A Christian House

Author: Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe Year: 2006 (Intimus reprint; original chapter from The American Woman's Home: or Principles of Domestic Science; Being A Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes, JB Ford and Company, New York, 1869; excerpts from original pp. 23–42) Source type: chapter (from Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader, eds. Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, pp. 43–48, with the editors' framing introduction)

Raw file: raw/chapters/beecher-stowe-2006-christian-house.md

Summary

The Beecher sisters' chapter — the foundational document of American domestic science and, arguably, of the planned interior as a field of female expertise — argues that "the wise woman buildeth her house": house-planning is a woman's divinely authorized practical wisdom, to be exercised through a design method ("modes of economizing time, labor, and expense by the close packing of conveniences") rather than through display. The editors' introduction frames the text: "Under this conception of home, the interior is not for display but provides for health, industry and economy"; the Beechers' design supports "the family as an institution rather than societal custom," includes "'scientific' kitchen planning," and treats home management in the industrial age as "female-led domestic government, rather than domestic slavery," echoing "their concern for women's advancement through education." The text itself moves from the theological program (health, industry, and economy as "those cardinal requisites of domestic enjoyment and success") through a room-by-room specification of a model cottage — arched entry recesses, a movable rolling screen that converts one large room into parlor and bedroom, shelf-box storage "cheaper and better than drawers," stacking couches with oat-straw mattresses — to a closing utopian projection: a colony of "cultivated and Christian people" in the postbellum Southern uplands, organized around a "common laundry, (taking the most trying part of domestic labor from each house)."

