
Lillian Gilbreth felt that a simplified kitchen would lead to more "happiness minutes" for homemakers.
One of the things that’s come up a few times in the past few week’s discussions about homemaking and hired help is the role of technology in making life easier. (Or not.) While I was searching around for some data on household help in the early 20th century, I stumbled across this fascinating article by Mary Ann Buschka at CUNY, about Lillian Gilbreth, the mother of twelve featured in the famous book Cheaper By the Dozen. Gilbreth was also an industrial engineer and psychologist who did extensive work in the fields of time management and efficiency; she is even credited with the concept of the kitchen “work triangle”.
The full article is a really interesting read, but I’m going to share the section I found most striking (boldface added by me):
“Gilbreth summed up the goal of efficiency in the home as more “happiness minutes.” This would have seemed silly to an industrialist, but Gilbreth could see no better way to measure the overall result of having a more efficient home. Happiness minutes occur when the homemaker is rested. When the household paperwork is organized and the bills paid on time. When meals are planned and not stressfully thrown together at the last minute. New time-saving appliances gave homemakers more freedom–the freedom to take on more jobs, to make cooking more complex, to make the house cleaner, but at a resulting price of having too much to do and fewer minutes of happiness.
…When electricity and gas were introduced into homes in the early twentieth century, they replaced elbow grease as the main power behind many household jobs. Yet, the appliances frequently meant that effort was expended elsewhere…Ranges that allowed varying temperatures on various burners also allowed for cooking more complicated meals. Stew and soup were fine sometimes, but fancier dishes with individual components–separately cooked meats, vegetables, and of course desserts–became the standard in modern cooking. This meant more time in the kitchen, more preparation time, more standing at the range or countertop, not less. The vacuum cleaner was another thrilling invention that replaced the need to take out rugs and beat them. Of course, rugs were very infrequently taken out, as this was a time-consuming and difficult job. However, vacuuming could be done frequently, even daily. The vacuum was a very handy invention, but one also had to carve out time to complete this new household task. Technology in the home was, as it still is, a double-edged sword, cutting work time in some cases, while adding chores and strain in others.
…Disorder and the stress resulting from it, Gilbreth said, was the primary cause of fatigue, both mental and physical. It came primarily from two sources: a cluttered, disorganized home and a lack of a plan for activity. A new technology like an electric egg beater could be more fatiguing to use than a wire whisk if it was stored in the back of a cabinet and was hard to dig out and put away, or if it needed to be cleaned meticulously before and after every use. Too many appliances, cluttering a countertop, Gilbreth explained, would become counterproductive if they took away a workspace needed for chopping or mixing or if they just made it difficult to find things. Gilbreth suggested that all appliances may not be necessary. There was, she believed, such a thing as giving in to all the sales pitches out there too easily. If one bought and deemed an appliance worth keeping, only the ones that were used almost daily should be out in plain sight and reach.
A homemaker’s daily and weekly plan for work was also turned on its side by the industrial age. Beforehand, Mondays were washdays, Tuesdays for ironing, and so forth because these were all-day activities before the washing machine. Now, the convenience of a labor-saving appliance meant that any day, any time, could be wash-day. Wash might be done more frequently than once a week. Mondays need no longer be set aside, so new activities could creep into the schedule. With the advent of the automobile, women also could dash out of the home on errands. This was convenient, but also made it harder to stick to a plan. So many possibilities, so many things to do. This was mentally as well as physically fatiguing.”
Wow. So much to think about! The egg beater line really jumped out at me–I still prefer to use only use a wire whisk for about 90% of my baking. It is harder physically, but easier mentally and actually takes less time. It’s tempting to litter countertops with beautiful gadgets, but if they don’t actually make our lives easier, they’re just creating more work. On the other hand, my double oven (a Maytag Gemini) makes my life easier every day. It doesn’t take up more space than a regular oven, but allows me to do two jobs at once. Technology and “stuff” aren’t all bad, but we have to be careful about the way we use them so we can make smart decisions with our time and money.
Technology has both simplified and complicated our lives, and that goes far beyond housework. So many possibilities! So many things we could be doing! It’s easy for the “coulds” to mutate into “shoulds”. Cook more gourmet meals-you’ve got machines to help you chop, slice, dice, and steam. Check that email during your child’s school play–isn’t that what smart phones are FOR? Earn more money–the internet has made it possible, right? Stuff the drawers with clothes–your high-capacity washing machine can handle it. Clip more coupons–there’s an app for that, after all. It becomes more difficult not to get caught up in the tide of busy-ness because technology falsely promises to make it all sooo easy.
