Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Lately I have been wondering how my grandmother's generation and prior dealt with the challenges of motherhood. Becoming a parent is hands down the hardest job I have ever had, this coming from a middle school teacher. Just when I feel ridiculously frustrated or worried, I meet the stranger who looks at my daughters and tells me, "I remember those days. It wasn't easy."

The older sister modeling tummy time for the younger sister.

Eleven weeks postpartum with baby number two and a two year old, I am finding the fluctuation in hormone levels and the overwhelming shift of introducing a new person to the family also brings about postpartum depression and anxiety. When our first child was born, I powered through the symptoms. You tell yourself at first that you are merely sleep deprived and later stressed out from working full-time and then some on top of trying to keep a household together. Last time around I learned that when you fail to nip it in the bud, it can develop into clinical depression and anxiety, which is where I found myself last spring. The doctor I saw about a little over a year ago told me anyone who worked full-time, had a part-time job on the side, with an infant and a new puppy (that my husband agreed to train with all the enthusiasm of a twelve year old boy that has no idea what he just signed up for) would be sitting in that same chair. Enter new baby, and any progress I made in the past year on alleviating symptoms of anxiety and depression, while juggling full-time teaching and homemaker responsibilities less one part-time job (because no sane person keeps going at the same pace when overstretched) has quickly vanished.

But is this postpartum thing just a phenomenon of the added pressure women in my generation have to do it all? It turns out postpartum depression is not a modern ailment. Prior to World War II, this condition was known as insanity of lactation. Curiously enough, many women in the 19th century were afflicted with something called puerperal insanity. It came in three forms ranging from melancholic to manic: pregnancy, parturition, and lactation. In other words, women could show signs of mental illness from the beginning of pregnancy through nursing infants two years after birth (Williamson). The rate of diagnosis varied, but across the board it would seem some cases diagnosed were legitimate while some were likely other causes misdiagnosed as the generically used term of puerperal insanity.

For certain, the standards by which women were judged were not the same. To be specific, most commonly diagnosed was insanity of parturition. Typical symptoms of puerperal insanity were things like a woman "letting herself go", neglect of personal hygiene, and "indifference or hostility to children and/or husbands and women's tendency towards obscene expressions" (Theriot 74). Mild symptoms often reported within a few days after labor were "an intolerance of husband or child, a willful disregard of the doctor's directions, a peevish irritability of temper toward everybody, accompanied by restlessness, sleeplessness, and constipation" (Williamson). Severe symptoms of the manic form of this condition could range from behaviors like "incessant talking, sometimes coherent and sometimes not; an abnormal state of excitement, so that the patient would not sit or lie quietly; inability to sleep, with some patients having little or no sleep for weeks; refusal of food or medicine, so that many patients were fed by force; aversion to the child and/or the husband, sometimes expressed in homicidal attempts; a general meanness toward caretakers; and obscenity in language and sometimes behavior" (Theriot 73). Treatment typically consisted of "the removal of any discoverable cause, absolute rest of body and mind, freedom from the exhausting influences of talkative friends, weaning the baby and its removal form its mother's sight and hearing" (Williamson). If symptoms did not improve, usually a more severe case was diagnosed.

While we have a better understanding of the physical aspects of childbirth and any associated mental illnesses now, there is a mystery to the brain that modern medicine has yet to crack. Since psychology functions by defining what is abnormal, I am forever grateful that I am judged by 21st century standards. On any given day in the past few hazy, sleep-deprived months there has been neglect of personal hygiene, neglect of household duties, and you can only imagine my level of patience for family members on those really tired days. If we were basing a diagnosis off of 19th century standards, I am sure my husband would have grounds to have me committed. Thankfully, the modern day mom gets a free pass because motherhood is hard. Having a newborn is hard.

Yet the real symptoms of concern are the gut-wrenching feelings of panic involved with any social engagement including family, deep feelings of sadness, crying more than usual, and the inability to fall back asleep some nights despite being exhausted. Add to that the anxiety over knowing at some point in the near future a full-time job is waiting for me to take on even more responsibility after a twelve week maternity leave, pondering if it is really worth almost half of my monthly salary to rush my daughters off to a daycare where there could be issues, and knowing that my family cannot really afford to lose my income.

Which leaves me with the toughest decision I have ever had to make, tougher than I thought it would be. The pangs of guilt for not being there for your child when she gets hurt at daycare or having to walk away when she cries as you drop her off in the morning because she does not want you to leave her with a stranger are tough for a mom to take. Walking away from quite possibly the best teaching job I will ever have is not easy either. Yet there comes a time when you have to make the right decision for your family and what you are comfortable with in how you would like to raise your kids, but more importantly for you. For me, it would seem scaling back and taking care of me first for once is the right fit. And we are going on blind faith that it is the right decision.

Sources:
“Health | Infant-Killing and the Victorian Mother.” BBC News, BBC, 15 June 2003, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2985632.stm.

