Heat wave big news here (OK), but I'm wondering how people

survived before the 1940s (approximately...whenever air conditioning became available).

The smiling "news" cherubs don't mention that it's even hotter in Iraq where few people have AC
and no electricity for 18 hours a day to run the machines even if they do have them

:-(

We panic and we have fans and air conditioning and cold drinks and fresh food to go with out heat. They have to endure this everyday without any of that.

Few people could stand the temperatures. The introduction of air conditioning allowed the South to become habitable.

in equatorial areas. I hesitate to comment on the obvious conclusion...

I grew up in Lebanon (1950-1967). We did not have AC; I didn't even KNOW anyone with AC. When you are acclimated to the heat, you aren't as uncomfortable. In Saud'i they are covered from head to toe and feel it protects them from the heat....

never had! When I grew up, and until I was 45, I didn't have A/C in our house! I was sooo excited when we moved from Pa. to SC and for the first time had A/C! I live in Ga. now, and I honestly don't think I could survive without air now!

The population of the Southern states was also much smaller before there was A/C. It was THAT invention that really created the boom of people and businesses moving from the unionized north to the right to work states of the south!

were invented for the weather in that area. They have insulation, absorption... Western clothes don't. Western-style apartments aren't really suited to the weather, either.

I now live in TX w/aircon, and it's supposed to be hot here now, but we could feel the excessive heat. I wonder just how hot it was in the '40s? Did it ever get this hot?
As for Iraq (and btw Israel, Lebanon, etc., also broil in summer), we've really fixed their electricity problems as well as every other problem they ever had so I'm glad they're not suffering - yeah us.

:hi:

the South didn't have A/C. Basically, you get used to the heat, move slower, relax more, and sit outside on whichever porch was away from the sun at the time. School seemed to not start until after Labor Day, too, unlike the middle of August as is common now.

to leave all their windows and doors open to cool at night.

And they could always (well, maybe sometimes) take some time to dive into the creek!

We'd then stand in a breeze or in front of a fan and learn all aobut evaporative cooling. Then we'd go drink iced tea or Kool-Aid (or eat watermelon) to replace the water in our bodies and keep the process going. Even adults would sit in the yard under a sprinkler - unless they knew somebody with a pool. Some of my happiest days were spent at Crystal Pool on the corner of 8 Mile and Greenfield (Detroit) ... or at Key Pool on Verdugo Boulevard (Glendale). On really happy days, we'd go to the lake. When I spent weeks in the country, my cousin and I went swimmin' in Paint Creek.

Sleeping on the porch was usually cooler than in the house. If we didn't have a sleeping porch, we'd sleep on the floor. Sometimes we'd soak a terry-cloth ("Turkish") towel in water and hang it on the fan - what I later learned was a primitive swamp-cooler. Some fans were even constructed to hold a pool of water in the bottom of the enclosure.

Sweat was, however, the most common and popular cooling approach. I really don't remember minding sweating in those days. Older people who didn't sweat as much would use a wet cloth.

The other day I thought my a/c had broken. Talk about an oncoming headache! Thank goodness it wasn't. I don't think I can survive without my a/c.

In the 20's and 30's people used to sleep on outside porches and hang up wet sheets. I was told that's how swamp coolers were invented.

purposes. :-)

I mean we haven't seen them in awhile. Maybe they melted in this crap? :sarcasm:

I can drive out of town to my parents home and be very comfortable.
Away from the traffic, away from the pavement.

The big old trees shade their home.

Big rooms in the farmhouse allow the heat to rise to the "upstairs" keeping the main floor very comfortable.

The chores are started early, the stove is seldom on, and laundry is only once a week.

And if it gets really hot - you can get your feet wet.

people who live near the coast do get the benefit of coastal breezes.

Find some shade, have a lot of water with you, and sit around. You'll be hot, but it won't be unbearable.

A lot of the heat we feel is due to the concrete, steel, and asphalt. When I lived in my house out near the S. Canadian, I could wander around outside most of the day. Yeah, I was hot, but I didn't feel like I was about to die. I walk outside on pavement, and I feel like I'm being cooked.

A more practical answer to survival indoors is that houses were once built much differently than they are today, especially in the deep South. Windows were placed so as to create air flow within the house when opened. Designs now try to prevent that same thing. Those old plantation homes with vaulted ceilings and windows everywhere are actually fairly comfortable, without A/C, even in the midst of summer.

On the plains, a lot of poor settlers built mud-huts or something similar. The Western history library at OU has a large collection of photos of the area from the late 19th/early 20th century, and you can see some of the designs of dwellings that were made so as to help keep a person from expiring due to a heat overdose. Even the ramshackle homes had a designed purpose to them.

And, as someone said earlier, when you don't know what A/C is, you can become more accustomed to the temps.

maybe in the middle ages it was, but in early modern times it wasn't

look at the charles dickens novels and how they tell of a london that spends half the time covered in snow! there is an under the bridge spot in london that tells how, in olden times, the thames would freeze and they would have "ice fairs"

in usa south it was much the same, not that it snowed, but it did snow some of the time, even in the valleys on occasions, and it was certainly cooler overall -- of course usa southeast was almost all forested, hence cooler for that reason alone

also keep in mind the average life expectancy in usa in 1900 was the early to mid 40s, most of our ability to survive extreme heat is lost after age 60 so much of the problem of heat stroke affects the elderly more than the rest of us -- the 700-plus folks killed in chicago in summer '95 were almost ALL elderly