Never Done: A History of American Housework

Finally back in print, with a new Preface by the author, this lively, authoritative, and pathbreaking study considers the history of material advances and domestic service, the ‘women s separate sphere,’ and the respective influences of advertising, home economics, and women s entry into the workforce. Never Done begins by describing the household chores of nineteenth-century America: cooking at fireplaces and on cast-iron stoves, laundry done with boilers and flatirons, endless water-hauling and fire-tending, and so on. Strasser goes on to explain and explore how industrialization transformed the nature of women s work. Easing some tasks and eliminating others, new commercial processes inexorably altered women s daily lives and relationships—with each other and with those they served.

Finally back in print, with a new Preface by the author, this lively, authoritative, and pathbreaking study considers the history of material advances and domestic service, the ‘women s separate sphere,’ and the respective influences of advertising, home economics, and women s entry into the workforce. Never Done begins by describing the household chores of nineteenth-century America: cooking at fireplaces and on cast-iron stoves, laundry done with boilers and flatirons, endless water-hauling and fire-tending, and so on. Strasser goes on to explain and explore how industrialization transformed the nature of women s work. Easing some tasks and eliminating others, new commercial processes inexorably altered women s daily lives and relationships—with each other and with those they served.