This section is from the book "The Home Cyclopedia Of Cooking And Housekeeping", by Charles Morris. Also available from Amazon: Home Cyclopedia of Necessary Knowledge.
Our forefathers did not think their houses complete without screens. These are useful for breaking off the heat where there is an open grate, and for placing near a door often opened, to prevent a draft, and are still quite popular. Very handsome ones may be made of feathers by gumming them on a framework of gauze or other material, stretched by wire. Or card-board may be used for the background. The lad who is skillful with tools may make screens of thin wood and other light materials, a framework of strips being made and fastened together, and then covered with the material preferred. If it is to be a folding screen, the separate parts can be readily joined together with hinges.
 
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