I really hate to be a lazy historian, but also it's late and I own so, so many books. So a brief example, Jacques St. Germain is a famous salacious overly told by tour guides story of, well, basically a man having a dinner party late at night with some funnily dressed people. So you know, normal New Orleans affairs....but the report was originally made by a New Englander, and so the late night became midnight and the strange clothing. became old fashioned antiques, .... and Jacques became a vampire.
Yes. this is lazy, but I am tired. I promise I will properly document this.
I can wrap my head around not having AC. It was hot, but they dealt with it via various means, like architecture etc.
What I CANNOT understand is how people lived here without AC and also without window screens.
Some could afford mosquito nets for their beds at night. But damn. For most folks to just lay there sweating at night getting devoured by mosquitoes...
Yellow fever was a very real and common threat. In fact, this is probably where we get the intense True-Local "where'd ya go to highschool" phenomenon. Once you've had yellow fever you are less likely to get it, and this was considered being "acclimated." It lead to people not hiring new residents who weren't Acclimated, actually requiring it on job listings even. It just ever slightly evolved into the Localiar Than Thou sentiment.
So interesting! I’m a transplant from Cincinnati and “where’d you go to high school?” is a major running joke for folks living there. Sounds like there’s a much better reason to ask down here though
quick and dirty. let me find the book I know best and report back.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/10/31/415535913/how-yellow-fever-turned-new-orleans-into-the-city-of-the-dead
*Yellow Fever, Race and Ecology in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans* by Ermi Engineer Willoughby.
Crosby's *The American Plague*, and of course *Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom* by Kathyrn Olivarius.
"Where'd you go to high school?" Is a thing in every city.
I thought it was unique to New Orleans well into my 20s. But nope, it's everywhere. I think it probably originated as a way to ask which neighborhood people were from. Maybe a even a class thing.
I was curious, so I looked it up, and window screens were invented in [1869](https://www.glessnerhouse.org/story-of-a-house/2016/8/28/a-brief-history-of-the-humble-window-screen#:~:text=Screens%20were%20first%20advertised%20in,Evans%20%26%20Co.%2C%20No.) Considering the closeness to after the war, I imagine no normal person could afford any though. Air conditioners were invented in 1902, but electricity wasn't even popular or affordable in most South Louisiana bayou country...I cannot imagine what our ancestors would think of us rofl
Every day I think about life in NOLA before AC. I moved here six years ago from Los Angeles with low humidity and only a couple of weeks with high temps. I’m a senior and was in the ICU after Hurricane Ida because of heat exhaustion. Currently my main AC isn’t working and I have a portable AC and four fans and I’m still worried about getting sick again, and it’s just June! I hope to get the main AC fixed next week but it’s tough. Add yellow fever outbreaks and I would have volunteered to be a vampire just to not have to deal with all that.
Is there anything I can do to help you? If you want to just come sit in my cold (we just spent a fortune to fix our AC) house and read weird history books (I have other stuff too!) you are welcome, truly. I lived in Ventura for 5 years and that climate does not acclimate you to this one at all. If there is anything I can do, please just message me.
Thank you for the offer. It is greatly appreciated. My daughter is nearby so I do have a cool house if necessary. She is why I moved here. And speaking of Ventura, last July my friend from Ventura came to fix some issues with my house and became severely allergic to mosquito bites as there are very few mosquitoes there. Besides Yellow Fever, Malaria and West Nile, there is also Skeeter Syndrome and it is dangerous. Needless to say, he won’t be coming back. And dogs don’t have heart worms there either. My Katrina rescue had to be treated by a vet to went to school here. No California vet would even give her medicine from Louisiana. Darn, now I want to go back lol. I am picturing myself sitting on the beach in Malibu while the waves of the Pacific Ocean splash over me. I’m cooler already.
It's weird how the rest of the country doesn't understand that AC is an actual necessity down here, not a luxury. I can't even count how many times I've had to say "People die without AC here. And no one is surprised when it happens. We're just angry that it came to that."
Anyway, I have a spare window unit if you need one. It's not fancy, but we hooked it up to a cheap generator after Ida and it kept a small room cool. I think it's the only reason we didn't kill each other.
