Household Papers and StoriesStowe, Harriet Beecher
General
Household Papers and Stories
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Didactic fiction; Home economics -- Fiction; Short stories
"The model laundries for the poor in London had facilities which would
enable a woman to do both the washing and ironing of a small family in
from two to three hours, and were so arranged that a very few women
could, with ease, do the work of a neighborhood.
"But in the absence of an establishment of this sort, the housekeepers
of a country village might help themselves very much by owning a
mangle in common, to which all the heavier parts of the ironing could
be sent. American ingenuity has greatly improved the machinery of the
mangle. It is no longer the heavy, cumbersome, structure that it used
to be in the Old World, but a compact, neat piece of apparatus, made
in three or four different sizes to suit different-sized apartments.
"Mr. H. F. Bond, of Waltham, Massachusetts, now manufactures these
articles, and sends them to all parts of the country. The smallest of
them does not take up much more room than a sewing-machine, can be
turned by a boy of ten or twelve, and thus in the course of an hour or
two the heaviest and most fatiguing part of a family ironing may be
accomplished.
"I should certainly advise the 'Young Family Man' with a delicate wife
and uncertain domestic help to fortify his kitchen with one of these
fixtures.
"But after all, I still say that the quarter to which I look for the
solution of the American problem of domestic life is a wise use of the
principle of association.
"The future model village of New England, as I see it, shall have for
the use of its inhabitants not merely a town lyceum hall and a town
library, but a town laundry, fitted up with conveniences such as no
private house can afford, and paying a price to the operators which
will enable them to command an excellence of work such as private
families seldom realize. It will also have a town bakery, where the
best of family bread, white, brown, and of all grains, shall be
compounded; and lastly a town cook-shop, where soup and meats may be
bought, ready for the table. Those of us who have kept house abroad
remember the ease with which our foreign establishments were carried
on. A suite of elegant apartments, a courier, and one female servant
were the foundation of domestic life. Our courier boarded us at a
moderate expense, and the servant took care of our rooms. Punctually
at the dinner hour every day, our dinner came in on the head of a
porter from a neighboring cook-shop. A large chest lined with tin, and
kept warm by a tiny charcoal stove in the centre, being deposited in
an anteroom, from it came forth first soup, then fish, then roasts of
various names, and lastly pastry and confections,--far more courses
than any reasonable Christian needs to keep him in healthy condition;
and dinner being over, our box with its debris went out of the house,
leaving a clear field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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