Miss Annie Marie Jones sitting at her family’s well near Danville circa 1920.
Photo courtesy of her son, the late Danny Ricketts. 

Quaint rural communities such as those found around Pittsylvania County have always lingered a few decades behind in terms of technology. Some folks over eighty years old still remember growing up without electricity. Their parents and grandparents became accustomed to living off the land—hauling water, building fires, keeping a garden, milking cows, canning food—a nearly endless list of skills ingrained in everyday life. Prior to World War II, many rural communities across Virginia were still living in nineteenth century conditions. Through the efforts of Whitmell Farm-Life school, students conducted a community survey in 1930 that recorded the living conditions of homes in Whitmell. At the end of World War II, the school replicated the survey to make comparisons on the updates over the fifteen years prior. Even though this sample represents an individual location, the culture of Whitmell reflects the archetypical country village found throughout Virginia. The survey results should be quite similar if they had taken place in other local communities. 

In 1930, less than a third of homes in Whitmell had electric lighting. The majority of homes stayed dimly lit by way of flickering candles and oil lamps that had to be scrubbed clean of soot. About 19% of households used acetylene, a bright burning gas used in carbide lamps. Limited electrical systems provided just enough power for basic essentials. By the end of World War II, the total portion of homes with electricity had risen to 71%. Each room likely had a single lightbulb fixture at the center of the ceiling, in addition to their old oil lamps. 

Most residents relied on manually drawing water from a well or walking down to a natural spring with a bucket. Around 30% of the homes surveyed had running water in 1930.  Before washing machines, the dreaded “Wash Day,” was one of the most labor-intensive and time consuming household tasks. Only 10% of homes had hand washing machines. In 1945, washing machines made their way into 53% of homes, saving those families countless hours of toil. Some people kept their washing machines on the back porch or–in my great-grandmother’s case–in the smokehouse. 

Before the days of refrigerators, ice was harvested and delivered to homes by the “ice man” in the form of heavy blocks. About 38% of homes had some form of ice box to insulate the block and store food with it. In the second survey, more than half of homes were equipped with refrigerators. The importance of deep freezers cannot be overstated, especially for families who hunted and raised animals like cattle and hogs, as it allowed them to store meat throughout the summer.

One statistic that decreased over time was the prevalence of bathrooms. In 1930, only about 30% of the community homes had bathrooms. Per tradition as country people, the farms had outhouses set back from the home and kept a chamber pot handy. Results from 1945 showed bathrooms in only 22% of homes, which was likely a result of more homes being built without a bathroom. Some old fashioned families kept “Johnny houses” well into the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

Lastly, the most drastic increase in this study pertained to radios. In 1930, radios were still a relatively new technology, appearing in only 8% of homes. However, as time passed and President Roosevelt addressed the country with Fireside Chats and wartime updates, 93% of the households were overall compelled to purchase radios by the end of World War II.

Modern homes contain more screens and machines than people of the past would know what to do with. Not that the devices are bad, but they are certainly telling of the change of pace within domestic spaces compared to over eighty years ago. It makes one think, what do contemporary people live without that researchers in the future will think is hard to imagine?