For myself, I've found that it seems to make more sense for me to get showered and dressed (and to have the bedroom straightened up) before I begin preparing breakfast. That way, if I have something that's going to take a long time - like Stewed Apricots or Prunes - I can get those started before getting dressed and have plenty to do while they're bubbling away on the back burner. Plus, I'm just not able to summon any kind of appetite as soon as I get out of bed in the morning. Definitely need some time to rustle that up! Since I have to head to work by 7:15 or so, I might as well be fully dressed as I go about my early morning chores.
Was it an age thing? Were older women more likely to be dressed for the day before leaving the bedroom? Were mothers - who also had to get the kids up and dressed - more likely to spend the early morning in bathrobe and slippers? Where do housecoats fit in? Here are some wonderful photos of '40s housewives in morning garb courtesy of the Library of Congress. The captions were written by the photographers.
Sheffield, Alabama. Mrs. Hall prepares breakfast for her husband before he leaves for work at the aluminum plant. (June 1942)
Washington, D.C. Lynn Massman, wife of a student at the Naval Air Station, eating breakfast while her eight-weeks-old son takes a nap. (December 1943)
Cincinnati, Ohio. Mrs. Cochran, the wife of a Greyhound bus driver, giving the children Sunday breakfast. (September 1943)
Frankford, Pennsylvania. Although she's one of America's vital production workers eight hours each day, fifty-five-year-old Eva Smuda still finds plenty of time to devote to home and family. Before the rest of the household is up, she has breakfast on the stove. (March 1942)
I was super excited when I found some Wheatena at one of the local grocery stores on my way home from work today. I've been looking all over for something wheat-y in the hot cereal section. And just in the nick of time, too, as I spy Cooked Whole-wheat Cereal coming up on the menu. The next item on my scavenger list: maple sugar. My breakfast this morning was building-blocks basic:
Grapefruit Juice
Cooked Farina and Barley Cereal
You know, I don't mind the lumps in my cereal very much when they happen, but I'm finding it's become a point of pride or something to make lump-free cereal. What's happening to me?!?
3 comments:
I want that stove in the bottom pic!
I bet it was a mixed bag, much like today.
For me, now, I get up stay in my robe and prepare breakfast for my hubby (he works out I stay in) and while that is going I make his lunch and then feed the dogs. By the time he is cleaned and called to breakfast, I have just enough time to sit with him, still in my robe, and have a cup of tea or coffee while he eats his breakfast. I think this could be a typical moment back then. Of course, if it were 1940, we could probably still afford one maid of all work who most likely would have lived in. That would have given me time to get ready (as my husband was) and we would meet at the table with breakfast served. Or I would dress and make lunch while she cooked breakfast. I guess that doesnt really answer the question, but I bet it was mixed.
I guess the time of day at which you bathed right play a part in determining how dressed up you were when you started breakfast and got your morning chores underway. If you bathed in the morning, you probably wouldn't be inclined to get back into a bathrobe or maybe even a housecoat. At least I know that I wouldn't. Might as well go all the way at that point! If you bathed in the afternoon or evening, you might be perfectly content to get the day started in a robe or housecoat and save getting dressed until the husband was off to work and the children were on their way to school.
I'm loving your questions about daily routines. It reminds me how much things have changed. About bathing, people still did the once a week thing then on Saturday before church on Sunday. Same thing about washing hair and setting hair, which was a separate operation from bathing. So it was not a daily scheduled item! Perhaps twice a week at most.
Housecoats were great. Between a bathrobe and a housedress. Fully dressing was such a PITA that you needed something interim so you could get up and do immediate chores or be respectable to run out and pick up the paper and milk from the stoop or quickly hang up some laundry in the back, etc. Whatever time you transitioned from housecoat to housedress or slacks or streetwear varied with your personal degree of organization. Of course, if you went around in your housecoat all day, every day, the neighbors would gossip!
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