers, while changing extraction technology and coke demand supported expansion. His account also describes low margins and labor conflict. These conclusions make the coal figures historically intelligible: expanding activity could support industrial users while pressuring producers and workers. Larger quantities were compatible with contested economic benefits. The EIA’s historical overview identifies kerosene for heating and lighting as a principal nineteenth-century petroleum use. Therefore, petroleum’s growth should be interpreted in its contemporary market setting rather than through the later dominance of automobile fuel.⁵

Andrew Cone and Walter R. Johns’s Petrolia (1870), found in Sabin Americana, offers a contemporary view. In the transportation chapter, they describe how tank cars replaced barrels and pipelines connected wells to railroads. They say this saved money by not using barrels, but they also note complaints that pipelines controlled prices. Their positive view of this control deserves scrutiny. This evidence links the industry's start to its distribution systems and separates what people at the time claimed from what actually happened nationwide. However, it does not explain all the growth over thirty years.⁶

Chandler identifies learned skills in production, distribution, and management as sources of industrial firms’ capabilities. Applied here, that perspective asks which arrangements connected extraction, transportation, processing, and customers. National totals cannot establish whether particular firms developed superior capabilities. Testing that explanation requires firm records. The comparison therefore supports investigating coordination without presenting rising output as proof of managerial efficiency.⁷

Several limitations remain consequential. Neither series measures output per worker, so neither establishes productivity growth. Neither deducts production costs or records household purchasing power. The indices also obscure initial scale: the sector with the higher percentage increase need not contribute more to national income. Claims about welfare would require real wages, prices, working conditions, and regional evidence.

Year	Coal million short tons	Oil million barrels	Coal index	Oil index
1870	33.0	5.261	100.0	100.0
1880	71.5	26.286	216.7	499.6
1890	157.8	45.824	478.2	871.0
1900	269.7	63.621	817.3	1209.3

Sources: NBER via FRED; EIA. Indices and growth rates calculated from the displayed series. 1870 = 100. Coal includes the shipment qualification explained above.

Conclusion

Coal and petroleum both expanded markedly between 1870 and 1900. Petroleum grew faster across the full interval, while coal grew faster during its final decade. The evidence supports a history of overlapping sectoral expansion whose pace depended on the comparison period. Honest measurement requires consistent definitions and a clear distinction between physical growth and profitability or prosperity. This method also lays a foundation for later local research: aggregate trends establish context, but following analysis must demonstrate business decisions and community outcomes at their respective scales.

Source Notes

1. National Bureau of Economic Research, “Total Coal Production,” series notes; U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil.”

2. A. Piatt Andrew, comp., Statistics for the United States, 1867–1909 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), table 7.

3. David A. Freedman, “Statistical Models and Shoe Leather,” Sociological Methodology 21 (1991): 291–93, 298, 304; Andrew Popp and Susanna Fellman, “Writing Business History: Creating Narratives,” Business History 59, no. 8 (2017): 1245, 1251–54.

4. NBER, “Total Coal Production”; EIA, “U.S. Field Production.” Author’s calculations: growth = (end/start − 1) × 100; compound annual growth = ((end/start)^(1/30) − 1) × 100.

5. Sean Patrick Adams, “US Coal Industry in the Nineteenth Century,” EH.Net Encyclopedia, January 23, 2003, sections on postwar railroads, technology, competition, and unions; EIA, “The 250-Year History of U.S. Energy Consumption,” June 30, 2026.

6. Andrew Cone and Walter R. Johns, Petrolia: A Brief History of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Region, Its Development, Growth, Resources, Etc., from 1859 to 1869 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1870), 113–14. Sabin Americana, Gale document CY0101297809. The cited pages describe conditions near the 1870 baseline; earlier episodes in the book are not included in the growth calculations.

7. Alfred D. Chandler, “Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 6, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 83–84.

Bibliography

Adams, Sean Patrick. “US Coal Industry in the Nineteenth Century.” In EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. January 23, 2003. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-us-coal-industry-in-the-nineteenth-century/.

Andrew, A. Piatt, comp. Statistics for the United States, 1867–1909. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910. Table 7. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/statistics-united-states-1867-1909-662/fulltext.

Chandler, Alfred D. “Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 6, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 79–100. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.6.3.79.

Cone, Andrew, and Walter R. Johns. Petrolia: A Brief History of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Region, Its Development, Growth, Resources, Etc., from 1859 to 1869. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1870. Sabin Americana. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0101297809/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=bookmark-SABN&xid=05d5bd02&pg=115.

Freedman, David A. “Statistical Models and Shoe Leather.” Sociological Methodology 21 (1991): 291–313. https://www.jstor.org/stable/270939.

National Bureau of Economic Research. “Total Coal Production for United States.” Series A01210USA448NNBR. FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed November 3, 2026. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A01210USA448NNBR.

Popp, Andrew, and Susanna Fellman. “Writing Business History: Creating Narratives.” Business History 59, no. 8 (2017): 1242–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2016.1250742.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “The 250-Year History of U.S. Energy Consumption.” June 30, 2026. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67824.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil.” Annual series, thousand barrels. Accessed November 3, 2026. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?f=A&n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1.