Circa 30's 40's: I really had to laugh about the curtain stretchers they used in the 30's and 40's. Many is the day I had to help my mother tack on the lace curtains or lace tablecloths until they were dry.

In the same vein, does anyone remember the enormous lace crocheted ruffled centerpieces that were made for the dining table when it was for "show" and the fact that you had to stiffen the ruffles with sugar water formed around tumblers (on the days my mother did hers she borrowed every glass in the neighborhood, it seemed) - when the ruffles were dry , they looked like little tin soldiers! Was THAT an all day job!!!!

Ana

Circa 30's 40's: OAK furniture was very, very inexpensive. You could even get it from soap premiums saved up, etc. I am typing away on a really old rolltop desk (1884) that was in our family, and it is nice....and darkened through the years, but it was 'basic' furniture in those days...not 'elegant'.

Rose

Circa 50s: loft space access or how to get into the attic: Well, I can only speak from experience of the homes of my grandparents, and they still had to get stepladders out to gain access to their attics in the 1950s. I think those ladders who live in the attic and kersprong down to greet one are an American invention - don't know when. Just showing' off if you ask me (actually I have always thought those loft living ladders SO smart.)

Helen from York, England

50's sites--try these out

http://www.fiftie-fiftie.be/

http://www.circa50.com/

http://www.thebrighton.demon.co.uk/

http://www.melinamade.com/

http://www.kandjminmet.com

Also Shelburne museum has a 50's house:

http://www.shelburnemuseum.org/htm/museum/mu_bldgs.htm

Marlene Chapman-Ontario

50's Clothes lines: I have seen the clothes lines on wheels in movies. They usually string them along between two buildings. I have also seen the "T" shaped clothes lines that Susan just mentioned but we had one that you put into a cup that was cemented in the ground. We kept our clothes line in a little shed type thing on the back of our house. On wash day, we had to lug it out and put it into the little cup thingy and then it opened like an umbrella. And like an umbrella, I pinched my fingers every time I had to put that stupid thing up or take it down. This was in the 50's and I was only a very young child.

Mary Lou in Portage, IN

Edwardian: The Edwardian period runs from 1901 - 1910 and in both the US and the UK the style of the time was Art Nouveau which continued up to 1920.

I live in an Edwardian House in London. It was built in 1906 and has almost all of the original features. The ceilings and fireplaces are similar in style to the Victorian period with black marble and tiled surrounds although the one in our "back" room is very large and plain and made of Oak. There are smaller fireplaces in the bedrooms and in the master bedroom is an original Art Nouveau gas fire with the typical swirling floral design of the time. It also has a burner attached to divert the gas and boil a kettle on. Underneath the bedroom carpets is what we think is original linoleum floor covering in pale green (cracking up now at the edges). The rooms are very large and quite square with square windows, high ceilings with fancy plaster ceiling roses, coving and a picture rail but not a dado.

Karon

Withdrawing room: One time when I was touring through a manor house somewhere in England the guide pointed out that the sideboard (hunt board or whatever) had cupboards on either side of the drawers and that there would be a chamber pot in at least one of them so the men could use it after dinner. That is how the custom of the ladies "withdrawing" into a sitting room came about. This room became known as the "withdrawing room" and that later was shortened to "drawing room." What I don't know is what did the ladies do for a commode after dinner?

June in London Ontario Canada

Edwardian: officially the Edwardian period was between 1901 when Queen Victoria died, and 1910 when Edward VII died, but for artistic purposes it's more like 1890-1914 when the Great War started.

Lynne Connolly

What did the ladies do after dinner? Ladies used something called a porteleau which looked like a squashed-in chamber pot, but smaller. These were also used on coach journeys and during long sermons in church! Presumably they were able to use them under the huge skirts. These things used to turn up in auctions and antique fairs being sold as gravy boats because people didn't know what they were. Doesn't bear thinking about, does it? If anyone in the U.K. is desperate to see one, there's one in a china cabinet at Wallington Hall in Northumberland.

Pat in Newcastle on Tyne, U.K

Place Mats: Forget about them in your Victorian room settings, they were first used in 1928.

MAP In Puyallup

Life In 1970s: Come over to my house. Check out my furniture, check out my clothes, definitely 70's. I probably still have some bellbottoms and hip huggers (or was that the 60's?) . Finally got rid of the avocado refrigerator this year and am hoping to replace the same colored stove soon. We even have a black and white TV. I may have a few records that I didn't give away when the needle broke on the record player and I couldn't replace it. . What did we eat? Bacon, sausage, steak, eggs, cream in coffee instead of skim milk. No decaf. Smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day.

