"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise " said Poor Richard. ( AKA Ben Franklin). Have you ever worked by the light of a kerosene lamp? Written a letter by candle light? Although the soft, warm glow is pleasant enough for writing at a table, if you wanted to do something like rebuild the engine in your truck and really see everything clearly it would be immensely frustrating.

The reason to rise early, in the pre-Industrial period, was because that's when it was daylight and you could see clearly enough to get about your work. Many, many pople were growing food, and working outside. In many households, there would be servants lighting fires and getting about the business of making breakfast before dawn, so that their employers would be catching all the daylight possible.

Being a night owl, circa 1800, could also be rather expensive- candles cost money. So, while someone with some assets might be catching up on their reading, the poorer ones would feel it to be a little extravagant done on a regular basis. All that begins to shift in the 19th c., with spermacetti and even paraffin candles, then kerosene and gas lighting. By the time Edward Hopper painted his famous Nighthawks, electric light was cheap, and lots of people worked a night shift somewhere.