Date: Fri 14-Mar-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Historical-Society-dirt

Full Text:

The Inside Dirt On 19th Century Hygiene

Jack Larkin (right), curator of Old Sturbridge Village, greeted Town Historian

Daniel Cruson Monday night before speaking at a meeting of the Newtown

Historical Society about "Clean and Slovenly To A Degree: Cleanliness in the

19th Century."

-Bee Photo, Valenta

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

"Dirty and slovenly to a degree."

That's how Margaret Hall, an aristocratic Englishwoman who was touring the

United States with her husband in 1827-28, described life in early 19th

century America in her journal.

It wasn't until the 1830s, in fact, that many Americans began to see any

advantage in bathing beyond occasionally washing their hands and face,

according to Jack Larkin, curator of Old Sturbridge Village.

Mr Larkin, who spoke at a meeting of the Newtown Historical Society Monday

evening, is a pioneer in studies of how the early 19th century Americans

thought and viewed the world, particularly in their attitudes toward

cleanliness - both personal hygiene and general sanitation - during the early

years of the Industrial Revolution.

Despite our modern views on hygiene, it's not difficult to understand how a

culture that had never known indoor plumbing could have the view that "You

bathe twice in life - when you are born and again when you die and are laid

out," Mr Larkin said.

"Up to the 1790s virtually no one bathed completely in the Colonies," he said.

"Washing your hands, face and neck in the kitchen was the norm."

Gradually "new-style bathing" - a full sponge bath in cold water in a basin in

your bedchamber - was adopted by the young. Their elders still felt it was not

a good idea - you might get sick. And it wasn't until the late 19th century

that galvanized tubs became available.

"A young woman staying with the Beechers [Harriet Beecher Stowe] in Hartford

while attending school in Litchfield wrote to her family that she couldn't

bathe because the Beechers only washed in a hand basin in the kitchen," Mr

Larkin said.

In 1775 when Englishman Edward Perry was captured by the Sons of Liberty in

Boston and held as an enemy spy, he was sent to Sturbridge, Mass., to live as

a prisoner at the home of a wealthy farmer.

"Perry describes, in his writings, the foul odors, dirt and lack of privacy he

experienced in what was a wealthy household," Mr Larkin said. "Twelve people

slept in four beds. There were continual odors of sour milk, cheese, manure

carried in on boots and the hems of dresses, sweat, all mingled with the

`perfume' of chamber lye - the contents of chamber pots cooking constantly on

the stove to produce a product to scour wool."

Bathing Not In Fashion

Although public baths were a common part of life in ancient Rome and Greece,

the idea of bathing had fallen out of favor by the Middle Ages and didn't

begin to gain acceptance again among the wealthy in England until the 18th

century. Gradually this practice of the upper class began to be adopted by a

few of the very rich in America in the 1790s.

Chamber sets began to gain in popularity. These included a basin and pitcher

for the water and a chamber pot to store under the bed.

"Advice books in the 1830s advocated bathing - they weren't taking it for

granted as an accepted practice," Mr Larkin said. "They explained that bathing

removed dirt to let pores breathe and made you smell better and look better. A

lack of dirt, grease and grime became a mark of civilized respect of the upper

class."

By the 1850s, bathing had become a symbol of respectability among the middle

class so the advice books no longer had to make a case for bathing, he said.

"That's how we know that a real change in manners had taken place."

By the late 1830s the advice books also recommended that chamber pots have

tops to contain the odors and that they be removed as quickly as possible from

the living areas. Cultural pressure also began to be exerted to make outdoor

privies a less noticeable part of the landscape.

"Traditionally privies had been in prominent spots, near gardens or fruit

trees or directly over the hog pen," Mr Larkin explained.

Fashions in men's haircuts, from wearing wigs in the 18th century to the

republican "brush heads" of the 1820s, and the gradual acceptance of beards,

also reflected society's changing attitudes.

The widespread acceptance in the 1830s of phrenology, a psychological

"science" of reading bumps on the head, led to the popularity of hairstyles

that were brushed back from the forehead.

Beards had gone out of fashion by 1685 and were nonexistent through the 18th

century in New England. Anyone who wore a beard was assumed to be "physically

disgusting" and probably "spoke in foreign tongues."

"In 1830 a man by the name of Joseph Palmer showed up at a meeting house with

a beard and was denied communion," Mr Larkin said. "As he left, four men

seized him and tried to shave him. The man was tried for assault - what the

four men did was obviously considered to be ok - and he refused to pay the

fine so he spent a year in jail. The jailer encouraged other prisoners to make

fun of him."

Beards Became Acceptable

"Interestingly, beards gradually became socially acceptable over the following

years, and by 1845 the Boston Medical Society said full beards were fine. They

were good protection against pulmonary diseases," Mr Larkin said. "By the late

1850s beards were virtually universal, a symbol of patriarchal authority. Only

youth were not wearing beards.

"All of the elders of the church and the men who assaulted Joseph Palmer were

undoubtedly wearing beards by then," he added.

Table manners changed significantly over the years, too.

Through the 18th and early 19th century, Americans used a two-prong fork to

hold their food but brought it to their mouth with the point of a knife.

"Young, old, rich, poor ate this way," Mr Larkin said. "Young ladies ate rice

pudding from the end of a knife and even fed 17-month-old infants this way."

By the 1830s, the European style of dining using a three- or four-prong fork

began to catch on. But Margaret Hall was still complaining in 1827-28 of

having a terrible time eating with a two-prong fork."

When smoking - pipes, snuff-taking, cigars and tobacco chewing - became

popular in the 19th century, it entered in the era of "Men Behaving Badly," Mr

Larkin said. "It was common for them to spit on the floor of the center aisle

in the meeting house during services and on the floors in their homes.

"Guidebooks for young ministers actually told them not to spit on the floors

of the homes that they visited. Instead, ask for a spit box, use a window or

go outside," he said.

Sketches done as commentary on the habits of the day showed men leaning back

in chairs, crossing their legs, or sprawled on sofas, or at the dinner table

where they were cleaning their fingernails, combing their hair, belching,

picking their teeth or sneezing over the food.

As cleanliness became more of a fashion, these manners gradually changed, Mr

Larkin said. It wasn't until the late 19th century, after the Civil War, that

public and private spaces again became safe from spitters.