Caring for Clothes

"It is not as hard to care for one's clothes as it is to get them in the first instance. Yet, often those who have the fewest garments take the least pains to preserve their freshness. Wealthy women having good maids have their gowns and bonnets looked after with a zealous skill that women who lack such service scarcely dream of. It is not wear that makes your best gown shabby in a couple of months,it is lack of care when it is off your back. If you fold it up or hang it, ten to one you do it badly. Hang all your dress waists and skirts but suspend them on coat hangers, not on hooks or nails. The way shopkeepers care for ready-wear garments is an excellent object lesson.
A large number of hangers can be bought for 50 cents, or if you are out of reach of the ready made articles, manufacture them. Half a barrel hoop with a loop of string in the middle makes a satisfactory substitute. Hanging only serves for heavy fabrics, not when they are of thin goods. In that case, garments are apt to become stringy. Light material must be folded, sleeves and bows stuffed out with tissue paper, and all given plenty of room.Skirt bags are a luxury, even a necessity for handsome garments. They are great square sacks of white cotton, longer than the skirts, and into which the skirt can be slipped without crushing. A sachet suspended in the center imparts to the skirt a fragrance which makes it as sweet and as fresh as a flower."

Cold Water in Recipes

A woman who lived for many years on Fourth Lake in the Adirondacks, and is famous among her friends for her excellent cooking, has adapted most of her dishes to cold water in place of milk. This she found necessary because of the high price of milk, which was ten cents a quart, as well as the uncertainty of obtaining it in severe weather.

The Travails Of A Librarian

"You would be surprised of you could be here for a day at the constant demands for a good book,"says the librarian of one of Maine's largest libraries in the 1900's."Everyone has a different definition of what a good book is. No dry good worker ever had harder work to satisfy a customer than the loaning clerk to find something readable for her patrons. One woman wants a small book, one something that is easy to hold; another wants a thick book, something that will keep her busy long enough to pay for taking it home. Another wants a book about the right size to put in her handbag. Or one says, 'Red covers please, I never saw a poor book in red covers.'One complains that the print is too small or too close. I must read the titles for her as she has forgotten her glasses. Books are refused because there is too much margin, or because there aren't quotation marks enough. But the greater trouble of all is the woman who wants the same book as her friend but she doesn't remember the author or the title. But it was so big, something about the revolutionary war, and she thinks she could recognize the picture on the front if she could see it."

The English Cravat

The English cravat is very fashionable at this moment, though it is not specially new. It consists of a long strip of silk ribbon which is tied directly under the chin in such a manner that the bows are very short, almost butterfly loops, while the ends hung right in the belt. They gradually widened and are finished with a sharp pointed cut. The four-in-hand is now made of figured ribbon embroidered with green clovers and in a study of the fashionable stocks, one certainly does see a great deal of hand embroidery so it looks as if every woman would have to turn embroiderer whether she wants to or not.
In the new stocks you notice a tendency toward the long ends in front. These are tied not so much under the chin as lower down. Take a ribbon which is carried twice around the neck, and knotted under the chin in a tied double knot. The ends are not allowed to fall, and they should nearly come to the knees. But there is another bow to be tied and this is directly over the bust. It should be a bow with two wide loops, and if one is skilled enough there should be four loops so that the whole thing when done is only a little longer than the belt.It is a good plan, unless you are skillful at tying, to tie the thing before it is put on and then fasten it in any clever way, so that it will look as though it were freshly tied.

A Thoughtful 1901 Mother Says...

That if you want your children to be courteous, you must treat them with respect.
That you should be as careful of their feelings as you want them to be of the feelings of others.
That when it is necessary to administer reproof, it should be given in private.
That most children are sensitive on this point; it injures their self-respect and they feel it acutely, though they are not able to express it in words.
That to tell a child in public that it has been rude or lacking in good breeding is as unwarrantable as it would be to tell a guest so.
That it is no excuse to argue that you are doing it for the purpose of making the child better and more thoughtful.
That this can be accomplished much better if you take the child aside at the first convenient opportunity and gently but firmly point out what the error was and what should be done on the next occasion.
That it is possible to callous a child's conscience by too rigid discipline, and this is a mistake made by too many mothers.

Clarke's Compound Mandrake Bitters

A new remedy for bilious and liver complaints, this medicine is composed of some of the most effective remedies modern science has been able to produce from the vegetable world, two of the most powerful being extracted from mandrake and leptandrin,which being combined with vegetable extracts, form one of the most powerful remedies for bilous and liver disorders, as it is certainly one of the best blood purifiers ever compounded. Large bottle, 50 cents.