Loudon, I. “Puerperal Insanity in the 19th Century.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 81, Feb. 1968, pp. 76–79., ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1291468/pdf/jrsocmed00165-0018.pdf

Theroit, Nancy. “Diagnosing Unnatural Motherhood: Nineteenth-Century Physicians and 'Puerperal Insanity'.” American Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, 1989, pp. 69–88., journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2472/2431

Williamson, A P. “Puerperal Insanity.” Transactions of the World's Congress of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons, held under the auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, Ill., May 29 to June 3, 1893. archive.org/details/transactionsofwo00inte

It's a...

...boy? ...girl? Well, that does seem to be the question some grandmas-to-be would like to have answered. My husband and I had been going back and forth over whether or not to find out the gender of the baby, and when it came time to decide whether or not we should find out, we opted for not finding out.

While ultrasound technology's origin actually dates back to the late 19th century, medical ultrasounds were only first developed in the 1940s. Even so, sonograms for pregnant mothers were not commonly done until well into the latter part of the 20th century. The procedures are considered routine today, and the screenings are used to date the pregnancy; to detect viability, looking for any abnormalities; to monitor the baby's location, movement, and heartbeat; to check the location of the placenta in relation to the cervix, which can mean higher risks if the placenta is too close to the cervix; to establish a multiple birth versus only one baby; and to determine the sex of the baby.

The belly at 20 weeks begins to make it difficult to move around.

So before the use of this technology, how did expecting mothers know what they were having? Rather than wait for the birth, many women often relied on folk wisdom to determine the baby's gender. Modern science discredits these as mere superstitions, but there is something to be said for long-standing folklore and tradition. Science has even proven a few old wives' tales to be true over the years, like carrots helping your vision and honey helping to suppress coughs. Most of the old wives' tales about baby gender are unreliable, but it is still fun to speculate nonetheless.

And since we will have to wait until May to find out if this growing baby is a boy or a girl, it cannot hurt to use some folk wisdom to make a few predictions...

Baking soda test: If a pregnant mother collects urine in a cup, she can add baking soda to help determine gender. If the mixture fizzles, the baby is a boy. If it does not fizzle, the baby is a girl.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I attest to trying this. Apparently the thought behind the test is that the male baby hormones produce a more acidic urine. When I added baking soda to the cup, there was a brief fizzle, but then nothing. It certainly was not quite the same reaction as mixing baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with vinegar (acetic acid). Conclusion: GIRL.

Bread: Not eating the crusts off a loaf of bread means an expecting mom is having a girl.

Usually I LOVE bread, especially hearty loaves. But lately, it seems I have to choke down most breads, especially the crusts. In fact, I will admit to not eating the crusts on a few occasions recently. Conclusion: GIRL.

Chinese birth chart: Finding your age at conception and the month you conceived on a Chinese birth chart is said to give you the gender of your baby.

Using an ever-so-scientific Chinese Gender Predictor, the prediction of the baby's gender is that of a girl. Conclusion: GIRL.

Cold feet: If a pregnant mom's feet get colder during pregnancy, she is having a boy, but if her feet are toasty warm, she is having a girl.

Having cold hands and feet all the time is something I have known all of my life. My mother used to tell me, "Cold hands, warm heart." My family used to get a jolt during the Sign of Peace at Mass during the winter months especially. It could be all that extra blood flow, but lately my feet have never been toastier. Conclusion: GIRL.

Dreams: Old wisdom dictates that everything in a person's dreams is said to occur opposite in real life. Thus, if mom-to-be dreams she is having a boy, it is actually a girl; if she dreams about a girl, it is actually a boy.

Old wisdom does not give direction on what happens with you have dreams about both genders. First I had a dream about a girl, but then I had a dream about a boy. Conclusion: Inconclusive.

Dry hands: Having dry hands and feeling the need to lather up with lotion all the time during pregnancy means the expecting mother is having a boy.

I have dry skin to begin with, but pregnancy seems to have exacerbated the problem. Conclusion: BOY.

Face: If a woman's face swells and gets rounder, the baby is a girl. A long and narrow face means the baby is a boy.

My face seems to have filled in a little, but that is likely due to putting on ten pounds more than anything. This one may need to be reviewed later in the pregnancy. Conclusion: GIRL.

Food cravings: If mom-to-be is craving sweets, it means her baby is a girl, but if mom-to-be is craving salty and sour foods, her baby is a boy. Perhaps this is why girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice?

I inherited my grandfather's sweet tooth, so I crave sweets to begin with. I certainly crave sweet foods more than salty or sour foods. In fact, salty and sour foods have triggered some aversions for me. I did tell my husband to hide the candy we keep at home from me. Conclusion: GIRL.

Gracefulness: If a woman feels clumsier during pregnancy, chances are she is having a boy. If she remains graceful, chances are she is having a girl.

If clumsier means having one too many incidences of the dreaded pregnancy brain, then count me in. If it means physical clumsiness, I have never been graceful to begin with. Conclusion: BOY.

Hair: If an expecting mother's hair grows thicker during pregnancy or if she finds her body hair is growing abnormally fast, she is said to be having a boy. If the expecting mother notices little changes in body hair or if her head of hair is dull and limp, she is having a girl.

When I first read about possibly seeing changes to my hair, I was all pumped for more luscious locks. In reality, I have the same fine, limp hair as always. Conclusion: GIRL.

Headaches: Women suffering headaches throughout pregnancy are said to be carrying a boy.

I have the occasional bout with migraines, but headaches have been fairly non-existent during this pregnancy so far, other than a few pesky ones that were probably due to slight dehydration. Crossing my fingers it stays this way. Conclusion: GIRL.

Heart rate: Many women swear by the baby's heart rate. If it is under 140 BPM, she is having a boy, but if it is over 140 BPM, she is having a girl. This one would seem to make sense since adult women tend to have a higher heart rate than adult men, but science has been unable to find any correlation between the baby's heart rate and gender according to a few medical studies completed in the 1980s.

At the ten week ultrasound, the baby had a heart rate around 160 BPM. At the twenty week ultrasound and other check-ups, the baby's heart rate has been between 140 and 145 BPM. Conclusion: GIRL.

History of parent's kids: Apparently the order of your mother's children can determine the gender of your baby. If mom-to-be is the first born, she will have what her mother had starting with her second child. If she is the middle child, she will have what her mother had starting with her third child. If she is the baby of the family, she will have what her mother had in the exact same order.

My mother likes to point out that I only became the middle child at age seventeen. I have always been in the middle of older and younger siblings, though. I did became the true middle child in 1999. Going with the middle child, I am supposed to have what my mother had starting with her third child, which would be the very female me. Conclusion: GIRL.

How a woman carries: A common thing women will often say is that if a pregnant woman carries the baby high and puts on weight in the hips, she is having a girl. For a boy, a pregnant woman will carry low and gain all her weight out front in the belly.

For a stick-person like me, putting on weight is not an easy feat. (Thank you, grandmother who weighed 99 pounds after her third child. Something tells me I inherited her genes.) My family likes to use the phrase "stick with eyeballs" to describe me from time to time. At Thanksgiving, my brother and father joked that now I was a "stick with four eyeballs". Ha ha. All joking aside, ten pounds does become noticeable, and I must admit that I cannot see my hip bones sticking out for the first time in my life. There is a lot more weight to put on yet, though, so things could change. Conclusion: GIRL.

Legs: If an expecting mom's legs get really big, it means a boy. If her legs stay in shape, it means a girl.

A freaky-fast metabolism means my legs are just as toned as ever. We will see if this changes as the pregnancy progresses. Conclusion: GIRL.

Mayan predictions: Similar to the Chinese birth chart, the ancient Mayan predicted the gender by adding the age of the mother at conception and the year of conception. An odd number means boy; an even number means girl.

I am currently thirty-three, and conception occurred in the year 2015. Add those two numbers together and you get 2048, an even number. Conclusion: GIRL.

Mom knows best: Supposedly expecting mothers' predictions are right about 71% of the time. Always trust a woman's intuition.

My husband has repeatedly said that he is having all boys ever since we got married. I have told him over and over again that he has jinxed himself. This momma thinks Darth Vader Princess is the perfect Halloween costume. Conclusion: GIRL.

Moody: Women who are moodier than usual are said to be having girls due to all those extra female hormones.

Feeling irritable could be due to all those surging hormones. Or it could be due to the fact that I have not had a good night's sleep since September. Conclusion: GIRL.

Morning sickness: If a woman is plagued by morning sickness during the first trimester, that little bundle of joy is a girl. If she eases on through without the slightest touch of nausea, that little bundle of joy is a boy.

Considering my innards were secretly plotting their escape from my body through my esophagus all day, every day from week four until week fifteen of this pregnancy, I am going to go out on a limb here. Also, the occasional resurgence has reared its ugly head a few times in the second trimester. And they say that is supposed to go away... sigh. Conclusion: GIRL.

Nose: If a pregnant woman's nose gets bigger and wider, the baby is a boy.

I do not think it possible for this Polish nose to get any bigger or wider, but then again, stranger things have happened. Conclusion: GIRL.

Pregnancy glow: Baby girls apparently steal their mother's beauty. If an expecting mother suffers from acne and skin blemishes during pregnancy rather than get that pregnancy glow, all bets are on a girl.

Keeping a youthful look into one's thirties comes as a blessing and a curse. For instance, it is amusing to continue to be asked what grade one is in school long after those bygone college days. However, continuing to have the skin of a teenager is not something one dreams of in order to keep a youthful appearance. When people I meet find out my real age, they want to know my secret. I always respond, "Good German genes." Needless to say, my skin continues to prove its troublesome self during pregnancy, only now I have been hesitant to wear much make-up to cover it up. Conclusion: GIRL.

Protein: If mom-to-be is craving meat and cheese, she is said to be having a boy.

Usually I love meat and cheese, especially cheese. Cravings for either of these have been non-existent. Conclusion: GIRL.

Side you rest on: If a pregnant mother prefers to lay on her left side, the baby is a boy. Preference for her right side means girl.

I am actually a back sleeper, so getting a good night's rest has proven difficult with the need to lay on my side so as to avoid waking with annoying hip pain. I have been rotating sides as comfort dictates. Conclusion: Inconclusive.

Sympathy weight: If daddy-to-be puts on a few extra pounds during a woman's pregnancy, the baby is supposed to be a girl.

My husband has a metabolism almost as fast as mine, so I have not noticed any weight gain on his part. Perhaps he would speak to the contrary. Conclusion: BOY.

