What did we ever do without electricity?

While indexing the 1918 Janesville Daily Gazette I ran across this article:

April 10, 1918, page 6

The Village of Avalon, Wisconsin lies 10 miles east of the city of Janesville. Although we all know that electricity was a very recent discovery it is really hard to believe that it came to these smaller communities just some 100 years ago.

What would change if we did not have electricity?

How would you take a bath, read a book or perform chores in the dark?

How would you cook or boil water without electricity?

How would you heat your home without electricity?

How would you clean your clothes?

How would you store food?

Candles, kerosene lamps and fireplaces provided light in homes prior to electricity. A person had to carry a candle or lamp with them at night to move around the house or outside of the house.

To cook or boil water, a fire had to be started or wood added to the stove. Sometimes women (or children) threw kerosene onto the fire to speed up the cooking process which led at times to severe burns or home fires.

The fireplace or stove provided heat in the home during cold winters. The fire would have to be stoked all day, and all night, long. Extra quilts and blankets would be needed at night to keep sleeping people warm in rooms that were not heated. We often hear stories about people waking on a winter morning to find snow on their covers and frozen water in their wash bowl.

A tub of water, hauled pail-by-pail from a river or well, and homemade lye soap was used to wash clothes. A washboard might have been used starting in the early 1800's. These would have been made with a corrugated piece of iron, tin, copper or zinc. The process of family laundry would take the better part of a day. Clothing would not have been washed as frequently as it is today.

Food storage would have been accomplished by keeping foods in cool places within the home, such as root cellars. During the summer, foods from the garden would be used to supplement the diet. Fresh meat might be provided by hunting or trapping. Foods would be preserved by smoking, salting and drying.

Looking back makes us realize how very fortunate we are today with all of our modern conveniences. To realize that these changes occurred just in the lifetimes of my mother, father and grandparents is "electrifying".

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