Difference between revisions of "Week 9 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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Beecher lists a series of chores that housewives must accomplish on each day of the week. She states, "''Monday'', with some of the best housekeepers, is devoted to preparing for the labors of the week...''Tuesday'' is devoted to washing, and ''Wednesday'' to ironing. On ''Thursday'', the ironing is finished off, the clothes folded and put away, and all articles which need mending put in the mending basket, and attended to. ''Friday'' is devoted to sweeping and housecleaning. On ''Saturday''...every department is put in order...and everything about the house put in order for ''Sunday''." Such a strict daily schedule may explain why women became so bored and lonely. Their husbands could go out of the house and do business, meet with other people, or attend to different aspects of business at different times of the year. Women, on the other hand, were expected to accomplish the same tasks on the same day no matter the month or week. Do you think this could explain why women, such as Caroline Gilman, discuss the idea of women missing their husbands? Also, do you think that this weekly schedule that Beecher suggests was necessary in maintaining a household? Why or why not? -- Hannah W. | Beecher lists a series of chores that housewives must accomplish on each day of the week. She states, "''Monday'', with some of the best housekeepers, is devoted to preparing for the labors of the week...''Tuesday'' is devoted to washing, and ''Wednesday'' to ironing. On ''Thursday'', the ironing is finished off, the clothes folded and put away, and all articles which need mending put in the mending basket, and attended to. ''Friday'' is devoted to sweeping and housecleaning. On ''Saturday''...every department is put in order...and everything about the house put in order for ''Sunday''." Such a strict daily schedule may explain why women became so bored and lonely. Their husbands could go out of the house and do business, meet with other people, or attend to different aspects of business at different times of the year. Women, on the other hand, were expected to accomplish the same tasks on the same day no matter the month or week. Do you think this could explain why women, such as Caroline Gilman, discuss the idea of women missing their husbands? Also, do you think that this weekly schedule that Beecher suggests was necessary in maintaining a household? Why or why not? -- Hannah W. | ||
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| + | In response to Hannah, this schedule does seem a little strict to modern day women, who are accustomed to having a routine at home. The women that Beecher was writing to had no systems at all (at least none that were acceptable for the new middle class). Whenever you begin a new system or routine, you have to begin by being very strict and regimented, and once they (in this case, Beecher's audience) get the hang of it, people are free to make their own judgment calls and make adjustments as needed. Plus, when laundry takes 4 days in a week, there's only so many ways you can change the schedule. --Stef L. | ||
The two things that interested me the most in Catharine Beecher's "System and Order" was here description of how to manage work within the week and the mode of "systematizing, [relating] to providing proper supplies of conveniences." The details for arranging a week seem quite logical and in fact are similar to actually accounts I have read that follow a similar outline. It does not seem That Catharine's ideas on this front could have been that new. As for the arranging items in particular places, did women really have the extra rooms just for doing laundry? And why, for the trunks full of extra supplies, were they kept locked? --Jennifer S. | The two things that interested me the most in Catharine Beecher's "System and Order" was here description of how to manage work within the week and the mode of "systematizing, [relating] to providing proper supplies of conveniences." The details for arranging a week seem quite logical and in fact are similar to actually accounts I have read that follow a similar outline. It does not seem That Catharine's ideas on this front could have been that new. As for the arranging items in particular places, did women really have the extra rooms just for doing laundry? And why, for the trunks full of extra supplies, were they kept locked? --Jennifer S. | ||
