1930's Phones: For those who had them, there was a spread. Many had a wooden box (about a foot high) on the wall with two hemispheric black bells on the top (or front). The top slanted down on the ones I remember. There was a hook shaped somewhat like a wishbone to hold the "receiver" which was of a tulip or flaring conic shape.

The ones I used had a crank on the other side to alert the operator. You spoke into the tulip shaped mouthpiece on the front, which you could swivel up or down to accommodate different heights. If a little kid was even allowed to use the phone, she might have to stand on a chair. (Oh, I want that for my house!)

There were party lines, and kids did not spend the day on the phone, for sure. I was living out in the country with a phone like that when I was a teenager, and I have been talking a streak ever since trying to make up for the deprivation!

In town, in the early thirties, we had the stick type. There is a circular flat platform, a cylinder, and a hook with receiver at the top of the cylinder, surmounted by the mouthpiece, which has a tulip in the center, but surrounded by a flat black piece so it looks like a daffodil. I am sure you have seen these, but I am just placing the time...had to be used before and after 1930. In period rooms or in museums I have also seen the "French" sets from before 1930 (like phones from the fifties but delicate and longer necked) but I didn't actually see any in the early 1930's.

Bar Turner of La Honda CA

1930’s Washing: Nancy Norris wrote me about laundry in her house. The water was heated in a black pot-bellied wood stove. I only remember hot water coming out of the tap, but I think my mother may have had to do something to the hot water heater (turn it up?) on wash day. My aunt rented out cabins in the summer and had tons of wash. I think she had bottled gas and a water heater in her outdoor (under shelter) laundry area.

Clothes were wrung out by passing them through two rubberized cylinders. My MIL told me how happy she was to get a hand cranked wringer instead of just twisting the clothes she had washed with a tub and scrub board. Even in the early thirties, my mother had an "Easy" washing machine. (I learned the whole process on the same machine in the forties) It had the same kind of wringer, but it was electric.

The tub was an evolved washtub...a big cylindrical tank, with agitator, with a giant cover. Here is the washing process: Fill the washing machine with hot water and soap. Put in the "white clothes," which would be bedding and towels. There were two service tubs. After washing, the white clothes were put through the wringer into the first service tub, which had warm water in it. (And many were the stories about getting your hands caught in the wringer!) The next load was then put into the sudsy water in the washing machine. Probably lightly soiled clothing . (The third load would be heavily soiled clothing.)

Meantime, the first load was ready to slosh around by hand in the rinse water. The wringer would be swiveled around, and the clothes put through it into the second rinse in the second service tub. But the second rinse would be cold to save on heating. When each load was put through the wringer for the third time, it was ready to hang up.

On it cold day it was miserable to fish the clothes out of the cold water to feed them into the wringer. I think we had to catch them on the other side to toss into the basket. As Nancy also remembers, wet weather meant that laundry was hung somewhere indoors. It could be in the garage or basement if you had them. If not, we used wooden accordion folding racks that stood on the floor and metal over-door racks. A baby in diapers meant constant washing and drying. I remember my mother rushing around taking diapers off the racks if my father called to say he was bringing company to dinner.

Draining the washing machine was a pain. My mother was pretty good at siphoning into the service tub so that she only had to drain the last bit into a bucket under the drain plug. She didn't want to go through that twice, so sometimes she added more soap when the third load had water that really was too dirty. This often resulted in a delightful over-abundance of suds that lifted the lid off the machine. I so fondly remember that my mother would call me in to enjoy that when it happened!

Ironing: So much more than today! Handkerchiefs, table napkins, table cloths, in addition to almost all clothing (even underwear). There were dresser scarves and table runners all over the place (often embroidered by young girls for their "hope chest.") Nancy and I remember "mangles." Oh, gosh, you will have to find a picture. Actually they were probably somewhat like machines used by laundries and cleaners today. Picture someone playing a small piano. Now change the piano keyboard to a roller, with padding and a cloth cover, that could be lifted up and down over the heated curved metal base by a foot or knee control. You fed the piece under the roller and lifted the roller to make adjustments. My mother took lessons at the store and became a genius at doing lots more than flatwork on it.

Where did we wash clothes? Service porches were very common in California. With so many sunny days, it was nice not to have to carry the wet laundry up from a basement. I mentioned my aunt's outdoor laundry, and in one place I lived we had a little laundry shed.

