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I love when our power goes out because it is so quiet!!! And we live very rural and have few electric devices…. But we still have that background noise…. 

I am thick into canning this week: corn and tomatoes. It feels so good to stand back and say: “Here’s more meals for the winter!” Boy, I love when I have two canners going! Lol Pears, peaches, and blackberries and raspberries are also up this week. Potatoes are being dug and plans made for a fall garden. It’s a glorious time of year, isn’t it? 

I have been reading your blog for quite some time and particularly enjoy your 1940s studies. There is something about the resilience and strength of people at that time and an appreciation of making do with what you have that resonates. Because so many went without, I think it made the rare times when something new was needed very special and more appreciated.  I think your post is lovely in highlighting this. Your blog always feels like home. 

On a different note, I thought you and your readers might appreciate this. I found a lovely YouTube channel that has OTR broadcasts by date. Most are 2 hours long and start at the end of 1940 through 1943. I will post the link here along with a picture of our RCA Victor. My husband found the shell of this old radio and restored it as a Christmas present to me a few years ago. He put a Bluetooth receiver/ speaker in the back of it so we can “broadcast” old radio shows to listen to in the evenings. 

I hope everyone enjoys these: 

The World War II Old Time Radio Channel: 
https://youtube.com/@theworldwariioldtimeradioc8676?si=Cj1Y3d1g5M_ZFDJI

A full radio day from 1939: https://archive.org/details/CompleteBroadcastDay/WJSV_390921-COMPLETE_BROADCAST_DAY_PART_19.MP3

thanks Tara. I’ll check these out. 

Donna:  it’s always a nice rosy day when I see there is a new post from you. Hello to Charles. 

The comparison between the "modern" refrigerator and the icebox really brought it home to me.  I'm not one who wants all the bells and whistles on things that I buy but sometimes we have no choice, such as in appliances and cars.  I have a very basic fridge and stove which I really like but even so, they are more complicated than the early models.  I've always said that the more moving parts an item has, the more things there are to break down.  I recently bought a new-to-me car.  It's already 12 years old and has many more features than I know how to use our even want to use.  Donna, you mentioned missing your 1955 automobile, my favorite was a 1958 Ford.  It was big and clunky and probably didn't get great gas mileage but it was safe and simple to operate.  It was an automatic, thank goodness.  I've driven many 4 speeds with the floor shifter but I never could get the hang of " 3 on the tree".  Haha!  And don't get me started on cell phones!  The one I have is definitely not the latest model but even at that it's 'smarter' than I am.  Where does it end?  I feel sorry for those who work so hard so they can have the latest model of everything.  Are they enjoying this new thing?  Do they have the time for their labor-saving devices?  I wonder.  I don't really think they do

Cell phones. Here in New Zealand land lines are being done away with in favour of wireless. If you can't get the signal to ping into your home then cell phone or no phone is your only options. Many elderly are struggling to get their heads around new technology.

I often feel we are being held to ransom if we don't accept the new technologies here.

Banks closing, cheques done away with, now the phones per se, increasing postage costs even for a letter, increase in the cost of getting electricity to your house ( daily charge)

I really feel for those older than me.

One would be lucky here if a modern fridge or freezer lasts 5-10 years now.

Your posts are always such a treat, Donna. ?

I have for long wanted to mention that you always carefully stress that there was a huge difference in living standards whether you lived in the city or on a farm. I think you should also stress in your 1940s study that living in the US compared to Europe makes a huge difference. The US was pure luxury and wealth compared to Europe. I'm a Dane, I know. It was absolutely not fun (I would choose the US version anytime). We had already been hard at war for several years and rationing was a nightmare with hardly anything to purchase.

Just an input. But I always love your sensible scriblings and you always inspire me. ?

Thanks Tara.  Will check this out. How cool!  

