The Light of the Home

An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America

Harvey Green

Narrated by Emil Nicholas Gallina

Available from Audible

Book published by The University of Arkansas Press

A wonderful evocation of the lives of women 150 years ago. Chapters on courtship, marriage, motherhood, housework, decorating, health, leisure, and religion.

Harvey Green is a professor of history and the director of the Public History Program at Northeastern University. He is the author of The Uncertainty of Everyday Life, 1915-1945 and Fit for America: Health, Fitness, Sport, and American Society 1830-1940.

REVIEWS:

“This book offers a... compellingly argued case for the centrality of domestic architecture and decoration to the social identities and cultural values of middle-class Americans in the Victorian era. Green’s book was among a handful that located material objects within a rich and complex historical context and showed how they helped to constitute, not just ornament, middle-class family life. Despite the book’s pioneering status, it stands up brilliantly over time. Indeed, given the renewed attention among historians, literary scholars, and gender studies scholars to domesticity and its myriad functions, Light of the Home will find a ready audience across disciplines.... The book will also, I am sure, continue to have a popular audience, especially among people who tour historic houses, support historic preservation, and browse museum gift shops. Bravo to University of Arkansas Press for reviving a classic!”

—Nancy Hewitt, co-editor of Companion to American Women‚Äôs History, and author of Southern Discomfort: Women‚Äôs Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s

“Harvey Green’s Light of the Home is a rich portrait of Victorian domesticity and everyday life. Lively, accessible writing and evocative illustrations combine in this volume to convey a sense of nineteenth-century family relationships, women’s experiences, and the material culture of the home.”

—Kathy Peiss, author of Hope in a Jar: The Making of America‚Äôs Beauty Culture (audiobook edition published by University Press Audiobooks)

“A fascinating... and very disturbing inventory of the means by which ‘women’s place’ has been defined.”

—Washington Post Book World

“A significant contribution to our understanding of middle-class women in Victorian America.”

—Warren Susman, author of Culture As History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century