Keeping Warm in the Winter in the 1800s

[SeaBreeze]

Some ways that people kept warm in the cold winter months in the 1800s.

 

[Ruth n Jersey]

Very interesting video. I can only imagine how many fires there were during the cold winter months. I had a muff in the 1950's and hated the thing.

 

[SeaBreeze]

My mother bought me a little white furry hand muff when I was a kid, I loved the feel of it and liked it a lot, but never used it much, better to have my hands free with regular gloves or mittens.

 

[jujube]

A "Three Dog Night" was more than a rock group back then. On a cold winter's night, it was a darn good thing to have man's best friend generating heat in your bed.

 

[Aunt Bea]

No mention of baked potatoes!

When the kids had to walk to the one-room schoolhouse on cold mornings concerned mothers would give each kid two baked potatoes right out of the oven to carry in their pockets. The potatoes helped keep their hands warm on the way to school and eventually became lunch.

My grandmother's farmhouse did not have heat on the second floor and she closed off rooms that were not used to minimize the cost of heating.

She also used to turn back the thermostat when she went to bed and covered the birdcage with a couple of tea towels so the parakeet wouldn't freeze.

I remember standing on the kitchen register in the morning and having the warm air wash over me while I hopped from one foot to the other because the floor register was so hot on my bare feet.

Now I live with steam heat and wear less in the winter than I do in the summer!

 

[Tommy]

Thank you SeaBreeze. That's an interesting video. It strikes me as odd that they seem to have skipped over the Franklin stove. These were invented in the mid-1700s and were popular well into the 1900s. My great grandparents had a big old black one as their main source of heat until they passed in the 1950s. In fact, functional/decorative 21st century descendants of the Franklin stove are still very popular today.

Our family used hot water bottles, albeit made of rubber, to pre-warm our beds all the while I was growing up. They're still available. Closing off rooms? Up until four years ago, our home had baseboard electric heat, so each room had it's own thermostat. We routinely turned down the thermostat and closed the door when we left a room. Putting on heavier clothing on cold weather? Yup, I do that.

Modern HVAC is great, but it we cetainly haven't forgotten of the lessons of the past.

:winter1:

(It still amazes me that many in cold climates who "claim" to be "green" eschew heavy curtains and carpets in their homes in deference to "fashion".)

 

[Tommy]

No mention of baked potatoes!

When the kids had to walk to the one-room schoolhouse on cold mornings concerned mothers would give each kid two baked potatoes right out of the oven to carry in their pockets. The potatoes helped keep their hands warm on the way to school and eventually became lunch.

A common story in Michigan was that the wives of copper miners in the upper peninsula would send their husbands off to work with hot, wrapped pasties (meat pies). The miners would carry the hot pies, their lunch, in their armpits to help them stay warm on their way to work.