As Adam Smith once said, “[The rich] are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” While the majority of Americans, myself included, conjure up the concept of the invisible hand when considering our founding fathers’ economic system choice of capitalism, such a cash-based economy, including the modern-day lifestyle to accompany it, was limited to cities before the Market Revolution. Rather than being guided by an invisible hand, most American citizens, …show more content…
While superfine flour was produced in merchant flour mills, it was mostly used for delicacies or for exportation purposes (Cowan 47). Since fine, white flour is non-perishable, it was extremely profitable for merchant flour mills to reserve all of their superfine flour for the war-torn European continent. As a result, coarse flour was often ground by Americans in their homes or at local grist mills, because fine, white flour could not be produced at the home or in large quantities at local grist mills (Cowan 49). As a result, it was necessary for the father or the male of the household to make trips to a local grist mill or to hand-grind these grains into flour or cornmeal. While the processing of grains may appear to be a simple task, the perishability of coarse flour and cornmeal made grinding grain a never-ending chore. As result, the male of the household would spend much of his time grinding grains or traveling to the local grist mill. After the father or the male of the household processed the grains into coarse flour or cornmeal, the mother or the female of the household would use the ultimate product to cook her family quickbread or porridge. As a result, the self-sufficiency of this economy encouraged the couples of this time period to act like a team in order to accomplish …show more content…
However, American women’s responsibilities in their households didn’t disappear upon the introduction of mass produced superfine flour, rather such a product of capitalism presented new challenges to women. One of the most obvious implications was how fine, white flour changed the dietary expectations of Americans. In particular, cake was no longer a delicacy just for the upper class, but it was treat that was accessible to all Americans (Cowan 52). However, baking even the simplest of cake could take hours to complete. In addition, quickbread was no longer a suitable meal for Caucasians, so American women had to learn how to bake white bread, a type of yeast bread (Cowan 52). Once again the leavening associated with yeast breads was much more time intensive than associated with quickbreads. However, if perfecting time-intensive dishes wasn’t difficult enough, American women were left to shoulder the responsibility of raising their children. Without the father present in the household, taking care of the children became women’s work (Cowan 53). Even though their contributions to the household increased, American women’s efforts were not considered to be that of real work by their male counter-parts. Unfortunately, this is a trend that would continue into the following
When families immigrated to the United States, men were primarily the ones who were expected to learn and bring in wages to support the family. While women did bring in wages as well, they were expected to care for the home and take care of the children. Because of this, women lacked the chance to go to school and become educated because it was boys who were mainly sent to school. Women were only expected to work and earn money to help support the family. In the novel Bread Givers, a book about an immigrant family in New York, one of the daughters named Sara explains her sister’s role by saying, “Bessie would rush home the quicker to help Mother with the washing or ironing, or bring home another bundle of night work, and stay up till all hours to earn another dollar for the house.” In this novel, Bessie’s duties are to help around the house and work all she can to earn money to support her family. She does not have the privilege to go to school and attempt to prepare for a bet...
Thesis: Boydston argues that women in Antebellum America, along with the society surrounding them, believed that there was little to no economic value to the work they did in the home (xii). Boydston in her text seeks understand the "the intimate relationship between the gender and labor systems that characterized industrializing America (xii).
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
Weiner, Lynn Y. From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United States, 1820-1980. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1985.
Also, I would have prefer if the author wrote the historical aspects in chronological, that would have made it a bit easier to kept up with all the historical periods. I feel that this book has given me a better understand of why food production systems had changed. For instance, from what I understand our food production has changed because, people were too busy to prepared food and depended on companies to make consumption easier for the people. I thought it was a present day issue but, after reading this book I now understand it has been an issue for a long period of time. Bobrow – Strain even say that “ convenience is an easy answer and certainly part of the historical explanation (36). Overall this book was an easy read and covers everything so that someone without knowledge of white bread and food could understand the
This source provided the unique perspective of what was thought to be the perfect household, with a man who worked and a wife who cooked and cleaned. However, it also showed how a woman could also do what a man can do, and in some cases they could do it even better. This work is appropriate to use in this essay because it shows how men talked down to their wives as if they were children. This work shows the gradual progression of woman equality and how a woman is able to make her own decisions without her husband’s input.
As mentioned before, sociologists Coontz and Hochschild further elaborate upon Parsons and Bales’ concepts of the American family, but they mostly critique the idea of the male-breadwinner family. One of the main arguments Coontz and Hochschild present is the decline of the male-breadwinner family due to the economic changes of the United States and the arising social norms of consumerism. Because Parsons and Bales never considered how the changes throughout society would affect family, they believed the male-breadwinner family would continue to be a functional type of family for everyone. However, within her text, “What We Really Miss about the 1950s,” Coontz specifically discusses the major expense of keeping mothers at home as consumption norms...
Bread has become a staple food in the majority of Americans lives. Through Bobrow-Strain’s novel of White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf (2012) he examines what has changed the patterns and perceptions of white bread and the industrialization of white bread through-out American History. Bobrow-Strain discusses alarming thoughts about what is done to the bread through control, money, likes, dislikes and the economics of the industrialization of bread. One of the main aspects of why white bread is examined so intensively in his book is because of how people associate it with a certain race, class or even gender. Bobrow-Strain shows the reader how white bread says a lot about who we are and who we want to be as a society.
In the 1900’s women were thought of as if there only respectable job was that, at home cooking, cleaning and looking after the welfare of the family. It was unthinkable that they should be allowed to vote and work as l...
Women throughout history have been considered to have an active role in the family life as the caretakers, while the men are considered the “breadwinners” of the family. However, a few women still have had to provide for their families throughout the years and as a result have sought employment in industries that “were highly segregated by sex” (Goldin 87). Women employm...
The “Bonds of Womanhood,” emphasizes the historical transformations that occurred prior to the Victorian period, for they resulted in vast changes to the role of women in the United States. The transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy led to the mass production of goods, among them textiles; with the invention of power looms in 1814 young women were often hired outside of their households to make textiles, thus increasing their independence. However, along with industrialization came many societal changes that affected women. Since working conditions in factories were atrocious, home became a means of escape that pressured wives to create a pleasant home environment for their husbands. This ideology contributed to the margina...
As centuries pass by, generations also pass their traditional values to the next generation. some people still think the way their ancestors thought and believe in what they believed in. During the beginning of 1890 people couldn’t have premarital sex, women had to be the caretaker while men were the breadwinner. During this century, those perspectives have changed, argued Stephanie Coontz, the author of “The American Family”. Coontz believes women should have more freedom and there should be gender equality.
In early American history, society believed that women did not have a place in education and high-level learning. They were told not to bother their brains with such advanced thinking. Middle and upper class women learned to read and write, but their education ended there. A woman’s place was said to be in the home, cooking, sewing, and taking care of the children. In the case of upper class women, their “to-do” list was cut even shorter with the servants present to do the work.
Anonymous author (Mar. 1 2007). ‘American Capitalism, A Necessary Evil?’. Retrieved on Mar 23 from: