At the beginning of the twentieth
century a city needed to breath. I think it’s one of the fundamental
differences between how urban life is expected to be experienced today and how
it was experienced in, say, 1912. The modern city expects to divorce itself
from the environment. When it’s hot people head inside to cool off, when it’s
cold people head inside to warm up. We control the environment. The city is
buttoned up and contained. A Globe and Mail column by Neil Reynolds expresses
this attitude rather well. Concerned about global warming? Fret not, Reynolds
argues, we’ll cope by turning up the air conditioning. Of course, the
climate-controlled city is as much myth as reality. People still suffer in the
heat today and freeze in the winter. Though perhaps we don’t suffer quite as
equally as we once did; although the following discussion does suggest that
escape from the heat was always easier for the monied classes.
Toronto was hit with a heat wave
in 1912. But the time the city was a week into the heat wave the Toronto Daily
Star reported on July 10 that it had caused a heavy list of deaths. “The hand
of the hot weather lies heaviest upon the little children. In the poorer
districts this is felt most keenly, but it is true of all parts of the city.”[1]
Of the 125 deaths reported in the city during the past week, the newspaper
noted that 50 were of children under two years old. The star listed off the
ways that people coped with the weather, from kids playing in a bathtub to
workers dressing down on the job or staying away from work entirely.
My old friend the cupless fountain pops up a few times in
this story. The Star notes, “A new use has been found for the cupless drinking
fountains which have been placed on the streets and in the parks. The discoverer
was the youthful driver of a delivery wagon. He stopped to get a drink for
himself and then directing the stream by his finger gave his horse a shower
bath. The horse was not a bit frightened, but acted as if he would be willing
to stand there a week.”[2]
But, and this my buried lead, we
get a sense that the city expected to “breath” during a heat wave. Taking off
clothes on the job was one way to do it. But people would also flow outside and
to the lakes to escape the heat, rather than flowing inside as they might today
to get into the air conditioning. It speaks to an urban environment that was,
and expected to be, engaged with the natural environment. As the Star put it: “Many
people slept in the parks last night. Some were to be found in every park,
although Queen’s Park, on account of its proximity to the Ward [Toronto’s
poorest] district], was the most popular. Some went as far out as High Park,
but these were mostly parties of young men. In the other parks were people of
all ages.”[3]
As always, gender matters. It was
far easier for the men to flee the sweltering built environment for spaces such
High Park. Another reminder of how much public space was, is, male space. Class
matters once again, with Queen’s Park filling up with citizens from the Ward
although I would suggest that it was not merely the poor who fled their houses
to get out of the heat. Though certainly the wealthy would have had more
options on places to flee too. Still, when the early twentieth century city
spoke of its parks as breathing spaces for citizens, it was being quite
literal. I’ll be digging into heat waves more as I go along.
 |
| A light hearted look at how Toronto was coping with a heat wave in 1912. "Conquering the heat on Lake Shore and in Queen's Park," The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, July 11, 1912, Page 2. |
[1] “Heat Waves
takes Many Children to Early Graves,” The
Toronto Daily Star, Wednesday, July 10, 1912, Page 4.
[2] “Heat Waves
takes Many Children to Early Graves,” The
Toronto Daily Star, Wednesday, July 10, 1912, Page 4.
[3] “Heat Waves
takes Many Children to Early Graves,” The
Toronto Daily Star, Wednesday, July 10, 1912, Page 4.
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