Though I’m not quite sure Gilbreth’s uber-structured approach would work for me, I found myself nodding over and over while reading her thoughts on homemaking, though it’s been almost eighty-five years since her book The Home-Maker And Her Job was published. (I have got to get my hands on a copy of that book!) Her “less is more” (or perhaps “do fewer things better”?) approach seems surprisingly fresh and relevant even in the face of our modern realities of family life. And while Gilbreth admitted that technology had not been a magic bullet to making life easier for homemakers, she seems to have been a realist: she knew she couldn’t stop the world from changing, only, perhaps, advocate for a saner way of living in it.
I love technology. I love my appliances. But I want to own my gizmos and gadgets, not the other way around. Pressing back against the new “standards” doesn’t have to mean living in a hut with a wood cookstove or eschewing an iPhone; it can be as simple as thinking about your own family’s needs when picking out a washing machine, instead of lusting after a high-end model just because…well, because it’s got eighty-six settings, darnit! Or deciding to turn the phone off for a few hours when your kids get off the bus.
Mostly it means being conscious–of what we’re doing, and why. “Because everyone else does” is usually not a good enough reason. But “because this feels necessary for my home, my life, and my family” almost always is.
How does technology make your life easier…and more complicated? Have you “opted out” of any trends, or created boundaries to make your tech work for you instead of vice-versa?
And Gilbreth absolutely had paid household help 🙂
She also had (to her chagrin) a very large and inefficient kitchen – her children write about how they had to completely (and artificially) rearrange it into a much smaller space because some filmmakers wanted a film made of Lillian Gilbreth’s own kitchen in action. (In which, yes, she had paid household help and spent comparatively little time herself…)
I have been thinking about this more recently, trying to consider ways to become more mindful in my activities. As much as I try to limit my exposure to the “screens” in my life it seems like so much of my attention is turned to them. I would like to strike a balance that includes more simplicity in life.
We rid ourselves of cable/satellite tv a couple years ago because we felt like it was a waste of money and just brought a lot of crap into our home. Now, we use hulu and netflix connected to our tv, at a much lower monthly cost, to watch tv/movies more mindfully. We watch only those programs we are truly interested in and otherwise the tv screen is OFF. Makes for a much more pleasant household environment than having CNN or MTV creating the background noise to our lives!
Great post! It seems like every time we add technology into the mix, we have a whole new layer of complexities to deal with. I’m going to think more about this and making my life simpler (just as soon as I finish that last re-tweet, checking my email from home, working a couple more hours at home via the VPN, etc). Okay, I’m kidding a little, but seriously, sometimes it’s so hard to slow down and take stock of what we really want our life to look like.
That was such an interesting post! BTW, I just recently got a copy of Cheaper by the Dozen to read to Matt, because I have such fond memories of my mom reading it to me and my brothers when we were 10-12 years old.
I will say, while I love having a double over and stove top, and I plan meals and cook dinner 5 nights a week, I am a HUGE fan of one pot meals or casseroles that have the protein, carb and veggies all mixed up together. It’s a weird thing of mine that I would rather eat dinner out of a bowl than a plate (it’s like I’m an animal!), but also, the one-pot thing makes clean-up easier for the dh.
We seldom bake bread here, but when we do, we do it by hand and not by machine. We’ve had breadmakers before, and liked them well enough, but it just seems like once you have the rhythm down, making dough yourself isn’t that much harder than using a machine.
Another thing I’ve always resisted, even though it makes my work in the kitchen feel *longer* some days, is a food processor. To me, with few exceptions, cleaning them up is more work than chopping by hand. Scalloped potatoes is one of those exceptions. I always wish I had a food processor to slice my potatoes nice and thin. But I only make those 4-5 times a year anyway.
And *I* have resisted the SmartPhone. I have a phone that makes for easy texting, which is nice sometimes, but I’m not a big cell phone user to begin with. I’m the person who never answers her cell phone because either I’ve forgotten to take it with me, I’ve let the battery die, or I’ve turned the ringer off at the movie theater and forgotten for days to turn it back on. Alternately, I’m the person who suddenly has the Harry Potter theme blaring out of her purse at a class or lecture because I’ve forgotten to turn the ringer off. The dh has an iPhone, and I do really enjoy it sometimes…like when we’re travelling and talking and debating about something. The Internet at your fingertips thing is kind of nice. But I still feel lucky to have the world of knowledge available to me in my own home! I’m online too much! I seriously DO NOT NEED to have the Internet in my purse. I’d be insufferable! 🙂
Get a mandolin! Much easier to clean and takes up much less space than a food processor, and is much faster than cutting. We just got one for DH’s dad for Christmas because, like you, he has a potato dish he makes a few times a year.
