to buy out the indae More Work rox Mornrn whe appens atthe kitchen door ia Fact how can respect yt hen no-one else shows me any ‘The great promise of American politcal lif, the promise that al fpeaple would be treated equally, was taken by servants to mean {hat employers simply could not be permitted to conte, they ‘wished they could, every facet of a servant's life. "hal far you call she mistress,” & German cook protested when an American ‘bom parlormad attempted to impeove her diction ‘She sno gest dy over met sy Ws do. ow mistress, To so wane snd Take orders ar ty busines like gil In store. Ds be Amero (Cook ia we anybody whe works Fo living ha a ‘Small wonder that so many isumigeants loft domestic service as ‘00m as they reasonably could and small wonder that they tried (with considerable succes to see toi that, no mater how poor ‘hey were their children never entered it ln 1800, €0.5 percent ‘of Iish-boon wage-eamning women in the United States were servants, but only 18.9 percent ofthe ehilren of lrish-born par. nts were. "We came to this county to better ourselves” said ‘the daughter of an kesh cook In Philadelphia in 1905, "and it's ‘not bettering to have anyone order you around.”®" ‘Thus, one ofthe social canditons that enabled industrializa: ton 40 proceed quickly inthis country—namely, she existence 8 celatively tractable unsiled work Foree-—was the condition ‘thot made it difficul for middle-class Americas fo fn servants, “The poor and the recently immigisted provided the labor ‘which our industria base was built, and they provided tht labor ln port because working in a factory--whateve its hardships may have baen-~was better than living and working in someone elses house, Twenteth-century housewives may Have wished o trode sn their vacuum cleaners for a "good old-fashioned maid,” but ‘ud not doit because the good old-fashioned maids preferred ‘positions om the assembly lines to postions in the patlor. And ‘hat was true the past continues to be tse inthe resent lke ‘their potentiel employers, the only home potential servants wish Teas nd empower S Tonly work ir money. ook jr ty busines, Alternative Approaches to Housework: ‘o work in full-time isthe home they cal thei own. We can have ‘yacoum cleaners or livein mat, But not both Falod Machines {the lcsscape of Arrican coca hittry is clutered with the ‘semains of filed communes and cooperatives, the landscape of American technical history is lstered with the remains of abon- -doned machines. These are not the junked crs and used reftiger- tors that people lave along roadsides and in gabage dumps, ut ‘the rusting hulks of aborted ideas: patents that were never ex- ‘loted (the patent record contains iteally esilions of them}; test ‘models that could not be manufactur at affordable prices; a chines that had considerable potential but that were, for one reason or nother, actively suppressed by the companies that haa the license to manufacture them; devices that were put on the sarket but that never sold well and were soon abandoned. The publications ofthe Patent Office and the “new patente” cola {technical magazines reveal thatthe ratio of “Yale!” machines to successful ones is high, although no scholas hat yet devived a formla by which i an actully be determined. Some nostatla bale hove even become collectors of these"rusting ls,” Fling ‘scrapbooks with advertismente for bizarre devices and selling ‘extont versions of them to one another at Bes markets and en tigue shoves ‘The wromen’s magazines of the ninetaenth and twentieth cen- tures are filled with such aborted idea: an ice-making machine diven by a small water wheel, 2 rocking chair thet sultan ‘ously propels butter chums and a cradle, individual household Incinerators; central vacuum-clearing systems soniary tiles that do not use water; Glass cookers. There wasa vast anay of “devices, some ludicrous but many, atleast on the surface, very sensible. What resident ofa drought-prone ares today would not De grateful fora toilet that doesnot use water? How many ener ay-canscious housewives would be unwilling to try aut frcless arMoke Work ron Moruen cooker? In what city and town, plagued by erratic and expensive sarbage pickup, would a householder not be pleased to be the fis on the block to ovm a household incinerator? Why are these items either no longee on the market or not there at pees that lost households can afford? Why do we have popoorn makert and electric can openers but aot gas refrigerators or inexponatce Houschold Technology and Household Work, 1990-1940 ests a standard of "iving” rather than one of “working” might ‘emore appropriate, because women’s work i intimately bound Up with categories that are usually associated with the former ‘expression: diet, health, household equipment, amenities, etuce fon, and so forth. Following standard poslance, {might then distinguish the two great classes ofthe population a the "seh anid the “poor,” always remerabering, however that here “ich” tually cefers to people who could, i any given time or place, afford to live decently or comfortably, rather than fo those who Were truly wealthy. Simllsty, "poor" reere not only to those who are dependent, who must rely, atleast sporadically, on pub lic or private charity, hut als to those whose household income derives from employment buts not large enough ia achiewe what iscommonly regarded as the “decent” or the “comfortable” sen dard, Until recently there was 2 Faily simple way to distinguish {ntact ich families from intact poor ona: In households that were rich, wives and mothers did not have to undartske paid employ ment in oder to maintain 3 decent standard of living, these were the households, to use common parlance again, that "had it made.” and they frequently als, 25 we shal see, had a maid in contrast, in Rouschalds that were poor, adult women nd fe quently chldcen as well) either had to go out 1 work ort take piece work in; these were the households in which people coo tantly struggled to make ends meet. While it is ne doube te that every family is unique it is aeo toue that, at any given tine and ple, families living within the range of a cersin standard of ving confront similar atria ‘conditions in their homes and siriar publi atitudes about what distinguishes a “good” ar a “decent” home from one thats either. Each of us may bring a unique combination of pryehie and social factors to ous work; but, im any given time oF place, depending upon the class to which we belong, women tend to organize their kitchens in more or les the same way and to read ‘the sume magazines, newspapers ad books. If ouc work, a least part of the time is housework, then no mater how diferent we say be from each other, our work procestes wil befall sia. Hence, although i is dificult fora historian to lear much about ‘fot individual women and men felt about the vork that was (or isaMoke Worx ror Morurx a8 not) beng done tele homer, te someivhat ease toleam fo that work was being done. Between 1990 and 1949, the differences in the work processes of housework between those who were rch and those who were poor, were siking —¥0 ste ing indeed, that they remained engraved, conssioly and un- consciously, on the minds and in the behavior of later genera The “Gallon Years (1000-1920) “The matriarch n an average American family of the comfort ble clase would have boen born sometime in the 1870s, would hhave bome hor childres around the turn of the century. and ‘would have Been managing hes houeshold in the "golden years” that ended as the First World War wat drawing toa close. An Insight inte her domestic routine has been provided by the work of John B. Leeds and L. R. Dodge. Leeds was an economist whi pioneered in wht ws, in his day, calle “amily budge studies for his doctoral dicsrtation at Colombia University, he recorded, inminute deta the living conditions of sixty intact Families who were “earning enough for decency” between 1972 and 1914 ‘Doaige was. conductor on the New Haven snd Harton’ Ralroad who kept a compulsively detailed record of every penny spent in his household from 188 untl 1945 * Dodge sn le wife Maria were married in 1889, and the fst of tele theee children wa bom in 1892. They purchased 2 home (in Milf’, Magsachw- sats) in 1899, the same yea thei lait child was boon thus thelr household was active between 1912 and 2PL4, the yess in which ‘Leeds was conducting his investigation of similar families, The picture that emerges from both Leeds’s book and Dodge's ac courts is consistent withthe picture that emerges from pre-war women’s magazines, from the jurul of Home Enon (which ‘began publication in 1908), and from what one can stil observe In extant homes of the period. Hence, the specific iermation in 18 Houschotd Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 the work of Leeds and Daxge can be wed to substantiate the Iwistory of this hypothetical Family. A “comfortable” housewife might have been descibed, in hee Ay, a8 a “progressive sor oF person.” Like ab not. she lived in 2 great city oF ts environs, or perhaps in a rural torn with ‘olage or a university nearby. Her hemne was a multstrie, ‘ambling sort of house (stone if inthe city, wood, if anywhere be) with het husband, who might have been a profesional man or a business executive, » high-level clck ov a skilled staftsman, and their three children (Leeds's 60 families had an average of 234 childres each). Her family’s anna! income ranged samenhere between $3,000 and $3 500. The Dodge fam: Aly took in $1,202.77 in 1910, which is not far from the most frequent income among Leed's families ($1,300); the lowest ine ‘ome that Leeds found was $700 for farm family; the highest, 153,750 forthe Family of professional man In these “comfort able” families, the housewife didnot exinaily work for wap although If the household was particularly pressed, of she Was pertcslrly energetic, she might (ot Mrs, Dodge did) ep hens, lake in an occasional boarder, oF give lessons in piano or French or fancy needlework (only four aut of Leeds’ sixty housewives fad eamed some maney, ard not very mach at that, in the wo yours of his study)? arly in hor mariage, such « housewife probably cooked on & seal oF a wood-buming stove and lighted her house with gas or leerosene lamp. If she lived in a city, she probably bad running water in her house, but she may sil hove been heating it in 2 reservoir attached to her stove ifthe lived ina town, she might {sill be pumping water from a well n hee yard, Some time after the tura of the century, however, various improvements were ‘made to her property which both inreated its value and altered the pattem of her work. The Dodges installed 2 batheoom in tele Jhouse in 1904—an amenity that wos regard ss sufcently nor smal by 1912 that Leeds did not even trouble to ssk his sixty families whether they had one even though he earful inguin! shout everything cls. The Dodges connscted their house to the 48 mains in Milford in 1913 and purchased a range for the Kitchen atthe same time; the charge for hooking up was $9.80 and 185Mone Wore ron Morus for the ange, $11.00." Forty-two out of Leed's ssty Families sd 28 service which was used pmarly far eanges and hot wate: Boiler), snd Afty-three had electric sevice. The Dodgee vere “wit” fn 1914, ata con of $15 50 for electric Bxtures, 2.50 for a transformer, and $24.00 for a vacuum cleaner, no charge Wa recorded for installation of the service. Some form of central heating was not so likely: although Bfty-one of Leed's families hadi the Dodges did not the only concession to modernization they were willing to make wast switch from coal stove to an ‘lf stove in thelr living room in 1934, Trane, voeuum cleaner, and fans were fairly common appliances which comfortable peo: ple acquited soon ater installing electricity for lighting: washing machines and reftigezatrs had not yet made their appearance. As Leeds pt it “Inthe washing of clothing the use ofa wringer and ‘washboard was sssumed.”” ‘With or witout these conveniences and appliances, «comfort able housevaife worked hard te provide the decent standard of living that she end her Family expected: but ae did not work alone, for she belonged, ae Les expressed it tothe “ane servant lase."* Neither Leods’s respondents ner the Dodges were wealthy people, but they all employed domestic servants At the Upper end ofthe income scale, this servant might well have been 4 live-in maid; but at the nether reaches, she might have been 3 ‘lay worker who was paid to do the laundry of the heavy leas ing, or to bolp with seasonably heavy chores, such 35 spring leaning. The Dodges, who were by no means extravagant, lid ‘out between thirty anc forty della a year to have their washing ‘done —an expenditure that did not stop until 1934, when they ‘ally bought 2 washing machine. Only one of Leeds's house ‘wives reported doing all f her own wash, and none did all of her ‘own hea cleaning” “The kind of working lationship that existed between such comfortable housewife and her paid helpers (who were mere than likely to be housewives in their ow tight, alt households of a much diferent sort can be discemed im a mar- oipipein eS taeeeoeaniemmne annie 156 Household Technology and Household Work, 1990-1940 ‘elously detailed time sheet that was published in 1918 inthe oon of Hone Eznomis.* Marion Woodbury, who carefully te ‘corded her own daly routine, was the wife of a university pro fessor and the mother, a the time of plication, of thee small ‘hilden, one sill an infant, She described herself as ¢ peso ‘who “did her awn work'—2 phrase that wae in those days, a euphemism for “not having tive in mad.” She did, indeed, Ao a Tot of work (estimating ten-hour days, Ave days a week, amd five-hour days on Wednesday and Sunday), but she dil not so oll the work that upkeep of her household required. On ‘Mondays, she stripped all the beds, bathrooms, ant tables in the house and put all the linens and the rest ofthe week's wash, {nto soak for the laundress who came on Tuesday (to wash and sean) and for half of Wednesday (to iro). Ms, Woodbury herself then put the cla clothing and linene away on Thurs- day, ke midmoming of most days, she spent an heur or 3 cook ing. preparing lanch, and geting most things in ores for in- ‘er; but after those meals (which she ate with her chien), 9 student came into clear up the kitchen: this same student cared for the children when their mother was not at home (as she had social obligations connected to her husbund's postion at the university) and did most of the dusting and sweeping (although the housewife put the rooms in ender before the student started) and the Noor polishing: additional heavy cleaning fpr ticulasly of the bathrooms) was done by the lsundress. Al ‘hough Mrs. Woodbury purchased most ofthe clothing for her family, she sil had a good dea! of sewing, which occupied her sn the evenings and on Tuesday afternoons, since garments fe- {quently required alteration and reps She also ordered many of hner yroeries over the telephone and vent te market only once every two weeks, on Friday aftemoons; thas, although thee labor is not recorded on her scedile, het houtshold! took up a good part of the time of deiverymen as wel, The ubiquity ofthis kind of work proces was amply testified to in other contemporary documents, Leeds described the lan echt slog ow ny le 157Mone Wore rox Mornes ering practices of lis ssty families as follow "Five Families send all clothing to a laundry to be washed, while nine send none. One-half of the families employ 2 lnundress: sixteen families employ her for one day a week, eight for halé a day, and several have dlothing taken 20 the home of the laur- dress" Christine Frederick, 3 housewife who wed her own household experience 3 the base For several popular books 0 housekeeping, concludes her report of how she organized some aspects of her work: "The washing and ironing are done by 3 ‘woman who comes in on two consecutive mornings ofthe sn week, a5 this plan allows for emergencies of rainy days, et. and ives her time €9 clean my kitchen and bathroom—the hessy work" Another author-housewife, Rebecca Gradwohl, de- ssribed how she had managed her household (containing two sthool-aged children) without 2 maid, "The remainder of the housework was done by specialists. The washing was sent out to the laundry. Once a week a Japanese boy vacuumed and pol- [shed the floors, scrubbed the kitchen and thoroughly cleaned the bath." Advertisers in women’s magazines and the etre of those magazines knew precisely what Heir sudience was like fad hove their homes were run, In the Lats’ Howe fara! for 1 January 1918, "The Hovseholders Dream of a Happy New “Year” wat a cartoon with the caption: "Mandy offers to stay fr 1ife ad take less wages." Throughout the monthly issues that year (and in all the preceding years since the firma’ Founding [mn 1883), domestic servants were repeatedly depicted: if you ‘wanted to sel Hannel baby clothes, you dreve a baby held by + ‘ursemaid, if you wanted to ell fabric, you drew a seamless pinning up hems; shampoo, a maid wathing her mistress’ hai, talcum powder, "Nusse powders baby”, warhing soap, a laun- dress hanging up clothes, Yet even the presence of domestic servants did ot make:2 comfortably sitvated housewife into lady of leisure. At the technological level that most of these Families had achieved, the upkeep of decent home sil required the labor of atleast two adults, and the housewife herself was certsinly one of them “progressive” women were women who had “other interests” but 158 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1950 sll devoted most oftheir the and energy to the care of thelr homes and families, The housewives in Led's study spent an average of fifty-six hours pee week doing housework: Marion Woodbury clocked herelf at sixty hours Thei work ltemated| between what we might call manasl labor (cooking, baking, straightening rooms, sewing) and managerial labor (ordering foodstuls, supervising household assstats, teaching children, Uoing the household accounts), and they did as litle 36 they possibly could of the heavy labor that ws considered demeaning {or women of ther station (scrubbing Boor, hauling laundry, Deating rags, washing windows, ironing). Depending upon the 230s ofthe childven and the avence of the household. a house \wife oF the comfortable classes was let atleast some free tine fr other activites, She might serve on church commitaes, 3e8 money for charitable endeavors, ke the accounts of her hus- band’s business, da some of his clerical work, or enteriain at luncheons and dinner partis. Both her howsehold work and her outside activities enabled her family to maintain it comfortable standard of living Her Inomse was capacious, ordery, and clean. All the members ofthe Dousehald wore doting that fied propery, and they changed ‘t with some frequency. Meals were served st eet times, on lean plates; and the diet was varied enough to keep overvone reasonably healthy. Children of this class had soqulzed the rudiments of education even before they entered school, and their progsess in school was carefully monitored. Thee mathers Inad other interests and eneugh time to indulge them (especially ater the children had passed infancy) but these inteests were fof such a nature that when some member of the household was the wife and mother could easly drop her ether responsibil tiesto undertake the nursing that was rized, and in thoes years it coald well have been required for weeks on end. When, funds were short, this comfortably situated housewife had vai- ‘ous means to augment the family purse, but her activities did not threaten either the family’s ealth aris level of comfort ‘She was, as she mighé have said atthe time, aot only “decent but also the mainstay of “decency” in her community, even 159Mons Worx rox Moraor ‘hough she might have had dfGculty in defining precisely what “decency” was. ‘Yet such a comfortable housewife was by no means the avenge American houzewife of hor time, However modett her anna bhowsehold income may have been, she stl belonged to an dite and nothing ly dlaser to the heat of her dite status than her Ubiity to live comfortably. Historians and demographers have ‘trapgled mightily with the problem of asessing just which por tion oF the population could achieve this particular standard of living in the early decades ofthe century’ (when there was 20 income tx statement to give the government even a rough ap- proximation of the distibution of incomes across the land), but tven the most sangtine guests do not approach 50 percent of the population.” In the golden years before the Fust World War (aod, indeed, for many years thereafter), the “other half” was considerably more than half of the population. Social workers snd sociologists oF the day alo struggled mightily to define what “minimum decency” meant as standard of living and to coin # term that would adequately describe the portion of the populy tion who were ford to liv at or below tha standard. Ye those who lived in poverty sursly had no dificaly i lenowing pe: ‘sey What the living conditions were that separated them fr the confortable clases, and surely would have ad ide cif culty in explaining, what st meant to be “uncomfortable, lwhether or ot common wsage would have applied that term {heir station, “The matriarch of a hypothetical hard-pressed family might havelived ina teementin a lage urban are, adilapidated fame hose ina smal city, a row howsein acompany town, acollapsing famouse on a small plot of land, er even log cabin inthe woods. She shared thir dweling with her husband (Ie had either died nor deserted), afiny Large nueber of cilren, and probably several other people, some related to her, some net Peshaps an in-law, or 2 coin who was lodging with her until Findinga job and a spouse; or boarders whose reat helped to make 109 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1949 ‘end meet, or an orphaned nice or rephew Her husband might Ihave been a tenant farmer or day labors er an unakiled Factory hand oF even 2 skilled factory hand in many of the highly com= peltve industries ofthe day; bu his income yas not sofcent to provide his Family consistently with even the bare necessities of lfe a5 his fand might be nfrtil, or he might be eubjoet to Deviodie unemployment or disablement or might simply have been woufully underpaid. Unlike her comfortable contemporar~ Jes, such a housewife regulaly needed a supplemental sures of income, Whether it was had labor inthe Geld, lace, aut- ‘ky oF boarders at home, domestic service or drudgery in the factories, the money that she was able to provide was frequently ‘ential forthe survival of the Fay “A-heusewife who wos struggling to make ends meet was not likely to be filing omt questionnaires or keeping records oF het daily schedule, and her fe certainly was not depited in the ‘widely dreulated magazines and newspapers of her day, Foc ately forthe historian, ducing the early years ofthe twentieth feniury, sever] new professions developed whose practitioners {social workers, home economists, public health oficers) have left tevtensive and eympathetic accounts oF what life was lke sn the households oF the poor, especally the urban poor. What the tecial workers diecovered iin reasonably cloe acord with What thote Few tesidents who let memois (ete? in fetion 9° In nonfiction) have suid, and with what contemporary photographs reveal, When the distorting le of nostalgia i removed, the reality isnot pleasant to contemplate “The entire family, pls its lodgers and boarder, sided in one pethaps two. ori very fortunate circumstances four rooms, ‘ach of which had to serve multiple functions: some people had to-cook while other slept some had to work while othess played; seme had to bathe while others ate—all within the same four ‘wale, Densities as high a two. three povple to room were not infrequently recorded in such cites as New York, Chicago, and ‘itsburgh, or among tenant farmers (back ax well a white) in| the South. “A home I know well i a fair sample” wrote one socal worker about a parucalaly prosperous family (he father somed twelve dollars 3 woes, two children worked replay | 161Mone Worx rox Morne factories, na the mother made artical Bower at horns), “3 fous oom ft rent nineteen dollars, nin in family, plus aboardet tehelp pay the rent" Under such cicumstances, theee waste privacy. Each child shared bed with to or three siblings, adults Slept inthe same zoom with children, bourdrs inthe same room 15 members ofthe family. Domestic quarrels and domestic cle- batons fequenty spied over int the stots and pubs. Chil. dren who needed a quit place to study, or young people who ‘were courting, or adults who needed some pave to organize their thoughts either did without of went somewhere alse. Storage facilis in such homes were 2t a minimum. Kitchen cabinets simply didnot exist (they were only just beginning to spear in many prosperous homes), and either di closets. What storage there was might have consisted ofa few shelves, some pegs, a box under the bed, perbaps a chest of drawers, perbaps sn old trunk, Lacking storage, everything that was needed for lisng and for working wae tin the open nearly all se time fhe pots and pans jovled with the sewing machine, the dothing Jostled with the broom, the table was early cleared (where else ‘would the tensile be put), the toys (sch a they were) mingled With the shoes (uch as they were), and together they occupied What ttle floorspace was left when the requisite furniture for ‘auch a family eas crowded into the aml zooms i which they lived. Beds bocame chairs, and sometimes doors became beds; one table might be used for preparing food, for eating it, for stitching ‘garments, or glug avtiflal fowersor butchering a chicken. The towel with which people wiped thelr hands might ope 3 baby's Iholtom or the floor of the table or the pots, Under such circumstances, cleaning up was surely a herclean endeavor, and straightening up (which always preceded cleaning {oa comfortable household) was vitually impossible. Running hot and cold water, toilets, bathtubs, and cis wore converi- ences that had not yer diffused to shacks in the counteyside oF to {outth-floor walkupe in the cites, Only fifteen out of the ninety families that Margaret Byington tdi near Pittsburgh had in: oor oes, and only 20 percent ofthe Four hundred fails that Robert Coit Chapin studies in New York had bathrooms. Poot people erred into their dwelings the water that they needed for 182 Household Technology and Houschold Werk, 1900-1940 cooking and elesning, and they heated it by the potful on their Hove. Living a they did inthe ities dieres, anu laboring os ‘ay did inthe cecupations mort likely to produce dirt an grime their homes, even under the best oF ciecumstancc, frequently required cleaning, Some women, determined to keep thei homes 2 orderly and hoalthul as they could make them, exhausted themselves at the task; while large numbers of others—perhaps less optimintc perhaps less brave, perhaps more realistic) {ave up and rarely attempted it Under toch cicomstances, 2 housewife had to struggle not ‘only against the horrendous condition of her housing but also sgsinst the exigencies of the weather. The comforts of cental Treating were comforts that she could not hope to enjoy; most ‘omen stil heated the rooms where they Hive with the ete on ‘which they cooked, and most of those stoves (in sural areas there ‘yas sll an occasional open hearth) required coat o wood for fuel, During warm weather, the cooking aea was uncomfortably hot since the fire had to be kept burning for much oF the day 10 00k food and hest water, nd in cold weather, some part of the dwelling (ften 2 substantial part) was miserably cod Summer might ind this housewife faint fom the heaton Laundry day, and winter might Sind her with fingers that could barely mave from the cold trying to mend a tear ina child's glove. I she ive in 4 city ora town, she and ber children also ha to cope with the jb of obtaining the Fuel thatthe stove required since coal and ‘wood did not come delivered to the poor woman's door, and ether ethnic tradition or the long hours of her husbands labor teant that he, unlike his more prosperous contemporaries, rarely supervised Fuel-related chores himself: Ate day's work inthe factory or the home, you wl ind 3 ak inthe wooo ce those mies From wher she Uiee—the dark syed Foviger, gathering huge fgets of Gacwoed and, bet under ots weight and but, adgng Nome by unlequenied pate SenctinesFurtvely helping nature ite with sal se" ‘Where wood v0 not available, women and children cared heavy buckets oF eoa) From carbide vendors up long fights of sais of spent Jong, cold hours sentching for “black pold” that 163Mons Wore rox Mornin had spilled from ration cars or overfill delivery vans, Mothere who were extraordinarily well organized and extraocinarly well sttuated may have been able to manage thei stoves and thei Fas. effectively, but everyone lee sufered the burdensome extremes ‘of too much eat i the summer and 00 lie in the winter, With the lack of time, energy, equipment, and cash, cooking «ould not have been 2 particulary elaborate undertaking in the Inouseholis of the poor. Home economists did ot think to tee ble housewives of this group with tme-stady questionnaires, and, not urpesingly, se have no record oF a hard-pressed howse= wife who recorded hor daly activities quite as self-constously a Marion Woodbury or Christine Frederick did. Hence, i is dit cl to kaow with certainty how much time was alloted to food ralatd tacks In poor households. Yet we do have dietary infae. ration about what war served fn certain weeks in such howscholds, budgetary information about what was purchased, anecdotal information about what was offered For sle, soci ‘workers’ reports about the nutritional adequacy of what ws ten, and public health ofces’ concerns about the ways in Which the food was prepared—ll of which produce a pleture diferent from the one conjured up by writers of television aver: ting copy for bread and bottled spaghet sauce ‘Their nostalgic re-ceations of fagzant smalls emanating frost Iuitchens, of mothers whe baked special bres and sugar-conted cookies of large failes gathered at lage tables for manyocourse meals must sorely stem from recollections of special occasions {uch as Chistmas oF Sabbath), whove specalness ws signal by the devotion of #9 mach Ibor to them. Under ordinary cond tions, however, ooking veeme not to have occupied enormous amounts of time, shill, or energy in the households of people who hha te struggin just to snake ends meet. The poorest of those new frequent hunger; and even te move prosperous knew + markedly monotonous diet, much of it (atleast i the iis) purchased ready-made. Bread came from the baker; sausages falamis,slted fish, cheese, beer, and canned goods, from ven dors; and macaroni from the family down the block. What cook Ing theze was, on the farms ab well a5 fa the cites, was largely 164 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 5 it had been in the eighteenth centary—one-pot cooking sSthergruls, soups, or sews whieh could be boiled ontop of the ave; or bacon eh, of occasionally, chops, which could be fried “The principal ancl of Food in the account books,” reported ‘ne socal worker who had asked cloge tote hundred felis living in New York City to keep tack ofthat expenditure for ‘sont ‘ce meat, ik (Fresh an condensed) kes edhe, place Sd ten potatoes are ted fely fen 3 guar fri age Tales. The vegetables ae mol Canned como fomeloes, runes, carrots ae eau. Macaroni, beans red, vegetables am soup at the mi food ofthe Hallas, The poorer ais Hive esd Soup or stew, and oatmeal “Tho poor in the counteyside did not Fare markedly better, despite thee proimity to fresh Frais and vegetables, la the howeholde of thase who were comfortable, people had the tie and the facilites to maintain a kitchen garden and an orchard and to pt Up thee products. The poor, however, were likely to be haed st ‘work on someone else's land during the times of year when these foske had to be undertaken, and hence made do with cornmes ‘mush, bacon, and whatever ame, fs, or wild rus and vegeta bles they chanced upon. Jn the neighborhoods in which such dies were commonplace, svidence of malnutrition was everywhere tobe found fom chil ren bent with rickets to adults lacking teeth For babies, the diet af the poor was particularly threstening, since anything at they Inmbibed (other than mother’s milk) was likely to be either con taminated or difficult to digest, and since a mother who ws herself exhausted and malnouriehed was enlely to have mile sufficient to feed a child, even if she were physically prevent to ‘purse ones many mothers could nat be Fr this reason (as well, 2ssother) infant mortality was harfying high among the poor scaveey 2 eh grew to adulthood without etnessng the death oF little brother ar slstes, In such an environment, bathing and loundesing must have boon terble wale. ta svarm weather the wach could be carried 165Mon» Wore rox Morwes lose to the water tap or the well, and if a portable stove were ilabie (or an open fire could be made), the washing could be done without much hauling of heavy buckets, but the weather was not always warm, and the Facilites were nat awaye availa. bie, For most wamen, for most ofthe yeas, the labor of doing laundry meant corying heavy buckets of water from tap te stove and from stove t0 tub, repeatedly overturing the tubs snd refilling them, as well 25 careving, scrubbing, wringing, and hanging. the heavy fabrics that were the only ones cheap enough For poor people to buy. The labor of getting the family bathed was similar, acking oly the carrying, scrubbing, wring. ing, and hanging ofthe wath. A housewife wh had to strug to-make ends meet usually could afford neither to send he ashing out (asiaming that there was a commercial Isundry close enough to patronize) nor to hire laundress (although when times wors good, this might Rave been one of the fie Iunuries she allowed here, a5 Margaret Byington discovered in certain households in Pittsburgh) ® Even if» delling con tained sink, t was usully not deep enough For doing laundry and may not have had a dain, Public lnundsies were few and far between; and 20, for that matter, vere public bth houses, although in some cites special elfrts were made by city gow ‘emments and charitable organizations to provide then. The most fortunate families might have had » hand-cranked wath Jing machine witha wringes, which had the advantage of being portable and labor saving but as these cost Atoen dollare apiece, one was beyond the means of nos fanlies, The et result of the profound dificlty that washing and bathing pre sented was that precious litle of & got done; undercothing right be changed only onee a week, or even once 3 seston, seats likewise i they wore used at all stace Featherbeds dd not require them); euteclothes might do with just 3 brushing “hiss or shirtsaste might go for weeks without bene of £039 faces and hands might get splashed with water once a day; fal body bathing might occur only on Saturday nights (and thes ‘with sponge and a wooden tub and water that was used an reused) or only when underwear was changed-—or never a ll "Some woven have afeling that deanliness 3 condition only 168 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 for the rich," one home economist remarked of the immigrant ‘omen with whom ehe worked an if one i oor it fellows at a mater of course that one i ity. ‘Because the tamigrant standard inthis mater alow, ese ‘lealines harder teach than anytng els ta ede molto case sense the Educator hast spree upon the women the fa that the American ciate demands more sienton fo Stale ole han Inthe od country >| ‘Whether in usban fenement or rural shack, the net result of the Inability (surely aot unwillingness, a thie Home economist inn pled) to launder and bathe Frequently mast have bea unpleas ‘nt smells and unpleasant itches. The smells may not have both tre those who were accustomed to thet (although it is ifical {olimagine that che itches were not felt), but they certainly both ‘red those who were not, as John Leeds himelé remarked Many people do not slficetly reise the extnt fo whi the in ‘seat in Cleanliness of home and person conrbutes foward the growth of democracy. Se lng as tho upp clas fl the necessity fing smeling sls whenever apposed by ane ofthe commen role, just slong would they deri the le smling yoke ‘leuiest 1 not only pox te Gadinen, bat it esl othe ‘stalislnent ofthe Brotheshoal of Man ?* Leaving the brotherhood of man aside, clsaliness was essential 10 getting 2 good job, since the members of the comfortable dais, to whom Leeds referred, Frequently encountered the ‘embers of the poorer classes only when they Were secking ‘employees—whether as domestic servants, clerks, typists shop ails, or waitresses. Manuals for domestic servants sind instrac_ thon booklets for shopgirls in department etoes, masarines for ‘oysand pamphlets distributed to imvulgrasit at Elis tland, all xives, neatly manicured and elegantly coiface, but housewives nonetheless. In those same years, the langusge used im the nonfiction material in women's magazines seo underwent 3 sub le change, coming to imply that housework was to be thought ‘of no longer sa chore but, rather, an expresion of the house ‘wife's personality and her affection for her family, Laundering, had once been just a task to be finished a6 quickly as possible row it was an expression of love. The new bride could speak her alfecton by washing tatle-tale pray out of her husband's shits. Feeding the family had once beea just part of 3 days work; now it was a way to communieste deep-seated emotions ‘When the careful homckeeper tus fom the preparation of com ay dinne othe routine offre, she wl a that poe ‘boas ike peach creat ia ensayo hat 58 not sbesatly neeaary Fr every dy [lle mine] Diapering was now atime for building a baby's sense of security, 2nd cleaning the bathzoom sink became an execs forthe mater. al instints, protecting the family from disease ‘Geary, tasks of such emotional magnitude could not be ree wrMone Wonk son Moraen sated to servant, The servants household muy have ben an ‘economic necessity for some people inthe 1920s and the 1980 Dut, forthe fist me, that necesity Was widely regarded, a ear in the public press, ae a potential virtue. And whether or ot she regarded it 8a virtue the average comfortable housewife ofthis generation ieamed to organize the workin her househald without the asistance of servants or asith far fewer hours of assistance than her mother had had. Where servant had been replaced by 2 vacuum cleaner the coinfotable housewife wae spending more tame ehan hee mother had epent getting the Hors and the russ into shape; where a laundtess had been replaced by 3 washing ‘machine or adeliveryman by the hourehld automobile, 3 house Wife was spending time and energy on chores that, in bet mother’s day, had been performed by other people. No matter how a household chose to slice the cake of available resources ‘he interwar years, every decision to "doit myelf” was decision to inereas th tine that the housewife would spend at her work In households that were prosperous, the labor saved by labor saving devices was that not oF the housevefe but of her helpers ‘Thi isthe most lint seston that every time-study of affluent housewives during these years (and many sch studies wete one, a5 these sere the years in which home economist, ike many other Americans, vere fascinated by "afcency studies”) revealed that no matter how many appliances they ovned, ot bhow many convenience were at thelr command, they were ti spending roughly the some number of ours per week: at Fousework as thelr mothers had.” The most comprehencive of those studies, covering fifteen hundred urban and. rurat households in the yeats 1924-25 and 1930-21, found a range of hours spent ic housework fom high of sixty-one fo rural fem homemakers) oa low of forty-ight (or college-educated ure ‘women living in large cities)—fguree that were not markedly sliferent from those reported by Leads and Woodbury twenty ‘yeas elon” This second-generation prosperous housewife had also ox panded certain aspects of her job description, which could not be mediated by technology 2 all-namely, those arpects having te cdo with the care of her children. Infant care was much move me Houschold Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 that Team keepin touch with th grnes andthe fier Any ext ae {oer reading books an otetion sid eharater baling, 1 put on eller sates withthe hoys and pots a Gotball with dem Inde evenings we pay card anon Sutye we o bal gies My mother bad Bast think #' scandalous ports repeatedly suggested that a mothor was the single most Snportant person in 2 child's fife, and thatthe child raised by fusemaids was « child to be pitied. The young boy raised by Servants would never leam the upright, go-gettng resourceful ness oF the truly American chi, would never become use member of the egalitarian republic, and would probably fall the business world; his sister, deprived of the example of her tmother, would not know how to manage the myriad appliances of the modern kitchen, would never learn hove to decorate 3 ii nie rare Ba 179Mone Wore rox Mornse Pineapple salad or wash ville underwear in an eleceie machine, and might thus never be able o capture a hushand. Even mae ‘wortsome was the thought that shilden raised by nurses might never reach adulthood because they would be tended by petions who were unfamiliar with the latest medical and nut tional information. Mothers were being asked to take mos of hand in the rearing of thes children, and many mothem were responding tothe challenge" Thus, the comfortably situated housewife of the interwar years ‘expensed most of her tine and energy, just as her mother had in the interests of her family, Even dung the worst years of the Depression, she continued to rn her household "decently" her husband was sil employed, the Family was not on rele: they stil owned ther on home, and they ail kept it up; the interior was ordely, the meslyanived eegularly, che children stayed in School, the family went to church, their health-—whatever sea they wore under~remained reasonably stable Bu something subtle had changed, Emily Post summed it up beter than anyone else when she added 3 new chapter othe fit esition (1997) of the famous etiquette hock that had fist ap peared in 1915, This chapter dealt with the problems faced by "Mrs. Thece-in-One—the woman isho fad te be guest 3 tess, and cook at her oven dinner parties Like her mother she wuoderstood the rituals of geicious entertaining, Knew how {0 make guests comfortable in her home, knew precisely which foods should be served on which occasions, knew how to reflec the status of her household in her oven behavior, But unlike her mother, either because oF inclination of circumstance, she vat also a manual Isbores: she had to chop the onions, ol the pas: tees, manipulate the cooking times, arange the plates, cary them to the tab, carve the roast, remove the dct plates, pout the coffee—al the while appearing aif she were sot doing 2 ofthese tasks, As par of the process ofrealocating the time she spent in household work, she had ceased managing the labor of others and had substituted her own, This transformation, which might properly be called the “proletartanization” ofthe work of economically comfortable housewives, did not occur overisht 1s fullest effects would not be Felt until the next generation had Household Technology and Household Work, 1990-1940 ached matusiy, but the handwriting was om the wall la an ‘effort to sastzn the standard of ving to which en earlier gone tion had been accustomed, the properoushowsewife of this yon sation started down the path of "doing it hersel” the implica ‘ons of which would not become entiey lear until her daughter had completed the journey Meanwhile, during these decades, many Americans-in fat, Bil the majority of Americans—were strugaling. a their parents had, o maintain their families a something over the eve of mece subsistence. The fabled “prosperity” of the 1920s was more p= patent than real, more intermittent than continuous, forthe Fam Hes of industrial workers, small faamers, day laborers, and skilled craftsmen. Industrial productivity-—particulaly of consumer gpods~evultiplied during the 1920s and then multiplied sea ‘Automobiles were appeuring in ever more front yards, radios Droiferated, the number of pager devoted to advertisements in nevsspapers and magazines treble and then quadrapled. tn coin iunities across the land, however, more than half of the households were stil iving below-—and, in some cass, fr belove ‘=ivhat wae then defied os the ennimiuay standard OF "health and decency.” Helen and Robert Lynd calculated, for example, ‘that in Muncie in 1924, $1,920.87 was required to achiewe this ondord for a family of five (he eetimateinchuded the cost of rent, food, fel, clothing, insurance, union dus, and eter such ‘Gems as wel, significantly enough, as one full day per werk of paid howichold help) and that someyhere betveen 70 percent snd 88 percent ofall the households in town in that yesr did not ‘atiain it Similarly, in 1926, in Zanesville, Ohio, 70 percent oF ll families had incomes bolow $2,000 ° Wages for skilled and ‘nshiled svorkers and prices for agricultural gods were indocd batter in the 1920s than they had been in any previous decades ‘bt the problem, for the families of me x0 exmployed, wes thet sped wages and prices could not be depended upon to be contin ‘ous factory workers were Hkely to be laid off at «day's notice when business was slow; farmers had good sensons but also bad aMore Work rox Morar ones; day laborers were paid only during certain seazons of the year illness and accident could strike at any moment and in the absence of guaranteed sick leaves and adequate workmen's con pensation, could ciple a amy for eubstantal periods, A ri tionveide study conducted by economists atthe Brockinge Inet tution in 1929—-when the boom had presumably been booming fer close to a deeade—revesled that 59 percent of the nation’s alles appeared tobe living below a minimally cecet standard; needless to sty, that gure went up, rather than dover doring the ext decade | There wero to putt simply till more “uncomfortable” people than “comfortable” ones during the supporedly gay 1920, and ‘here were considerably more duviag the depressing 19203, Dur Ing the 1920s, sheer subsistence may not have been as mich of 2 problem asi had been for an earier generation, but fales still found that, periodically, they needed two incomes in order to get by Fifty-Rive out of 124 “working clase” wives studied by the Lypds in Muncie had worked for wages between 1920 and 43924; “the mister was sick and Thad 10"; “it takes the work of too to keep a Family nowadays"; “we ae always needing ext money." ‘Admittedly, some of that extia money was being spent on goods and services that would have been toually out of readh teventy years eave. The hard-presied hourewite of the 1920+ ‘was not investing in hoxures (although some contemporary cxit- Jes accused her of doing 50); bat when times tere good, she and hr husband wore trying to create fr themselves the standard of living to which more protperous familis had Become accustomed before the Fist Weld War. With the help of building-and- toa associations, these families were buying thelr oven Rowse in Zanesville, for example, where 70 percent of the households farmed Tes than two thousand dolla, 78.9 percent of them wee lowers rather than tenters of ther dwellings." The houses jx which the second generation of hard-presied housewives lve were neither spacious nor elegant ( typical one would have been 8 four-room, one-story bungalow, but they were likely to be Wired for electricity (737 percent of the houses in Zanesville), outétted with running water (9 percent), perhaps 2 bathroom m2 4 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 ‘with indoor tollet and a tub (60 percent, piped gas (96 percent), ‘gas range (886 poreent, and telephone (69 percent), and if things had gone particularly well for tse Family, of there at ‘more than one continuoas breadwinner theze might even be 3 cat [48 percent of the families im Zanesville had one at» tie when nly 30 percent of the families were living, above the poverty level Those socal cities who dispaages these expenditures {because “money was being wasted on luxuries,” or because “the Fressure to conform and #9 consume is everywhere more in- ene,” or because “people are today so willing to put themselves Jno debt to satisfy expanded wants") were uniformly members ‘ofthe more comfortable cases, From the point of view of those ‘iho had known the discomforts of poverty in their youth, these amenities were not so much amenities as basic decencies too long, ‘vthheld, To own one’s own home meant to be out fromm under ‘the thumb of a landlord who could evita family ot 2 moments notice to have electric lights meant an end to eyestrain, kerovene ‘explosions andthe need to clean lamps: to have running water, snend to exhausting labor; tohavea tilt, an end tthe dscom= fort of a privy on a snowy’ night and to typhoid fever in the Summer; fe havea telephone, the possibility of exey communica tion with members of one's family; to have a gas range, the end to coal dust all over the kitchen, to have an automobile, the possibilty of a Sunday inthe country (that loxry?