Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. We are
Speaker 2: currently in the midst of rerunning our episodes about the
Speaker 2: Heart from last year, which, if you've been listening to
Speaker 2: the show well at least a year, you know that
Speaker 2: these were episodes that talked about the central place that
Speaker 2: the hearth has long had in human domiciles. This place
Speaker 2: that is a source of heat, that can be a
Speaker 2: source of food, and is also kind of like the
Speaker 2: epicenter of culture for the immediate household, and also there
Speaker 2: are all these additional supernatural ideas associated with it. It
Speaker 2: becomes a gateway through which spirits might enter into the
Speaker 2: home and so forth. Yeah, and so today's episode is
Speaker 2: gonna be essentially kind of a sidebar to all of that.
Speaker 2: That was partially inspired by a recent visit that I
Speaker 2: made to New Orleans. Traveled there with my family, and
Speaker 2: New Orleans, of course, is full of all sorts of
Speaker 2: interesting history, and I was touring a mid nineteenth century
Speaker 2: home that had been restored and redecorated so that it
Speaker 2: would look like it did back in the day. And
Speaker 2: you know, there are all sorts of little details and
Speaker 2: technological innovations of the time period that are pretty fascinating,
Speaker 2: but one in particular kind of caught my eye. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't anything super advanced either. It wasn't related to
Speaker 2: plumbing or ventilation, well a little bit to ventilation, as
Speaker 2: we'll discuss, but it wasn't like high tech of the day.
Speaker 2: In fact, it had some kind of antique aspects about it.
Speaker 2: It was a fire screen. It was a decorative piece
Speaker 2: on a little stand placed in front of the fireplace.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure I've seen these before. I like, looking back,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, there's here's one in this museum I
Speaker 2: went to and so forth. I don't know that I've
Speaker 2: ever really looked at one and thought about it all
Speaker 2: that much, But in this moment, I really was taken
Speaker 2: by it was why is that there? Why would we
Speaker 2: have something between us and the fire? Because, as we
Speaker 2: discussed in the heart episodes, like everybody loves looking at
Speaker 2: a roaring fire, right, why would you put something in
Speaker 2: front of it? And you know, this question has some
Speaker 2: flaws in it as well, as we'll get into, but
Speaker 2: that's what we're going to be talking about in this
Speaker 2: episode today.
Speaker 3: What was the design on the fire screen? You saw it? Like,
Speaker 3: what did it look like?
Speaker 2: It was the flowers or something it was. I think
Speaker 2: that was part of it too. It was like, why
Speaker 2: would you look at this when you could look at
Speaker 2: a fire, which is, you know, so enthralling and ever
Speaker 2: changing and kind of fills your mind with different ideas.
Speaker 2: But the answer is going to be a little more
Speaker 2: complex than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I had never really thought at all about
Speaker 3: fire screens. I'm sure I've seen these things before, but
Speaker 3: there they were invisible to me. I had never lingered
Speaker 3: on them, so I never even thought to ask the
Speaker 3: question what were they for? Where did they come from?
Speaker 3: So investigating that was kind of interesting. I found to
Speaker 3: mention one source some passages on the history of the
Speaker 3: fire screen in a book by an art historian named
Speaker 3: William C. Ketcham Junior. This guy wrote a bunch of
Speaker 3: books about American furniture and antiques. The book is called Chests, Cupboards, Desks,
Speaker 3: and other Pieces, published by A. Knop in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: Shout out that I found this because excerpts from the
Speaker 3: book were screenshotted on a website called Buffalo Architecture and History,
Speaker 3: which is still rocking and amazing. Early two thousands website
Speaker 3: design with like white text or sorry, black text on
Speaker 3: a white background divider bars. That great stuff made me
Speaker 3: yearn for the old web.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I wonder if I can scan to the
Speaker 2: bottom of this page and join the web ring.
Speaker 3: It should have like a visit tracker accounter. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's great. So yeah, excerpts from this book we're
Speaker 3: on that website. I went and looked up the book
Speaker 3: on its own. So catch um. Rites that fire screens
Speaker 3: date back to the Middle Ages, when many homes, especially
Speaker 3: larger homes, would be heated by these huge blazing fireplaces.
Speaker 3: And the earlier screens that you would find going back
Speaker 3: into the Middle Ages would have generally been quite utilitarian
Speaker 3: in nature, less like the decorated pieces that we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about in a minute. You see more of
Speaker 3: the decorative, beautiful pieces later on, especially beginning around the
Speaker 3: seventeenth century. So what is the utilitarian function of a
Speaker 3: fire screen? Well, you might imagine if you've ever sat
Speaker 3: out by a bonfire in the cold, or sat beside
Speaker 3: a large fireplace when no other form of heat was
Speaker 3: being used in a house, you'll know that it can
Speaker 3: be equal parts cozy and uncomfortable. You know, if you
Speaker 3: have no other heat source in a house and it's
Speaker 3: very cold in the winter, you know, if you get
Speaker 3: more than ten feet away from the fire, it's still freezing.
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't A fireplace does not distribute heat evenly
Speaker 3: throughout the house like forced air central heating does. You know?
Speaker 3: Fourced air central heating uses convection. It warms the air
Speaker 3: with vents throughout the house. The fire is just mainly
Speaker 3: going to be sending radiant heat in straight lines out
Speaker 3: into the room where the fire is, and it's also
Speaker 3: heating up some of the stone, you know, tile or
Speaker 3: metal infrastructure around it that also radiates some heat. So
Speaker 3: most of the heat is just coming straight out of
Speaker 3: the fire and around where the fire is. So you
Speaker 3: step away from the fire and it's still cold. In fact,
Speaker 3: we talked in our episodes on the Hearth about some
Speaker 3: research showing that well, it might feel nice and toasty
Speaker 3: right beside the fire. When you start a fire in
Speaker 3: a fireplace, usually the rest of the house gets colder
Speaker 3: because it's going to be sucking air in through little
Speaker 3: gaps and cracks and the windows and the doors in
Speaker 3: order to help drive the to help drive the convection
Speaker 3: that's going to be flowing up out of the chimney.
