MANUSCRIPT: Ramblings of an Impractical Housewife.
A FEMALE 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN PEPYS
Burckes, Marion. Manuscript and ephemera archive: Ramblings of an Impractical
Housewife. Ca. 1929-1960, bulking to the 1930s-40s.
A collection of typescripts, typed and autograph letters (both received and retained copies), and some additional personal memorabilia such as report cards. Approximately 108 mostly typed single-spaced pages; plus about 22 pages of letters received by Burckes, 6 pages from a correspondence writing course, and a number of personal papers.
The material mostly created by Marion Burckes (b. 1903) of Waltham, Massachusetts, is provided with an overall title page “Ramblings of an Impractical Housewife.” Various color paper, some typed on the verso of repurposed paper. The typescripts begin in 1929 and continue on into the 1950s, although most seem to be composed in the 1930s and during WWII. There are a few received letters that date as late as 1977, but these make up very little of the archive.
Burckes’s writings, much of it in the form of retained copies of meticulously detailed letters to friends, begin in 1929 and deal in great detail, largely with the domestic details of her life. They start in 1929 amongst the tribulations of housework, about an “orgy of baking”, she muses on the futility of dwelling on forlorn problems and melancholy moods, which seems to be a continuing focus of her writings, including an admonition to herself to “Wake up and live”. She writes about frustrations of playing bridge, she writes on “Impressions During a 50-Mile Car Trip”, “Oh, the Trials of a Wife!”, she goes on at some length on rehearsals, for what is unclear. She goes to the Copley Theater but “feeling rather poor and so as there were only $1.10 and 25c. seats left, we took a trip by mutual consent up into the nigger heaven” which she finds acceptable, but the people laugh too much. She writes of being “Snowbound in New Hampshire”, She writes anthropomorphically of “That Old Car of Mine” (actually of two cars: one of WWI vintage, the other a 1922 Dodge), she transcribes an account dictated to her by a four year old.
During WWII she writes a long account of her house renovation in the form of a letter. She writes at length about the various inhabitants of Somerville and Concord, and their curious penchant for worshipping their ancestors and bloodlines. Burckes reports that she and her husband George haven’t conceived a child and discuss various attempts at adoption. She takes up photography and details her fun developing photos. During the War she gives copious details of her office job.
A detailed vernacular account of a Massachusetts woman’s daily life.
(#4658311)
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