Our ranch-style house in Ohio didn't have ac. But it had a full basement. We would put large fans in the upstairs windows and pull cooler air up from below. On especially humid days, the linoleum floor in the basement would be slick with condensation.

I don't remember sleeping, so maybe it was cool enough, or I had a fan.

Yes, I remember being sweltering hot at times. Our schools had no ac so the first few and last few weeks of school,were awful. Our house had window units but not in my room. There was one in my sister’s adjoining room and she was supposed to leave the door open between the rooms so my room would cool off, too. However, she enjoyed torturing me and would close the door so my room stayed hot. I remember those sticky hot nights! Imalso,remember an exhaust fan in an upstairs window that was supposed to cool off the house, but didnt.

Now I have central ac and also an attic fan. The attic fan does an amazing job of keeping the upstairs cool, along with the ac, of course.

I was about five years old in New Braunfels Texas. We were renting a house with a little 3'x3' fish pond.....I'd sit in it to stay cool. Later in the Summer my mom tried to explain it was too hot to sit in. I didn't believe her and tried it.....boiling HOT! :0)

I remember my grandfather visiting our house in Minneapolis one summer. He lived in Yuma, AZ. Apparently he was used to A/C and our house had none. He was complaining on how hot and humid is was at the time and would go out and sit on top of our picnic table in the shade to try to cool down.

I grew up in a small country town where the water was supplied from a pond with the pipes not buried very deeply. In summer the cold water was hotter than the hot water. We had a small hotel and would get our fresh fruit and vegetables delivered by truck once a week. I loved washing the lettuces because the truck was refrigerated and the lettuces were cold. I would submerge them in the hot (cold) tap water and when I held them up to drain the water out, it came out lovely and icy cold :-)

I would wring out my top sheet in water before bed time and sleep with the fan on to keep cool. I also had a sandalwood carved had fan I carried at school to fan myself at my desk.

In the main bar of the hotel we had a swamp cooler and I would put mint or lemon essence in it because the smell made it seem cooler somehow. One day the town eccentric remarked that our swamp cooler worked much better than the one he had at home. "How often do you put more water in it, Lenny?" we asked. "Water?" he replied. "I didn't know you had to put water in it!"

lol

I don't remember how it was when I was a kid, except I know for certain there was no AC.

When I moved to this old house, I used fans, lots of fans. Opening windows just let the humid air in. One time in particular, when I had dogs, I was so desperate that I loaded up all four dogs and we went to the car and turned on the AC to try and cool down for awhile. Yes, I had opened the garage door and cracked a window or two for safety.

I've only had central air since 2016 - what a blessing. That's when I bought the new furnace and decided at the last minute before install to add central air onto the unit. I had just figured before why bother with AC in this old house with so many cracks and holes. ha Never a problem so far.

I don't recall not having A/C in our home, but I do recall our single story elementary school building had huge walls of awning windows on one side and open walkways with overhangs on the opposite side. I seem to recall ceiling fans. The office had A/C, so it wasn't such a punishment to be sent there during the warmer months. By the time I went to jr. high, it was in a new 2 story school building with air conditioning and no windows that could be opened at all.

Our brick house must have been well insulated and there were lots of trees. I had a metal fan in my room like the rest. Now, going on long trips in a car without air conditioning through the miles of cornfields in Iowa a few times was soo tough.

I’ll never forget the summer of 1980. No a/c in the house or cars. We had 21 consecutive days over 100, along with no rain. I remember driving by a farm and seeing them bale up their soybean crop for cattle feed because it had dried up and died. We used a window fan to try and cool the house off but it wasn’t very effective.

The local TV station noted this period in one of their ”in this day in” segments.

When I was growing up my parents used those big floor fans. We lived in Navy housing until my dad retired in N. NV. The house he bought had a swamp cooler. I don't remember if the Navy housing had one or not. In San Pedro CA Navy housing where we lived before that we used the big floor fans. I remember sitting in front of them talking/singing into them. I spent most of my days then outside. Some days we kids would pop tar bubbles on the street when it got really hot. We also spent a lot of summer days at the pool and watching baseball games. I don't remember being uncomfortably hot.

I remember the days of no AC in the cars...driving in the summer was a nightmare with vinyl seats that would burn your legs if you wore shorts and having windows wide open with all the noise and air blowing in ... the only relief we got. And when you were stopped at a traffic light, the dead air was sweltering.

I grew up in southeast Texas, on the coast. We had no a/c and the school had no a/c until my senior year when a new school was built alongside the old one.

At home, we had a screened in front and back porch, and in the summer, I slept out there. We had fans. I don't recall being uncomfortable. At school there were huge windows along the outside wall and we had a large fan on a stand in there.

