Read complete books and articles on: Domestic History

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14 of the Best Books and Articles on: Domestic History

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice » Read Now
by Sarah A. Leavitt. 250 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Today's domestic-advice writers--women such as Martha Stewart, Cheryl Mendelson, and B. Smith--are part of a long tradition, notes Sarah Leavitt. Their success rests on a legacy of literature that has focused on the home as an expression of ideals. Here, Leavitt crafts a fascinating genealogy of...
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Today's domestic-advice writers--women such as Martha Stewart, Cheryl Mendelson, and B. Smith--are part of a long tradition, notes Sarah Leavitt. Their success rests on a legacy of literature that has focused on the home as an expression of ideals. Here, Leavitt crafts a fascinating genealogy of domestic advice, based on her readings of hundreds of manuals spanning 150 years of history.
Over the years, domestic advisors have educated women about everything from modernism and morality to sanitation and design. Their writings helped create the idealized vision of home held by so many Americans, Leavitt says. Investigating cultural themes in domestic advice written since the mid-nineteenth century, she demonstrates that these works, which found meaning in kitchen counters, parlor rugs, and bric-a-brac, have held the interest of readers despite vast changes in women's roles and opportunities.
Domestic-advice manuals have always been the stuff of fantasy, argues Leavitt, demonstrating cultural ideals rather than cultural realities. But these rich sources reveal how women understood the connection between their homes and the larger world. At its most fundamental level, the true domestic fantasy was that women held the power to reform their society through first reforming their homes.
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2.

Making the American Home: Middle-Class Women & Domestic Material Culture, 1840-1940 » Read Now
by Marilyn Ferris Motz, Pat Browne. 212 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
3.

Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in the United States, 1920-1945 » Read Now
by Phyllis Palmer. 214 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...alk. paper 1. Domestics--United States--History--20th century. 2...housewifery and domestic work are beginning to have a history. Pre-1920 employment...have characterized...
4.

Home Life in Colonial Days » Read Now
by Alice Morse Earle. 476 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...autumns of trial and of promise in our early history, and the bayberry fields are peopled with...last autumn in an old colony town. The history of whale-fishing in New...
5.

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management » Read Now
by Nicola Humble. 634 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

An almost forgotten classic though a founding text of Victorian middle-class identity,Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management is a volume of insight and common sense. Written by what one might now describe as a Victorian Martha Stewart, the book offers advice on fashion, child-care, animal...
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An almost forgotten classic though a founding text of Victorian middle-class identity,Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management is a volume of insight and common sense. Written by what one might now describe as a Victorian Martha Stewart, the book offers advice on fashion, child-care, animal husbandry, poisons, and the management of servants. To the modern reader expecting stuffy verbosity or heavy moralizing, Beeton's book is a revelation: it explores the foods of Europe and beyond, suggesting new food stuffs and techniques, mixing domestic advice with discussions of science, religion, class, industrialism and gender roles. Alternately frugal and fashionable, anxious and self confident, the book highlights the concerns of the growing Victorian middle-class at a key moment in its history. This abridged edition serves as a cookery book, while documenting a significant aspect of Victorian social and cultural history.
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6.

The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities » Read Now
by Dolores Hayden. 388 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
7.

Preserving Domesticity: Reading Tupperware in Women's Changing Domestic, Social and Economic Roles, in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology » Read Now
by Susan Vincent. 26 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library
8.

Linoleum, Better Babies & the Modern Farm Woman, 1890-1930 » Read Now
by Marilyn Irvin Holt. 250 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...introduce social engineering and economic growth. Proponents of domestic economy recognized women's labor, production potential, and...treat these rural women differently...
9.

The Economics of Household Consumption » Read Now
by Frances M. Magrabi, Young Sook Chung, Sanghee Sohn Cha, Se-Jeong Yang. 292 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This book provides an overview of concepts, theories, and methods related to the study of household consumption. It summarizes the most recent data on consumption patterns and trends, together with factors that influence consumption--population trends, prices, and distribution of resources--and...
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This book provides an overview of concepts, theories, and methods related to the study of household consumption. It summarizes the most recent data on consumption patterns and trends, together with factors that influence consumption--population trends, prices, and distribution of resources--and examines how consumption data are used by business, government, and other organizations. The purpose of the work is to give the student an understanding of household consumption patterns, including recent trends in household consumption in the United States, consumption patterns and problems in rich and poor countries, and applications to questions of public policy.
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10.

At Home on the Range: Essays on the History of Western Social and Domestic Life » Read Now
by John R. Wunder. 232 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
11.

Life in a Noble Household, 1641-1700 » Read Now
by Gladys Thomson Scott. 426 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
12.

The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption, and Home Dressmaking » Read Now
by Barbara Burman. 350 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Throughout its long history, home dressmaking has been a formative experience in the lives of millions of women. In an age of relative affluence and mass production, it is easy to forget that just over a generation ago, young girls from middle- and working-class backgrounds were routinely taught to...
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Throughout its long history, home dressmaking has been a formative experience in the lives of millions of women. In an age of relative affluence and mass production, it is easy to forget that just over a generation ago, young girls from middle- and working-class backgrounds were routinely taught to sew as a practical necessity. However, not only have the skills involved in home dressmaking been overlooked and marginalized due to their association with women and the home, but the impact home dressmaking had on women's lives and broader socioeconomic structures also has been largely ignored.This book is the first serious account of the significance of home dressmaking as a form of European and American material culture. Exploring themes from the last two hundred years to the present, including gender, technology, consumption and visual representation, contributors show how home dressmakers negotiated and experienced developments to meet a wide variety of needs and aspirations. Not merely passive consumers, home dressmakers have been active producers within family economies. They have been individuals with complex agendas expressed through their roles as wives, mothers and workers in their own right and shaped by ideologies of femininity and class.This book represents a vital contribution to women's studies, the history of fashion and dress, design history, material culture, sociology and anthropology.
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13.

Economic Problems of the Family (1933) » Read Now
by Hazel Kyrk. 506 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...exclusiveness of domestic life with which...first appeared in history." 6 A recent...as the center of domestic and economic life...general in the early history of Greece...
14.

The Coming of Age of Home Economics, in Human Ecology » Read Now
by Joe Wilensky. 3 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...mental hospitals, the history of womens mental health, and the history of women in nursing. In The Gospel of Germs, Tomes makes...said. "In the late 19th century, both the...