Hanging Pictures In the 1900's

In hanging pictures, there must be a scheme to which the general tone of the pictures should conform. A dark carbon mustn't hang close to an etching drawn in delicate lines and bordered by a bright white mat.
If water-colors with their soft tints elbow oil paintings with their bolder tones, the former will be faded, the latter coarsened, by the proximity.
Etchings, photographs, drawings, engravings, water-colors, and pastels may be assembled in friendly terms. Even then, however, there must be judgment exercised in how they are placed.
Dark, heavily-shaded pictures should not always hang in the strongest light, but in some cases seek a sheltered position away from the glare of the windows.
Near the light belong the pictures in fainter tints, the subdued water-colors, the engravings whose best points need illumination.

Typical 1900 Meals

A typical 1900 meal is breakfast: prunes with stewed raisins; fried smelts; creamed potatoes; waffles with maple syrup; coffee. Lunch is: deviled eggs, hot rolls, tea. Dinner is: clear soup;panned hare; brown sauce; rice and tomatoes; cole slaw; wafers; cheese; peach tapioca with whipped cream; and coffee.

Or for breakfast: stewed fruit, curried sausages; rice puffs; French fried potatoes; ; coffee. Lunch is: veal sandwiches; muffins; apple rice balls; plain cake; tea. Dinner is: cream of barley soup; mutton ragout with grated cheese; browned potatoes; mashed young turnip; apple and celery salad; baked Indian pudding with caramel sauce, coffee.

1900 Kitchen Tips

1. A new way of serving poached eggs is to pour browned butter over slices of toast before placing the eggs on them, and sprinkling with finally chopped pickle.
2. To remove any dish from a mold when cold, wrap a hot cloth about the mold for a minute or two.
3. Wafer crackers, when sprinkled with grated cheese and slightly browned in the oven, are dainty to serve with salad.
4. Brass kettles should be cleaned with salt and vinegar in order to avoid verdigris poisoning.
5.Gum camphor kept in the case or closet with new silverware will tend to prevent tarnishing.
6.For dipping articles to be fried, one must use the whole egg, or the white of an egg, but not the yolk alone.
7. When frying, the economical woman only uses enough of her frying fat to comfortably cover what is to be rried.

Proper Tablecloth Length

One of the best 1900 caterers gives the exact length over the table that the cloth should hang. This is eighteen inches at the narrowest point, a width which at the corners, makes of course, a deeper sweep. The full yard-square napkin is the most approved dinner size. although many hostesses of wealth and taste prefer the seven-eighths size.

The artistic needlework in the March 1901 Ladies'World magazine is particularly on Russian Honiton and Rennaissance lace. The designs include a butterfly for a sofa pillow, and a table cover in Renaissance lace.

Fashion Forecast

The severely plain tailored gown will not be in favor during 1901. The demand for plain, tight-fitting tailored gowns is growing less and less. One of the reasons is that they are expensive. None but an expert tailor can give them the required finish. Being heavily boned, and required to avoid wrinkles in wearing, they are not comfortable; and the American woman is beginning to think that comfort is an important consideration.
All skirts flare considerably. Perhaps the majority are laid in inverted pleats at the back, although the "swing" is obtained by shaping at the bottom. Circular ruffles are very well liked. Some skirts have three of them, each one half inch deep.
A bolero comes in all materials and is worn on all oaccsions. It is used with evening gowns, as well as for street wear. Oxford gray is very popular. A dark gray trimmed with stitched bands of velvet or silk and finished with bone buttons is a favorite street suit. Black cloth gowns are correct if they are cut with a flare skirt and a bolero jacket.
The flared skirt can have five bands of satin
A lovely waist for evenings is white taffeta or peau de soie with body and sleeves tucked in fine tucks, and a fichu of net, trimmed in fine lace and laid at a knot at the bust.

A Week of Hope and Fear

On a Friday night in 1901 the world was shocked to hear the news that President McKinley had been shot. Then came a week of alternatinghope and fear. At times physicians, close friends, and the public were confident that science, a model life, the good constitution and courage of the distinguished patient would triumph, and that President McKInley would be spared. All seemed to go well for almost a week; business returned as usual in a nation confident in the recovery of their chief executive. But early Friday morning the wires flashed to the corners of the earth that the President's heart was failing.
All day Friday despite the hopeful bulletins sent out, it was a time of failing hope in the hearts of the people. The public was keot informed so that they could read between the lines Then came the long and anxious hours of waiting.

At Milburn House in Buffalo, New York,at 3:15 a.m.on September 14,1901, the twenty-fifth president of the United States died.