Oil, p.68
Oil!, page 68
when Sinclair typed: Anthony Arthur details Kimbrough’s purchase in Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair (New York: Random House, 2006), pp. 202–3.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
celebration of the open road: See Stephanie LeMenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 69–71.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Historically, Hollywood’s development: Stephen J. Ross, “How Hollywood Became Hollywood: Money, Politics, and Movies,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, ed. William Deverell and Tom Sitton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 255–76.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
If workers organized: See Matthew T. Huber, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (New York: Verso, 2022), pp. 221–57.
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CHAPTER I: THE RIDE
the low, swift roadster: A two- or three-seat sports car.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Harun al-Rashid: Powerful caliph who ruled at the peak of the Islamic Golden Age in the eighth and early ninth centuries ce, and who appears throughout The Thousand and One Nights.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
they were common mortals, back on earth: Sinclair revised this sentence from the novel’s 1926–1927 serialized version, where the semicolon is followed by “they were making up for lost time. Whee!” Oil, The Daily Worker [Chicago], June 3, 1926, p. 1. Hereafter cited as DW.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Father Junípero Serra: Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra y Ferrer (1713–1784) established California’s first nine Spanish missions beginning in 1769.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Arabian Nights and Grimms’ Fairy Tales: The Arabian Nights, also called The Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of mostly Middle Eastern, Indian, and North African folk narratives. Grimms’ Fairy Tales: A collection of German folk narratives by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published in 1812.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Six-thirty, said the clock: Sinclair revised this sentence to underscore Dad’s punctuality. In The Daily Worker version, the narrator comments, “Six twenty-five said the little clock; which was five minutes ahead of schedule.” DW, June 8, 1926, p. 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
CHAPTER II: THE LEASE
It was pure “wildcatting”: Wildcatting is prospecting for oil in locations where it is not known to exist.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Prospect No. 1 had got into oil sands: Dad has struck hydrocarbons suspended in a semisolid sediment of sand, soil, and/or clay. Historically, oil sands could also refer to tar sands, bitumen, and shale oil.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
filled the sump hole: A sump hole is a cesspit dug to collect liquids.
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a big “rake-off”: The profit from a disreputable deal.
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an agreement to “spud in”: To begin drilling operations.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
on the pump: An apparatus connected to a pumpjack, also known as a “nodding donkey,” which provides artificial lift to crude from an oil well. This discovery well: The first commercial well in an area where the existence of oil or natural gas was previously unproven.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
the anticline runs: A dome-like geological formation containing the oldest minerals in a given area. Most of the planet’s oil has been discovered in anticline formations due to their tendency to trap hydrocarbons in a pressurized setting.
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Rock of Ages: Multiple English translations of Isaiah 26:4 use this phrase to characterize God as an enduring source of spiritual fortitude.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Four Square . . . the Apostolic Church: Sinclair based the character of Paul’s brother Eli on Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), Canadian emigrant to Southern California whose faith-healing exhibitions drew thousands of observers, and whose radio sermons attracted many more listeners. The Foursquare Gospel Association is the name of the Pentecostal Christian denomination that McPherson founded in the L.A. area in 1923. An apostolic church is a revivalist church seeking to emulate the ideals and practices of early Christian apostles. See chapter V, notes 5 and 11, and chapter XVIII, note 6.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
CHAPTER III: THE DRILLING
came the “mud hogs”: Machines that pump liquid out of an oil well. “Draw works”: The main machinery that hoists a rotary drill up and down.
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this fierce anchorite: A spiritual recluse.
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hyena of greed . . . Mater Dolorosa: In a folk tale from the Kikuyu people in East Africa, the hyena’s ravenous desire for meat makes him gullible to a hare who tricks him into sewing his anus shut. Mater Dolorosa: The Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
cut mortise joints: A pair of wooden parts, one with a hole and the other with a projection, that snap together.
