"Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America
A sweeping survey of the changing image and perception of the housewife in America from colonial times to the present, this groundbreaking book provides an essential historical backdrop to Betty Friedan's classic The Feminine Mystique (1963). Using novels, letters, popular magazines, and cookbooks, the author demonstrates how the 19th-century cult of domesticity heightened the esteem accorded housewives. By contrast, industrialization, the growth of a consumer culture, and the emergence of professional experts in home economics transformed the nature of housework and led to its devaluation. By the 1920s, the factors to make the life of the housewife one of emptiness and dissatisfaction were already in place. For informed laypersons and scholars. Marie Marmo Mullaney, History Dept., Caldwell Coll., N.J.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.