AMST 373.01
House and Home in America
Roger Williams University
Spring, 2016, M, W, F:  11:00-11:50
GHH 208
Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.
Office: GHH 215 Phone:  ext. 3230
Hours:  M, W, F 12:00-1:30
  or by Appointment
mswanson@rwu.edu
For Monday, February  22
For Friday, February 26
For Wednesday, February 24
Read, in Beecher and Stowe, The American Woman's Home
I think this book is going to change your mind a bit about women in the mid-nineteenth century, or at least about the sisters who wrote the book.  Look over the entire table of contents and you'll see why I think so.  Not only does the book progress from a chapter on the Christian House to a chapter on "Scientific" ventilation but we won't get to things typically thought of as belonging to the "world of women" until next week.  The kitchen stove (from chapter V.) was the latest thing in the day this book was new.  Imaging cooking on it.  Can you get a sense of what the labeled parts were for?  Clicking on the image to the right will take you to a cook book full of "receipts" of the era.  Put together a wonderful meal, and add it to your resource folder.  I'm getting hungry thinking of this already.
Read, in Beecher and Stowe, The American Woman's Home
HAVING duly arranged for the physical necessities of a healthful and comfortable home, we next approach the important subject of beauty in reference to the decoration of houses. For while the aesthetic element must be subordinate to the requirements of physical existence, and, as a matter of expense, should be held of inferior con- sequence to means of higher moral growth ; it yet holds a place of great significance among the influences which make home happy and attractive, which give it a constant and wholesome power over the young, and contributes much to the education of the entire household in refinement, intellectual development, and moral sensibility.
It took Ms. Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, a good long time to get to the topics we have considered stereotypical of women's roles in the house and the home.  I think this is not accidental on their part. 
Men had a role to play in home decor as well--How much carpentry skills would the "men-folk" have to have?
You may enjoy taking a look at the botanical magazine to the right.  It is English, but would have been available in the United States, at least on the East Coast in booksellers and the emerging public libraries.  Note that there are colored illustrations, and how these may have stimulated the women who were reading The American Woman's Home.
It took Ms. Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, a good long time to get to the topics we have considered stereotypical of women's roles in the house and the home.  I think this is not accidental on their part. 
Read, in Beecher and Stowe, The American Woman's Home
More advice about keeping healthy here.  Given the lack of modern medicine for treating the ill, staying healthy may have been a very importing consideration as one strove to keep alive.
Catherine Beecher (Left) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (right)