A Woman's Work is Never Done: History of Housework in the British Isles, 1650-1950 Book

The majority of women throughout history have spent their lives doing housework. No other occupation employs half the population or makes such an immediate impact on people's way of life. Yet the history of housework has been virtually ignored. Caroline Davidson's pioneering book is a study of domestic life in Britain, the first country in the world to experience the effects of rapid urban and industrial growth. She discusses the development of the three utilities affecting domestic life - water, gas and electricity. She then describes in detail the most important household tasks that women didd between i65o and r95o: cooking, heating, lighting, cleaning and laundry. Further chapters are devoted to domestic servants, the time women spent on housework and the amount of help they received from their families and, finally, women's attitudes to their chief occupation. The author has drawn on an extraordinarily wide variety of sources, provides extensive bibliographical notes and includes over a hundred illustrations, most of which have never been reproduced before. A Woman's Work is Never Done provides a stimulating and entertaining account of the housewife's changing (and unchanging) status, as well as a unique insight into three centuries of life in the British Isles.Read More