An Illustrated History of the Housewife, 1650-1950

Throughout history, effort, enterprise and energy have been expanded by women in the ways of the household: cooking, cleaning, lighting, heating and laundrywork. This highly illustrated and delightfully written account looks at the changing role of the housewife over three hundred years. The period covered was one of immense social change - new social family relationships, scientific advances and economic developments all had an effect on the housewife, some dramatic, others more gradual. Much of what we now take for granted - instant hot water, heat and light at the flick of a switch, fresh food all the year round - would have been inconceivable to the many 'household managers, ' represented in this book. Some of the evidence comes from the hands of the housewives themselves via account books and domestic memoranda. There are Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, in the Scottish Highlands in 1812, who was amazed that anyone could imagine that her life was dull, Mrs. Purefroy complaining in 1737 that the 'fish you [the fishmonger] sent last week stank' and Hannah Robertson, proud of the fact that in 1749 she was the first person in her county to own 'an entire tea equippage of plate.' Other material has been gathered from biographies, letters and 'improving tracts' aimed at housewives and the staff they employed. The lives of women from all walks of life and from all parts of Britain are dicussed, creating a convincing picture of the similaries as well as the differences that have characterized women's domestic work from the early modern to the post-war period.