How old fashioned a notion about a woman’s worth, but once it was seen as a fact sanctioned by society and accepted by some women themselves. I see the tangible expressions of that axiom on the auction tables pretty often, and I’m amazed at how we willingly embraced its inevitability.
That was then, this is now. As we celebrate Women’s History Month – you can read my other blog posts about women here – I’ve selected blog posts about some tools of “women’s work.” Since women’s lives were once so strictly defined, a lot of those items tend to show up often at auction.
Here are some of them:
I watched as two hefty men hauled the big black pot between them and sat it squat on the muddy ground in back of the auction house. As soon as I saw it, a very familiar childhood vision sprang into my head. It looked just like the old round-bellied cast iron pot that my grandmother heated up to clean her white clothes dizzyingly white.
Wringer washing machine leads to black female inventor
The man made the statement in jest, but it was oh-so-true. “This was when women had it tough,” he said to the two other people with him. He was walking towards a lovely yellow vintage wringer washing machine that from a distance looked like it had not been used often. He touched the wringer, seemingly amazed and enamored with this wash-day anachronism. “Can you believe that,” he said. “I’ll be darned.” I learned that an African American woman named Ellen F. Eglin invented a successful clothes wringer in the 1880s.
Antique bread maker leads to black inventor
The metal pot with the army green patina looked like a thicker version of an Asian wok there on the auction table. I slid off the lid and saw a jumble of heavy metal parts inside.On the lid were some deeply embossed words that led off with this inscription: “The ‘General’ Seamless Bread Maker.” It was the strangest-looking bread maker I had seen. I found out that an African American man named Joseph Lee revolutionized bread-making in the 1890s by inventing a machine that made bread crumbs.
Recalling mom’s egg beater & flour sifter
“Carmen, remember these,” a woman called out to her friend as she stopped at a flea-market table this weekend. She picked up a red-handle egg beater and started twirling the little knob, setting the wheel and whisks a-turning. The memories just poured from her face – a smile, a gleam in her eyes. She was remembering her mother or grandmother – or herself as a helper – beating eggs and other ingredients using a tool just like this.
Licking and gluing S&H Green Stamps
I came across some books of S&H Green Stamps recently while combing through a box lot from an auction. They were inside an old Eckerd’s drugstore paper bag, the word “Stamps” neatly written across the bottom. The book instantly brought back memories of licking and gluing, licking and gluing, licking and gluing. I don’t remember what my family bought with the stamps, but I do remember that part of it.
Did you ever meet a Fuller Brush Man?
The Fuller Brush Man never came knocking at our door. I’m very familiar with the image of this ubiquitous salesman with his briefcase full of brushes. But I never met one. He apparently walked door to door in suburban neighborhoods – so, that’s why we never saw him – in his neat suit and warm smile. Selling utilitarian brushes to help housewives make their work easier. I grew up in a rural area and he would’ve worn out his shoes trying to visit our houses.
Ritual of the straightening comb
The image is amazingly clear: A little girl sits on the floor or a stool between her mother’s legs, her head a mass of unruly hair. Her mother sits behind her in a chair, close enough to the stove to reach the tool that will tame her child’s natural hair but not too close to burn either of them. Lying on an open gas flame on the stove was a tool of mass destruction – the straightening comb, or hot comb.
When being a wife was far from funny
The paper sign stood out like the proverbial sore thumb there on a middle rack at the auction house. Once, I’m sure, it was a hoot, but it felt like an anachronism now. Its calculations showed the worth of a woman way back when – there was no date on the sign but its appearance looked vintage and its notations dated. The calculations were presented in a “hee-hee-it’s-all-a-joke” kind of way, but its undercurrent sentiments were all too obvious.
Several summers ago at the World’s Longest Yard Sale, I came across a Ball Mason fruit jar with what looked like blackberries that had been canned years ago and forgotten. A man was selling them on the side of the road. That’s the neat thing about this yard sale: People set up in any clear spot they can find and sell just about anything. The fruit jars were like many that show up at auction all the time, because once – and still now – women canned much of their food.
Years ago, when I parked appliances on my countertop – and very seldom used them – I’d buy those colorful fabric covers to keep them cozy. Since appliances don’t get cold and shiver, I suppose I also used them to add color to my kitchen. I have no appliances on my counter these days, and so the cozies are gone. Because they were covered, I had a hard time figuring out what was under them. That apparently was not an issue for the woman who used the clear plastic covers I came across recently among some 1950s-era kitchen items at auction.
Privy to slop jars, chamber pots and the past
“Maybe they cleaned it,” I said to the buyer slightly to the front of me as she hugged the slop jar/chamber pot she’d just gotten at auction. “They” were the previous owners who had once used this slop jar, hidden it under the bed for that midnight rush to the toilet. It was a lovely pot, ceramic or maybe porcelain, with what resembled a Staffordshire pattern but without a lid. “I doubt it,” she replied in good humor. The slop jar was one of about a half-dozen in an auction of items by a couple who had engaged in 50 years of collecting.
I was separating out some knitting, crocheting and embroidery items I had picked up at a local auction a couple weeks ago. The person who owned these items also left two newspaper pages with articles about women’s clothing, embroidery patterns for a scarf and lamp-shade design, along with an article on tatting lace. Whenever I see women in these early newspapers, it makes me wonder about black women like my grandmother who was in her early 20s at the time and raising a family. They were completely left out.
Vintage sewing machines at auction
I never took home economics or sewing classes in high school. I took typing classes. I jokingly told my friends that I’d hire someone to come in and do my housework and sewing. I was in college before I developed an interest in sewing. Well, not exactly developed. I was forced to learn after a friend messed around and failed to make an outfit for me that I desperately wanted. So, I taught myself on a Singer and made some of my own clothes for years afterward.