Evidently heat didn't bother me much. I spent most of my time outside in the summer. Lots of times I would lay on a pallet under the trees and read books from the Bookmobile. I spent a lot of time riding my horse in the summer too..

I still spend a large part of my day outside. The a/c in the house trailer is set at 78, which helps take the humidity out, and I have a large fan. In the office, in the barn, the a/c is also on 78. It is a room 24 x12. There is also a ceiling fan and a fan on a stand. It is comfortable in here to me.

When we lived on the bayou, we had a window unit in the bedroom. We were close to the bay and had a nice breeze most of the time. Big windows that were kept open in the rest of the house.

We didn't have central air until we moved into our new house and it is a blessing. At the old house, we did get a room ac for the bedroom so we could sleep at night. Otherwise it was nearly impossible.

hot. sweaty. we would pull the drapes on the windows til evening, and the open the windows hopimg to catch a breeze.

We didn’t have a/c until I worked for an a/c company and installed it; I’d guess I was about 20. I was miserable, but would sleep in the basement where it was cool. My parents barely used the a/c even then, always a struggle to get them to shut the windows and turn it on. In this latest heat wave my mom has caved and had it running. You’d barely know it though as she’s got it set to 80. So yeah, if I want to remember the days before a/c all I have to do us visit her.

As a child in central Texas, I slept in a bedroom that had a very large fan installed in the window, with panels on each side to make the enclosure of the fan fairly tight. There was a swamp across the road from our house, and so there were tons of mosquitoes there, which only came out at night. When I would wake up in the morning, there would be countless dead mosquitoes on the floor of my bedroom that had gotten killed by the fan, but as least none of them survived to bite me in the night.

I went to an air conditioned high school that was built just before my sophomore year - and it was a three year high school. Jr. high was grades 7-9, and high school was 10-12. I went to summer school in high school partly because it was air conditioned, but this also allowed me to take more electives during the normal year.

At home, my parents' bedroom and the living room always had A/C, but the children's bedrooms only had fans. I remember feeling sapped of energy most of the time, and I hated going outdoors in the heat. I was prone to fainting spells in the heat, but I think that was also party due to the fact that I was hypoglycemic, although I was not diagnosed as such until I was in my 20s.

During my dizzy or fainting spells, I would drift in and out of consciousness and would have a hard time distinguishing what was real. Often I would feel that I was stuck between two states of consciousness and would be aware of what I considered alternate realities or dimensions. I would also often walk around in a daze and sometimes feel that I was floating above the ground and therefore not really connected to the earth. This was often very disorienting for me.

Oh my, Lars. That sounds horrible!

I know I have heard you mention that you have never walked on a frozen lake. You should make it something for your bucket list, if you have one.

Nap time, Sunday's, with parents, sister, after church, with the large fan going, to cool us all, napping on the floor.

Days without a/c... I am living them now. I am looking forward to getting central air installed, hopefully this autumn.

Lived with my nana until I was about 6 back in the late 60's-early 70's with no ac, just remember fans and windows being open at night. Don't remember at that age of being oppressively hot.

No such memories, thank goodness. My mother lived without AC in a tropical climate. She said very thick stone walls and marble floors kept the house cool enough most of the time.

What I remember is that it went on and on and on.

Now I live in Florida. And it goes on and on and on!!!!!!

When we went to church, to a revival meeting, or to a funeral we would be given a free card board fan stapled to a stick. It would have an advertisement or a religious poem printed on it. Some users fanned rapidly, some with a slow hypnotizing motion. The church windows were raised high. They had no screens. Sometimes the men would build brush arbors and meetings were held open air style. At home when it was too hot to sleep mother would use her clothes sprinkling bottle and lightly sprinkle the bottom sheets on each bed, and turn on our one little electric fan.

We had ac at home, put in the year before I was born, but school and church didn't have it. My grandmother's house didn't have it. The new owners a added spacepak in 1995, a few years after they moved in. In 2002 my son's school didn't have it, but he was lucky. They were doing some remodeling, and a former office was his classroom, and IT had ac.

Tbh, I only remember sweltering in church in the later years, as an adult. Childhood, we just went with the flow.

My mom remembers when she moved to Chicago during wartime, they would sleep on the fire escape or on the beach of Lake Michigan!

We had window air conditioners in the bedrooms of the NYC apartment I grew up in, so while the living room, kitchen, etc. got pretty warm, at least we could sleep well. What was awful was riding the subway in the summer, before the trains were air-conditioned. I have a vague memory of being very small, sitting on what were then woven rattan subway seats (which by this time, the early '60s, were in pretty bad shape) and feeling the broken ends poking into the back of my legs while breathing in the hot, fetid air. When people complain about the subway now, I have no sympathy!

