Look what I found at my local farm stand. The woman I always buy my corn from had set up a little antique sale inside the little wooden structure, with stuff that used to belong to her great-grandmother. I bought this bed warmer for five dollars.

I’m thinking it’s from the 1920s or 30s because the handle and flip-top are made of Bakelite, which was invented in 1909 but not mass-produced until the 1920s.

It would have held hot coals from the fire and would have been rubbed between the bed linens. But I’m wondering if mine might have been used in a child’s cradle, as the handle is quite short.

Before bed warmers, servants might wrap hot bricks in cloth and rush them to the beds of their masters. That can’t have been as fun as it sounds. Or a servant would simply climb into his master’s bed and warm it up with his own body heat.