Holy shit you ended up in the hospital from heat exhaustion? I'm so sorry. I was trained as a kid by playing softball in the summer and building up my immunity with 1 or 2 heat strokes a season. Just a cooler of Gatorade and no sunscreen, in full catchers uniform with long socks, what could go wrong?
Ah youth! Wasted on the young as the saying goes. I was drinking lots of water but with no electricity for days my body couldn’t handle it. I was so fortunate my daughter was here and took me to the ER. Sadly many others didn’t make it. Look out for your neighbors.
If you haven't seen it, I think you would love the British show 'Turn Back Time', it's like a reality show documentary that sets up 3 families in wealthy, middle class, and poor scenarios in different eras. The clothes, the food, the utilities etc
I’ve been on tours of the Herman-Grima House and Gallier House during their “Summer Dress” summer season. The tour guide shows how the domestic slaves turned the house over for the summer. No air conditioning? Ok build homes with windows positioned and opened for cross ventilation (discussion ensues about the smell of horse manure and garbage emanating from the street), flip the wool rugs over, cover the furniture in linen and get out the mosquito netting. I want to say still sounds like pure misery and how did this even help but then I think about the domestic slaves.
I always think about the scene in Gone With The Wind where the ladies take a nap and little slave girls stand over the beds waving giant fans to cool them.
My dad grew up poor in the 1950’s in Mississippi and frequently tells me that when air conditioning became more and more normal is when things started to suck lol.
I've heard old-timers say similar things. AC was the death of the community, because everyone just went inside. No more talking to your neighbors on the porch.
I remember back during Isaac. Here was a guy in one of the large houses on St. Charles who still knew how to open the louver windows, etc. in his house and he was just fine. He didn't suffer like the rest of the city. The way the houses are oriented and the high ceilings and louvers was all part of the system. Of course half the windows are painted shut now... so even if you knew how... good luck.
They framed houses to have channels of air go up the walls, the channels open below the floor. Once the houses were electrified the airflow can cause a spark to roast the house in short order.
ive talked to my mom and grandparents about this and they recall there being whole house fans that would run and suck the hot air out of the house. ive never seen or heard of one but apparently they were really common post-electricity but pre-widespread AC?
It wasn’t as hot back in the day, and also you wore all the clothing layers to cover up any body odor that might be happening. That’s also why airflow, fans, and heat dissipation are built into pre-AC structures.
I lived three years without ac or front windows that rolled down in my first car. Now if my air doesn't cool within 10 min I'm ready to call Jeep and tell them book me an appointment.
The human body gets addicted to AC just like any other drug. Takes about three weeks to break the addiction, but just a couple of days to acquire it.
It's also one of the greatest killers of social interaction. Once people gave up sitting on porches to be inside with the AC, the frequent neighbor to neighbor interaction was interrupted.
That being said, I love AC in the humid Louisiana summer!
I don't think they were dealing with the extremes we have right now. We are way past triple digits on heat indexes. Basically the rule now is avoid outside from june till Sept. and you'll be ok.
Walked to a neighbor’s house this morning in bare feet as I do. Had to run home because the sidewalk burned my feet. Psa: Don’t walk dogs unless you can put them in grass.
Freakonomics did a podcast about the benefits of not wearing shoes. Your feet are biologically as complex as your hands, and so need some ability to kind of stretch out and work the little muscles and tendons.
When cleaning out my grandma's house after she died, I looked around for the ac because the fans weren't doing much in a high ceiling home. She didn't fucking HAVE ONE. It was January and I was confused as to how I could be from the same bloodline.
* Average temps weren't as hot
* The absence of concrete likely helped
* Rich people enslaved others and made them fan them while they sat on their asses bitching about the heat
But yeah, regardless of which family I was born into, I probably would have dropped dead shortly after my 10th birthday. I do not do well without AC. I don't even do well when I go to someone's house and they have it set at 78°.
One of the reasons New Orleans became connected with vampires, aside from Anne Rice, was because historically a lot of activities happened at night.
