Separating Home and Work, Early 1800s
The Good Wife, 1853
Americans of the Revolutionary era revered the “good wife,” whose work in the home was essential to the economic health of the household.
But by the 1830s the “angel in the house” reigned at home. The idea that housework and childcare was, in fact, work disappeared for some women. Yet someone, often enslaved or servant women, performed the strenuous and invisible work of the home.
Everyone in 1855 could see that the baking required to feed one’s family, although performed by women, was necessary work. Tending small children was wrapped into household tasks.
Courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries, Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, The Skillful Housewife's Book (1853)
Home was the workplace
In early America, although certain household tasks were divided by gender, the home was a site of work for both sexes—and no one “got paid.” Your pay was your dinner and the clothes on your back. Home was a place of production.
Courtesy of Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Short gown, around 1790
A woman’s housedress of the 1700s was a short gown, a simple garment. It allowed enough freedom of movement to accommodate everything from stirring a pot to carrying firewood to picking up children.
Gift of Elizabeth S. Brown
All kinds of women wore this garment, from free women of middling status to enslaved black women.
Notice that this is an easy on-and-off garment that could be pinned closed or held closed by an apron. Its flexible size allowed it to be enlarged as a woman's body changed with pregnancy.
Plain pocket, 1700s
Gift of the Sutphen-Schenck-Hunt Memorial Collection
Although some are plain and others fancy, all pockets made work around the home easier. Pockets allowed women to carry on their person items such as scissors, small knives, and thimbles. Big pockets continuted to define women's housedresses for the next two centuries because they were practical.
Plain pocket, 1700s
Gift of the Sutphen-Schenck-Hunt Memorial Collection
Although some are plain and others fancy, all pockets made work around the home easier. Pockets allowed women to carry on their person items such as scissors, small knives, and thimbles. Big pockets continuted to define women's housedresses for the next two centuries because they were practical.
