True or False?
HOUSES DIDN’T HAVE CLOSETS IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES.
False! Docents have been known to say that the reason there are few if any closets in early houses was because the closet counted as a room and people were taxed on the number of rooms they had. This is not true. Research at Colonial Williamsburg Virginia has turned up no tax on closets.
A study of floor plans in early houses shows that many houses had closets—just not as many as we have today and certainly not of the walk-in variety. Since people did not have as many clothes as we have today, there was no need to have a closet in each bed chamber. Clothes were kept in a chest or trunk, clothes press, or a chest of drawers. Clothes kept in closets were hung on pegs not on hangers. In fact, night gowns, shirts, and other light clothing were hung on pegs around the room.
Read the rest of this article: http://www.worthingtonhistory.org/…/My…/Closets/closets.html