An interesting history of bed sizes, including in dorm rooms.
I had dinner with Eileen Collins a couple months ago, and we were discussing the virtues of community college. In addition to all the other benefits of better education and lower cost, this article reminds me of another one: It eliminates the need to live in a dorm as a freshman. I was in Ann Arbor for three years, but I never lived in one.
I always wondered about TV shows with married couples in twin beds (my parents slept in bed together, and I knew why). I thought it was censorship relating to sex. I never realized it was a public health thing stemming from the Spanish flu. Learned something new!
I lived in dorms my freshman and sophomore years at Purdue. I quite enjoyed the experience actually.
I enjoy my privacy too much to have happily endured dorm life. It would have been a problem for me in the service as well.
XL beds were standard at my school in the 80s. This isn’t fuzzy memory on my part; at 79″, I already had the sheets.
I suspect the author JUST found out about this, probably by having to buy new sheets for a dorm room, probably for a normal sized person.
I found dorm life for the first two years of college to be fairly enjoyable. Of course, I met my wife in our dorm so it was enjoyable to be coddled with a meal plan and other luxuries while courting the fairer sex.
Also, growing up in a family with six other siblings, I found I had a lot more privacy in a dorm than I ever had growing up at home. Just a single roommate was a step up for me.