Home Economics: A Practical Guide in Every Branch of Housekeeping

Title: Home Economics: A Practical Guide to Every Branch of Housekeeping

Published: 1910

Author: Maria Parloa

Publisher: The Century Co.

Like several of the 300-plus-page items in the collection, Maria Parloa’s Home Economics seems to cover nearly every imaginable aspect of homemaking. Parloa, like many authors whose work appears in this collection, notes the difficulty and complexity of homemaking, and advertises the book as a way of managing and simplifying a housewife’s daily tasks. She writes, “Few women have the time to devote to investigation and experiment in all the lines that bear upon the making of the home” (v), a message of semi-solidarity echoed in many of the later manuals. The book provides instruction such to an extent that challenges 20th-century gender norms to some extent; it includes sections on selecting a house based on its structural merit and understanding the musculature of animals for the purpose of buying the best available meat, both topics that lean towards the “masculine” side of home tasks. However, all topics in the book are strictly confined to the area of the home and the services needed for its upkeep, therefore reinforcing