Author Description

Over The Course Of A Two Hundred Year Period, Women's Domestic Labor Gradually Lost Its Footing As A Recognized Aspect Of Economic Life In America. The Image Of The Colonial Goodwife, Valued For Her Contribution To Household Prosperity, Had Been Replaced By The Image Of A Dependent And A Non-producer. This Book Is A History Of Housework In The United States Prior To The Civil War. More Particularly, It Is A History Of Women's Unpaid Domestic Labor In The Context Of The Emergence Of An Industrialized Society In The Northern United States. Boydston Argues That Just As A Capitalist Economic Order Had First To Teach That Wages Were The Measure Of A Man's Worth, It Had At The Same Time, Implicitly Or Explicitly, To Teach That Those Who Did Not Draw Wages Were Dependent And Not Essential To The Real Economy. Developing A Striking Account Of The Gender And Labor Systems That Characterized Industrializing America, Boydston Explains How This Effected The Devaluation Of Women's Unpaid Labor. Introduction -- An Oeconomical Society -- A New Source Of Profit And Support -- How Strangely Metamorphosed -- All The In-doors Work -- The True Economy Of Housekeeping -- The Political Economy Of Housework -- The Pastoralization Of Housework -- Notes -- Bibliography - Index. Jeanne Boydston. Bibliographic Level Mode Of Issuance: Monograph Includes Bibliographical References (p. 197-215) And Index. English