Revisiting the Past: This Is What Hygiene Was Like in Colonial America
This article appeared in cleverclassic.com and has been published here with permission.A Basin of Water and a Wet Cloth
Since plumbing didn’t exist during the colonial era, full-body baths were not expected from the colonials. The only people that ever received such a luxury were children, and it wasn’t given to clean them, instead, to harden them.
As for adults, they usually bathed by wiping the dirt off their bare skin with a cloth dipped into a pail of water. It’s similar to how you’d wipe stains off your shelf.
Outhouses
This fact might be obvious, but during the colonial era, houses had outhouses nearby, and chamber privy pots indoors for excretion. Unfortunately, these chambers were emptied by throwing their content out the window whenever it was full.
Sadly, these human waste found its way into streams, lakes, and rivers, resulting in the contamination of drinking water and spreading of diseases. This lack of an efficient disposal system led to the death of many colonials.
Ear and Teeth Cleaning Tool
Archaeologists recently uncovered a silver earpick that dates back to the 17th century which was most likely used to clean the ear, nails, teeth, and many other body parts.
You might think that this tool has only one useful part; however, it comes with several points for various tasks. The primary end is a scooping tool, while other smaller sections can be used to clean several parts of the body like the fingernails and teeth.
Powdered Wigs
Photos and paintings of the colonial era often depict men from the upper class with white wigs. Well, history reveals that these headpieces have quite a story.
Lice infestation was a common problem in the colonial era, and the best solution was to shave your hair and cover the baldness with a wig made from animal fur. However, these Wigs also attracted lice and other insects because of the pomade and products used to treat them. It was a literal war on bugs.
We often take our access to good plumbing and a vast selection of cleaning products for granted, not knowing that they were nonexistent during the colonial era. The absence of these hygiene tools made America very unclean, as one English traveler remarked, “filthy, bordering on the beastly”. Today, we’ll be heading back to the colonial era to see their views on personal hygiene.