It never bothered me as a kid since we didn't have AC at all, but when I moved to Fla we bought a attic fan and that helped a lot but it was HOT. I didn't have AC in my car either so when I got to work I was dripping wet. I couldn't do it now.

I have no memories of air conditioning. I was born in Washington state - we didn't have it, no one did. No one needed it. An occasional warm evening was met with an open bedroom window, I don't even remember fans.

Our cars were not air conditioned.

When we converted our heat to a heat pump in the mid 80's, we then had air conditioning (that I didn't appreciate nearly as much as the whole house air cleaner, almost eliminated dusting ;0)). We used the air maybe twice a year. This close to the ocean, a cooling late afternoon NW breeze off the ocean is almost predictable.

We bought a long, low, single story house 9 years ago. Several trees around it. It has radiant heat in the ceilings. No air. I really could have used it last week, but I can't recall another time in my life I wished for air conditioning when at home.

As a child, our house in Kansas had 2 window units. 1 in the master bedroom and 1 in the living room. The room my sister & I shared had a little oscillating fan with a less than stellar guard on it. I recall flipping my pillow over looking for the "cool side." We never slept in the rooms w/the a/c. Not sure why?? Guess parents figured we were too young to be bothered by the heat. Yeah, right.

When we moved to Oklahoma, our house had central heat & air. Thank goodness!!

NONE of our relatives (in Arkansas) had a/c. I remember staying at an Aunts house for a few weeks in the summer and we slept out on the screened porch. All of us, Aunt, Uncle & cousins. Not sure which was louder, the cicadas & crickets, or my Uncle snoring. LOL I do know that I would get sick after being there. Turns out I had allergies to the mold & spores in the night air.

Grandparents had a swamp cooler, but the thing was SO loud! Sounded like there was a tractor in the room. In all seriousness, swamp coolers really don't help with the humidity is already higher than a kite.

Many of my still surviving Aunts that live in NW Arkansas still don't have a/c. Visited one just a few weeks ago, at least she has a basement. But the wallpaper is PEELING of the walls due to the humidity!!

My parents put in a window unit back in the early 70's. My brothers and I used to play outside in the heat a lot so I would get cold inside... and complain about it... a lot. The local elementary school didn't have air conditioning either. i think they adjusted the going back to school date until after labor day so they didn't have to deal with the heat as much.

Turning the pillow over and over at night, trying to find a cooler spot. Ugh, trying to sleep in the heat was so hard. No fans in the bedroom. Flopping from my back to my front, again trying to get some body surface get away from the too-warm matress....

Putting on shoes in the morning and it felt like someone else's feet had already been in them, heating them up.

Sitting down on a metal folding chair, expecting it to feel cool, only to find it was hotter than body temperature. Bare legs sticking to the chair so that when I stood up, the chair rose with me an inch or so, then fell back onto the floor.

Being allowed to dig a hole under the stilted back porch --in the deep shade and filling it up with water as a "swimming pool".

Making fans of accordion folded school papers, and taking pride in the precision of the fold. Trying to fluff up the hair on my head when using those fans so the sweat would evaporate and cool just a tad bit better.

Teachers having everybody just sit down and be still to cool off after recess. There was an oscillating fan, and I longed to be one of the kids who sat close to it. Out came those paper fans after recess and they did a better job of cooling than did the electric classroom fan. Teacher was always trying to convince us that fanning ourselves would only make us hotter, that we needed to be still, but I didn't buy that

Never passing up an opportunity to go swimming.

Our farmhouse had large back porch and front porch. We had feather beds and placed them on porch to sleep. First time for air conditioning was at college in 1956.

I remember playing in the basement a lot, riding my tricycle. Mom canning down there cause it was cooler. We went to the public library frequently, and stayed all afternoon and read books.

i am 70ish, and, to this day my favorite summer sleep is on cotton sheets and in front of a fan and an opened window. i love the white noise of the fan, the feel of the old fashioned plain weave cotton sheets and the sounds of the nighttime critters that will drift in.

Just this past week I claimed a space in our house for me. Now I have my own bedroom and a window that opens onto a screened porch, and, thus had no other screen on it. I am not too worried about an open window.

I have one old fashioned cotton sheet that is only for me.

The last time I had my own bedroom was when I was 17. That was a long time ago.

I also have a fan that makes a sound but not quite the same as those old fashiioned fans.

I have an antigue vintage fan and that is the absolute best one. It makes those old fashioned fan sounds and it gives a breeze that is so much better than any of the modern ones. But, I dont use it at night unsupervised. It is old.