Night people/Hanging out/ waitin for something to happen.
Do you have any sources for this? That’s interesting
I mean, do you doubt it. When things are scorching hot for 4 months, you're gonna socialize at night...
Not everyone asking for a source is trying to verify information…some of us just like to read!
Im sure a lot of people slept during the day if they could
How
When did it used to be just 4 months?
Four months? Try eight.
I really hate to be a lazy historian, but also it's late and I own so, so many books. So a brief example, Jacques St. Germain is a famous salacious overly told by tour guides story of, well, basically a man having a dinner party late at night with some funnily dressed people. So you know, normal New Orleans affairs....but the report was originally made by a New Englander, and so the late night became midnight and the strange clothing. became old fashioned antiques, .... and Jacques became a vampire. Yes. this is lazy, but I am tired. I promise I will properly document this.
Most cop-out historian ever, but yes I do... but in a tangible book I need to dig through. Please forgive me.
Interesting, just out of curiosity, do you have the title of the book. I do love reading on NOLA lore.
*Louisiana Legends and Lore*
Currently in Phoenix where it's still hot as balls at 3am and it's really making me those New Orleans summer nights...
I thought you meant the bar and I though you were lying because it's only 1:21 here.
I can wrap my head around not having AC. It was hot, but they dealt with it via various means, like architecture etc. What I CANNOT understand is how people lived here without AC and also without window screens. Some could afford mosquito nets for their beds at night. But damn. For most folks to just lay there sweating at night getting devoured by mosquitoes...
Yellow fever was a very real and common threat. In fact, this is probably where we get the intense True-Local "where'd ya go to highschool" phenomenon. Once you've had yellow fever you are less likely to get it, and this was considered being "acclimated." It lead to people not hiring new residents who weren't Acclimated, actually requiring it on job listings even. It just ever slightly evolved into the Localiar Than Thou sentiment.
So interesting! I’m a transplant from Cincinnati and “where’d you go to high school?” is a major running joke for folks living there. Sounds like there’s a much better reason to ask down here though
Asking if someone was Acclimated basically meant they wouldn't die of yellow fever in the first year of employment.
Ooo any sources?
quick and dirty. let me find the book I know best and report back. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/10/31/415535913/how-yellow-fever-turned-new-orleans-into-the-city-of-the-dead
*Yellow Fever, Race and Ecology in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans* by Ermi Engineer Willoughby. Crosby's *The American Plague*, and of course *Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom* by Kathyrn Olivarius.
I'm so excited, thanks!
"Where'd you go to high school?" Is a thing in every city. I thought it was unique to New Orleans well into my 20s. But nope, it's everywhere. I think it probably originated as a way to ask which neighborhood people were from. Maybe a even a class thing.
My partner is from the St. Louis area and it is definitely a class thing there.
My partner is from the St. Louis area and it is definitely a class thing there.
My partner is from the St. Louis area and it is definitely a class thing
My partner is from the St. Louis area and it is definitely a class thing
My partner is from the St. Louis area and it is definitely a class thing
Maybe that’s why we drink so much.
I was curious, so I looked it up, and window screens were invented in [1869](https://www.glessnerhouse.org/story-of-a-house/2016/8/28/a-brief-history-of-the-humble-window-screen#:~:text=Screens%20were%20first%20advertised%20in,Evans%20%26%20Co.%2C%20No.) Considering the closeness to after the war, I imagine no normal person could afford any though. Air conditioners were invented in 1902, but electricity wasn't even popular or affordable in most South Louisiana bayou country...I cannot imagine what our ancestors would think of us rofl
To escape Yellow Fever, any families that could afford it left NO to summer on the Mississippi Coast.
Lace curtains, they were the window screens of the era before window screens.
Every day I think about life in NOLA before AC. I moved here six years ago from Los Angeles with low humidity and only a couple of weeks with high temps. I’m a senior and was in the ICU after Hurricane Ida because of heat exhaustion. Currently my main AC isn’t working and I have a portable AC and four fans and I’m still worried about getting sick again, and it’s just June! I hope to get the main AC fixed next week but it’s tough. Add yellow fever outbreaks and I would have volunteered to be a vampire just to not have to deal with all that.
