Houses No Warmer than Barns: Peter Kalm on Fireplaces and Firewood in Colonial Pennsylvania

Abstract

The travel narrative of the Swedish-Finnish naturalist Peter Kalm (Pehr Kalm, 1716–79) is a familiar primary source for studies of colonial North America. This essay highlights Kalm’s comments on energy use in mid-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania and points to additional resources for Kalm’s observations of the Delaware Valley region.

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