Quaker Hill: A Sociological StudyWilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Religion
Quaker Hill: A Sociological Study
Wilson, Warren H. (Warren Hugh)
Quaker Hill (N.Y.)
The Quaker Hill woman is a good housekeeper. The substantial farmhouses
on the Hill are outward signs of excellent homes within. The table is
well spread, with a measured abundance, which satisfies but does not
waste. The rooms are each furnished forth in spare and righteous
daintiness, over which nowadays is poured, in occasional instances, a
pretty modern color, timidly laid on, which does not remove the prim
Quakerness. Ventures in the use of decoration, however, have been crude
in most cases, and the results, so far as they have been effected by the
taste of the woman of the Hill, are incongruous in color, and
ill-assorted in design. It is in house-furnishing that the tendency of
the daughter of the Quakers shows the most frequent variation.
Occasionally one sees the outcropping of a really artistic
spirit--peculiarly refreshing because so rare--which has only in a
woman's mature years ventured to indulge in a bit of happy color; but
the venture if successful is always reserved and simple; and the most of
such ventures are of unhappy result.
The housekeeping arts have reached a high degree of perfection on the
Hill. Cooking is there done with a precision, economy and tastefulness
in sharp contrast to the non-aesthetic manner in which the Quakers
conduct most occupations. It is, moreover, a kind of cooking after the
Quaker manner, at once frugal and abundant. For of all people, the
Quakers have learned to manage generously and economically.
The outcome of this housekeeping is the diversion of much of the
business energy of the Hill to the "keeping of boarders." Seven of the
old Quaker families, and one Irish Catholic household are devoted to the
keeping of boarders; five of them being supported in the main by this
business. Of these five families, however, four reside upon farms of
more than one hundred and fifty acres apiece. These families sell at
certain times in the year, a certain quantity of milk, or make butter,
or fatten calves, but not as their central means of support.
To these farmhouses come year after year the same paying guests, each
house having its own constituency, built up through thirty years of
patient and unbroken service. The charm of the Quaker character, the
excellence of the cooking and the enjoyable character of the other
factors of the household, bring patrons back; while the benefits of the
elevation and pure air are, to city dwellers, material returns for the
moneys expended. For this board, the price charged is, in the Irish
Catholic household, five dollars per week; in one of the oldtime Quaker
houses, six dollars, and in the others from eight to ten or twelve
dollars per week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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