On noise.... there is constant beeping of some sort and it drives me absolutely crazy!  Dishwasher? Fridge?, Washer or Dryer? Microwave, stove, stove fan.  I cant' stand it.  What happened to knobs?  The so-called new washers are total garbage.  I have more white spots on clothing than ever before - probably due to no water useage.  The "large" washer can't be used entirely, it errors out. Not enough clothing, it errors out. Garbage.  I see that there are a lot of washers coming back with agitators!  I hope they didn't scrimp on something else to make this available now.  Yeah... new isn't better. New is annoying and made poorly.  My new fridge is horrible. The ice "hole" is too small so the ice just goes round and round and half grinds it.  The water comes out so slowly that I just use the sink.  Go back to old style. It all worked better.  And the prices!!!! Oh my!  Little by little I go back to easy.  

Oh Tara that radio is fantastic!!!  Thanks for the links, I will be listening soon! Karen S, we are having the same goings on here in the USA. There is a hard push to get rid of cash, I am one of a very few with a landline, I live where cell isn't stable still and I just don't like cell phones. I have a cell because I have two kids (one in college and one graduated from college and grown and flown) and that face time feature lets me "see" them often (and emergencies...20 year old son college student...there's been some!) But I am not on mine otherwise. I bought my mom a new wash machine and took me a bit to find ones with knobs and least amount of computers, and it does have an agitator!! Mine is a speed queen, all dials but definitely a computer in there anyway! I am at this point starting to hide from society with all the angry rhetoric going on, at least until nov and I am sure there will be even more fall out after that!! I think the less noise, distraction, information and outside influence coming in, the better!! I find myself getting riled up when I am around any of that noise and when I ask to change the subject, it astounds me that they refuse and then get exasperated if I don't match their opinions...so I am learning to walk away or keep my mouth shut. I am re evaluating the things in my home and the things I listen to and watch. I have always been more interested in books but would leave on a radio or tv for background. If it's tv I don't tend to hear it really anyway, so turning that off. I have started taking basin "baths" at night to refresh. I want to shower in morning because I feel awful all day if I don't. I always keep lights off and the air conditioning during the day (not an easy feat in AZ (not Phoenix or those areas, because there is no way), but the house usually tops out at 83 degrees and then the air kicks on at 7 pm which is our lowest billing amount. I know it's said that we lived without air longer, but the world wasn't as hot for extensive periods of time. Work in progress! Thanks for the fantastic article!!

I would like to go back to some simpler appliances, but there are no simple appliances on the market these days.  Now your refrigerator is supposed to tell you what you need to buy, your doorbell tells you who came by, your lightbulbs can go on and off with an app and a speaker-looking thing answers your questions and plays music on demand - and listens to you.

Our pears aren't close to ripe.  It's usually late August when ours are ripe, and by then, the squirrels and crows have decimated the tree's crop, because they start eating them when the pears are only half-grown.  I planted a different variety of pear tree recently, and this time in the back yard with the dogs.  I hope it will ripen earlier, have better tasting pears and that the dogs will help protect the crop.  Our current tree is the old "sand pear" which is hard and not very sweet.  It does alright when cooked or made into pear butter, but I get blisters on my hands from peeling and cutting them up.

I did some reading up on the 40's, but haven't made but a few changes so far.  Wearing a dress for working around the house is something I've been wanting to do already, and I'm looking for the modern version of a "housedress."  My mother and my grandmother both wore housedresses, and I find that dresses are often cooler than wearing shorts/capris/slacks and a shirt in the summer.  I've only found one so far, but I am keeping my eyes open. 

Just of interest... A wringer washer that's in very good condition has been advertised on an auction site here in NZ for $1000!. That's out if my price range.

You can only get second hand here now and it's not easy to find one in good condition.

