Tweaks to beat summer heat prior to AC…

[Fyrefox]

Before most homes routinely had AC, my parents actually put up canvas awnings on the windows of their house in the summer. They darkened the house but by cutting the entering light did keep the house slightly cooler in summer. Do you remember awnings on house windows, or ever use any? I remember them as being fairly common on beach houses, too, the older-style rentals before the days of motels with AC.

What other tweaks did you or your parents use to keep cool in the days before air conditioning?

 

[Flarbalard]

When my mother-in-law was young (born in 1913) the butler would place tubs with blocks of ice in front electric fans.

The house my wife grew up in had high ceilings and transoms and there were porches on 3 sides of the house. My wife remembers being young before they got a window air conditioner and she and her siblings sleeping on the porches in the summer.

 

[Fyrefox]

Many cars in the 1950’s -1960’s had vinyl upholstery that heated up to a level that could burn skin when the vehicle sat in the summer heat. In the days before air conditioning was fairly standard in cars, my father used rigid wire car seat cushions on top of the vinyl upholstery that made sitting in the car seat less torturous in the summer weather.

They were no substitute for AC but allowed air to circulate, and you weren’t sitting directly on hot vinyl…