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Have you ever wondered how common materials such as wood or brick became the building blocks of our homes? This terrific story touches on both colonial British and early American history.

Let’s start with wood, which owes its use as a building material to the British colonies in North America. When newly-arrived settlers began establishing homesteads, they faced a problem – namely, a lack of limestone. Back in Britain, they would have built their homes from a combination of mud and sticks, held together with lime. But lime was not available in North America and without it, the settlers’ early houses were shoddy and fragile. Houses fell down so often that it was rare to find one that had stood for more than ten years.

We’ve learned that building materials, like wood and stone, were used to build homes based on availability and affordability. Yet fashion also played a part in determining a builder’s preference.

When expensive stone wasn’t an option, many English families opted to use brick to build their homes. This was often the case in areas where limestone was in short supply, like in London. What London did have was quantities of iron-rich clay that builders could bake into bricks at a building site, eliminating transportation costs entirely.

Your biggest complaint about your mattress is probably that it’s either too firm or too soft. Regardless of your preference, you probably would have loathed your mattress in the nineteenth century.

Beds of this era were often stuffed with all manner of things, both dead and alive!

A bath can either be a cozy, soothing retreat from the stresses of life or a time-consuming, albeit necessary, hygienic measure. Yet taking a bath today is nothing like it was in ancient Rome.

Many Romans delighted in spending time in grand bathing halls, a practice that was a lifestyle choice for socializing and not just a necessary habit to keep clean.  

If you glance at a dining table anywhere in the Western world, you’ll see shakers of salt and pepper. But have you ever wondered why this combo became such a permanent table fixture?

Well salt is essential to human biology. For thousands of years, humans have gone to great lengths – from the creative to the violent– to secure salt. This makes sense when you know that, without salt, you’ll die.