5/1/2010:
These days, household tips, the kind you might find in your local newspaper, might include new ways to use your pop-up disinfecting wipes or advice as to when to change your plug-in air freshener. Seasonable cleaning tips found in a May 1913 issue of the North Dakota Advocate newspaper were a little more basic. Back then you'd find instructions on how to make your own floor wax by melting beeswax in water on your wood stove and mixing it with turpentine, or how to make your own cleaning rags by dipping cloth into a mixture of melted paraffin and, what else, turpentine. The homemaker also got advice on how to make her own floor mops "at a quarter the price of the boughten variety," and was reminded to save those candle ends to rub off the wood burning range to keep it black and shiny.
Dakota Datebook written by Merrill Piepkorn
Source:
May 1, 1913 issue of the North Dakota Advocate newspaper (a publication of the ND State Federation Labor, published in Fargo).