DEAR A.J.,Help ! I feel I have no privacy anymore . Facebook , Google , and Target get it on more about my life than my own married man does . Where has all the secrecy gone?Kathleen
Dear Kathleen ,
Thanks for committal to writing . I ’ve memorialize your name , address , marital status , and income level for my email lean . You ’ll be discover from me soon !
In the meantime , maybe this will make you finger better : Privacy may be jeopardise in the digital years , but at least we ’re still skillful off than many of our ancestors . In the past , everyone was all up in your job .
1. Peeping Tithingmen
conceive the Puritans : They were stunningly just at seclusion intrusion . In colonial America , Puritan village had professional snoop call off “ tithingmen . ” Part of a tithingman ’s task was to glint into their neighbors ’ windows and undercover agent on their every move to secure they were n’t doing anything naughty , such as ( pant ! ) going for a perambulation on the Sabbath — a criminal offence that could be penal by a day in the stocks .
2. Snail Mail Breaches
If you ’re distressed about drudge ( or hubby ) monitoring your emails , you should know that pen - and - ink ring armour was even more vulnerable back in the day . In early America , before an official postal divine service existed , letters were frequently forget at taverns and coffee bar to be pick up by the recipient — often after they ’d been perused by other inquisitive customers . thing did n’t get much good when the politics got involved . Postal workers were notorious for peeping at mail . Even letter of the alphabet from the Founding Fathers were n’t resistant . Thomas Jefferson complained about the “ curiosity of the post - offices ” who bask opening and read his correspondence .
3. Public Voting—Out Loud
Speaking of the authorities : ballot was not always a private affair deport behind the prophylactic of a curtain . In early America , everyone get laid your vote . They heard it cheap and well-defined . You vote by stepping up to an election police officer and harbinger your vote in front of spectators . The recitation was called viva voce — by voice . This , naturally , moderate to intimidation and harassment . As Paula Wasley writes inHumanitiesmagazine , voting was “ spectacularly public … accompanied by boisterous crowds , partisan hecklers , torchlight parades , free - flowing whiskey , and brawl . ” Casting your suffrage was less like participating in a self-respecting civil ritual and more like attend to a Gathering of the Juggalos .
4. Nosy Questions on the (Publicly Posted) Census
You wo n’t find much deference for privacy in the old days of the U.S. nosecount . The questions in the 1800s were astoundingly nosy . Uncle Sam inquire about your mental health , whether you were “ crippled , maimed , or deformed , ” and questions about the financial position of homes and farm . The results of the early census were also post in public , ostensibly so you could check them for truth , but in reality so that all your neighbour could giggle .
5. Newspapers Printed Ailments
And if you did n’t jazz your neighbor ’s frailties from the nosecount , nosy-parker local newspapers were there to fill you in . With no pesky HIPAA Torah to get in the direction , hospital admission fee were pop fresh fish for newspapers for decennary . For instance , an issue of the 1885Philadelphia Inquirertold us that 53 - year - honest-to-god Hugh Dady had to go to the hospital after he received a headspring thin from a falling gun barrel .
6. Newspapers Printed Addresses
And if that ’s not enough , the paper gives us what certainly looks like the ailing folk ’ addresses , such as “ Francis Reynolds , aged twenty - seven , of No . 2335 Owen Street , with wrick articulatio radiocarpea , from heavy lifting . ” It was like TMZ , but if every celebrity was very ho-hum .
7. Pooping in Public
But I ’ve saved the worst for last . Because in the days of yore , even your most intimate acts — including going to the john — occurred with very little concealment . In ancient Rome , you did your concern in a public latrine with dozens of seats side by side . archeologist have found board games in between the can , betoken that excreting was a societal function , much like a misstep to the pub . Even the Father of our Country might not have pooped alone : Mount Vernon has a intimate three - seat outhouse . Over on the other side of the pool , Henry VIII had a formal assistant foretell “ The Groom of the Stool , ” a bath concomitant whose job supposedly consisted of , in part , wiping the glorious monarchical butt end .
8. Sex on Trial
What ’s more , marital problems were shockingly out in the outdoors . Consider the bizarreness that were the impotence trial of pre - Revolutionary France . A cleaning lady could ask to end a marriage on the ground that her hubby failed to consummate a marriage … but she had to prove it in front of witnesses . The most notorious such trial was in 1659 , when a Marquis had to undertake sex with his married woman in front of a 15 - person jury , include Doctor . The trial was so public , Frenchmen aim bets on the outcome . I ’d tell you what pass off , but I do n’t require to overrun the Lord ’s privateness yet again . ( OK , fine . He flush it . glad ? )
