Soap in America Two Hundred Years Ago
It was the following evening, after supper. The Martin family had settled down in the big chairs in the living room, and everyone was feeling very comfortable. In fact, they might have become sleepy, if father had not roused them by saying:
”Jimmy, please bring me the little clock from your desk.”
Jimmy brought it, wondering what in the world clocks had to do with soap, which father had promised to talk about.
”Now,” said father, “let us turn back the hands of this clock two hundred years.”
Everybody’s eyes popped open!
Everybody stared at father.
Father looked at them, with a perfectly serious face.
”This is not a joke,” said father. “Time is going to turn back tonight. Jimmy, put out the lights. We are going to imagine we are going back to two hundred years ago. Think of what living would be like in this country then. As soon as you have put yourselves back, tell me what you see.”
Mother was the quickest at the game of make-believe.
”I’m back there,” said she. “We are living in a little cabin. Outside of the cabin is a clearing of land, and the forest is close by.”
”Yes, sirree,” said Jimmy. “I can see that, and there are Indians in the forest.”
”Then I’m not going anywhere near it,” said Sue, with a shiver.
”’Fraid cat,” said Jimmy. “I’m going in it.”
”I am looking around our room,” went on mother. “Our table is a long board, and our chairs are wooden benches.”
”There is a candle on the table,” said Sue.
”You helped me make that candle, Sue. We hung a piece of string down in a tin mold, and poured melted tallow fat around it, or we dipped the strings in melted fat.”
”There is a fire in a big open fireplace,” said father. “Jimmy and I cut the wood for it. Mother cooked our supper of corn meal mush in an iron pot which she swung over the fire.”
”I shall be spinning the yarn for your stockings and clothes by the light of the fire this evening,” added mother.
”By the way, Jimmy,” mother went one, “tomorrow I intend to make soap. I do this twice a year, you know. I shall make it out of doors, and you must get a big pile of wood ready, and keep up the fire under the soap kettle.”
”All right,” said Jimmy. “That’s a job I like.”
”Have you saved enough fat for the soap?” asked father.
”Yes,” said mother. “I’ve been saving all the fat we could spare all winter, and I have about thirty pounds.”
”That should be enough for a barrel of soft soap,” said father.
”I hope you have made enough lye, father,” said mother.
”Lye,” said Sue, “what is lye?”
”Haven’t you seen me pouring water through that big barrel of wood ashes out in the yard?” asked father. “You have seen the liquid that trickles through the holes in the bottom of the barrel. The water as it comes through dissolves something in the ashes which we call potash, so the potash is in the solution which trickles through. This solution was put in a big iron pot, and lime was added. The lime changed the solution of potash which we call lye, or potash (pot ash) lye. This solution is so strong that it might take the skin from your fingers. For that reason, because it is so burning or biting on the skin, we often call it caustic potash. Does any Martin here present know the meaning of ‘caustic’?”
”We can make a pretty good guess at it, father,” said Jimmy.
”Why do you need the lye?” asked Sue.
”We could hardly make soap without lye of some kind, little daughter. Fat alone is not at all like soap, is it? But when fat and lye are mixed, they go together, or combine, to make a new substance which is soap.”
”So that is why I boil the fat and lye together in the big kettle,” said mother, “to make them combine as soap.”
”I remember,” said Jimmy, “that the Romans made soap of goat’s tallow and wood ashes. So they must have know something about potash lye.”
”And now,” said father, “since we are playing make-believe, we can imagine it is early tomorrow morning, and everything is ready to make soap. I have put a stout pole across two posts, and hung the big iron kettle on it. Jimmy has made the fire under it, and mother has put in the fat and lye. Now you may take turns stirring with this long stick, while the fat and lye boil together.”
”This kettle of soap is done,” said mother after a while. “It is smooth and thick, like thick cream, so I know that soap has formed. Please empty it into the soap barrel, father, and we will start another kettleful. It will take all day to make enough soap to fill the barrel.”
”When I wash your clothes,” went on mother, “I shall dip out some soap from the barrel with a dipper. This soap we are making is not hard soap; it will stay soft, like a jelly.”
”Shall we wash our hands with it?” asked Sue.
”Not if you will go down to the beach and pick some of the bayberries that grow there,” answered mother. “When bayberries are boiled in water a fat comes out which combines with lye to make a good soap for the hands. It makes pretty candles, too, which smell sweet and spicy as they burn.”
Suddenly father switched on the electric lights. How dazed everyone looked! They had played their make-believe so hard, it almost seemed real to them, and they couldn’t come back quickly to electric lights and steam radiators!
”Well,” said mother, “that was hard work. I’m thankful that I don’t really have to make the soap for this family in that way.”
”And I,” said father, “that I don’t have to save wood ashes and make lye.”
”But I’m not so glad,” Jimmy said. “I was having a dandy time keeping up the fire and watching out for Indians!”
Now it is your turn:
See if you can find some pictures of the kind of house the Martins might have lived in two hundred years ago, and some stories about soap making or other work they might have done.
Ask your teacher where the Martins might have obtained the lime to help make the potash lye if they lived near the sea beach.
Tell in your own words how soap was made in those days.
Some Books to Help You on Your Way
If you lived in Colonial Times Some Internet Links to help You on Your Way
Don't delay! Head right away to Colonial Kids, Life in the 1700s
Plimoth Plantation Within These Walls Exceptional site from the Smithsonian. Visit a 200 year old home and learn about the families who lived there.
A little into the future... Where would you like to go next? 
Sarah Morton's Day by Kate Waters
Samuel Eaton's Day by Kate Waters
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh (1707 true story)
First Book of Early Settlers by Louise Dickinson Rich
Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmonds
Boys & Girls of Colonial Days by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Colonial Craftsmen & the Beginnings of American Industry by Edwin Tunis
Colonial Living by Edwin Tunis
The Colonial Cookbook by Lucille Recht Penner
The Art of Colonial America by Shirley Glubok
Pilgrim Hall Museum
Virtual Jamestown
Early American History Interactive Puzzle
Colonial America: Activity Ideas for the Classroom
Let's Make Candles
Soap Making
Making Lye from Wood Ashes
Soap: Its Origins, Development, and the Changes Brought about by the War between the States