Speaker 3: So if your only heat source is a fireplace, it's
Speaker 3: going to be cold stepping away from the fire. You
Speaker 3: got to stay close to it to be warm. However,
Speaker 3: when you're right up close, the warmth provided by a
Speaker 3: large fire is not gentle. It roasts you, and you
Speaker 3: might have to frequently adjust position or turn different parts
Speaker 3: of your body toward the fire every few minutes to
Speaker 3: prevent it from overheating any particular part of your flesh.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've had this experience.
Speaker 2: Rob, Yeah, absolutely. I think maybe I've noticed it more
Speaker 2: with campfires of course, where you know you're hanging out
Speaker 2: by the campfire and well there's suddenly you know your
Speaker 2: feet are heating up a little bit too much, and
Speaker 2: then yeah, you go and cool off, and then pretty
Speaker 2: soon you're chili and you have to move back next
Speaker 2: to the fire. I did not have a fireplace in
Speaker 2: my home, so I only get to enjoy them when
Speaker 2: I'm like staying in a cabin or something, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe at a hotel or a restaurant that has them.
Speaker 2: But even then it's it's often kind of fleeting, so
Speaker 2: you don't you don't get that like long term exposure
Speaker 2: factor with one of these fires. And if I am
Speaker 2: encountering a fire, it's often not going to be the
Speaker 2: kind of roaring hearth that we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: historically here, it might be one of these more these
Speaker 2: tamer like gas powered features that we have today, which
Speaker 2: are great to look at, do put off some heat,
Speaker 2: but not on the level that we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Also, rarely these days in an American building is it
Speaker 3: going to be the only source of heat. A lot
Speaker 3: of times you'll have the you know, the central heat running,
Speaker 3: forced air heating, and then also you have a supplemental
Speaker 3: fire in the fireplace because it's nice, not because it's
Speaker 3: the only way to heat the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do it as a more than more often
Speaker 2: than not, as a luxury on top of whatever we're
Speaker 2: doing to heat the place.
Speaker 3: Right, So, when you got a big fire in the
Speaker 3: fireplace and it's your only source of it can be
Speaker 3: uncomfortable to be too far away from it and uncomfortable
Speaker 3: to be too close because you're getting you're getting roasted
Speaker 3: with a really big fire. Also, I've read you know,
Speaker 3: the glare of the light can sometimes be uncomfortable to
Speaker 3: look at, depending on how bright it is and other
Speaker 3: conditions in the room. One thing I read mentioned in
Speaker 3: a few sources was that another function of various screens
Speaker 3: and guards of different kinds covering a fireplace, especially going
Speaker 3: back into the Middle Ages, one function of these various
Speaker 3: types of coverings, especially the tighter coverings, was to block
Speaker 3: cold air drafts when the fireplace was not in use.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so two things I want to say on
Speaker 2: what you just shared. First of all, in terms of
Speaker 2: the glare, I think this is something that it's easy
Speaker 2: to overlook as a non like regular fireplace user, is
Speaker 2: since the fireplace becomes a special treat. Yeah, we think, like,
Speaker 2: like I was thinking, like, why would you look at
Speaker 2: anything else? Like you have the fireplace, look at it.
Speaker 2: But in general it makes sense that, yeah, around it
Speaker 2: all the time, you have other things you might want
Speaker 2: to do. You may wish to socialize more directly with
Speaker 2: the people around you, or read a book or work
Speaker 2: on a craft, and the light might be too intense
Speaker 2: for that. You might want to focus your eyes on
Speaker 2: something else. Other than the fire, and in this reminded
Speaker 2: me a little bit of the There's a scene in
Speaker 2: the recent Nonseratu adaptation where we meet count Overlock more
Speaker 2: officially in this big room that has a roaring fire,
Speaker 2: and it's fabulously at the same time both really dim
Speaker 2: and dark and also like blinding. So I feel like
Speaker 2: that scene maybe gets that some of the paradoxical realities
Speaker 2: of a hearth lit and hearth heated room, I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then the empty hearth is another important factor, one
Speaker 2: that I think is also easy to forget about if
Speaker 2: you don't have a fireplace, or if you have a
Speaker 2: modern fireplace that can maybe be s up a little
Speaker 2: bit easier when it's not in use. But yeah, this
Speaker 2: idea that it is a potentially drafty affair in and
Speaker 2: of itself, and so you might want to block access
Speaker 2: to the wind to some degree, cut down on the
Speaker 2: airflow or even the sight of the empty fireplace, which
Speaker 2: I know is another factor involved here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Secondary purpose for fire screens, especially certain forms of them.
Speaker 3: We'll get into different forms as we go along, but
Speaker 3: the wider paneled forms sitting closer to the floor were
Speaker 3: often used to cover up what was considered the unsightly
Speaker 3: and depressing image of an empty fireplace when there was
Speaker 3: not a fire burning in it. So a nice decorative
Speaker 3: fire screen would hide the sooty hollow and replace it
Speaker 3: with a nice design or at least a neutral surface.
Speaker 2: This I understand now that it's pointed out to me,
Speaker 2: because the fireplaces that I have grown up around at
Speaker 2: different times, they were often not in use. When they
Speaker 2: were not in use, sometimes things it would like they'd
Speaker 2: be like maybe some sort of a popoury kind of
Speaker 2: a little thing placed in there to sort of, yeah,
Speaker 2: tend to make it a little more comfortable and less
Speaker 2: look less empty, and maybe make you less sad about
Speaker 2: the fact that we can't use the fireplace right now
Speaker 2: because it's July, right.
