Never Done

I first read Never Done in 1988 as a college student studying women's history. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it again this time as a re-read. Strasser has the most rare and excellent quality of being able to condense academic research into a genuinely engaging and readable book. I find that she treats the material in an open and balanced way. She looks at the past without nostalgia, but is honest about the price that was paid for advancement. I also like that rather than focusing on the appliances themselves, she tends to focus more on the infrastructure that allowed them to be adopted as agents of change (i.e., electricity, plumbing). I am not a historian, so I cannot say that I would recommend it for that purpose. However, I would recommend it for the student or for the general armchair type of historian who may want to supplement period reading.

This book is a history of American housework, covering common household tasks, related equipment, and the people called on to do the work. The main topics of the book include food production and processing, food preparation and the evolution of cookstoves, home heating and lighting, the spread of domestic gas and electricity services, water supplies and plumbing, laundry, weaving and sewing, taking in paying boarders, maids, the scientific housekeeping movement and the birth of home economics, childcare, and consumption as an avocation. The book is amply illustrated with black and white reproductions of period paintings, drawings, and advertisements. In addition to a bibliographic note for further study, there is a section of source notes at the end of the book citing original materials, as well as an index. In reading the acknowledgements of Ruth Schwartz Cowan's book "More Work for Mother," I had noted that Strasser was listed there as an undergraduate research assistant of Cowan's. With that in mind, I expected the thesis of this book to be similar to that of Cowan's, especially given the similar titles. However, whereas Cowan's book claimed in an almost contradictory fashion that American women have had to shoulder more and more housework over the last century due to industrialization, Strasser takes the viewpoint that industrialization gradually wore away at the value of the contribution women could add to their households by doing work around house, leading eventually to the necessity of their taking paid work outside the home. Strasser points out that in the pre-industrial period, both men and women worked the land with the goal of being as self-sufficient as possible, but that both men and women engaged in some activities to bring in outside resources or income. For example, some women earned extra income for their families or supported themselves entirely by sewing or doing laundry for others. With the advent of industrialization, these tasks were taken over by machines or factories, and while women were freed from the tasks of having to do their own sewing and laundry by hand, they could also no longer earn an income from sewing or washing clothes for others. At the same time, women became more isolated, since they had been in the habit of doing much of their work, from sewing to laundry, in the company of other women.Whereas Cowan claimed virtually all middle class American households in the late Nineteenth Century had domestic help and that a family's housework was so heavy that it could not be undertaken by one woman working alone, Strasser points out that by studying census records, we find that the vast majority of families did not have live-in maids. In fact, enormous numbers of households included people unrelated to the family- -boarders, making the mistress of the household a kind of professional housekeeper, who undertook the cooking, cleaning and laundry not only for her family, but also for the boarders. In gener

I first heard about this book when I attended Evergreen State College. The topic of housework came up as we read "Roll, Jordan Roll" by Eugene Genovese. Some of my classmates wanted to know about housework in its relationship to slavery. And the teacher, Nancy Allen, mentioned that a great book on the subject of housework was "Never Done", by Susan Strasser. Nancy also used the book as a good example of source notes that we might want to learn from in our own course work/research.Fast forward my life ten or so years. I'm in an English class and reading "O Pioneers!" by Willa Cather. I remember Ms. Strasser's book! So I read it to broaden my understanding of Ms. Cather's novel and of pioneer and womens domestic lives at that time. I had a romanticised view of life in America; times were simpler and therefore better. Susan's book assisted in effectively yet politely dismissing those flowery notions from my thoughts. The research required for such a book as this--- clearly labor-intensive, but Ms. Strasser effortlessly writes in a reader-friendly style which doesn't undermine the scholarly nature of this work and its value to Womens Studies.

Great book. Very interesting and intriguing.I also dreamt life 100 years ago was so much better than today. So simple, so lovely...but Strasser's book blew that theory out of the water.If you ever wondered what a typical day was like for women and girls at the turn of the last century, you'll love this book.Well written and extremely interesting.

A fascinating and delightful examination of the history of housework in American history - specifically about the changing role of women as "houseworkers" and consumers. Of the hundreds of books that I had to read for my Masters degree in U.S. history, this work stood out not only as one of the very best (it was a real eye-opener!), but one of the most enjoyable to read. An excellent work of social history and women's history, with a sense of humor to boot! Let's see it back in print soon