Key Claims

House-planning is the wise woman's scriptural ministry: "In the Divine Word it is written, 'The wise woman buildeth her house.' To be 'wise,' is 'to choose the best means for accomplishing the best end'" (p. 43) — the definition of wisdom as means–end selection is a domestic phronesis (see practical-wisdom).
The best end of woman's ministry is "the training of God's children for their eternal home, by guiding them to intelligence, virtue, and true happiness" (p. 43) — dwelling is doubled: the earthly house is the training school for the eternal home (see dwelling).
The Christian house is defined by use, not form: "a house contrived for the express purpose of enabling every member of a family to labor with the hands for the common good, and by modes at once healthful, economical, and tasteful" (p. 43).
The three "cardinal requisites of domestic enjoyment and success" — health, industry, and economy — are the explicit design criteria: "she will aim to secure a house so planned that it will provide in the best manner for health, industry, and economy" (p. 43).
The interior is explicitly anti-display: the editors — "the interior is not for display but provides for health, industry and economy" (p. 43); the house is "aimed at supporting the family as an institution rather than societal custom" — against "those classes which take the lead in forming the customs of society."
Economy is the democratizing design method: "The aim will be to exhibit modes of economizing labor, time, and expenses, so as to secure health, thrift, and domestic happiness to persons of limited means, in a measure rarely attained even by those who possess wealth" (p. 43); "small and economical houses can be made to secure most of the comforts and many of the refinements of large and expensive ones" (p. 44) — comfort is detachable from expense.
The named design method is spatial packing: "modes of economizing time, labor, and expense by the close packing of conveniences" (p. 44) — the plan itself is the machine for saving labor (see domestic-economy).
The flexible interior: "The large room on the left can be made to serve the purpose of several rooms by means of a movable screen. By shifting this rolling screen from one part of the room to another, two apartments are always available, of any desired size within the limits of the large room" (p. 46) — one side "arranged for bedroom conveniences," the interior fitted as a wardrobe, rolling on wooden rollers lubricated "with hard soap, and then a child can move the whole easily" (p. 46). The partition is a furnishing, moved by the weakest occupant (see flexible-interior).
Storage ergonomics precede the drawer: the screen's "shelves with shelf boxes, which are cheaper and better than drawers, and much preferred by those using them" (p. 46); bedding is specified by health criteria — "The most healthful and comfortable mattress is made by a case… filled with oat straw, which is softer than wheat or rye. This can be adjusted to the figure, and often renewed" (p. 48).
The house extends into productive landscape: "it will be assumed that the family state demands some outdoor labor for all. The cultivation of flowers to ornament the table and house, of fruits and vegetables for food, of silk and cotton for clothing, and the care of horse, cow, and dairy, can be so divided that each and all of the family, some part of the day, can take exercise in the pure air, under the magnetic and healthful rays of the sun" (p. 44) — labor divided among all family members as a health regime.
Infrastructure serves domestic reform: "Railroads, enabling men toiling in cities to rear families in the country, are on this account a special blessing. So, also, is the opening of the South to free labor, where, in the pure and mild climate of the uplands, open-air labor can proceed most of the year, and women and children labor out of doors as well as within" (p. 44) — free-labor ideology (1869, immediately post-Civil War) as the horizon of domestic reform.
The inside/outside boundary is designed as convertible: "The piazzas each side of the front projection have sliding-windows to the floor, and can, by glazed sashes, be made green-houses in winter" (p. 44) (see inside-outside-dialectic).
Domestic labor can be collectivized: the projected colony has "a central church and schoolroom, library, hall for sports, and a common laundry, (taking the most trying part of domestic labor from each house)" (p. 48) — an anticipation of cooperative housekeeping, in the same year the movement began (see cooperative-housekeeping).
Economy is moral accumulation: the colony's economized wealth would raise "abundant treasures… laid up in heaven, by using the wealth thus economized in diffusing similar enjoyments and culture among the poor, ignorant, and neglected ones" (p. 48) — thrift as piety and evangelism.
Female-led domestic government is the editors' frame for the sisters' politics: "managing a home in the industrial age was associated with female-led domestic government, rather than domestic slavery, and echoed their concern for women's advancement through education" (p. 43) (see domestic-feminism).
Household science is proto-scientific: the editors note "'scientific' kitchen planning to accommodate changes in food preparation and management," and "their detailed examination of everyday household objects indicates a familiarity with the role the household played within Christian society" (p. 43) (see domestic-economy, everyday-life).
The principles are universal even when the plan is rural: "the general principles of house-building and house-keeping are of necessity universal in their application – as true in the busy confines of the city as in the freer and purer quietude of the country" (p. 44).
Taste survives economy as its modest companion: modes "at once healthful, economical, and tasteful"; the entry's "roof of the recess is for statuettes, busts, or flowers"; a stair-recess holds "a table… with a vase of flowers"; pictures hang in the screen's panels (pp. 43–46) — decoration admitted, but subordinate to use (see the-decorative, taste).

Connections

Concepts: Domestic Economy · The Christian House · Domestic Feminism · Flexible Interior · Cooperative Housekeeping · Domestic Interior · Separate Spheres · Gender and the Interior · The Decorative · Taste · Dwelling · Partition of Space · Boundaries · Inside/Outside Dialectic · Practical Wisdom · Utopia · Interior Design · Everyday Life Authors: Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe · Taylor & Preston (editors and framing introduction) Debates: Interior Design vs. Architecture — the domestic-science prehistory of the knowledge-claim · Ornament vs. Purity — the economical middle term: taste without display · Power and Space — the home plan as an apparatus of "female-led domestic government" · Static vs. Dynamic Architecture — the movable screen as pre-electronic dynamic interior · Dwelling vs. Housing — the house as moral instrument, not mere shelter Related source notes: Taylor & Preston — Proximities (the Intimus introduction that frames this text; the editors' warning about "advice literature" is answered by this, its founding instance) · Baldwin — The Sterility of Perfection + The Rule Breaker's Success (the editors explicitly set Baldwin "in sharp contrast to advice literature of the nineteenth century" — this chapter is that literature) · Ardener — The Partition of Space (the house plan as a rule-system that orders occupation and labor — the domestic instance of Ardener's ordering systems) · Bachelard — The Dialectics of Outside and Inside (fellow Intimus selection; the Beechers' piazza/greenhouse is the utilitarian counterpart of Bachelard's poetic osmosis) · Hollis — (Re)constructing Histories (the historiography into which this prehistory enters) · Csikszentmihalyi — Design and Order in Everyday Life (household objects as orderers of life — the Beechers' shelf-boxes and couches as the 1869 antecedent) · Baudrillard — Structures of Atmosphere (fellow Intimus selection; the Beechers' anti-display interior as the historical foil to the atmospheric sign-system) · Taylor — Shape shifting (the dynamic interior's historical ancestor: a child moves the screen "easily")

