Author Description

American women's relationship with their homes has always been central to their lives. In 1980 Jane Davison published a book that so brilliantly illuminated this relationship and how it had changed in this century that it immediately became a classic. That superb, timeless work is presented here in a new edition containing more than seventy-five remarkable photographs and a chapter by Lesley Davison that brings into the 1990s the lively, insightful exploration her mother began. Drawing on such diverse and entertaining sources as family diaries, women's magazines, and popular literature, the Davisons move from the specific to the general, from personal reflection to architectural philosophy to sociological analysis, with remarkable grace. At the turn of the century, when Jane Davison's grandmother was a young bride, a middle-class woman ruled proudly over her suburban house. Overseeing a host of children and servants, she strove to make her home a spiritual sanctuary for her family. In the thirties and forties, Davison's mother reigned over a diminished, more lonely empire. The scientific revolution of the twenties had swept into the home, innumerable appliances had taken the place of servants, and the housewife tried now to be an efficient manager. Despite these changes, home was still "a woman's happy duty." But as a housewife herself in the sixties and seventies, Jane Davison, like many women, questioned - and then rejected - the close identification of self with house. Lesley Davison examines the surprising changes in what members of a fourth generation of women think and feel about their homes. Complemented by a rich array of photographs that reflect the changing ideals and realities of the housewife's life, this is a masterful study of the American dream of the single-family home and the economic, social, and psychological impact it has had on women.