Heat Wave
We are officially in a heat wave here. Yesterday, August 15th, set a record for the date: high of 111° F (43.9° C). Today and tomorrow are expected to be close to that excessive temperature. I’m crossing my fingers that there will not be a power blackout, whether accidental or intentional. The unintentional ones can occur in the summer when too many air conditioners are running. I don’t even use mine! I turn on the “fan” function of the multipurpose apparatus attached to the wall under the living room window. It’s a combo air conditioner and heater, each with two levels, plus a fan. In the winter, the heat just floats up to the ceiling; if I could sit right beside the thing, I’d be cozy, but as I can’t, it doesn’t do enough good to make up for the cost. I just use a space heater in the winter. (Remember, I am in Sacramento, California and the outdoor temperature rarely gets below 40 F.) As for air conditioning, it definitely cools off the air—too much. Within fifteen minutes I have to reach for a sweater and turn the machine off. So I normally make do with the ceiling fans and table fans.
When did we come to take electric fans for granted and then air conditioning?
How did people get by before we had them? I know that houses used to be built to allow air to flow through. Certainly many of the big old houses in my neighborhood were built before electric fans.
Do you remember the scene in the film of Gone With the Wind? In the hot southern afternoons, the ladies would retire to a bedroom or a veranda where they could take off their crinolines and hoop skirts and loosen their corsets. They would lie down and rest, while being fanned by their black female slaves. I recall palm fronds, but maybe I misremember. The slaves, of course, did not have corsets to loosen, but don’t you wonder what it was like to fill the role of a human machine, endlessly fanning the “delicate” rich ladies?
On the website of Family Tree Magazine, writer Sharon Carmack reminds us of “the smelly truth….our ancestors spent their summers being hot and sweaty.”
Most people had to fan themselves with paper, leaves, etc. The beautiful folding fans that I brought back from Spain were evidently modeled after Chinese ones brought to Europe by Portuguese traders in the 1400s.
Furthermore, a Chinese inventor developed a device of wheels by which one machine could cool off a large hall—operated by a man, of course.
Ah, but electricity! In 1882, an American, Dr. Wheeler, figured out how to make a table fan using an electric motor. Then in 1887, a German immigrant named Diehl up and invented the ceiling fan, using a sewing machine motor. By 1910, Westinghouse was selling fans for the home. The air conditioner? Mr. Carrier invented that in 1902. By the 1920s, it was used in movie theaters.
This doesn’t mean that every American home suddenly had electric fans.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper used to carry a column by a writer named Art German. Some decades ago, he wrote about the exciting day when his family acquired one of the new-fangled devices: that was in the 1920s.
Even though I don’t mind being in a warm house, I am not someone who can look cool and poised in the heat. Not like actress Jane Seymour, anyhow. Some years ago, she was in Sacramento to film some scenes for her television show, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. On a hot summer day, I biked down to Old Sacramento (the little portion of town maintained as a historic monument) especially to get a glimpse of her (although I had never seen her TV show). And there she was: strolling along the cobblestone street in her heavy-looking 19th century outfit, eating an ice cream cone. And as far as I could tell, not a drop of sweat insulted her fine features, nor did the ice cream drip onto her dress (as it would done with me). Her attendants did not need to reach over with handkerchiefs. Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The rich are different.” Maybe movie stars are, too. J
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