Interesting, too, to reflect on a passage in ‘The Prize’ Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize winning book on the history of Oil. Yergin highlights how kerosene (for lamps) – cheaper and better than wax or tallow candles – effectively extended the day for a (US 19th Century) rural population that had hitherto slept at sunset and risen with the dawn. The increasing demand for kerosene created then accelerated the start of the modern oil industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_Oil,_Money,_and_Power