Historical March 1985 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
From the coal stove to the microwave oven— From the broom to the carpet sweeper to the vacuum cleaner— From the washboard to mechanized washing machines— How have these advances in household technology changed women’s domestic role? Speakers at the St. Louis Women Historians third annual conference, presented in cooperation with the Missouri Historical Society, will examine changing methods of homemaking and the relationship to family life and the attitudes about domestic work.
The half-day conference, “From Pushing Brooms to Pushing Buttons,” will be held on Saturday, March 9 starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Jefferson Memorial Building in Forest Park.
The free program commemorates National Women’s History Week. Featured speaker Susan Strasser, author of Never Done, a History of American Housework, will present women’s work as a topic of historical investigation.
She will examine the social impact of technology and industrialization on housework in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
She is a member of the faculty of the Bunting Institute and of Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington. Other speakers will be three members of St. Louis Women Historians. Katharine T. Corbett, curator of education at the Missouri Historical Society, will give a demonstration of early household appliances. Using artifacts from the Society’s extensive collections, she will show how early washing machines, powered by gears, helped reduce the amount of labor needed to do the laundry by hand.
She will demonstrate early kitchen appliances as well as laundry and cleaning equipment to illustrate some of the ideas presented by Prof. Strasser. Corbett will also examine the role of improved household technology in changing family relationships, in the social nature of work and in the skills needed for housework. Ruth L. Bohan, assistant professor of art history, University of Missouri—St. Louis, will assess the impact new home products were intended to have on family life and home improvement. in a slide presentation, she will show turn-of-the century advertising cards from the Society’s pictorial history collections. “These cards do far more than identify and illustrate the product being advertised.
They provide valuable commentary on family life, interpersonal relationships among family members and on home interior decoration,” said Prof. Bohan. Irene E. Cortinovis, a retired archivist from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, will comment on the ways homemakers have reallocated time among housekeeping, childrearing and consumption activities.
She will raise the question of the benefits and of the losses for women and their families in the new division of labor. “Are women spending less time on household chores or does the new technology really make more work for mother?” This question and other issues raised by the presentations will be considered by a panel of the four conference participants in a discussion with the audience before the meeting concludes at 12:30 p.m.
The conference is free and open to the public.
For more information, call the Missouri Historical Society Education Programs at 361-9265.
This project is supported by a grant from the Missouri Committee for the Humanities, Inc. the statebased arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1985.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1985_03.pdf, printed page(s) 7; PDF page(s) 7.
