The Cradle - One of the First Pieces of Furniture
At one time or another, cradles have been attached to butter churns, turnspits, dog mills, and even windmill gears to give them automatic movement, but the simple rocker cradle remained in the American household for over two centuries before its disappearance. People now prize antique cradles for storing magazines, but it seldom seems to occur to them to put them to their proper use.
One of the most disputed examples of early American rocking furniture is the "adult cradle." It is sometimes argued that a few examples that are over six feet long were intended for twins, arranged so that the babies could lie end-to-end instead of side-by-side. Some have been used by new mothers and babies at the same time.
It seems that Saturday evening has always been bath night, but few of us know that it stems from a religious beginning. When the Sabbath started at sundown on Saturday, many people followed the old adage that cleanliness and Godliness go together and bathed only at that time.
Before bathrooms existed, cedar tubs were placed before the fireplace on Saturday, half-filled with cold water, while the kettle of hot water to be added later hung over the fire. Some of the first portable tin tubs even had Biblical quotations painted on them, but not many people would now associate a bathtub with the Sabbath.
The first tubs, like any other newfangled gadget, assumed strange shapes. Some were made with "hips" to fit the shape of the body. Some were painted with scenic designs, some were decorated solidly with floral patterns. Among the oldest was the cradle-tub for children to splash and rock in while taking a bath.
Excerpted by Maury Tosi
From Eric Sloane's booklet American Yesterday (1956)
https://www.pa-roots.com/southbend/EricSloan/yesterday12.html
As the flood of settlers steadily streamed westward into the uncharted American frontier during the 1700s, the treacherous journey and harsh living conditions that awaited strained family life to its barest essence. With every cherished belonging's weight carefully calculated for each jostling mile crossed, frivolous luxuries were ruthlessly jettisoned in favor of only the most vital equipment requisite for survival. Clothes, shelters, furnishings - everything these pioneering families constructed from wilderness' raw resources was distilled down to its most fundamental utility.
In this pragmatic culture of purposeful austerity, where artifice and excess held no currency, perhaps no frontier accommodation better embodied that ethos of humble resourcefulness than the iconic baby cradle. For in those nights spent huddled inside crude log cabins, sod houses, and buckskin lean-tos, the safe and soothing setting for raising pioneer infants could be fashioned from little more than a gnarled tree branch, scraps of scavenged fabric and leather, and the ingenuity inherent to the self-sufficiency mindset.
The frontier baby cradle's rustic charm and simplicity began with the solid foundation of its cradle board - a rectangular plank smoothed from a section of fresh-cut sapling or fallen tree limb. Measuring just long enough to accommodate a swaddled newborn, wood-workers carefully notched either end before lashing them together with leather straps and dangling free. From this durable suspended frame, a fitted cloth sling or pouch would be securely sewn as a cushioned receptacle for mama's precious bundle.
Both lightweight for transport and efficient in its minimalist design, the swaying cradle's elegant economy of form belied its life-sustaining purpose on the fringes of the frontier. For beyond merely keeping fussy infants consoled and buffered from nighttime chills, these rustic cribs doubled as miniature carryalls - allowing children to be lashed snugly against their mother's backs while leaving both hands free for grueling camp chores and labor. With baby nestled securely within the rocking embrace of the botanical textile sling and leather-strapped wood frame, the demanding tasks of homesteading from the wilderness continued unabated.
Indeed, the cradle board allowed that lifeline of American expansion - the pioneer mother - to remain productively mobile while toting her precious offspring from settlement to settlement, nurturing the nation's future at each step. Merely glimpsing the image of a leather-clad frontierswoman confidently balancing a hickory cradle from her shoulders while guiding oxen and plowing fields invokes the indomitable self-reliance and persevering spirit that enabled eventual victory over an untamed continent.
Though those buffalo-hewn rockers and basswood slings have long since given way to varnished masterpieces of wood-turning imbued with cherub etchings and lace trim, the humble frontier cradle endures as an enduring archetype for American self-sufficiency and pioneer determination. Just as those simple nursery furnishings gently swayed amidst resilient women conquering the harshest environs, today's legacy of unbreakable innovation and limitless industrial achievement resonates as a direct inheritance from the improvised tools of childcare employed in claiming the wilderness. Few pieces of equipment have upheld such humble metaphors of nurturing the audacious dreams seeding nation's eventual prosperity.
In this pragmatic culture of purposeful austerity, where artifice and excess held no currency, perhaps no frontier accommodation better embodied that ethos of humble resourcefulness than the iconic baby cradle. For in those nights spent huddled inside crude log cabins, sod houses, and buckskin lean-tos, the safe and soothing setting for raising pioneer infants could be fashioned from little more than a gnarled tree branch, scraps of scavenged fabric and leather, and the ingenuity inherent to the self-sufficiency mindset.
The frontier baby cradle's rustic charm and simplicity began with the solid foundation of its cradle board - a rectangular plank smoothed from a section of fresh-cut sapling or fallen tree limb. Measuring just long enough to accommodate a swaddled newborn, wood-workers carefully notched either end before lashing them together with leather straps and dangling free. From this durable suspended frame, a fitted cloth sling or pouch would be securely sewn as a cushioned receptacle for mama's precious bundle.
Both lightweight for transport and efficient in its minimalist design, the swaying cradle's elegant economy of form belied its life-sustaining purpose on the fringes of the frontier. For beyond merely keeping fussy infants consoled and buffered from nighttime chills, these rustic cribs doubled as miniature carryalls - allowing children to be lashed snugly against their mother's backs while leaving both hands free for grueling camp chores and labor. With baby nestled securely within the rocking embrace of the botanical textile sling and leather-strapped wood frame, the demanding tasks of homesteading from the wilderness continued unabated.
Indeed, the cradle board allowed that lifeline of American expansion - the pioneer mother - to remain productively mobile while toting her precious offspring from settlement to settlement, nurturing the nation's future at each step. Merely glimpsing the image of a leather-clad frontierswoman confidently balancing a hickory cradle from her shoulders while guiding oxen and plowing fields invokes the indomitable self-reliance and persevering spirit that enabled eventual victory over an untamed continent.
Though those buffalo-hewn rockers and basswood slings have long since given way to varnished masterpieces of wood-turning imbued with cherub etchings and lace trim, the humble frontier cradle endures as an enduring archetype for American self-sufficiency and pioneer determination. Just as those simple nursery furnishings gently swayed amidst resilient women conquering the harshest environs, today's legacy of unbreakable innovation and limitless industrial achievement resonates as a direct inheritance from the improvised tools of childcare employed in claiming the wilderness. Few pieces of equipment have upheld such humble metaphors of nurturing the audacious dreams seeding nation's eventual prosperity.
All
proceeds from the sale of the "House of the Messenger" support the
Joseph Greer Chapter and the Tennessee Society, Sons of the American
Revolution. The funds will be allocated to historical and educational
programs dedicated to the founding principles of the republic and the
Constitution of the United States.
