Parham’s Reviews > Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World > Status Update

In his 1784 book "Notes on the State of Virginia", Thomas Jefferson turned Tryon's plea for adequate downtime for slaves inside out, arguing that proper plantation management demanded "less" rather than "more" sleep for slaves.

Sleeping in church was akin to breaking the third commandment-taking the Lord's name in vain-because "by sleeping at Sermons, [you] practically say, that the Word of the Lord is contemptible." Eutychus, Mather explained, at least had decent excuses for falling asleep during worship: Paul's sermon lasted for hours, and the incident took place late at night, when "men are more naturally inclined to sleep."

Clocks had been around for centuries, and they had long been used to synchronize social activities in athletic contests, law courts, and gambling dens, but never before the industrial revolution did they have such regulatory force. Time itself became a chief product of the industrial age, and when clock time did not correspond to natural rhythms, artificial lighting could help enforce it.

Sleep loss even became somewhat modish, a sign of what came to be known as "sensibility." In the novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, nothing was more indicative of a young hero or heroine's superior refinement and thoughtfulness than inability to sleep.