The Pennsylvania Colonial Reality Show

It's the 17^Th Century, No computers, cell phones, or microwaves, no microwaves There aren't even flush toilets.  Settlers had only the very crudest of possessions, much of which was homemade.

Here's the reality of living off the grid:

You wake up before dawn, haul water, milk the cow, collect eggs, feed the animals, gather vegetables from the garden, then make sure the fire is ready, all before you can prepare breakfast. When you were finished with breakfast you would have to think about dinner. Which was the main meal of the day served between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. Later you would have a light supper

but not before you finish the baking and washing all the clothes by hand. Spinning wool and making cloth, sewing the cloth by hand into clothes. churning butter, butchering meat, preserving the meat.. brewing beer, tending the garden, the children, the fire. and on and on.

Colonial homes had no bathrooms, one had to use a “necessary” a small shed outside a little away from the main house. At night, especially in the winter a settler would use a chamber pot that was emptied the next morning. Many people used corncobs as we would now use toilet tissue.

Many times floors were of dirt, windows were covered with paper soaked in linseed oil or animal skins.

Glass was costly, if a settler could afford it, they would take them down if they would be away from home for any length of time, lest they be stolen.

If a family could afford it they would use beeswax or bayberry candles. Bayberry is a tiny berry that has a thin coating of wax on it. To get enough wax for just an inch of candle you needed about a quart of berries. Most families saved these candles for special occasions. Usually, poorer families used candles mad of fat which they called tallow. But tallow candles smelled bad.

The water for drinking, cooking and washing would have to be hauled from a nearby creek or river.Yes, colonists would wash their faces and hands. However, immersing one's entire body in a tub was considered impure in colonial times.

Food production encompassed an enormous amount of time. Men were concerned with growing crops, hunting, trapping to obtain food. Men butchered dressed the meat, tanned the hides for use as leather. The woman butchered then preserved the meat in several ways: salting, smoking, pickling,sugar for fruits

beer was a popular drink, given even children. However, it was very watered down having an alcohol content of only ½ to 1%, even so this was enough to kill any bacteria in the water.

Alcohol was also used as a preservative for fruits, producing brandies. Apples were fermented into cider. They made cheese to preserve dairy. They used rendered fat in soap and candle production.

Cooking could be dangerous as many woman were seriously injured when long skirts caught fire.

Today we go to the supermarket to get our butter conveniently packaged. In the 17^Th century this is how they got butter:

As soon as you have milked, Strain your milk into a pot and stir it often for half an hour, then put it away in your pots or trays. When it's creamed, skim it exceedingly clean from the milk, and put your cream into an earthen pot, and it you do not churn immediately for butter, shift your cream once in twelve hours into another clean pot. When you have churned, wash your butter in three or four waters, then salt it as you will have it. And beat it well. Let it stand in a wedge if it be to pot, till the next morning,beat it again and make your layers the thickness of three fingers, and then throw a little salt on it. And so do until your pot is full.

Infant mortality rates were high and parents raised children with an expectation that some of their children would not make it to adulthood. Which resulted in emotionally distant relationships. When a child was able they were expected to help out as much as possible.

Hornbooks

Basic education was given at home, learning letters and numbers from a hornbook “which were sheets printed with letters, numbers and a few basic sentences protected behind sheets to flattened transparent horn bound in leather.” Reading skills were also enforced by reading the Bible or letters. Boys would learn more skills when apprenticed to learn a trade.

If you made it to eleven years of age you had a good chance of living to adulthood. Then, if you were a woman, you had to make it past childbearing years. In fact up to 50% of women died either from childbearing or the period immediately after called childbed disease.

Watch this video about how hard it was to live then

Family life in colonial Pennsylvania was difficult, and children were put to work as soon as they were able, but food was plentiful. Find out why families in colonial Pennsylvania needed to be large with help from an American history teacher in this free video on colonial life.
Expert: Judy Scott
Bio: Judy Scott is a retired, award-winning American history teacher in Ft. Worth, Texas. She was the AP history teacher at Boswell High School for three decades.
Filmmaker: Kevin Haberer

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