1 00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:03,760 Speaker 1: Okay, what do hormones, half a gallon of water, and 2 00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:06,960 Speaker 1: knocker uppers have in common? Well, it all had to 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:09,920 Speaker 1: do with something every single one of us do every day. 4 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:14,120 Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. Rise and shine and make it snappy, sleepyhead. 5 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:22,720 Speaker 1: That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back, all right. 6 00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:25,280 Speaker 1: Most of us have to get up at certain set 7 00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:29,760 Speaker 1: times to go somewhere right, work, school appointments, events. We 8 00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:32,320 Speaker 1: let our phones give us the wake up call. And 9 00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:35,800 Speaker 1: some folks still use an alarm clock. But here's the thing. 10 00:00:36,159 --> 00:00:40,159 Speaker 1: The first working mechanical alarm clock only got patented in 11 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:43,919 Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six. Does that mean that nobody had to 12 00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:47,280 Speaker 1: be anywhere on time before one hundred and fifty years ago. 13 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:51,440 Speaker 1: That's an excellent question. Now, in fairness, there was less 14 00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:55,520 Speaker 1: emphasis on being on time before that. But two things 15 00:00:55,640 --> 00:00:58,520 Speaker 1: changed the way we use time, and as always, that 16 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:03,000 Speaker 1: inspired an invention, in this case alarm clocks. Now, the 17 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,679 Speaker 1: first change was the advent of shift work during the 18 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,759 Speaker 1: Industrial Age. Up to that point, most people worked on farms. 19 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:12,160 Speaker 1: They either owned one or they worked for somebody else 20 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,720 Speaker 1: that owned one. They woke up with the daylight, roosters crowing, 21 00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:19,080 Speaker 1: sheep and pigs calling to be fed, and cows fed 22 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:23,480 Speaker 1: and milked. But once factories kicked into high gear, they 23 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:26,479 Speaker 1: needed a lot of people to work various shifts around 24 00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:30,200 Speaker 1: the clock, and those people needed to be on time. Now. 25 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,080 Speaker 1: In addition to that, around the same period with the 26 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:37,080 Speaker 1: arrival of trains, there was the arrival of train schedules, 27 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:40,160 Speaker 1: so you needed to know what time the train was 28 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:43,200 Speaker 1: getting in sort of exactly and when it was leaving. 29 00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:45,920 Speaker 1: And that meant folks had to make sure they were 30 00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:48,960 Speaker 1: aware of time in a much more exacting modern way, 31 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:53,000 Speaker 1: thus the invention of the alarm clock. But that's not 32 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,240 Speaker 1: all there is to it. Previous to that, people still 33 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,520 Speaker 1: had to wake up on time for all kinds of reasons. 34 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 1: Early on, keeping track of time was always about our 35 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:06,320 Speaker 1: tie to the natural world, and a little bit later 36 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:10,600 Speaker 1: on maybe church bells, farmers were dawned to dusk, store 37 00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:13,320 Speaker 1: owners opened up when they arrived, and if kids went 38 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:16,200 Speaker 1: to school, there was a school bell. Lots of times 39 00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:18,480 Speaker 1: bells were wrong to tell folks it was time to 40 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:20,959 Speaker 1: get ready and again when it was time to head out. 41 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,480 Speaker 1: None of that was exact, though, But first of all, 42 00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:27,840 Speaker 1: humans were just much more in touch with their circadian 43 00:02:27,919 --> 00:02:31,280 Speaker 1: rhythms than we are today. They paid attention when their 44 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:34,560 Speaker 1: bodies said it's time to eat, time to sleep, time 45 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:37,680 Speaker 1: to wake up. When they woke up after just several 46 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:40,760 Speaker 1: hours of sleep, they would get stuff done and then 47 00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:43,800 Speaker 1: maybe a few hours later, go back to sleep until daylight. 48 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: That was segmented sleep, and nobody felt stressed out or 49 00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:51,480 Speaker 1: guilty about it. But there were always some pretty ingenious 50 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:55,600 Speaker 1: ways of waking up going back hundreds even thousands of years, 51 00:02:55,720 --> 00:02:59,360 Speaker 1: when you simply had to get up. The klepsydra or 52 00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:03,360 Speaker 1: water c was turned into an early alarm clock almost 53 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:07,200 Speaker 1: twenty five hundred years ago. It was a vessel filled 54 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,519 Speaker 1: with water that slowly dripped out with a hollow metal 55 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:15,680 Speaker 1: ball floating inside. When the water dripped low enough, the 56 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:19,760 Speaker 1: ball hit another piece of metal and that sounded an alarm. 