Home Problems [From a New Standpoint, ] (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... MORE PLEASURE FOR THE PRODUCER OF HOUSEHOLD STUFF MORE pleasure for the producer of household stuff And who is he or she? He used to be the village cabinet maker at work in a little shop, with a few friends, making furniture for his neighbor's use. She used to be the housewife working at home, with her daughters, at spindle or at loom, making tablecloths and napkins, bed furnishings, and carpets for use in her own family. Now the cabinet maker, having deserted his little shop, has moved up to town and become an employee in a great manufacturing establishment; and the housewife, having ceased entirely from producing, is trying to content herself with buying and with using. The producer of household stuff today is neither housewife nor village cabinet maker, but a factory "hand." The producer of old had pleasures of which the producer of the present knows not. He had the quiet and safety and healthfulness of a small shop. He had common interest with fellow-workers and apprentices in village politics or in church affairs. Best of all, perhaps, there was a personal quality in his work, because it was done for friends or for acquaintances, and an ever present sense of its importance, because it met needs which he had seen and recognized and which his own manner of life, similar to that of the consumer and on the same social plane, prepared him to understand. He had, for example, possibly known for months that his neighbor was saving money with which to hire him to make the chest of drawers upon which he was working, and there was a zest and a delight in his labor because he knew just how much she needed the piece of furniture, just where it was to stand, and just what purpose it was to serve. The favorable conditions of the work, the pleasant surroundings, th...