Vintage Housekeeping Tips from the 1800’s
Going through some old cookbooks at my mom’s house a few weeks ago and I found a few of these reprinted cookbooks from the 1800’s. I sat and read them for hours. Each section was just history lesson being written through the eyes of a housewife and homemaker. While one book was written from a lady in Ohio another was written by a wife in Georgia after the Civil War had ended. The lady from Georgia had written this cookbook and housekeeping book to help other wives that no longer had slaves to tend to all the plantation work.
These books had a lot of parts to them and many helpful suggestions, recipes, and how-to instructions. Below, I have written my favorite home-keeper tips that I found informative, funny or just plain true. Hope you enjoy them. But remember these were written nearly 140 years ago. The views of women and men were very different back then.
Do all the cooking for Sunday on Saturday, or, if it is absolutely necessary that some cooking be done, have it all completed at breakfast, and the fires extinguished for the day.
This tip maybe a great one for our home but I am not sure how plausible it is. It would be wonderful to have one day a week to not cook, clean, or have any chores. But unfortunately this society requires my husband to work a Monday-Friday. And our weekends are the only days to really help each other to get major projects accomplished. Maybe one day...would be nice.
Children can not too soon be taught the importance of order, neatness, and economy. An ill governed household, where there is neither system, order, neatness, nor frugality, is a bad school for children.
I do believe this is a timeless lesson. All children should be taught order and neatness. Maybe if we did this more we wouldn't be such a wasteful society. By taking care of our things and not throwing it away just to buy new later.
Never leave things laying about - a shawl here, a pair of slippers there, a bonnet somewhere else, trusting to a servant to put them in place. No matter how many servants you have, it is a miserable habit. Children should be taught to put things back in their places as soon as they are old enough to use them, and if each member of a family were to observe the simple rule, the house would never get much out of order.
I can't attest to the bonnet for I do not wear one. But the shawl and slippers actually does pertain to me. Isn't that funny. And no I, like most, can't rely on "servants" to pick them up for us.
Make the most of your brain and your eyes, and let no one dare tell you that you are devoting yourself to a low sphere of action.
Your brain and eyes are ever learning, ever adapting. And everyone should make the most out of them while they can. As for the low sphere of action, I have looked it up and it means "a social class or stratum of society." In theses modern times, don't let anyone put you down.
Work done quietly about the house seems easier and slamming of oven doors, and the rattle and clatter of dishes, tire and bewilder every body about the house.
This sort of reminds me of the adage "a child should be seen and not heard". But now pertaining to a wife. Yeah, this one is not really for me and possibly not for you as well but I found to be eye brow raising.
Those who entertain should remember it is vulgar hospitality, exceedingly annoying to guest, to overload plates, or to insist on a second supply.
This one might be on to something. I like how absolutely terrible it is to give seconds or give heapings of food on a guests plate. This household tip, in my opinion, should come back. It just might help and benefit the obesity crisis this country faces today.
Bad dinners go hand in hand with total depravity, while a properly fed man is already half saved..
Ah yes, when I spend hours on what I think is a great dinner and it turns to total garbage. It certainly is "total depravity"! And my husband completely agreed, he is half saved when I properly feed him. 🙂
Click Americana also posted a great article from 1836 on The Proper Domestic Duties of a Wife
Excerpts come from Mrs. Hill's Cookbook: A Practical System For Private Families, in Town and Country published in 1867 and Buckeye Cookery & Practical Housekeeping published in 1877.
The one about “work done quietly about the house” doesn’t mean that wives should be seen and not heard. Rather, I take it to mean to take an extra second to close a cupboard door rather than slamming it. Take care to put things down gently in the kitchen rather than noisily. Don’t slam doors, close them. I know it makes a difference to me when my husband is in the kitchen if he’s rattling stuff around loudly or doing things more gently.