Household Chores

"Making Souse"
Courtesy of the Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Household chores were never ending. The wife scrubbed floors with lye soap, but first she had to make the soap from ashes and lard. She washed clothes in a wash pot, but first she drew the water and boiled it over a fire she had built. Depending on the weather - because washing was done outside - it could take days to wash. As Della Abbott, a frontier wife in the Arkansas delta wrote in a letter to her mother-in-law, "It took three days to finish. It rained Wednesday, Thursday and Friday." The clothes were hung to dry and were pressed with flatirons, which were heated in the fireplace. Mending and darning were usually nighttime chores. There was a time that the wife carded and spun wool and cotton to make thread for knitting. Most clothing worn by the family was made by her hand. Scraps from sewing and discarded clothing were saved for making quilts - each piece hand stitched. Geese were plucked and their down made into featherbeds. There were also outside chores assigned to her.

She milked the cow and tended the chickens. Milk was a precious commodity as were eggs and the meat of poultry. Many farm wives performed duties not normally assigned to women. In addition to cooking; sewing; and supervising the kitchen, garden and yard, she worked in the fields alongside her husband, particularly at harvest time.

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