There were a lot of ways to wake up before
the alarm clock was invented. People living in towns had chimes
from the church bells, and people living on farms had roosters
to crow them awake. In some places, people made getting up in
the morning a much stranger experience.
Native Americans would
make sure they got up early by drinking as much water as
physically possible before falling asleep. That way, the water
would fill up their bladders while they were sleeping. Pretty
soon, they would be so full that they needed to get up. So they
would get up early.
In England, you could
pay a “knocker-upper” to get you up in the morning. Your
knocker-upper would come to your house first thing in the
morning and bang on your window with a long stick. If he wanted
to make his shilling, he would keep banging until you got up and
shared with him the money (about 12 pence) and customary curse
words of morning.