We never had air conditioning when I was a kid. And, we did live in places in the south. We usually had a hugh attic fan that drew in a breeze through the open windows.

I think that many dont live with opened windows anymore, for various reasons,

I hate sleeping in an air conditioned room with nothing but that.

My parents had a hugh window fan that was permanent in a back window. You had to hold on to the couch when it turned on because it was so powerful. I love having a nice breeze in the house. and hate being cooped up in air conditioning. We have air conditioning but have not ever used it very much until the last couple of years when hubs began to have some health issues. We live in the mid Atlantic, so it does get hot. But we both do not like to be all cooped up in the closed house. We turn it off at night and back on before it gets hot in the day, but not everyday.

We would sleep outside when it was too hot inside. I remember looking up at the milky way and my mother saying she had trouble thinking of something with no beginning and no end. I still haven't quite forgiven her for making me try to imagine that!

I remember one or two big window fans upstairs in our large 1914 house. It seems to me that our house tended to be a bit cooler than the 1950s-1960s houses that surrounded us. No one in the neighborhood had A/C, but we and another family had swimming pools that everyone congregated at. When not swimming, though (because it required a parent to supervise), we played in cooler basements, or in the shade of the numerous large trees, or went down to the creek in the bottom of the wooded ravine that coursed nearby. I do remember on the very hottest days that I would sometimes go inside to stand in front of the open freezer for a few minutes (until my mother caught me!) - but overall I think that we just "got used to it". Having access to water to drink (from hoses, no one thought they were any danger then) helped a lot, also.

Nights were the worst, because of residual heat in the house - but we had a large screened in porch where us kids would sometimes sleep, and those big fans really helped too.

Both of my schools were old buildings, so they had the tall windows that could open top and bottom for better air circulation. I really think that made a difference. I do remember being hot, but not really sweaty hot - don't remember any concerns from the class or the teachers that it was too hot for us to do our work - and the classrooms had stand fans going too. School was always out after Memorial Day until after Labor Day, so we weren't there during the hottest weather.

ETA: I remember going to visit my "aunt" (really my grandmother's niece, who was older that she!) who was also in an old, classic style farmhouse. In summer, the blinds and curtains were always closed, and I remember how noticeably cooler it was inside of her house, I am sure because of that.

I've enjoyed reading people's recollections, and was thinking about this topic recently. I wish everyone had included approximates dates. I grew up completely without AC including in any car, and never knew anyone who had ac in their house either. In the 50's in New England we had a Voronado oscillating fan parents set up for my sister and me which they took to their room after we fell asleep. The only AC I recall were movie theaters with the sign "Air conditioned" but gradually more and more stores would advertise AC in window signs and Ads. None of my schools had AC, even the Jr high built in the 60's. Actually the first newly built house in the early 70's where I raised my kids didn't have AC but our first apartment before did. I spent a lot of time in that house cooling it down overnight with big fans and closing everything up early every hot day like your aunt did, Raee.

I can't recall any home we lived in not having Central Air. Camping would be the only time we suffered heat.

Oh the memories..... Dad would go to the basement to sleep so he could get some rest. We just tossed and turned in bed all night with fans. DH and I never had A/C in the first five years. Luckily we live in Michigan and it was only hot for a month or two.

As a young kid, we didn't have AC. I remember lying at the base of my bed near the open window. They built a new house in 1950 and we had a big window unit in the dining room which cooled the whole one floor house. In my married life we didn't have any and later had bedroom units and one big window unit in the family room. Years ago we got a new gas furnace and whole-house AC. I remember having to be talked into it as I said I love opening windows all thru out the house. I don't do that anymore. Everything is shut up all the time except the very few cool days we have. I still have one window unit because I like my bedroom freezing.

I do remember before and after A/C in cars. Mostly, I remember AFTER -

My parents were smokers, and Dad loved his cigars. Shortly before my freshman year in college (in Indiana) my parents got a car with A/C. We lived in NY, just outside of New York City. It was a two-day trip of driving to campus.

Dad always wanted to start off the day of our driving with him driving. Dad and Mom were in the front seats, puffing away whenever they wanted, which seemed continual. I was in the back, choking, my eyes watering. I'd tried to roll down the window, just enough to get fresh air. Those cigars, especially, were brutal.

"Roll that back up! NOW!: We are not going to air condition Pennsylvania!"

Of course it would come my turn to take over driving. I would try to beg off: "My eyes are watering, I can barely keep them open!"

"Nonsense, you are just being lazy!"

Of course, the second morning, I asked if I could drive first, before the car got unbearably smoky.

