More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave

I loved this book, what a fascinating study on how our culture evolved and the choices that we made that define our home life. I found the book to be well researched and engaging. I have recommended it to many friends.

When one thinks of industrialization, the image of a factory comes to mind. However, Cowan looks at the home as a productive venue. According to Cowan's thesis in an industrial society the work women perform as homemakers is tied to technological systems just like in a factory. Work inside or outside the home utilizes electricity, gas, or petroleum as sources of power, and manufacturing and homemaking each require the use of specialized tools. Tools used in the home help to accomplish specific tasks but, Cowan argues, they "have a life of their own" and "set limits to our work."(9) While tools define behavior within the home, it is outside institutions (manufacturing firms, advertising agents, market researchers) that "mediate"(11) which devices are available for the woman to use in the home. For example Cowan points out that the electric refrigerator likely won out over the gas-absorption design due to the aggressiveness of electric utilities verses the more conservative gas manufacturing companies between 1920 and 1950. Notwithstanding the use of labor savings devices, women's work has not become easier or less time consuming. Affluence and technology have made a woman's role more complicated and demanding. Partly due to circumstances such as the reduction of numbers of servants available to do drudge work in the home, the change has more to due with an innate human desire for "privacy and autonomy."(149) It is a "convention so deeply imbedded in our individual and collective consciousness that even the profound changes wrought by the twentieth century have not yet shaken it."(150) Perhaps Cowan's best example of the effects of technology on the home is the stove. Food preparation was a cooperative effort between women and men to produce a simple one-pot meal over an open hearth in pre-industrial days. While the stove reduced the man's effort to maintain the fire, it allowed more complex meals to be prepared by the woman. If industrialization seemingly reduces the effort necessary for a women to prepare and preserve food, make and maintain clothing, or be the health provider within the home, an entirely new role came with the advent of the automobile. The woman became the household's transportation provider! The net effect of technology on homemaking has been to reduce drudgery but not labor. While women have become more productive in the home, what time is saved is now consumed by other tasks. In a further irony house work has helped to perpetuate the idea of homemaking as women's work thus reinforcing the stereotypical inequity between genders. However the decline in domestic servants would seem to imply greater equality between classes. Unlike market labor, women are unpaid, work in isolated workplaces, and perform as unspecialized workers. The value of housework is difficult to quantify and critics argue that household's do not "produce" anything. But is not that the goal of industry; to produce a good or provide a service? Why

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which provides a lot of insight into why modern women still are spending an amazing number of hours doing housework, in spite of vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers.

I had sort of avoided this book because if its title--it sounded like it was going to be one of those books about how since Year One women have been shamelessly victimized by the evil patriarchy. Boy, was I wrong! The book is a masterpiece of American social, cultural, and technological history. In a clear and sympathetic manner, it shows how home maintenance and upkeep have gradually changed in the U.S. over time. During colonial/pioneer days, everbody in a family had essential work to do: men chopped wood, plowed, and harvested; children carried wood and water; women spun, sewed, and cooked. If anybody fell down on the job, all suffered. Gradually, things changed--men (and sometimes children) increasingly left the house to work for wages during the day. Superficially, this makes it look like, over time, American households quit being net producers of goods (grain, milk, eggs, cloth, etc.) to net consumers of finished products (pre-made clothes, canned goods, etc.). Cowan shows that this is not exactly the case. While "hard" goods did cease to be produced at home, services--health care, cooking, cleaning, etc.--were still produced for family use. And these services, in spite of in introduction of labor-saving appliances and tools--still, to this day, require both time and skill to use. In fact, while much of the drudgery (heavy lifting and water hauling, for example) was reduced, the complexity of the duties actually increased.Cowan writes in a very clear style, and provides excellent examples to make her points. For example, she shows how diets changed with time, and gives a number of example of "failed alternatives" to private housework (co-operatives, residential hotels, etc.) Ultimately, she shows how housework/way of life evolved to the present day--working mothers, self-serve stores, few home deliveries--with the tacit consent of both the men and the women who created our current society. It provides an insightful study of many aspects of American life, addressing including such questions as "If I have so many labor- and time-saving devices, why am I so busy and tired so much of the time?"

I love books that challenge convetional wisdom, such a book is "More Work for Mother." The assumptions it challenges are many, but the major two are that separate spheres of work have always been the norm, and that industrialization left nothing for women to do at home. As a mother myself, I was gratified to see historical and statistical confirmation for what I suspected all along: that the household technologies that enable us to live more sanitary and comfortable lives have not necessarily made our lives less difficult or less laborious. As Cowan points out, industrialization decreased the labor involved mostly in the work that was traditionally performed by men and children. Prior to industrialization it took an entire family working together to make a meal: children drew the water, men obtained the fuel and prepared the grain, and women cooked the meals. After industrialization, water was brought to the home by pipes, coal and prepared grain were purchased (by women--now an extra task), but women still prepared the meals--often more complex and labor-intensive meals because expectations were raised by the greater variety of foodstuffs available and the new cookstoves. At the same time, the family no longer worked together quite as much and a lot of the "togetherness" was lost. The father became less central to child-rearing because he was no longer available in the home all day long, thus more familial responsiblities were also laid on women's plates. I highly recommend this book to women who find their days exhausting but can't figure out why.