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At the same time that urban American hearths and kitchens became dependent upon coal, proscriptive accounts of gendered domesticity grew in popularity. Buying coal was a man’s world, full of sharp dealings, underhanded sellers, and cutthroat competition. Using coal, on the other hand, was women’s work, in which emergent ideas of domestic economy placed an emphasis upon efficiency and order. Although these worlds were separate in theory, in actuality the use of coal blurred idealistic visions of a gendered division of labor in the home. “Making Coal Sharp” examines the ways in which industrial capitalism connected the hearth and kitchen to wider energy markets, while complicating an idealized gendered division of labor held dear by middle and upper-class American households as they negotiated this first major energy transition to fossil fuel use.