Direct Quotes

"In the Divine Word it is written, 'The wise woman buildeth her house.' To be 'wise,' is 'to choose the best means for accomplishing the best end.'" (p. 43)

"It has been shown that the best end for a woman to seek is the training of God's children for their eternal home, by guiding them to intelligence, virtue, and true happiness." (p. 43)

"When, therefore, the wise woman seeks a home in which to exercise this ministry, she will aim to secure a house so planned that it will provide in the best manner for health, industry, and economy, those cardinal requisites of domestic enjoyment and success." (p. 43)

"The aim will be to exhibit modes of economizing labor, time, and expenses, so as to secure health, thrift, and domestic happiness to persons of limited means, in a measure rarely attained even by those who possess wealth." (p. 43)

"At the head of this chapter is a sketch of what may be properly called a Christian house; that is, a house contrived for the express purpose of enabling every member of a family to labor with the hands for the common good, and by modes at once healthful, economical, and tasteful." (p. 43)

"The aim will be to exhibit modes of economizing labor, time, and expenses… than that which ordinarily prevails among those classes which take the lead in forming the customs of society." (p. 43)

"Under this conception of home, the interior is not for display but provides for health, industry and economy." — editors' introduction (p. 43)

"Hence the Beechers' own design is aimed at supporting the family as an institution rather than societal custom." — editors' introduction (p. 43)

"Their carefully planned practical considerations for the home included 'scientific' kitchen planning to accommodate changes in food preparation and management." — editors' introduction (p. 43)

"For both sisters, managing a home in the industrial age was associated with female-led domestic government, rather than domestic slavery, and echoed their concern for women's advancement through education." — editors' introduction (p. 43)

"More specifically, their detailed examination of everyday household objects indicates a familiarity with the role the household played within Christian society." — editors' introduction (p. 43)

"although the general principles of house-building and house-keeping are of necessity universal in their application – as true in the busy confines of the city as in the freer and purer quietude of the country." (p. 44)

"So far as circumstances can be made to yield the opportunity, it will be assumed that the family state demands some outdoor labor for all." (p. 44)

"The cultivation of flowers to ornament the table and house, of fruits and vegetables for food, of silk and cotton for clothing, and the care of horse, cow, and dairy, can be so divided that each and all of the family, some part of the day, can take exercise in the pure air, under the magnetic and healthful rays of the sun." (p. 44)

"Railroads, enabling men toiling in cities to rear families in the country, are on this account a special blessing." (p. 44)

"So, also, is the opening of the South to free labor, where, in the pure and mild climate of the uplands, open-air labor can proceed most of the year, and women and children labor out of doors as well as within." (p. 44)

"In the following drawings are presented modes of economizing time, labor, and expense by the close packing of conveniences." (p. 44)

"By such methods, small and economical houses can be made to secure most of the comforts and many of the refinements of large and expensive ones." (p. 44)

"The piazzas each side of the front projection have sliding-windows to the floor, and can, by glazed sashes, be made green-houses in winter." (p. 44)

"The entry has arched recesses behind the front doors, furnished with hooks for overclothes in both – a box for over-shoes in one, and a stand for umbrellas in the other. The roof of the recess is for statuettes, busts, or flowers." (p. 44)

"The large room on the left can be made to serve the purpose of several rooms by means of a movable screen." (p. 46)

"By shifting this rolling screen from one part of the room to another, two apartments are always available, of any desired size within the limits of the large room." (p. 46)

"One side of the screen fronts what may be used as the parlor or sitting-room; the other side is arranged for bedroom conveniences." (p. 46)

