BONUS EPISODE- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Chimney Sweeps

From the St. Paul Globe, June 19, 1887, p. 7.

Welcome to a very special BONUS episode of Minnesota Unknown!

This is a companion piece to our first episode, which covered a bugle-playing chimney sweep named Skunky Norton who was a beloved local celebrity in St. Paul at the turn of the 20th century. You don’t necessarily have to have heard our first episode to understand this one, though we do hope you’ll check it out if you haven’t already.

Our original edit of the first episode was about twice as long, mostly because we went on a long digression into the broader history of chimneysweeps. We talked about the evolution of the profession from its origins in the 1500s through the 20th century, and looked at regional differences between chimney sweeping in Britain, the US, and continental Europe.

Ultimately, we decided to cut most of the background material from that first episode, and keep it focused on Slunky Norton and Saint Paul. However, we think the parts that we cut were nonetheless pretty interesting, and that this extra material really helps put Slunky in context. So we are pleased to offer that background context here as a special bonus episode.

Meanwhile, we’ll be releasing a new regular episode on a completely different soon. Be sure to follow or subscribe so you don’t miss it. But for now, listen on to learn everything you ever wanted to know about chimney sweeps!

***

Content Warning: this episode includes discussion of child labor, mistreatment of children laborers, child death, slavery, and racism.

https://youtu.be/8nD9QaKYkP4?si=fIz62h245mgG2g5X

Shownotes and Images:

Here’s a few images that illustrate some of the things we discussed in this episode:

First up, here’s one of the earliest illustrations of a chimney sweep we could find, from England in the mid-1600s:

Note the “master” sweep (the adult) and his “climbing boy,” who likely is the one who actually goes in the chimney.

Moving on to the 19th century, here’s a typical newspaper illustration of a “climbing boy” from a London newspaper:

Here are three more 19th century British images (all three reprinted in England’s Climbing Boys by George Lewis Phillips:

Here is an illustration of how complicated these chimney systems could get:

Joseph Glass - Glass, Joseph (4 October 1834). "The Contrast -- Mechanical & Children Chimney-Cleaning". The Mechanics' Magazine 22 (582): 1–3., via Wikipedia. 

Newspapers of the time were beginning to draw wider attention when tragic accidents and deaths occurred. Here is one illustration that accompanied an article about two boys who died after getting stuck in a chimney:

Here we have a photograph from the second half of the 19th century showing a “climbing boy” and “master”:

Moving to America, we talked in this episode about the fact that in much of the South, New England, and the Ohio River Valley, chimney sweeping was usually done by enslaved African American children being rented out by their enslavers (or, after-1865, African American children who were nearly as exploited under Jim Crow).

Here’ are two images of African American chimney sweeps. The one on the left is from a series of watercolors by artists Pavel Petrovich Svinin and John Lewis Krimmel, who collaborated on numerous watercolor paintings between 1811 and 1813 depicting daily street life. The one on the right is from around 1870. This studio portrait was likely taken to use as advertisement by the “master” renting out their services:

“‘Worldly Folk’ Questioning Chimney Sweeps and Their Master before Christ Church, Philadelphia,” by Pavel Petrovich Svinin and John Lewis Krimmel, ca. 1811-1813. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, via the Internet Archive.

Black Chimney Sweeps in New York, ca. 1870. From the New York Library Digital Collection

As discussed in the episode, the exploitation and child labor that typified chimney sweeping in Britain and much of America was not universal. In parts of Germany, Austria, and Italy, chimney sweeps were relatively high-paid and viewed as respectable tradesmen.

They also were expected to be entertaining or have a gimmick, and often wore outrageous costumes. In the books and articles I read (see sources) I found many written descriptions of these costumes, but through much searching I have found disappointingly few images of central European sweeps and their costumes. Here is what I could find, starting with an 1870 illustration of a sweep in Strasbourg:

Chimney sweep of Strasbourg (“Ramoneur de Strasbourg”, 1870 drawing by Wencker and Touchemolin, Gallica.bnf.fr, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg).

Here is a German sweep (Schornsteinfeger) from 1895. His costume appears to be almost a military-style uniform:

“Der schwarze Mann. Nach dem Gemalde von L. Blume-Siebert,” from page 161 of the journal Die Gartenlaube, 1895.