Yes! I was trying to think of the name of “that thing that slices stuff thin.” LOL
I was at a KitchenAid event recently and they had a prototype for a new food processor that’s totally self-contained–all the blades stay inside the machine and you can switch them during use by hitting a button. Looked pretty cool. I have another brand food processor and I honestly wish I’d never bothered. It’s just a big pile of parts, no place to put them, a pain to wash, and I don’t need it often enough to make the hassle worthwhile.
As SOON as I saw “Lillian Gilbreth” on the title, I knew I’d love this article. I haven’t even read it yet, but I ADORE Cheaper By The Dozen. Ok, I’ll go read now. 🙂
@Liz and Meagan, I was jumping out of my chair when I saw the reference, too! I loved Cheaper by the Dozen as a kid and can’t wait to share it with my children. I think of that book everyday when I wash my body with soap and dry it with a towel, following the “efficiency” method I read about in one of Gilbreth’s books as a little girl.
Note: I have not yet showered today, however, as I have too many choices AND an automobile so I drove over to the gym to sign up my kids for swimming lessons and then went ahead and hit the treadmill for 30 minutes before driving to the grocery store (with no list! unplanned shopping!). Technology has brought chaos upon me!
When I do feel out of order and can’t remember what household tasks to do next, I go back to my mental map of kids wash on Monday, adult wash on Tuesday, sheets + towels on Wednesday. Like Meagan’s dinner shuffle, it helps narrow down my choices.
I also love the Gilbreths! I so wanted to be an efficiency expert but never really figured out how, so I became an economist instead. The same with my little sister but she went for engineering.
Growing up we didn’t have a dishwasher and we totally washed dishes the way the Gilbreths did. That’s a piece of technology I will never give up.
But I’m totally with her on the double-edgedness of new technologies and new standards and clutter and keeping up with the Joneses and so on. And I wish I could just let my kid outside to play with the neighborhood kids unsupervised after school, but there aren’t any and we can’t do that in this day and age.
Reclaiming the neighborhood is something I’ve thought about a lot with my kids…statistics show that the world has gotten MORE safe, rather than more dangerous, over the past few decades. I think part of what we fear is the judgment of neighbors or “the authorities” if we let our kids roam. And I’m not talking about toddlers here; I’m talking about elementary-school aged kids and up who really need to be out exploring the little world around them within reasonable bounds. I figure it’s got to start somewhere and if I’m the one letting my kids out, maybe other parents will follow suit. Have you read Free-Range Kids or Playborhood.com? Different approaches, but similar viewpoints–that kids need to be allowed freedom to play outside with other kids without interference from grown-ups.
If there were other kids outside we’d do that. There’s enough hazards outside (a river, poisonous snakes, cars, etc.) that I’d like there to be someone who could run for help. But they all have their own individual playgrounds in their fenced-in backyards. Playdates are always heavily supervised.
There’s a happy medium between free-range parenting and the current social norms.
agreed–I don’t think I’d be comfortable being a totally free-range parent. But I think sometimes to hit the happy medium it requires some loud voices STRONGLY pushing the envelope so that the rest of us can settle in the middle 🙂
What a great post! I think a lot about technology and have written about it, but not necessarily related to housework. I do see how much it connects, though. Technology is like the choices we have to make on a daily basis that are overwhelming. This reminds me of the book The Paradox of Choice, which I only read a bit of, but which speaks to the overbearingness of this modern existence. While things are physically easier, they become mentally more arduous.
I’ll have to read that book, Jana. You aren’t the first person to mention it to me!
Interesting post. I laughed when you talked about the whisk – my husband loves the whisk, but when my mum treated me to a kitchen aid mixer I started baking a lot more as I find it such a time saver 🙂 Just shows how we all have our preferences.
Couldn’t live without my dishwasher, that’s a technology I happily embrace!
As to trends, we don’t have fancy cell phones. Just a very basic pay as you go, for phone calls and the occasional text message. And I think mine hasn’t had any time on it for the last six months. For me, that choice was easy, I don’t need any more gadgets. But I know other people who feel they get a great deal of value from those phones, so again, all in our preferences.
Kate, the KitchenAid mixers are also so darn PRETTY that they are like a work of art on your countertop 🙂 If you have the counter space I think it’s nice to have something stationery like that, especially if it gets used a lot. On the other hand, I always found a hand-held beater to be awkward and a hassle. They never seem that convenient to stash, you can’t keep the beaters and mixer part together so easily, the cord and mixer part is a pain to keep clean, etc.