Speaker 3: So, fire screens are functional. They do have a purpose.
Speaker 3: They were invented to allow you to heat a room
Speaker 3: with a large, hot fire, but shield the people sitting
Speaker 3: next to the fire from the most intense direct radiant
Speaker 3: heat and glare from the blaze. Fire screens, depending on
Speaker 3: how they're defined, sometimes people make a distinction between the
Speaker 3: terms fire screen and fire guard. Things that are I
Speaker 3: think more often called fire guards would have the benefit
Speaker 3: as well of blocking sudden ejections from the fire, like
Speaker 3: sparks and embers. But if you think about that, you know,
Speaker 3: some of these fire screens we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: it made a very delicate flammable material and so they
Speaker 3: probably you wouldn't want to use them for that purpose.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this sort clearly they were not intended to
Speaker 2: catch any sparks or flaming logs that might come falling
Speaker 2: out of the fireplace.
Speaker 3: But you know, as we've probably all seen around a
Speaker 3: lot of fireplaces, there might be a metal mesh or
Speaker 3: wire or some kind of metal and glass design, and
Speaker 3: these are more in the fire guard zone. These would
Speaker 3: not only provide some shielding from the most intense radiant
Speaker 3: heat and the glare, they would also prevent anything from
Speaker 3: being ejected through. You know, they would be a stopper there.
Speaker 3: But in addition to these functional uses, fire screens were
Speaker 3: also decorative so catch them in this book mentions that
Speaker 3: in eighteenth century American examples quote the panels displayed fine
Speaker 3: needlework or later paintings, often made by the women of
Speaker 3: the house, as well as prints or various fabrics, And
Speaker 3: if you look up examples of eighteenth century American fire screens.
Speaker 3: I guess that's probably what you would have been seeing
Speaker 3: in the house you visited, Rob. Many of them are
Speaker 3: absolutely beautiful, beautiful, elaborate designs. I just wanted to mention
Speaker 3: one that caught my eye when I was just image
Speaker 3: searching for these things, I found images of a screen
Speaker 3: hosted on a blog post for the Winterthur Museum in
Speaker 3: Delaware by a student named Tess Friedman. This image, Rob,
Speaker 3: I've got for you to look at in the outline.
Speaker 3: It's of what's called a pole screen. I'll explain that
Speaker 3: more in a minute. A pole screen that was made
Speaker 3: in New York between seventeen sixty and seventeen seventy five
Speaker 3: with a mahogany base. The screen is a linen canvas
Speaker 3: with an elaborate hand embroidered image made out of yarn
Speaker 3: and silk, and it looks basically like a framed painting
Speaker 3: on a rectangular canvas attached to a pole on a
Speaker 3: wooden tripod, except, of course, it's not a painting. It's
Speaker 3: an embroidery design. The embroidered image on the canvas depicts
Speaker 3: a shepherdess and a shepherd out in this pastoral scene
Speaker 3: with sheep roaming the hills beside a city, and the
Speaker 3: male shepherd is kneeling in front of the shepherdess. He's
Speaker 3: got his hand over his heart, looks he looks like
Speaker 3: he's asking for her attention or something. Maybe maybe he's
Speaker 3: asking her to marry him, and she seems to be
Speaker 3: kind of considering the offer or whatever it is. And
Speaker 3: I think, what's so captivating to me about this piece
Speaker 3: of furniture is imagining this beautiful, delicate work of art,
Speaker 3: delicate both in construction and even in subject matter, being
Speaker 3: used as the shield from a roaring fire. But again,
Speaker 3: this contradiction is somewhat not a contradiction when you understand
Speaker 3: how these different types of fire shield furniture were used.
Speaker 3: There are actually lots of different designs for fire screens
Speaker 3: and fireguards. Some are wide and positioned on the floor
Speaker 3: closer to the fire to provide general protection to the
Speaker 3: room or to the seating area around the hearth. Others,
Speaker 3: like this fire screen would be positioned usually closer to
Speaker 3: the person, with a targeted blocking radius, kind of like
Speaker 3: a little parasol for the fireplace, And these are often
Speaker 3: said to serve the purpose of shielding a person's face
Speaker 3: rather than their whole body. This form again is often
Speaker 3: called the pole screen, and you can find a lot
Speaker 3: of examples like this that are a pole, a wooden pole,
Speaker 3: or a metal pole coming up off of a round
Speaker 3: or tripod base on the floor and then it's holding
Speaker 3: maybe a round or a rectangular screen of some kind,
Speaker 3: often with a beautiful design on it. And this type
Speaker 3: of furniture again would not be placed right next to
Speaker 3: the fire. Instead, you should picture it maybe at the
Speaker 3: edge of a couch where a lady was resting, and
Speaker 3: the screen would be between next to the lady's head
Speaker 3: between her in the fire. Now I also mentioned that
Speaker 3: the pole screen, the smaller pole screen, is not the
Speaker 3: only design in contrast to these smaller elevated screens. Ketchum
Speaker 3: says that in the early nineteenth century, the cheval design
Speaker 3: became more popular in American homes. It was not invented
Speaker 3: at this time, but it became more popular in America
Speaker 3: around then. The cheval design, named after the French word
Speaker 3: for horse, is a wide rectangular panel mounted load to
Speaker 3: the floor on two pairs of short legs, So it
Speaker 3: is kind of like a little you know, picture a
Speaker 3: little sawhorse, but instead of a cross beam. It's a
Speaker 3: big rectangular panel or screen.
Speaker 2: And these often really have a you really get a
Speaker 2: sense of please don't look at the fireplace with these. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's almost like like, pay no attention to what is
Speaker 2: behind the beautiful parrot decorated work of art.
