Question:
What
did people do with their trash and garbage in the 1830s?
Answer:
In many ordinary 18th-century farm houses, families just tossed broken
pots, beef bones, chicken wings, and slop jars out the nearest door or window.
This led to a fairly messy domestic landscape, with dogs, pigs, and geese
sharing the front yard with the human "owners." For generations, rural New
Englanders thought this was the natural way to live and never questioned
it. Gradually, though, people began to change the way they saw their
surroundings, and to care about how the landscape looked to others. They
started to "clean up their act" and dug trash pits in which to bury their
domestic trash. They also started painting their houses, planting ornamental
trees and bushes, and building attractive ornamental fences. By the 1830s,
a lot of people were living the "new" way and thought of the old-fashioned
folks as dirty and slovenly.
