“the juice of the fountain of eternal youth”
The oil industry began its ascent by dominating the fast-growing illumination energy market of the 1860s. Producers of oil-based kerosene won out due to superior quality and price. Where whale oil was lighting homes for $3 a gallon in 1860, kerosene was lighting homes for 9 cents a gallon by 1880 — giving millions of Americans the gift of illumination at night.
In the early 20th century, as the electric light bulb outcompeted kerosene, oil producers focused on producing automotive fuel — and beat out steam, ethanol and — the front-runner at the time — electric batteries, through a combination of affordability, safety and convenience.
As a gasoline marketer told a group of gas station attendants in 1928: “My friends, it is the juice of the fountain of eternal youth that you are selling. It is health. It is comfort. It is success… . You must put yourself in the place of the man and woman in whose lives your gasoline has worked miracles.”