When electricity became widely available in the late 19th century, some American cities put it to its fullest use: They replaced the moon.

Fitted with powerful carbon arc lamps, “moonlight towers” could illuminate a city’s streets “brightly enough to read a watch from as far away as 1,500 feet.” At first they were greeted as symbols of progress: A visitor declared the citizens of Aurora, Ill., to be “in a state of delighted enthusiasm over the splendid practical results,” and one Detroit resident reported that “the foliage is weird and beautiful. All places within the scope of light are bathed in the faint but fairy-like illumination of the moon in its first quarter.”

But in time residents found that simple streetlights provided better illumination and eliminated the disorienting shadows cast by an artificial moon. Most of the old installations have been dismantled, but 17 of the original 31 towers in Austin, Texas, are still in use — the 165-foot landmarks have stood since 1895, and have been listed since 1976 on the National Register of Historic Places.

This is rather unpleasant. In 1883 John Fleck patented a “life-saving apparatus for privy-vaults,” “to provide a means of escape from the vaults should a person by accident fall therein.”

Apparently this was a problem. “In various sections of the United States deep vaults are commonly used, generally constructed of masonry, and, as is often the case, they are but imperfectly covered or otherwise protected at the top to guard against persons falling therein.”

Fleck’s solution is basically a ladder set into the wall of the vault. Good for him, I guess. I hope he wasn’t inspired by some personal tragedy.

Here’s an old-timey way to prevent oversleeping, patented by A.J. Nordmann in 1885. Set your alarm clock as normal but attach it to a lever on Nordmann’s “alarm and waking bed.” Now if you don’t turn off the alarm in time, the head of the bedframe will drop to the floor.

“Thus a person sleeping is awakened as the alarm sounds, and should he fail to rise he is immediately dropped down with the head portion of the mattress F, which then has its bearing upon the springs H.”

I suppose that really chronic oversleepers could remove the springs, to make the jolt even more jarring.

Viennese inventor Adolf Herz patented this “portable bath or sack for washing or bathing purposes” in 1904. Fill it with “bathing agent or fluid,” step in, and close the upper end around your neck, and draw your soap, sponge, and towel from pockets in the interior.

Bathing or washing can be effected in the sack with every convenience. Splashing of water and wetting of the floor is thus entirely prevented. Also by means of the sack the evaporation of the water on the body otherwise taking place in bathing and washing is prevented, whereby the catching of colds is avoided. The bathing and washing can therefore be done in cool places. Also radiation of the heat of the body is considerably reduced, whereby a very agreeable sensation is produced when using the sack.

Afterward you can drain it through a runoff pipe. “After the sack has been emptied it can be folded together, so as to occupy a very small space, and then, if desired, tied or fastened together and kept in a bag, satchel, knapsack, or the like.”

Allen Cowan patented this portable milking stool in 1887. From the look of the abstract, he had tested it extensively in actual practice:

In operation, the wearer buckles the waist strap around his or her waist, for this stool is peculiarly adapted for use by women, the stool hanging down behind out of the way, as shown in Fig. l of the drawings, leaving both hands free to carry two pails. As soon as the wearer is ready to sit down to milk, by merely leaning slightly forward, as one sits, the stool swings directly underneath the person, and one can sit down upon it without touching it with the hand.

“If the cow should move away a few feet or commence to kick,” he adds, “the person milking can get up quickly, and catch up the buckets with both hands without paying any attention to the stool, and follow up the cow, sitting down as before.”