Evening star., 1900-11-17
Wonderful Developments Brought
About in the Household Arts
ADD TO TIE COMFORTS OF LIFE
Conveniences of Which Our Fore
fathers Never Dreamed.
LAB OR-S WING DEVICES

| the caption. THE Century in a Nutshell.
I'VE received the goosequill; we bequeath
| the typewriter. We received the scythe;
| we bequeath the moving machine We re-
ceived the handloom; we bequeath cotton
and wooden factories. We received the tai
| low dip; we bequeath the electric lamp
| are some of the clauses Of the Testament.
| The imagination Of the housewife of to-
day takes up the wondrous tale one
end Of our greatgrandmothers kitchen was
| nearly filled by the fireplace, ten feet wide
from jamb to jamb, and often five feet
deep. man of medium height could stand
upright in the open space under the man
tel An iron crane, hinged at one end,
reached quite across the chimney throat.
The pothooks and hangers of our copy
books named for the wrought-iron i'm
plements used to suspend pots and Kettles
from this sooty bar. Other utensils were
upon the hearth, marshaled for duty among
the Goals of the woOdf1re that never went
out Rolls, biscuits and single loaves were
baked in a Dutch oven-a round or oval
vessel with three or four short legs. and
covered by a closey-titting lid. Skillets,
spiders, grddles and even gridirons were
furnished with legs or feet, that the air
might reach the embers under them. Joints
of meat and whole fowls were roasted upon
a jack, turnspit The weekly-or semi
weekiy-baking was done in a brick oven
built into the wall and projecting upon the
| outside of the house like an ugly Wen
Earlier Methods.
The cooking stove is a more recent fnven-
ton than the Franklin stove; the range
belongs to a yet later period We who
take with ungrateful nonchalance the in
finite variety of canned goods within the
reach Of the humbest housewife, seldom
bethink ourselves Of the tedious methods
by which our foremothers wrested raw ma
terials from swift decay. Apples, pears,
peaches, piums, cherries. grapes were dried,
each in its full maturity. to vary the mo-
notony Of potatoes, cabbages and turnips
upon the winter bill of fare. Dried orange
and lemon peel was desiccated, then pound
ed, to season custards and puddings. Ice
creams We're favored by rubbing oranges
or lemons upon humps of loaf sugar, until
the aromatic oil in the outer yellow rind
was absorbed by the sugar To get bitter
almond f1avOring, green peach leaves were
bruised upon the hard Jumps. Pulverized
and granulated sugar had not been intro
duced to the favor of cook and housekeep-
er.
Soap. hard and soft, made at home;
the lye barrel mounted upon sticks
dripped periodically into a tub in the cor
ner of back kitchen woodshed, and near
at hand awaiting the day of union, was the
soap-fat Jar. When weather and moon
were propitious, lye and the boarded grease
met, mingled, and We're purified, the finer
qualities into bars and cakes suitable for
the laundry. and even for the waShstand,
the inferior forming an uncomely semi
solid for scrubbing and securing. North
and east and south-there was no west to
speak of-sDinning wheels and looms were
as abaundant as sewing machines are to-
day. Flax was raised In large quantities in
many parts of the country On some farms
all the household linen was of domestic
manufacture, beginning with the sowing OF
the fiaXseed. up through the successive
stages of pulling. threshing. rotting, break
ing. scutching hacking COR hatcheling),
spinning and weaving.
Things They Did Not Have
Wherever cotton would grow 1t was cul-
tivated and passed through the various pro-
cesses of picking, carding, spinning and
weaving into domestic CLOTH" or home
spun muslin. Woolen stuffs were made
throughout from sheep raised upon the
home-farm and plantation. And In all the
width and length of the newly made United
States Of North America there was not a
stationary washtub or a washboard neither
clothes wringer nor clothes pin; not a ba tn
room or kitchen where hot and cold water
howed like river; not gaspipe potato
parer. or apple corer; neither register nor
carpet sweeper; not yeast cake or a fiy
screen, or baking powder; no gas works
In the city; no kerosene In the rural dis
tricts; no OutLtterS to supply an endless
chain of trousers for growing boys; no
warehouse of babies clothes; no ready
made lingerie and cloak emporiums.
This rapid and incomplete resume of what
OF 1901 is the background of our picture
1t is in no irreverent spirit that in rehears-
Ing to our grateful hearts the MANY inyen-
tions that have lesSenrd manual toll and
lett US, the daughters Of those hard -bestead
laborers, free to cultivate the nobler part
of our being, are ready to cry out, "How
long shall 1t be to the end of these Won
ders?"
LavOr-SavinE Devices
We are not in the habit of speaking of Eli
Il,%
Whitney as a benefactor Of womankind.
His cotton gin was seven years old when
practical housemothers wrote 1880" for the
first time with fingers that were, first. sore,
then stiffened and calloused with separat-
ing pounds upon pounds of raw cotton from
the adhering seeds. Picking cotton was
a task always allotted to women and chill
dren. 1t was usually done between the lights
or ir the long winter evenings. The work
was tedious, tiresome and unwholesome
When steam had ranged itself on the
side of labor-savers, wheels for spinning
and looms for weaving fax, cotton and
wool were thankfully banished to the at
tic. The primitive cheese press followed
| suit. The faucet of the hydrant superseded
well sweep and pump handle, and the
pumber-for long the servant of the rich
brought hot and cold water into the kit
chen, set up a self-feeding boiler beside the
sink, and laid a water-back behind the
range, which had supplanted the open fire.
place with its host Of clumsy appurtenances
MOuern DcylceB.
The nineteenth century rolled on its shin
| ing way until the poor man could command
| the plumbers services; the bath room be-
| came necessity Of decent living, and
| Bridget, Thekla and Dinah, lowering their
| homespun petticoats to the heels Of the
| new machine-made shoes in which their
| feet We're still uneasy, would not "engage"
| in a house where there were not station
| ary tubs and gas in the servants rooms.
| Old lamps were worthless rubbish; the tall
| low dip, fashioned with pains and pride by
| our foremother. was clean forgotten in the
| luxury of paraffine and spermaceti bought
| by the box.
In 1880 whispers stole the sea to
| incredulous ears of a French inventor who
had devised a machine that would snatch
| the needle from flesh and blood fingers, at
| tach II to steel arm and drive it through
| miles of white work. at lightning speed.
| Sixteen years later the blessed home mis-
| sionary was patented in America, and an
| other burden heavy and grievous to be
| borne was lifted from our sex. Now, every
| cottage has sewing machine, with all the
| latest amendments. almost as certainly as
| 1t has a cooking stove and a clothes
wringer.
|