Wedding ring test: An expecting mother is supposed to tie her wedding ring to a string and hang it over her pregnant belly. If the ring swings in a circle, the baby is a boy, but if the ring swings back and forth, the baby is a girl. Some argue the opposite is true.

Dad-to-be is really skeptical about this one, but it was certainly fun to try. I used my wedding band, not my engagement ring, and there was some definite swinging back and forth. Conclusion: GIRL.

Toddlers: If a toddler boy expresses interest in a pregnant woman, she is having a girl. If the toddler boy shows no interest, she is having a boy. It is vice-versa with a toddler girl.

I am not sure how to interpret this one. My nephew is older than a toddler, but he is the closest in age to a toddler with whom I interact these days. Conclusion: Inconclusive.

Other folk wisdom about pregnancy not related to gender...

Birth marks: If a baby is born with light brown birthmarks, supposedly mom drank too much coffee or had unfulfilled cravings during pregnancy.

Cravings: Apparently if anyone denies a pregnant mother what she is craving, that person will get a sty in his or her eye. Be ye forewarned!

Full moon: A full moon is believed to cause women to go into labor and give birth.

Heartburn: If a woman gets heartburn throughout her pregnancy, her baby will be born with a full head of hair. This one has actually been proven in a scientific study. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, there is a correlation between severity of heartburn during pregnancy and hair volume on newborns.

Long labor: Having a long, intense labor often signifies that a woman is having a boy. Apparently boys have larger heads, so they get stuck more often than girls. Go figure.

Umbilical cord: If a pregnant woman lifts here hands over her head during her pregnancy, she will choke the baby because the umbilical cord will wrap around the baby. Today doctors attribute this type of umbilical cord complication to movement of the baby before birth.

At 20 weeks, the baby looks a bit like Skeletor from the front but so adorable from the side!

Gender Prediction Results: 20 for girl, 3 for boy, 3 inconclusive.

I am fairly certain my husband thinks all of this is hogwash. He mentioned the opposite will happen in real life, but that could be because so many of the gender predictions are showing signs of girl. But what first time dad does not secretly wish for a boy? My concern is mainly on a healthy baby and a safe delivery. May will certainly bring us one exciting surprise nonetheless.

An Obsession with Old Books

I have an obsession with old books. An exchange I had with a couple visiting the museum this past December taught me that perhaps not everyone who is a lover of history also shares my strange interest in antiquated literature. The couple was looking at a 19th century book about the history of the exploration of Africa that once belonged to my supervisor's grandfather. As they were looking it over, I mentioned that, while I had only read the first 25 pages or so of the book, it was an interesting read. The woman looked at me and replied, "Not really." Wait, what?! How could someone who seemed so knowledgeable about history find an old history text so dull?

Perhaps my fascination comes from the nostalgia of utilizing the public and school libraries as a kid. The town library used to be housed in a section of a strip mall with a Tom Thumb gas station on one end, which I vaguely remember from when I was quite young. The town built a larger library just southwest of downtown when I was in middle school. The school library of my Catholic elementary school was located in an adjacent building which formerly housed the nuns who at one time ran the school. Library day was a fun day because we had numbered, colored painting sticks to help keep the place on the shelf while we looked for books, the card catalog was the best way to learn the Dewey Decimal System, and most of the books I read as I got older had that old book smell. An added bonus was that you got to see who in your class checked out the book before you under the old system. The only downside was that we had to go outside to get to the library, and we never used coats in the middle of winter to cross the "frozen tundra" as we called it. "Oh, it's twelve below zero outside? Psht, who needs to wear a jacket?" Minnesotans are tough (or stupid) like that. As a kid, I had an interest in Nancy Drew for the longest time while the rest of my class was reading either The Boxcar Children or The Babysitters Club (I read a few of those but never really got into them.), and I can distinctly remember listening to the school librarian read the book Redwall to my class, which then became my favorite book series in middle school.

Perchance my fascination comes from memories of sitting upstairs in my grandmother's farmhouse reading the old books that used to belong to the old country schoolhouse that my mother, aunts, and uncles attended as children. Since my grandfather was on the school board and the school sat on his property, I think he acquired quite a bit of the old texts when rural and town schools in the area were consolidated. I used to sit in that little room upstairs and read for hours from the antiquated school textbooks, Dick and Jane style readers, and Betsy-Tacy. There was not much room to sit on the floor, and when I got tired of the floor, sometimes, for a more comfortable place to sit, I would sit on the indoor toilet (lid on of course) that my grandfather had made for use instead of having to use the outhouse in the middle of the night.

Either way, I have a fondness for old books that perhaps only a few would understand. My imagination runs away with me each time I pick up an old book. Who was the previous owner? What did the book first look like when it was brand new? Was it given as a gift or was it a personal purchase? When and where was it read? It is something that certainly reminds me of the insignificance of my life as compared to the history of humanity, and it is a very humbling feeling.

Over the years I have purchased a few 19th century school textbooks for use in the one room schoolhouse at the museum. I received a few more in the mail towards the end of December (Thank you, eBay!), and I am always amused when books that I have purchased have an inscription on the first page. Sometimes it can be a few words, but sometimes it is just a name. I imagine that person writing in that book so many years ago, and it makes me wonder about him or her and what his or her life was like.

