Carbon 1s energies are measured by ESCA for a series of aliphatic saturated compounds, carbonyl compounds, and some aromatic compounds. For convenient use in chemical structure analysis the binding energy shifts are correlated with a charge parameter obtained from electronegativity considerations. The shifts are also analyzed in terms of group shifts from which group electronegativities are derived. A comparison is made between the shifts in solid and gaseous samples and it is shown that solid state effects are small for non-ionic compounds. The observed shifts are then compared with results of semi-empirical and ab initio molecular orbital calculations on free molecules. The theoretical calculations are simplified by use of an electrostatic potential model.