Comments On Article: Stepping In To The 1930's, Happy New Year!

If you would like to share your comments for article Stepping in to the 1930's, Happy New Year!, this is where to do it! 

Click the Reply To This Topic button below to post yours.

Thank-you for sharing all your fascinating research- I am really enjoying reading about it. Amusingly here in the UK the toilet is still some referred to as the WC (Water closet) by people over 50yrs and is still signed as such in older buildings! It must be very confusing for tourists.

I loved your little introduction with the clocks- that was so cute. 
I wish I had a scullery too. My kitchen gets messy really quickly. I’d love to have a separate little area to do the washing up. And now I finally know what a scullery maid is!! I always assumed it was just a kitchen maid but now I realise it must be someone who literally does the washing up. 
If my history lessons at school had given me details like this I would have learnt a lot more. 

Hi  Donna, 

It is going to be a fascinating year. I looked for video's on the Great Depression in the UK, but there were very limited examples. I wasn't particularly looking for photo's, although there were a few. I am going to look for newspaper sources next. It seems it was a time of great poverty especially within the working classes in cities. I have yet to find anything about day to day life in households. I did find a fascinating interview with elderly ladies from all sorts of social backgrounds, filmed in the 70's about their lives at that time though. A real snapshot of social history. 

I've been watching Clara's Kitchen on YouTube. She and her grandson made Depression era cooking videos. In each video (as in her cookbook), she shares information on life during that time. I know this was an extremely challenging time and most of what I watch depicts gloom and despair (underscored with the accompanying music). Clara's Kitchen presents a spirit of teamwork and perseverance. 

Happy New Year to you all.

I think some people refer to a modern day scullery as a butler's pantry - a place for washing dishes and storing the overflow of pots and pans, and bulk groceries. I'd love to have either a scullery or a butler's pantry.

I'm very much looking forward to this years' study :)

Happy New Year! I’m excited for the adventure ahead in 2023 (1932);-

I loved your changing the clocks introduction. It made me laugh. :) My husband and son had almost identical looks of skepticism on their faces when I first told them we are going to live like the 1930s. Over time, as I shared what I have in mind, they warmed to the idea. We play board games on weekends a lot. I asked them if they wanted to keep playing the games we have or use period appropriate games and they said they wanted to play the games of the 1930s and before! So I'm glad you mentioned your game. I'm still learning about games from that time. On Saturdays we set up a card table in the living room (now parlor) and either start a jigsaw puzzle (to be finished by Sunday evening) or play games. Folding card tables existed in the thirties. I checked! :)

 (My husband and son said that as long as they are allowed to go the bedroom to use their computers whenever they want to, they are fine with the rest of the house being in the thirties. This was their suggestion to leave the main part of the house in the thirties, not mine! They are even excited about different aspects of the time.)

I hate dishes all over the place! One thing I've been practicing this month is using fewer dishes so there is less to clean up. My kitchen has no place for a scullery. :( I simply have to stay on top of washing the dishes. My son learned how to handwash dishes this month so he can sometimes be my scullery servant. ;)

Oh I would love a scullery or a butler’s pantry ?? Hand washing all the dishes with a family leaves  little time for an empty sink :)  I wanted to know if anyone is using some kind of rack in the kitchen to dry damp still clean towels? I was thinking of getting one of the ones you install on the cabinet that has 3 bars that can be rotated. Or I might just put the drying rack in the kitchen during the evening to dry kitchen towels that are damp or have been cleaned by hand in the sink.  The kids  (teenagers)were all playing monopoly last night and had so much fun. I think it’s important that  not only adults but our children know how to have fun without being connected to a device. 
Tomorrow I’m going to surprise the kids with homemade waffles and preserves for the new year. 
One more question- the kuchen that we will be making for Sarah’s week , are we all following the same recipe that was shared? 

In books and watching English olden days programmes the Gentry often had Scullery maids.

I've noticed here in NZ quite a few very expensive modern homes also have a Scullery.

Because we have 2 fireplaces in our 1916 home we are going to put a drying rack made out of a cot (crib) side on pulleys up to the ceiling to dry our washing.

Very very interesting study.  A book I have is We Had everything Except Money about the 1930s Great Depression and another book relevant to NZ where they talk about 5 families in one street sharing a packet of carrot seeds. Many people who lived "rich" lifestyles weren't prepared for what was to come. 

Happy New Year!  Love the hats, good change - the clock!  mmm... scullery. Interesting. I haven't really found any good images of one. The "separate from the KITCHEN" part confuses me. What would be left but the dining area?  Would it be prepping?  I've seen separate areas for sink and some cabinets at my grandmothers house. She had this tiny little nook of sink and "some" cupboards, but her stove was in the dining area nestled with a row of cabinets.  Now my brothers old house had a little open nook of sorts with the stove and fridge out in the open.  My step mom had the weirdest set up - a nook - U shaped with everything in it, almost like a closet with the table somewhere else completely. Almost like a no kitchen, kitchen. Odd how it's all changed. I wish I could find better pics and the reasonings. I do know I wouldn't want my kitchen open in my living room the way they are now. LOL. But I need a better image of a scullery. For some reason, I can't wrap my brain around it.