} and slo, ‘OF fnding a job on the other cde of town fa cate the plant close to home shut down (is tht luxury?) In tho period after the Fist World War, the dilfuslon of these amenities, combined with public health measures that were becoming more prevalent (purification and inspection of sil, ‘wate treatment plans, sewers for poor neighborhood, diphthe- ‘a innoculations regular refuse collection, fortifeation of certsin foods with vitamins, certfation of meat and poultry supplies) scant that the standard of ving For this genertion ws consid- ‘erably higher (or rather the standard of death and illness consi ‘bly lower) than it had been For their parents Nation, ‘the infant monality rate continaed to Fallin part, atleast be ‘use milk and water ceased to be contaminated; ad physicians Jeamed how to contol diahea, taberelosis, congenital syphilis, 183Moxe Wore rox Morwes and diphtheria which hada been major killers of infants), Somme ‘oF the dreadful epidemic diseases that had ether illed or deb tated adult and older children inn ear generation (cholera, typhoid fever, smallpox) were vitally eradicated by the 19205, and other diseases (such a8 tuberuloss, sickets syphilis, and dysentery) were vastly diminished in their destracive power in ‘Chicago the death rate from typhoid fever had gone as high a5 174 per 100,000 population in He latter years oF the nineteenth century, but was dovin to 2 per 100,000 the 1920s; tuberculosis, which Rad been the second most prevalent cause oF death in the United States in 1900, had declined to tenth by 1989, and the dleth rte from saberclosis dropped by an increible one third (rors 15040 98) justin the Four years between 1918 and 1922; Salversan was being widely used 19 contro syphilis, and cod liver oil (however awful it may have tasted) and fetid flour and margarine (whatever natural food buffs today may think them) ‘were just as widely used lo control rickets, All ofthis, needless torsay, went along way tovard easing «poor hovsewife'sconcere bout the health of her fomily and tosard relieving her, 3s her other could not have been relieved, of the dificult work of ‘ating for those eho were i. “The trouble was that neler the amenities nor the public health measures did much to lighten the burden of hee ther ‘hoes, While the hard-pressed housewife may have entered the toventeth century in terms of electricity, running water, and pa teurized mil, she had not entered its terms of birth conten 1924, for ample, the Lynds found that in Muncie all of the husiness-las housewives approved of the use of contraceptives, bot that only half ofthe working-class housewives did, Thus, not surprisingly, only one businest-class home among, those the Lynde studied had sx or more children, but there rere sever sch working-class homes Inthe 19205, althougs the bet ate vas dropping nationvede, the poor continued to have markedly ‘ore hire than the “comfortable” In the 1980s, athough the bith rate in urban areas dropped off markedly forall classes of ‘the population that n pal srear—where many each howscwives lived--veas as igh as it had ever been Nothing i, of couse, better calculated to increase the burden of housework than the 188 Houschold Technology and Household Work, 1990-1940 presence ofchiren, cpcilly small ones, When these are eight frnine mouths to fed (or evan five o six, cooking is» difiult ‘enterprise, even if ican be done ata gas range; andthe deudgery of laundsy (especialy if there are diapers) snot sreatly eased by having the hot water come out of # tap instead of a pot. The sSectric appliances that would have made some aspects of housework markedly easier simply remained foo expensive for those who were stil stragsling to make ends meet, Even whe ‘act service was available, an electric washing machine cost between sity and two hunceed dollate (a month's tage For a ‘warkingman), and only the more expensive modele would have been wuly labor saving, since the les expensive ones had small tus, which had to be emptied and fled! manually, ad hasnl- ‘eanked wingers. Small wonder, then, that in 1926 only 28 pr. ‘sent ofthe homes in Zanesville had electri washers, and thatthe ‘ast majority of them were in affiaent homes. What wos tru for ‘the wacher was true also Fr the vacuum cleaner (only $2.5 pe ‘cant of homes, of whom slightly mare than half were afent Jhomes) and mechanical refrigeration (4 percent) © In any event, in both the 1920s and the 1980, a eubstantiad ‘rumber of poor housewives were ether rural or black or both and thus lacked acess to amenities, public health messures, and ap pliances, Among the lenant farmers that Martha Hagocd studied in 1984 in Tennesse, only eight out of to hundred households ‘ould afford electric service (although the area in which they lived was considered progressive in rural electifeation), and not tsingle one had running water—at a time when 83 percent ofa urban and rral non-farm residences were lected. In "Plain ‘ile a rural town studied by James West in 1840, only three homes had bathrooms, and they belonged, respectively, 40 the funeral director, the veterinarian, and the mayor The Farm Howsing Survey, undertaken by the United Sites Department of ‘Agriculture in 2934, revealed th, for example, only 20 percent of the farmhouses In Missouri had 9 Mitchen siak with ¢ drain, ‘har only 7 percent of thoae in Kentucky had a bathroom, tat nly 25 percent of thos inthe state of Washington which was {onsidered a particularly prosperous agricultural state) had Bush toilets, and that only 17 percent af those in Ohio (which was also 185Most Worx rox Mormex fatty prosperous) had electricity On forms across the land, the bitrate was sill high, the average length of Lie fil low, the “old-fashioned” diseases sill appallingly prevalent, and varions discomforts, both of body and of mind, were part and parcel oF dally experience Even the hard-pressed howsewife who had access to amenitics, and had invested in appliances, could not be certain that they would be there when mest needed, The washing machine, the ar, and the living-zoom Furniture were all likely to have been bought on installment plans, the house caved a mortgage, ond the utility companies presented thle bills monthly Thus, Bad times, when her husband ws out of work or disabled, and she ‘sas forced into the labor market—precaely the time when she early needed her washing machine to do the laundry or her car to reduce her trips to market—the family was more than likely to have fallen behind nits payments and, asa result, the electric. ‘ay might be tured off or the car repossessed, The Lynde de: scribed the technologial condition of working-class homes, under the best of conditions, a8 3 "ery qui” ‘A singe home may be operated inthe ‘ment cntury when i ome o ownership ofa atemotte snd act cleser, whl he Tack ofa tat may trove ack nt anther er and slack a sever connection and castom of poping rining wer rma wl Inthe sme backyard oh the fly "peng put on par eth Me a the Midas Ages ‘The quilt must have been even crazier whe conditions were not the bes. No small par oF the horror of the Depression was the realty of eviction and repossession, when the amenities tha! working people had stragled hard to provide fr thel fies were sucldeny taken away fom them, and when a housewife had to go back to coping withthe same material conditions that had undermined her mother: hungry children, crowded rooms, ut sanitary dwellings, excessive cold, and a despondent husband ‘To make matters even worse, the hard preeed housewife of this generation had begun to read—as her mother probably had not—many of the magazines that were addressed to her more affluent contemporaries; and the daughters af oth classes were 188 Household Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940 taking the same home economies courvss in school “Through ‘hese various sources of information, such a housewife learned shout ways to feud her family, furnish er home, do he laundey, sad otherwise conduct her daly life-ways that wete approved of by “expens” and that wand have boen totally foeig t her ‘mother nutritionally balanced meals, carefully structure faaly budgets, four-hour intervals between infant feedings, cabonete and extensive work surfaces in kitchens, completely ed bathe rooms, pertale sheets, and many, many more. Unfortunately ‘many of these products were very expensive; and if the price was not beyond the hard-pressed housewife's means ats particular ‘moment, it may well havo been beyond her ability to plan for How do you make out a budget when you cannot predict wht ‘our income will be nest month? How do you feed a infant on «four-hour schedule when you have a toddler who eats ll the time, a husband who gets his breakfast a ix in the morning anc eturns home hungry ot seven a night, and a school child whe fats at seven, at noon, and a ive o'clock? \Winabilty to rereange her if in the “recommended” fashion were not enough to make the struggling housewife fel inftion, ‘he women’s magazines were delivering ye! another mestage de Iiberately calculated to make her Fel even worse to wit, that f fer family were not socsly accepted, if her cildten snd her husband were not healthy, her home were a breeding ground for germs, if she herself looked old and ted before her time, ot Sher babies falled to gain wright, worse Yet if they ded she was entcely to blame, since remedies for those conditions vere easily at hand and eacy to apply j I such notion had ever ‘crossed her mother’s mind war atleast not confirmed, over sod ‘ves again, on almost every printed page. In her mother's day, ‘when copynriters composed advertisements for soap on sheets o¢ sealing wax they thought in terms of the ingredients in the ‘sh pe hey hd are tan tn a ae i Beecroft {Asn way ofthese te [Slr ali th os tke ar armen al StMone Worx ron Moruex product, or the cleanliness ofthe factory whese it was made, or the various ways in which a clever hourewife could wee it Inthe ‘years between the wars, they thought about “guile” and di so intentionally, because peychologlse were tolling them that "gull." Yembarrassment,” and “insecurity” would sell goods faster than any other pitch 7" Thus, the hard-pressed housewife twas ing tol Hat if she Fated to feed her babies special foods, to scrub behind the sink with special deaners, t9 reduce the spread of infection by using pape Hssues, to contol mouth odor by erging everyone to gare and body odorby urging everyone to bathe, to improwe her chldren’s schoolwork by sending them off with a good breakfast, er ber daughters “social rating” by tending her off to paris with polished white shoes—then ang umber of woeful events would ensue, and they would all be entirely er fault not God's wil, and certainly nota result of the freed of capitalists or the cupdity of public ofcas. This mes ‘age was reiterated eo Frequently, an the visual material accom ‘ponying it was so blatant, that it eould not have Failed to make tn impression on such 3 howscwife and, at the very Hast landermine her ssi confidence. Stall wonder, then, that some of these housewives went out to work even when their husbands had steady jobs: with the additional cash, theae wives could at least purchase the clothing, he cosmetics, the appliances, and the sundries that the magazines were suggesting wold 20 markedly improve 2 famiy’s way of life and « mother’s own peace of rind.” began to werk during the wa,” one housewife in Mae cle reported, when everyone i we had Yo meg symtoms a ‘everything else was yltng co high Tho muse objected a ret, but Houschold Technology and Household Work, 1900-1940) ‘ow he dont mind, 1 sathor keep on wosking 2 my boys can play fcottall sn basketball and have spending mney thet Ether ct five them I have felt batter since Twos than eve bore in ny Iie. "We fave an elec ashing machine, ele ions amt acum sweper. dont even have task my hos angi Because I buy thee things with my own mane.” ‘der cultacal values may have suggested that a working wife was 2 sign of economic distress and social dhamganication in 2 family (which no doubt is why many “asters” dit approve oftheir wives going out to work, and why many wives avoided such work), but newer cultural values suggested that it was the ‘esponsibility of both parents to improve the standard of ving Of ther children; and some women no doubt concluded, as had the mother just quoted, that they could achleve this aim faster and more suely with cashin thei pockets than with bead dough fn their hand, ‘Thus, while the comfortably stated housewives ofthis genes ation were slowly marching dovin the road to praleasianization, ‘ir less comfortably situated contemporaries wee heading to ard greater prodactivity. Improvements in techoologial ys tems were having the same elfect on the households of pet ple with small ncomes a thay have in glant factories and ofces an Increase in the goods or services that can be produced for the ‘ereon-hours that are being expended. Loveincome however ‘worked very hard in the interwar years. None ofthe working ‘has tees of Muncio reported spending less than four hors = say on cooking, cleaning, and laundering (marketing and child cate were not even inquited ate), and mast reported seven or snore hours a day, seven days a week Yet for come of those ousewives, some of that hard work was paying of, some of the time fs hard-pressed mother of this peneration fad more cath fan her mother had had, then her children ate beter than she had a8 a child; since more Fults and vegetables west availble, fresh and