The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1950-01-12

keeps pace with the past fifty years,
you young homemakers coming
along now will only have to press
buttons for all the household chores,
and presto they are done. Wouldn't
you like to press button and have
all your cleaning and busting done,
particularly the busting proposition,
for even if we do that more than
once day, that same old dust seems
to be right back where it was. Even
now, though, radiant heat and air
conditioning are taking the bug-a-
boo out of much of the task of keep
ing the home clean.
In the beginning of this century
even telephones and electric lights
were luxury, some figures show
ing that only one home in 66 had
a telephone, and as for all the CAD
gets of the modern kitchen, they
were entirely unknown. Most of the
cooking was done with wood stoves,
with the city folk using coal. The
evening chores had to start very
early in order to have the evening
meal on time, for this entailed first
making a fire in the kitchen range
and getting the stove hot, then
bringing the water from the pump,
for modern plumbing was also one
of the unknown things in the aver
age home. Some of the better homes
did have running water in the house,
but not as we know it today.
Carpet sweepers had been invent
ed in 1900, but am sure that most
of the homemakers hadn't even
dreamed of an electric vacuum
cleaner! It's true that Ellen H.
Richards, an instructor at the Mas
sachusetts Institute of Technology,
had written some books on "scien-
tific" housekeeping, declaring there
was 'too much of an element of
slavery connected with the work of
keeping the house"
Mi-lady didn't spend any time in
the beauty parlor either in those
days, for though women back in the
early days had many methods they
practiced to keep their complexion
soft and white and their hair CLEAN
ing, beauty culture as profession
wasn't known until many years
after the turn of this century.
Food prepared in the old fash
toned kitchens was just as good as
any you can find tOday-and may
be better-but it took a great deal
longer to prepare it and if you have
studied some of the old recipes you
have discovered that they were far
from economical. Today our prep
aration of food is speeded up by all
kinds of mixes for cakes, buildings,
mullins, biscuits and soups. Our
kitchens are for the most part filled
with modern fixtures, food mixers,
and all kinds of other electric CAD
gets, until we wonder how there
can be any further improvement.
Yet you only have to read your
housekeeping magazines to find
something new is on the way.
AS l said in the beginning of this
article, the young homemaker of
the year 1000 will probably reach
out from her bed, push button or
two and while she is dressing, the
breakfast is being prepared, and
low and behold she presses another
button and the meal is on the table.
In the meantime hubby wants a
clean shirt, so he presses a button
and out comes the shirt neatly fold
ed and handed to him all by cleo
tricity. Wouldn't you like to be
living then to see what really does
happen?
But we have been travelling
too long in the past and the posi-
bility of the future, so we better
get busy and see what we can do
about feeding the family and other
things connected with making a
home a real home.