Amy G. Richter
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814769133
- eISBN:
- 9780814769157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814769133.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Despite the celebration of home’s isolation from the public world of paid labor and commerce, the two realms remained intertwined. This chapter looks beyond the ideal home to explore the ongoing ...
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Despite the celebration of home’s isolation from the public world of paid labor and commerce, the two realms remained intertwined. This chapter looks beyond the ideal home to explore the ongoing significance of paid and unpaid domestic labor and reveals the variety of work (economic and cultural) done at home. The documents in this chapter include accounts of boardinghouse life by a Lowell mill girl and journalist Nellie Bly. Writings by Catharine Beecher, Clarissa Packard, and Lizzie Goodenough explore the relationship between mistresses and domestic servants. An excerpt from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women emphasizes the importance of middle-class women’s unpaid domestic labor, while Maria Sedgwick and Ward Stafford show the impact of the moral home on depictions of the poor. Finally, an excerpt from Solomon Northrup’s narrative describes domestic arrangements under slavery and offers a contrast to the moral slave cabin envisioned by some slaveholders.Less
Despite the celebration of home’s isolation from the public world of paid labor and commerce, the two realms remained intertwined. This chapter looks beyond the ideal home to explore the ongoing significance of paid and unpaid domestic labor and reveals the variety of work (economic and cultural) done at home. The documents in this chapter include accounts of boardinghouse life by a Lowell mill girl and journalist Nellie Bly. Writings by Catharine Beecher, Clarissa Packard, and Lizzie Goodenough explore the relationship between mistresses and domestic servants. An excerpt from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women emphasizes the importance of middle-class women’s unpaid domestic labor, while Maria Sedgwick and Ward Stafford show the impact of the moral home on depictions of the poor. Finally, an excerpt from Solomon Northrup’s narrative describes domestic arrangements under slavery and offers a contrast to the moral slave cabin envisioned by some slaveholders.
