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    • TB Times: St. Augustine coming to grips with civil rights history
    • Strawberry Festival organizers collecting material for new history book
    • Tarpon Springs' Greektown added to National Register as Traditional Cultural Property
    • Volunteers begin cleanup of historic Ocala cemetery
    • Jax museum presents 'Megalodon,' biggest-ever shark
    • Proposed museum switch generates anger in St. Pete
    • Report: Ocala's original cemetery lying in ruins
    • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seeking camera-wielding Elvis fans
    • Service of Florida Jews in World War II focus of new WLRN doc
    • Seventeen honored for Big Bend preservation efforts
    • Long dresses, long pants, no shorts: Life before AC was uncool
    • Sunken shipwrecks are being turned into "parks" off Florida coast
    • Run-down Dunedin hotel to be rebuilt in same architectural style
    • Painting at Ringling Museum leads scholar to discover slavery roots of Spanish painter Juan de Pareja
    • Hampton Inn in downtown Bradenton gets state historic preservation award
    • Civil War re-enactment draws criticism in Holly Hill
    • New documentary spotlights Anna Maria Historic Green Village
    • Tampa-area NAACP launching effort to save historic rooming house
    • Ride on "America's Movie Train" this weekend in Ocoee, Winter Garden
    • Tampa's historic Kress building set for reimagination
    • 67-year-old shipwreck off Florida identified
    • Florida History Today - Project studies South Florida native communites
    • Florida History Today - Tarpon Springs halts Sponge Docks upgrades
    • Florida History Today - Compromise reached on Tequesta circles preservation
    • Florida History Today - Sears homes remembered in Sanibel
  • On this day in Florida history - August
    • Aug. 15, 1887 - Eatonville becomes one of first all-black towns in U.S.
    • Aug. 13, 2004 - Hurricane Charley kicks off unusually active 'cane year
    • Aug. 12, 1981 - Developed in Boca Raton, first PC released by IBM
    • Aug. 11, 1987 - Santeria church vows to sacrifice animals despite Hialeah ban
    • Aug. 10, 1981 - Tragic discovery confirms death of missing Adam Walsh, 6
    • Aug. 9, 1956 - Reporters look down noses covering Elvis in Daytona Beach
    • Aug. 8, 1896 - Cross Creek, Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings born
    • Aug. 6, 1868 - Great Seal of the State of Florida adopted by Legislature
    • Aug. 5, 1763 - Britain takes over Pensacola, expands slavery over two-decade Fla. rule
    • Aug. 4, 1842: U.S. gives free Florida land to settlers willing to fight Seminoles
    • Aug. 1, 1939 - Florida Highway Patrol formed; to begin with 60 troopers
  • On this day in Florida history - July
    • July 31, 1962 - Actor, tax evader Wesley Snipes born in Orlando
    • July 30, 1956: Delta Burke, star of tabloids and television, born in Orlando
    • July 28, 1896: With railroad into town, city of Miami incorporated
    • July 27, 1816: U.S. forces obliterate 300+ free blacks, Indians at 'Fort Negro'
    • July 26, 1876 - Daytona incorporated, named after founder Matthias Day
    • July 25, 1884 - St. Petersburg Times debuts as West Hillsborough Times
    • July 25, 1957 - Country star, actress Pam Tillis born in Plant City
    • July 23, 1836 - Cape Florida Lighthouse attacked by Seminoles
    • July 22, 1964 - First 536 home lots sold in new city of Coral Springs
    • July 21, 1821 - St. Johns and Escambia become first two Florida counties
    • July 20, 1969 - U.S. astronauts walk on the moon
    • July 19, 1952 - Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins is born; stardom and tragedy await
    • July 18, 1940 - Winners of St. Pete mayor's safety slogan contest announced
    • July 17, 1821 - Spain officially transfers Florida to United States
    • July 16, 1943 - Former 'Canes, Dolphins, Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson born
    • July 15, 1997 - Killer gigolo guns down Gianni Versace at South Beach mansion
    • July 14, 1921 - Florida's most famous 'cracker cowboy' dies at 58