"Sigmund Drechsler" as found in Schillers Werke. Vierter Band., 1867

"Louis Rhoades 1874" as found in Wilson's Larger Speller, 1864.

"Della Buchanan's Book, bought Nov 8th A.D. 1881" as found in McGuffey's New Fourth Eclectic Reader, 1866.

"Charles Bunting. 1229 Ky. St. Quincy Ill. owner." as found in Deutsches Zweites Lesebuch Für amerikanishe
Schulen, 1886. The left-hand side is "Charles Bunting" written in the German style script of the time.

"Mary E. Young, Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. - Regards of Stm. [sp?] L. Dec. 1890." as found in Deutsches Drittes
Lesebuch Für amerikanishe Schulen, 1886. It was very common to abbreviate names in the 19th century.

When we finally buy a house, my husband and I are in agreement that we need a library of sorts, so I tend to not get rid of very many books that have been purchased over the years. The only downside of having so many books is finding a place to store them in the meantime. Oh, and moving them every time we find a new place to live. Those boxes are usually the heaviest. But one thing is for certain: my obsession with old books will certainly add some extra character to our future home library.

OMG, Shoes!

What woman does not love a new pair of shoes? While I have tried to keep my personal shoe collection to a bare minimum in recent years, I have had the desire to expand my 19th century shoe collection. One would think a pretty dress is enough when doing living history, but after the umpteenth time of being asked to show someone my shoes, I have realized it is probably time to bite the bullet and invest in some period footwear.

Since I spend most of my time in an 1880s village, I opted for a boot fashionable to that decade. I was fortunate enough to find a pair on clearance in my size, so I purchased them a whilr ago as a birthday present from me to me. When they arrived, my husband commented how they looked uncomfortable. I unlaced one to try it on, and much to my surprise, it actually did not feel all that torturous. Apparently there is something to be said for handmade craftsmanship, quality, and value.

My brand new 1880s style boots!

This made me interested in the history of footwear. Ever since people first began to use footwear, styles have been adapted and updated to meet the trend of the times, but I learned the overall process of making shoes has not changed much in all of those years. The first documented footwear can be traced back to 1495 B.C. Thebes, where pictures of sandal makers graced the walls of an Egyptian structure. Teutonic tribes in Northern Europe wore a leather protection on their legs below the knee. When the Romans came in contact with the barbarians of the north, they adapted their own sandals and shoes to have a similar leg covering.

Boots and shoes were worn throughout the middle ages, and I remember being amused in one of my college history classes when we learned the length of one's shoe was an indication of one's social status in medieval society. The more important you were, the longer your shoe was. While not worn by every person, this exaggerated shoe length can sometimes be found in artwork of the time. Also during the middle ages, cordwainers (shoe makers) and cobblers (shoe repairers) established an association to protect their craft, and it was officially recognized by King Henry III in 1272. This guild is one of the oldest in operation in London today.

The Romance of Tristan (1468)

The first European shoemakers to arrive in North America were Philip Kertland, who settled in Lynn, in 1635 along with Thomas Beard and Isaac Richerman, who settled in Salem, in 1691. This was a time when a shoemaker could be seen working while wearing a leather apron and using a lapstone, hammer, wooden pegs, handmade thread, and a boot tree last. Apprentices, most often young boys, would learn the trade from master shoemakers.

With a growing industry, regulation was soon to follow. Pennsylvania Province made it a crime in 1720 for a tanner to make shoes. The same act fixed the price of leather and placed a price ceiling on finished shoes for sale. Anything sold above the set rates would be subject to forfeiture. It was a tough trade, and the shoemaker often traveled from town to town in search of business. By the mid-eighteenth century, quite a few cobblers began opening shops and employing others, each tasked with one part of the shoe making process. Near the end of the 18th century, the fledgling shoe industry received a huge boost when the Tariff Act of 1789 was passed, taxing imported goods to raise funds for the newly established United States' federal government.

The 19th century brought about the Industrial Revolution, and while it took longer to gain steam in the United States than it did in Europe, the development of machine technology forever changed the shoe industry. A quick review of technology advancements that came about in the United States during the 19th century:

1815: A machine-made wooden peg began to be used for fastening soles to shoes. Before this time, the bottom of a shoe was most oftentimes merely sewn with heavy thread. (A pegging machine was subsequently developed in 1833 to replace the need of hand-driven pegs, but these machines were not widely used in shoe production until 1857.)

1845: A rolling machine was patented and began to be widely used in the industry. This machine replaced the manual labor of pounding sole leather with a hammer in order to make it firm. What was once a thirty minute process by hand could now be done in about a minute by machine.

1846: Elias Howe patented his first sewing machine, and it did not take long before others such as John Brooks Nichols, a shoemaker by trade, adapted sewing machines to sew with tough leather.

