This is from
The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes by Helen Campbell -- about whom I must learn more. She wrote
Women Wage-Earners and
The Practice of Dr. Martha Scarborough! This sounds like an early home ec textbook -- I must tell my aunt who taught that! Ms. Campbell begins the book with a motto that it's best to get your work done not only well but quickly, and in Chapter IV she describes her recommended housekeeping routine -- but note I'm leaving out a couple of the grosser jobs one had to do in those days:
First, then, on rising in the morning, see that a full current of air can pass through every sleeping-room; remove all clothes from the beds, and allow them to air at least an hour....While beds and bedrooms are airing, breakfast is to be made ready, the table set, and kitchen and dining-room put in order.
The kitchen-fire must first be built. If a gas or oil stove can be used, the operations are all simpler. If not, it is always best to have dumped the grate the night before if coal is used, and to have laid the fire ready for lighting. In the morning brush off all ashes, and wipe or blacken the stove. Strong, thick gloves, and a neat box for brushes, blacking, &c., will make this a much less disagreeable operation than it sounds. Rinse out the tea-kettle, fill it with fresh water, and put over to boil. Then remove the ashes, and, if coal is used, sift them, as cinders can be burned a large part of the time where only a moderate fire is desired.
The table can be set, and the dining or sitting room swept, or merely brushed up and dusted, in the intervals of getting breakfast....
After breakfast comes the dish-washing, dreaded by all beginners, but needlessly so. With a full supply of all conveniences,—plenty of soap and sapolio, which is far better and cleaner to use than either sand or ashes; with clean, soft towels for glass and silver; a mop, the use of which not only saves the hands but enables you to have hotter water; and a full supply of coarser towels for the heavier dishes,—the work can go on swiftly....Wash glass first, paying no attention to the old saying that "hot water rots glass."...Wash silver next....If any pieces require rubbing, use a little whiting made into a paste, and put on wet. Let it dry, and then polish with a chamois-skin....China comes next—all plates having been carefully scraped, and all cups rinsed out....Put all china, silver, and glass in their places as soon as washed. Then take any tin or iron pans, wash, wipe with a dry towel, and put near the fire to dry thoroughly. A knitting-needle or skewer may be kept to dig out corners unreachable by dishcloth or towel, and if perfectly dried they will remain free from rust. The cooking-dishes, saucepans, &c., come next in order; and here the wire dish-cloth will be found useful, as it does not scratch, yet answers every purpose of a knife....Plated knives save much work. If steel ones are used, they must be polished after every meal. In washing them, see that the handles are never allowed to touch the water. Ivory discolors and cracks if wet. Bristol-brick finely powdered is the best polisher, and, mixed with a little water, can be applied with a large cork. A regular knife-board, or a small board on which you can nail three strips of wood in box form, will give you the best mode of keeping brick and cork in place....
The dish-towels are the next consideration. A set should be used but a week, and must be washed and rinsed each day....Dry them, if possible, in the open air: if not, have a rack, and stand them near the fire. On washing-days, let those that have been used a week have a thorough boiling...
If tables are stained,...a clean, coarse cloth, hot suds, and a good scrubbing-brush will simplify the operation. Wash off the table; then dip the brush in the suds, and scour with the grain of the wood. Finally wash off all soapy water, and wipe dry. To save strength, the table on which dishes are washed may be covered with kitchen oilcloth, which will merely require washing and wiping....
Leaving the kitchen in order, the bedrooms will come next. Turn the mattresses daily, and make the bed smoothly and carefully....With hot water wash out all the bowls, pitchers, &c., using separate cloths for these purposes, and never toilet towels. Dust the room, arrange every thing in place, and, if in summer, close the blinds, and darken till evening, that it may be as cool as possible.
Sweeping days for bedrooms need come but once a week, but all rooms used by many people require daily sweeping; halls, passages, and dining and sitting rooms coming under this head. Careful dusting daily will often do away with the need of frequent sweeping, which wears out carpets unnecessarily. A carpet-sweeper is a real economy, both in time and strength; but, if not obtainable, a light broom....For a thorough sweeping, remove as many articles from the room as possible, dusting each one thoroughly, and cover the larger ones which must remain with old sheets or large squares of common unbleached cotton cloth, kept for this purpose...For piano, and furniture of delicate woods generally, old silk handkerchiefs make the best dusters. For all ordinary purposes, squares of old cambric, hemmed, and washed when necessary, will be found best....If moldings and wash-boards or wainscotings are wiped off with a damp cloth, one fruitful source of dust will be avoided. For all intricate work like the legs of pianos, carved backs of furniture, &c., a pair of small bellows will be found most efficient....If oil-cloth is on halls or passages, it should be washed weekly with warm milk and water....All brass or silver-plated work about fire-place, doorknobs, or bath-room faucets, should be cleaned once a week....
The bedrooms and the necessary daily sweeping finished, a look into cellar and store-rooms is next in order...to see that...all stores are in good condition....A look into the refrigerator or meat-safe to note what is left and suggest the best use for it...and another under all sinks and into each pantry,—will prevent the accumulation of bones....
The preparation of dinner if at or near the middle of the day, and the dish-washing which follows, end the heaviest portion of the day's work; and the same order must be followed...Remember, however, that, if but one servant is kept, she can not do every thing, and that your own brain must constantly supplement her deficiencies.
Wow, I'm tired just reading about it! Though I finally understood how they dealt with dusty, grimy cities powered with coal etc.
