If the modern woman had to labor for clothing as did her great-great-grandmother, styles in dress would become astonishingly simple.  After the spinning and weaving, the cloth was dyed or bleached, and this in itself was a task to try the fortitude of a strong soul.  Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the importation of silks and finer materials somewhat lessened this form of work; but even through the first decade of the nineteenth century spinning and weaving continued to be a part of the work of many a household.  The Revolution, as we have seen, gave a new impetus to this art, and the first ladies of the land proudly exhibited their skill.  As Wharton remarks in her Martha Washington:  “Mrs. Washington, who would not have the heart to starve her direst foe within her own gates, heartily co-operated with her husband and his colleagues.  The spinning wheels and carding and weaving machines were set to work with fresh spirit at Mt.  Vernon....  Some years later, in New Jersey, Mrs. Washington told a friend that she often kept sixteen spinning wheels in constant operation, and at one time Lund Washington spoke of a larger number.  Two of her own dresses of cotton striped with silk Mrs. Washington showed with great pride, explaining that the silk stripes in the fabrics were made from the ravellings of brown silk stockings and old crimson damask chair covers.  Her coachman, footman, and maid were all attired in domestic cloth, except the coachman’s scarlet cuffs, which she took care to state had been imported before the war....  The welfare of the slaves, of whom one hundred and fifty had been part of her dower, their clothing, much of which was woven and made upon the estate, their comfort, especially when ill; and their instruction in sewing, knitting and other housewifely arts, engaged much of Mrs. Washington’s time and thought."[88]

V.  Special Domestic Tasks

So many little necessities to which we never give a second thought were matters of grave concern in those old days.  The matter, for instance, of obtaining a candle or a piece of soap was one requiring the closest attention and many an hour of drudgery.  The supplying of the household with its winter stock of candles was a harsh but inevitable duty in the autumn, and the lugging about of immense kettles, the smell of tallow, deer suet, bear’s grease, and stale pot-liquor, and the constant demands of the great fireplace must have made the candle season a period of terror and loathing to many a burdened wife and mother.  Then, too, the constant care of the wood ashes and hunks of fat and lumps of grease for soap making was a duty which no rural woman dared to neglect.  Nor must we forget that every housewife was something of a physician, and the gathering and drying of herbs, the making of ointments and salve, the distilling of bitters, and the boiling of syrups was then as much a part of housework as it is to-day a part of a druggest’s activities.