    • July 13, 1927: Officials dump $250k in liquor into Gulf Stream
    • July 10, 1972 - First of two major party conventions opens in Miami Beach
    • July 9, 1957 - Pass-a-Grille and three other towns form St. Pete Beach
    • July 8, 2011 - Last space shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral
    • July 7, 1983 - 'Operation Everglades' drug bust rocks Everglades City
    • July 6, 2003 - 'Hillbillies' star Buddy Ebsen, raised in Orlando, dies at 95
    • July 5, 1928 - Elks begin arriving for 1st Florida national convention
    • July 4: Florida celebrates America's Independence Day
    • July 3, 1971 - Doors singer, Melbourne native Jim Morrison dies
    • July 2, 1961: Key West icon Ernest Hemingway dies; cats live on
    • July 1, 1951: St. Pete woman's burning death baffles investigators
  • On this day in Florida history - June
    • June 1, 1937 - Amelia Earhart leaves Miami to begin final voyage
    • June 2, 2008 - Bo Diddley, 79, dies at his home in Archer
    • June 3, 1961 - Arrest made in case that leads to 'right to an attorney'
    • June 4, 1939 - Jewish refugee ship turned away from Florida coast
    • June 5, 2013 - Zephyrhills woman, 84, claims $590 million Powerball jackpot
    • June 6, 1990 - Broward Judge rules 2 Live Crew album 'obscene'
    • June 7, 1928 - Two elections workers shot in Tampa ballot box heist
    • June 8, 1888 - First train rolls into terminus "St. Petersburg"
    • June 9, 1903 - Flagler's Breakers Hotel burns down in Palm Beach
    • June 10, 1991 - South Florida learns it will get new major league baseball team
    • June 11, 1953 - Sabal Palmetto palm becomes Florida's state tree
    • June 12, 1913: With first bridge, Miami Beach is open for business
    • June 13, 1974 - Askew appoints first female Cabinet member
    • June 14, 1966 - FSL's Miami and St. Pete set record for longest baseball game
    • June 15, 1822: City of Jacksonville founded, named after Andrew Jackson
    • June 16, 1955 - Judge Chillingworth and wife go missing
    • June 17. 1942 - German U-boat saboteurs land at Ponte Vedra Beach
    • June 18, 1983 - Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space
    • June 19, 1972 - Hurricane Agnes makes landfall in Panhandle
    • June 20, 2003 - Non-profit Wikipedia established in St. Petersburg
    • June 21, 1926 - Miami barbers don't want to be called 'chirotonsors'
    • June 22, 1990 - Florida bans thong bikinis in state parks
    • June 23, 1938 - Marine Studios, 'world's first oceanarium,' opens
    • June 24, 1987 - S. Fla's most famous resident, Jackie Gleason, dies at 71
    • June 25, 1981 - Dolphins QB Bob Griese retires after 14 seasons
    • June 26, 1964 - Governor orders extra police to riot-torn St. Augustine
    • June 27, 1964 - State tells Daytona: Stop price-gouging your tourists
    • June 28, 1911 - Big Cypress Indian Reservation created by President Taft
    • June 29, 1931 - Monticello hits 109 degrees -- hottest-ever for Florida
    • June 30, 1975 - Cher marries Daytona Beach's favorite son Gregg Allman
  • On this day in Florida history - May
    • May 1, 1562 - Jean Ribault arrives at St. Johns River, claims Florida for France
    • May 2, 1936 - Panama City Beach incorporated in Bay County
    • May 3, 1901 - Jacksonville burns to the ground
    • May 4, 1990 - Execution goes awry as flames, smoke shoot from head
    • May 5, 1961 - Alan Shepard becomes first American in space
    • May 6, 1965 - Rolling Stones play Clearwater, write 'Satisfaction' riff
    • May 7, 1940 - Voting machine shortages create long wait at polls
    • May 8, 1923 - Killings of work camp prisoners detailed in hearing
    • May 9, 1981 - Sinkhole swallows house, five Porsches in Winter Park
    • May 10, 1781 - Spanish Gen. Bernardo de Gálvez captures Pensacola
    • May 11, 1996 - ValuJet Flight 592 crashes into Everglades
    • May 12, 1997 - Tornado hits Miami, poses for photos, videos
    • May 13, 1955 - Jax fans chase Elvis after show, tear off his clothes
    • May 14, 1973 - Skylab launches new era of space study...and toys