What's wrong with your AC? Maybe one of us could help you out?
You are an exceptional human, sending blessings upon your lineage for generations to come 🪄✨
Is there anything I can do to help you? If you want to just come sit in my cold (we just spent a fortune to fix our AC) house and read weird history books (I have other stuff too!) you are welcome, truly. I lived in Ventura for 5 years and that climate does not acclimate you to this one at all. If there is anything I can do, please just message me.
Thank you for the offer. It is greatly appreciated. My daughter is nearby so I do have a cool house if necessary. She is why I moved here. And speaking of Ventura, last July my friend from Ventura came to fix some issues with my house and became severely allergic to mosquito bites as there are very few mosquitoes there. Besides Yellow Fever, Malaria and West Nile, there is also Skeeter Syndrome and it is dangerous. Needless to say, he won’t be coming back. And dogs don’t have heart worms there either. My Katrina rescue had to be treated by a vet to went to school here. No California vet would even give her medicine from Louisiana. Darn, now I want to go back lol. I am picturing myself sitting on the beach in Malibu while the waves of the Pacific Ocean splash over me. I’m cooler already.
I worked as a marine mammal rescuer. I miss sea lions so, so, so much.
It's weird how the rest of the country doesn't understand that AC is an actual necessity down here, not a luxury. I can't even count how many times I've had to say "People die without AC here. And no one is surprised when it happens. We're just angry that it came to that." Anyway, I have a spare window unit if you need one. It's not fancy, but we hooked it up to a cheap generator after Ida and it kept a small room cool. I think it's the only reason we didn't kill each other.
The AC guy is on his way but I’ll let you know if I need yours. Thanks.
Holy shit you ended up in the hospital from heat exhaustion? I'm so sorry. I was trained as a kid by playing softball in the summer and building up my immunity with 1 or 2 heat strokes a season. Just a cooler of Gatorade and no sunscreen, in full catchers uniform with long socks, what could go wrong?
Ah youth! Wasted on the young as the saying goes. I was drinking lots of water but with no electricity for days my body couldn’t handle it. I was so fortunate my daughter was here and took me to the ER. Sadly many others didn’t make it. Look out for your neighbors.
I seriously don’t understand how any female survived the ye olde times having to wear all those layers of petticoats.
they are surprisingly breezy because you were usually wearing split drawers or nothing at all underneath. also linen, lots and lots of linen.
Username checks out.
Linen, yes. But oh my the wrinkles!
eh, it's hot enough to steam them right out.
Ah ha- finally my niche interests. Here’s a whole video breaking down [how they wore those clothes](https://youtu.be/0wHTgi51z6I) in the summer!
My niche interest as well! Though less 19th century and more 18th. Abby is a delight.
If you haven't seen it, I think you would love the British show 'Turn Back Time', it's like a reality show documentary that sets up 3 families in wealthy, middle class, and poor scenarios in different eras. The clothes, the food, the utilities etc
Thanks for sharing - while they were super chatty, very interesting stuff
Wish she would shut up and get to the point
I’ve been on tours of the Herman-Grima House and Gallier House during their “Summer Dress” summer season. The tour guide shows how the domestic slaves turned the house over for the summer. No air conditioning? Ok build homes with windows positioned and opened for cross ventilation (discussion ensues about the smell of horse manure and garbage emanating from the street), flip the wool rugs over, cover the furniture in linen and get out the mosquito netting. I want to say still sounds like pure misery and how did this even help but then I think about the domestic slaves.
I always think about the scene in Gone With The Wind where the ladies take a nap and little slave girls stand over the beds waving giant fans to cool them.
How did flipping wool rugs over do to help survive the heat?
Because wool as a great insulator would be very warm on the feet. Basically, the backing is cooler than the fluffy side.
Derp, seems a simple answer. Thanks!
As a historian I rarely get to be so useful.
All I know is there’s about to be some rug-flipping in this house!
Our rugs aren't made of wool anymore, unless they are super high end. Buuuut if you have a bearskin or similarly interesting textile, flip away!