cheap, at more seasons ofthe year, ther dit wae more ‘ated and more healthful. IF he and hes husband had manaped fo buy a house chem it 95, like as not, more spacious than the ‘one in which she had been raised, and it yas beter ventilated ‘watmer inthe winter and cooler inthe summer, and more likey 180Mors Work ron Moraes to have running water anda filet, With the ranning water and 4 hotwater heiter and a seiving machine, che could keep her chikcen cleaner, betler dressed, more comfortable, and portiy fever healthier than she had been as a child, without spending rch more time than her mother had spentin the doing of it She ‘certainly could not afford to pay the wages of human servants; Dut when times were good, she was beginning to invest in elect cal appliances and she knew that they, too, could inerease hee productivity: that 2 washing machine meant the ability to change the sheets every week or underwear every day, and 3 vacuur leaner meant that dust could be kept from aecunmalting In the house. Conlin In the years betezen the two work wars, there were still many dlfferences between the two great segments ofthe population not the least of which wae that, for those who were poor, any ga in thelr standard of living tome year was key tobe lost in the sent, In some communities, 2t some time, the gap Between the Standard of living oF the two clases was ae great a5 i had eet been: the poor still begot many children and #0ck them out of setwool cary, sil Hive with fh and ate in thie Kitchens, sti suffered il heslth, lot their teeth and smlled bed, stil handed down theft clothes and toak their shoes from the ragpile, But in other communities, at other times, the ability to live ata minis ‘mom standard of health and decency was no longer the privilege ‘only of those who were affluent. Public heelth was improving housing conditions were better than they had been, various amenities and conveniences were becoming more widely Aifuse and even those who were poor in relative terme could profit fom some ofthese changes. All of them worked together to make hard-pressed housewives more productive and less ut ‘comfortable than their mothers had been and to make ther housework bear fait in improving the health and the prospects 190 Household Technology and How hold Work, 1990-3940 ‘of ther families. The gap between those who could afford to lve "decently and those who could not may have boon as ide a8 ver but inthe years Between the war, the average housewife ‘of les than modest means wat living, at lest some ofthe Um, ata higher standard than her mother had heen able to attain Looking Back, wo can seadily understand shy she, snd het daughter in the next generation, believed that pa anges, pastes: rized milk electricity, washing machine, fortified margarine, and vactum cleaners had played a significant role i this accomplish sent, We can also understal why these women contin £9 Jpelive not just that theic place wa in Hheis homes but that the ‘work that they di there had enormous valu, Sal wonder then {hat these women, and thoir descendants, accepted the yoke of women’s work in the home and viewed the modern tous with Which they did it 5 liberating, rather than as oppressive agentsChapter 7 The Postwar Years I HEB social sceds planted during the 1920s and the 19308 cane ts fruition in the decades following the end ofthe Second Wold War, but with an ironic test chat no one had anticipated. The Uifusion oF affsence in the postwar yeas wa accompanied by both the diffusion of appliances and the disappearance of ser tants, As a zeslt, women who had been in comfortable cicust- stances before the war (and their childeen and grandchildren) ‘vere under increasing pressure (both economic and ideological) to shoulder the burden of housework alone; and women in fans lies that were economically disadvantaged before the war (and ths cildven ad grandebilen) were ever more able to provide themselves and thei families with basic amenities thit tele mothers could not have attained, The spread of afluence and the Ailfusion oF amenities was accompanied nt, a eater commen tatocs guested, by an increase in eauire for housewives of both loess, bu, rather by ineseate in the amount of work that some housewives had to do, and in the level oF productivity that others ‘were to achieve Inthe ist postwar generation, some women my ‘The Postwar Years found that they were working hander inside their homes than {hele mothers haa worked, beasse they employed fever seevant- hhomrs than thelr mothers hae employed, other women fel that ‘hey were workiag ust as hard ag their mothers, but were achiev Ing greater results, As time wore on, thee daughter, members of the second postwae generation, discavered that they were work ‘ng even longer hous than tur mothers had worked, because of ‘he doubie Burden of housework and outside employment, Either vay, the en result oF the long histories proces that began when ‘he shooting stopped in 1935, has been moce work for mother. Today men, women, and childsen coatine to demonstrate trongh their behavior that household work produces both eco- omic and social value. At the end of a day of housework, ‘Weary women Know that, whether what they have been doing, all day is called “consumption or “purchasing” or "maintain= Ing our social status,” it sil takes Hine and energy lane sit want to be fed when they are hungry, toddlers sil want to be :omforted in the middle of the night, and schoolchildsen sll ‘vant someone to be at home when the school day has ended School nurses expect someone to be at home when a chi ‘become ill during the day, and plumbers expect comeone to be there to open the dooe when a seer has bucked up or 3 radi tor is leaking, Men sill manryand, i divorced, cary oor again—a6 UF they knew (leaving aside considerations of com Panionship, sexuality, and affection, on the one hao, and of modem technologies, on the ther) that the skills wemen pos ess are difficalt 10 live without. The work processes of housework may have changed substantially since 1940, but the ‘work itself has nat gone aay. sin of Afluence: The Changing Face of Posey ‘Tosay thatthe postwar decadeshave bean decades of affluence Jstosay not that poverty hae dsppeared, but, rather, hat ts ‘has changed, as have the mumbers of people acted by it, By 183Mone Work ror Motus 1960, the Ai tary nutrition, and rudimentary healthful ‘the privileges oF an élite. The minimiam subsistence budget that was aed to determine welfare payments fn New York Cty in 1960 speciied «set of material conditions for Family if that would have bean regarded as ful larons jn 1910 and even fr that matter in 1930. A four-person famlly Family who wanted f could be “alone ia r008"—a faxry inconceivable to most poor fanilies earlier in the century. The a war to be outfitted with a camplete bathroom (hot and eald sunning water, toilet, bath or shower, and sink), a complete Istchen (sink witha drain, hot and cold water, refrigeratr, and fs o7 electric range), and central het. Pain but adequate furnishings were allowed (each person wae to have a bed and plete set of eating utes) sv wel ax anew! replacement Clothing For the chien shoes that dresses that were neve and rat made ove fom hand-me-dovens). The dit for sich a fall 1a stake but did allow least, on and a vacuum cleans {although not a ashing machine ofa dryer) and Unclewn (- though not carpeting) to cower all the Foor. That set of materia conditions is doubly significant: fist, because it wes sgatded Aepeivation in terms of the general standard applying throvghous the country in 1960: and, second, Because st was laxsions io rmparison to how people hid lived! in extier decades As the standard of “minimum health and decency” has risen profoundly in the put Forty years, so the portion of the popula tion that has been unable to attain that standand has fallen, The orzo of poverty have not disappeared, bt they ae not nesry hrcible a they used tobe, and not nearly many people see set by thee. When computed in terms nat of «speci rate of wages, but of standards of minimum decency and health estab shed in each decade, the proportion of the population living at for elow the poverty level has fallen fom 33 percent (44 milion ta Coy oh Seas Bl cy Neneh The Rich and the Poor tact for your cetenn he ue om a whl pe Sep ta bed beyond the casa [3 whe yout mace cone ‘Sneha pate rose 3) fo thaw vier, You cen sep when sd “shor thy cul weber pps hin fd grace (6), whit in our hone pps mete pe os he fel) Sra the bas a hector could be apes, pope, we Were "4 look fees fom you al your al) anwar ess ‘i Nett the pgapon he mal ‘hosel Whatever ater rts remy lol dcr of eee od cece (2)The Postwar Years people) in 1940 to 27 percent (41 milion) in 1950, to 21 percent {G9 milion) in £960, and to 12 percent (23 milion) in 1970. Although those who remain poor are justifsbly angry that the se-called affuent society cannot provide more for them than it oes, "those who remain poor” ae 4 much smaller pat of ot population than ever befare in history. Thus, whea viewed in fein of the entre contemporary world and ovr oven immediate pus, the vast majority of Americans ae staggering ello As ‘ve struggle to make ends moet From one payeheck tothe next ve forget how really Iowurious fs the Ife to which we have ‘become accustomed, Even if our minds forget, however, our be fivior romembers, forthe memory of poverty is enshrined in the habits of our housework The Dison of Amenities and Appionas Formany people the difusion of alluence meant the difusion of toilets, refrigerators, and vwsshing machines, rot Cadllacs, Hereos, and vscation hemes. In 1940, ust a the Depression was ‘raving to a close and the econamy was shifting to wartime production, one out of every Shes Americans vss sil carrying ‘water in buckets, and two out of thiee Americans did aot enjoy the comforts of cental heating? Forty years later, there were roughly eghty-seven million “year-round housig unis” in the Country: only one million of these did not have running wate (1 ‘ut of 87) In 1940, only $3 percent ofall househade had any sot of built-in bathing equipment; thus forty years ago. taking «bath Tor just under haf ofall Americans involved alot more work than just toring ona faucet, In 1980, only thee million howing unite Aid not have a complete bathroom, Simi, in 1941-—roughly thirty years after they had first come on the market, and twenty ‘yeass after the pricos had fallen to more oles reasonable levels # the result of macs production only 52 percent ofthe familie {nthe United States owned ot had “interior acceso « watingMons Wonk ron Mornen smachine.* Thus, just under half the fares fv the fand were cither silt hand rubbing or hand cranking their laundey or using ‘commercial yrvices# About the same percentage of Faalies Kad mechanical refrigerator as had washing machines in 1941 (St percent); but en year later, this proportion had increased to 80 percent; and by 1980, aceass to mechanical refrigeration wa vit tually universal. Before the United States entered the Second ‘World War, one thi of the households inthe country were stil cooking with wood and coal so that there was both back-break ling labor on someone's part to provide Fuel and equally intenve labor to provide cleanliness. By 1980, gas and electric cooking wis common everymhere, Conversely only on third of al the vel {ngs i the country had contra heating in 1940. In 1980, however even after the energy exses of the 1970s had sent millions of people out to buy cos stoves and kerosene heatert—only sixteen million of ehe eighty-seven million dwellings lacked cental et. Ing, and the vast majority of those were in pars of the county ‘where such comforts were not necessary. In the Forty years since the end of the Second World Wr, the amenities that were once reserved for just part of the population have become the basic Standard for the liver of alert everyone, Homsgeisng Howsoork (Over, under, around, and through those statistic about the technological syotems with which we live lies a daily reality bout the work proceses of housework that we often forget IF the basic material conditions of life have become homogenized for all American (he fact thatthe Jess-than-basie material con ditions have not is another mattez, elevant to another book) 3 ‘have the work processes of housework In times ast, housewives ‘ofthe “uncomfortable” classes were manta nborersin their oe homes, but housowives of the “comfortable” clases were both Tht pe eo rnin ant Sth xn et 196 The Postwar Years ‘anager and laborers. Nowadays, the general expansion of bath the economy and the welfare system has led fewer