This month’s Forum consists of an extract from A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter’s book about American women writers..
The twentieth-century project to redefine housework as homemaking, and to emphasise technology, training, and professionalism, continued in the 1920s, and became part of the American ‘comedy of emancipation’. The Institute for the Co-ordination of Women’s Interests at Smith College attempted to find ways for women to share and streamline domestic chores. Yet even this program perpetuated the assumption that women had full responsibility for housework and child care. In ‘Why Women Fail’ (1931), Lorine Pruette remarked sardonically that upon marrying, ‘men appear to lose a large part of their capacity as adults; they can no longer feed themselves, house themselves, look after their health, or attend to their social responsibilities… most of them upon marriage lose the capacity even of writing to their own mother.’
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) tackled this paradox head-on in her novel The Home-Maker (1924), which imagined a realist, rather than a utopian, role reversal in the family. The Home-Maker was Fisher’s finest novel, and the only one in which her interest in Freudian psychoanalysis, feminism, and the Montessori method of child-rearing united in a memorable whole. Although the content of the novel was contemporary and detailed, Fisher’s narrative method was influenced by modernist fiction; she told the story from a different point of view in each chapter, getting into the minds of each member of the family, including the children. She had experimented with the technique in an earlier novel, The Brimming Cup (1921): ‘Each chapter is meant to be a revelation of what lies under the surface of that particular character. I have tried to make a glass door through which the reader looks into the heart and mind of another…so that, once for all, he knows what sort of human being is there.’
The Home-Maker is the story of the Knapp family, Evangeline, Lester, and their three children Helen, Henry, and Stephen, whose lives are being destroyed by the pressures of proper male and female behaviour. Lester, by nature a poet and intellectual, detests his job as department store manager, feels like a slave to the clock, and misses spending time with his children. The energetic Evangeline has become a neurotic and hysterical housewife, endlessly cleaning, suffering from eczema, and scolding the children into fits of vomiting, rage and terror. ‘What was her life? A hateful round of housework, whih, hurry as she might, was never done. How she loathed housework. The sight of a dishpan full of dishes made her feel like screaming. And what else did she have? Loneliness; never-ending monotony; blank grey days, one after another full of drudgery.’
Named after Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Dorothy Canfield Fisher was the author of ten novels, more than a hundred short stories, several books for children, and many articles. She grew up in an academic and artistic family. Her mother was an artist who took her on tours to Paris and Madrid, her father James Hulme Canfield, became chancellor at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln when she was twelve. Later she confided to Pearl Buck that ‘the particular shadow which darkened my adolescent years was a complete lack of harmony between my father and mother.’ At Nebraska, she came to know Willa Cather, her brother’s classmate, who remained a lifelong friend. In 1893-4 they collaborated on a ghost story about a football game. When her father became the chief librarian at Columbia University, Canfield moved there and earned a Ph.D in French. Instead of teaching, she began to write short stories that she signed ‘Stanley Crenshawe’. But in 1907, she married M John Fisher, a former captain of the Columbia football team, and they settled in Arlington, Vermont. Dorothy Fisher saw the small town as the site of Ibsenesque and Chekhovian tragedy as well as New England regionalism, and began a series of stories about ‘Hillsboro people’ based on the Vermont villagers. In 1912, with profits from her first novel, The Squirrel Cage, she took a trip to Rome and was won over by the Montessori system of early childhood education. It became the basis for two more novels, The Bent Twig (1915), a sentimental story of a girl’s coming of age, and a popular children’s book, Understood Betsey (1917).
16 replies on “Persephone Book No 7: The Home-Maker”
The Homemaker is such a DCF book: no one else could have written it, really, with its insights into feminism, gender roles, and Montessori education, not to mention insular rigidity, close-mindedness, and the chutzpah of busybodies. DCF spent some of her formative years in central Ohio, and to me, this novel is much more evocative of that part of the US than of New England, but I don’t know New England except from postcards, I must admit. I wonder how much of the nosiness and censoriousness of neighbors she had to deal with. I wonder if she cared.
In the novel, the nightmarish lives of the Knapp family before Lester’s accident are heartbreaking, making palpable the relief they feel afterward, once they know Lester will live and once Evangeline becomes the breadwinner. The children and their parents blossom, though one does wonder what life will be like for them once the novel is over. The eggbeater episode with Stephen is one that ought to be read by all parents of young children!
