Today’s awesomeness is #118: Clean someone else’s house. I’ve planned for several months to pull (slightly) more than my weight while staying here – since, after all, my sister could pop out a child at almost any moment.
And onto today’s more thrilling tales of wonder (and, it must be mentioned by way of warning, a little horror).
Ice (mainly for preserving food, often insulated with sawdust) was a new and thrilling thing (as I’m sure you can imagine if you’ve ever seen spoiled meat or milk) in the 1840s.
Wigs were pre-Victorian, but I can’t not share this snippet:
“The combination of open flames and combustible materials brought an element of alarm and excitement to every aspect of daily life in the pre-electrical world. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary how he bent over a candle while working at his desk, and soon afterwards became aware of a horrible, pungent smell, as of burning wool; only then did he realize that his new and very expensive wig was impressively aflame.”
From portcities.org.au, Samuel Pepys:
Electricity was invented a while before it actually became useful. One of the first practical applications was used by Giovanni Aldini to make money. He “devised a stage show in which he applied electricity to animate the bodies of recently executed murderers and the heads of guillotine victims, causing their eyes to open and their mouths to make noiseless shapes.”
Sleep well tonight, kids!