Bar Turner from La Honda, CA

1930's Kitchen: A very good reference book of kitchens and kitchenware covering each decade from 1900 through 1950's is KITCHENS AND KITCHENWARE by Jane H. Celehar Published by Wallace-Homeslead in 1985 ISBN 0-87069-425-1 This books includes ads, floor plans, gadgets, appliances, brand names and prices. Original price of soft cover was $15.95 everything you ever wanted to know about a 1930's kitchen

MinJo

Log Cabin story and pictures: http://miniature.net/smallstuff/an_oregon_cabin.htm

Bill Hudson

Your list of inventions is very enlightening. To put a human face on history I pass on the following: The Pony Express ran from St. Louis to San Francisco and was in operation only for 7 years. I think it started in 1884 and in those days it took a letter 7 days to go from St. Louis to San Francisco and it cost the sum of $0.33 ( a lot in them thar days)

DrBob Delray Beach, FL.

Style Periods: Edwardian was 1901 to 1910. In the US, this is often lumped in with Victorian, which was still very popular. Art Nouveau was arriving from France, Craftsman/Arts and Crafts was coming into its own. Wright was introducing the "Prairie Style." It was followed by the war years, and the Art Deco and Stockbroker Tudor.

Victorian Oak furniture: Most of the oak furniture of the Victorian time was stained dark. Around the turn of the century, "Golden Oak" was coming into style and lasted up to the second war.

Tom Berkner

The 1950's:I have an incredible book called "Inspiring 1950's Interiors" by C. Eugene Moore (A Schiffer Design Book) available from Amazon.com. It has kitchens, as well as every other room in a house, and boy, does it ever take me back! Basket chairs...sunburst clocks, Danish Modern and, conversely, Early American Maple. And the colors: reds, rust, oranges.

The bathrooms are interesting, very little in the way of 'Pullman' sinks, mostly free standing.

1950's kitchens revisited: Oh yes, that sunken bean pot. My grandparents gave my parents a new refrigerator and an electric stove for their tenth anniversary in 1955, and the stove had one of those. Wish I had a stove like that in a gas version with so much space between the burners that you could put food onto serving platters easily.

That "electric sink" dishwasher was a real pain - you had to wash everything before you put it in. I'm sure that scared me so that I still, after 28 years of marriage, have no dishwasher. And then there was the electric frying pan - my mother LOVED hers.

And lighting. When my parents redid the kitchen in the 50's, they had the ceiling lights recessed, no fun to change the bulbs. And my grandmother had an "oil" lamp with a milk glass shade hanging over the breakfast table in her new 50's house. How interesting that she, who had a real early American kitchen complete with mammoth fireplace in the basement of her pre-Revolutionary house, had a 50's "Early American" kitchen in her brand new split level ranch.

Margaret in Texas

Fiesta dates, 50's colors: Fiestaware dishes were introduced in 1936 and redesigned in 1969 and withdrawn in 1973. They were reissued in 1986 in different colors than the originals. So Fiesta would be correct in a kitchen from the 1950's. The dishes that were Fiesta "look alikes" were called Harlequin and were sold from 1938 to 1964.

As in most eras, the colors of the fifties changed as the decade progressed. What was "in" in the early to mid fifties was definitely "out" by the sixties. In the early part of the 50's red and white dominated in kitchen utensils and cabinet handles, dish towels, wallpaper patterns, etc. Then forest green, pinks, gray and turquoise came into vogue. As the decade wore down, gold, avocado green and brown were gaining in popularity and ran over into the sixties.

In the fifties, people might use "kitchen motif" decals on their canister sets or even to liven up their cabinet doors, but by the sixties, that kind of decor was passé. Of course, what goes around comes around. Now "wagging tail" cat clocks, hairpin Formica patterns, colored aluminum tumblers ,flamingos and fiestaware are all being reproduced for those who want a "retro" look in their current kitchens.

Darlene from Long Island

Coffee Pots in 50's: We had a silex coffee pot. It was 2 glass Pyrex bulbs. You heated the water in the bottom part, and somehow it went up to the top part, the coffee was in the top part, then you turned off the flame, and the coffee dripped into the bottom pot. My dad didn't like it and used a revere copper bottom percolator. I have been dreaming 50's kitchens.