It was brilliant of Persephone to republish this novel. Writers of the caliber of DCF need to be kept in the forefront, and The Homemaker is surprisingly modern in many ways for all that it was published in 1924. I haven’t seen the film but would love to. Perhaps some enterprising young filmmaker will see to a re-make?
KWK
A word for alibrariansdaughter and her judiciously insightful work.  I learned a great deal about these early books from her, and from the other so much better-read contributors.  I will always remember and be grateful for her work in establishing the foundation of the forum.  With much gratitude, I send stars for her crown, and warm and happy thoughts for her holiday season.Â
Now, to the current questions ~
IÂ absolutely *loved* this book, beginning with the wonderful description from the boy Stephen’s point of view. Â I was envious, I was admiring, and totally enthralled with the story, constantly wondering that such a perspective had been written about almost 100 yeas ago.
Haven’t read that much great literature, so cannot speak to the second question.  I do think the depiction of both father and son is extremely insightful. Â
(And agree with KWK: “The eggbeater episode with Stephen is one that ought to be read by all parents of young children!”!)
Oh! Â How I wish there was a print available somewhere in the Midwest, as I’d love to see this movie. Â Will read others’ comments greedily!
Again, kudos to alibrariansdaughter for her excellent work!
And Warm Wishes for the Happiest of Holidays to all!
D Ellis
Not having seen the film, this made me think of James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, but this is not to diminish Fisher’s own consummate writing skills. I loved the way she makes each child an individual with its own mix of parental influences and characteristics. I like, too, the way she alters pace to reflect the children’s natures, slowing down to express Stephen’s desire to understand both the nature of poetry and what a ‘twumpet’ is, and rushing the reader along with the fast-maturing Helen. Particularly clever is the way the author carries us along with her characters as they each blossom out of the despair of Lester’s accident, only to bring us up short with Eva’s and Lester’s separate realisations that what should be the good news of his recovery could actually end the happiness of ‘Knapp Family Incorporated’. Fortunately, the apptly-named Dr. Merritt saves them all. He can see what has caused Eva’s eczema, what has given Lester and Henry their nervous stomachs and Stephen his temper tantrums, and why Helen failed to thrive – it is their unwitting acceptance of Mattie’s ‘rubber-stamped formula’, their subservience to society’s expectations that the man should bring home the bacon and the woman should prepare it, cook it, serve it, and clean up afterwards. And he wisely finds them a let-out that maintains their dignity and security.
And the header? Icing on a child’s birthday cake made by a doting father? Braiding on a cloak or decoration on a sales card in the store window?
Do you have any plans to show the film again soon? I’d certainly make the effort to come down from wild and woolly Yorkshire to see it, particularly if it coincides with the wonderful-sounding exhibition at The Foundling Hospital.
Marjorie, thank you for reminding me of how skillfully all the children are portrayed… and I missed Dr. Merritt’s so-fitting name!
D. Ellis
I loved this book, though I admit, I was very discouraged in the first couple of chapters — their lives were so miserable due to the unhappy parents. I love the DCF’s point about the book being about children’s rights, not women’s rights, but I think they’re really tied together. It reminds me of something I read when I was home with my oldest child (it’s been so long I can’t remember the book); the author pointed out that it would be better for children to have a working mother who’s happy and fulfilled than someone staying at home with them that’s miserable and frustrated. This book is a perfect example of that, but for both parents.
I loved the eggbeater scene and wish I still had a copy of the book so I could reread it now. (I got it from interlibrary loan and had to return it). I’ve never seen the film but I agree with Marjorie — it does sound a bit like It’s a Wonderful Life, but with a twist. What if Donna Reed’s character hadn’t been such a perfect wife and mother? What if she was the one who’d wanted to work at the Bailey Brother Savings and Loan? That’s a movie I’d love to see!
I adore this book. Having recently become a mother I am urging my husband to read it – the principles of really listening to and understanding a child’s needs as an individual are crucial whether that child is 4 months (as my daughter is), 4 years or older!
I hadn’t really thought of it as a ‘women’s rights’ or ‘children’s rights’ book – like Karen I think it’s about both. What struck me was how gently and interestedly DCF dealt with all of the members of the Knapp family. At the start, everyone is in their own little social box and desperately unhappy with it, even if they’re not sure why they’re unhappy. It’s by taking the time to work out what’s best for each person as an individual – no matter how small or young – that the family works together best as a team.
