Note: Inquiring readers, due to a busy schedule, I have updated this blog post from 2012 that discussed carpet cleaning. During this time of year, fresh air enters my open windows, while my furniture, windows, and carpets receive a thorough cleaning until everything looks and smells fresh. I’ve made a few changes to the original post by switching a link to a history of carpet cleaning to a safer site, as well as making minor edits.
This historical tidbit comes from a page designed by Knight and Doyle about the history of carpet cleaning. Some of the methods described were downright poisonous, such as using chloroform!
The screen capture below depicts a scene in Sense and Sensibility in which Elinor Dashwood, using a carpet beater made of cane, beats a carpet hung outside.
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 Century, Edited by John Burrows, J.R. Burrows and Company (this link is not an https.)
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
- Keeping a Regency Home Clean, Jane Austen Variations
- Spring Cleaning at Chawton, JASNA SW
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 in Austen’s day. Sense and Sensibility, 1996.
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