Home Life in Colonial DaysCould you identify a sausage gun if you had to? How about a plate warmer or a well-sweep? Any idea how the term log-rolling really originated? Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911), a prolific popular historian and the first American to chronicle everyday life and customs of the colonial era, describes what these and many other obscure utensils were and how they were used. She also conveys a vivid picture of home production of textiles, colonial dress, transportation, religious and social practices, the care of flower gardens, colonial neighborliness, and other aspects of early American life. Widely read when it was first published in 1898, this fascinating and wonderfully readable guide was instrumental in promoting a renewed interest in everyday life of bygone times. Today, it offers history buffs, collectors, and other interested readers a feast of delightful information. |
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American bark beautiful Benjamin Franklin Boston boys broom built called candles Captain John Smith carried century cheerful chimney church cloth coach coarse colonists color Conestoga wagons Connecticut corn cotton door dress Dutch early England English farm favorite feet fire fireplace fish flax flowers garden Governor Hampshire hand heavy homespun horses household hundred hung inches Indian John Winthrop kitchen knit leather linen logs loom manufacture Massachusetts meeting-house negro neighbors old-time pair Pennsylvania pewter placed planted plentiful pomace porringers pounds pumpkins Puritan quilt roads Salem seats seen settlers shape shuttle side silk silver skarne sometimes spinning spoons spun tallow tankard tavern teazel temse Thomas Tusser thread to-day town traveller trees trenchers turned usually vast Virginia wagons warp warp-threads wear weaver weaving weft wheel winter women wood wooden wool woollen woven wrote yarn York