Have you ever wondered what people did to stay cool before air conditioners? How will these things affect your character’s lives? Where could your character go anytime or day or night that is always cool? Find out on this episode.
There are many things that can be done to stay cool in the heat without an air conditioner. Today we are going to cover five of them.
1) water or ice water under a tree
I know this sounds odd, but placing a five-gallon bucket of cool water or ice water under a tree or other shaded areas will help cool down the area close to it by a few degrees. This might not seem like a lot, but in the summertime, anything helps. A slight breeze will help to move the cooler air around. This is something that my parents did for me when I played outside as a child and is something I have done for my own kids.
2) A fan
Ok, this one is well-known but tends to be overlooked. Fans can be electric if the story is before AC. One of the things we used to do was place a fan in the window to make a cross breeze. At night, placing a fan in the window would bring the cool air in from outside.
Something I used when my kids were young, and we didn’t have AC was a ceiling fan. They come with a switch to draw the air up in the summertime or to push the warm air down in the wintertime since heat rises.
Another form is a handheld fan. These were first used (that we know of) in Egypt. The folding fan, however, came from Japan and was first used in Japan, China, and India. They spread and were popular in Europe, and I imagine anywhere else people learned about them. They are still used by the Amish today.
When I was young, we would make paper fans and use them in church, and I even remember making them in school before we got AC. At least in my area, we didn’t have AC in the schools. I know many other schools around the US did at that time.
Handheld fans, also called personal fans, are a great way to stay cool, but you need your wrist to move them. If your character had an injured wrist or something like this, a handheld fan might not work for them.
There are also battery-powered fans. These can be rechargeable or not. These are usually used for camping but do not have to be. Many Amish use them inside closed buggies in the summer. Some also use them on the nights it is unbearably hot. I also remember there being fans that plugged into the car chargers when I was younger. At the time, they were not chargers but cigarette lighters. Many truckers used them if they were not doing what was is called 2-60. That stands for two windows down, 60 miles per hour. I’ve done that a lot!
3) Wetting yourself down
The body’s natural cooling system is sweat. So it only makes sense to take advantage of this. Your characters can wipe down their arms, legs, face, neck, or anywhere else they want to with a wet rag. Adding water to their hair will also help.
Many tropical natives or road workers will add water to their shirts. When a breeze comes along, the wetted shirt will help to cool them. I had a cousin that used to keep a bowl of water in the refrigerator just to have extra cold water to dip his shirt into before placing it back on. Wells also have cool water and would be a good place to draw water for this. Some springs can be extremely cold too, and spring-fed streams, when close to the spring, can be very cool compared to other streams.
4) Root cellar or other constantly cool places
Root cellars are a constant temperature between 32 degrees Fahrenheit to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That makes root cellars a great place to go to cool down. It is also a good place to sleep if it is so hot and sticky that your character can’t sleep. A cave would also hold this kind of constant temperature. These would be great for historical stories or post-apocalyptic stories.
5) Cool water, drinks, ice, etc.
Staying hydrated is very important to help you stay cool. However, being able to have cool water or drinks is helpful too. It cools you from the inside. That said, it will quickly warm once inside the body. Well water is constantly cool. If water or a drink is stored in a root cellar, it will be similar to water stored in the refrigerator. Historically, people that lived in the desert stored water in pots or vases under the sand to keep it cool.
Ice was also historically shipped to other places starting in 1806. These were used for refrigerators, and some Amish communities still use ice houses today.
Popsicles are almost every modern adult’s favorite pastime to stay cool as a kid. Ice cream is also a favorite. Ingesting things that are cool help to cool the body. Plus, who doesn’t like sweets?
Fun fact: The first electric fan was created by Dr. Schuyler Skaats Wheeler in 1886.
What could possibly go wrong:
Likely to go wrong: Your character’s fan breaks.
Likely to go wrong: Your character, or your character’s child, uses the handheld fan so fast or even plays with it, causing it to rip or get holes in it.
Possible to go wrong: Your character goes into a cave to cool down and gets lost inside or meets an animal, like a bear or mountain lion.
Possible to go wrong: Your character placed water in a bucket under the tree, and there was no breeze to help move the cooler air around. No breeze could also make it more difficult to cool down with wetted clothing.
Unlikely to go wrong: Your character traps themselves in an icehouse or root cellar, or perhaps someone else traps them in.
Unlikely to go wrong: While your character is cooling off in a root cellar or cave, an earthquake causes them to become trapped.
Improbable but technically still in the realm of possibilities: Your character tries to plug a fan in, and the sweat on them acts as a conductor so that they are shocked or even electrocuted when they plug the fan in.
Improbable but technically still in the realm of possibilities: Your character had ice shipped in from somewhere else. Little did they know that a deadly disease was waiting in the ice like a time capsule. When the ice melts, the disease is once again let loose on the people of Earth.
Helpful links to learn more:
The hand-held fan:
Root cellar temperatures:
Wetting down the head:
