Florida Career College to Close Doug Lederman Fri, 01/26/2024 - 03:00 AM Byline(s) Doug Lederman from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/avZRfLi
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries several outbreaks of infectious disease in the U.S. , including the flu, tuberculosis, and pneumonia, prompted public-health officials and homemaking experts to suggest a tweak to American bedrooms as a safety measure: Couples (and children) sleep in separate beds. As a result, twin beds quickly entrenched themselves as a staple in American homes and remained popular long after the plague outbreak was over. In the mid-20th century it was still relatively rare to see depictions of married couples sleeping in the same bed (see: I Love Lucy , The Dick Van Dyke Show ). Hilary Hinds, an English professor at the U.K.’s Lancaster University who wrote A Cultural History of Twin Beds , argues that while the smaller beds were a huge cultural fad, it’s not clear numbers-wise exactly how many households adopted them. She cites one 1950 study in her book that found more than two in three beds purchased in the U.S. at the time were twins, compared with ...