Although Dr Merritt enables this ‘unconventional’ family to continue in the only way that would be socially acceptable in the 1920s, I think one reason this book is one of your best sellers is because the notion of a stay at home dad is still not the norm. And really, it’s a far better treatise on how to bring up children (and how to treat your partner) than many of the self-help books around!
The egg-beater scene is so beautiful in its simplicity and portrayal of frustration and wonderment. Lester’s recognition of what will work for Stephen and follow-through is both subtle and powerful.
I’ve not seen the movie but in many ways I wouldn’t like to see a movie based on this book. It’s so perfect the way it is that I would be disappointed in anyone else’s interpretation of it and would hate to see it altered (as Miss Pettigrew was; still a delightful movie but I was disappointed with where it digressed from the book. But that’s for another forum!)
I agree that it could be more for the children than the adults, if only because they are even more stuck in the situation. The adults could (& should have earlier, although I do know they couldn’t & it is just my later opinion) have at least tried a bit more – they do seem aware at times what they are doing to the children & themselves.
I did end up annoyed at how although Evangeline could see vaguely what she was doing to the family, she didn’t or couldn’t stop.
While they had to change rolls due to circumstances (being careful), I thought they accepted that change a lot more easily than the people they were before hand seemed to suggest.
As someone who did get to spend time home with her father when my mother worked, the book does capture the difference in behaviour even when they are in the opposite roles – home maker & bread winner are still different when done by men or women.
I always look for your distinctive pale grey covers in my library and hope to read all Persephone books in time (currently at 28 and a half). One of those I discovered this month was Dorothy Canfield Fisher – whom I had known nothing about.
She’s very readable and intelligent. How distressing to find that small censorious communities can spoil the lives of anyone who is a little bit different. How good to see an emphasis on the needs of children for attention. She’s not so much pro-women or pro-child as pro- everyone.
Hello! I haven’t finished The Homemaker because I left it at my friend’s house – I am thirty pages from the end. I have come to my house and spent the whole day tidying and cleaning and organising boxes and NOT dealing with the enormous piles of laundry that were left for me when I arrived back home after a month and a half.
I had a row with my friend – I think she is being dishonest. I think women still take responsibility for the home despite also being breadwinners and having full and fulfilling careers. I think men need to catch up, and catch up quick. I remember in 1980 when I was in Moscow and I asked what it was like under the Communist System, wasn’t it wonderful that women were free to work like men and have equal opportunities? And the reply came with dry bleak exactitude: “Are you crazy? now we simply work 5 times as hard, because we work all day and then come home and do all the housework as well. Women in Russia are exhausted”.
I don’t know what the answer is, but the description of Evangeline scrubbing the grease off the floor is the most exact description of my frustration with housework that I will ever read. And her transformation when she is called to do something imaginative and creative – and the irony of the fact that Lester cannot see the beauty and creativity of the Store – sees it only in terms of unnecessary spending – whereas she sees human relations, the poignancy of symbolic relief – that is the relief of buying or even looking at something beautiful and new when your life is full of drudgery – the reason WHY women want to spend, the awful truth that it is their lack of fulfilment that leads them to spend and drives their husbands into the slavery of providing for them to spend – how ironic!! The utter SLAVERY of the capitalist system that fits us all into our little niches forever and ever. And yet she, the woman, saw beyond this and grew up and made everything possible. Forgive me, I have drunk too much flat Prosecco from the fridge and have had such an appallingly tiresome day of inordinate drudgery.
And thank heavens that women write. And thank heavens that Persephone drags them back out of obscurity and puts them where they belong, in front and before the anodyne, appalling, Hollywood ideal of the perfect ending, love as perfection, marriage as the end, back into the grime and squalour of the battle of the sexes, the negotiation I hope, and not defeat, that is the arena of men and women and please God let us come to a sensible agreement for the benefit of us all, not least and above all perhaps, for the children.
Amen and Good Night.
I don’t see this as a novel about either women’s or children’s rights, but about peoples rights, because surely Lester has the right to do work that suits him in the home, that is useful and worthwhile and vitally important, rather than losing his soul doing a badly paid at which he is hopeless, just as Eva has the right to do work that is meaningful for her.
