what time did they usually go to bed?
no electricity so what 6 7 pm? i mean they had to be up really early
when did the mercantile close?
Probably 7 or 8 in the evening as Charles liked to tell stories or play his fiddle. Maybe a little earlier in the winter. I would imagine the mercantile hours varied based on the time of year. When farming was in full swing I would imagine it opened by sun up and closed by sundown. Otherwise I would guess open by 7:30 AM and close by 5:00 PM but I would imagine Nels would come to the door if you needed something after hours. Harriet not so much. Where I grew up there was a business that the wife was hands on with and that woman made Harriet looked comparatively docile. Very little of their business the last couple of decades came from the local community as everybody tired of the wife's numerous moody spells.
share Yeah, before electric lights you went to bed when it got dark and got up with the sun, especially on farms. Really there would be no reason to stay up until ten or eleven if it just meant burning more candles. What would you do anyway? Watch TV, surf the web? lol
There were probably some folks in the upper class who stayed up late because they attended the opera and concerts. If you had to study you might stay up late. But on the whole, working class people and especially farmers went to bed when it got dark so they could be up at dawn.
how did they do opera at night before electricity?
thats a lot of candles!
Yeah a lot of candles! The ancient Greeks had open air theaters outdoors. Performances were in the daytime to take advantage of the light.
Around the 15th century oil lamps made it possible to have night performances. In the following centuries there were kerosene lamps, gas lighting, and you've probably heard of the limelight! They still also used candles.
There were a lot of creative ways to light a theater for evening performances.