Vigo County Historical Society

Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - July 7, 1985
By Georgia Jones
Vigo County Historical Society

Colonial soap making was a real household art

Soap making in colonial America was a household art. Housewives saved fats and ashes and made their own soap.

The soap making process described by a woman born in 1857 was substantially the same as the process used by Pilgrim women in 1620. Her description:

"Once or twice a year we made soap, yellow soft soap. There was a thing called a leach in the back yard. It had an opening a couple of feet square at the top and then it slanted in all the way down to the bottom to just a little hole for water to run out. We'd save up the wood ashes in this leach, and when we wanted to make lye, we'd pour on pails of water and let it run down through the ashes. Sometimes it took all day for one pailful of water to run through and come out at the bottom as lye. We kept on putting water through until we got all the lye we wanted.

"Through the year, we kept all the grease from cooking, hog killing, beef killing and the like. When we came to make soap, we put the lye into the big iron kettle that we used to scald hogs in and built a fire under it. Then we added some grease and let it boil up the lye. It would thicken, just like gravy. When it got cool, we'd take it down cellar and pour it into a barrel. Sometimes the soap would be almost hard as it cooled, and sometimes it would stay runny. We used it whatever way it was." By 1880 John Slidell and Co. of New York was selling soap to city dwellers, but it was many years before "boughten" soap was available in country stores.

Benjamin T. Babbitt was the first of the soap manufacturers to put soap in a wrapper and sell it as a "bar." Up to that time, in 1851, soap had been made in loaves for the grocer to slice off and weigh, much as he did cheese.

People did not take readily to packaged soap so Babbitt gave his wrappers trade in value and put a premium offer on the wrapper. This offer changed all this, and as his sales spurted, other soap merchants quickly followed suit.

The bar of White Floating Soap from the Country Store in the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, was manufactured by Pioneer Soap Co. Inc., as stated on the back of the white and black wrapper. Further information about this manufacturer has not been found.

Other bars of soap in the Country Store that may bring back memories are Sayman Wonder Soap, Blue Ribbon, P & G, the white naptha soap, Octagon Laundry Soap, Crystal White, Fels-Naptha, Kirk's Flake White Laundry Soap, Kirk's Original Coco Hardwater Soap and Packers Tar Soap.

Located at 1411 S. Sixth St., the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday through Friday. For more information, telephone 235 9717 during open hours.