Were European and Americans in Vicotorian times hygienic?

Question

Meaning, did they bathe everyday, change underwear everyday, used deodorant or perfumes,women shaved their underarms, babies had their diapers changed often, etc...??

Or would they probably be considered filthy and stinky by today's standards?

Please compare different social classes.

Answer 1

It depended what you could afford to pay. Remember that there was no heater or running water. To take a bath you had to heat the water, which meant wood, and bring the water to the bath, which meant a lot of work.
As well, change your clothes that often meant having a minimum of three and even four change of clothing (you need to give it time to dry) and someone who could spend her time washing them (servants).

So, to answer your question. Poor people did not wash often. Those who could washed with a cloth and cold water... but not in winter, in badly heated houses. You washed your hands and your face. The higher you went in social classes, the more you washed and had clothes cleaned often. The wife spent more than a third of her time cleaning clothes by hand.
Merchants, shop owners and equivalent washed every day but bathes were still rare. Higher (moneyed) would take a bath around once a week but changed clothes every day.

There was no deodorant, one used perfume or talc, babies diapers were changed at the will of the mother who had to clean up all those diapers or of the nurse (probably more often as she had those servants to clean them for her). As babies cry a lot when wet I would bet that they were changed often enough.
In Victorian orphan houses things were much worse. There are texts talking of babies wrapped in bands and changed twice a day.

As for shaving, I have no idea. Probably not. I never saw a shaving kit for women, it probably was not common.

So, if you change clothes every day, have a warm shower once or twice a day, yes, you would consider them ugh, just as you would consider plenty of people around the world who cannot afford daily showers ugh as well.

Remember as well that there were plenty of animals around, the antiseptic society of today where a smell is an offence did not exist. So by today's western standards it would be smelly too.

Edit : to Cowboy. LOL. The fork was brought to Europe in 1065 and used as a matter of fact in the Victorian era.
Bath tubes existed long before that, there's plenty of pictures of people taking bathes in wooden tubes. It is the modern tub that didn't exist.

Answer 2

To give you an good idea - look up "The Great Stink" of 1857 which was 20 years into the reign of Queen Victoria.
London had a population of nearly 3 million with NO sewage treatment facilities. Victoria's husband Albert would die of typhoid (~1860-61). Typhoid fever is caused by a gram negative Salmonella intestinal bacillus spread through poor sanitation / solid waste disposal. Rome in the first century AD had 13 aqueducts providing ample running water for perhaps a million citizens while London 1800 years later
had wells and river water contaminated by massive amounts of human feces which spread illnesses such as dysentery, typhoid fever, and cholera. The stink from the river Thames was so bad they had to close parliament.
That's one reason the rich lived in west London where the stink was less. The east end was almost intolerable.
Engineers were finally paid to resolve the problem with sewer systems and sewage treatment facilities.
It must be remembered that in 1857 no one had figured out that bacteria caused diseases - even though microscopists had been visualizing bacteria for almost two hundred years.

Answer 3

Hello,

My general impression is that those of the upper and middle classes were but condtions were awful for the poor. It was in that time frrame that the sewage systems and cleanliness in hospitals came to be recognized and slowly established. The only thing I notice from photos of that era is that many people; especially in uniforms did not press their clothes too often.

Michael

Answer 4

The English considered it bad to let the air from the outside in, therefore closing all Windows and keeping them closed, also, they didn't believe in getting wet all over, thinking it would create illness.
They powered there wigs and kept several pair due to lice. Lice were everywhere. The English didn't have silverware, they ate with their hands until late in the 1800's using knives only, grasping the meat, etc, with their teeth and cutting it off with their knife.
It wasn't considered bad manners to eat with your hands, never washing them.

Bathtubs were invented in the U.S. around the turn of the 1800's again, instructions had to go with the tubs as how to use them. Running water, toilets, etc, all were not invented until the late 1800's so, you can use you imagination as to what was going on in Europe and other countries.

Answer 5

no :) I think the bathing practice at the time was once a month or more. The clothing at the time was designed to hide bad Oder's.

Powdering your face, and body was one way of hiding the smell. The other way was covering yourself in clothing that was cleaner than yourself. lol

I would think the people who were the cleanest at the time were the fishermen of the day.

Answer 6

Depends. You realize most Americans have only the "choices" their HMOs approve? The notion that Americans have 100% care 100% of the time is complete rubbish. People are denied care by carriers all the time.