Dad said, "No, I'm driving now. Your turn will be later." He was fresh again, of course.

That experience was seriously the only time I loathed the existence of A/C.

I was 17 when we went out for my freshman year in college. I think my parents got their new car with A/C sometime halfway through my 16th year, since it was the previous summer I got my driver's license. I took the test drive on a very hot day in my parent's car, and the guy who tested me really relaxed into his seat when he realized this car had air conditioning. I did well but my parents decided that my very good score was in part due to his having an A/C ride.

(Dad tried teaching me to drive, but he was someone who would panic the moment I put my foot on the accelerator - in the driveway, before it had moved much of anywhere at all. I ended up with Mom teaching me - a lot better on ALL our nerves!)

Oh, my! I have not thought of a swamp cooler in ages! I remember those.

We never had air conditioning in school , and this was in places like S Carolina and down on the Texas/Mexico border.

I remember in SC how the teacher would close the big manilla colored shades against the hot sun, and that was all that was done. And, we were never told that we could not go out for recess because it was too hot. When we came back in after, we all lined up at the drinking fountain in the hall before settling back down.

In my later school days in Texas, our school was an old building that had very huge trees all around it and ginormous double hung windows that opened. There were no screens on the windows and I am sure that would not go over well in todays world. But, no one fell out the second story window and I dont remember bugs beign a problem. There were pigeons that would sit on the window sill and make noise.

Sadly, they moved all of us students to a newly built school in my last year and that school sat out in the hot desert sun and had not one window in any classroom. It was awful!!! It was like being in a tunnel or a cave. I loved sitting in one of those old classrooms with the open windows. It was like being in the trees when on the second floor.

I still love an opened window and we use our air only when it gets really hot. That is mainly for hubs who has some advancing health issues.

I also spent a number of years in Alaska. We did not have any air cond but it never got that warm, except for now.

artemis, I remember when parents would smoke in the car with their kids. My parents did not smoke, thank goodness . Hubs parents did smoke in the car and everywhere else, too

The tobacco smoke gets into everthing and I know that littel boy hubs must have smelled terrible with that smoke in every fiber of his hair and skin and clothes.

Thank goodness that sensibilites have changed! People used to reek of that smell.

Even up until the last couple of decades when we went to visit his family we would have to wash and air all of our clothes after we got home. And you can never get that smell out of a house.

I like a lot of air circulating around in a house.

Air conditioning and tobacco smoke are two things that have changed in my adult lifetime. Many more have air now and very few stink up the house and all in it with tobacco. I cant remember the last time I actually was in the presence of a smoker.

But, we were tougher back in those days. No one told us kids not to go out because it was too hot or too cold . (deep south, and Alaska) . We did not have air cond and we never thought twice about it. It was just life.

We never drank out of a plastic water bottle, either or used liquid body wash, and we grew up just fine.

I love a warm summer night in a clean fresh bed and with the whirl of fan in front of the opened window. It is so soothing, to me. And, to make it even better is to have a sun dried sheet. Yes, I know that it sounds like a cliche, but it is true for me. The same for a towel. I like that slightly rough feeling, but I never use fabric softener anyway and I find the smell of such chemicals to be offensive and invasive.

I love a well ventilated and perfume/scent free house.

Nothing better than sun-dried sheets and towels and I hang the wash every non rainy day thru out the year and plop the fresh sheets back on the bed. Heavenly.

Something else I remember, about my first married life apartment. It was the top floor of an old house in a very old part of town (all the houses on the nearby streets had been built in the 1860s or so). This neighborhood was also close to the paper mills that were the dominant industry in town, and some of the foundries (we had 3 safe manufacturers in town, also!) were not far. No environmental protection laws then, so the air pollution was such that in warm seasons, when I had to keep the windows open for air, I had to wash the kitchen table before every meal.

I remember when the family would go on car trips, my teenage sister would have a fit if the windows were open because it would muss up her hair! Can you imagine 6 people in the car, no AC, and the windows closed? Mom told her that was what scarves were for, but by then they were falling out of fashion so sis wasn't a fan of the idea...

raee, those paper mills really stink, too!

We lived in El Dorado, Arkansas with the oil companies. That town smelled like the part of the anatomy that it resembled, go figure. What a horrid place! We were only there for a short time, but our son has the dubious honor of having to list it as his place of birth.

It was not dust that settled into the house, but it was the heavy stench that lingered behind and around anything. It was not normal air. It was heavy fumes. It did not dissapate until it was stirred up.

We had one unit in a window and it was enough to cool the whole house as the whole house was not as big as are some of the "master suits" that I see in some of these new builds.