1858: Lyman R. Blake, a shoemaker, patented a machine that could sew the soles of shoes onto the uppers, and Gordon McKay, seeing an entrepreneurial opportunity, purchased those patent rights. McKay had a difficult time selling his machines to shoe factories, which were still doing much of the work by hand with organized teams and outsourced gangs, so he tried leasing the machines instead. McKay's success was probably largely due to the Civil War, since there was a high need for shoes in the country at the time but not enough shoemakers around to fill the demand. William Porter & Sons was the first factory to use the McKay sewing machine in the early 1860s. Part of the leasing agreement was that there would be a stamp on the heel of every shoe to indicate it was sewn by the McKay machine, for which McKay would receive royalties.

1862: A nailing machine was patented, eliminating the need for hand driven nails. Also, August DeStouy patented a machine with a curved needle for sewing turn shoes.

1871: Charles Goodyear received his first of two patents for a machine designed by employed engineers to sew the welt to the bottom of the shoe. This became known as the Goodyear welt machine.

1877: Edge-trimming and heel-trimming machines were patented, which led to some push back from factory workers. Whittlers had been doing this work by hand, and they were paid rather high wages. This was time consuming work as they had to trim the sole and welt of the shoe to a uniform distance around the upper leather; they also had to cut away surplus leather on the heel. The new machines boasted speed, uniformity of work, and savings to manufacturers.

1883: A lasting machine was introduced in factories, and workers organized in opposition to this machine in the workplace. Lasters were paid $20 to $30 per week to pull the leather over the wooden forms that were used to determine the size and shape of shoes and tack it in place to the soles. A hand worker could last about 50 pairs of shoes in a day, working the standard ten hour day that was common in the 1880s; a machine operator could last 300 to 700 pairs of shoes in a day.

There is a reason stories about children going shoe-less in the 19th century during warm weather months are so abundant prior to the late 19th century. In 1863 a pair of handmade shoes took a little over 18 hours to complete, and the cost of labor for shoes was $4.58 on average. Families could not always afford to constantly replace worn out shoes, and so sometimes footwear was reserved for church, other special occasions, and the winter months, when it was needed most. But by 1895 a pair of shoes produced by machine workers could be completed in about two and one-half hours, and the cost of labor for shoes was $0.60 on average. Needless to say the price of shoes declined dramatically by the end of the 19th century.

Thank you, Industrial Revolution along with a little American ingenuity and entrepreneurship! 21st century women who are obsessed with shoes are forever grateful.

Making Hay

This past weekend at the museum was hay making time, and I volunteered to help with it. I had a general idea of the type of manual labor for which I had enlisted, but since I am fairly active in athletics, I was not too concerned. (If I can hit a stand up triple by crushing a softball over the right fielder's head as her teammates yell for her to get back, I think I can pitch some hay.) My boss, on the other hand, seemed somewhat concerned. There is a lot that can be said about body language, and on that Saturday morning, I was reading quite a bit of doubt in regards to my abilities to pitch hay all day long.

I am a petite woman; I stand all of five foot five and a half inches, just like my German grandmother once was before she shrank in her old age. She weighed 99 pounds after having her third child. My weight tends to fluctuate between 110 and 115 pounds. Scrawniness is just part of my inherited genetics, but one should never judge a book by its cover. Germans and Poles are stubborn folk. :)

The bonnet was borrowed. It was slightly too large for my head, but it protected me from the sun, which is all I wanted.

Since the museum centers around living history, I had borrowed one of the only dresses from our costume shop that fit me. After dressing in all of the appropriate underpinnings, I realized the skirt band was about half an inch to an inch too tight, and the bodice was slightly too long for my torso. It would have to work, though. I even did my hair in an old-fashioned style popular from the 1830s to about the 1850s. At least I was going to look the part!

To be honest, I had never pitched hay in my life before this past weekend. It was going to be a completely new learning experience for me. I knew from last year that the end of June into the beginning of July was when nineteenth century farmers traditionally cut hay. I had watched last year as the men worked the field and pitched the hay up onto the horse-drawn wagon, and then they went to unload in the barn before they started the whole cycle all over again.

Why walk back out to the hay field when you can catch a ride?

For the record, hay is cut grass that has been dried in order to use as livestock feed over winter. Nineteenth century farmers depended on a good crop. In the 1850s in Minnesota, much of the cut hay was wild grasses growing in fields. By the 1880s, farmers were planting tame hay grasses to cut, but alfalfa, often associated with Minnesota, was not popularly planted until the 1910s. (Minnesota Historic Farms Study, 6.255)

For centuries farmers cut hay by hand with scythes, but by the mid-nineteenth century, various types of mowers began to be used instead. Thankfully, the museum's hay was cut by a sickle mower again this year like it was last year. After the field was cut, the hay needed time to dry, and it needed to be flipped over as well so as to dry the other side. Once air-dried, the men folk gathered the hay into small mounds in order to make the hay ready for pitching. Throughout this process, everything needed to be done after the morning dew evaporated, and everyone concerned prayed for no rain lest the hay crop be ruined.

There was no dew on the ground by the time our morning staff meeting was over, so we were able to get started right away on the day we pitched. I sought instruction on technique and then had to decipher for myself as to how I could best replicate the process. The wife of one of my co-workers and a female co-worker also helped with the pitching, which led to many jokes about a story concerning German women working in the fields pitching hay along side the men, much to the dismay some English-American folk in the nineteenth century. Sometimes it was easy to scoop up a large mound, and other times it was difficult. Sometimes only half to a third of the mound caught on the pitch fork. There was definitely a learning curve for me. There was a young boy to help stamp down the hay on the wagon as it was pitched so as to make room for even more hay each load full. Once we had a full wagon-load, the horses hauled it to the barn to be unloaded, pitched inside, and stacked into a hay mound.

