American Frontier: Household

By the early 1800s, middling farmers in the Valley of Virginia were able to provide a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their families. Such households were furnished with tables and chairs, coarse earthenware, pewter and ceramic tableware, chests, books, and bed and table linens, though rarely with fashionable goods such as mahogany furniture or porcelain. Virginia Germans often added cast-iron heating stoves and clocks to their household furnishings.

American Frontier:Household

Activities in and around Virginia German farmhouses were reminiscent of their Central European heritage. Wives and daughters worked as hard as the men, and were known to assist the men and boys with fieldwork. In the house, women did the spinning and weaving and made linen and wool cloth that could be traded for goods at local stores or made into coverlets or rag carpeting.

Anglo-American influences entered the Virginia German lives slowly. By the 1820s, English furniture forms, such as the chest of drawers, began to appear in their houses, and they became tea and coffee drinkers, and began using imported English dinner plates and teacups.