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=**Grade 5 Social Study**= =What furniture did the Puritans have in their houses ?= =The Puritans' furniture was mostly made by themselves unless someone was rich enough to be able to import furniture from England. Early houses did not have closets but used large, homemade chests or hung clothes on pegs. Early beds did not have mattresses. They only had leaves or reeds covered with a comforter. Later on bird feathers and rags came to be used as mattresses.= =Rugs, curtains, sheets or mirrors were not common in 17th century homes. The fireplace was the center of family life and used for heat and light. "In the evening the entire family gathered round the fire - the women and older girls spinning or sewing and, as life became less hard, there was time to do more nice things like sewing, quilting, and needlework." The men and boys spent their evenings making tools or carving new ones. If you were a farmer you would make ax handles, shovels, and plows, but also broom sticks, butter paddles, plates, spoons, and cups for household use .=

== == =What clothes did the Puritans wear ?= =Puritans believed that they had to look simple or else it would be a sin because being stuck up was considered a sin. (vanity). Women had to cover their hair in bonnets or white caps and men wore pointy black hats with floppy brims. = =Puritans and Quakers didn't like fancy clothes and preferred to wear very simple clothes. Their clothes would have been made from wool (spun and woven by women). Lower class Puritan women wore a one-piece, sleeveless dress, and over this a gown or overdress, which had a shirt attached to a skirt. Rich people could have fancier clothes with more color.= =.=

http://www.lepg.org/women.htm http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/astonha… http://www.richmondancestry.org/colonial.shtml http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/extensions/full_size.php?CISOROOT=/colhist&CISOPTR=540 http://www.puritanvalues.co.uk/images/2834.jpg http://www.treadwaygallery.com/ONLINECATALOGS/MAY04/ACweb/0265.jpg http://www1.appstate.edu/~beckhp/wtrial2pic.jpg

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