A fully researched and utterly absorbing account of American housework from the nineteenth century to the present day describes the evolution and changing nature of daily chores, discusses the impact of advertising and industrialization, and much more. Reprint. 10,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

A stylish, incisive study of the American home traces the relationship that exists between women and their homes and the ways in which that relationship has changed over the last century. 10,000 first printing.

Product Description: A collection of essays on the conflict between ideology and actuality in women's domestic lives, throughout the history of the United States. This text also explores the content of domestic labour and domestic production, for both the mistress and female servant of a household.

Product Description: The transformation of a house into a home has been in our culture a traditional task of women. The articles examine this process as they reflected the role of American middle-class women as homemakers in the years 1840–1940.

Product Description: In this innovative historical survey, Annegret S. Ogden addresses the need for the modern housewife to adapt to the additional role of wage earner. By examining a variety of diaries, letters, domestic fiction, and household books of the past two centuries, as well as solid statistical and historical data, she seeks not only to uncover the motivations and origins of the typical American housewife, but also to discover an alternative life pattern that has characterized a virtually unrecognized minority of American women...read more

Shows how new, supposedly time-saving inventions have both increased the workload and improved the standard of living

Traces the history and development of housework, household technology, and the lifestyles of American housewives from the nineteenth century to the present