Speaker 3: Right, Or here's an angel with a bunch of blooming
Speaker 3: flowers all around her, and then behind her is the blaze.
Speaker 3: Ketchum finally says that fire screens began to fade out
Speaker 3: of use and become less common as modern forms of
Speaker 3: domestic heating takeover in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing that I picked up on during my
Speaker 2: tour in New Orleans was this idea that people of
Speaker 2: the time might want to avoid looking into the fire
Speaker 2: for some reason or another, and it was compared to
Speaker 2: staring at a television too much or something. I was
Speaker 2: rather intrigued by that idea, I have to say, though
Speaker 2: I did not have much luck in finding any specific
Speaker 2: Victorian notion of this situation where there was some sort
Speaker 2: of an idea that it was bad luck or thought
Speaker 2: bad for the eyes, especially to gaze into the fire.
Speaker 2: At the same time, again acknowledging that there was a
Speaker 2: need to shield yourself from the heat and or glare
Speaker 2: of the fire. But I was expecting that maybe there
Speaker 2: might be something out there of a tradition where it
Speaker 2: was you know, bad luck or bad manners or bad
Speaker 2: health to do so. But I don't know. It seems
Speaker 2: based on what I was finding, that there's little in
Speaker 2: the way of cultural opposition to steering at a fire
Speaker 2: in general for human beings outside of some very specific
Speaker 2: cultural examples. Certainly nothing with a wide enough footprint in
Speaker 2: European and then American traditions of the time as far
Speaker 2: as I can tell. That being said, however, as we
Speaker 2: discussed in the Hearth episodes, there all these rich ideas
Speaker 2: of the heart is some sort of a supernatural pathway
Speaker 2: through which things might enter the home. There's plenty of
Speaker 2: room for a tradition like that to emerge, even if
Speaker 2: it's very local, and you know, particularly if you're thinking
Speaker 2: of a place like New Orleans, where you have all
Speaker 2: these different cultures coming together and different ideas merging with
Speaker 2: each other. So I'm not going to completely rule out
Speaker 2: the possibility, but I wasn't able to find much on it.
Speaker 2: What you will find, however, is an idea that these
Speaker 2: screens were important to keep the cosmetics of Victorian women
Speaker 2: from melting, essentially from their face melting off when they
Speaker 2: were hit with the intense heat of a fireplace, and
Speaker 2: therefore you would need to have a screen in place,
Speaker 2: either handheld or on a pole to protect them. This,
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, so this is widely
Speaker 2: discredited as a myth. But at the same time, it
Speaker 2: seems like this is maybe more on the exaggeration end
Speaker 2: of the myth spectrum. So as we've been discussing, like
Speaker 2: there were practical reasons to want to keep the heat
Speaker 2: off of your face and the glare of the fireplace
Speaker 2: out of your eyes. Could it mess up your makeup?
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe not, but it doesn't seem to be.
Speaker 2: You know, the prime reason for this, I think where
Speaker 2: it becomes a myth is when people say, oh, well
Speaker 2: they had that because ladies had wax based cosmetics and
Speaker 2: they didn't want the melt. Not the prime leading reason
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: briefly mention another tradition just because I feel like it
Speaker 2: helps us maybe understand like some of the broad strokes
Speaker 2: of this sort of technology, The idea of placing some
Speaker 2: sort of a screen between you and a heat source
Speaker 2: or between the heat source and other parts of your environment.
Speaker 2: And in that we have what is known in Japanese
Speaker 2: as a biobu, and I maybe butchering that pronunciation now
Speaker 2: byaba in general is just a folding screen, often decorated
Speaker 2: with calligraphy or other images. These eventually found their way
Speaker 2: into European and American homes as well during the eighteenth
Speaker 2: century and then beyond. It led to a tradition in
Speaker 2: Mexico as well of a screen tradition that was inspired
Speaker 2: by it. And the word literally means protect action from
Speaker 2: the wind or wind wall in Japanese. And so you
Speaker 2: might use this to break up a space or indeed
Speaker 2: to sort of like prevent a draft from moving all
Speaker 2: the way through a living environment. But then you also
Speaker 2: have a frosaki biago or furnace wind screen, and this
Speaker 2: is also decorative, sometimes a fine work of art, but
Speaker 2: it is specifically used to protect the furo or portable
Speaker 2: tea brasier from drafts that might blow on the coals
Speaker 2: and scatter the ashes and disrupt the tea ceremony that
Speaker 2: you're conducting with this little portable, little portable stove. The
Speaker 2: stove would have used charcoal, it would have provided the
Speaker 2: specific heat needed for the creation of proper macha tea.
Speaker 2: So it's one of these things that is again highly ceremonial,
Speaker 2: highly esthetic, but the at least original idea in its
Speaker 2: design is Okay, if you're going to have some sort
Speaker 2: of a heat source, a burning heat source, you might
Speaker 2: need to prevent the wind from catching it because this
Speaker 2: could at the very least disrupt things, get some ash
Speaker 2: where you don't want some ash, or it could potentially
Speaker 2: serve as a fire hazard. Again, easy to take all
Speaker 2: this for granted because central heating in a home, like
Speaker 2: your airflow is part of the way your home is heated. Like,
Speaker 2: it's all built into the system. This problem has been
Speaker 2: solved for you, and you don't have to worry as
Speaker 2: much about that air circulation and how it relates to
Speaker 2: your heat and your heat sources.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the many pieces of modern domestic technology
Speaker 3: that we often just take for granted. We forget to
Speaker 3: even appreciate that it's there. Yeah, all right, are you
Speaker 3: ready to talk about fuel sources?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into the fuel sources, because this is
Speaker 2: another thing that I just didn't think about at all
Speaker 2: when I was making you snap judgments about fire screens
Speaker 2: as I was touring that house.
