since fabric was hard to come by your clothes usually rotted off you. they used wool and linen a lot which, at least, are good fabrics. when the industrial revolution started and fabric was produced on the big looms and not by hand on the small looms, fabric was a lot cheaper. people started to be cleaner because they had a change of clothes, but nothing like today. We have so many advantages over our ancestors—they must have been a hardy lot, the ones that survived. Many people are alive today who would have easily died 200 plus years ago.
We have so many advantages over our ancestors—
Newsday (LI NY)did a story on the actual medical/physical condition of our founding fathers and their level of common daily discomfort. It was shocking how much pain these people suffered even as they were founding our country.