Aren't we glad for air conditioning?

Air conditioning is the removal of heat from indoor air for thermal comfort.  So says Wikipedia. Aren't you glad you were not born in pioneer times......... or even any era prior to mechanical air conditioning? Our modern units are indeed, modern, dating only back 100 years or so.

You probably cannot read the writing on this historic photo but it says: Mansion in Oklahoma. Just imagine the Oklahoma prairie in August............ in a windowless abode........... wearing this heavy long dress........ trying to keep your family alive and not having time to worry about how how you were........... and wearing a white (or it was white) apron! Wonder if that was just for the photo? I'm sure these settlers were living what they considered the free and good life but we, from a 21st century prospect, see only BEING TOO HOT.

Do any of you have letters or diaries or accounts of how our ancestor families coped with the heat? Of course they knew no different, but still. I had no homesteading ancestors so I have no accounts; if you do, would you share??

Aren't you glad you were not born in pioneer times???