ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

‘Getting warmed up for the day’: Nathaniel Kleitman, body temperature and the public understanding of sleep/wake ‘habits’ in mid-20th century America

• In Event: The Science and Medicine of Habits II: Habits, The Body and Health

English Abstract

Are you an early bird or a night owl? The language of sleep/wake preference is one that pre-dates the modern period. Conventional wisdom like ‘the early bird gets the worm’ highlights the moralising attitudes towards the timing of sleeping and waking. However, in the mid-20th century, University of Chicago sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman (1895-1999) gave the idea of the early bird and night owl a new physiological basis. Connecting body temperature, sleep and efficiency, Kleitman argued that preferences around the time of rising were the result of the enculturated sleep/wake habits. As a part of his wider campaign to create a new science of sleep, the problem of the ‘early bird’ served as a useful narrative for educating the public about the nature of sleep and its malleability.

This paper will consider how Kleitman understood the interrelationship of body temperature, sleep and activity. Cultivating his public persona of ‘Dr Sleep’, Kleitman advised the American public on how understanding body temperature fluctuations could help to optimize their professional and private lives. Using interviews from Kleitman in the popular press and his scientific writings, I will trace how he articulated the interrelationship of temperature and sleep to create a picture of daily rhythms as habitual and enculturated. Body temperature served as a barometer with which to understand rhythmicity – and a metric of how far it could be altered.

Author

• Kristin Hussey, Newcastle University