I’m totally with you on the fancy phone–I have one, but only because it’s important to my husband. And I do enjoy having it, but it’s not even near a necessity to me–I’d be quite happy with a regular old cell. I rarely answer it when people call anyway 🙂
We don’t have cable TV or Netflix or text messaging on our phones-the TV especially seems like a huge time waster. Even with the like 5 channels we get I find myself feeling like I *have* to watch Survivor or “The Voice” if I happen to remember it’s on! We did have it as a bundle with phone & Internet when my son was brand new and it helped me not fall asleep during long nursing sessions, but we cancelled it when our promo time period ended, lol. I do have an iPod touch and I LOVE it because I can check my e-mail etc while nursing (my son was always a big eater, lol)
I definitely would hate not having a dishwasher, microwave, and KitchenAid mixer (wedding present!) I also love the ease of a one-pot meal in the crock-pot.
It’s so funny to read this right now. We just put our condo on the market and took half our countertop appliances to storage (since we have very little cabinet space in the condo itself). I was so worried I’d miss them, but I haven’t even given them a second thought in over two weeks!
My husband and I have been discussing this alot recently. Im trying to convince him to sell the coffee maker at our up coming garage sale. It is huge and we have very little counter space. We also own a coffee press and a coffee grinder which we could use instead of the large coffee maker that we only use once a month when we get the hankering for coffee. Im sure there are alot of other appliances that I could get rid of to clear up storage space, most of them were wedding gifts that we got five years ago and never use.
I love our coffee press! I’m not a coffee drinker, though, so that may impact my feelings–but it’s no trouble at all to brew up a quick cup for my husband in the press. In fact I think it’s easier than dealing with the machine.
Oh, Meagan, you should read Never Done by Susan Strasser. It’s a history of housework in American (beginning in the nineteenth century, I think) — I used it for a project years ago but never read it fully myself, and it’s now on my (rather long) to-read list. The way I remember it, Strasser’s argument (or one of her arguments) sounds like the bit you’re quoted here: that technology hasn’t made homemaker’s lives easier, it’s just raised the standards.
Oooh, that title sounds very interesting. May have to check that out myself.
I love this topic. I’m not very familiar with Gilbreth and/or Cheaper by the Dozen, but I love the simplicity/efficiency conversation. *Newer isn’t always better.* I have often thought this. I love my dishwasher, crockpot, etc – but don’t have/need a Kitchen Aid and many other kitchen gadgets. I don’t have the space to store them, for one, and also I really don’t think I would use them. So for me, they would add stress rather than decrease it!
Great topic. As always (-:
not sure if it has made my life easier but connections made via technology have made it more fun. love the instant connection.
do not like all the random cords and rechargers laying about. need to wrangle them all in one basket or box.
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Meagan – I loved this post!! We just moved to Philadelphia (a week and a half ago)…and are spending the next 2 months in corporate housing. We have only the stuff we brought on the plane. And….I kinda like it. Despite the stress of moving, this tiny apartment and so few possessions, it all feels much more manageable somehow.
I’m going to do a serious purge before we move the rest of our stuff out here.
I’ll have to look for that book too! i loved the book cheaper by the dozen. i was so sad to see the movie because it was so different
http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth&cc=hearth&idno=4301989&node=4301989%3A7&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=10
😀
Interesting post. I just stumbled across your blog. I find myself constantly in a quest to simplify our life. We don’t have fancy cell phones, cable, and I don’t do facebook or blog (I waste enough time reading other people’s blogs 🙂 ) The tv only comes on at night after the baby is down for the night. It has really helped us spend more quality time together. It, sadly, also makes me more aware of others that (seemingly) neglect family time because they are so attached to their gadgets.
It is funny how much stuff we think we need. We think that this next gadget will make our life better. In reality it usually makes more work for us. I am in the process of re-evaluating what we have and what we truly need. A simplification of our belongings.
Great post! I gobbled it up and it’s been in my subconscious for a few days now. So i shared it today on my linkshare on my blog. Thanks for the thought-provoking entry.
Thanks for this post. I am also fascinated by the Gilbreth motion studies. I think I’m going to try to do my own and find faster ways to do common household chores such as dishes, laundry, and making beds. I’m interested in reclaiming some “happiness minutes.”
Ruth Schwartz Cowan actually covered this very topic in great (and academic) detail in her wonderful book More Work for Mother, which goes through the rise of domestic technology in the 20th century and the repercussions for women everywhere. In addition to the proliferation of “time-saving” gadgets, which really saved no time at all, rather adding to the overall work load, Cowan talks about the breakdown of domestic community (i.e. having human help at home to spread out the work of domestic tasks over several people). So instead of having several other women to not only share the physical load of housework, but the mental load as well (I thought a lot about this when watching the HBO series ROME), the modern woman now toils away at domestic tasks alone, which is a mental burden unto itself. A fascinating read, and very resonant with Gilbreth’s take on the home.
Juliana, thanks for the recommendation – I will definitely check this out!