I got rid of my electric refrigerator in 2013, expecting using a cooler with ice to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly, but kind of a hassle.  Happy to learn that I was so wrong about the last part!  I would never even consider going back to an electric refrigerator now that I realize what a drain on my time it was, trying to keep the thing clean and organized.  I think the main issue with modern refrigerators is their ridiculous size, which encourages people to keep far too much perishable food on hand at any given time.  I no longer keep a wide assortment of opened condiments, and when I do open something, go ahead and use it up relatively fast in order to make room in the cooler.  Shopping trips are limited to one or two "cooler items" that can be used quickly, and everything else has to be shelf stable.  Recipe sizes are planned more carefully too, to limit leftovers to what I will actually want to eat before cooking something else, instead of cramming leftovers from multiple meals into a giant refrigerator.  The unexpected best part about all this, is that the annoying monthly chore of cleaning out the refrigerator has been replaced with grabbing a cloth and giving the inside of the cooler a quick wipe - that's it!  No finding spoiled food, checking dates, making decisions, or scrubbing at mystery spills from week's earlier, lol.  Plus it's silent, uses a tiny fraction of the electricity, and I got to put a nice china cabinet in my kitchen where the ugly refrigerator used to be:)

Thank you  sweet Donna for sharing your thoughts on this post. It truly got me thinking of how many times in the past I have fell in the update trap, even living  an old fashioned life.  This week I have been focusing on our food and what was eaten back then compared to now.  I have really been enjoying trying new recipes and trying unlikely combinations of food.  Simplicity was also found in food back then . They didn’t complicate their recipes with all kinds spices and unheard of ingredients.  But as the years continued to move forward the recipe books that were really good had been updated and revised over the years. Just like the icebox that worked perfectly fine , but we were somehow all convinced to update .  There are so many more things to discover in this study that were better before. I  am looking forward to finding  them.

Thank you Tara L. Sharing those links , I love the soft melodies of the older music. 

Another special post and makes me feel happy as do all the comments. This week I did hang some laundry out in the sunshine, which very few people, if any of our neighbors ever do. Last night I cooked supper for 8 people with a roast and  everything else were fresh, cooked from scratch vegtables. I too love some quiet time with out T.V. noise but others that I love are attached to both their TVs and cell phones! I do have a very old model cell phone though it is mostley for emergencies and we kept a landline too. I do have a collection of aprons and I do wear them. I also share some of them as gifts. My mom, and both grandmothers wore housedresses and I have 2 I wear and 2 more waiting for some mending. So I guess I am an old fashioned lady. Blessings to all, Carolyn in Florida

I enjoyed the post and all the comments.  I found my house dresses at Kohls.  They're sleeveless, loose, cool, and comfy.  And pretty!  I bought them on clearance at the end of last summer.  I've always worn dresses so it's not unusual, but the game changer was losing the sleeves completely.  So cool that way.  I went back to my older dresses and removed even the short sleeves.  I did leave some in place for early spring and late fall, when it's a bit chilly.  I haven't been a trend buyer since I was in my 20s and single.  Even then it was just clothes.  I drive in silence.  My cell is for emergencies. And I watch TV for a bit in the early morning to see what's happening in the world.  I didn't start doing this until 9/11.  I had NO idea what was happening until 3 hours later!  I was cleaning the upstairs, completely oblivious.  It unnerved me so now I check to see that the world is still turning. I hang laundry inside, sew, do hand crafting etc.  I'm a simple soul.  I call our fridge the Barbie Fridge because it's for an apartment.  There's so much space around it that my hubs installed hooks in there for aprons!    The space was designed for a Godzilla fridge lol.  I can't imagine the size it could hold...or the electric bill!

IMHO the solution to too many gadgets is self-discipline. You don't have to have the newest & most expensive. When we got a new washer (15 years ago) I read up on the ones available in Consumer Reports. We got one with dials & a stainless steel drum. It has served us well. My husband has had to do a couple of repairs, but it was a good purchase. When I needed a new phone, I bought a used one on ebay for 225$. It works fine. Our Kenmore dryer was given to us by a neighbor about 15 years ago. My laptop is supplied by my employer. I dropped the last one & broke the screen. They issued me another shortly thereafter. I need the device to do my part-time job. I have never been one to blow a lot of money on the newest & most expensive appliance. You can find something 2nd hand in many situations. Discontinued items or one in the scratch & dent section is another option. We did buy a new dishwasher 10 years ago when the old one went out. I was working 6 days a week then & I could not face a sink full of dirty dishes, pots, and pans.

