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ft.

A i r I n Out

Sleeping P o r c h e s

and t h e Turn-of-the-Centur y

Fresh-Air-Sleeping M o v e m e n t

MARGARET CULBERTSON 45 6 II <• i I

II a world ol air pollution and air of this nation." 1 Not surprisingly, the first examples of man of me and enables me to enjoy life as conditioning, sleeping have However, the widespread use of sleeping porches not strictly associated never before." 7 Another article described Ialmost disappeared from our sleeping porches would never have come with the treatment of tuberculosis can be a father who reluctantly slept outside with as well as from memory. Nonetheless, about without the specter of tuberculosis, found in houses designed tor locations his baby when the doctor recommended they were a common and much-enjoyed for which the medical establishment pre- where fresh air had long been held to be outdoor treatment for the child's throat feature of American domestic scribed fresh air as both a treatment and beneficial, such as the seaside and the infection. Cam verted after the first night, during the first 40 years of this century. a means of prevention. Tuberculosis had mountains. Since "" traditionally he soon moved his whole family onto the My grandparents' steeping porch made reached epidemic proportions in the 1 **th referred to a projecting, covered entrance, sleeping porch.N bedtime an adventure during my child- century and was popularly referred to as these earliest structures were called "log- The magazines provided practical hood visits. Deliciously cool and filled the White Plague or the Great Killer. In gias" or "." Two second-Moor advice for surviving winter nights on a with the nighttime sounds and smells of 1900, when the death rate had already appear in a design for a in sleeping porch without Ircc/ing to death, tlieir farm outside W.ixahachie. it was begun to fall from its high in the mid- the Adirondacks published in the July such as i he use of double mattresses, mul- such a marvelous means of making Texas 1800s, tuberculosis killed in the United 1903 issue of The Craftsman, the popular tiple down comforters, nightcaps, and summer nights bearable that I was sur- States at a rate three times that of cancer, magazine that featured the designs and carefully wrapped blankets. A properly prised to learn that sleeping porches were striking young and old alike, not |ust in philosophy of the American Arts and wrapped bed for winter sleeping was originally meant for year-round use, for tenements but in the of the middle (..'rafts movement. The accompanying referred to as a "Klondike bed.'"' Sleepers snowy nights as well as sultry ones. They and upper classes as will.' Scientists text clearly states that the loggias were bothered by the early morning sunlight were m faci the architectural manifesta- struggled to find a cure, hut antibiotics intended for use as "sleeping porches," were advised to rub their eyelids with tion of a widespread health movement ol were not available to treat the disease indicating that the term was already in burnt cork. 1 " the early years of the 20th century, when common usage. until the 1940s, for nearly a hundred The sleeping porch of the Staiti House the age-old fear of night air gave way to years, fresh air, night and day, was one After 1903, labeled as sleeping in Houston, as photographed in 192(1, a fascination with fresh-air sleeping. of the most widely accepted treatments. porches can be found in a growing num- embodies all the features ot a proper Fresh air had been considered healthful Some of the first sleeping porches in ber of house plans. Many of these houses sleeping porch, as recommended in peri- at least as far back as the rime of the the United States were created for the were built in southern California, a centei odicals and health manuals of the period. ancient Greeks, and 19th-century scien- treatment of tuberculosis. An early for health-seekers at the turn of the centu- A sleeping porch should be roofed, and tists sought to improve health by improv- example was the small porch added to ry. The Pasadena-based architects Greene open on at least two sides. 1 hose sules ing the circulation of fresh air within the ol a patient in I lanover. & Greene began including sleeping should be solid for three to five feet up to . I lowever, fresh air at night was \ l ISS.K h t i M - i l s , ill I V I S . " h i, ,i iiiiinni.il , porches in their house designs in 1904; keep drafts from reaching under the beds another matter. It was thought to contain very obvious add-on, hut soon sleeping the Pasadena home they designed for and to give some privacy, then screened poisonous atmospheres called miasmas, porches became an essential element in David B, Gamble, of the Proctor Si to the . Canvas blinds could be formed by rotting vegetable matter or the planning of sanatoria, most of which Gamble Ivory Soap empire, has three. installed for use during rainstorms, prefer- sewage, that could carry diseases sucli as were distinguished by extensive Sleeping porches continued to be an ably to be raised from the bottom up. malaria, typhoid, and yellow fever. The or multiple balconies used for outside important element in southern California Furnishings