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tank of fuel oil: The serialized version of Oil! identifies this fuel as “gasoline.” DW, June 26, 1926, p. 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
the big “drum”: The draw-works drum, an apparatus used to spool and unspool wire rope for the drill. “Drill stem”: The base of the drilling apparatus on the ground level, which consists of a drill pipe and the machinery used to rotate the drill bit.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
known as your “kelly joint”: A kelly joint converts force generated on the surface, by the rotary table, to the drill bit’s spinning action in the shaft.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
victoria . . . landau . . . barouche: Horse-drawn carriages popularized in the nineteenth century. The victoria is a small French-designed carriage with an open box seat for the coachman, drawn by two horses. The landau and the barouche are larger vehicles drawn by four horses, the latter featuring an adjustable roof.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
job of “cementing off”: Creating a cement wall around the borehole to provide stability and protection from surrounding sediment and liquid.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
way of an “underreamer”: A device used to increase an oil well’s width, typically consisting of arms or blades manipulated in the lower well.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
they were “four-flushers”: Literally a poker hand that remains one card short of a full flush; it is slang for a hollow boast or bluff, or someone who makes a hollow boast or bluff.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
a “ballyhoo man”: An individual prone to attention-seeking speeches or demonstrations.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
“chute the chutes”: An amusement park water ride featuring flat-bottomed boats that slide downhill and skim on the water’s surface. Typically spelled “shoot the chutes.”
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about core drilling: Usually undertaken in the early stages of oil and natural gas exploration, core drilling involves taking a cylindrical sample from an oil well to gain information about the sediment being drilled.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
shale from sandstone, and conglomerate: Shale is sedimentary rock that consists primarily of clay and silt, while sandstone is made mostly of quartz. Conglomerate is sedimentary rock consisting of pebbles and sand usually bound by silica, calcite, or iron oxide.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
ordered his “tankage”: Storage tanks and facilities for recovered oil.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
the big “casinghead”: A large flange attached to the top of an oil or natural gas well. It is the main interface for controlling pressure and separating oil and natural gas.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
known as the “water string”: A metal casing around an oil well’s lowest section that keeps water out.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
the “flow line”: A pipeline or hose connecting an oil well to a variety of processing and storage units on the surface.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
No. 1 “proved up”: Demonstrated the presence of oil in commercial quantities.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
whispering, “Memento mori!”: An artistic reminder of death’s inevitability.
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CHAPTER IV: THE RANCH
trunks calcimined white: Calcimine is an inexpensive chalklike paint used widely in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century interiors.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
from the “springhouse”: A small enclosed building constructed over a water spring. The coldness of mountain water made springhouses useful for refrigeration.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
matter into escrow: A legal arrangement in which money or property is held by a third party to protect both buyer and seller.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
ten-day options: Options to end a real estate contract after ten days without financial penalty.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
CHAPTER V: THE REVELATION
amazing to see: For the single-volume edition of Oil! Sinclair adjusted the original wording from “It was wonderful to see.” DW, July 27, 1926, p. 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
The Age of Reason: The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (1793–1794) was a treatise by British American writer Thomas Paine (1737–1809) that critiqued the institutional power of the Christian church and championed reason as an anodyne to superstition.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
the American Revolution: Paine’s political pamphlets, especially Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776), gave formative impetus to the U.S. independence movement.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
feeble kerosene lamp: Kerosene was one of the oil industry’s primary products in the era before mass electrification.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
two revelations . . . New Dispensation: Dad invents ideas that McPherson espoused in the 1920s. After the first dispensation of the Old Testament and “the second dispensation . . . of the New Testament,” McPherson claimed that a third dispensation would follow. “There must needs be a third story to the ark, in which the sin-cursed multitude might take refuge to escape the flood of judgment,” she wrote. McPherson, This Is That: Personal Experiences, Sermons and Writings (Los Angeles: Echo Park Evangelistic Association, 1923), pp. 640–41.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