Carol

Life In 1970s: In the late 60's and early 70's we wore bell bottom pants, usually torn at the knees with all sorts of "cool" patches sewn on, tie dyed t-shirts, sandals, long hair, (guys and gals). Houses or apartments had bean bag chairs and couches, beaded curtains instead of doors between rooms, black light posters on the walls, lava lamps, white or black shag rugs, shelves made of apple or orange crates or just boards supported by cinder blocks. Lots of large pillows also, to sit on the floor. Various incense burners on low tables in the living room. I'm sure there are a lot of old hippies out there who can remember more, or maybe not remember anything. LOL

Spencer

Life In 1970s: If you would like to know what we looked like in 1975 , Watch the old Brady Bunch reruns. They are classic mid 1970's. I started 9th grade in 1975, so I will share some of my memories---- We had big eight track tapes for our music, all our kitchen appliances were avocado green including the telephone, our house was a California ranch open airy and vey similar to the house on the Brady Bunch, the outside was also avocado green with used brick patios and walkways.

The clothes we wore were bellbottom and flared jeans (like we have now). I remember the brands to have were Britannia, Chemin de fer, Esprit de corps.

Window pane sewn denim jeans were really big. The shoes were platformed and the hair for men was long but styled, curly hair with perms were big. Long and layered ala Farrah Fawcett also. Men's suits were wide lapelled and ties wide also Mid 7o's the women’s skirts went longer below the knee.

I remember in home decorating that mixing antiques with modern was very stylish. Colors were avocado green, gold, rust brown earthy colors.

In food crockpot cookery was popular with electric crockpots. Crockpot chile and potroast are the dishes that come to mind.

Robin

Life In 1970s: We built a house in 1975 and I had really bright sunflower yellow laminate kitchen bench tops.

Karen from Dubai

Candy:  I can recall

Nut Zippers     Red shoestring licorice     

Mary Jane's    Candy cigarettes     

Mexican hats Bazooka Bubble gum

Flying saucers     Good and Plenty

Wax lips    Wax thumbs

Red Hots  Dum Dum lollipops  

Most of the above available at the penny candy store, and you could walk in with a quarter, give it to Mr. Vince and he handed you a bag chock-full of goodies!

Barb in PA

Traditional names for English Gentlemen:  like John, Brian, Frederick, George, William, Ernest. Lots and lots more. Try "The Oxford dictionary of Christian Names."

Lynne Connolly

Cook books: The Early English Text Society publishes a 15th century cook book, which I used to have.  It was written on the 'take a handful of this, a haunch of that' principle, and was in Middle English ie the early form of English as written by Chaucer (I used to be a medievalist).  I cooked a few things out of curiosity and when you're hungry, food is food, as the fox said to the cockroach.  But I won't say I'm like missing any of the things  :O)

Helen from York, England

Medieval Foods: There is a great children's picture book called A Medieval Feast by Aliki. I don't know if it is still in print, but the pictures and descriptions of medieval food are great.

Penny

Farm kitchens: For all those interested in farm kitchens of earlier decades, I have a project that's  been on the back burner for so long that I think I should offer it to others.  In a 1937 copy of the magazine Woman's Home Companion, there's an article "My Farm Kitchen: How I would make it over if--."  It won third prize in a kitchen design contest.

      The author was Mrs. Blanche H. Brown of Kilmichael, Mississippi, and she describes her present kitchen, with rough unplaned plank walls and no gas, electricity, or water.  The countertop is rusty metal, the cream separator drips oil on the floor, and she tacks newspaper on the walls near it "to have some semblance of neatness."  She gives exact details of what is placed where, and there are two fuzzy photos.

      Then she describes how she would renovate the kitchen if someone gave her $500.  Water, electricity, a dairy room, will come first.  Then she goes into great detail about how she'd build the cupboards, quite technical stuff, and practical too (a fly-proof door to the outside to allow the farmer to get slops for the hogs without coming in the kitchen, so no more mud and slop on her floor).  The colour scheme would be mostly white, for coolness, with some green, and washable wallpaper with a "delicate rose vine trailing over it."

      I've always wanted to do a "before and after" scene based on this wishful thinking, and if anyone else would like to try it I can send copies of the article.  (As far as I know the magazine is no longer in existence, so I don't know who one would ask about copyright.)  Even better, perhaps someone has a copy of the "Personality Kitchen Booklet" that had all three prize-winning designs, and more.  It cost 25 cents, and the magazine's service bureau was then at 250 Park Avenue in New York city.  Any collectors of paper ephemera who can help?

Frances

Iceboxes, and what the poor did instead: I have experience with iceboxes, when we were in OKLA in 1942 my aunt had a icebox that they bought with the cream money.  They had a farm with cows etc. The icebox was used mostly to store the cream before the collecting man came by. They also stored butter there. Aunt Fay made butter with a churn that was a big glass jar with a crank handle on top.

Grandma used the old fashioned crock churn with a broomstick handle and a cross of wood on the bottom. To keep things cool, instead of an icebox, grandma had a cooler, like a mini windmill tower. it had a bucket on the top with a petcock, which is a little faucet of brass, that dripped a drop of water at a time onto a muslin cover over the galvanized metal frame with metal shelves, a pan for all the bottom, where the muslin cover ended.  She had an extra cover to use when it needed washing to get out the minerals in the water, was kind of orange due to the water and the soil in the area.  We later used it the first year we lived in grandma's house (1947). Then one year on a farm, no cooler or icebox, then to grandma's again and put in electricity and a new refer from Sears.

Second hand Rhoda