Back in the colonial age, how did people shower, eat clothes?

Answer 1

Like the others said, they had to warm water over the fire. Baths usually took place before 'special days' such as Christmas or Easter. If it was just a routine bath, it would usually be on a Saturday evening in order to be clean for Sunday mass the next day. Most people only took a bath about once every one or two months. Children were usually bathed before the adults, and the same water was used for the entire family so it was quite dirty by the end of it. Soaps were usually homemade from lard and herbs.

Food was... food. They ate what they hunted, grew or picked in the wild. Again going back to speical occasions such as Christmas, a chicken or other farm animal might be sacrificed for the dinner table, but the produce they gave (eggs, milk, etc.) was too valuble to be constantly eating livestock, so families living on farms wouldn't do so constantly and the price of such fare would be high for those who might like to buy it. I'm not sure about the U.S., but I know in Canada, there was a time when it was illegal to shoot the wild pheasant for some reason or other, but poorer families living in remote areas would sometimes kill and eat them anyway. I'm assuming you also want to know how they cooked their food. Soups and meat could be boiled in a pot hung from a hook over the fire (Disney's Snow White shows this, if you're bored enough to watch that), and some families might have had a small cast iron stove that they could also use for cooking.

Clothes, for those who couldn't afford a tailor or seamstress, were homemade. Some people might have bought the cloth and just done the cutting and sewing, but others would go through the entire process from flax to finished product (ie. spinning, dyeing, carding, weaving, cutting, sewing); such clothing was said to be made of homespun. Wool and coarse cottons were the most common type of materials for the average person; wealthier people might have been able to afford slightly more refined cloths. Many people would only have one set of clothes. If they had more, there would be one dress/shirt that would be designated 'the good dress/shirt'. For a man, duplicate garments would be more likely in shirts, and for a woman it would be in shifts.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

I know they bathed less. Some people even felt it would make them sick to bathe too often and just splashed on a bunch of good-smelling stuff, like lavender, to cover up the odor. They could have heated water, filled a gourd or other container and poured it over themselves. They also could have filled a basin or trough of some kind. If it was warm enough, they could take a quick dip in a stream or lake. Eat? They couldn't run to the grocery store, so they had to have a garden and know how to hunt for meat. Meat could be preserved with salt or dried. Veggies could be kept cool in an underground cellar. Clothes? They had tailors in the colonial age, if you could afford it. You could use the barter system where you give the tailor a couple dozen eggs and he makes you a coat. Times were tough! Just think of what they had to do to stay warm in the Winter. And if you got sick, no hospital.

Answer 3

Do you mean *wash* clothes?... They weren't as picky as we are today, I think people who took a bath once a week were considered hygienic. Same goes for clothing, I think you wore them longer. To clean them, they could collect the ashes from a fire, place it in hot or boiling water and let the dirty clothes simmer in it for a while... ashes is a decent basic washing powder.

I think it's hard for us to comprehend how filthy it used to be. On the other hand, people didn't really have allergies either. They had kick-*** immune systems... :-)

Answer 4

they heated water in the fireplace and then had a bath.
obviously this wasnt too often because it is a major pain to do

they also had fewer sets of clothes because they cost alot being all handmade.

they ate like people always ate... oooh look a cute bunny, lets eat it

one thing is without canning or refrigeration you would eat different things depending on the season. you would only get peaches during peach season and you probably would get sick of them but thats all you had to eat

Answer 5

if you eat enough clothing showering becomes irrelevant, eh? :-)

Answer 6

people took baths---i do not think they ate clothes though??

Answer 7

they did it some how thats y they r hella pimp