Frugal Housewife, The.
[Cookbooks]. (Child, Lydia Maria). The Frugal Housewife. Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy by the Author of Hobomok. Second Edition. Corrected and Arranged by the Author. To Which Is Included Hints to Persons of Moderate Fortune. Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
12mo, 120pp; + Index; printed brown paper over boards with dark brown linen spine. Moderate foxing throughout; contemporary signature front pastedown, "Hannah Poole Stevens / Book"; 8 mss. with recipes for cures tied in at p. 25 ("Simple Remedies"); boards and spine show wear with stains, tears, etc. About very good. A sound, firm copy of this 19th century classic.
Second edition. An extended revision of the title which first appeared the previous year (1829). With the changes wrought by industrialization and increased mobility, domestic advice books supplied a necessary function for women no longer able to look to their family for information on how to cook, how to manage a household and how to care for the ill. In reviewing books for the Massachusetts Journal, Lydia Maria Child noticed that such domestic advice books addressed themselves to women of means. Recipes for ice cream, lobster sauce, venison pastry, etc. indulged the palate regardless of expense.
"Child's The Frugal Housewife furnishes a striking contrast. Unlike all other domestic advice books of the period, it does not take for granted that its readers rely on servants to do their housework. Nor does it lament the dearth of qualified servants and suggest solutions to this problem (as Catharine Beecher does in her 1841 Treatise on Domestic Economy). Nor does it moralize on the virtues of women's doing their own housework (as William Alcott does in his 1837 manual, The Young House-Keeper)..." (The First Woman in the Republic, by Carolyn L. Karcher, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994, p. 129)
Though critics such as Sarah Hale and Nathan P. Willis lamented Child's want of “delicacy” in the language with which she addresses the need for frugality, the text found a ready public. A mere three months separated the appearance of the first and second editions. For the second edition, Child, stung by the criticism regarding her language, replaced offending words such as "nice" with "good" and similar substitutions in deference to gentility. More importantly, she had a chance to organize the book more effectively, expand the text and add to the recipes. The Frugal Housewife went through numerous printings in the 1830s and 1840s, the thirty-first edition being issued in 1845. The implicitly rural frame of Child's text gradually rendered the book less pertinent as the population shifted to urban areas through the middle of the century.
A groundbreaking text written with Child's customary verve, as its opening reflects: "The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments, of time, as well as materials....” BAL 3104. Cagle, 147 (Cagle notes printed blue boards). Lowenstein 130.
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