Speaker 3: Right, so forewarning that I'm going to begin this with
Speaker 3: a question that I was not in the time preparing
Speaker 3: for today's episode able to find a conclusive answer to.
Speaker 3: I'm only going to get halfway there, but I did
Speaker 3: uncover some interesting things along the way, so please bear
Speaker 3: with me as we go along. But what I wanted
Speaker 3: to talk about was a distinction between coal fires and
Speaker 3: wood fires, because when we in America think of a
Speaker 3: fire and a fireplace today, I bet almost everybody thinks
Speaker 3: of a wood fire where the fuel is split wedges
Speaker 3: of seasoned hardwood. But there are other sources of fuel,
Speaker 3: of course, and at other times and places in history,
Speaker 3: they might be more common in domestic fires, not just
Speaker 3: in say, a coal furnace or a coal stove, but
Speaker 3: even in open hearth fireplaces in the home. And a
Speaker 3: big alternative here is coal. If you were to go
Speaker 3: look in the fireplace of, for example, a middle class
Speaker 3: or working class home in London in the eighteenth or
Speaker 3: nineteenth century, the fire in the fireplace would almost certainly
Speaker 3: be a coal fire and not a wood fire. Now,
Speaker 3: this doesn't hold true everywhere around the world. In fact,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't hold true even everywhere in Britain at the time.
Speaker 3: If you went out into the countryside, you'd probably still
Speaker 3: find a lot of houses burning wood, But in the
Speaker 3: city coal would be the go to fuel source for
Speaker 3: cooking and heating in most homes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. For a seasonally appropriate literary example of this, in
Speaker 2: A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is something of a coal miser,
Speaker 2: and much is often made of this in adaptations like
Speaker 2: I grew up watching Disney's A Christmas Carol, and I
Speaker 2: included a screenshot here for you, Jove. I haven't seen
Speaker 2: this in a while, but you can see Mickey Mouse's
Speaker 2: cratch it holding up a single piece of coal. You cold,
Speaker 2: it has not been lit. He wants to put it
Speaker 2: in the stove, and Scrooge is giving him a hard
Speaker 2: time about it, like, now, you're you're going to put
Speaker 2: us out of business if you've used one piece of coal. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had to look up any mention of coal in
Speaker 2: the original literary work. I'm going to read a passage
Speaker 2: here the door of Scrooge's counting house was open that
Speaker 2: he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in
Speaker 2: a dismal little cell beyond a sort of tank, was
Speaker 2: copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the
Speaker 2: clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked
Speaker 2: like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge
Speaker 2: kept the coal box in his own room, and so
Speaker 2: surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the
Speaker 2: master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part.
Speaker 2: Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter and tried
Speaker 2: to warm himself at the candle, in which effort, not
Speaker 2: being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
Speaker 3: You're a mean one, missed Scrooge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, coal cole, it's right in our face.
Speaker 2: You know, ours probably one of, if not the most
Speaker 2: famous example of their snapshot of Victorian urban living. And yeah,
Speaker 2: the coal is right there, front and center.
Speaker 3: That's right. So there were basic economic reasons for this
Speaker 3: preference for coal. Coal has a higher energy density and
Speaker 3: thus is more cost effective to transport across great distances.
Speaker 3: So if you live in a deforested area or an
Speaker 3: area where there was never any access to wood, this
Speaker 3: would certainly include a lot of cities. In the industrial age,
Speaker 3: both wood and coal would have to travel a great
Speaker 3: distance to get to your home, and coal burns hotter
Speaker 3: and longer, so you're typically going to get a lot
Speaker 3: more bang for your buck buying coal than buying wood.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're shipping wood somewhere, you have huge
Speaker 3: amount of what you're shipping is just unburnable stuff in
Speaker 3: the way to the wood, water and air and stuff
Speaker 3: trapped in there. So coal is a much more or
Speaker 3: energy dense and valuable product by weight. Of course, out
Speaker 3: in the country, if there's still trees nearby it, it
Speaker 3: probably makes economic sense to burn wood, whether you're gathering
Speaker 3: it yourself from around your house or buying it from
Speaker 3: somebody nearby. However, even many rural homes in Britain I
Speaker 3: think by the nineteenth century had made the switch to
Speaker 3: coal when it became available by rail lines, because it
Speaker 3: was just a cheaper source of heat to acquire. Now,
Speaker 3: the urban coal dominance trend has not held true everywhere
Speaker 3: and at every time in history. It's not just like
Speaker 3: once you live in a densely populated urban environment you
Speaker 3: switch from wood to coal. From what I've been reading,
Speaker 3: it seems like in big cities in America in the
Speaker 3: nineteenth century, you'd find kind of a mix of coal
Speaker 3: fired homes and wood fired homes. There were some of each,
Speaker 3: and around the world you would have all kinds of
Speaker 3: different pressures acting on what fuel source people used, different
Speaker 3: local economic pressures, what types of material were available, what
Speaker 3: forms of transportation for material were available. Climate, Oh, not
Speaker 3: just the availability of wood and coal, but like what
Speaker 3: types of wood and what types of coal, because that
Speaker 3: makes a big difference. The coal often used in London
Speaker 3: in the you know, the seventeenth through the nineteenth century,
Speaker 3: would have been what they called sea coal, which was
Speaker 3: a bituminous coal, a kind of nasty coal. And there
Speaker 3: were even taste and cultural preferences about what types of
Speaker 3: fuel to use, and these could rule the day. I
Speaker 3: came across this thing of I'd never heard about this before,
Speaker 3: but French writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in
Speaker 3: particular talking about the use of coal fire in London
Speaker 3: as just so gross. I dug up it. And there
Speaker 3: was an eighteenth century book called a Tour to London
Speaker 3: or New Observations on England and its Inhabitants, published by
Speaker 3: Lockyer David seventeen seventy two by an author named Pierre
Speaker 3: Jean Grossly. Grossly was an eighteenth century French magistrate and author,
Speaker 3: kind of a travel writer.
