The Smithsonian Institution’s “Hall of Petroleum” in Washington, D.C., opened in the summer of 1967 inside a museum wing devoted to the history of oilfield technology. The collection in the museum building’s west wing included cable-tool and rotary drilling rigs and many oilfield-related geology and engineering exhibits. (more…)
American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) website content includes links to just a small sample of petroleum-related history books and some of media resources relating to the history of U.S. energy. Classic historical texts available online include Paul H. Giddens’s 1936 The Birth of the Oil Industry (with introduction by Ida Tarbell).
Because AOGHS also links oil patch artwork featured in Oilfield Artists, many website visitors have asked a post that includes their fiction, research, and personal accounts or biographies. (more…)
The use of energy resources has defined modern civilization. Museums, and historians, writers, and educators have preserved the heritage of the petroleum industry since the first U.S. well of 1859. Oilfield artists of all media remain important recorders and interpreters of petroleum’s worldwide influence.
For oil patch students and researchers, the American Oil & Gas Historical Society created the work-in-progress Oil in Art articles, to accompany the forums and resources page, which includes links for photography sources (especially universities and the Library of Congress), petroleum history videos, and a small AOGHS selection of books and authors.