the “holy jumpers’ ”: Protestant congregants with a gymnastic, boisterous style of worship. Holy jumping or rolling became characteristic of early-twentieth-century Pentecostalism.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Huxley and Spencer: Formative evolutionary thinkers, most of whom questioned Christian orthodoxy. T. H. Huxley (1825–1895) popularized Charles Darwin’s evolutionism and introduced the philosophical position of agnosticism. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) developed theories of pan-cosmic evolution and of social Darwinism. Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) challenged the efficacy of prayer and argued that a new eugenicist creed might displace the Christian church. August Weismann (1834–1914) disproved the notion that acquired characteristics could be inherited. Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851–1940) posited a spirit-world that existed in an invisible electromagnetic ether. Edwin Lankester (1847–1929), controversial director of London’s Natural History Museum, described Christian doctrine as a barrier to free thought that reinforced class hierarchies.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
as solid as Gibraltar: The Rock of Gibraltar, an ancient limestone formation on the Iberian Peninsula.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Haeckel and Renan: German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), who coined the term “ecology,” developed a materialist creed that viewed evolution as an ultimate cosmic force. French writer Joseph-Ernest Renan (1823–1892) influentially published The Life of Jesus (1863), which narrated Jesus’s biography in historical (not hagiographical) terms.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
a fool flapper: A young female who listened to jazz and wore short skirts and bobbed hair in defiance of 1920s social convention.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
build the Tabernacle: McPherson opened her Angelus Temple megachurch on January 1, 1923, in Los Angeles as the main venue for her Foursquare denomination.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
“free will offerings”: Voluntary financial donations.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
CHAPTER VI: THE WILDCAT
back in Pennsylvania: The site of the first commercial petroleum boom in 1859.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
hypochlorites, nor the independence of the Philippine Islands: Hypochlorites are chlorine disinfectants that were first mass-produced at the twentieth century’s outset. The United States annexed the Philippines after a brutal three-year war from 1899 to 1902. Arguments for independence ranged from anti-imperial sentiments to anxieties about Filipino incorporation into U.S. society and culture.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
“The treasures of the yearth”: Genesis 1:28 states, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (King James Version, the version from which Sinclair quotes throughout the text, hereafter cited as KJV).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
and the gears gave a rattle, and the rotary table gave a turn: Sinclair added this phrase to the single-volume edition of Oil! See DW, August 13, 1926, p. 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
VI: Sinclair deleted a sentence that begins in this section in the novel’s serialized version: “Bunny went back to school; and each day when he got through, he either drove to his father’s house, or else he called up as soon as he got home, to ask the news from Paradise.” DW, August 14, 1926, p. 5.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
mass of “stands”: Sets of two or three drill-pipe joints connected to “stand” vertically above the surface of an oil well.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
high-gravity oil: In contrast to low-gravity crude, high-gravity oil can be refined into a greater range of light fluids such as gasoline and other fuels, and thus has greater commercial value.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
under Mount Vesuvius: A volcano in southwest Italy where the 79 ce eruption devastated settlements including Pompeii and Herculaneum.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
CHAPTER VII: THE STRIKE
cracking distillation . . . dephlegmators . . . tower stills: Cracking distillation is the method of breaking down long hydrocarbon chains into shorter ones by exposing them to high heat, resulting in an assortment of refined goods. A dephlegmator is the cooling condenser at the top of a distilling unit. Tower stills are the entire vertical structures where distillation takes place.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
to the IWW: The Industrial Workers of the World, an international labor organization founded in 1905. As a general union, the IWW successfully organized workers across a range of isolated sectors through the 1910s and early 1920s, when it developed strong ties to socialist and anarchist labor movements.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
for the “Wobblies”: Members of the IWW.
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the Oil Workers’ Union: The International Association of Oil Field, Gas Well, and Refinery Workers of America gained its union charter in 1918. Before that time, U.S. oil unions tended to be small and geographically dispersed.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
“ ‘open shop’ town”: A town where workers are not required to join or support a labor union.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
the strikers’ difficulty would be to keep out of the way: Sinclair altered this passage for the single-volume edition. After the phrase “the ‘guards’ were coming,” the initial serialized version states “and their main difficulty would be to resist the efforts of these ‘guards’ to provoke them. They must understand, and the people of the community must understand, they were dealing with men of low type . . .” DW, August 27, 1926, p. 5.
