Anecdotal accounts of life in English houses. Extensively illustrated with drawings, sketches and photographs. Contents Include: Signs of Old Times; Village Interiors; The Fireside and Candlelight; Household Gods and Possessions; Country People, Occupations and Customs. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.
This four-volume collection of primarily newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. Volume 1: Many Families The eighteenth-century family group was a varied one. Documents attest to religious and racial diversity, as well as the hardships endured by the poor and working classes, such as widows, orphans and those born outside wedlock. Fictive families are also examined alongside more traditional family units bound by blood or law.
An illustrated, nostalgic how-to guide to achieving a clean, organized, and happy home—with over 500 retro tips and tricks! Return your household to the simpler times of yesteryear with this delightful guide full of time- and money-saving tips on everything from cleaning and organizing your home to buying and handling food. Even in an age of endless new household products and devices, these old-fashioned, tried-and-true methods can help any homeowner keep a cleaner, happier home. A thoroughly researched compendium of the best American home life tips from the 1920s through the ’60s, Classic Household Hints is filled with useful information, full-color illustrations, fascinating sidebars, and quotes—providing practical help as well as fun for housekeepers and neat freaks everywhere.
In the later medieval centuries, a whole range of important social, political and artistic activities took place against the backdrop of the great English households. In this vividly illuminating book, C. M. Woolgar explores the details of life in these great houses. Based on an extensive investigation of household accounts and related primary documents, he examines the daily routines, the weekly and annual patterns, and the life-cycle observances of birth, childhood, marriage, death and burial. He also delineates the major changes that transformed the economy and geography of both lay and clerical households between 1200 and 1500.
This book offers an experiential perspective on the lives of Elizabethans—how they worked, ate, and played—with hands-on examples that include authentic music, recipes, and games of the period. Daily Life in Elizabethan England: Second Edition offers a fresh look at Elizabethan life from the perspective of the people who actually lived it. With an abundance of updates based on the most current research, this second edition provides an engaging—and sometimes surprising—picture of what it was like to live during this distant time. Readers will learn, for example, that Elizabethans were diligent recyclers, composting kitchen waste and collecting old rags for papermaking. They will discover that Elizabethans averaged less than 2 inches shorter than their modern British counterparts, and, in a surprising echo of our own age, that many Elizabethan city dwellers relied on carryout meals—albeit because they lacked kitchen facilities. What further sets the book apart is its "hands-on" approach to the past with the inclusion of actual music, games, recipes, and clothing patterns based on primary sources.
