Tornado Alley (PROG)

[janice shell]

The extreme cleanliness. I wonder what really prompted such a mandate?

Well, there'd been the 1918 flu pandemic. Maybe that made some difference. But I think it was just part of the general "scientific" trend. There was a lot more information available about germs and the products that combatted them. And ordinary people COULD keep things extremely clean, perhaps for the first time ever, without a crew of staff. Add washing machines to the stoves and refrigerators. All three made an enormous difference.

Before that time, keeping house was HARD. And very time consuming. Monday used to be called "laundry day" because it took all day to do the laundry. Cooking took forever, too. So did the cleanup. If you were rich, you didn't think about it, because other people did it. But that wasn't the case for ordinary folks.