Keeping Hearth & Home in Old Massachusetts: A Practical Primer for Everyday Living

by Carol Padgett

Keeping Hearth & Home in Old Massachusetts is a "how-to" book, but not for you. Drawn from a wealth of authentic Victorian-era books and magazines, it is like the book your great- or great-great grandmother might have read at age 17 to prepare herself for the etiquette of courting, to learn how to conduct herself in public, and to learn what would be required of her during marriage. Later, she might have read the same book through all over again, for ideas about how to arrange the parlor and how to direct her children's playtime. So welcome to the family household in old Massachusetts. Come indoors, pull up a fireside rocker, and discover how the everyday rituals of a bustling nineteenth-century home can bring history to life more vividly than ever.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[Millie]

It's a history book with no dates or writers attributed. what the heck. every now and then there'll be a short article with citations but otherwise it's about 5 lines of advice/instructions without citation followed by another and another.

[Professor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of advice given women on etiquette, cooking, health, and running a household. It came through as a donation and I wanted to review it more fully before I either sold it or put it in the collection-after looking at it carefully I realized that it was a lot of fun but not right for an academic collection, even as a supplementary work. The title is misleading; almost none of the information pertains to Massachusetts, even if some of the quotes are taken from residents of the state. Very little of the material is sourced in the text, though there is an extensive bibliography, which is problematic. Still, for a fun read for anyone interested in social history, it's quite good, prompting a mix of curiosity, gratitude for the convenience of our own era, horror and disgust at some of the recipes for food and medicine, and the occasional "what a great idea" moment.