3 January 1913 & Vintage horse drawn transport

Today's blog is a little late, apologies, but I didn't want to skip it as I found so many lovely photos to share (the rest, as usual are on tumblr, with sources) .

1913 Metropolitan Horse Carriage Cover by Edward Penfield

Although cars were becoming more popular in 1913, the main form of transport for most ordinary people was still the horse.  If you have read my blog for a while, you will know I am a horse lover - this would be my ideal!

Mary and Susan Lytherleigh  in a carriage drawn by two horses emerging from a driveway in Casterton, Victoria, in around 1905.

 My grandmother talks of riding in a horse and cart to go to town once a month when she was a little girl in the 1920s.  She grew up in country Victoria, near the Murray River, and I can imagine that she would have experienced this once or twice.

Horse and carriage crossing a creek in NSW, 1914

Horses and horse drawn transport was available to women in the country, and they were able to be quite self sufficient in travelling. Driving an automobile was not only expensive at the time, but required lessons and practice, and many people in the country didn't' even know someone who owned car.

Group of Women With Horse Drawn Carriage, Avoca, Victoria, c. 1915  

Family groups were often large 100 years ago, but everyone could fit in the cart it seems.

A family group in a horse drawn carriage on a mountain road in Tasmania, 1913.

 Even very large group of people could travel in an ordinary cart, as long as there were enough horses to pull it!

A large group of women descending Mt Wellington, Tasmania in an usual five-team horse-drawn carriage, 24 Dec 1912

Horse drawn vehicles were used for deliveries of milk, bread, groceries and beer.  My grandfather used a horse and cart to deliver groceries in Melbourne in the late 1950s, and I can remember the clip clop of horses hooves on milk rounds in Melbourne until the mid 1970s.

Queensland Brewery delivery cart with driver, Brisbane 1913 

The Carlton Draught Beer Clydesdales still make appearances throughout various towns and at special events (such as the AFL Grandfinal, below), however they travel by truck to get to various events now.

Getting ready for the grandfinal

Horse transport in Australia was used instead of rail or motor transport for timber and wool during WWI and into the 1920s.

Horse teams and wagons laden with wool bales Isisford , 1915

The one form of horse transport we never had in Australia, as far as I can find out, was the sleigh.  I would so love to travel this way one day.

Toronto, Horse-drawn sleigh, 1913

I would also love to participate in pleasure driving one day, and recapture and experience a bit of the past, but I don't believe horse and carriages should be on our busy modern streets.  Not only is there way too much traffic, most modern motorist are ignorant about horses and don't know they should slow down around them. Unfortunately our society as a whole is way so mechanized that we live life at way too fast a pace to tolerate a horse and cart going at a mere 5 miles or 10 km an hour. In some countries however, horses are still a way of life......

One of the scores of horse-drawn carts in Transylvania, c. 2011

Why did we move from horses at all?

It does look a lot easier, doesn't it?!

Deb xx

2 January 1913 and vintage coffee making

The cover of Good Housekeeping magazine for January 1913:

Postum, the instant coffee alternative that made marriage possible. Personally, we need coffee in our marriage!  In 1913 there were not many coffee drinkers in Australia, but even instant coffee was available.  It was actually invented by a gentleman from New Zealand, Mr David Strang,  in 1890, who patented his ‘dry, hot-air process’ and sold his product under the trading name Strang's Coffee.

"Strang’s soluble coffee and chicory powder"c 1900. source

A  Japanese scientist later introduced his version of the powdered substance at the Pan-American Exposition in New York in 1901, and American-Belgian inventor George Constant Louis Washington also  perfected a method of  mass producing instant coffee , founding the  G. Washington Coffee Company in 1910.  It was actually marketed as the coffee that didn't cause you indigestion.

Washington Coffee Company ad from 1914 source

The Nescafé brand later introduced a more advanced coffee refining process in the 1930s.  For real coffee you may have used this coffee maker in 1913.
    source
The Caffeta used a spirit burner to heat the coffee, came in 3 sizes - 4, 6 & 8 cups – and were made of silver plated nickel or copper . I would love a copper one!

Coffee how to in 1913 (from  Click Americana)

“Either for boiled or drip coffee, I allow a full tablespoon of finely-ground coffee to a cup of boiling water. If for breakfast coffee, the cup is the breakfast size; if for after dinner coffee, the size of the spoon is the same, but the cup is the small, or “demitasse” size.
When I make boiled coffee, I stir in the shell and white of an egg, with a little water with the ground coffee, pour on my measured boiling water, bring it to a boll, and cook for ten or fifteen minutes, boiling steadily, but not permitting it to boil over. Then I throw in a little cold water to check the boil suddenly, stand the coffee pot to one side so that it will settle, and pour the coffee off carefully so as not to stir up the grounds.
When I make drip coffee, I pour the boiling water slowly upon the ground coffee in the percolator, and after it is dripped through, turn the water into a heated vessel, and then let it again drip through the coffee grounds. The oftener the dripping process is repeated, the stronger the coffee. Never let it boil in a drip pot of any sort.
I always make the coffee with freshly-boiled water and do not let the coffee stand after it is made.”

I wonder if the painting below is of an instant coffee factory, or more a bean sorting room.

Moll, Carl (1861-1945) - 1900 The Coffee Factory  source

Which ever, it goes on my list of ‘jobs for women in 1913'!

Must be time for a cup – cheers, Deb xxx


For more coffee and vintage photos, go to tumblr!