Author Topic: The History of Comfort  (Read 17403 times)

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
The History of Comfort
« on: June 04, 2017, 10:30:31 am »
I found it interesting to read about what life was like for an ordinary family in the time and places where Laura Ingalls grew up. I guess that was the burgeoning historian in me; the books were like historical documents.

I wish more historians would focus on what life was like for an ordinary family in their era as opposed to the larger and ostensibly more "important" activities of royalty and armies and whatnot.

Sidenote: I've always wanted to write a book about the history of comfort. The idea would be to look at what life was like for people before all the things we take for granted that make our lives comfortable -- streetlights, comfy beds, Advil, a variety of food from one day to the next, etc., etc. I would try to go beyond the obvious things like indoor plumbing and central heating. But it would get back to my idea that the average middle-class American family lives far, far better than a king from the Middle Ages.

My only roadblocks are: 1) I don't really know how to do historical research and 2) Millions of people around the world still experience this pre-comfort life (and even in this country, some people lack some of the things).

I think the only way to do the book would be to find a coauthor who knows historical research (my ex is pretty good at it -- if only I could get him interested in undertaking such a major project). The other thing is I'd have to spend some time in a place where these ordinary comforts are unknown. For example, I interviewed a guy who has for years been raising money and leading travel groups to some little village in, I think, Ghana, where he spent time during his Peace Corps years. The people there were living on <$1 a day, which is some international measure of acceptable standard of living, and this guy I interviewed managed to bring them up to $2 a day. That meant the difference between families having secure tin roofs on their homes versus having the family get up in the middle of the night during monsoon season to go out in the storm and hang onto the tarp that was serving as their roof to keep it from blowing away. It also provided people with malaria shots and mosquito netting. When I talked to him, a woman had started a rudimentary "restaurant" (selling bowls from big pot of beans she cooked in her yard) and someone else had set up a TV and satellite and would charge villagers some small amount to watch.

But a medicine chest full of OTC medications to help with minor aches and pains? Chicken one night and steak the next? Forget it.

I see the book structure as alternating chapters between the experiences of people in a village like that (so and so suffered a terrible toothache but had to just endure the pain until someone yanked it out, rather than do whatever dentisty thing they might do here) with chapters about the accumulation of comforts in developed countries and their histories (Louis Pasteur invented Advil in 1980, or whatever).

Quote
I've never read Pippi Longstocking, or Little Women (though I've thought I ought to read Louisa May Alcott because I think she's an important figure in literature, and, again, Little Women takes place in the 1860s)

You'd want to read LMA if you'd ever visited her home in Concord. One thing you'll learn there: She had no particular interest in writing a YA book for girls but her publisher talked her into it so she churned out Little Women in about six weeks. She did the whole thing on a flip-down desk about the size of a cafeteria tray.

P.S. I wanted to double-check LMA's hometown and found she was actually born in Germantown, PA -- so all the more interest for you!

Quote
I've never even heard of Maude Hart Lovelace.

She's probably more famous in Minnesota because she was born here and her series (following a group of girls from age 5 through high school and beyond; reading difficulty increases with the age of the characters) is set here. But she's nationally famous. I once went to see the columnist-turned-novelist Anna Quinlen speak, and she happened to mention that those were her favorite books.

They're fictionalized, but very closely based on her own girlhood -- literally, character X in the novels = person Y in real life -- and are set between about 1900 and 1920. She also had a daughter to whom she told the stories, but unlike Rose Wilder Lane, I doubt anyone suspects her of writing them. Maude's character is portrayed as being fascinating with telling stories and loving to write from an early age, and all through school. She went to the University of Minnesota for a while but dropped out, I think because she got married -- typical back then. But then she went on to write these books.

Quote
I've never read any Nancy Drew, but I've also never read any Hardy Boys.

Me neither. I was trying to think of more boy books!

Quote
Of course, there is a controversy over whether the books were actually written by Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's daughter (you should look her up; she was quite an interesting character).

I've read about it. My suspicion is that Rose wrote them but based on her mother's actual memories. Arguably they could share a byline but shrewd Rose probably knew they'd be more marketable with Laura as the sole author.

 

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
The History of Comfort
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2017, 10:48:10 am »
I read about a dozen Nancy Drew books and Little Women, but not the others. As an adult I read Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter, and also My Ántonia by Willa Cather when my son had to read it for school. My children's reading was dominated by Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, so was rather masculine dominated.

