I am going to tell you a bit about life in Sweden in the 19th century.I learned that all persons in a large house, slept in the same place, in the kitchen. So I asked myself, how did they manage to sleep in the same room? Where comes the turning point when everybody did get their own bed?First important thing, why they spent so much time in the kitchen was because of the house's single fireplace. Everybody had to stay warm and the fire was central for their life.It takes a lot of wood to keep the fire burning, especially in the winter.

This is the fireplace, in the kitchen where everybody ate and slept.

Beside the fire place there were the beds, four for the exact number. Often there was a large family living in house like this, with many kids to help with different kinds of work at home. No one had their own bed, there where place for at least two persons in each bed so they could stay warm. So, how did they manage to sleep in the same room? I think they got used to it, if you don’t want to get cold. It was a part of their life. On the “pro side” you get more warmth on the “con side” you get less personal space.It was when the wood stove came to the household, with its modern technique, that it would be possible to store warmth in a new way. Often you have more than one to warm up each room of the house that you were in. We can see the wood stove as a first version of today's more complex systems.

Sjöviks Folkhögskola Sweden 2011-04-19 Anton