The first book I finished this year (last night, to be precise) was "American Woman's Home", written by sisters Catharine Esther Beecher and Harriet Beecher-Stowe (the latter being best known for "Uncle Tom's Cabin", I suppose). By far the largest portion of this book I read during December 2013.
"American Woman's Home" was published in 1869 and covers all imaginable subjects that matter to the smooth running of a household and the raising of a family, from floorplans to the ideal home to the care of animals, healthy cooking to the care of servants, domestic amusements and social duties to sewing, cutting and mending, ending with a chapter about "The Christian Neighbourhood" and an "Appeal to American Women".
This book is a huge source of information on what daily life in an average home could have been like in those days. It talks about both what the authors deem bad household management and what they recommend. Two things featuring prominently throughout the book are fresh air and Christian principles. There are some bits sounding rather advanced and modern for the times, but also bits that seem quite weird to us now, but are presented in such seriousness that they made me laugh and shudder at the same time.
For instance, while Catharine Beecher was a strong advocat for women's rights in that she thought all women should be able to work for their own livelihood, and that domestic work was just as important as any business conducted in the world out there, she did not think it fitting for women to go into politics. To her, men and women had different roles assigned to them by god and nature, and the way to happiness was adhering to those roles.
In the book, mothers are encouraged to teach both their daughters and sons how a household is run successfully, how to cook, mend clothes, plant fruit and vegetables, and so on, so there is not the strict separation of tasks into male and female, as you'd expect from a writer in 1869.
The wikipedia article about her is quite interesting.
For me, the chapters talking about the ideal home, how it should be laid out, furnished and decorated, were the most interesting ones. While doing research for this review, I came across this blog post with pictures and excerpts from the book.
My free kindle edition does not contain any pictures, so I was happy to find the complete work with illustrations elsewhere, and I have nicked some of them for my post.
It was an interesting book and made me glad once more for living where, when and how I live! Back then, managing a household involved so much more work than nowadays with all our modern appliances and ready-made products. One really wonders how come people are so "stressed out" all the time, when in reality they have so much more free time as people did back then.
Oh, this is fascinating.....At one time in my life I was rather fascinated with old etiquette books and household management books and actually have copies of several old ones. I knew of this book but never came across a copy and am going to try to get one from amazon now. Or read it at the Gutenberg Project. I think such things are often very amusing but also quite informative. Thanks, Meike! And count me in as one who is very happy to live now, even with all the problems in the world.
ReplyDeleteI like old etiquette books, too, and have read a few from the 1950s. For weeks afterwards, I tried to behave better in public :-)
DeleteThe "American Woman's Home" is a bit lengthy, and I must admit I quick-read over the chapters dealing with the planting of an orchard, but it certainly is fascinating.
It always makes me so glad to live in this day and age when i read things like this.
ReplyDeleteSo true!
DeleteIf I could build a house it would be quite like that plan. I love the idea of a wood stove in each room off a central chimney. I wonder if we are stressed because there are so many choices. People then did what had to be done. Now while we are, for example, cleaning, we think of all the things we should be doing or want to be doing. If we work at one job, do we think there is something better we could be doing?
ReplyDeleteThe abundance of choices on how to spend our free time is certainly contributing to people being stressed out. Most people I know who claim to be stressed have 90 % of "home-made" stress, not because their jobs or lives would really be so stressful.
DeleteI agree wholehearedly with you comment Meike. Whilst jobs can, of course, be stressful we make a great deal of stress for ourselves all the time. One of the advantages of age is that one becomes more aware of the futility of so many of the things that cause many people to be stressed.
DeleteTrue! And it is also very true that some jobs are undoubtedly much more stressful than others. All the more important for those who hold such jobs that they find the proper balance between work and leisure.
DeleteYou do have a knack for finding unusual old books and presenting them in a way that makes me curious to have a closer look... :) Another one downloaded to my Kindle, but when/if I get round to that closer look remains to be seen!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Monica! And that's one of the nice things about our kindles, we can have "piles" of books there, unread or read, and they don't take up any real room on our shelves :-)
DeleteHm, definitely interesting.
ReplyDeleteI find women’s lives in bygone days and the ‘instructions’ they followed endlessly fascinating.
Like you, I am glad to live in modern times; I would hate to have to spend my life doing nothing but organising a household. And I think the emphasis on ‘religion’ would also be very irksome.
Oh yes, it was fascinating, especially to see how many established customs of the times the two authors were arguing against. In some ways, they sound very modern and advanced, while in other parts of the books, their ideas are nearly medieval.
DeleteAlthough I think I'm probably unlikely to get around to reading this book it's certainly a fascinating one and one that I might well dip in and out of on occasion (and have downloaded).
ReplyDeleteI am sure you'll find certain bits really fascinating, Graham. No real need to read the whole thing; it does get rather lengthy at times.
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