I think Jack might have read the Tolkien books at some point. Neither of my kids liked Harry Potter, thankfully. I read the first book aloud to them -- English accents for the dialogue and all! -- but none of us were interested in continuing beyond that.

Cy loved A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is a tongue-in-cheek-sinister book series featuring a set of brothers and sisters, so it's neither especially masculine or feminine. The author is a man, but I'd guess he's now in his early 40s at most and very cognizant of today's gender standards.

Jack never voluntarily read a book until fourth grade, when his friend's dad took the boys to No Country for Old Men -- without asking my permission, which I would not have granted because I knew it was super-violent. But he loved it so much he read the Cormac McCarthy book, plus one or two others of McCarthy's. So the forbidden film turned out to be a success after all.

It was about this time that I met another mom on the sidelines of a youth baseball game who said she was constantly arguing with her son over his being allowed to see PG-13 movies. She adamantly forbade them because he was 12.  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:





Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
The History of Comfort
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2017, 04:18:47 pm »
My only roadblocks are: 1) I don't really know how to do historical research

That was a notable lack in both my undergraduate and graduate education as a history major: No "how to" course when it came to research. There was no such thing. From somewhere I seem to recall a course called "Historical Methods and Historiography," but it wasn't a nuts-and-bolts course on how to research.

Quote
You'd want to read LMA if you'd ever visited her home in Concord. One thing you'll learn there: She had no particular interest in writing a YA book for girls but her publisher talked her into it so she churned out Little Women in about six weeks. She did the whole thing on a flip-down desk about the size of a cafeteria tray.

Somewhere I'd heard or read that about LMA.

Quote
I've read about it. My suspicion is that Rose wrote them but based on her mother's actual memories. Arguably they could share a byline but shrewd Rose probably knew they'd be more marketable with Laura as the sole author.

I recall reading something about Rose Wilder Lane some time ago--couldn't say if it was in (where else?) The New Yorker, or if I just got bored one day and looked her or Laura up on the Internet. But I do recall some writer's conclusion that at the very least, Rose was her mother's editor.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
The History of Comfort
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2017, 08:16:06 pm »
I googled "How to do historical research" and got approximately one zillion pings. Here's one from the Minnesota Historical Society:

http://www.mnhs.org/legacy/grants/docs_pdfs/Historical_Research_Guidelines.pdf

I would imagine that a couple of points to keep in mind are to go for the primary sources first, then secondary and so on, and, keep good notes about where you find your facts and know how to write a proper footnote.

A friend of mine wrote a book recently about social permaculture, I contributed to his kickstarter campaign and when I got a copy of the book, I was overjoyed to find not only a well stocked appendix with footnotes and documentation on his sources, but also a comprehensive index!!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
The History of Comfort
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2017, 08:22:00 pm »
I googled "How to do historical research" and got approximately one zillion pings. Here's one from the Minnesota Historical Society:

http://www.mnhs.org/legacy/grants/docs_pdfs/Historical_Research_Guidelines.pdf

I would imagine that a couple of points to keep in mind are to go for the primary sources first, then secondary and so on, and, keep good notes about where you find your facts and know how to write a proper footnote.

A friend of mine wrote a book recently about social permaculture, I contributed to his kickstarter campaign and when I got a copy of the book, I was overjoyed to find not only a well stocked appendix with footnotes and documentation on his sources, but also a comprehensive index!!

Absolutely you should base your work on primary sources, and when you use secondary, be very careful with your quotations and attributions.

You might say what I feel was lacking in my education wasn't instruction to use primary sources but how to find sources in the first place. I had to teach myself, long after the fact, that sometimes other writers' sources can clue you in on what's available and where it might be.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
The History of Comfort
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2017, 09:11:59 am »
You might say what I feel was lacking in my education wasn't instruction to use primary sources but how to find sources in the first place. I had to teach myself, long after the fact, that sometimes other writers' sources can clue you in on what's available and where it might be.

Exactly. I never learned how to find primary sources, either. I can find them in journalism, among living people -- sometimes that's hard, but I know the techniques. But finding them for long-dead people, especially nobodies (i.e., not Thomas Jefferson, but some random person who lived in Jefferson's time), seems kind of overwhelming.

