USA in 1904

My mother used to use the nit comb with gusto :eek::eek:

I don't remember her using chemicals, we just had to sit there for hours while she got them out manually. I don't remember having them often so it must have worked.
 
Have confirmed that olive oil was what was prescribed in Call the Midwife but I still question its validity for the period. As always I have no hesitation in questioning the BBC's research. How are the mighty fallen! After all, to the UK, olive oil was either a character in Popeye or a nasty import from Italy in around the nineteen seventies.
 
Big Unc said:
Have confirmed that olive oil was what was prescribed in Call the Midwife but I still question its validity for the period. As always I have no hesitation in questioning the BBC's research. How are the mighty fallen! After all, to the UK, olive oil was either a character in Popeye or a nasty import from Italy in around the nineteen seventies.
Click to expand...

;D ;D;D ;D
 
There is a saying in the US and maybe it is in the UK......"The Good Old Days" referring to the common thought that times were much better in the past. Well, I read a book titled "The Not so Good Old Days" that had discussed so many hardships of the US at the turn of the 20th Century.

It also reminds me a bit of the film "Gangs of New York". This is a highly exaggerated Hollywood film but it is interesting to see the lawlessness on New York at the time. Come to think of it, that was more around the late 1800s.
 
Thanks for the post Barmpot. I use to get emails like that from time to time, discussing the prices of things from years gone by.

Do they have anything like that circulating in England about your Good ole days?
 
Talking of nits, combs and chemicals. Does DURBAK soap ring any bells for anyone?? I seem to have heard about it a few decades ago. :) ;D
 
Say, does anybody recall a TV special done some years back. They took a real present day family and had them live life like it was in the early 1900's ~~ I think. Not sure of the year, but it was London. The father was a Bobby and mother and daughter spent the day baking and that stuff. They were allowed to shop in regular local stores that had been supplied by the producers with the items they would have had back then.
 
Elmc said:
Say, does anybody recall a TV special done some years back. They took a real present day family and had them live life like it was in the early 1900's ~~ I think.
Click to expand...

It was The 1900 House. Here's the website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/1900house/

Loved that series!

Later, the same channel produced The 1940s House (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1940s_House). Loved that one, too. After the series, the 1940s house interiors were reconstructed in the Imperial War Museum, prompting me to make my first visit there.

Marianna
 
YES ! Thank you, Marianna. In one episode the female members of the family couldn't stand not having a decent hair shampoo so they broke a rule a bought one. Don't remember what the penalty was. And in the 1940 House didn't they have to make use of an air raid shelter?
 
Elmc said:
And in the 1940 House didn't they have to make use of an air raid shelter?
Click to expand...

They not only had to use an Anderson shelter, the husband had to install it. His wife was very concerned about the effect of all that heavy work, since he wasn't very strong.

Marianna
 
Oh, yes, gosh they should replay those shows. Was there also something about a Victory garden?
 
Big Unc said:
Have confirmed that olive oil was what was prescribed in Call the Midwife but I still question its validity for the period. As always I have no hesitation in questioning the BBC's research. How are the mighty fallen! After all, to the UK, olive oil was either a character in Popeye or a nasty import from Italy in around the nineteen seventies.
Click to expand...


I think in the 1950s the pesticidal treatment would have been DDT or similar and I read that liquid paraffin was also used - that, to me, seems far more likely than olive oil. Olive Oil was not common currency in the early 1950s as far as I recall. Liquid paraffin ref:

http://www.hedrin.co.uk/assets/downloads/Hedrin-Report.pdf
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top