were to be kept simple due to dampness that often accompanied night sleeping. The cure cottages at the famous houses well into the 1920s and 1930s, exposure to the weather. Some later sleep- air was believed to cause colds and chills. Lake Saranac sanatorium in New York with R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra ing porches, much more elaborate in their A well-known physician and educator State featured "sitting-out porches" both designing notable examples. decoration and correspondingly more enclosed to protect the interior, began ro echoed accepted medical thought when where ambulatory patients took the air in Prank Lloyd Wright was another look like rooms with multiple he wrote in 1850 that "in summer or cure chairs during the day, and sleeping sleeping-porch pioneer. The Westcott rather than porches. autumn, it is right to let down the sash, porches for use at night, usually on an I louse of 1904 included two, balancing or otherwise close up the windows, before upper , with at least two sides that the symmetrical garden facade. Wright's For those who could not afford a we go to sleep, . . . This rule is especially could be fully opened. Glass storm win- drawings for the Robert D. Clark I louse sleeping porch, inventors devised low-cost necessary in the south, and along our dows could be installed in winter, but the of 1904 presented a split-level plan with a alternatives. The Ladies' Home journal in greal watercourses, where bad air and sleeping porches were unhealed. large porch accessible by short Mights of 1908 featured several versions of "win- togs so much abound."' liy the early 20th century, a nation- from both the dining and the dow tents," essentially awnings attached Florence Nightingale was in the wide movement to cure tuberculosis ,\nc\ . In the text accompanying this design in the Wasmuth portfolio, Wright vanguard of medical opinion in 1859 prevent its spread was under way, using Qhumniom opposite page when she called the dread of night .ur publicity and propaganda to an unprece- stated that the porch could be used tor 1 I. Ilumlli-il children mi a fatnilj sleeping porch, 1909, an "extraordinary fallacy." Her popular dented extent and reaching the public outside dining or as a sleeping porch. ' Country Life in America, Ma) 1909, p. 45. Courwjy book Notes on Nursing laid the new through magazines, newspapers, posters, Other Wright houses of the period, such Houston Metropolitan Research < 'enter, Houston idea before the public: "What air can speakers, and programs in the schools. as the Little House of 1902, also include t'lthtn t tbrary. porches connected to bedrooms; these we breathe at night but night air?" she A major component of the message 1. tent developed by Dr. S. A. kuopi. tithes demanded. "The choice is between pure was that fresh air, day and night, was as were probably intended tor use as sleep- Home Journal, September isnix, p. 2-. Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston night air from without and foul night air important in the prevention of the disease ing porches, although this was not speci- Public i ibrai y. from within."- Enthusiastically received as in its cure. fied in the plans. on both sides of the Atlantic, Notes on By I 90S, such popular periodicals as J. The Forte-Air, 1908. Ladle* Home Journal, Around the same time, the earlier September IWK, p. 27. Courtesy Houston Nursing went through several editions fears of night air were finally being ban- Country Life in America. House Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public in America. Catherine Needier and lier ished as scientists proved that mosquitoes lieautifiil. and Collier's, as well as general Library. sister Harriet Beecher Stowe echoed were agents in the transmission of malar- health manuals, began to extol the bene- -I. I lenrj T. Staiti I loUSe, Houston, Ah red I . 1 inn. L Nightingale's ideas in their I Sr-, ' hook ia and yellow fever. When window fits of outdoor sleeping. Country Life in architect, ca.1920. < curtesy lljrrit County Hcntj^e So, igty, Houston. The American Woman's Home, where screening became available at reasonable America correspondent Thomas McAdam they wrote, "Tight sleeping rooms, prices in the late IK90s, all the elements bore enthusiastic witness: "I can truly say 5. Diane Neutra, wife ol architect K11.l1.1rd Neutra, and close, air-tight stoves, are now were in place for a full-scale fresh-air- that outdoor sleeping is the greatest luxu- reading on her sleeping porch al the VI )| Research House, I os Angeles, ca.1940. < imrtesy Ihon Nfiilra. starving and poisoning more than half sleeping movement. ry of my life, because u has made a nev\ Architect, Cite 34 S p r i n g 19 9 6 HomeCltc to the inside ol a window and fitted over Lewis's babbitt was as proud of the porch the head of a bed to separate the sleeper in his up-to-date home as of his ability to from the tainted interior air. In another sleep there on all bur the coldest nights. version, the head of the sleeper is pushed Hut Americans of the 20th century have outside the window and protected by the tended to look lorcomlort in their daily tent. Cross-ventilation from open win- lives, even at the expense of health; and, dows would have worked as well as