So if I were researching Woodrow Wilson's role in the Paris peace conference, and I wanted to get Wilson's thoughts on the matter, and I knew that someone had published Wilson's complete papers, it might not be too difficult. Writing about anyone famous, especially someone whose letters or journals have been collected, or whose activities were reported in newspapers, would be relatively easy.

But if I'm trying to find out how it felt to get a toothache in the 17th century or whether people get sick of eating bread and broth for every dinner or how it felt to wake up in a freezing house on a minus-10-degree day and not feel warm until you or somebody has stoked the fires ... or any of the other daily discomforts (or at least suboptimal comforts) in ordinary people's routine lives, I think it will be considerably harder. Even poring over old diaries and letters would be kind of a needle-in-a-haystack project. Especially because people who are uncomfortable by our standards don't always know there's a better way and therefore don't feel uncomfortable by theirs.

For example, the Widow Brown might have recorded suffering a toothache in her diary of 1682. But she's not going to write, "If only someone would invent ibuprofen to relieve some of this wretched pain!" Or someone on their 893rd consecutive night of eating gruel wouldn't think, "Oh, what I would give for a big juicy steak, baked potato with sour cream and a nice salad!" They wouldn't mention it at all because it was just the way it was. They ate gruel, their neighbors ate gruel, everyone they knew ate gruel all the time. It wouldn't be worth a mention in their diary any more than we'd make special mention of our taken-for-granted daily routines. (Future historians will find a wealth of data in Facebook archives, though!)

But the reference books mentioned in the article look like they'd be a good place to start. Maybe they'd somehow point toward some ancient doctor or healer, or somebody writing about the misery of Black Death (not exactly a routine daily discomfort, but a start) or whatever would help home in on the subject of discomfort.

And maybe tracing back the development or invention of the thing that relieved the discomfort -- the discovery of aspirin, say -- might shed some light on what it was like to live before that thing was developed.

I also think visiting the little village in Ghana or wherever would provide some good hints about what kinds of discomforts to look for.


Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
The History of Comfort
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2017, 11:05:19 am »
At the risk of taking us off on a tangent, before the "invention" of aspirin, people used willow bark, which was known to reduce headaches and fever as far back as Hippocrates, 400 BC. This was part of the body of knowledge which was mainly kept by women and transferred by oral teaching, but much of it was written down from time to time and is widely available. The role of women historically was to comfort and ease pain, to nurture, etc. and you may find in your research and writing that the two themes might start weaving together somewhat. Anyway, it is a fascinating subject!

Here's an overview on willow bark: http://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/willow-bark

As far as the steak, potato and salad goes, peasants ate greens in the spring and knew where to find all the best ones. Some were eaten raw but most were steamed or stewed; peasants also knew where to find the most delicious mushrooms, onions, and other ingredients. Rather than a steak, they could snare a hare or a partridge, get a deer or wild boar, or fish for some cod or set a trap for a lobster. But these were generally for special occasions. If they ate meat every day, they would probably die. Many raised lambs, goats, chicken or geese/ducks so they had a varied diet. With no refrigeration, I imagine sour cream was plentiful, as was fresh cream and cheese, mainly from goats or sheep. Root vegetables like potatoes tasted much more delicious and were more nutritious than they are now. Peasants would have known to save some of the potatoes back and cut them into "chits" to plant the next spring. I know there was a lot of discomfort among people but I imagine it was centered around displacement due to wars, traveling, droughts, etc.

Your post reminds me of a comical scene in the Outlander series where Jamie Fraser, a Scottish laird who was visiting France was invited to have an audience with King Louis (don't know which one) and found him suffering from constipation. He sidles up to the king and tells him that he always eats porridge for breakfast and he attributes that to never having problems with constipation. The king, once someone explains to him what this "porrich" is, says that he "never eats peasant food."
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
The History of Comfort
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2017, 02:34:26 pm »
I understand the "historical" parts of Outlander take place somewhere around the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. That would make the French king Louis XV.

I've heard that about willow bark. I think it contains something that's found in aspirin, but I may be remembering that wrong.

Potatoes, of course, are a New World product, so our European peasant ancestors in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance would not have had them. They would have had root crops like turnips and parsnips and carrots and radishes. I like turnips.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
The History of Comfort
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2017, 11:56:47 am »
At the risk of taking us off on a tangent, before the "invention" of aspirin, people used willow bark, which was known to reduce headaches and fever as far back as Hippocrates, 400 BC.

