The Canadian Housewife: An Affectionate History

by Rosemary Neering

An engaging account of Canada's ingenious housewives. Light and lively, but factual, The Canadian Housewife traces the various eras of this feminine icon of the north, from the 1600s with the first Acadian women along the Bay of Fundy -- who lit their houses with candles and heated them with fires -- to the 1950s suburban housewife -- who treasured her new labor-saving kitchen devices and magazine recipes for jellied salads with marshmallows. This engaging cultural history provides amusing information and anecdotes on how Canadian housewives dealt with the trials and tribulations of running a household through Canada's many social periods. Creating fascinating snapshots of specific times in the country's history, sidebars throughout The Canadian Housewife

Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published October 27, 2005

Reviews

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not particularly intersectional, it does highlight a variety of changing roles of the Canadian housewife. I most appreciated the collection of recipes that Neering included, hopefully more historians could pick up on this for a robust food history of housewives.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally, a book about Canadian women!! It is hard to find historical books about us, so I was very excited to find this one.

I am disappointed though.

The positives:
There is clearly a lot of research here, with many direct quotes from media of the time, advertisements for products, recipes, and photographs. The author included all her references too, which I appreciate. Each chapter in the book features a different span of years, starting around the 1600s and ending with the 1950s. I respect how the author was able to dig up information from so far back in history! In each chapter she has headings for the different roles a typical "housewife" would have (cook, seamstress, nurse, wife, mother).

The negatives:
Pretty much all of the stories and experiences focus on white women, with very little mention of the immigrants from anywhere besides Britain. She does give a few examples of other cultures but not in depth (ex: shows a photo of a Japanese "housewife" in an internment camp doing laundry. She says women were still expected to do domestic tasks but does not even mention how hard it was for the Japanese Canadians in general or how they faced racism for so long). Of course, we read about how women were forced to wear corsets and lots of clothing even in the summer. But clothing historians will tell you corsets are not meant to be too tight and restrictive. Men and women wore more clothes throughout history than we currently do, so they were used to it. When we get to the post war chapters, the author contradicts herself by saying wives bought all the latest household gadgets that were advertised to them AND in another paragraph she goes on about how women had to be thrifty and often go without. Which is it? She takes pop culture ideas of the 1950s and frames them as what everyone did. For example, not everyone made jello salad. Not all women wore full makeup and heels to clean their homes.

The book ends by saying "The 1960s would bring the feminist rebellion, the birth control pill, and a virtual end to the stay at home housewife as the Canadian norm" But what she fails to mention is how stay at home mothers gained popularity again in the 1990s. Sure, not as much as previous decades but almost everyone I knew growing up had a stay at home mom.

Overall, this book was filled with interesting tidbits of Canadian domestic history, but it lacked depth and representation.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not enjoy the way this book was organized but I did enjoy reading it and I think a lot of research was necessary to write it. It followed the trajectory of women through the history of Canada from the arrival of white men and of course this was a book about the white immigrant women who came to Canada. The later chapters were about the struggle to achieve some rights in a society dominated by men.

[Crystal Reaume · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this; it was so interesting.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an interesting read about housewives from the 1600s to the 1950s in Canada. Because of all the information, it's not a book you would sit and read in one sitting. Not only is there info broken up into sections per years like wife, nurse, mother, etc. to let you know how things were, there are sidebars (in blue) with letters from housewives telling about their lives, ads, recipes, etc. Washing machines and vacuum cleaners made such a difference in their lives!

I found myself reading parts of this book, shaking my head in wonderment at all that these women did and what was expected of them.

From the 1800s ...

"Monday night I would sort over the soiled clothing, fill up my tubs and set the white things to soak. While the family were eating breakfast, around six o'clock on Tuesday morning, I would set the wash water in two large galvanized iron wash-boilers on the stove to heat. By the time the dishes were cleared away and washed, the separator scoured, the beds made and the floors swept, and the table set for dinner, it would be nine 'o clock, and I would ready to start on the main business of the day - the washing."

From the 1920s ...

"You will want your husband to fall in love with you every day, as he will surely want you to fall in love with him. Of course, you can't always be dressed up but you can try to be always clean and neat, and you can welcome him always with a smile that comes so easy now."

From the 1950s ...

"A woman was urged to feed her man properly, keep a clean house for him, ask a bout his day but never complain about hers, keep the children from bothering hm when he was tired, make the very best of his paycheque, and always be cheerful and ready for whatever he suggested."


I would have been a lousy housewife in those years ... just ask Gord about the first (and last!) time he asked me to sew a button on a shirt for him or iron.

Blog review: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2011/05...

[Lorelei · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sure enjoyed this book. It was so interesting to get a glimpse into the lives of homemakers over the last 100 years. Despite all that has changed, a lot of things have remained the same in a mother's life.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book, that put me in mind of my country grandmother.