Speaker 2: Of his day.
Speaker 3: He wrote about Italy as well, but he wrote about
Speaker 3: his travels in England, including a lot of amusing and
Speaker 3: often unflattering views of London. And he really thought the
Speaker 3: use of domestic coal fire made the city disgusting and miserable.
Speaker 3: There's even a passage about how it made all the
Speaker 3: food taste bad. I want to read this quote all
Speaker 3: that grow in the country about London. Cabbage, radishes and
Speaker 3: spinach being impregnated with the smoke of coal which fills
Speaker 3: the atmosphere of that town have a very disagreeable taste
Speaker 3: which they communicate to the meat wherewith they have been boiled.
Speaker 3: I ate nothing good of this sort in London, but
Speaker 3: some asparagus, which doubtless grew at a good distance from
Speaker 3: the capitol.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: And then after this, Grossly has some more general notes.
Speaker 3: He says, quote the smoke of sea coal fires with
Speaker 3: which the atmosphere of London is generally filled may be
Speaker 3: reckoned amongst the physical causes of the melancholy of its inhabitants.
Speaker 3: The terrestrial and mineral particles with which that smoke is impregnated,
Speaker 3: insinuate themselves into the blood of those who are always
Speaker 3: inhaling them, render it dull and heavy, and carry with
Speaker 3: them the new principles of melancholy. Oh wow, So not
Speaker 3: the only time people complained about pre modern London is
Speaker 3: for being polluted. But I don't know, I found this
Speaker 3: an especially evocative and targeted attack on the use of
Speaker 3: coal in the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's like he's saying, this is just
Speaker 2: a problem of culture here at large. It's not just
Speaker 2: that everything but the asparagus tastes bad. It's just like
Speaker 2: it has made everybody miserable and sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So there are different economic pressures in different preferences
Speaker 3: about domestic fuel sources at different times and places throughout history,
Speaker 3: and of course that's changed again in the modern era.
Speaker 3: You know, in modern homes, so that with modern forms
Speaker 3: of heating like gas or electric furnaces or heat pumps
Speaker 3: and houses like this, when you still have a fireplace,
Speaker 3: it's usually a supplemental esthetic heat source. Of course, there
Speaker 3: will be counterexamples to this. Some homes still really need
Speaker 3: the fireplace heat. But a lot of you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of houses with fireplaces now don't really need them
Speaker 3: for heating. They're just a nice thing to have. And
Speaker 3: in those cases, it seems a lot of people prefer
Speaker 3: wood for these optional fires, at least most people in
Speaker 3: America do. I wonder if there's anywhere people actually have
Speaker 3: an esthetic preference for coal fires. It seems kind of
Speaker 3: unlikely to me, but I'd be interested to be surprised.
Speaker 3: I would like to hear about that.
Speaker 2: I guess one of the things about coal fires, when
Speaker 2: you get into the technology of like Victorian era technology especially,
Speaker 2: is that hot coals could then easily be transported out
Speaker 2: of a primary fire into very like smaller stoves and
Speaker 2: heated devices, you know. Yea, So it does have that
Speaker 2: going for it.
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, And the ease of transporting you know,
Speaker 3: a shovelful of hot coals again, I guess that's probably
Speaker 3: down to the energy density of coal compared to that
Speaker 3: of wood.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, less running around indoors with flaming sticks as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But anyway, so this brings me to differences between
Speaker 3: coal and wood as a fireplace fuel. A coal fire
Speaker 3: will typically produce a more consistent supply of strong radiant
Speaker 3: heat than a wood fire. From what I've read, it's
Speaker 3: normal for a wood fire to maybe be hotter right
Speaker 3: at the beginning is that's really blazing up. But then
Speaker 3: as the wood begins to burn down, it rapidly cools
Speaker 3: off and produces less heat over time, needing more tending
Speaker 3: and replenishment. A coal fire is going to get you
Speaker 3: a hot stream of radiant heat going, and it'll keep
Speaker 3: going for a long time. And so I was reading
Speaker 3: about this, and it made me wonder, is it possible
Speaker 3: fire screens or fireguards were more needed in homes that
Speaker 3: burned one type of fuel instead of the other. For example,
Speaker 3: because coal puts out a steadier, longer lasting stream of
Speaker 3: strong radiant heat. Would a coal fire be more likely
Speaker 3: to become uncomfortable without a guard of some kind for
Speaker 3: the face or the skin? And you know, basically, does
Speaker 3: a coal fire more resemble a broiler aimed at the
Speaker 3: people by the hearth side? The answer, unfortunately, is I
Speaker 3: don't know for sure. I was looking and couldn't find
Speaker 3: direct historical confirmation of this idea, but given the differences
Speaker 3: between the heat produced by wood versus coal fires, it
Speaker 3: seems to be plausible that there might be a kind
Speaker 3: of different experience around a coal fire than a wood fire,
Speaker 3: and that experience might manifest in a stronger desire to
Speaker 3: put screens between yourself and the blaze. So yeah, if
Speaker 3: any listeners out there have more experience it's with this
Speaker 3: kind of thing and would like to comment on this issue,
Speaker 3: I'd be interested to read your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, any field reports would be greatly appreciate.
