According to Yaffa Claire Draznin's book, Victorian London's Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day, the Victorian housewife was stylish yet "proper".
A Quick Portrait of the Victorian Housewife:
~ 5 ft. tall, or shorter, and full-figured
~ fashionable, with long, curled hair, pinned up
~ properly attired in long dresses and bustle gowns
~ married at age 25, on average
~ mother of six children, on average
~ often an employer of a housemaid (or two) and a cook
~ a savvy consumer~ a physical laborer who worked her fingers to the bone!
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A person who works and employs others - - sounds like a businesswoman!
ReplyDeleteI agree. She had a lot of work to do, and had to manage time and money well for the sake of her family.
ReplyDeleteSo who actually did the labor of picking up the horse poop? Was it written in the book? Now that's really down in the dumps!
ReplyDeleteA lot of it wasn't picked up and that became a major problem! It would be swept aside or into piles by street sweepers until it was finally carried away and dumped somewhere else. Can you say stink-a-rooney?
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