Hay was pitched by lifting the mounds onto the wagon.

The men could grab an entire mound in one forkful. I needed a few tries, but I learned do that with smaller mounds.

We have an expert on staff when it comes to building hay mounds. I could probably listen to him spew his knowledge on any subject for hours, so it was entertaining to be instructed by him concerning how to start the mound and how to build up the support wall. He had us newbies walk the mound to feel for ourselves where the weak spots were so he could strengthen that part of the edge. Then, the edge needed to be raked for any loose hay strands, which were tossed back on top of the pile. After all of the hay was stacked, he salted that layer as an extra precaution against any spontaneous combustion later. Then, it was time to water up and head out in the field for another load.

After it was loaded onto the wagon in the field, the hay needed to be unloaded and stacked in the barn for storage.

The work was not too terrible, but it was tough enough that I was visibly perspiring. I learned that I should probably make a better petticoat and starch the heck out of it for future use. I also learned that when you often relegate yourself to the damsel in distress role (because intelligent women know decent men readily jump at the chance to help a lady in need), apparently it leads to an over-concern for one's well-being when hard work is afoot. As appreciative as I was for the fuss by the men folk involved, being asked multiple times in a matter of a few minutes was actually slightly aggravating.

My combative side came out soon after that when one of the men jokingly told me I pitched hay like a girl. Having grown up familiar with the movie The Sandlot, at first I took it as an insult and started rambling off excuses. After a minute or so, I more calmly pointed out that I was a girl. It was a good reminder that of course I am physically incapable of tossing hay mounds of equal size to that of the men, but that does not make the work someone my size is capable of doing any less valid. I may have needed to pitch a few more forkfuls, but eventually I would get the hay to where it needed to go.

Later in the afternoon, we were able to refresh on switchel, made by one of the ladies on staff. Sometimes called haymaker's punch, switchel is a drink concocted of water, vinegar, ginger, and a sweetener of some kind like honey, maple syrup, or molasses. It was the nineteenth century version of Gatorade, and it actually did help reinvigorate the body. Although, I learned the hard way that it is probably not a good idea to guzzle it down while wearing a corset. Oh well, I survived.

A full wagon load heading back to the barn for unloading with our young helper catching a ride atop the hay.

We worked from about 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m. that day, and I only felt my energy start to wain at the very end of the day. Thankfully, it only took one more wagon-load to store the rest of the hay from the field at that point. I was grateful to be done, but I actually had a lot of fun hanging out with the menfolk that day. (I have always felt more comfortable with the male gender than the female gender; it probably has something to do with spending so much time with my older brothers and their friends as a kid since there was no one my age in the neighborhood.) I may have come close to overheating at the tail end after we had finished, but had I a cotton dress instead of a wool dress, that probably would not have been an issue.

It was nice to prove my boss wrong about spindly ladies and manual labor. I was certainly sore the next day, and my injured shoulder from softball is still tender as I type this, but I have been in worse condition from playing in all-day softball and volleyball tournaments than from pitching hay. I guess it helps to be a physically active person. The museum will probably cut hay again close to Labor Day, and I say bring on the challenge. Hard work and honest sweat were valued in the nineteenth century, but having been raised by farm kids, it is something I have been taught to value as well.

(Photos published with consent of the photographer. Copyright © 2014 Lisa Meyers.)

Maple Syruping

"Roses are red and violets are purple. Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrple." - Roger Miller

Last week and this week has been a busy, not to mention cold, kick-off to our programming season at the museum with maple syrup demonstrations. March is usually the time of year when the temperatures are just right for the sap in the maple trees to start flowing, but it was about ten degrees outside when I left home for work on Saturday. Needless to say, the sap was frozen, just like the ground and just like my fingers as I tried to start my wood burning stove in the old schoolhouse. I am pretty sure all of us in Minnesota are ready for winter to be over and are praying we do not get snow in May again like last year.

Nothing says good morning like a negative five windchill in March. The houses at the museum can be pretty cold before
the wood burning stoves start kicking off heat.

Early springtime, though, is usually an ideal season for collecting sap to make maple syrup. Cold overnight temperatures followed by relatively warm daytime temperatures is the ideal weather for harvesting a bumper crop of sap. (I say relatively here because while everyone in Minnesota knows 40 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect sweatshirt sans jacket weather, folks from other parts of the country are usually bundled up and freezing in those temperatures.) There are four tree types commonly used in Minnesota for making maple syrup and sugar: silver maple (Acer Saccharinum), red maple (Acer Rubrum), sugar maple (Acer Saccharum), and box elder (Acer Negundo). Notice how they all come from the same genus group? Something I learned while becoming familiar with the museum's program a few years ago is that you can tap a box elder tree for sap, and get a fairly decent crop, because it is related to the other maple trees. However, most people collect the sugar maple's sap because it produces the best tasting syrup.

