How to make a lunch pail for a Pioneer doll...

       The Pioneer school children did not have access to kitchen workspaces or refrigeration, so their meals were simple and had to be carried inside of a simple pail. This lunch pail could be made of wood or of tin which seemed to be preferred - because it was light weight. Some children might have simply carried their lunch items wrapped in a large kerchief or inside a small basket as well.

Finished lunch pails for pioneer dolls.

Supply List: tin looking lunch pail

• toilet roll, cardboard tube
• chenille stem or scrap wire
• white school glue
• extra cardboard (perhaps)
• recycled tin lid from dinner roll packaging (optional)
• scrap fabric or decorative paper for the pail lining
• masking tape
• acrylic paints: grey or metal look
• twine or yarn

Step-by-Step Instructions for The Tin Lunch Pail:

1. Cut the paper tube the size that you would prefer your doll's lunch pail to be. Mine is approximately two inches tall.
2. You may need to layer this cardboard tube if you feel it is not strong enough for play. Use white school glue between layers of cardboard.
3. Use masking tape to cover a tin lid from a dinner roll tube and then glue this to the bottom of the lunch pail. If  you have a second lid this may be used for a lid. However, this is optional. (Cardboard covered in masking tape works well enough for this step if you lack the recycled tin lid.)
4. Cover the rest of the tube with masking tape to make it more durable for play.
5. Glue on twin around the center of the outer sides to give the pail a bit of texture and ridging. 
6. Paint the doll's tin pail using pewter colored acrylic paints.
7. Poke holes directly across from each other on either side of the pail.
8. Loop and bend a wire handle for the doll to carry her lunch pail with.
9. Paint the wire to match the pail.
10. Layer white school glue and decorative check paper on the inside of the lunch pail. Let dry and then cut a bit of calico to use for wrapping the lunch items to stick inside the pail.

       The foods pioneer children might have carried in their lunch pail to eat at school included: apples and other seasonal fruits, corn muffins or sometimes called Johnnycakes, baked potatoes, hard boiled eggs, sliced homemade bread, a pickle, dried fruit, simple sandwiches, and salt cured meats. These items would be wrapped in a fabric napkin to keep the insects from landing on the food while it sat in the lunch pail until the time for eating. I made some of these food items with clay and painted them. 

 

Lunch foods for pioneer children. Left, simple sandwiches with jam, johnny-cakes and roll.
 Right, potatoes, tomatoes and radishes. Ruby talks about her school lunch long ago.

 

       To make the wooden pail you will need: small clothes pins, a toilet paper tube, hot glue, white school glue, brown acrylic paint, wire and scrap paper or fabric for the inside finishing of the wooden lunch pail. 

Step-by-Step Instructions for The Wooden Lunch Pail:

1. Cut the paper tube to size, approx. 2"
2. Take apart the clothes pins, these small pails are made with these half sides.
3. Glue the pins around the paper tube using hot glue. Try to space these out evenly if you can.
4. Hot Glue a shaped wire handle to the inside of the pale.
5. Glue a bottom to the bucket cut from cardboard.
6. Paint the wooden lunch pail brown.
7. You may glue a wire around the outside of the bucket to further bind the wooden clothespins together.
8. Cover the inside of the wooden pale with layers of glue and scrap fabric/paper to finish off the surfaces.

Left, bottoms of each pail, the wooden one has a paper bottom painted with silver acrylic and
 sides made using dismantled clothespins, stained a brown color. The tin pail has a real tin bottom
(lid). It's sides are painted toilet paper tubing. Right, see the blue and white checkerd paper lining
 inside each bucket; this is decoupaged. When the lunch pails are packed the food is also wrapped
 in gingham or calico fabric napkins.