What Was Hygiene Actually Like in the Wild West?

In the Missouri Ozarks there was a rule about long underwear. You never took it off until the frogs croaked in the spring, and some children were sewn into theirs for the whole winter. This video looks at how people really kept clean in the West, from about 1865 to 1900. Saturday night in one tub of water, a washday that took 400 pounds of hauled water for a single load, five months of trail dust, the bathhouses and Chinese laundries of Deadwood, what hung on the nail in the outhouse, and the year Kansas outlawed a towel. It comes from memoirs and old newspapers, and where a popular story turns out to be a myth, the video says so. Chapters 0:00 Sewed up for the winter 1:25 The red union suit 4:17 Saturday night bath 7:56 Washday Monday 11:44 Five months on the trail 15:52 Paying for a bath in town 17:50 The saloon towel 18:55 What hung in the outhouse 20:53 Teeth, and a famous dentist 22:06 When doctors didn't wash 23:32 The towel Kansas outlawed 25:07 So how clean were they? #WildWest #OldWestHistory #PioneerLife