What Did Early Americans Actually Do All Day?

If you woke up at sunrise in early America, you were already late. So what did ordinary people actually do all day, with no clocks, no stores, no running water and no machines? From hauling water before dawn and baking in a brick oven, to washing day, flax and homespun, apprentices, the 1721 smallpox fight in Boston, taverns, husking bees, slow roads and the strange old habit of "first sleep", this is one full day in early America, from the dark before sunrise to the middle of the night. Main sources: William Byrd II, The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709–1712 Mary Cooper, The Diary of Mary Cooper: Life on a Long Island Farm, 1768–1773 Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography; Poor Richard's Almanack Eliza Lucas Pinckney, letters (c. 1740–1742) William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643) William Wood, New England's Prospect (1634) Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale (1990) and The Age of Homespun (2001) Zabdiel Boylston, An Historical Account of the Small-Pox Inoculated in New England (1726) Sarah Kemble Knight, The Journal of Madam Knight (1704–1705) Alice Morse Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days (1898), Child Life in Colonial Days (1899), Stage-Coach and Tavern Days (1900) Joel Barlow, The Hasty Pudding (1793) A. Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (2005) Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint (1998) Illustrations are artistic reconstructions created for this video. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 1:26 No Clock on the Wall 2:25 Before Sunrise 4:10 Breakfast 4:47 The Farm 6:39 The First Americans 8:08 A Woman's Work 9:42 Washing Day 10:23 From Seed to Shirt 11:42 Small Hands 12:55 When Someone Fell Sick 14:56 Dinner at Noon 15:46 The Village 16:48 Not Their Own Days 18:04 Work into Parties 18:59 The Tavern 19:49 The Road 21:11 The Seventh Day 21:59 The Evening 23:02 First Sleep 24:01 Life Before Us TAGS colonial America, early American history, history documentary, daily life, colonial life, life in the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin, Martha Ballard, first sleep, smallpox 1721, Onesimus, homespun, life before electricity, Life Before Us