"Just a Houseife" The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America [Paperback]

Housewives constitute a large section of the population, yet they have received very little attention, let alone respect. Glenna Matthews, who herself spent many years as just a housewife before becoming a scholar of American history, sets out to redress this imbalance.
While the male world of work has always received the most respect, Matthews maintains that widespread reverence for the home prevailed in the nineteenth century. The early stages of industrialization made possible a strong tradition of cooking, baking, and sewing that gave women great satisfaction and a place in the world. Viewed as the center of republican virtue, the home also played an important religious role. Examining novels, letters, popular magazines, and cookbooks, Matthews seeks to depict what women had and what they have lost in modern times. She argues that the culture of professionalism in the late nineteenth century and the culture of consumption that came to fruition in the 1920s combined to kill off the cult of domesticity. This important, challenging book sheds new light on a central aspect of human experience: the essential task of providing a society's nurture and daily maintenance.

Excellent--not only for the information content, but for the intriguing thesis regarding the concept of 'just a housewife.' Good introduction, too, to women's history in a survey course. --E.H. McKinley, Asbury College

A lively account of changing views of the housewife and the home from the colonial period through the 1960s...Matthews' portrayal of the currents surrounding the nineteenth-century household are fresh and convincing. --The Philadelphia Inquirer

It is the intriguing story of the ascendancy of the housewife in the American home that sets Glenna Matthews' original book apart...Her experience and good common sense enliven, and enrich, this valuable study. One looks forward to her next book. --The Washington Post Book World

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