Happy New Year ????

As Karen just commented, there was a scullery maid. As I was reading, I was thinking we all need a scullery maid ????  Mancala is fun.  It doesn't take long to figure out.

Our house was built in 1930, but of course has been altered some.  There are a couple things I wish they would have left alone.

Might have to come back to this one, but right now have to get crackin'. The ironing awaits.

Happy New Year Grandma Donna!!  Let’s have fun with this year!  My home is 1939 built so she’s going to be happy!! Here’s hoping 2023 will be a healthy and happy year for us all x

About the scullery questions.  Everything I have read this far, and being in the scullery of my mothers house, sculleries were away from the cooking kitchen.  It was a separate room or away from the kitchen.  Maybe I confused things saying I want one in the corner of my kitchen and this is because I do not have an extra room for a scullery. Basically I just want a dishwashing sink area away from the cooking area. I am sure they had a large pan to carry the pots and pans and dishes away to the scullery.  

There is a scullery, a butlers pantry, a still room and this could go on depending on what type of home or mansion this was.  Some scullery's had a side area for a butlers pantry however, the purpose of a scullery was a separate room for keeping the soiled pots and pans and dishes and food scraps, dirty water and all that goes with it away from the main kitchen. 

Possibly think of it like this, in our own kitchen.  We have a work counter and cook stove and a deep pan tray to set items in that have been dirtied.  When full or needed that is carried to the scullery to be washed thus keeping the kitchen less cluttered and sanitary as well. 

Some sculleries had a mop area to hold mops and cleaning items.  The scullery was the wash up room if that makes sense.  My mothers scullery, there was a doorway off her kitchen, a small long rectangular room with a sink and counter area of sorts. Through the years, cabinets had been added, my mother turned into a small office area.  It was a long narrow room.  

Nothing set in stone how it had to be done, many people designed their own house. I hope this helps. 

Sheri R, I just checked to see if they had the three arm metal drying rack and they did in a 1925 ad. Many of the things in our house in the 1930s would have come from the 1920s or before that. As solid as things were made long ago, people most likely had many items from the very early 1900s unless they got rid of them to modernize during the 1920s and I feel bad now for those that did due to the great depression they did not know was coming.  A lesson learned for us.

I have one of the three arm kitchen drying racks in my kitchen now and so that means I can keep it up.  Thank you for asking that question because it answers both our question. :)  One word of advice with those is make sure to consider eye level with the rack, you do not want it eye level of anyone in the house because if you lean too close it could poke you.  I put little foam tips on mine, they may have had something at the end at one time.  

I have a feeling my house is going to be quite utilitarian this year due to the size and the needs.  Charles is trying to figure out today how to make an area to put the hand crank wringer inside so I can do that part out of the harsh cold or hot weather.  

Sheri, You have things starting to roll at your house.  The family has a nice surprise for New Years Breakfast.  

I like to consider how my kitchen would have been when the house was built (somewhere between 1922 and 1926).  It is a California Bungalow, but of the houses built on our street was one of the larger ones (originally about 1400 square feet with three bedrooms) and one of only a few built with a porte cochere and a garage.  We have an "ash can" sunk into the ground outside the side door, which suggests the first cookstove in the house was either wood or coal.  Since coal ash could be removed while still hot, my guess is coal, since wood ash was removed cool and wouldn't have to go into a metal container.  Ash was an important by-product back then and my fireplace has a small covered opening to brush the wood ash into, as well as access to that ash through another opening outside the house at the base of the chimney.

It is possible that there were built in cupboards in my 1920s kitchen, but it's also possible the kitchen was unfitted.  I'll never know.  My pantry was built with vents in both the floor and the attic, not quite the same as a "California Cooler" which was a smaller vented cabinet, but similar.  We don't have the floor vent anymore because the flooring company covered it and none of us knew at that time what it was.  If we redo the kitchen floor I want to uncover that vent.  Certainly my kitchen would have had an icebox and not a refrigerator.  The kitchen has been renovated since then (perhaps many times) and I know one opening was closed between the dining room and kitchen, whereas an opening was created between what we call the breakfast nook and the dining room, but these didn't happen at the same time.  It has been fun sleuthing this out by seeing various homes on our block.  This little breakfast room doesn't have plumbing and as such I doubt it was a scullery since I think that would have been far less common for a house built in the 1920s.  It was most likely the "eat-in" portion of the kitchen, and as such we created a built-in for it, as was common in bungalows.