Speaker 3: Okay, Rob, if you're up for another Victorian side I
Speaker 3: wanted to mention an interesting video I came across from
Speaker 3: the UK National Archives called The Victorian Fireside, hosted by
Speaker 3: a specialist with their collections named Olivia Gayjagg, and I
Speaker 3: thought this was interesting because Gaychag makes a point in
Speaker 3: this video to emphasize the cultural meaning of the fireside
Speaker 3: for middle class homes in Victorian Britain. So this is
Speaker 3: getting into how fire screens figured into you know, not
Speaker 3: just fire screens, but fire screens and lots of associated
Speaker 3: furnishings and technology. Things around the fireplace are not just
Speaker 3: functional in nature, but they mean something within the cultural context,
Speaker 3: and this is exploring that, certainly within Victorian Britain. So
Speaker 3: in Victorian Britain during the wintertime, she talks about how
Speaker 3: the hearth side was kind of a standard gathering place
Speaker 3: for household activities. By the fire, you'd sit and talk,
Speaker 3: you'd play games, you might eat meals. And in these
Speaker 3: middle class Victorian homes, the hearth was usually the center
Speaker 3: of the drawing room or the parlor, which was the
Speaker 3: part of the house that arguably carried the most social
Speaker 3: and cultural meaning. Basically, all people at all times in
Speaker 3: some ways express who they are through the design and
Speaker 3: decoration of their homes, but obviously to different extents and
Speaker 3: in different ways. And I understand the argument here to
Speaker 3: be that the Victorian drawing room or parlor was an
Speaker 3: area of particular focus for expressing the homeliness of a
Speaker 3: home in Victorian Britain. In gaych Egg's words quote, a
Speaker 3: comfortable and well furnished drawing room became symbolic of some
Speaker 3: of the key notions of Victorian morality. And this was
Speaker 3: in one sense an inward facing message as a place
Speaker 3: the family could gather and do things that expressed their
Speaker 3: bonds as a family, you know, so they would kind
Speaker 3: of understand themselves through this space. But it was also
Speaker 3: an outward facing message as the place that would message
Speaker 3: to guests and visitors things about the family's identity, including
Speaker 3: everything from economic class and status to esthetic taste and
Speaker 3: moral values, and so these things that would communicate those
Speaker 3: ideas included a lot of furnishings and decorations related to
Speaker 3: the fireplace and its immediate surroundings. And fire screens are
Speaker 3: a great example here. You could think also of all
Speaker 3: kind you know, coal buckets that you would restock the
Speaker 3: coal fire with, and you know metal fire guards, but
Speaker 3: also fire screens, fire screens with the embroidery or other
Speaker 3: designs on cloth. On these pole screens we've talked about,
Speaker 3: these would often be a way for the female head
Speaker 3: of the household to express her taste, her skill if
Speaker 3: she made the design herself, which was often the case,
Speaker 3: and moral virtues. And gay Jag highlights one particular design
Speaker 3: for a pole screen, that is, it's on a pole
Speaker 3: with a tripod at the base, like the other one
Speaker 3: I was talking about earlier, but this one has baby
Speaker 3: fire breathing dragons made out of iron on the three
Speaker 3: studs of the tripod base. Nice and then it comes
Speaker 3: up to a very actually quite small fire screen it looks,
Speaker 3: you know, just small enough to block the face from
Speaker 3: the fire, which has a circular embroidered design and then
Speaker 3: an elaborate frame around it. But this video really makes
Speaker 3: the distinction, for one thing, between fire screens like pole
Speaker 3: screens and the heartier things that would more often be
Speaker 3: called fire guards, citing these brass based samples. No doubt
Speaker 3: these things would get very hot sitting right in front
Speaker 3: of the fire, but those would provide more solid protection
Speaker 3: against sparks or other material ejections from the fire, because again,
Speaker 3: you know of a pole screen like this that's a
Speaker 3: linen canvas or embroidered cloth or something something made out
Speaker 3: of wood, these would obviously be highly flammable, so they
Speaker 3: would not be something designed to go right up against
Speaker 3: the fire. They would get scorched. So if you're talking
Speaker 3: about a fire screen that goes right up against the fire,
Speaker 3: you're going to be talking about different kinds of materials.
Speaker 3: But anyway, the main point being made in this video
Speaker 3: that I thought was worth noting was that at least
Speaker 3: within the Victorian middle class household in Britain, the fireplace
Speaker 3: and its immediate surroundings and furnishings are just a big
Speaker 3: part of how a domestic unit expressed and understood who
Speaker 3: they were. And so these decorated fire screens were not
Speaker 3: just functional. They carried a lot of meaning and it
Speaker 3: had people's identities kind of poured into them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as is often the case with these sorts
Speaker 2: of things, sometimes the aesthetics completely dwarf any functionality that
Speaker 2: it might have had, and you can see this in
Speaker 2: some of the more elaborate designs. One that really caught
Speaker 2: my eyes. This is one that you'll find various antiques
Speaker 2: listed with varying degrees of context and information. I found
Speaker 2: a Victorian fireplace screen on mossinfog dot com and I've
Speaker 2: included a picture of it here for you, Joe. It
Speaker 2: is made apparently with real taxidermide and hummingbirds, like seemingly
Speaker 2: dozens of them, and I cannot tell. I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: from the description or from certainly from the pictures whether
Speaker 2: there is a white screen involved here because it's shot
Speaker 2: against a white background, or if this is just open,
Speaker 2: if it's just like little artificial branches with a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuffed hummingbirds on them. In either case, this seems
Speaker 2: very much like the sort of fire screen that would
Speaker 2: maybe be in front of an inactive fireplace, or if
Speaker 2: it were in front of a live fireplace, it would
Speaker 2: be positioned good ways out. Otherwise you're just going to
Speaker 2: roast your poor little taxidermy hummingbirds, and or it's going
Speaker 2: to shine right through it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the other point. If this is in fact
