We tend to think of insomnia as a late 20th and early 21st century phenomenon. That certainly is not the case. Here is an article taken from the New York Times archives dated July 18, 1892, which indicates that it was in epidemic mode back then:

Prevalence of Insomnia 1892 from the archives of the New York Times but originally taken from the London Telegraph

What this illustrates is that we have not been able to cope with insomnia in the past, and we haven’t been able to do anything about even here in the 21st century. We are still using the same things they used back then, but now we package them as “sleep hygiene” and “cognitive behavior therapy.” Same failed methods with new labels.

The truth is we haven’t leveraged what we know about the awake-asleep transition state (sleep onset, hypnagogia) against insomnia. In Pursuit of Sleep: The Origins of Insomnia and What to Do About it does just that.