Today, its cold, miserable and rainy. The leaves on the trees are slowly subsiding and floating to the ground as though it were weighted by the gravity of the rain drops, forcing an effortless thing to the ground with delicate magnetism.
Just the other day, a friend of mine and I were discussing the rapid changes of our Tennessee weather, and how Hallowe’en night seemed to spark the cold changes. The conversation dwindled and I tossed around the novelty of the cold winter months lasting for longer than normal, upon which she told me of the year without summer… an astronomical event which occurred in ye ole’ dandy days of 1815-1818. I had never heard about this phenomenon, and decided to research this fascinating catastrophe.
Imagine a time when winter came in January, Spring briefly came, but there was no summer… none whatsoever… but instead sharply plummeted into a winter which lasted for 3 years. Imagine snow in July and frozen bodies of water in August… which has always been the hottest time of the year in the U.S. How can this have really happened? And how did people cope with such extreme temperatures?
Landscape of Mt. Vesuvius
On April 10, 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano nestled on the tip of an island in Indonesia, erupted. The eruption was so devastating and so massive that on today’s volcanic scaling, Mount Tambora’s wake ranks number 7 on the 8 count scale, making this eruption the largest global catastrophe and crisis the world had ever recorded.
With the rising fumes, molten lava and poisonous toxins released from the Earth’s core, the ash, dust, and sulfur dioxide was propelled into the atmosphere and was so powerful that it killed over 90,000 inhabitants in Asia alone that day and the days following. The sheer amount of ash and sulfur which was released was so extensive that USA Today reported saying that the ash alone covered a square area of 100 miles, at a constant depth 12 feet, and the quantity of the sulfur was so vast that it was propelled into the stratosphere.
Once in the stratosphere, the toxic gas froze and didn’t melt, and basically became a thick blanket that covered most of the earth, and didn’t make its way to Europe and New England until the following year. Because of this monstrous cloud blocking the sun for nearly 3 years, this eruption changed the world’s global temperatures and climate desolatingly.
I created this image to accurately compare Mt. Tambora with two equally impacting volcanic eruptions.
While doing my research, I couldn’t help but wonder how horribly the eruption had impacted the US. I found several fasinating reports:
Inhabitants of Vermont survived by eating hedgehogs and porcupines, due to the climate induced famine.(New England Historical Society) (Nautilus)
In Salem, Mass., on April 24, the temperature was 74 degrees, then 30 hours later the temperature dropped to 21 degrees. (New England Historical Society)
June 8, Cabot, Vt., there was 18 inches of snow. (New England Historical Society)
Williamstown, Mass., temperatures dropped to 30 degrees on June 11. (New England Historical Society)
July 4th, the temperature plummeted to 46 degrees in Savannah, Georgia. (Farmer’s Almanac)
Most of all Pennsylvania’s lakes and rivers had frozen completely, killing all the fish in the waterways, forcing people out of jobs and having no access to food. (USGS)
Some of the world’s best gothic, dark literary works were written during these years across the world. (The Guardian)
But how on earth did American’s cope with the weather during those bitter climes?
For me, I had a bit of an “Ah-Ha!” moment when I remembered that this happened during the “Jane Austin” time… which also was a thing in the US… I had to realize that the Regency fashions wasn’t exclusively worn in England and small villages in Hampshire, but that people here wore those fashions too.
Though try as I might, I couldn’t find any reports of women’s wear during the “eighteen-hundred-and-freeze-to-death” era (a term the New Englanders lovingly bestowed upon the climate). So I had to summarize, and use my deductive skills to imagine what people wore to keep from freezing to death (of course, these images I found might be too grand for what might have really been worn.)
That’s all I have for today! Hope you enjoyed and learned a few things.
– Elise
Additional Resources: Excellent, in-depth novel about “The Year Without Summer.”: BRANCH Blog dedicated to the Regency period: The Risky Regencies Unlimited resources for the 1800-1820s: The Regency Encyclopedia Featured Image: Netley Abbey by Moonlight.