Colonists Keeping Warm

These two informational articles, Keeping Warm in the Winter by Tom Kernan and How to Keep Warm by Kathleen Krull both explain the challenges that colonists faced while living in a cold winter climate.

First, one example from Keeping warm in the Winter to prove how colonial people faced the challenge of keeping warm, is a letter that Warren Johnson had written to his brother “ ‘December the 28th, 1760. It was so cold as to freeze almost anything by the fire’s side: The frost is so intense, that if you walk in leather boots & gloves, you are frostbitten.’ ” This quote tells us that the winter was so unbearable, that even if you are fully wrapped up you will still be extremely cold. On the other hand, How to Keep Warm talks to us about Benjamin

As an example, in the article Keeping Warm in the Winter talks about a few tiny inventions that colonists created to keep themselves warm such as: “ One of those items was a bed warmer. A bed warmer is a brass pan and lid attached to a long wooden handle. By filling the pan with hot embers and running the pan under the covers, colonials could warm up their beds before getting in.” This is one of the many clever ideas that colonists came up with during the harsh winters. What this invention does is it lets the colonials beds stay warm by placing hot embers on a brass pan then the heat radiates through the brass and makes your bed nice and cozy for a good night's rest. In How to Keep Warm Ben Franklin tackled this problem a bit differently than the other colonists by inventing a new type of wood burning stove. “Franklin’s idea was a new kind of wood burning stove. He would move the fire from an open hearth into a metal box that was inside the fireplace and connected to the chimney. Behind the metal box, he added a “winding passage” of small metal chambers that made hot air travel a longer path and kept it from escaping so quickly. Metal is a good conductor of heat, so the heat in the metal box was captured and radiated into the