It's likely that the side entry off the kitchen wouldn't have been a "laundry room" as it is now, since it is a small space (the door hinges had to be reversed to open outward when someone put in a dryer).  Based on what Grandma Donna has written about sending laundry out, it seems likely to me that the upper middle class people who first lived in my house would have sent their laundry out.

I have cupboards and countertops on two walls, and then on the pantry wall I have a Hoosier-style cabinet.

I love the picture of the house your mother bought.  The shape of the roof and the rounded porch on it are wonderful.  Looks as though there was a big tree right there in the front yard.  Too bad it's not still there to give some shade.  I'd love to do some landscaping in that big front yard .

After reading this post I realise I have inadvertently created a scullery in a corner of my laundry room.  My kitchen sink is blocked so as I am not using the washing machine for the study ( I have an old cement sink and a genuine 1930s ACME mangle) I have moved all washing up to the laundry tub.  I have the dish rack set up on the washing machine.  I had intended to move back into the kitchen once I fix the blocked drain, but after reading about sculleries I will stay as is for the year.  It is actually nice not to see dishes piled up in the kitchen.

A rather wealthy friend of mine who had a kitchen about the same size as my entire first floor had a section of it as a scullery I guess.  It had a sink separate from the one in the cooking area and the dishwasher was there also.  Also cabinets for the dishes that opened on both sides so whoever was washing up could fill the cabinets with the clean dishes but the area was kind of blocked from view.  I found it rather exhausting to cook in that kitchen as the amount of steps to get anything done was crazy.  

My grandmother's 1920s home had a lovely pantry that was completely lined with cabinets and a lovely marble counter top.  There was even a pull out bin that I assume was for potatoes.  The small pantry room had no heating unit of any kind and only one small window so it stayed cool and it connected the dining room and kitchen with swinging doors.  I loved it as a kid.  

For people without help, I believe that washing up was often a two person task with someone washing and another person drying.  I remember that from when I was a kid and we always joked around and were silly and the time flew by.  I used to love to be in the kitchen on a holiday when it was full of my grandmother's generation.  There was always so much talking and laughter and everything would get done in a flash.  No one was left slaving away at dish washing alone.

Happy New Year everyone! Here in the UK some new build houses come with a utility room that houses the washing machine, has a few small cupboards and a sink, separate to that in the kitchen. Extremely lucky though I am to have a utility room, I had never quite worked out how to use it for the best as it is very small and it is a bit of a dumping ground for laundry, tinned goods etc and the sink sits unused. I am therefore going to turn it into a scullery! So excited for the study and I too love the hats. x

Happy New Year, Everyone! It rained a little this morning but cleared this afternoon. The air was so fresh and wonderful and I would have missed it if I wasn't hanging out my laundry, and threw it in the dryer instead. :) 

My laundry is hung and my dinner ready for the oven later, so it's time to go to the movies! Today's first feature is 1930's Reaching for the Moon with Douglas Fairbanks and Bebe Daniels. Bye! :)

I lived with my grandparents for awhile and they had lived there since the 1920's.  There was a separate little room off the kitchen they called the "outkitchen."  There was no sink there, because there was a sink in the kitchen where they did the washing up, but I believe they used it as a utility room/canning room. There was a table with a 2-burner kerosene stove on it that they used for canning and a separate cabinet for the canned goods.  Shelves were lined with odds and ends, including a cup that held all the rubber bands that were wrapped around the newspapers, a sewing box, and jars of buttons.  The ironing board was kept in there and a clothesline was hung, where dishcloths and towels were hung to dry.  In later years there was a washing machine but never a dryer.  I believe at one time there may have been an early round-shaped washing machine in there because I have seen pictures of it and a wringer, that was often put out on the back porch off the kitchen.  Also hanging on the walls of that "outkitchen" were flyswatters, fishing rods, and those metal pants dryers that grandma would slide into my grandpap's trousers to put in creases and and to lessen wrinkles.  It was definitely an all-purpose room!

That is so true Sara M.  I recall as a kid how we would all pull together with the washing up.  One would clear the table, one wash and one or two would dry and put away.  There was always chatter and cheerfulness.  It was a social time.  Isn't it odd how things have changed and we tend to forget.  This study is bringing back so many tiny memories for me.

Funnily enough, in my part of the world, which is Kerala, many houses built over the last 50 years have sculleries, though the term for them is "work area". In grander houses, there are actually three kitchens: the show kitchen, used only when important guests arrive; the actual kitchen where cooking is carried out; and the work area where the chopping, cleaning of fish and meat, and washing up, is done. I thought Grandma Donna would enjoy hearing about this. I have one too, only I don't use it much when only my family is around, because I wash up dishes as I go along. :) But it's very useful when the house is full of guests, as is very often the case. It also stores odds and ends.