either in truth, many of the health claims made arrangement. The strangest variation, for sleeping porches were overblown. As called the Porte-Air, actually reduced a result, the sleeping porch eventually access to fresh air; luckily, its claustropho- became the province of summer sleepers. bic appearance probably discouraged I he availability of powerful fans and most would-be purchasers. Designed for then air conditioning led to its demise. rooms where the bed could not be placed Today, "fresh" air has begun to seem less directly against a window, it connected healthful. We now install air filters to the sleeper's head to the outside air by combat pollen and pollution, and proceed means of a long cloth tube stretching to to work, play, and sleep in protected the window. interior environments. Most sleeping The liit>ii>tilt)U> Magazine of 1913 pre- porches in older homes have been sented more elaborate alternatives to enclosed and incorporated as full bed- sleeping porches. The "modern fresh air rooms or sun rooms. bed" required that a hole be cut in the For 40 years sleeping porches provided so that the bed could be a welcome alternative to stuffy bedrooms, pushed onto a platform outside. Another probably improved the health of some variation provided a metal canopy that people who slept on them, and made could he swung out over the sleeper to summer nights more comfortable for protect him from rain, a screen to keep many. Their special atmosphere of pro- insects away, and a curtain to "shield the tected freedom — derived from their occupant from the sun or from prying hybrid character, neither indoors nor out eyes." When it came time to make up the — meant that sleepers could enjoy the bed, it could be rolled inside." sense of exposure to nature while main- Real sleeping porches were lar prefer- taining easy access to domestic comfort able to such labored alternatives, and they and technology, incorporating a taste of were added onto existing houses as well the natural world into a civilized daily .IN included in new houses, large and routine. Those of us who experienced the small, all over the country. There was no pleasures of sleeping porches owe a large universally recommended location for the debt of gratitude to the turn-of-the-cetitu- porch other than on an upper flour (or ry health-seekers who popularized them. • greater purity of air, privacy, and security. 1 I Janiel Drake, Malaria in the Interior Valley of There were sleeping balconies above front North America ireprmi ed., Urhau.t: Universns of entrances ami sleeping porches on the Illinois Press. 1964), p. £ 8 1 . 2 Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing 11860; sides and the backs of houses. They reprint eel.. New York: Dover, IShSI], p, |9 perched like proud cockpirs on top of the I i leherine Beecber and Harriet Beedter Stowe, The American Woman's Home (IKnst; reprint cd.. wide-spreading roofs of bungalows that New York: Arno Press. 1¥71), p. 49. consequently became known as airplane 4 Historical Statistics uf the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.i .: bungalows, and were rucked discreetly in (loverunieiir Printing Oltice, 1ST~S). p. sN. the far back corners of small, one-story s s, AdolphtU Knopl. I'nbereulniis: A Preventable cottages and bungalows. They were even ami CurabU Disease (New York: Mofl.it, Yard and ( nnipauy, ]Wi), p. f.2. incorporated in avant-garde modern 6 Frank Lloyd Wright, Studies ami I xeeuteil architecture when It. M, Schindler includ- Buuatngs r>v Frank Uoyd Wnglit [New York: EtizzoJi, |l«h), p. |s>. ed them in several of his projects of the 7 Thomas McAd.tm, "Outdoor Sleeping and 1920s, including the l.ovell beach house laving," Cjjlill/rY lite m America, f i m u n I''OH, p. t VI. and his King Road house, where he X ( . M. J'F.imllc. "Outdoor Sleeping for the Well referred to them as "sleeping baskets."'2 Man." < nitniry I t/e in America, Mas |S>|W, p. 44. "J Knopl, Tuberculosis, pp. 76-77. By the early 1920s, a sleeping porch 10 Irving Fisher and F.tigeue I VIIL.HI Fisk, How I" I ire: Rules /or Health/tit Living Based an Modem was an important component of any Science [New York: Funk Be WagmUb, 1916),p. 23. proper, middle-class home. Sinclair I I Albert Marple, " \ Modern I resli Air bed," Bungalow Magatme II os Angeles), October 1st) \, pp. 42-43; and ( . I. Edhohn, "Outdoor Bed With a Swinging Canopy," Bungalow Magatme [Los Angeles| November I'M *, pp. 4^-46. Illustrations 11 David Gebhatd, SchimUer (New York: Viking Press. 1**72), pp. 4 7 - 5 1 , HO-Xn. 6. Airplane bungalow with sleeping porch. The Drauglittman. trd ed. (I (is Angeles: Deluxe c..„ 1913).

7. I louse, Hanover, Massachusetts, with sleeping pnri.li added lor tuberculosis patient, IS'i.s. tsuopl. Tuberculosa! p. f>2. s Airplane bungalow with sleeping pcirs.ll. \\<.L rn ffi'Hif (New Orleans! Southern Pine Assn., 1**2.3).

9, Agnes Memorial Sanitorium with sleeping porches, 1909. Knopf, Tuhereulmis, p. fr>.

III. Sleeping porch. The Pines, (labriel Mtiulm's Still Frtmeaeo Peninsula, frum the archives ol Gabriel Moulin , San Francisco iSansalim: Wntdgatc Press. lL 'Ki|, pl.ile HA.

11- David B. Gamble I louse, Pasadena, t ahtornia, Greene & Greene, architects, I W H . Cmrtesy Gamble House.