Breckinridge County KyArchives History .....Conveniences 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Dana Brown http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001067 September 23, 2006, 2:11 pm

Book Title: A Glimpse Of The Past

The conveniences available to rural homes and families during the last century 
were few and crude, when compared to those of the present generation.  But to 
our forefathers they were wonderful, because they knew no others and as oftimes 
said, "Things you don't know don't matter".  Bathrooms and indoor toilets were 
unknown to country people.  They lived and died without such conveniences.

Bathing is a very old custom dating back at least to Biblical times.  It is 
just in recent times that a daily bath has become custom, partly because there 
were not facilities for it, and partly because people did not consider it that 
important.  The weekly bath was customary where there was no bathroom.

Until the time between the two World Wars were people in the United States 
beginning to thing of the bathroom as a necessity instead of a luxury.

In warm weather, members of the family availed themselved of the old swimming 
hole in a nearby stream, when there were enough obstructions to screen them 
from public exposure.

When insufficient buildings, fences and shrubbery could not conceal nature in 
action, a little outhouse was built aaway from nearby buildings and its use was 
so obvious, no inscription on the door was necessary.  These buildings were 
built to standards.  Dependent upon the size of the family they were considered 
one, two and three olers.  Scott, Delsey, Charmin and other manufactures had 
not introduced soft as silk products, so the pioneers had to rely on rougher 
and coarser conveniences.  The Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue not only 
served as a shopping guide for the family, but it served a double purpose in 
these out buildings - reading matter and conveniences for visitors.  Rain snow 
or sleet did not interfere with day or night visits to this house of relief.

As late as the 50s in most rural homes the Saturday night bath was still a 
weekly practice.  It was no easy task in a lot of homes.

First, the water had to be drawn from the well or carried from the spring.  The 
water was heated on top of the cooking range or dipped from the reservoir of 
the range, which may have been a wood burner.  The galvanized washtub was 
brought in from outside where it was most likely hung on a nail on the back of 
the house or stored in the wash house.  In the warm months the tub may have 
been filled with cool water and placed in the sun in the yard to warm.  During 
the winter months the tub was usually placed near the stove.  Often the whole 
family used the same tub of water, beginning with the youngest and ending with 
the parents.

The modern tub began to be mass-produced around 1920.  this brought the price 
down, and by the 1940s a fixture set consisted of tub, basin and toilet which 
could be bought for around $70.  With the price dropping and electric reaching 
nearly everyone in the rural areas to provide running water, the indoor 
bathroom was much desired for most homes.

Most Victorian bathtubs stood on legs instead of being the one-piece double 
shell that we know today.  The Victorian tub is also being reproduced today, 
which are very fancy.  The new tubs can be had in several colors and with brass 
legs and fixtures.

There were no matches available to rural Kentucky until the last half of the 
nineteenth century, making it necessary to keep fires at all times.  Coals were 
covered over with ashes to keep them live for starting new fires.  If they went 
out, someone went to a neighbors and borrowed a new supply, or started another 
fire Indian fashion either with flax toe and gunpowder, ignited by sparks from 
a flint rock or by rubbing two sticks together until friction caused them to 
burst into flames.






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