Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Thu, 1 Dec 1994 16:11:24 -0500 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Dan,
You may want to look at the literature on the glorification of nature and
rural life that started in the early 19th century, or possibly and late
18th century. Also domestic manuals do discuss potted plants to decorate
indoors. Nature was considered close to God, and therefore was ideal for
symbolizing the removal of the domestic sphere (and women) from men's
capitalistic public sphere that they considered polluted by usury, which
you remember is against Christianity (the reason Jews only were bankers).
Catherine Beecher in her 1841 Treatise on Domestic Economy gives
instructions on potting plants. In Beecher and Stowe's 1869 American
Woman's Home (the most popular domestic manual of the 19th century),
potted plants are suggested as window ornamentation instead of
curtains.Pp. 95-103 discusses the use of indoor potted plants for
decoration. Also houses increasingly had "conservatories" in which small
rooms or bowed windows became similar to miniature greenhouses. Being
close to nature was considered important for physical, mental and moral
health (nature is of the greatest moral influence because of its
closeness to God). An overview of the glorification of nature and rural
environments in the mythe of the American home is discussed in Handlin,
David P. "The American Home:Architecture and Society, 1815-1925" 1979
(Boston, LIttle, Brown), Pp. 4-19. I also discuss the connection between
the the cult of home religion, and the view that the home, women and
nature are associated more closely with God than men and their public
sphere (all this is the dominant 19th century Victorian ideology, but it
started to develop in the 1740's), in my paper for the 1991 Winterthur
Conference "Feminist HIstorical Archaeology and Domestic Reform" to be
published early next year in the conference proceedings entitled
"Historical ARchaeology and the the Study of American Culture." I think I
also mentioned this in my chapter for Elizabeth Scott's edited book
"Those of Little Note" just out from U. of Arizona Press. Send me your
address and I'll send you papers on it.
Cordially,
Suzanne
|
|
|