people than ver before into the mavkst for pald domestic labor-"ead the Aiffusion of sppliances into houssholds, and of households ints suburbs, has encouraged the disappearance of various commer ‘dal services, The end result is that housenelves, oven ofthe most ‘comfortable aust (in our generally row comfortable popula. tio) are doing their Mousevwork themselves Silly, the exten sion of schooling for those who are young, the proliferation of school-related aetivitee, and the availability of jols for tose who have Bnished their schooling hs led tothe dissppeseance of ‘ven those helpers upon wham the pavesty-stcken housewife had once been able to depend. Hence, in almost all economic Sectors of the population (except the very, very rich), housework fas bocome mania Inbor the wife ofthe lawyer Is just likely to be down on her hands and knees cleaning ber Kitchen or as ‘isthe wie of the bricklayer or the garbageman, in 1934, the wife ‘fa college professor had, as I described in chapter 6, tw dif. fent kinds of household assistant (a laundres, who washes! an sli heavy cleaning: a student who cleared after meals did ight ‘deaning, and supervised the children when thelr mothee wat vay) and did much of hee marketing over the telephone Forty ‘ean later, the wife oF another college profesor described het typical day this way: [pet up at 6 ast and pur up cefe and steal for beast ane go down to the basement to pat clothes ints the washing machine ‘When I cme up asess Teddy (135) ne pt hia hs cal Then 1 es Jim (2) and serve eae Go him and te hand ad feed Teddy. White my husbad looks after the chien 1 go down to set the dots ut ofthe machine and hang hemo te ine Then tcane ‘up and have my owa breakfast fer my hur! lesen From ten fon the day is a ollons: Breast ise lean up hither Nake ‘dy clu the sparen Wipe p balhrooe ad Richer oor Cet lunch wegtable ready and put potatos on to Bk fr lane, Dress eT ny as chy at hee Soe wyMons Worx ros Mornsn both chilean in outdoor loess my food shopping ed ty ut seth children anal 12 Ratuen and undress ehlen wash them op Foclanch, prepare unc, fed Teddy and put him to aap. Make oh Tae wh dishes, sualghten up kitchen. Put Jim to rest. Betaen 1and 20, depending on the day of the wes, Honing (Udo my nota shit ome ad ofcourse, ll the cin’ and myo loth), through leaning of oe rom, weekend cooking and bik ing se, 2 tar, give clon jee or mil pot outdoor tbe o ‘Outta pas 39 back Give hen that baths Prepare thoi. prs. Husband usally hme toplay withthem lite ster mapper sed Isp pt thom to bot. Make dinner for haskand and myc APE inner disher and eang up After rat often more trong especialy onthe days whan Tcl inthe afernoon. Theres nanding Yo be done 9 ra, fal ale the ving room over a newspaper or liseing to the round of the radi; 10a, have a aoock of someting with my harbad dg toed ‘And just a striking were the comments of another howevife in the same decade—a twenty-four-year-old woman living In the then acwly built Levittown, Penneylvani; she was described by thors who interviewed her 35a member ofthe "working class” “This housenife, whose grandaother might well have been gate fal to have bread and soup on the table at night, described her day in terms virtually dential t those of the college professor's vite: ‘Wil naturally, top it, eke reat for my busband and pet 1 Tosd af other ny wear we Breakfast cooks. Then Take fin up, sive Him hb bean and he's off to wa. The | ake trekiaet forthe cide, After the eiren ext Tes thet snd ‘hey po out to ply, Them 1 hang the clothes pan lean Lah ‘hough the houge inbetween tier de the sicher thas unde ood of cour. Then make hunch fc the children and yal an ‘Tosng thar, clean them up, and they eaten vem oat oy when theyre dane and do Ue dishes, big the othe in ana oh ‘ham, When im done toning t's rally time to make supp, = leat sat preprint. Sometimes have time to watch 2 str for half ao hour ero. Then my and comes hore ad we have curmenle Then Edo the dishes atm Then he oes out to work pi ‘She ha pu be Jobat his nl’ beverage company. Welle 198 ‘The Postwar Years doce that to othe nights a week. IE he tays home he watches {TV and inthe meantime I get the Ki sey for bed. He ad thee ‘light sacks watch TV a chile apd then go to bed In the 1950 (and the 19805) the housewife ofthe "professional lasses” andthe housewife of the “working classes” were saat only by machines. Few such women had paid household! lp, snd fewer still ha food or milk orclesn laundry delivered to tes doors. The dtferences between these women vere no doubt pro= found —ditference in levee of eduction, in farsilies of orig in annual household income; But those profound diferences did not produce, s they would have dane in the past, equally profound ‘rations in the ways in which the sounen did thelr work? ‘Apparently, als, there were no significant variations in the time that women spent a that work. One sophisticated statistical nalysis of time-use data clleted fom a large nationat snipe ‘oF households in 1965 found that the average American woman ‘pent about four houre a day doing howework or twenty-eight Touts @ week) and about three and one-half hours 2 day (er twenty-six and a half hours per week) caring for children (2 Sfty-four-hour week)* These figures were sastling in two re- specs Fist, they wore not strikingly diferent fom what Leeds od found for affiuent housewives in 1912 or fom what other researchers had reported forrural and urban housewives ia 1935.° Second, thee averages were not markedly affected either bythe ‘Income level of the household or by the educational attainment ‘of the housewife: women who managed on le than four thou snd dollars a year in household income spent 245 minates per ay at housework and 207 at child care; while, atthe other end ofthe incomescale, housewives who could dispose of over fPtoon ‘thousand dollars putin 260 and 196 minutes at houseveork end luld cae, respectively, Housewives with cllegeeucations were logging in 474 minutes a day of housework and child care (a itle lander eight hours), and housewives who had sot completed grade schoct put i almost equally teng days of 453 mninstes (or seven and one half hours). [either the working-claes wife nor her middle-class content= porary could have expected her husband to help much with thisMort Worx sox Morwer work For a while, in the 1950s, there was 2 hullabaloo in the popular pres about “new husbands” in suburbia who were diay Dering babies and drying dishes and cooking barbecies and oth rise bacoming feminized.” Again, in the te 1970, a spate of books and national magarne articles appeared touting the vstuet of "houschusbandey," most af these articles written, it turned out by free-lance writers an journalists wh had decided to stay ome ora while with thee children when their vives went back towork Ifthe results of sociological studies are to be taste, not tnuch lay behind either one of those journalistic episodes. Men lo very little housework: and the few "houschusbonde” there have ever boon seem nat to have stuck to it for long. Whether ren are aed to etimate the tre that they spend at howsework, for wives are asked to estimate their husbands’ Hime, oF outside ‘obeervers actually clock the amount of time Hat men spend ab ‘one has ever estimated men’s share of housework at anything higher than one and a half hours per day. Housewives who are pot employed inthe labor market spend, roughly speaking, Bis? hours a week doing housework; housevives whe are empayed utsie their homes spend, again roughly speaking, thinty-Ave hours on their work in and for their homes. Men whose wives sre employed spend about ten minutes more a day on housewath ‘han men whose wives “say home", and men who have sll children add yet another te—a grand toa, fr these particalaey Ihelpful husbands, of just under eleven hours of houseveorke 3 week! Men who do howsevrork tend not fo 40 the seme work ‘that thee wives are doing; they takeout the garbage, they mow the lawns, they play with children, they occasionally go tothe ‘sperma or shop for household durables, hey pain the atte for Bethe faucet; but by and large, they donot Taunder, clean se cook, nor do they feed, clothe, bathe, or tanspert children “These lnter—thne most time-consuming. activities around the hhome—are exclusively the domain of women, Ia households that are particulary well equipped with appliances, men do even lest hhousework, partly because they believe that the work simply cannot be onerous, but also because some of the “extra” appli: anes acually relieve thom of sex-related, or sox-acceptable chores In homes where there are garbage disposals, men give af 200 ‘The Postwar Yeare removing the small quantities of garbage that still need to be ‘arid to the curb and in households where there ave dishwash fs, men cease proving whatever help withthe dishes they hac formerly proferred. ‘Tas, there i more work fora mother toda ina modem home because there is no one lft to help her with it Alamos all of the ork that once stereotypically fell to men has been mechanized Families tend to live a considerable distance from the place where he male head of the household is employed; hence, men leave home early in the meoming and return, een exhausted ate af right. Children spend long hous in school and, when school is over, have “after-school activities,” which someone must ou peruse and from which they mast be transported. Older children move away from home as soon as they reasonably can, ging off to college or to work, No one delivers anything (except bills snd svertisements) tothe door any longer, or atleast not st prices ‘that most people can afford; and domestic workers now earn salaries that have priced them out ofthe reach of albu the most filluent houscholde. The advent of washing machines and dish washers ha eliminated the chores that men and children used {odo as well asthe accessory workers who once were wilingand able to assist with the work. The end result is that although the ‘work ie more productive (more vervies are performed, and mare {goods are produce, for every hour of work) and les laborious than i used to be, For most housewives is just as ime consun- ing and just as demanding. The “Working” Mother ‘The modem technological aytems on which our households and oor standard of living depend were constructed on the as- sumption that women Would remain st heme, that they vould “continue to function as pre-industrial workers (without pay “checks, me clocks, cr supervisors), and that, a 3 corollary, ey ‘would not be tempted t0 enter the labor sarket except under 2orMors Worx rox Mormen ‘unusual (and usually temporary) circumstances, Ironically, the laa of these assumption proved eroneour. Inthe postwar yeas, more and more manied women, and more and more mothe, ‘entered the labor frce, the omnforts of full-time wifehood ant ‘motherhood and the existence of washing machines and dish washers notwithstanding Inthe decades afte the Second World War, the national econ ‘omy shifted its focus fom production to service, from manufac turing to commenication; and, in the process, jabs wore opened "up for which women were considered to be appropiate cand tes jobe as typists, clerks, and seceptoniss as atest, tore clerks, and stenographers: as teachers, social worker, ruses administrative asistant, and, ater, ab computer progrommers| ‘To various women, at various times, those jobs and the salates they prosided, proved to be atteactione too gret to resist In diferent households, the decison that wife and/or mother would “go back to work" or “continue working” was made at diferent times, determined either by what was going on in the word ots the family or by a particulat familys development. Soe women “contined to work” in the postwar years because they were relictant to give up the life and the income ta which they had bacome sccustemed dur(ngthe war; some women went home and had babies and did net re-enter the labor force until thee ‘hidren were grown and out of the house; other women never went back to Work. As the years passed, some younger women decided not to interrupt their careers when thet babies aviv, because the high level of education that they had stained and the high salaries that they could consequently hope to coenmasd, seomed fo compensate for the double burden of motherhood and ‘ateer which they had to shoulder. Other veomen found tha, whether or not they were graced with higher education and ‘higher incomes the growing pressure of inflation was a seriously eroding the purchasing power of their husband’ income tht small children ono, they had to go back to work, Futheerote 2 a result