Metal pots were used to heat water and boil clothes, but water, heat, and acidity all cause mineral iron to leach out of iron vessels, contaminating the water and staining the clothing. Thus, washerwomen had to take care to use large copper or tinned kettles instead. Figure 3: "The difficulties of a tub wringer.
Washerwomen agitated the clothes by hand, stirring them in the water or scrubbing them with laundry bats, flat wooden paddles with ridges. Once cleaned, the clothes would be rinsed in separate water.
Heavy outer clothing was shaken after wear to remove dust, sometimes with a light beating with a brush or whisk of dry twigs. General clothing at home could be rinsed carefully by hand in a tub of heated water. Underclothes were rinsed more frequently and hung to dry over a pole.
While some enslavers provided their enslaved populations with clothes on an as-needed basis, the most common practice was to provide clothing twice a year, coinciding with the seasonal duties of their laborers.
As Booker T. Washington recounts in his Slave Diet Bulletin, a common breakfast was cornbread and pork. On days when that wasn't available, he'd head to the animal shed. There, he'd steal some of boiled Indian corn kernels used to feed the cows and pigs.
Enslaved women not only did house and fieldwork, but also to bore, nourished, and reared their children. As house slaves, women were domestic servants: cooking, sewing, acting as maids, and rearing the planter's children.
Before the mid-nineteenth century, Americans seldom bathed for personal cleanliness. Many considered bathing to be unhealthy, believing it removed a “protective” layer of oil and dirt and exposed the body to unclean water and dangerous “miasmas,” or diseased air.
Garments were typically beaten over rocks, scrubbed with abrasive sand or stone, and pounded underfoot or with wooden implements.
In Europe, wealthier people used wool, rags and scraps of cloth to wipe themselves. The common people knew how to make do with leaves, moss, straw, hay or simply with their hands and water.
No galleys had bathrooms: all - crew and slaves - had to wait till they got ashore to have a scrub. It may have been possible for a hose to be attached to a hand pump so people could be hosed down, but that is not a bath is it.
Yucca has many practical purposes – Native people and Euro-American pioneers made an effective soap from the roots, thus it was often referred to as “soap weed.” Medicinally, the root was used to treat upset stomachs, arthritis, and inflammation (and still is today).
Soap has a pretty simple formula and a long history. But for centuries, water was the primary means of bathing.
Medicinal herbs were also used by the slave community to regulate menstrual cycles and assist in births. Their gender-specific knowledge and cultural practices resisted dominant cultural norms.
Before the washing machine's invention, cleaning the family's laundry demanded hot water, strong soap and washboards, paddles or plungers. It was backbreaking labor, mostly performed by women, and made only slightly easier by wooden tub washing machines invented in the 19th century.
WASHING AND LAUNDRY GO HAND IN HAND
Presumably on Wash Day. While the Viking bathed in a tub, his wife or a thrall would wash their clothes and dry them as much as they could. Woolen underwear would take a long time to dry, while a linen tunic and pants would dry faster.
An accountable daily ritual of bathing can be traced to the ancient Indians. They used elaborate practices for personal hygiene with three daily baths and washing. These are recorded in the works called grihya sutras which date back to 500 BCE and are in practice today in some communities.
Origin of clothing
A 2010 study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution indicates that the habitual wearing of clothing began at some point in time between 83,000 years ago and 170,000 years ago based upon a genetic analysis indicating when clothing lice diverged from their head louse ancestors.
If you don't wash your body, it makes it easier for germs that cause actual skin infections to flourish. If you didn't wash at all, dirt, sweat, dead skin cells and oil would start to accumulate, and infections or ongoing skin conditions can become more serious, more difficult to manage, and harder to undo.
It's easy to assume that countries where people shower more frequently are more hygienic. According to research by Kantar Worldpanel, Brazil is the country that takes the most showers globally, with people showering an average of 14 times each week.
Regular bathing was still uncommon; many people would go without washing their bodies for extended periods. Clean water was often scarce and expensive, making regular bathing a luxury that only the affluent could afford. This resulted in body odor and skin conditions being prevalent among the general population.
Slave marriages in the United States were typically illegal before the American Civil War abolished slavery in the US.
Research indicates that most slaves, whether, house or field, lived in shabby, meager accommodations with dirt floors and received weekly food rations from their owners of “corn meal, lard, salt fish, some meat (pigs' intestines and skin), molasses, peas, greens, and flour.” Some owners allowed their slaves to harvest ...
In 1850 and 1860 the median age for male slaves in the U.S. was 17 years; for female slaves the median age dropped from 17.4 to 17.2 years (Jackson, 1980). The median ages for these populations indicate that the average slave was young.