Speaker 3: open and not a solid screen, that's not going to
Speaker 3: be blocking a lot of heat, and certainly the taxidermy birds,
Speaker 3: I'm sure with scorch. Yeah. So yeah, I wonder about
Speaker 3: the usage here. I wonder if there were fire screens
Speaker 3: that were where the function in blocking the intense heat
Speaker 3: from the fire was not really a consideration, and there
Speaker 3: were some that were just decorative. They're just there to
Speaker 3: cover up a fire screen that's not currently or cover
Speaker 3: up a fire that's not currently in use, or just
Speaker 3: there to i don't know, position farther away and kind
Speaker 3: of have something nice to look at the fire through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I definitely found it just a terrific example
Speaker 2: of this and an older source. I was reading Representative
Speaker 2: metal Work by Cora Lynn Daniels and this was published
Speaker 2: in the Decorator and Furniture eighteen eighty five. So we
Speaker 2: can look this up. I pulled it up on jay Store,
Speaker 2: and the paper here describes some elaborate antique fireplace elements,
Speaker 2: including a salamander decorated grate, so talking about the mythic
Speaker 2: salamander little reptilian creatures that were said to live and
Speaker 2: emerge or be born from burning logs. And it also
Speaker 2: highlights a fire screen that is made out of antique brass,
Speaker 2: jewels and glass, which itself was set before a hearth
Speaker 2: that also featured bits of colored glass placed before the fire,
Speaker 2: but behind the fire screen. So the idea here would
Speaker 2: apparently be you'd have these pieces of colored glass that
Speaker 2: are catching the light of the roaring fire, and essentially
Speaker 2: it's like you have a it's almost like a concert
Speaker 2: light display in your home. It sounds pretty splendid. Trippy,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, trippy. It's like some sort of
Speaker 2: a trippy light effect that you might purchase nowadays. Here's
Speaker 2: what the article says. Quote set before the gleaming glass
Speaker 2: coals which shone through this gorgeous screen and one hundred
Speaker 2: changeful hues, nothing could be imagined more effective to light
Speaker 2: one corner or side of a room done in deep,
Speaker 2: warm shade of brown crimson or maroon, or to supply
Speaker 2: a glow of color to an apartment finished in snowy
Speaker 2: white and gilt, although the effect of the former would
Speaker 2: be somewhat more artistic to our thinking, it.
Speaker 3: Seems kind of like a nineteenth century equivalent of a
Speaker 3: I don't know, lava lamp or a star projector or
Speaker 3: something a light based curiosity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And you can tell from the illustration didn't
Speaker 2: include a photo obviously, but an illustration of what has
Speaker 2: looked like, and you get the sense of almost like
Speaker 2: a piece of stained glass that was positioned in front
Speaker 2: of the fireplace. Yeah. So at a basic level, you
Speaker 2: can imagine that these screens are about just manipulating light
Speaker 2: in the room. I have to read. There's another snippet
Speaker 2: from this that I just found amusing though, where they're
Speaker 2: just talking about how the popularity of various antiques and
Speaker 2: maybe the dubious historical notes associated with them. The author writes,
Speaker 2: to those who have a craze for the antique or
Speaker 2: a rage for genuine old wares, it might be a
Speaker 2: beneficent lesson to examine this modern work so superior in beauty, richness,
Speaker 2: and finish to most of the things which quote came
Speaker 2: over on the Mayflower. The author then goes on to
Speaker 2: jestingly speculate just how many governor's chairs and tables the
Speaker 2: Mayflower must have contained if all of the claims of
Speaker 2: authenticity were correct.
Speaker 3: Nice, but in general, I didn't even know that was
Speaker 3: a common thing people say their furniture was on the Mayflower.
Speaker 2: Or may I don't know. I was not aware of
Speaker 2: this either. Maybe it was a thing around eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: five where everyone claimed to have had antique furniture that
Speaker 2: came over on the Mayflower, or something to that effect.
Speaker 2: I think they're just basically saying, like most of a
Speaker 2: lot of the stuff that out there is claiming to
Speaker 2: be super old, maybe isn't as old. But at the
Speaker 2: very least, I love the idea of this particular hearth
Speaker 2: that the author is describing here, with its salamanders, with
Speaker 2: its pieces of colored glass, and then this rich ornate
Speaker 2: screen that goes in front of the fire that I
Speaker 2: don't know. I may be just blowing it out of
Speaker 2: proportion in my mind, but I'm just imagining a sitting
Speaker 2: room lit up like a disco, and it's pretty fabulous.
Speaker 3: I would roller skatee in that drawing. Room. That sounds cool, But.
Speaker 2: It also sounds like the sort of innovation you might
Speaker 2: employ again in an environment where a fireplace is not
Speaker 2: a special occasion thing but something that you use all
Speaker 2: the time during certain seasons, and therefore there would be
Speaker 2: more of an effort to improve upon it and spruce
Speaker 2: it up with all these varying ideas, Whereas I mean,
Speaker 2: for many of us now, like if you get to
Speaker 2: fire up the fireplace, that is the treat in and
Speaker 2: of itself, and you are not thinking about, well, what
Speaker 2: kind of colored lights can I throw into the scenario, But.
Speaker 3: If you need it for heat every night, you might
Speaker 3: be thinking like, can I get some more TV channels
Speaker 3: on this?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, how do I get satellite on this hearth?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: Does that do it for fire screens?
Speaker 2: I think so? Yeah. So we present this again as
Speaker 2: essentially kind of an episode linked sidebar for our discussion
Speaker 2: of the heart that is now being featured involved episodes
Speaker 2: hearing the stuff to blow your mind feed But we'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from everyone out there, Folks with fireplaces,
Speaker 2: Folks with fireplaces in their past traditions than their culture
Speaker 2: right in, we'd love to hear from you. Maybe you
Speaker 2: can help us understand some of these lingering questions we have.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we'll just remind you of this. Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House.
Speaker 3: Sent huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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