The 1979 Oil Crisis was an energy crisis characterized by a precipitous drop in oil production for the second time in the 1970s (the first being in 1973). In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, 37,000 Iranian oil refinery employees went on strike in 1978, causing Iran's oil refineries to go from producing 6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day. The global oil supply decreased by 7 percent, causing a surge in oil pricing and within 12 months oil markets had doubled to $39.50 per barrel. This surge caused major gas shortages, long gas lines, and panic buying. In the United States, the Jimmy Carter administration began a phased deregulation of oil prices on April 5, 1979, which allowed U.S. oil output to rise sharply from the Prudhoe Bay fields in Alaska, while oil imports fell sharply. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that oil prices returned to pre-crisis levels. Photograph caption dated June 6, 1979 reads, "While we're at it, we thought you'd like to squint at two other visual comments on the gas situation - Ken Papaleo's shot of an Eagle Rock car wash and a succinct message on a dry hole in Council Bluffs Iowa..." Undated photograph snipe reads, "Eagle Rock. Sign at car wash at 2711 Colorado Blvd. Glen-Rock car wash." Photograph depicts a marquee that reads, "Carter and Brown, Kiss our gas," below a car wash sign.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print : b&w ; 20.5 x 25.5 cm. Photographic prints
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