57 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:23,799 Speaker 1: Another method for waking up totally used our bodies as 58 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:27,480 Speaker 1: the alarm. Early man drank tons of water if he 59 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:31,240 Speaker 1: needed to wake up before the sun. Why well, duh. 60 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:34,120 Speaker 1: The call of nature was a natural alarm. You have 61 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:36,960 Speaker 1: to get up to pee, right, and they knew exactly 62 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: how much they had to drink to get up at 63 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:45,400 Speaker 1: a certain time. Actually, the custom of over drinking, as 64 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:48,440 Speaker 1: they sort of called it, before bed was even used 65 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:52,480 Speaker 1: by Native Americans right into the twentieth century. Warriors would 66 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:55,400 Speaker 1: figure out in advance what time they needed to wake up, 67 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:58,880 Speaker 1: and then they would regulate the exact amount of water 68 00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,000 Speaker 1: to drink before going to bed, and that would tell 69 00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:05,200 Speaker 1: them when they had to get up. Another method for 70 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:09,680 Speaker 1: being awakened on time involved candle clocks. These started in 71 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:14,360 Speaker 1: ancient China. They were candles embedded with nails. They knew 72 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:16,760 Speaker 1: how long it would take the candle to burn down 73 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,440 Speaker 1: to certain levels, so as the wax melted away, the 74 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,640 Speaker 1: nails were released and would clatter onto a metal tray 75 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:27,560 Speaker 1: below for that all important wake up call. And Finally, 76 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:31,120 Speaker 1: as folks began working outside the house more often including 77 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:34,480 Speaker 1: it jobs like factory shift work, there were people who 78 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:37,960 Speaker 1: made a living going door to door waking folks up. 79 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:42,160 Speaker 1: Knocker uppers. These were guys who carried long sticks which 80 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: they used to tap on somebody's window or run it 81 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,960 Speaker 1: down their shutters until the sleeper woke up. Some knocker 82 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:52,080 Speaker 1: uppers even used straws through which they would shoot dried 83 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:57,360 Speaker 1: peas at their client's windows. Interestingly, there were still knocker 84 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: Uppers in England as recently as the nineteen seventies. You 85 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,480 Speaker 1: know what I love about all of this. It tells 86 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:15,920 Speaker 1: you something about the human experience. Stuff needs to get 87 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:18,880 Speaker 1: done and we figure out how to do it based 88 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:22,400 Speaker 1: on the tools at hand. In the thousands, even millions 89 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:24,960 Speaker 1: of years of human history, we had to make do 90 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:28,719 Speaker 1: with our own or sometimes other people's ingenuity in order 91 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 1: to improve our experience. So if you like to watch 92 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:36,200 Speaker 1: those apocalyptic stories and you worry about the grid shutting down, 93 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:40,159 Speaker 1: just know we can handle it. But maybe we're going 94 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:43,120 Speaker 1: to have to bring back the knocker Uppers right, might 95 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:51,760 Speaker 1: need a waker up er from your knocker upper. Hope 96 00:05:51,760 --> 00:05:54,719 Speaker 1: you're liking the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would love 97 00:05:54,760 --> 00:05:58,159 Speaker 1: it if you would subscribe or follow for free to 98 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:01,800 Speaker 1: get new episodes delivered automatic, and feel free to dm 99 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,239 Speaker 1: me if you have a story you'd like me to cover. 100 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,719 Speaker 1: On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Reel Patty Steele. 101 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:15,720 Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, 102 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:19,760 Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer 103 00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:23,120 Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new 104 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:26,680 Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out 105 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,160 Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram 106 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 1: at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. 107 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:36,760 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the 108 00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:39,760 Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.