On Fridays, my youngest son has to wear “formal dress” to school. This involves a jacket and tie, khakis, and real shoes rather than sneakers. He hates formal school dress day. The kid has no idea how easy he has… Read More
Eighteenth century powder rooms did not contain toilets. They were places where a person could have his wig oiled and powdered. A servant would puff flour over his master’s head with a bellows.… Read More
I recently had a load of cow manure delivered to my back yard by a local farmer. It wasn’t smelly or anything. It had been aged and composted and was quite beautiful to behold, if you go in for that… Read More
All too often, babies in 18th-century poorhouses were given gin to quiet them. In 1751, nine thousand English children died of alcohol poisoning.… Read More
I’m sure most families have standard phrases they use with one another, inside jokes that others might not necessarily get. One of my family’s is from the 1968 musical version of Oliver Twist. There’s a scene, in Fagin’s lair, where… Read More
As many as 30,000 forced laborers died from malaria, dysentery, and exhaustion while building St. Petersburg, which became the Russian capital in 1712. It became known as “the city built upon human bones.”… Read More
During the eighteenth century, after tea had been brewed for the family, the leaves were reused for a second brew for the servants. Afterwards, the twice-used tea leaves were often sold to the poor.
Source: Reader’s Digest Everyday Life… Read More