Pennsylvania oil and World War I

By Judith Etzel
via the thederrick.com web site

A new scholarly journal published by the non-profit Friends of Drake Well tackles a dual subject - Pennsylvania oil and World War I - and outlines how the two topics were closely intertwined.

The special Oilfield Journal edition, timed to mark the 100th anniversary of America's entry into the War to End All Wars, lays out "the impact of the global war on the local region."

The newest Oilfield Journal highlights the oil industry's heavy involvement in World War I. This September 1918 photograph of a Pennsylvania National Guard unit crossing a bridge in war-torn France is the cover of the journal. (Photograph courtesy of the Pennsylvania Military Museum and PHMC).The hefty paperback issue features articles by local authors as well as an interview with "a prominent military historian and World War I expert," notes the edition. Numerous illustrations are included in the publication.

Petroleum products, from lubricants to gasoline, played a crucial role in World War I and nowhere was that impact more dramatic than in Pennsylvania's oil patch.

Shaky oil prices, limited pipeline access, stagnant drilling, regulatory excess and more were rattling the industry as Europe convulsed into war. At the same time, Pennsylvania's independent producers and refiners worried about fierce competition from larger companies outside the state.

As America moved closer to declaring war on Germany, the need to guarantee production quotas for the U.S. military as well as ensure America's allies had fuel extended far beyond the Oil Valley refineries to include the major oil companies such as Standard Oil, Atlantic Refining, Gulf Refining, Sinclair Oil and others.

The looming war even prompted a name change for one local company. In reaction to anti-German sentiment resulting from America's likely entrance into World War I, Germania Refining, under the guidance of the Suhr family, was renamed Penn-American Refining Co. in 1917. Five years later, Penn-American and the Pennzoil subsidiaries were merged to form the Pennzoil Co.

The war and the Oil Valley

"Pennsylvania's Oil Region during the Great War" is the lead article in the Oilfield Journal and is written by Ihor J. Bemko, an associate professor of history at Edinboro University and a Fulbright Scholar.

In the run-up to war, Oil City businessman Joseph Seep, whose agency was a prime buyer and price setter of crude oil, and Charles Miller of the Franklin-based Galena Signal Oil Co. anxiously watched the petroleum industry's reaction to supply and demand, noted Bemko.

Read the entire article on the thederrick.com web site.

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