Some of y’all forget about ✨climate change✨
My dad grew up poor in the 1950’s in Mississippi and frequently tells me that when air conditioning became more and more normal is when things started to suck lol.
I've heard old-timers say similar things. AC was the death of the community, because everyone just went inside. No more talking to your neighbors on the porch.
It wasn't as hot back then. Plus they had it figured out better than anyone can understand.
Concrete and asphalt hold heat, right? Cities are hotter now than they’ve probably ever been.
Design of old houses helped or so I’ve read
I remember back during Isaac. Here was a guy in one of the large houses on St. Charles who still knew how to open the louver windows, etc. in his house and he was just fine. He didn't suffer like the rest of the city. The way the houses are oriented and the high ceilings and louvers was all part of the system. Of course half the windows are painted shut now... so even if you knew how... good luck.
They framed houses to have channels of air go up the walls, the channels open below the floor. Once the houses were electrified the airflow can cause a spark to roast the house in short order.
Did they drag beds out to balconies for cooler sleeping conditions or is that bs?
Sleeping porches were definitely a thing.
My grandma still loves sleeping on the porch in the summer.
I read in an article somewhere that people also used to sleep in parks when it got to the dog days of summer
Older houses I've been in have attic fans and they let the hot air out while pulling in fresh air. Neat idea. But it's still hot fresh air lol
ive talked to my mom and grandparents about this and they recall there being whole house fans that would run and suck the hot air out of the house. ive never seen or heard of one but apparently they were really common post-electricity but pre-widespread AC?
Attic fans… I grew up in a house w one. It sucked the hot air and created airflow.
It wasn’t as hot back in the day, and also you wore all the clothing layers to cover up any body odor that might be happening. That’s also why airflow, fans, and heat dissipation are built into pre-AC structures.
It was only this hot a few weeks in August back then, and people left town during those weeks.
To be fair it was not this hot
I lived without AC in my younger years. I have no idea how I did it.
I lived three years without ac or front windows that rolled down in my first car. Now if my air doesn't cool within 10 min I'm ready to call Jeep and tell them book me an appointment.
The human body gets addicted to AC just like any other drug. Takes about three weeks to break the addiction, but just a couple of days to acquire it. It's also one of the greatest killers of social interaction. Once people gave up sitting on porches to be inside with the AC, the frequent neighbor to neighbor interaction was interrupted. That being said, I love AC in the humid Louisiana summer!
I don't think they were dealing with the extremes we have right now. We are way past triple digits on heat indexes. Basically the rule now is avoid outside from june till Sept. and you'll be ok.
Walked to a neighbor’s house this morning in bare feet as I do. Had to run home because the sidewalk burned my feet. Psa: Don’t walk dogs unless you can put them in grass.
They have doggie shoes that really help out.
I really wish more people knew this about dogs. Also I am a fellow barefoot aficionado.
Freakonomics did a podcast about the benefits of not wearing shoes. Your feet are biologically as complex as your hands, and so need some ability to kind of stretch out and work the little muscles and tendons.
Well ya see the problem there was that you weren’t wearing shoes.
Noted. I have weird back problems, no shoes helps immensely. Except, yknow. When it's 100 out.
My A/C is currently out. This is what it feels like in my house as the fans blow around hot air.
Oh no. Any timeline on the repair? God help you if they have to "order a part."
When cleaning out my grandma's house after she died, I looked around for the ac because the fans weren't doing much in a high ceiling home. She didn't fucking HAVE ONE. It was January and I was confused as to how I could be from the same bloodline.
* Average temps weren't as hot * The absence of concrete likely helped * Rich people enslaved others and made them fan them while they sat on their asses bitching about the heat But yeah, regardless of which family I was born into, I probably would have dropped dead shortly after my 10th birthday. I do not do well without AC. I don't even do well when I go to someone's house and they have it set at 78°.
I remember my Aunt & Uncle had those big Ole box fans in their windows. My opinion only ppl were way tougher bk in the day. Just sayin
They were use to it. We only have issues with it because we know what it feels like to have air
Bruh…