As a high school senior so eloquently remarked to me one day, "Who first decided to make maple syrup? I mean, who in the world first decided that stuff coming out of trees would be good for eating?" Ah, teenagers. He posed a good question, though. While we do not know exactly the first person to discover the sugaring process, we do know of many folktales passed down orally by American Indian tribes. Feel free read a few of the American Indian Maple Tree Legends. Our museum shares the Ojibwe story of "Manabozho and the Maple Trees". If you find those stories entertaining, you can delve into other American Indian Legends.

Early written accounts of American Indian life are often how European settlers learned of the maple sugaring process, as can be found in An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith. Long before westward expansion brought fur traders to the Minnesota area, American Indian tribes taught European settlers how to make maple sugar. Settlers, in return, often introduced metal ware to the maple sugaring process.

Kids learn how the Ojibwe tribes would look for signs in nature to let them know it was maple sugaring time. American
Indians made large gashes in the shape of a V in tree trunks to gather the sap. Mukuks, birch bark baskets, were put
below the notches to collect the sap. European traders eventually introduced metal drills, spiels, and buckets.

American Indians poured gathered sap into large wooden troughs. Hot stones, heated by fire, were put into the sap to
make it boil and evaporate the water. Kids get to practice moving "hot" stones with sticks from the fire to the trough.

Many of the early settlers in Minnesota learned quite a bit from local American Indian tribes. Supplies to purchase were not readily available for the first settlers, so people quickly developed the skills and techniques needed for making their own supplies in order to survive. Collecting maple sap to make syrup and sugar is one of those crafts that early Minnesota settlers picked up from the Ojibwe and the Dakota. Many folks carved out a decent life on the frontier of Minnesota and lived comfortably after a little hard work. By modern standards, a 21st century child usually considers this lifestyle to be roughing it, but ease and comfort met different expectations in the 19th century.

Boiling sap down to make syrup.

A pitcher of maple syrup waiting to be turned into maple sugar.

The finished product!

In the 19th century, sugar was packed into sugar molds like this one as it was prepared for storage.

Maple sugar was a godsend to frugal American housewives. Sugar cane was extremely expensive in the 19th century since what was produced in the United States' southern region was not enough to meet demand, which meant most of it was imported and subject to tariff. While there is still a tariff on imported sugar cane in the 21st century, the cost of cane sugar compared to maple sugar has flip-flopped compared to the 19th century. The next time you are in the grocery store, take a look at the price of pure maple syrup. I am not talking about the artificially flavored, derived from corn sugar, Mrs. Butterworth or Aunt Jemima syrup. Look at the real stuff. It is not cheap! Now, imagine that is your only option for purchasing a sweetener. Hello, DIY! Had I been living in the frontier of Minnesota in the 1840s, I would have been extremely grateful for the capability of producing my own sugar to use.

Kids get to sample pure maple syrup.

Kids also get to sample pure maple sugar. Teachers just love us. :)

The steps for making maple sugar:

1. Tap the tree.
2. Turn the sap into syrup.
3. Turn the syrup into sugar.
4. Store for later use.

Simple, right? It is a lot of work, though, considering it takes about forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. If you keep cooking your syrup down, one gallon of syrup will yield about one pound of sugar. The clean up is usually messy, not to mention sticky. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a wonderful guide for young naturalists who would like to collect their own sap at home. And while you are making your own syrup, do not forget to sing the old New England folk song Maple Sweet. 

Kids get to enjoy a ride on a trolley pulled by these guys.

Percheron horses are big! I am about 5'6", and I stand at about their nostrils.

As a kid, I remember often putting corn syrup on my pancakes. An old high school friend of mine told me once that was considered poor man's syrup, certainly a 20th century phenomenon if anything. Whether it is poor man's syrup or not, even a bottle of Karo is more natural than the artificially flavored, so-called maple syrups found in stores today. The taste of pure maple syrup is one that cannot be truly replicated. Hopefully, this post is an inspiration to try to include a bottle of real maple syrup in your kitchen pantry. The next time you use some, remember how lucky Americans in the 19th century were to have such a treat at their disposal.

We used a 20th century evaporator to demonstrate for kids how to start the process of turning sap into syrup. The sap
in the evaporator was cooking so long for our school group that it turned into syrup. As the syrup started to boil, it was
not removed from the heat before its combustion temperature was reached. There were flames shooting up from the
syrup before snow was used to extinguish the fire. No children were in danger of getting hurt unless my co-workers are
considered to be children, which is very likely.

A quick chemistry lesson to keep in mind if you plan on making your own maple sugar! Sugar is combustible. As you boil your maple syrup to make maple sugar, the heat is causing chemical reactions to occur at a very fast rate as the water molecules start to evaporate. Removing the syrup from the heat at just the right time allows the reaction process to slow down, but if you forget to remove the syrup from the heat, this process will increase steadily. When this happens, sugar can actually ignite into flames before turning into ash. Author Harold McGee discusses the chemistry of cooking with sugar in his book On Food and Cooking if you would like more reading on the subject. Moral of the story: burnt marshmallows from a campfire are delicious; burnt maple sugar, which has been turned into pure carbon, is not.