Petroleum history and energy research sources.
An American Oil & Gas Historical Society to collect online links to petroleum history and energy education resources. Suggestions are welcomed — and please support this effort.
National Energy Education Contacts
An ongoing collection of petroleum history research resources — seeking links to sources for understanding the role oil and natural gas history in understanding modern energy issues.
With data from rocks exposed at the earth’s surface, Philip Burke King and Helen Beikman in 1974 created a geologic map.
Featured are links to U.S. Department of Energy education programs, national laboratories, and other federal agencies. Many of these sources include sections for researchers.
State Energy Education Contacts
A list with links to energy education contacts, including leading state programs (especially those designed for grades kindergarten through 12th grade) with emphasis on oil and natural gas exploration and production.
U.S. Geological Survey 2008 map of oil (green) and natural gas (red) fields. Both are indicated by yellow.
The links includes links to professional organizations, industry sources and trade associations. Further, each state listing of resources includes a brief history of that state’s exploration and production history.
Petroleum History Photography
A small sample of available online resources.
The Earth Science World Image Bank is a service provided by the American Geological Institute designed to provide geoscience images to the public, educators, and the geoscience community.
The Library of Congress collection, America at Work, America at Leisure – Motion Pictures from 1894 to 1915 is a collection of digitized early motion pictures featuring U.S. work, school, and leisure activities. The American Memory collection provides prints, maps, sheet music, sound recordings, still and moving images.
The Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes more than 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies. The University of Northern Iowa library provides an extraordinary summary page of website links.
The National Archives Library Information Center provides many links to information and images covering American history and government. The New York Public Library Digital Gallery provides access to 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collection of the library.
Petroleum History Video
Links a collection of audio-visual resources.
You will find – among many others – the Internet Archive, which is building a digital library with free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Also linked is the Prelinger Archives, which allows access to films of historic significance produced by and for hundreds of U.S. corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions.
The Prelinger collection includes downloadable files in a variety of formats, for example, the 13-minute “Destination Earth,” an entertaining 1956 cartoon by the American Petroleum Institute where a Martian learns about oil.
Books & Oilfield Artists links to paintings and lithographs by AOGHS member JoAnn Cowans of Fullerton, California, who donated works to museum directors attending the historical society’s energy education conferences.
Other resource links include the work of petroleum geologist Jeff A. Spencer (see Texas Oil and Gas – Postcards of Texas Petroleum History) and an artist seeking home for her “Oil and Guts” oilfield mural; Canadian author Joyce Hunt telling the History of Alberta’s Massive Energy Resource: Tar Sands; Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund 1976-2011 by Jack Westbrook; and William Brice’s comprehensive Myth, Legend, Reality – Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry.
The Petroleum Age
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society’s coverage of U.S. petroleum industry heritage began in issues of the society’s publication Petroleum Age newsletter, published from June 2004 to March 2009 (Library of Congress ISSN 1930-5915).
The 16-page newsletter’s articles and museum news features, many of them now posted on this website, offered little-known stories about U.S. exploration and production.
In the early 2000s, the historical society established a Google website as a newsletter archive for the original quarterly newsletter Petroleum Age — since 2020 the monthly email newsletter, “Oil & Gas History News.”
American Oil & Gas Families
The historical society has published two special American Oil & Gas Families publications — featuring museums and regional petroleum histories of West Virginia and Texas.
The historical society began with research for two publications created for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Fuels. The booklets featured regional petroleum histories of Ohio, West Virginia and Texas.
AOGHS website of early 2000s.
Published in 2009, the 150th anniversary of the first U.S. oil well, the booklets include exploration and production facts, local interviews with producers — and an inside look at petroleum museum exhibits.
Stock Certificate Q&A
Have you come across an old petroleum company stock certificate but are unwilling to spend a lot of money for professional research? You are invited to post questions…or help others with theirs.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Please become an AOGHS annual supporter and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. Contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2025 Bruce A. Wells.
