At home in nineteenth-century America: a documentary history

Introduction : At Home in Nineteenth-Century America

The Emergence of the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Ideal. Excerpt from Henry Lee and Mary Lee, Letters and Journals : With Other Family Letters, 1802-1860 (1926) ; Excerpt from Lydia Maria Child, "Education of Daughters," in The American Frugal Housewife (1832) ; Excerpt from Catharine Beecher, "On the Preservation of a Good Temper in a Housekeeper," in A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) ; Excerpt from John Angell James, The Young Man from Home (1838) ; "The Sphere of Woman, Translated from the German of Goethe," Godey's Lady's Book, March 1850 ; Excerpt from Andrew Jackson Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses : Including Designs for Cottages, Farmhouses, and Villas, with Remarks on Interiors, Furniture, and the Best Modes of Warming and Ventilating (1850) ; Excerpt from Susan Warner (pseud. Elizabeth Wetherell), The Wide, Wide World (1850) ; Excerpt from Herman Melville, "I and My Chimney," Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March 1856

The Persistence of Domestic Labor. Excerpt from Ward Stafford, New Missionary Field : A Report to the Female Missionary Society for the Poor of the City of New York, and Its Vicinity (1817) ; Excerpt from Catharine Maria Sedgwick, The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man (1837) ; Excerpt from Clarissa Packard, Recollections of a Housekeeper (1834) ; Excerpt from Catharine Beecher, Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service (1842) ; Excerpt from "Home in a Boarding-House," Lowell Offering 3 (1842) ; Excerpt from volume 1 of the diary of Lizzie A. Wilson Goodenough (1865) ; Excerpt from Louisa May Alcott, "Experiments," in Little Women (1869) ; Excerpt from Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) ; Excerpt from Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave : Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana (1853) ; Excerpt from "Management of Negroes," Southern Cultivator, November 1850

Home, Civilization, and Citizenship. Excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly (1852) ; Excerpt from W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Problem of Housing the Negro : The Home of the Slave," Southern Workman 30 (1901) ; Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 ; Susan La Flesche, "The Home-Life of the Indian," Indian's Friend 4, no. 10 (1892) ; Excerpt from Frances E. Willard, "My First Home Protection Address," in Woman and Temperance; or, The Work and Workers of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1883) ; Ida B. Wells, "A Story of 1900," Fisk Herald, April 1886 ; William H. Sylvis, "The Poor Man's Home," in The Life, Speeches, Labors and Essays of William H. Sylvis (1872) ; Excerpt from Caroline H. Dall, "Woman's Right to Labor"; or, Low Wages and Hard Work : In Three Lectures, Delivered in Boston, November 1859 (1860) ; "The Unpaid Laborer," Woman's Standard 4, no. 1 (1889)

The American Home on the Move in the Age of Expansion. Excerpt from W.A. Marin, "Sod Houses and Prairie Schooners," Minnesota History Magazine 12 (1931) ; Excerpt from William D. Howells, "The Parlor-Car," in The Sleeping-Car and Other Farces (1876) ; Excerpt from Stephen Crane, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," McClure's Magazine, February 1898 ; Excerpt from Mary Antin, The Promised Land (1912) ; Images and captions from The Dream City : A Portfolio of Photographic Views of the World's Columbian Exposition (1893-1894) ; "Cozy Corners for Parlors," Ladies' Home Journal, July 1890 ; "Roosevelt Censures Foreign Marriages," New York Times, May 3, 1908 ; Excerpt from Caroline S. Shunk, An Army Woman in the Philippines : Extracts from Letters of an Army Officer's Wife, Describing Her Personal Experiences in the Philippine Islands (1914)

At Home in the Late Nineteenth-Century City. Excerpt from Frederick Law Olmsted, Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns : Read before the American Social Science Association at the Lowell Institute, Boston, Feb. 25, 1870 (1870) ; Excerpt from Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) ; Excerpt from Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives : Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890) ; Excerpt from Stephen Crane, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (1893) ; Excerpt from Eliza Chester, "Co-operation," in The Unmarried Woman (1892) ; Excerpt from "Not Only for the Women : A White Elephant to Be Made Profitable," New York Times, May 26, 1878 ; Excerpt from William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) ; "The Dakota : A Description of One of the Most Perfect Apartment Houses in the World," New York Times, October 22, 1884 ; "Roof Sleeping Now Popular in New York," New York Times, July 5, 1908 ; "The Marriage Notice of the Future," Life, November 10, 1887 ; Excerpt from Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, The Decoration of Houses (1897)

Dismantling the Victorian Ideal and the Future of Domesticity. Excerpt from Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) ; Excerpt from Mrs. N.F. (Gertrude Bustill) Mossell, "The Opposite Point of View," in The Work of the Afro-American Woman (1894) ; Excerpt from Helen Campbell, "Organized Living," in Household Economics : A Course of Lectures in the School of Economics of the University of Wisconsin (1897) ; Excerpt from Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Home : Its Work and Influence (1903) ; Excerpt from Mary Abbott, "Individuality in Homes," House Beautiful, February 1898 ; Excerpt from Henry L. Wilson, The Bungalow Book (1910) ; Excerpt from Martha Bensley Bruère, "The New Home-Making," Outlook, March 16, 1912 ; Excerpt from A.L. Hall, "My Workshop at Home," Suburban Life, November 1908 ; Excerpt from Michael M. Davis, Jr., The Exploitation of Pleasure : A Study of Commercial Recreations in New York City (1911) ; Excerpt from Industrial Housing Associates, Good Homes Make Contented Workers (1919).