Why is the Kitchen Outside?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ต.ค. 2024
- The kitchen of George Washington's historic mansion is located OUTSIDE of the main house. Why is that? Thomas Reinhart, director of architecture, explains the very good reason that 18th-century kitchens were their own separate buildings.
Excellent question Chase!
I was able to visit Washington’s home about a year ago and we waited in line under that covered walkway on the side of the house, I came up with a question, were the walkways always covered or even there in the beginning?
It was too hot during the summer. My grandparents all had kitchens outside. I grew up in a house was a summer kitchen outside it was put years before I was born
Excellent!
I thought kitchens in that era were put outside the main house for fire saftey. They used lots of wood in open fireplaces to prepare food
I doubt segregation had as much to do with the kitchen separation as the heat and possability of fire. The household staff was inside the mansion constantly.
This right here. I agree. I did alot of Plantation tours in Louisiana. The main reason that kept being cited was threat of fire.
The household staff... No my ppl didn't get paid
It would have been nice to see inside the kitchen.
Outside kitchen is pretty normal around the world for the wealthy doesn’t matter in what century. Btw, in many cultures, kitchens are always separate from the main house.
Thinking of the slaves cooking those wonderful, delicious meals then going back to their quarters to eat dried fish and potatoes, and never enough to fill their stomachs.
No, I'm not black. Just an elderly person with sympathy and heartache thinking of the slaves who were worked from daylight to dark. How could ones mind, thinking, be okay with this.
Peoples ideals were very different back then. In the English gentry, the staff did exactly the same...they eat scraps and less desirable food,, cleaned a beautiful home, yet, slept in a cold attic.
@@michaelcook768
Nope.
The English Staff were treated like Poor Workers.
The Slaves were treated worse than animals.
@@prissymcc Exactly!!
I always like going to original sources and let the people of the time and the people in discussion speak for themselves. I have to study more regarding Washington's thoughts and habits, but I know that Washington faced some legal, financial and other circumstances that made the release of slaves in VA difficult for him and I can give you these written comments from Washington: "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."
Letter to Robert Morris (12 April 1786)
"To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out, is almost as bad, because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse the families I have an aversion. What then is to be done? Something must or I shall be ruined; for all the money (in addition to what I raise by Crops, and rents) that have been received for Lands, sold within the last four years, to the amount of Fifty thousand dollars, has scarcely been able to keep me a float."
Letter to Robert Lewis, 18 August 1799, published in John Clement Fitzpatrick, The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, volume 37, pp. 338-9
I can tell you this regarding Thomas Jefferson. Captain Edmund Bacon, who ran the Jefferson plantation stated that Thomas was out working along side the servants and regarding the meat that they ate, Jefferson commented to Bacon that the meat that Bacon portioned for the servants for a week would have filled Jefferson's meat requirement for 6 months. Just an observation at the time. In Jefferson's own writings regarding food and provisions for slaves he wrote the following.
"My opinion has ever been that until more can be done for them, we should endeavor with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands to feed and clothe them well, protect them from all ill usage, require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by no repugnancies to abdicate them and our duties to them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, 1814.
"The moral duties which [the master] owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his service, that is to say, of food, clothing, care in sickness, and maintenance under age and disability... [will] make him in fact as comfortable and more secure than the laboring man in most parts of the world; and the idea suggested of substituting free whites in all household occupations and manual arts, thus lessening the call for the other kind of labor... would increase the public security." --Thomas Jefferson to Clement Caine, 1811. ME 13:89
Some more lost history:
The importation of slaves to the USA was ended under Jefferson’s Presidency. The law was proposed in Congress in 1805 and finally passed both houses of Congress on March 2, 1807.
President Thomas Jefferson signed it into law on March 3, 1807 during his 2nd term.
Effective on January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves to the United States was banned!
This formally disconnected the USA from the international slave trade.
Jefferson made repeated attempts to dismantle slavery as did numerous other founders. There was obviously enough support in Congress to create that ban. The Federal government had the power to do that because it was law related to the exterior US borders. The Federal government did not have the legal authority to end slavery within the states. That battle had to be fought within each state. In Jefferson and Washington's state of VA, slavery laws varied over the years to make the release of slaves either illegal or very costly. For example, here is what some of the VA written law looked like at the time:
" It shall be lawful for any person, by his or her last will and testament, or by any other instrument in writing under his or her hand and seal . . . to emancipate and set free his or her slaves . . . Provided, also, that all slaves so emancipated, not being . . . of sound mind and body, or being above the age of forty-five years, or being males under the age of twenty one, or females under the age of eighteen years, shall respectively be supported and maintained by the person so liberating them, or by his or her estate. "
Towards the end of Jefferson's time in government, the pro slavery politicians organized as The Democratic Party and worked to undo efforts against slavery while also working to expand and defend it.
@@AnAmericanGuitarist Wow, you really did a lot with this post. All to justify slavery. Great job!
No AC
Nancy Janzen the more you know
I wish i had a house with a seperate kitchen. I have always liked that idea.
Please say "enslaved" about a dozen more times. We get it.