"On one side, and at the top and bottom, it has shelves with shelf boxes, which are cheaper and better than drawers, and much preferred by those using them." (p. 46)

"This screen must be so high as nearly to reach the ceiling, in order to prevent it from overturning." (p. 46)

"The pivots of the rollers and the parts where there is friction must be rubbed with hard soap, and then a child can move the whole easily." (p. 46)

"The wood-work must be put together with screws, as the screen is too large to pass through a door." (p. 46)

"The most healthful and comfortable mattress is made by a case, open in the centre and fastened together with buttons; to be filled with oat straw, which is softer than wheat or rye. This can be adjusted to the figure, and often renewed." (p. 48)

"Let us suppose a colony of cultivated and Christian people, having abundant wealth, who now are living as the wealthy usually do, emigrating to some of the beautiful Southern uplands…" (p. 48)

"suppose such a colony, with a central church and schoolroom, library, hall for sports, and a common laundry, (taking the most trying part of domestic labor from each house), – suppose each family to train the children to labor with the hands as a healthful and honorable duty" (p. 48)

"would not the enjoyment of this life be increased, and also abundant treasures be laid up in heaven, by using the wealth thus economized in diffusing similar enjoyments and culture among the poor, ignorant, and neglected ones in desolated sections where many now are perishing for want of such Christian example and influences?" (p. 48)

"Fig. 1. Ground plan of the first floor. With permission of Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections." (p. 45)

"Fig. 2. The back or inside of the movable screen. With permission of Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections." (p. 47)

Open Questions

The chapter plans the house "for the express purpose of enabling every member of a family to labor with the hands for the common good" — is the Christian house a proto-socialist collectivization of domestic life (labor shared, laundry commoned) or its opposite: an apparatus for intensifying the family's self-exploitation under pious management?
The editors name "female-led domestic government, rather than domestic slavery" — is the Beechers' governance of the home an early feminist appropriation of spatial power (women as the home's architects and governors) or the ideological perfecting of women's confinement (Catharine Beecher was an anti-suffragist who argued women could best influence society as mothers and teachers)? See domestic-feminism.
The movable screen makes rooms "of any desired size within the limits of the large room" — is this the first published instance of the flexible interior as a design method (a child can move the whole easily), and what would it mean to claim domestic flexibility for women's convenience rather than for technological spectacle (cf. interactive-architecture)?
The editors set Baldwin "in sharp contrast to advice literature of the nineteenth century" — does that contrast misread the advice literature, whose "scientific" kitchen planning and storage ergonomics are recognizably design-theoretical? What does the canonization of Baldwin alongside Beecher & Stowe in the same reader do to the genealogy of interior design?
The colony projection is dated 1869 — the year of both The American Woman's Home and the first cooperative-housekeeping proposals: why did the common laundry never materialize, and what does the failure of domestic collectivism tell us about the separate-spheres settlement?
The house trains "God's children for their eternal home" — can a theology of dwelling (the earthly house as school for the eternal one) be translated into a secular theory of dwelling (dwelling), or does the Beechers' instrumentalization of the house (health, industry, economy) already belong to the modern functionalism that Heidegger's dwelling-thesis opposes?
The plan assumes "outdoor labor for all" and a Southern upland colony where "women and children labor out of doors as well as within" — how does the free-labor ideology of the passage (written immediately after the Civil War) square with the assignment of children to field labor, and with the woman as house's governor rather than its laborer?
The Beechers economize labor "by the close packing of conveniences" — the plan as labor-saving machine. Is this the founding moment of a design method (the kitchen-as-workspace, later the Frankfurt kitchen), and does packing conveniences together liberate or merely intensify the isolated houseworker's day?

(Note: the raw file's header reads "Intumus: Interior Design Reader" and "Juleanna Preston" — OCR corruptions of "Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader" and "Julieanna Preston." The excerpt carries two editorial ellipses marked "(… p 31)" and "(… p 42)," referring to the original 1869 pagination (the excerpts are drawn from original pp. 23–42). Quote pages above follow the Intimus pagination.)