I have found good sleeveless housedresses at National, I wear them every day in the summer. I bought them several years ago and they are still holding up well.

Your thoughts about always being pressured to upgrade made me think about a vacuum cleaner I bought recently. From what I can find out this model was made in 1939. It still works perfectly fine. It has a reusable bag so there is no added expense there. However, someone obviously felt the need to upgrade to something "better" that probably had disposable bags. I don't understand the desire for the "latest and greatest." My vacuum cleaner is about 85 years old, and it is still going strong. Some modern things break down in less than a year. My vacuum would look right at home in your 1940 house.

I have a vacuum cleaner from the late 60s and it works great, too.  My mixer belonged to my grandma and dates from 1946- still working well.  

Becky Sue, my grandmother had a vacuum similar to the one in the photograph. She loved it! Nowadays the vacuums are all plastic. When the plastic cracks you can't repair it.

Does anyone know, on average, how much electricity was used in the U.S. in 1940 and how many kilowatt hours it was used? I wanted to see how it would compare to what I am using now. I want to see if it would be feasible to get back to what they used then. I don't use AC, so that helps a lot.

Becky Sue I found this article, hopefully this helps to answer your question about the electricity:)

https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/1992/data/papers/SS92_Panel10_Paper17.pdf

Grandma Donna wrote,  Becky Sue K,  I am working on a budget article, I have been waiting for a journal that I ordered to arrive that I want to be part of this study.  I should have it soon.  I will be covering electric bills as well.  Thank you Sheri for the article, we need all the information we can for this study and by everyone sharing what they find in their research helps the study.

https://visualizingenergy.org/united-states-electr...

I found that site, has more of a graph explanation if that helps? I saw this one too and it compares USA to other countries  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1261019/wwii-e...

Dear Grandma Donna

Thank you for sharing your insights and ideas - it makes my week when I see a new post! I have always had a great appreciation for simpler living, and your posts remind me that the world of hustling I was born into is not one I have to abide by. Thank you for that reminder and confirmation! I inherited my Great-Gran's diary and recipes, and I am now very excited to search for inserts from the 1940s. If I find something worthwhile, I will share it. 

Much love,

Magriet (Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Tara what a wonderful gift! I love the vacuum as well from Becky Sue. I have never seen one that old up close before in a photo outside of I Love Lucy episodes. We have hobbled our appliances and other items along for so long that I'm sure everything has been rebuilt multiple times. If anyone needs great replacement parts this company has been fantastic at supplying us with good quality parts and customer service. We found out our old washer wasn't agigating and our friends all said oh you should get a new one. I think my husband spent a total of $300 and we had replaced multiple things. We also rebuilt our dryer and it now heats really well. I can't have  clothesline where we live due to an HOA. We could hide it well, but we have a neighbor that would turn us in in a heartbeat. It's sad because we were close friends with her and something changed. Seems like folks all around say the same thing that people have just changed. Not to go off on a tangent, but when we drive around our neighborhood it's as if noone is outside and everyone is inside watching tv. We came home very late last night from being out with friends who invited us to a movie for a birthday present and all the homes we passed by were still lights on with tv's. Doesn't anyone sleep? I just find it really odd. The electricity must be really high since they have the a/c running too at very cold temperatures. I'll leave the link below. 

https://www.repairclinic.com/

GDonna I learn a lot of information on these posts. Thank you so much.

I am so happy you are doing 1940!  I believe the 40s, minus the war,to be the greatest era in America.  

Thank you.  Looking forward to this study.  

Cate

P.S.  I read online where National went out of business earlier this year.  Sad.