Stop Your Bitching and I Mean Me

I Love the 1700's!

• the average child had a roughly 50% chance of surviving to adulthood


• slavery was legal in all 13 colonies


• all cooking was done in or around the fireplace


• women could not vote, hold public office and unless widowed, own property in most colonies


• travel was slow and uncertain; by water, ships relied upon the wind for locomotion; by land, a rider on horseback might hope to cover 30 miles in a day, a passenger in a coach, just 20


• aside from sunlight, the sole source of heat was fire, usually in an open fireplace; after sunset, illumination was either by moonlight or candlelight


• there was no indoor plumbing: the flush toilet, the bathroom and the kitchen faucet are 19th century innovations--chamber post, outhouses and buckets were a way of life


• privacy was a rare privilege for most: people, including children at home and strangers at inns, routinely shared beds


• aside from a minority of city dwellers, almost everybody was a farmer


• there was no anesthesia for surgery or childbirth


• every household produced some, and in many cases all, of the candles, soap, foodstuffs and clothing it required


• the medieval notion of the four humors still dominated medical theory, so bloodletting and purging were employed to restore the balance of black and yellow bile, blood and phlegm, and thus, presumably, good health

*From December 07's Smithsonian Magazine I "borrowed" from my doctor's office