The other day I stumbled across a completely fascinating website featuring excerpts from the Woman’s Home Companion, a very popular publication that was read widely from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. The excerpts published are from 1923, when the Companion suggested that women look for cooperative ways to get their work done – community kitchens, laundries, and child-care centers, for example – and offered cash prizes to readers who could give examples of ideas and solutions they thought would most benefit women and families.
As I often am when reading historical literature on women and motherhood, I was struck in reading it how fresh and modern the problems – and solutions offered – seemed, even though they were dreamed up and written nearly 90 years ago. I’ve pulled out some gems here:
The true labors of the home are those of the heart; its real products are companionship, understanding, love. But buried beneath these, like the roots of a tree, lie the great fundamental necessities of mankind—food and shelter. It is with these that women work, and it is the problems they offer that must be solved.
What is the answer? Is there any answer?
We believe there is. We believe that we have yet to master the one big essential: the art of pooling our problems. Home-makers, 95 per cent of them, are playing a lone hand. They are not only doing their work, but meeting their problems—alone.
We get together for church work, for civic and charitable and political work; but when it is a question of the worries and deprivations of our daily lives as women, most of us shut them up in our hearts instead of putting them to the test of neighborly discussion and invention.
and
We should stop looking at our reading, our club work, our visiting, our playing, our companionship with our families as selfish pleasures; mere relief from necessary drudgery. These things are just as necessary in our home-making as are the mechanics of housekeeping.
and
The partnership of marriage should be always conducted on the fifty-fifty basis. If John works eight hours a day so should Mary and then, if there is still two hours’ housework to be done, they should do it together. If Mary spends two hours at a social in the afternoon she should expect to work two hours longer than John that day. If John can afford an afternoon at golf, then Mary should have an afternoon to herself. The greatest immediate need in the home to-day is the proper mental attitude of fair play and justice by all members of the household and the spirit of cooperation in the home. Then this spirit can more easily develop into the larger cooperation of community life.
There is so much more – if you have a few minutes tonight, go read the whole article! It’s well worth it.
Wow. Just read the whole article. Ninety years ago, women were facing the same struggles as today: overwhelming houseworwk and childcare duties. They too, like us, wondered how to rise above the exhausting never- ending labor to find some time for self-fulfillment. They suggested that women band together to help each other; sadly,though, aren’t we even more isolated from each other today?
I read the whole article too. And I really have a wonderful time reading it. It’s full of wonderful ideas and inspiring words.
It’s rather depressing that so little progress has been made in these ideas.
Olivia, I’m not sure if I agree or disagree! It seems we’ve made great progress in some areas (for example, women simply aren’t expected or at least don’t need to do SO MUCH around the house in addition to raising kids, and expecting help from your family is much more of a given) but in other areas – like the way we interact with our kids and what we are expected to accomplish OUTSIDE the home – it seems we’ve set the bar much higher. And I think their ideas for community kitchens, canneries, etc were so cool, but probably just not needed as most families came to have those appliances in their own homes. Still, I love the idea of communal cooking and cleaning and laundering.
As far as house work goes, it depends on the family/couple. I’m thinking of the statistics that women as a whole still do the majority of the house work even when they work full time jobs. Progress has been made, but we have a long way to go.
This is amazing. The call to community, the recognition for time of one’s own, the equitable distribution of labor. Truly astounding. Now, I wonder how this was received by both men and women. I can imaging some dissent from some groups, much like today!
Olivia, I’m often discouraged that we’re still talking about the same things. I wonder if the way to affect change is to start small, in our own homes, and move outward?
Just love the article so much, I really can relate to it so much.Such a pity it is the notion of today that housework is for girls only. Hey! guys, it is not on the list of today yohoo!, wake up guys! lets share the load.
Wow, thank you for finding this! I love looking at stuff like that. Of course I don’t know much about how my grandmother parented and nothing of how my great-grandmother did it, but I feel like I’m reading all the time about how the isolation of families is this modern phenomenon. I knew it couldn’t be all that modern because I remember my own mother being very isolated when I was growing up thirty years ago. But to see that this is something that has been going on since before we had TV and the Internet and computers and video games… That should tell us something. Something different from what we’re telling ourselves. Now if I just knew exactly what that something was…
LOL, I am not yet a mother, but honestly after reading this…it is filled with a lot of delicacy, inspiration and personal experience. Thank you for sharing all these.
Amazing how very little changes in all these years!
Fascinating stuff. I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or depressed that these issues seem perennial, though!
Wow, I read the whole article too, and was actually surprised a little by their attitudes. It didn’t actually seem that outdated to me- most of them seemed to feel that the workload should be divided evenly between spouses, although the chores were pretty stereotypical to the gender roles. I thought it was a really fascinating glimpse into the past in many ways. It really gives an idea of what life was like before washing machines, dishwashers, and readily available “store-bought” clothing.
Would love to see more pieces like this!
Meagan, I made a note last week to come back and read this and I’m so glad I did. I love this one:
“There came a time when I threw myself on the bed and cried and cried at the hopeless mess of it all. The baby cried lustily in his cart, the three-year-old whimpered he was hungry, and the five-year-old screamed loudly that he had hurt himself. A cake burned black in the oven, I cared not. I heard the jangle of milk pails, and I knew the men were coming for an unprepared supper. I was completely tired out with the never-ending work.”
Haven’t we all been there?
I love (LOVE) historical insights into the mothering experience. If you have any great sources of this kind of stuff I would love to know…
Hi Meagan,
I saw this quote and wanted to share it with you via Wise Words Wednesday. It strikes me as quite true.
“Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
That’s a great post. We would like to say thank you for sharing your thoughts. We will for sure share your article.