The chimney sweeps guilds of Germany, some dating back as far as the 1500s, continued to exercise a powerful monopoly on their trade until the 21st century, when they ran afoul of EU labor regulations. Interestingly, they still dress in military-type uniforms:

Here are some Italian chimney sweeps (Spazzacamini) from the turn of the 20th century:

 From the Chimney Sweep Museum ( Museo Della Spazzacamino) in Santa Maria Maggiore, Italy.

I read numerous written accounts of European chimney sweeps dressing in Commedia Del’Arte and circus style outfits, but sadly I have yet to find a visual depiction. However, I did find numerous examples of street peddlers doing just that; I think these clown-like chimney sweep outfits may be part of a broader history of various freelancers working the streets in attention-getting garb. For example, here is a French varnish salesman from around 1850:

And finally, we come to Minnesota. Here is a brief article from 1887:

St. Paul Globe, June 19, 1887, p. 7. Note the bugle.

This is an 1890 illustration of “Joppa and Eastman,” two apparently well-known Minneapolis sweeps. Note the peaked hat and the bugles:

“Sweet Christmas Tide,” Minneapolis Daily Times, 12/25/1890, p. 8.

The other illustration of a Minnesota sweep I found confirms the existence of clown-like outfits. This one has a rather bizarre context. The article is about a man called Joseph Bishop, also known as Joseph Leveque, who was a chimney sweep and proprietor of a firewood business who abandoned his wife and skipped town to avoid paying his creditors the $2000 dollars of gambling debt he had. But for our purposes, I will note the conical hat and flowery shirt:

“Silently Stole Away,” Saint Paul Globe, March 1, 1889, Page 3.

Last but not least, we want to note that although the vast majority of chimney sweeps in history have been boys or men (and in our episode, we only spoke about male sweeps), women chimney sweeps did indeed exist. Women chimney sweeps were most common during World War One, as part of a broader trend of women taking on traditional male occupations because of a war-induced shortage of male workers. Though they were an exception to the rule, throughout all eras there have been at least some female chimney sweeps. Here are images from the mid-18th and late-19th centuries.

Works Cited:

Newspaper Articles (in chronological order):

-Dodge County Republican, February 3, 1887, page 3.

-“Truthful James,” Star Tribune, April 24, 1887, page 9.

-“The Chimney Sweep,” Saint Paul Globe, May 19, 1887, page 7.

-“Silently Stole Away,” Saint Paul Globe, March 1, 1889, Page 3.

-“Sweet Christmas Tide,” Minneapolis Daily Times, December 25, 1890, page 8.

-“Chimney Sweeps,” Austin Daily Herald, February 21, 1894, page 4.

-“A Vanishing Industry,” Star Tribune, April 28, 1895, page 25.

-Rochester Daily Post, April 9, 1897, page 3.

Books and Articles:

Cullingford, Benita. British Chimney Sweeps: Five Centuries of Chimney Sweeping. Bloomsbury: New York. 2001.

Giblin, James. Chimney Sweeps: Yesterday and Today. New York : Crowell, 1982.

Phillips, George Lewis. American Chimney Sweeps: An Historical Account of a Once Important Trade. Trenton: Past Times Press, 1957.

Phillips, George Lewis. England's climbing boys: A History of the Long Struggle to Abolish Child Labor Chimney-Sweeping. Boston: Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, 1949.

Phillips, George Lewis. “Street Cries of the American Chimney Sweepers,” New York Folklore Quarterly, 8:3, Autumn 1952, pp. 191-198.

Podcast Credits:

Minnesota Unknown is produced, hosted, written, and researched by Alex Weston, Hannah Norton, and Josie Bergmann. This episode was edited by Alex Weston. Our theme song is by Union Shakedown. This episode is copyright 2025 by Minnesota Unknown, LLC. All rights reserved.

If you would like to cite this episode in a scholarly work, use the following:

Weston, Alex, Hannah Norton, and Josie Bergmann. “BONUS: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Chimney Sweeps.” Minnesota Unknown. Produced by Minnesota Unknown LLC. October 22, 2025. Podcast, mp3 audio, 31:30. https://rss.com/podcasts/minnesota-unknown/2296698/

If you have questions, comments, corrections, complaints, or compliments, or would like to suggest a topic for a future episode, please email us at info@minnesotaunknown.com. We’d truly love to hear from you!