Yesterday's What Is it answer...
this is a grindstone and they were quarried from natural materials like sandstone and this is part of an old pedal stone, aka pedal wheel, grinder. My husband said he used one of these pedal wheels when he was a child, he got to pedal and his dad the dangerous part. The pedal grinder (photo from Google Images) was used to shape and sharpen blades from knives and swords to scissors and plow blades, anything that needed to be ground down. then they would use use a whetstone like we use today in our kitchens or a strop (leather strap) to make it razor sharp if needed. It had to be pedaled stead and slow or it would nick the metal.
Congratulations to Sunny, George, Betsy, Peggy, Catherine and Barbara for guessing grinder.
Kitchen Design From The Past!
Spa Tub! no jets in this one......heat water in a pot in the fire place, pour in tub add cold water to comfort zone. No reading by candlight in this tub. Also had to be emptied by hand, no plug.
Fancy soap, here it is! use for bathing, dishwashing or clothes washing. I forgot to ask what the bottle has in it. Maybe scent of somekind? did I say it took hours of hard labor to make this soap in your back yard? click here for Recipe for Lye Soap
Here it is! Your Dishwasher "Circa 1860" see below for close up of Rinse Cycle
Did I mention you had to a haul the water in the kitchen by the bucket?
Pot Storage, then and NOW. they had no cabinets so they stored all the kettles and pots under the table for easy access to the fireplace, those cast iron pots are heavy. click to get full view.
You will need to enlarge this to see what it is. It is a 100 % wool Cape. The cook said the cloak or a blanket was kept close to the fire place and used as a fire extinguisher. She said because of the long skirts and proximity to the fire, one of the leading causes of death in women during that time was the fireplace. The wool thrown around the skirt would put out the fire and they worked with 2 or more in the kitchens of the larger homes for protection.
PS they had one of these behind the door and we were not allowed past the table because of the fire danger.
today's guess what this is!
9 comments:
My grandmother's house in England had no indoor plumbing, she had a galvanized bathtub that we had to put infront of the fireplace and fill by hand. By the time the water was deep enough to bathe in, it had gotten cold! I hated it!
I think that is a trimmer used on
candlewicks.
Sunny :)
I love all the photos-full of history! Yikes about the fire-but I guess that would make sense-long skirts near fire all day.
Haven't a clue what the photo is.
I don't think I'm ready to go back to the 1860s to get a bath. I like my shower too much!
Your quiz is definitely some type of scissors. The box on top would capture whatever was snipped off.
Wow - I'm so happy I have more modern conveniences in my house!!
I'm with Sunny on this one (thought the same thing before I read her comment).
When I think of our ancestors, I think of myself... We have the things we have these days --and take them for granted... 150 yrs. from now, people are going to look back at us --and feel the way we do about our ancestors. We'd hate to have to live the way they did back then---but they didn't know any better (just like we don't know any better today).... Interesting to think about, isn't it?????
All I know is that they are some kind of scissors.. BUT--they look like they have several other uses also.
Hugs,
Betsy
Reading about all the awful kitchen work made me tired and I want to go to bed now!! I've lost the quiz again! Too funny. It does look just like a millstone, but now that I can see it in perspective, millstones are much larger! I daren't even hazard a guess about this latest thingy...I've clicked on it and examined it closely...it does look like scissors of some sort, but that square thing on it is a real mystery, you picked a good one.
Life was not an easy chore in those days. I have seen lye soap make, it's pretty labor intensive.
I have seen those scissors before in a museum. I agree with Sunny, they are for cutting the wick. The little box catches the wick and keeps it from falling into the hot wax. These quizzes are fun.
I was just thinking about this yesterday and wondered what those folks would think if we were able to tell them that we just go to the store and bought all of our food, took it home and put it in the microwave and in a few minutes had a complete meal! I'm sure that we would not be believed. I also thought about how I would survive if I was transported back in time. Not well, I'm sure. However, I would probably lose a lot of weight! Judy
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