    • May 15, 1947 - Florida State College for Women goes co-ed, renamed FSU
    • May 16, 1929 - Lake City mob lynches grocer after wife shoots chief
    • May 17, 1980 - Not guilty verdict triggers three days of rioting in Miami
    • May 18, 1955 - Educator Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune dies
    • May 19, 2004 - Drugstore chain owner Jack Eckerd dies at 91
    • May 20, 1913: Henry Morrison Flagler dies in his home at Palm Beach
    • May 21, 1956 - Police close beach after catching black, white teens talking
    • May 22, 1931 - Canned rattlesnake goes on sale from Arcadia
    • May 23, 1898 - School for Deaf & Blind issues first diplomas
    • May 24, 1931 - Writer develops Planet of the Apes storyline for Miami
    • May 25, 1961 - JFK challenges nation to land on moon within decade
    • May 26, 1845 - Florida holds first statewide election
    • May 27, 1965 - Mysterious land deal near Orlando revealed
    • May 28, 1935 - Now controversial "Old Folks At Home" becomes state song
    • May 29, 1967 - Woman jailed after 25 kids found in station wagon
    • May 30, 1989: Claude Pepper dies after 60 years of public service
    • May 31, 1539 - DeSoto comes to Florida, changes continent forever
  • On this day in Florida history - April
    • April 1, 1926 - Air Mail service begins in four Florida cities
    • April 2, 1513 - Juan Ponce de Leon lands in Florida
    • April 3, 2006 - Gators basketball team win first-ever national title
    • April 4, 1933 - NASCAR 2nd generation leader Bill France Jr. is born
    • April 5, 1925 - 'Great Miami Tornado' kills 5, destroys 250 homes
    • April 6, 1959 - Seminole Tribe votes to support building "Alligator Alley"
    • April 7, 1890 - Author, Everglades crusader Marjorie Stoneman Douglas born
    • April 8, 1923 - News of "lost" Tamiami trail blazers heats up
    • April 9, 1921 - Whites kicked out of West Palm Beach "colored" town
    • April 10, 1766 - John Bartram ends journey through Carolinas, Ga., Florida
    • April 11, 1986 - FBI shootout in Dade prompts cops' need for more powerful guns
    • April 12, 1981 - Space Shuttle launched for first time
    • April 13, 1951 - Marion County sheriff killed by forged check suspect
    • April 14, 1528 - Bumbling conqueror Pánfilo de Narváez lands near Tampa
    • April 15, 1896 - Henry Flagler's railroad arrives in Miami for first time
    • April 16, 1915 and 1917 - Aviation takes two steps forward
    • April 17, 1961 - U.S. launches failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba
    • April 18, 1957 - Florida to U.S.: Integration ruling unconstitutional
    • April 19, 1930 - First Publix store incorporated in Winter Haven
    • April 20, 1967 - Orange Juice becomes official state beverage
    • April 21, 1924 - NY's infamous 'Bobbed Haired Bandit' caught in Jax
    • April 22, 2000 - Elian Gonzalez seized in raid, returned to Cuba
    • April 23, 1982 - Keys secede from Union, create Conch Republic
    • April 24, 1965 - Orlando honors hometown astronaut with John Young Day
    • April 25, 1966 - Gov. Haydon Burns says his plane trailed by UFO
    • April 26, 1920 - Crop shippers seizing ice, creating shortage
    • April 27, 1969 - 1,000 students help during FSU admin building fire
    • April 28, 1985 - World's tallest sand sculpture built at Treasure Island
    • April 29, 1980 - U.S. braces for magnitude of Mariel Boatlift
    • April 30, 1915 - Broward County created, named after former governor
  • Hontoon Changling: The ancient owl carving that represents the wrong tribe
  • The Fierce Competition for Rollins College
  • The Hidden History of Everglades City
  • The Legend of Jose Gaspar
  • Burdine's: Sunshine Fashions & The Florida Store
  • Follow the Dollar - Horse breeding brings big money to Central Florida
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  • Paradise for Sale: Florida's Booms and Busts
  • Feature - The Curtiss-Bright Cities
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  • Blog - Washtub baths and pot-bellied stoves in 1930s Florida
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Picture
Picture

