Oh, *no*

 I was trolling the Internet for scholarly works on plaçage, and I tripped over this book review:

In Sandra Hill's humorous time travel romance, Frankly, My Dear, Selene the heroine, is a supermodel swept back in time to New Orleans about 20 years before the Civil War. When Selene arrives, she is wearing a ball gown in the style of The Old South. For purposes of her modeling career, she has had her black hair done in a curly perm which has a tendency to frizz. Selene also has an allover tan left over from a swimsuit shoot, she is wearing contact lenses to make her eyes look dark brown, and she has had collagen injections in her lips to give them a fashionable full and pouty look. To the people of New Orleans, she looks like a quadroon.

Sale book du jour

Labour-Saving Hints and Ideas.  A 1991 reprint; the original 1924 edition must have been a premium for Preservene Soap, judging by the number of references.
Household chemicals are used with blithe abandon:

• 81.  Furniture reviver that removes dirt, grease, stains, etc. and is very cheap.  1 gill each turpentine, methylated spirits, vinegar and paraffin.  Mix well together in a bottle.  Shake the bottle well and apply with a soft rag.    Polish with soft duster.  It produces a splendid polish with very little labour.
• 141.  To mend china.  White lead is excellent for repairing china.  Have the fractured edges clean and dry, then smear with a little of the white lead.  ... Allow at least a month to harden.  After this the repair will be complete, and the article can be washed in hot water without any risk.
• 200.  To Clear a Room of Flies.  Tie a wine-glass, broken at the base of the stem to a light pole, long enough to reach the ceiling.  After sunset or in the early morning when the flies are asleep on the ceiling, hold the glass half full of methylated spirits under the flies.  The fumes will cause the flies to fall into the spirit, which kills them instantly.  The spirit can be poured off into a bottle and used over and over again.   A room can be cleared of flies in this way in two minutes.
• 399.  To remove stains of any description.  Soak the article in a solution of "hypo", which is used for fixing photographs and which can be bought at any chemist's. ...
• 1106 Rat Paste.  To destroy rats and mice, melt a pound of lard and stir into it half an ounce of phosphorus carefully.  When nearly cold, thicken with flour and spread the paste on small pieces of brown paper.  Lay them near the rat holes, where they will eat the paste greedily with fatal results.
• 1167.  When dry cleaning anything with petrol, always use a second bath of petrol for rinsing.  The operation is called dry cleaning because no water is used.
• 1340 To Repair Iron Saucepans.   ... Here is a way for your good man to mend them.  Buy some fine black lead and sulphur, put sulphur in an old iron pot; place on stove to melt (use two parts of sulphur to one of blacklead).   When sulphur is melted, add blacklead and mix gently.  Then our on an iron plate and leave to cool and harden.  Break off a piece of this cement, put it on the cracked part of pan and solder with hot soldering iron.

Household tasks that are gone forever:

• 85.  Use a Grater for Preservene.  [remember, the soap]  The quickest and best way to shave up preservene is to get an ordinary grater and use your suet side.  It is thereby done beautifully fine in a minute and dissolves at once.
• 144.  To save coal.   Half a teaspoonful of slatpetre mixed in half a cupful of warm water and poured on a scuttle of coal will induce a brighter fire and make the coal last longer.   Also, a good handful of ordinary washing soda dissolved in half a bucket of warm water, thrown over a hundredweight of coal and allowed to dry, will make the coal last half as long again.  MIx some coal dust and clay together with water, finally covering the mixture with coal dust.  Make it up into round balls to fit your stove; they will keep your fire in, give out a good heat, and will effect a saving in your coal bill.
• 1169.  Before Spring Cleaning.  Before commencing spring cleaning operations, go through the house and take stock of all brass bedsteads, fireirons, fenders, etc. which have become shabby, and send them away to be re-lacquered.   Not only will they be out of the way during the annual upheaval, but they will be much better fitted to take their place in the scheme of things when everything gets back to its own place again.
• 1315.  Another use for Tea-Leaves.  Tea leaves should be kept for sprinkling among the ashes when cleaning up a grate.  It will be found that they allay the dust.
• 1329.  To Clean a White Sunshade.  Make a good lather with hot water and preservene soap and dissolve a little pipeclay in it.  Rub all over the sunshade well, and when dry, it will look like new.

Mysteries:

• 270.  A Novel Way of Heating an Invalid's Room.  Put a block of salt in the grate; pour on as much paraffin as it will absorb; set a match to it, and a steady clear glow is the result.  The salt must be moistened every night.  It will gradualy wear away and want replacing in about three weeks.  You have a warm bedroom with very little trouble and no dust or dirt.
• 1206.  A Neck Bleach.   As the neck easily gets discoloured, a good bleach can be made by taking equal parts of glycerine and lemon-juice and mixing together.   Add a few drops of any desired perfume and apply the bleach at night before retiring.   Wash off with warm water next morning, and if this is repeated two or three times the neck will become quite white.

Hints that are still relevant:

• 1128.  In the Nursery.   When reading stories to children insert their own names for those in the story, it will interest them and keep their attention.
• 1273.  For stitching Ninon and Crepe de Chine.  When machine-stitching ninon and crepe de chine, place thin white tissue paper underneath and remove after stitching.  [This hint appears repeatedly.]
• 1293.  Never try to dye an article a lighter shade than the original.

Vanished conveniences:

• A Slate Meat Safe.  Always stone cold and easily cleaned, the newest safes are made entirely of stone slabs, with polished doors and gauze.  These safes cost from 39s. to 149s. but they are, of course, built to last a lifetime.
• Whalebone Brooms outlast at least two ordinary brooms.  They are not more expensive to buy.   Whalebone brooms have been in use for many years of course, but they are still the very best kind of broom.  Whalebone, as most housewives  knnow, is like no other substance in existence, natural or manufactured.  Nothing else combines flexibility, resilience, strength and long wearing qualities to the same degree.  That is why we recommend their use in the modern home.

There was a hint that I've lost on making cheap stair rods by buying "ordinary school canes", cutting the looped end off, and painting them gold.

The instructions on your wash day run to ten pages, and remind you just how hideous a task washing was before the invention of machines.