Customer Reviews

The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America

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This book has some interesting tidbits and some cute details about women's life 100 years ago. Lots of info about how they dressed and personal hygiene and some housework information. It is an easy read. The book is over 200 pages, but the margins are huge. I'm an old house fanatic and a history buff and this book didn't quite hit the spot for me, but it's in my personal library as a good reference work.

However, if you can only buy one or two books about life 100 years ago, I'd recommend "Never done" by Susan Strasser and "Victorian America" by Thomas Schlereth.

These books get to the nitty gritty and have more substance. Again, "Light of the Home" is not a bad book - I bought it, after all and I kept it! It's in my top five favorite books of women's life in history. I'd just put a couple books above it, in my personal preferences.

I really like this book, and highly recommend it.
It's great for anyone interested in the Victorian era.
It talks about women's fashion's in that era and their
way of life. It has some good illustrations a well.

Green studied the domestic lives of women in Victorian America. Because they left few written records of their daily lives, Green used the memorabilia from the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum in his investigation. This collection of clothing, cooking utensils, bicycles, furniture, and other impedimenta of daily living evidenced the routines of these women.

The nature of this material limited his study to white, urban, middle-class women in the Northeast, who could afford these objects. Green accepts that limitation because he claims these women shaped popular domestic culture.

The book is divided into chapters dealing with specific concerns of ordinary women, such as courtship and marriage, motherhood, housework, interior design, and leisure activities.

The onset of puberty signaled the end of women's freedom as their clothing and hairstyles changed to reflect this more constricted existence. Corsets and hairpins restricted women's movement and represented their limited opportunities in society.

Unmarried women's activities centered around choosing a husband. After flirting, dates, and engagement, couples married. Overnight, women were transformed from blushing virgins to world-wise matrons and were expected to act accordingly.

Society deemed children the essential component to marriage. This strident advocacy contended with the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth in this era. Mothers then created a safe garden in which their children could grow.

Women oversaw the home, which displayed their social position, and furnished them with handicrafts and artwork to create a miniature universe of culture, stability, and learning.

Because society equated cleanliness with moral worth, women spent most of their time cleaning. Green detailed these daily chores, such as baking, washing, and sewing, and described the change which labor saving devices wrought.

With the new free time, women pursued a variety of leisure activities, such as shopping, social calls, sports, and volunteer work.

Women participated in religion more than men, and theology reflected their influence. Heaven came to resemble the Victorian home. Religion emphasized the feminine virtues of nurturing, generosity, passivity, and moral stewardship.

Women's health revolved around their reproductive system. Physicians and reformers decried the corset, high heels, masturbation, and female orgasm as dangerous to reproduction. Physicians used neurasthenia, a vague non-disease, and prescribed tonics and placebos for other complaints.

Green's study contained several problems. His material limited his investigation to white, middle class, urban women from the Northeast. These women represented a minority of the population in this period. He overlooked the relationship between wives and husbands. He made several broad assertions, such as that "the vast majority of middle class women accepted their position," (p.57) without substantiating these allegations. His study suffered from these oversimplifications and from his narrow research material.

If you are seeking information about women's material culture, then this is the book for you. If you want a more in depth analysis of women's roles in the period, there are better accounts available.

No book as thin as this (185 pages of text, with huge margins and many illustrations) could hope to encompass all the extant information about Victorian womanhood, but Harvey Green makes a good start. Although his time period is confined to the years 1870-1910, it's worth noting that "Victorian" America actually began at the same time Victorian England did, in 1837, and that most cultural assumptions of the former period carried over from the latter. At the same time, Green has purposely focused his light on the Eastern and Middle-Western middle class, quite ignoring the pioneer, the poor, the naughty, and the iconoclastic (of whom there were a goodly few). This much said, his book is full of useful data much of which can be carried over to other segments of female reality of the day. Organized into broad chapter categories including courtship and marriage, motherhood, housework, home decoration, health, leisure, and "religion, death, and mourning," it provides a good basic picture of what 19th-Century women mostly aspired to, as well as the justifications given for society's limitations upon them. There's a good index, though a reading list might have been helpful too.

As many reviewers have pointed out this book focuses on 1870 to 1910, in the region of New England, on female WASPs. That may be a fault, but Harvey Green does point it out and then proceeds to examine, explore, reveal the lives of woman in this Victorian America. Green states that only the urban centers of the northeast were civilized. I guess the rest was uncivilized frontier.
Mr. Green uses a limited amount of first person sources. Most of the book relies on ads, health guides, magazines, artwork, and even some photos. Some of his statements are generalizations that would easily collapse under any attack, but please remember he is not talking about Virginia, Texas or Alaska. He is dealing with a small slice of the United States populace during a 40 year period and many of his views may be correct, to a point.
I would look at it as a fun and not-very-serious study on women's history of the period and leave it at that.

What a wonderful insight into the Victorian Life Style! The descriptions help to create in one's mind a vivid picture of life during the Victorian Period. The narrative is a terrific resource for research of Victorian traditions. This book has helped me gain an understanding of so many social behaviors that still exist in these modern times. I sometimes just sit and read sections for my own enjoyment. My thanks to the writers!

Green studied the domestic lives of women in Victorian America. Because they left few written records of their daily lives, Green used the memorabilia from the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum in his investigation. This collection of clothing, cooking utensils, bicycles, furniture, and other impedimenta of daily living evidenced the routines of these women.

The nature of this material limited his study to white, urban, middle-class women in the Northeast, who could afford these objects. Green accepts that limitation because he claims these women shaped popular domestic culture.

The book is divided into chapters dealing with specific concerns of ordinary women, such as courtship and marriage, motherhood, housework, interior design, and leisure activities.

The onset of puberty signaled the end of women's freedom as their clothing and hairstyles changed to reflect this more constricted existence. Corsets and hairpins restricted women's movement and represented their limited opportunities in society.

Unmarried women's activities centered around choosing a husband. After flirting, dates, and engagement, couples married. Overnight, women were transformed from blushing virgins to world-wise matrons and were expected to act accordingly.

Society deemed children the essential component to marriage. This strident advocacy contended with the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth in this era. Mothers then created a safe garden in which their children could grow.

Women oversaw the home, which displayed their social position, and furnished them with handicrafts and artwork to create a miniature universe of culture, stability, and learning.

Because society equated cleanliness with moral worth, women spent most of their time cleaning. Green detailed these daily chores, such as baking, washing, and sewing, and described the change which labor saving devices wrought.

With the new free time, women pursued a variety of leisure activities, such as shopping, social calls, sports, and volunteer work.

Women participated in religion more than men, and theology reflected their influence. Heaven came to resemble the Victorian home. Religion emphasized the feminine virtues of nurturing, generosity, passivity, and moral stewardship.

Women's health revolved around their reproductive system. Physicians and reformers decried the corset, high heels, masturbation, and female orgasm as dangerous to reproduction. Physicians used neurasthenia, a vague non-disease, and prescribed tonics and placebos for other complaints.

Green's study contained several problems. His material limited his investigation to white, middle class, urban women from the Northeast. These women represented a minority of the population in this period. He overlooked the relationship between wives and husbands. He made several broad assertions, such as that "the vast majority of middle class women accepted their position," (p.57) without substantiating these allegations. His study suffered from these oversimplifications and from his narrow research material.

If you are seeking information about women's material culture, then this is the book for you. If you want a more in depth analysis of women's roles in the period, there are better accounts available.

After remodeling my home with victorian woodwork and accessories, I was curious about the lifestyle of the average victorian. The book contains numerous pictures and historical information which gave me a broad understanding of their lives.