The Half Century Housewife Challenge

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I spoke a little about the 1950's Housewife Challenge a little bit in my post about what Exempla are, and what their actual social purpose is. And while I don't support the way in which some people go about the challenge and really do wish they'd do a bit more research... Watching Victoria of Playing 50's Housewife participate herself (and even helping her with her research), did give me an idea for a sort of Half Century Housewife Challenge.

In essence, I want to go through remaining Exempla that we have for each decade between 1900 and 1960, and attempt to put together a coherent image of what the homemaking Exemplar was... The plan is to then live according to those ideas for a week per decade, and examine how the idea changed from the beginning of the 20th century, to the midcentury I've traditionally focused on over the years.

Part of this is because, as I've aged, I've found my attention increasingly shifting to the 1910's through 40's. But it's also because you can't understand where you wound up, without understanding where you came from- and in that regard I know quite a bit about the Victorian era... But my knowledge of the space in between is sorely lacking. Additionally, I want to get back into the swing of things myself as a full time Homemaker who sadly fell off the wagon due to an illness I now seem to be mostly recovered from.

Something like a Half Century Housewife Challenge, then, provides multiple positive opportunities: First, to expand my historical knowledge into eras I find more interesting now. Second, to get myself back into a routine after a number of faltering years without one. And third, to examine those older eras for additional hints, tricks, techniques, and the like, which I might like to add to that routine- either because they make my job easier as a disabled woman, or some such other reason.

Homemaking manuals, however, are barely even 1/3rd of the total story- and this is where I find the vast majority of challenges like these genuinely start to fail; most people will look at only the Homemaking Exempla- and will maybe pick up a cookbook and follow the food portion out of curiosity (especially with so many myths floating around that food then was consistently a horror show)... But will never really look at anything else.

That's a problem, because Homemaking manuals can tell you how the wife should carry out her duties- but they don't teach you about why; they often say little of the social expectations of women, the marital expectations of the wife, how to keep up appearances, the cultural and social value of food, the underpinnings of life and more. All of which not only lays the foundation for that image to exist in the first place, but also rounds it out to a complete picture. 

It's easy to know from a homemaker's manual, for instance, that you should spend some time in the mornings getting ready. But without the foundational knowledge of what "getting ready" looked like in the 1950's, vs the 1920's, vs today, it's impossible to get any true accuracy; routines from the 1910's may have taken 40 minutes, or 10 minutes in the 1950's- and of course, that's going to impact the time you have to devote to the demanding schedule of the homemaker. So it matters a great deal that you have this information if you really want a truly accurate idea of what the perfect Exemplar life was like.

But homemaking manuals, as books concerned with the home and domesticity, tend to assume you already know how to address the beauty standards of the era. For that reason, you likely won't find the necessary information there.  You'll find that in a beauty book. A true challenge, then, demands a much broader expansion into the various additional types of Exempla and manuals which exist for the average woman.

I'll be using a combination of exempla for the Half Century Housewife challenge, then. This will include at least one book from each of the following types of Exemplar that would have been available not only for for the Homemaker, but for the average woman in general:

  • A Social Etiquette Manual
  • A Beauty Book
  • A Marriage Book
  • A Homemaking Manual
  • A Cookbook
  • An Activities Book

The hope is that through examining all of these together, I can build a better image of the Exemplar than is typically achieved by challenges of this nature. 

Of course, I won't be able to follow it all for various reasons- safety being the main one, but the differences in architecture and common technology being another. And there are my own disabilities, and my own health, to consider as well. We're also in the middle of a Pandemic with no end in sight, and that changes some things a bit... Still, the effort should- and will- be made to the fullest extent possible where reasonable. 

However, with holidays coming up, things are getting a bit crazy around here; I have a number of Hagging Out celebrations already in the works, and a collaboration with Victoria (and another blogger) on a 50's Christmas challenge- plus an Orthodox Christmas celebration in January. So I won't be doing my Half Century Housewife Challenge until after the New Year. I simply don't have the time, or the energy to do it all together otherwise. 

Thankfully, though, that does give me plenty of time to prepare, so I can make things easier on myself once the time actually comes. And in that regard, I've taken the liberty of picking out all of my books ahead of time. So I'll be using the following books for each decade block:

⚶ 1900's ⚶

⚶ 1910's ⚶

⚶ 1920's ⚶

⚶ 1930's ⚶

⚶ 1940's ⚶

⚶ 1950's ⚶

Until January, I'll concentrate on ironing out the final particulars of the challenge, and putting together a sort of "starter pack" for each decade- consisting of basic social and other rules, and a housekeeping routine, all of which will be pulled from the above Exempla; I'll play starting the actual challenge by ear, once the time grows closer.

Sources may be subject to change as I find more (or better) texts