Edwin L. Drake drilled the world’s first commercially successful oil well in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1859. Almost immediately he was pumping out 10 barrels a day. The idea that it was possible to intentionally drill for oil was a breakthrough.
Drake’s well produced more petroleum on demand than anyone had ever seen. Speculators and hangers-on flocked to the area. Everyone was eager to make a fortune drilling for oil. A little more than a year later, there were upwards of 70 producing wells in the region but that was only the beginning of the oil boom.
A wild and unprecedented era of speculation in oil land, oil wells and stocks of oil companies was underway. The excitement influenced popular culture. Some composers wrote songs and dance tunes with an oily theme. “Oil on the Brain” was one of those songs. Listen in to the chorus.
Oil on the brain, stock’s par, stock’s up, then on the wane, everybody’s troubled with, oil on the brain.
Learn more about the Pennsylvania oil boom in the Ernest C. Miller papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.