Woman in Time: Episode 1

Written By Joanna Bucur
Handwritten text: How do you do your dishes?
A watercolour illustration of a Roman woman sitting in front of a painted wall amongst a lot of dirty dishes, scrubbing them with sand
Handwritten text: Here I am again, scrubbing the dishes for the entire household. It's a never-ending task! And all this sand gets under my fingernails... Iunia says crushed cuttlefish bones work even better, but who has time for that as well?
A watercolour illustration of a Saxon Woman leaning over a wooden pail of water. The pail is draped with a cloth and she is washing pottery dishes. Next to her there is a pile of plants and more dirty pottery. She is outside on the grass.
Handwritten text: My mother taught me this when I was little. First, place a cloth in the water to stop the pottery from chipping, Then scrub it with marestail - it grows by every damp ditch and stream around here. Works a treat and leaves no trace.
A watercolour illustration of two women in a late medieval London kitchen dishing up stew from a pot onto stale bread plates. There is a water barrel behind them and a string of dried herbs above their heads. There are some dirty pots around them.
Handwritten text: This is the cleverest way, have fewer dishes to wash in the first place! We eat from trenchers: stale loaves of bread used as plates. Afterwards you can eat them yourself, give them to the poor or feed them to the dogs!
A watercolour illustration of a Tudor London maid scrubbing a large pot with wood ash. She is standing at a wooden table in the kitchen in front of a large fire pit. There are dirty pots around her but also little bits to help her clean the pots.
Handwritten text: Well, it depends on what you're cleaning. Sorrel works wonders on brass, and if you're fortunate enough to have it, rhubarb juice does it too. For greasy pots, nothing beats wood ash. The lord knows we have plenty of that.
A watercolour illustration of a Georgian London lady cleaning a dish in a large pot with soap. She has a large bucket of boiled water near her and her face and hands are red from the head. She is standing in front of a coal fire place.
Handwritten text: Ever since coal replaced wood, ash has been harder to come by, so now I use soap instead. It's such a faff, I tell you! It only works properly in heated water! And I've heard they're hunting more and more whales for the fat.
Watercolour illustration of a Victorian London lady cleaning a dish and dreaming of a victorian dishwasher. She is standing in front of a table with various pots and cleaning utensils on it. The wall has green skinny tiling and cream walls.
Handwritten text: I read in the newspaper about an American lady named Josephine Cochrane. She's invented a machine that can wash two hundred dishes in just two minutes. They say it won first prize at the world's columbian exhibition in Chicago.
Watercolour illustration of a vintage advertisement from washing powder saying "With Mim it is twice as fast". There is a lady with an apron happily cleaning dishes in a cloud of bubbles with a stack of clean and sparking dishes behind her.
Handwritten text: I saw this advertisement yesterday. This new washing powder claims to clean dishes twice as fast as anything before! In today's busy world, more and more women earn their own living beyond the homes.
Watercolour illustration of a lady sitting in her matching kitchen in the 1960s loading the dishwasher with plates. Everything is matching and clean and she is obviously a stay at home housewife.
Handwritten text: The average time spent on house work has fallen from nearly sixty hours a week to less than twenty. Imagine that! With the dishwasher running and all these modern appliances helping out, perhaps I can finally look into that job.
A watercolour illustration of a contemporary London flat. In the background a woman is going to work with a briefcase. In the foreground a man is in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. A cat is curled and sleeping on the carpet.
Handwritten text: My partner loads the dishwasher at night and I empty it in the morning - it only takes a few minutes. Ridiculous really how people once thought this was women's work. It's just part of looking after our home.

Thank you for travelling with Woman in Time!

Joanna Bucur
Next

Moche Warrior Pot / British Museum