Good point. I'd have to incorporate that kind of thing into the book. The willow bark might not have been quite as convenient as my Advil, which is in the bathroom maybe 30 feet from my desk, and it was probably reserved for more severe cases rather than routine headaches -- which was possibly for the best! -- but it and other herbal remedies were certainly part of enhancing comfort in the days before Walgreen's. I've always been suspicious of using anything to reduce fever because I think fever, uncomfortable as it is, is a sign of your body trying to protect itself -- it's not the problem in itself. That's my theory, at least. I'm not a doctor.

Quote
This was part of the body of knowledge which was mainly kept by women and transferred by oral teaching, but much of it was written down from time to time and is widely available. The role of women historically was to comfort and ease pain, to nurture, etc. and you may find in your research and writing that the two themes might start weaving together somewhat. Anyway, it is a fascinating subject!

Another good point! One theory about the witch persecutions was that it was a way to get rid of those female healers and replace them with male "doctors." And you're absolutely right, there's tons of historical documentation of all of this.

Then again, as recently as 100 or so years ago they couldn't treat a huge array of common diseases. According to the Stephen Soderbergh show The Knick, set in 1900, they didn't even know there were different blood types, X-rays were just being introduced, and they were just starting to figure out surgery.

Women in childbirth not only had little if any access to any form of anesthesia (though that's of course happened forever, thanks to that scheming Eve), but were quite likely to die in the process, a mortality rate that was much improved after doctors started washing their hands between patients.

Quote
As far as the steak, potato and salad goes, peasants ate greens in the spring and knew where to find all the best ones. Some were eaten raw but most were steamed or stewed; peasants also knew where to find the most delicious mushrooms, onions, and other ingredients. Rather than a steak, they could snare a hare or a partridge, get a deer or wild boar, or fish for some cod or set a trap for a lobster. But these were generally for special occasions. If they ate meat every day, they would probably die.

Die? How? You'd think if their constitution allowed them to gorge on meat at celebrations -- "carnivals," -- they wouldn't be literally killed by daily moderate doses of the stuff. Unless you mean the way modern people in wealthy countries are at least partly killed by their diets, via heart disease or cancer, usually in late middle age at the earliest.

Quote
Many raised lambs, goats, chicken or geese/ducks so they had a varied diet. With no refrigeration, I imagine sour cream was plentiful, as was fresh cream and cheese, mainly from goats or sheep. Root vegetables like potatoes tasted much more delicious and were more nutritious than they are now. Peasants would have known to save some of the potatoes back and cut them into "chits" o plant the next spring.

Wow, peasant life sounds pretty much like a trip to a spa!  :laugh: Obviously you're right, certainly to some extent. My suspicion is that for many people throughout history, delicious food wasn't plentiful, at least not all year around, but maybe I'm just being chronologist. Anyway, that's the kind of thing the book could clear up.

Quote
I know there was a lot of discomfort among people but I imagine it was centered around displacement due to wars, traveling, droughts, etc.

Well, with the exception of traveling -- unless by traveling you mean "fleeing" or "forced marches" -- I think of those kinds of as far worse than discomfort. I wouldn't include people subject to pillaging, genocide, torture and all of the other forms of horrible suffering that people have experienced in history. Except maybe to note that many people feel safer now from enemy attacks, so that's a form of comfort. Emphasis on the "many" -- obviously there are also many, many people currently being subjected to them, as well as people who don't feel safe on a daily basis even in their own neighborhoods.

Anyway, I think it could be an interesting book and research project. Who wants to co-author?



Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
The History of Comfort
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2017, 01:14:36 pm »
Good point. I'd have to incorporate that kind of thing into the book. The willow bark might not have been quite as convenient as my Advil, which is in the bathroom maybe 30 feet from my desk, and it was probably reserved for more severe cases rather than routine headaches -- which was possibly for the best! -- but it and other herbal remedies were certainly part of enhancing comfort in the days before Walgreen's. I've always been suspicious of using anything to reduce fever because I think fever, uncomfortable as it is, is a sign of your body trying to protect itself -- it's not the problem in itself. That's my theory, at least. I'm not a doctor.

From what I'm able to find, generally speaking that's correct. The slight fever you might get with a cold is almost certainly not dangerous. But fever can be a sign of more serious conditions, and the effect of fever depends on a mixture of things, including the patient's age, the patient's overall health, and the height of the fever itself.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.