Here at the Historical Society of Frederick County we have a very active
docent training program and part of that is to investigate museum myths so
that we do not pass on erroneous information. The closet tax myth was one of
the first ones we attacked. It is indeed a myth, which like most myths, when
you apply some common sense to the tale, it does not prove out. Also,
historical research, when done correctly, is done with the premise of
interpreting the presence of information - not the absence of information.
So, when you do research you are looking to find information about taxes on
closets - people now, and in the past will record the presence of things
more often than the absence of them. For instance, you wouldn't write in
your diary that you didn't fly on a plane today, instead you would write
when you did indeed fly on a plane.

Whenever taxes are mentioned in relation as to why someone did or didn't do
something, it should raise a red flag of skepticism. How many of us do, or
don't do something because we have to pay a tax? When reading diaries or
letters of people from the past how often do you find them writing about
taxes? Also remember, up until the federal income tax laws in the early 20th
century, there were no, truly nation wide taxes in the US. States, counties
and municipalities were able to tax their citizens as they saw fit. So, it
would be highly unusual that every place in the US would tax the number of
rooms in homes. To check if your locale did, just go to your county
courthouse, or city hall, or state hall of records, or even your public
library and look at the tax laws for the time period you need.

In addition to taxes, you also need to look at how people stored clothing in
the past. The first hangers were invented by the Shakers and were wood with
a leather thong to be hung on a peg, flat against the wall.
Commercially-made hangers were not widely available until the turn of the
century or later, depending on your locale. Reading women's proscriptive
literature, like household management books (Catherine Beecher comes to
mind), and magazines (Godey's, Peterson's, Leslie's, Arthur's) will help you
find out how the "experts" suggested clothes be treated. Reading these books
you'll find that most clothing was folded carefully and put into case
furniture (blanket chests, chests of drawers, wardrobes, etc). Clothing that
was worn daily was often hung on hook or pegs inside or outside of a closet.
It is also interesting to note that in much of the homemaking literature in
the late 19th century there were instructions on how to build closets in
rooms where there were none and the encouragement of people to try and adopt
hangers and hanging storage.

You also have to look at building practices. Closets are easiest built where
there is a naturally occurring "dead space" in a room, such as next to a
chimney or under stairs. Also remember, closets did not have to be a certain
size or depth unlike modern closets that are built to accomodate the width
of a hanger. Historically, the term "closet" could refer to something
different than what we know it as, a closet could be a small room where
someone works or lives. In addition, what we would today call a closet,
people in the past also called a cupboard.

We have found that doing careful, scholarly research into what people DID do
usually dispells the myth in question.

Heidi Campbell-Shoaf
Curator
Historical Society of Frederick County
24 E. Church St.
Frederick, MD 21718
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer Ruffner" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: Old Homes/Closets


Interestingly, I was told in a recent visit to an historic home that the
closet tax story is a popular and pervasive myth.  I did a Google search
to see if there was anything online on it, and only found a single
article by David Bush that also makes that claim
(http://www.houseandhomeonline.com/historical0100.html).  There are also
numerous examples, including an NPS site, that use the closet tax
explanation. Does anyone have a documented source for or against this
story, and an alternative explanation if it is not true??

**************************
Jennifer Gayman Ruffner
Heritage Coordinator
Queen Anne's County, Maryland
410-604-2100

-----Original Message-----
From: Deb Fuller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Old Homes/Closets

--- Joann Lindstrom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I took a tour of a historic home recently and was told by the guide
that old
> homes often do not have closets for a specific reason.
>
> Before I relay the reason given to my group, I would like to hear from
those
> of you who may know--what do you tell the public about the lack of
closet
> space at your historic sites?

How old is the house? I thought that originally it was because of the
"room
tax" and closets were considered rooms. Thus houses were built without a
lot of
closets to avoid the tax and people used wardrobes. Plus, it's easier to
build
a room without a closet, especially if people don't have a lot of
clothes to
begin with and wardrobes to boot. Old habits die hard, especially in
architecture. Even today in the UK, you have to specify closets in
rooms. The
houses/flats aren't automatically built with them. (Or at least was the
case
with my friend's new flat that was built recently. She even had to
finish the
molding and the trim and install the appliances. Egads.)

Deb

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