of divorce, desertion, othe decision to remain singe ‘other women, in increasing numbers, had no husband’ income to fallback upon. The end result wat that, by 1980 just over 40 22 ‘The Postwar Years percent ofthe total workforce was female (up From 25 percent fa 1940), women with chilean at home constituted alinost 20 pe. cent of the labor force and more than half of the ation schildeen lander the age of six had mothers who were working fll ime Even though different women achieved the satus of being “homemakers with jobs” at diferent times, very lage numbers of them did achieve it; and If present trends continue unabated, ‘even more of them will do so in the Future Nowa’ “mace” 1 Js hardly surprising that, in the immediate postwar years, ‘many women struggled mightily with the decision to take a ob, since cultural prossuses of the most exiaordinary kind wate being brought to bear against the employment of wives. and mothers. If many husbands and children oppved that dectsion ‘even befoce they had had a chance t discover is consequences #hey, to, can barely be blamed, since the public debates onthe subject gave them not the slightest reason to believe that the entre would end successfully, In the 1960s and the 1560s, psychiatrists, payehologsts, and populae writers invelghed sgainst women who wished to pursue a career, and even against ‘women who wished to have ajob, and referred to such “uniovely women” as “lost,” “suffering from penis envy.” “idden with sil complexes o¢ just plan "man-hating" Mass-irelaton ‘magazines almost never depiced a working wife unless to paint hor in derogatory terms: working mothers were blamed for the ibe in juvenile delinquency inthe 1950s, forthe soaring divorce ‘ate ofthe 19605, nd for the risen male impotence inthe 1970, ‘Women’s magazine ftion oF the day was populated by "slow. tng” pregnant women and “barren” working women, whose WWngETS Were not yel appeased, whose destinies were not Yet fulbled” by chikren whe fele abandoned when their there vere not there to gret them onthe day the teacher had finaly ven them an “A”; and by husbands who, while tempted by the ‘sueer worn in thee ofices, always returned to thet less gan ‘ros, but more feminine wives with a warm smile and 3 fone 203NON ITY Mor: Wore rox Mornen behind ther backs, Betty Friedan, who workod for and wrote for some of those magazines inthe postwar years, rec: ‘When you wrote about an ates for = woman's magatine you Ywote spout her st housewife, You never sbowed her doing ‘hpring her work ae an ator ales she eventually pal for by Ionng he ond 9 her edo thar odmitng Fal a Feiedan might well have added hat newpaper and magazine profts depend upon tes of adveriing pice to marae {ures and retails of consumer good an Ua nthe postwar Ye, may advertising speiaitsnd market researches who ive the manufacturers andthe reall, viewed the werking ‘roman a someone who wa either foo poor ooo prececpied {osperd tine and money inthe stores” Hence, proft-conscous ‘ito nd eaters who desired sit east, ere not Slned to enhance the image ofthe Working wife, even IF they happened to Be one themeelve “Bocolgists and ether acdemiceoil scents, ater than be tft on the sdline,jined inthe debate bout women’s pope place by opting wit har comet be cle he "Functional Intrpetaton of the recent history ofthe fui and then by Trowtcstng tat interpretation to countless textbooks alee tures" AsTheve planed in chaper 4 ths argument suggest thot since induration began, households have been de rived of tet een productive ols in the economy 2nd onsequenty,housenves have been deprived of thelr eset rodantve nctine Modem wore ae in rouble the ass omtinue, becouse mederntecinology has ter ekiminted 05 ‘ed most of thei enier burdens, but modem ieoesis have so kept pace sith the change. One soaton to the prblem, ee foci scientists noted, would be for women t take hele placein the market economy ba the solution, many of the exerts a ued weld be contrary to fea aint nd bill nee rd would interfere wth the fe remaining functions hat Houses sil perform at home-—namely, socialization of rung chiden an tension management A beter slutin 208 The Postwar Years Wwould be to create 2 new Heology, one that would ration ze the woman's situation and diminish the likelihood that she Would suffer “role ansiety ” Ironically, the ideology that became popular inthe yen when furctionalism dominated sociology constitute a symbolic but ‘only aeymbolic) reestion ofthe very set of conditions that had ‘made it possible for many Americans to have the comfort both oF indulging in ideological puryuits and of atending lecture in sociology. One perceptive obuerver referred to thls ideology a= the “backward search for femininity." If women who lived Ibefore the Industrial Revolution hd led happy, fruitful, and productive lives (as the sociologists were suggesting). them it Scented reasonable to assume thit modem discontents could be ‘wiped asay f women would return at eas to some of the conai- tions that had persined in Martha Weehington’s day. In com- unitis acrose the land (especially in those that wore partiew- Jay affluent and, therefore, farthest removed from the hovzos of pre-industrial conditions), people were acting out the sociolo- Fst prescriptions by bearing numerous childeen (the baby boom ‘Sppears to have been a result of 3 deliberate decison on Ue past DF afuent couples to have more children than thet parents had), by breastfeeding thase numerous children, valsing vegetables in ‘heir backyards, crocheting afghans, kiting argyle sock, ecter- taining at barbecues, ding sppliances behind artical wood paneling, giving homemade breads for Christmas presents, and Aecorating their Living rooms with spinning wheels." inter viewed a woman,” Betty Friedan reported, in the huge lichen of« hows that she od hep build heel. She ‘es busily kneading the dough fc her Famous homemade bread; # ‘hss se was making for adver was Pale on he Swing ‘machine: 3 handlom rood in one comer. Chives at mitre {nd oye ree srewn allover the Hoot a the house, fom font Soe stove inchis expensive raoderm howe ike many of he open plan Houses inthe threw no door all between chen ad ving 208Mort Worx ror Mornsr 0m: Nor di this mother Nave any dieu oe wish or thought ot fravration of har own fo sepcate her fom er cdr, She ws, eegnane nov with fer teenth her happiness ms complete, the Sid spending her days wih Ber bln ‘The wiles of the "backward search for Femininity” appse emily enticed men as well a6 women—as te nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in the writings of Kart Vonnegst, whose novels ruthlessly disect postwar mentality. lo Pye avo (1952), Vonnegut created Pool Proteus, an achelypiclly ‘unkapoy “organization man” (an engineer storking for a big electrical manufacturing company), who lives with his wife, Aaita, fa an acchetypieally “backivard looking” home, repete with a huge feldstone Greplace with candle molds over the mantel Paul arrowed ie eyes excluding everything fom his el of ws ‘ot the coll au, ae maine that hea Ait had Ped tivo far info the upuatewidemest with the nearest neighbor twenty-eight mies aay. She was making san, candies, and hk ‘wool cats fr shard enters, ae hey wee ttre ad 9 mol bales ee go soot a bear. Concentating Had oo he ison, Pal was able to master» fling of postve gratia fet “Anita's presence to thank God for a worn ath ide to help wih th poiaying amount of work solved in merely surviving Aa 3p kis imagination he brought home a bes fo Ant, and she eaned {Wand stad away heft 3 tremens it—the 90 of thea wining by stew and gut a mountain af tang ed mest fon a nnorpiabe word, And he woul old mor bullets and the mal ‘ake mare candies and esp fom the ber ft i ate a igh ‘en Paul snd Ania would cemble down together eo a bund Straw inthe corer dog ted and sweaty, make lov, and lee hid “nt he bec down Such erotic and hisoseal fantasies were (and stil are) potent cultural forces; they help us to understand aot only why some people have dificulty coming to terms with the realty of thle lives, but also why some people (most notably aluent house. wives) ace stil epering 50 very much Hine at thei work, Peo ple who believe tha family solidarity can be bolstered by hand Sipped chocolates and hand-roven sting beans are bound to 206 ‘The Postwar Years spend a lot of time dipping chocolates and growing string beans In any event, even If these Ldeological prope for full-time hossewitery had not existed, historia! experiance iva would have mulitated against widespeesd enthusinem forthe entry of| ‘marsied women into the labor farce. The adults who were worsy= lng about these matters in 1950 (and even in 1960) had been cldzen of the Depression; hence, they hal good resson tore rember that in thelr youth a “working mother” had been 2 ppesson to be pitied, and her family had quite possibly been & family to be shunned. If'mother worked” during the 19208 and "he 1930s, her Family was more tha likely tobe poor, the ater ‘mor than likely tobe unemployed, the children more than likely tobe dirty, the house more than likely to bein disrepair, when “other worked.” there were children iho had no one Ho nurse ‘hem thvough Hlinesss, meals that were hastily thrown together from whatever cou be found ready-made inthe markt, poor teeth, clothing that did not ft, ety oor, skin rashes, and bad ‘breath t hardly mattered tha only a few of these symptoms of poverty were likely to have been directly atibutable fo the ‘mother’s employment, because the fact of her employment Served as symbol for al of them. Similarly, at the other end of| ‘he economic sal, the presence of a fall-ime housewife served a: symbl not just forthe status ofthe family, but algo for ite ‘degree of good health and for its decent living. sundae, Whether she actually did the work or whether she diected the ‘work that was to be done, the presence of 2 flltime wife and nother meant caefal supervision of the fanly's health, 2 well- appointed living room, white stocking, ironed fair ibbons,reg- lar churoh attendance, Sunday dinner. biehday parties All ‘those small (and large) comforts both help to demonstrate the family’ satus and to ensure that it did not fal. The postwar working-class husband who complained that he would be ent brass infront of his fiends if his wife went out to work, Was -asmuch product ofthis historical experience as his mile lass contemporary who claimed that two well-organized inne por- tics a month would do move for his fazily’s anual income than ‘the salary Ine wife would be able to extn a 3 jobMoar Wong rox Morner Inthe end, whatever the complaints of husbands may have ben {and there were many of them), and however ambivalent wives and mathers may have felt (38 many of them did), by the time the chien of the baby boom had come to maturity, the "watking mothor” hid become the “normal American house wife and many people believed thatthe widerpresa diffusion ‘of modern technology 935, in and of lcelf, responsible for thie transformation, On common-sense grounds alone, a exusal con nection between the washing machine and the working wife seems justified: ft takes less time to do the wash with a Bendlz than itdid with a wadhtub, and to cook 2 meal since the advent of Birdseye, then housework must tale les ime (and cerainky Jess energy) than st use to, and women must thus be tempted AIL heir foe time with paid employment The only trouble with this argument is that one empiri in vestigation afer another has filed to find evidence frit con mon sense, inthis case asin many other, i not «reliable guide tothe trith.® As we haveseen, even with washing machines ae frozen vegetables, howsewives do nok have mich fee time, £0 hours per week is ten hours maze than what is nove considered the standard indastnal woek. Housevives bagan to enter the labor market many years before medern hourchold technclogies wore widely diffued snd the housewives then entering the workforce ware precisely those who could not afford to take advantage ofthe amenitios that then existed. Even in the postwar [aber market the sociological variable that correlates mort strongly with a marred veoman’s participation inthe labor force Isherhushand'sincome, And the correlation i trong negative the housewives who aze most likely ¥o enter the labor macket ae the ones wh are leat likely to have many labor-sving devices and household amenitis, Indeed, im the early postwar year ‘ome martied women were entering the labor Force precy in order fo acquire those attributes of affluence * ‘Where the socilogisis and economists have failed to find »

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