MAP in Puyallup

50's house: Linc mentioned that speckled linoleum, and we had the same stuff in our house, as did my grandmother. I think it went with every possible color combination, so the contractors just put it in all the houses automatically!

Oh, remember those horrible burnt orange sectional dishes - four curved pieces and a covered center bowl, all on a turntable. I think they also came in chartreuse. Ugh! Talk about the Age of Ugly!

Dani

Furniture and Accessories of the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's. Written by Robert W. and Harriett Swedberg. Published by Collector Books, P.O. Box 3009, Paducah, KY 42002-3009. ISBN # 0-89145-332-6 Price US$19.95.

Dried flowers, honesty pods for fairies, etc: Look to your local weeds and garden plants. Deconstructing and drying flat between weights gives you the tiniest prettiest flowers and leaves to use in mini pictures, fire screens etc.

Most outrageous, because so tiny, is the "hairy forget-me-not" weed. TOTALLY not garden worthy, teeny forget-me-not flowers a fifth the size of the real McCoy but perfect for our uses.

Also dry Queen Anne's Lace, aka cow parsley, individual florets.

Any small creeping weed, sometimes can give flowers of surprising impact once dried.

A garden plant worth drying is the individual flowers, so teeny and small, on the flower heads of alchemilla mollis aka lady's mantle.

Use these flowers, once dried, to make flat floral arrangements. They are also good as pictures, fire screens etc.They are historically accurate from 1750s onwards in GB.

Take the stems of dock plants once the seeds have fallen. There are stems with tiny structures to hold the seeds, which look so good with these tiny dried flowers stuck on - real fantasy plants.

Helen Cottrell

History of Costume: Dover Publications has reprinted that book by Carl Kohler! I have it - it has been very helpful at times! They have the beginnings of a web site up, but it'd probably be easier to write and request a catalog:

Dover Publications
31 East 2nd Street
Mineloa, NY 11501-3582

Elaine Brown

"History of Costume," by Carl Kohler, was reprinted by Dover Books. You can probably order a copy from your local bookstore. ISBN: 0486210308

Betsy Vera

Victorian Fashions; I just purchased a book from Hobby House Press called "Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive" and it is wonderful. There are enough ideas for Victorian dolls hats, hair, cloths, shoes and accessories to last me a lifetime. There are 965 beautiful illustrations of clothing by year starting at 1855 and continuing through 1903. Anyone who loves Victorian dolls would love this book by Carol Belanger Grafton (Dover press). I am sure that a person could get it at any good book store. It was less than $20.00 after shipping cost from Hobby House and worth every penny!

Dottie Evans

Costume Books: My favorite book: Patterns for Theatrical Costumes by Katherine Strand Holkeboer. My Barnes and Noble had it in stock. But both B&N and Books-A-Million were able to look it up on their computer. It starts with togas and ends with modern fashion. Big thick book, all illustrations and photos, each with patterns close to being scale although not meant for minis.

Mary Kay Gentile

Egyptian Resource Site: I've seen pictures of ancient Egyptian room boxes, but there's a wonderful site aimed at theatrical designers that might inspire somebody to recreate other aspects of the ancient world. Take a look at Period and Style for Designers: www.tulane.edu/lester/text/lester.html. The site is divided into a number of eras and places, showing exteriors, interiors, furniture and other artifacts, etc. Not all sections are complete (19th century's skimpy) but you'll find Art Nouveau on one end and on the other some absolutely stunning stuff from Knossos and Pompeii, with wonderful colors and a sense of delight in living. (Somebody could have fun costuming one of those wonderful little snake priestesses, with their Barbie-doll shapes and flounced skirts!)

Mary

Archie McPhee Mini Catapult and mini guillotine: For everyone who is interested in building a castle check this out. What no respectable castle owner would be without. A mini guillotine and a mini catapult. The mini guillotine even has a bowl to catch the heads http://www.mcphee.com/

Elizabeth Cooper

History of Shoes: I found this wonderful site with the history of shoes in the 20th century, decade by decade, starting at 1900.

There is a great animated presentation for an intro, and then lots of good info and pictures (including some clothing/hair fashions inside. They also cover pre-1900 a bit. I thought this could be useful for doll makers on the list.

Anne Gerdes