The History of the Mattress

Dec 1
08:15

2011

Anna Woodward

Anna Woodward

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The common mattress has evolved from early days of sleeping on the floor to the wide choices of beds today.

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You probably take your mattress for granted and don't give it much thought at the end of a hard day when you collapse on it and fall to sleep. But the bed as we know it today has evolved from a long line of styles going back to the goat skin filled with water mattress that was used in Persia in 3600 B.C and moving up to the bed that was basically just a cloth bag filled with whatever was available in the area at the time including straw or if you were wealthy you could fill your bedding with feathers.

It wasn't until the 16th or 17th century that beds began to be placed up off the floor and on to frames. They were still stuffed with straw or feathers but at least the bed itself had risen off the cold hard ground to a new level of comfort.

From there the bed continued to evolve and by the 18th century the bed was stuffed with cotton or wool instead of the natural raw materials that were readily available but necessarily comfortable to sleep on.

Once the industrial age evolved,The History of the Mattress Articles the way beds were made changed drastically and the everyday bed took its biggest jump since in comfort since it jumped off the floor to a bed frame. Not only did this era change how Americans lived and worked it also changed how they slept as well. The box spring was invented for greater support, followed by a mattress made with inner springs to increase the comfort and life span of the common bed.

The twentieth century created new technology and the bed once again took its biggest leap since the industrial age to conform to the style of the decade it evolved in. For example with the World War two looming in the 1940's and supplies for almost everything being rationed to help the war effort, the air bed was introduced.

A few decades later with the civil rights era of free love and peace mottos- the water bed which was a throwback to the original Persia bed made of goat skin filled with water, became a popular fixture and stayed popular for decades before it was slowly ebbed out by the popularity of the new mattress of the new decade.

The new decade of the 1970's took a turn away from civil rights and peace marches and took the American people to a new era and the outer limits of space. But the space era did more than give us moon rocks and new information on our solar system it also gave the American people Tang, NASA and memory foam beds.

Today the average mattress comes in more sizes, styles and comfort levels than our ancestors could ever have imagined possible as they slept on beds filled with straw or feathers and it would be hard for us to imagine not having the choices we have when it comes to the comfort of our beds at night.