One of the things I love about this book is that it shows how far we have come as a society. They’re not that numerous, but we do now have stay at home dads, and no one is particularly outraged by the concept.Certainly, no one has to resort to the measures used by Lester in the end of the novel!
Obviously, we also still have a fair way to go, given that women still bear the brunt of childcare and housework whether they work or not. But the concept of doing it differently is not such a radical outrageous idea that it so evidently was in DCF’s novel and the society in which she lived which was presumably the inspiration.
The descriptions in the book are fantastic. The was DCF portrays each character and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about why things occur, rather than spelling it out – things like Eva’s excema, Henry’s indigestion and Stephen’s behaviour. And yes, that scene with the egg-whisk is brilliant – it says so much about how small children see and do things, and is such a complete portrayal of a human being.
The Homemaker was my first Persephone book and is still my favorite. I didn’t perceive it so much about anybody’s rights as I did about it being a comment on the consequences of rigid social norms. I do find the question posed interesting in that it completely ignores the option that perhaps it was also about Men’s rights! While society has made some progress over the last century in allowing people to live their lives as best fits their needs, we still are judgmental about those who opt to break from the norm. This book is so wonderfully written; it will be one I read over and over again!
I don’t know that I have the knowledge or skill to evaluate great scenes in literature. The egg whisking scenario is wonderfully told and very memorable.
After these comments, I wanted to re-read the egg-whisking scene – but haven’t been able to find it so far. What struck me forcibly at the time, was the problem they had in trying to break an egg, and wondering just how you did it. I think it was the daughter who finally solved that – she recalled seeing her mother do it. It’s something simple which most of us absorb without realising, but I didn’t appreciate how baffling it must be if you’ve never seen it done.
This is a lovely read which I shall go back to, appreciating all the more the choices we have now – which were not available to many in the 20th century. (I prefer choices to ‘rights’.)
I enjoyed reading this book and certainly identified with Eva. At times, looking after a home can be pure drudgery however I find at other times it can be a means to express myself creatively through cooking and decoration. These days we have the convenience of appliances to help us get through the main drudge but it can still seem like a selfless task. Trying to juggle the need for self expression through work/career and looking after a family and home is still a balancing act for women.
Some of the story regarding Eva’s short temper with the children over ridiculous household standards and the fear and panic it produced really resonated with me and made me realise how close I come to doing the same with my own children at times in the pursuit for so-called perfection. Both Eva and Lester seemed to find the freedom to pursue their life on their own terms towards the end. I particularly admired the doctor who understood what had happened and chose to discreetly help the couple by confirming that Lester would never be able to walk properly again. I thought this showed a compassionate and open minded character.
I don’t know that I would call it a story about children but rather a book about family. I’m very glad I’ve read this book.
@ Anne Bannister, I agree with your point that the novel addresses not only women’s and children’s but also men’s rights (or choices or opportunities – however one wants to refer to it). I found the development of Lester’s character extremely compelling. What I find particularly devastating is the impossibility, given the social climate, of his ever functioning as a ‘complete’ human being. He is either intellectually or physically stunted. The sacrifice he ultimately makes is tragic and yet, ironically, it finally affords him some agency and allows him to inhabit the conventional role of protector of the family, albeit in an unconventional way.
What a brilliant novel.
Aha – I’ve now found the ‘egg-whisk moment’ which is very graphic, but nothing to do with breaking eggs – I’d forgotten that. (Lester just gave it to Stephen and left him to work it out for himself) But I still think that breaking eggs for cooking was a more revealing scene. Just imagine putting an egg on a plate and cutting it with a knife!
I haven’t read this book, but reading the reviews is interesting. The assumption that a woman has a ‘right’ to an interesting and fulfilling career is one I find particularly interesting.
Most people don’t have careers, they just have jobs. And most are not that interesting or fulfilling. personally, I find being a housewife more agreeable than toiling all day in some dreary office or factory or shop.
I find one of the strangest assumptions about modern life is the one that work outside the home must necessarily be more exciting and fulfilling than what is done inside the home. I have not found this to be the case myself. Most work is actually pretty boring.
Most of the people I know who work don’t work out of ‘choice’,they work because they need to earn a living.