Washtub Baths and 
Pot-bellied Stoves in
1930s Florida

Before electricity, doing laundry, taking baths and just keeping warm was hard, dirty work
Picture
Woman washing laundry in Florida, 1939. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
By Denny Bowden
Volusia History - Retracing

Florida's Past
   When I was a child in the 1950′s, my parents would drive our family on America’s new highways from California to my grandmother’s home in rural Missouri, and for a week it seemed like I was in another country. I remember when my dad laid pipes and brought indoor plumbing for the first time for my mom’s mom who was proud to have the temporary cast-iron hand water pump rising above her indoor sink in the kitchen–the first indoor water she’d ever had.
 In most working-class rural homes the bathtub wasn’t a porcelain beauty; it was a huge washtub made of steel that was galvanized to keep it from rusting, and that gave it a bucket-gray color.
   My grandmother’s rugged life was typical of most rural Americans, especially before World War II, but what was daily life like for most Floridians in the 1930s when indoor plumbing was rare? What was life like without a shower and without a washing machine?

   A few years ago I read a little book of remembrances by Margaret Broussard, a woman “born and raised” in Florida during the 1930s Great Depression, and though she’s not a professional writer, she recounts her childhood life with the details her grandchildren would want to know about -- what it was like to be a kid in the 1930s in Florida.

   Indoor plumbing was still the exception in the 1930s, and Broussard remembers that her family had “a screened-in porch where there was a new red pump, so it wasn’t necessary to go out in the rain or wind to get water. Indoor plumbing! On the ledge of the pump was a bucket of drinking water, with a dipper hanging in it that we could drink from if we weren’t sick.”

   The hand water pump was needed if someone wanted to take a bath. That’s the way it was when we visited my grandmother. Of course, thanks to my dad, she had an indoor hand water pump, but most rural Floridians in the 1930s didn’t have this convenience. If they wanted water, they had to go outside and pour a dipper of water into the top of their cast-iron pump to prime it so they could hand-pump water enough to fill a bucket and then carry it into the house – one bucket at a time. At my grandmother’s house, the pump was in the kitchen, but my parents still had to heat the water in a pan on the stove – only a couple of pans at a time.

   In most working-class rural homes the bathtub wasn’t a porcelain beauty; it was a huge washtub made of steel that was galvanized to keep it from rusting, and that gave it a bucket-gray color. Usually the tub was used for washing clothes, but if you wanted a bath, it was probably the only large tub at your house.

   Broussard, who was born in Florida in 1933, tells how their family would keep the washtub on their screened back porch where the children took their baths. In the winter, though, her parents would carry the huge washtub inside to the kitchen “by the cook-stove” or into the living room “by the pot-bellied wood stove” where kettles of heated water could be easily added to the washtub.

   As it was at my grandmother’s house, taking a bath was very time-consuming, and it usually required more than one person to do all the work. In most rural homes, the cleanest child would take the first bath, and the next child would use the same bath water with additional pans of warm water added to the tub. If the day had been cold and the Broussard children had not gotten sweaty or dirty, they could skip a full bath and instead take a “spit bath,” using a “washrag” and warm water and soap.  

   Most working-class Floridians living outside of cities didn’t take daily baths or showers until after World War II in the 1950s when indoor plumbing with water heaters finally became more widespread.

   My grandmother had an electric washing machine, but it was different from my mom’s. Grandma’s washer looked like a large round metal barrel, and I remember watching her insert the wet, cleaned clothes between two rubber rollers above the tub, and the clothes would slowly move through the rollers that squeezed out most of the water. Washing clothes before there was electricity in the home was an all-day project in the 1930s in rural Florida, so it was usually done once a week. 


