Spring Cleaning for Domaphile

Okay, I will admit that it is almost summer, but Domaphile is going to take advantage of the waning days of spring to engage in a little spring cleaning to spruce things up around here: paint the walls, clean out the closets, organize the posts….  But I will be back in a few weeks all cleaned up and organized.  So don’t go away!

In the meantime, if you are wondering what spring cleaning was like in the 1870′s, check out HEARTH, the digital archive of Home Economics published by Cornell University.  If you want to geek out on the history of Home Economics, like I do sometimes, this is the place to go.  Among some of my favorite titles:

• Accum, Friedrich Christian, 1769-1838. A treatise on adulterations of food, and culinary poisons: exhibiting the fraudulent sophistications of bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, tea, coffee, cream, confectionery, vinegar, mustard, pepper, cheese, olive oil, pickles, and other articles employed in domestic economy : and methods of detecting them. London: Sold by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820

• An encyclopaedia of domestic economy: comprising such subjects as are most immediately connected with housekeeping: as, the construction of domestic edifices, with the modes of warming, ventilating, and lighting them; a description of the various articles of furniture, with the nature of their materials; duties of servants; a general account of the animal and vegetable substances used as food, and the methods of preserving and preparing them by cooking; making bread; the chemical nature and the preparation of all kinds of fermented liquors used as beverage; materials employed in dress and the toilette; business of the laundry; description of the various wheel-carriages; preservation of health; domestic medicine, &c,&c Webster, Thomas; Parkes, William, (as Mrs.). London : Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844

• The art of dressing well: a complete guide to economy, style and propriety of costume Frost, S. Annie. New York : Dick & Fitzgerald, [1870]

• The freaks of fashion: with illustrations of the changes in the corset and crinoline, from remote periods to the present time Lord, William Barry. London : Ward, Lock, and Tyler, [1870]

• Practical cooking and dinner giving: a treatise containing practical instructions in cooking : in the combination and serving of dishes : and in the fashionable modes of entertaining at breakfast, lunch, and dinnerHenderson, Mary F. New York : Harper & Brothers, 1877, c1876

• Every-day cookery, table talk, and hints for the laundry Corson, Juliet. Chicago : Adams & Westlake Manufacturing Co., 1884.

• Family living on $500 a year: a daily reference-book for young and inexperienced housewives Corson, Juliet.New York : Harper & brothers, [c1887

• “You and your laundry” Frederick, Christine. New York : Hurley Machine, c1922.