From the Allegheny to the Irrawaddy: American Oil Drillers in Colonial Burma

Abstract

Colonial Burma was once a major center of world petroleum production in the early 20th Century. A notable group in the oil-fields of Burma was the working-class American oil drillers, most of whom with ties to the oil regions of western Pennsylvania. Drawing from fragmented primary sources such as censuses, consular registrations, passport applications, and death reports, this article reconstructs the life story of three ordinary and obscure blue-collar American drillers working in Burma between 1905 and 1920. With an individual perspective, this article proposes a more human history of the non-human, which takes seriously the visions, desires, and experiences of ordinary people in the oil industry. For oil history, this approach decenters conventional narratives of state structures, national successes, or larger-than-life heroic figures in the making of the age of oil.