  The same galvanized washtub that was used for baths was also used for washing clothes, but it would have taken hours to heat enough washing water in pans, and the tub was not made to boil water in it, so instead a large three-legged black cast iron “boiling pot” was used so an open fire could be started under it to boil the water needed to wash the clothes.  Broussard tells in her book that to add laundry soap to the boiling pot, they used shavings from a large bar of yellow Fels-Naptha.

   Of course, the cleanest and best clothing would be washed first, and they would be dropped and stirred into the boiling water and lifted up and down with a wooden pole until the clothes were clean. Broussard says she remembers as a child watching how the clothes would be lifted from the boiling pot with the pole and immediately dropped into the galvanized washtub which had cold clean water where they would be rinsed by plunging them up and down and then wrung out by hand before placing them into a third tub which also had cold, clean water. This way the clothes began in the soapy boiling water (the dirtiest water) and were moved to cleaner tubs of cold water for two rinses. Then the clothes were placed into a basket before hanging them on the clothesline, using solid wooden clothespins that Broussard said looked like small wooden dolls with two legs, and the legs of the clothespin could be pushed onto two sides of a piece of the clothing draped over the clothesline.
When a washing machine could be afforded, a woman’s life was improved forever
   This was very hard, very hot, very time-consuming work, and a husband who could afford to pay a poor woman to do this work would save his wife and children from doing it. Only the poorest women (who were generally African Americans) were willing to do this back-breaking work for money.

   Electricity transformed the lives of rural Floridians, and when a washing machine could be afforded, a woman’s life was improved forever.

   For most Floridians, though, electricity was too far expensive to be used to heat a home. Today we might think they used a fireplace because new homes today often include the warmth of a fireplace, but I remember when my dad built a brick fireplace in our new home in Holly Hill in 1960, my parents decided that wood was too expensive to use our fireplace very often. Even in the 1930s a fireplace was a wasteful, inefficient way to try to heat a room because wood was expensive back then too.  Of course, rural Floridians could only cut wood that was on their own land, and most working-class Floridians couldn’t afford to buy enough land to provide them with wood year after year, so heating with a fireplace was just too costly.

   Instead, typically, a rural family would buy a black cast-iron wood-burning pot-bellied stove for their living room, and it would be vented with a black stovepipe that would extend into a hole in the ceiling and continue into the attic and out above the roof where the pipe would have a hat-like lid to prevent most of the rain from entering the pipe. This was what Broussard’s family had in central Florida.

   Broussard writes that when the cold weather ended, the stove had to be wiped down with “stove-black” on a cloth to give it “a good oiling” so it wouldn’t rust during the months when no fire would be lit in it. The first time the next fire would be lighted, the oil would begin to burn and give off a smoky smell throughout the house.

   My grandparents also had a pot-bellied stove, and when we visited during the winter my grandfather would be up early in the morning either to start the fire or to stoke it and add to more coal so it would be fire-hot by the time we woke. Coal was much cheaper than wood.

We were all careful not get so close that we might accidentally touch the pot-bellied stove that was hot enough to sear and cook your skin within a second. The stove produced more heat than a fireplace, and it was cheaper to use, but the heat still only stayed close to the stove – so close that I remember having to stand next to the stove to feel warm, but my backside would be freezing, and my front would quickly feel like it was being cooked, so I had to continue to turn slowly to try to feel warm all around. It made me appreciate our heater back home.

My grandmother’s life in rural Missouri was not an easy one, and for rural Floridians in the 1930s before electricity even taking a bath, washing clothes, or just keeping warm in the house was hard work.



Denny Bowden, Ph.D., writes about Volusia County history on the blog,
Volusia History - Retracing Florida's Past.
His work is reposted here by permission.
Read more of his Denny's blogs at 
http://volusiahistory.wordpress.com/
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Annie Oakley was nearly crushed to death near Daytona Beach
Before the Seminoles, Timucuans dominated northern Florida
The ghost settlement of Freemanville
Daytona Beach ends Stan Musial's pitching career
and aims him to the Hall of Fame
How Daytona Beach teens' lives changed during World War II