Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how people remember domestic heating related experiences in their childhoods and youth using oral history interviews. The paper argues that heating practices changed significantly when mothers began to work outside the home or when families moved to suburbs, altering lifestyles.

Paper long abstract:

Domestic heating is one of the largest domestic energy sectors in national energy consumption in Finland, and energy consumption has grown through the building of the district heat network since the 1970s. From the 1960s, many people left rural areas for urban regions to find work, but also women's role began to change as many began to seek employment beyond the home. Domestic heating rituals began to change as a result of this structural transition. This paper analyses how people remember domestic heating related experiences in their childhoods and youth using oral history interviews. Interviewees recall experiences of warmth, sleeping close to the hearth, or feeling the winter chill in their cottages. Many also actively rejected the concept of feeling cold as a child, indicating how family loyalty ties into feelings of physical comfort inside the home. Overall, the paper argues that heating practices changed significantly when mothers began to work outside the home or when families moved to suburbs, altering the experience of home heating and what it meant to experience warmth or feel comfort from the hearth.