I’m not a scientist so I will plead incompetence on that subject. But as an armature historian I can tell you that there was no AC in 1896.
... as an armature historian I can tell you that there was no AC in 1896
The Romans figured out how to air condition a building 2000 years ago. They built houses with a double wall, filled the wall with sand and added water to the sand. The water would seep through the wall and evaporate on the outside wall and through evaporative cooling would cool the inside of the building by 15 to 20 degrees.
You might want to take a look at this (click here) state of the history of icemaking in the mid-1800s. I thought, "Ahh, ammonia!" (I had two different natural gas refrigerators that used ammonia (no Joker), and there it was. Somebody had A/C, eh?