This historical tidbit comes from a page designed by J.R. Burrows & Company, Historical-Design Merchants about historic carpet cleaning methods. One sees in films carpets being hung outside on a line and beaten with carpet beaters made of cane.
Elinor beats the carpet. Sense and Sensibility 2008
Some carpets were fitted and hard to remove. In such instances, druggets, or hard-wearing canvas cloths, came to the rescue.
The Young Trio, by E.V. Rippingille, 1829. Image @Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery.
One of the most common strategies of keeping carpets clean in the early nineteenth century was to use druggets, heavy woolen goods spread under tables to protect carpet from spills. They are sometimes called crumb cloths. In addition to dining rooms they were used in other areas of heavy wear. E.V. Rippingille painted The Young Trio in 1829 showing a drugget protecting carpet in a parlor where children are at play. – Historic Carpet Cleaning Methods in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
You can clearly see the drugget underneath the table in this classic print.
The Dinner-Locust; or Advantages of a Keen Scent’, Charles Hunt after E. F. Lambert, c.1823; hand coloured etching and aquatint. Image @The Geffrye Museum of the Home
Read more at these links:
- Carpet Cleaning in the 19th Century
- Life in the Living Room: 1600-2000, The Geffrye Museum of the Home
A maid shakes a small carpet or a drugget from a second story window, as well as some trousers. If I recall, one of the actors walked through the door below her as she shook the cloth. Such scenes must have been common then. Sense and Sensibility, 1996.
Jane Austen's World 
That was very interesting. I remember putting clear plastic mats on the floor of my babies’ high chairs for the same purpose. I also love that picture that was next to last, the gentleman who comes to visit at his friends’ house at dinner time and must politely be included in dinner. It appears that this might not have been the first time he has done this, from the anger shown clearly on the host’s face.
I meant to hit the notify me of comments via e-mail button.
K, Amanda Vickery uses that image in At Home With the Georgians to show how lonely the life of a bachelor was. He lives in rented rooms and eats in chop houses, working to scrape enough money to afford a wife and family. Meanwhile, he cadges a meal from a married friend whenever he can, basking in his friend’s domestic bliss.
Ah ha! That’s where I’ve seen this. I knew the guy was a bachelor. I just couldn’t remember what book I’d seen this in. A bachelor’s lot was a tough one back then. I guess that because I’m married I relate to this picture more from the couple’s perspective than the lonely bachelor’s.
I love little bits of info. like this that subtly illustrate the domestic habits of the time, so when I’m watching a period film I won’t miss these details! Thanks Vic.
“Pants!!” Now come on Vic, this is England and the 18th century you are talking about. TROUSERS, please. Pants to us mean two things, the small undergarment, knickers, buttock and genital covering lingerie, (don’t know how else to describe it to you lot across the Atlantic) I am sure you get my meaning.
The other meaning for ,”pants,” here is “What a load of rubbish,” and even, “That’s useless.”
There you go, a little bit of cross Atlantic misunderstanding now understood.
Tony
You’re making an assumption, Tony! They could be breeches, as they are quite dark!
I don’t know about the garment that’s being shaken, but the garment on the bachelor is not what I would call trousers. Those “pants” are so tight, I’d call them “tights”–wonder if he was a ballet dancer! (Tony, for those of us “across the Atlantic,” you can say “underpants” and we’ll know what you’re on about! :-)
They do look more like breeches than trousers though both could be dark. IN fact the men in the city who were wearing trousers early quite often wore dark ones. It is said that Brummell shuddered at the cits, so I think it ironic that he is created with putting men into the black evening suits. He id wear black pantaloons in the evening, I read but with a colored coat.
Back to the subject at hand– as usual very interesting and covering a subject not often mentioned.
There, I have the whole thing, followed all the links and shuddered in horror at the suggestion of washing a carpet in two foot patches. For years my mother would roll her rug from the middle east up into an unweildy log to avoid the afternoon sun. It was a triumph when we finally convinced her to hang it on a wall instead.
Yes, they probably are breeches draped over the windowsill.
Trousesr came in as a working class piece of clothing during the French Revoluion and were introduced by Beau Brummel into England. I think the Duke of Wellington wore trousers.
All the best,
Tony
Can you imagine the challenged of having pets – especially cats – in those homes? Even now, it’s impossible to get some smells out of carpets, and as we know, once they have hit their targets, they become “repeat offenders”.
I have tried beating carpets with a cane carpetbeater (shaped something like a small tennis racquet) and I’m here to tell you it is utterly, utterly exhausting. We found the carpetbeater in my grandmother’s house when we sold off everything, and me being 13 and full of energy, I thought I’d try it out. Just hanging the carpet on the clothesline was a chore, and the beating went on *forever*. Of course, it might have been an extra-hard task because our carpet hadn’t been cleaned in living memory. In any case, it was hard, physical work and went on and on and on and I finally gave up with plenty of dust still left in the thing.
Thank you for sharing that memory! Those rugs were unwieldy to begin with!
Just imagine – the windows were kept open on warm days to cool off the house. Dust blew in with an assortment of insects. I imagine birds flew in as well. Between beating carpets, sweeping floors, swatting flies and shooing birds out of the window, one wonders how much time was left over for meal preparation and laundry!
The Housekeeping Book of Susannah Watkins is full of helpful information on this. (It used to be available from National Trust shops here in the UK.) In addition to beating the carpets as shown above, they would often then roll the carpet in canvas sprinkled with strong herbs–lads love, lavender, etc. They were exceptionally worried about using water on the wooden floors too–probably because of the damp problems–so one solution for cleaning the floor was to dry-scrub it, again, with strong herbs, before replacing the carpets. It’s important to recall that to them, an essential part of cleaning was combatting the ubiquitous presence of moths, fleas and lice in their homes…
My sister used a plastic version of droppets. She had twins, and they were the messiest eaters I’ve ever seen. With all the coal dust in the air, it must have been impossible to keep drapes and carpets clean.
A local historical society here in New England recently had a house cleaning event in their Federal-era mansion. The time period roughly corresponds to the Georgian period. See their blog post about cleaning c. 1790
http://rihs.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/all-cleaned-up/
Just where the benefit of having a whole lot of servants comes in. Imagine doing this all by yourself!
LOL. The scenes of people shaking out rugs and clothes are still commen in Germany.