Vintage Homemaking Books: 4 Good Reads

I’m always on the hunt for books on homemaking. Unfortunately, most of them are intensely practical. The old ones are the worst. They’re dry, how-to manuals that talk about running a home by modern scientific methods–the square footage needed for a bathroom, how to clean your rugs, the caloric needs of a school child, etc. Vintage homemaking books typically miss the spirit of turning a dwelling into a real home.

Even many modern books fall short. Do homemakers really crave a steady diet of homemaking books that explain stain removal techniques or share tips on organizing a pantry? They may be useful reference guides, but they certainly don’t inspire me to love my professions.

I’m sure there are plenty of good homemaking books out there, especially books written in recent years. But you know I like all things old, so here are some of my favorite vintage homemaking books…. They may be hard to find, but keep your eyes open. I didn’t pay more than 35 cents for any of them.

The I Hate to Cook Book

Ironically, Peg Bracken is one of my favorite homemakers of the past. I don’t think her intention was to be an aspirational housewife. Her shtick is all about surviving homemaking with the most minimal effort. In spite of that, I feel a camaraderie with the housewives of the 1960s, at least with those who weren’t the immaculate pearls and high-heel types. I can’t say her cookbook is my go-to resource, but for enjoyable reading, you can’t do much better. I read her books like The I Hate to Cook Book like a novel and laugh my way through.

She also wrote a “sequel” called The Appendix to I Hate to Cook Book with more recipes and I Hate to Housekeep Book, a manual to help the “occasional, random” housekeeper through her hapless endeavors. I loved them just as much as the first. Her book on “modern” etiquette, called I Try to Behave Myself, is entertaining but remarkably outdated. I guess society and etiquette have changed much more than cooking and cleaning has.

Mrs. Appleyard’s Year

by Louise Andrews Kent, 1941. It’s an account of a year of in the life of Mrs. Appleyard, whom I suspect is the alter ego of the author. I bought this book at a garage sale only because books were 4 for $1. I’d initially only chosen 3 and just picked it to get my money’s worth.

The title intrigued me–who was this Mrs. Appleyard and what did she do in a year? She’s a housewife who lives with her husband and 4 children in Vermont during World War II. I enjoyed the book so much that I later tracked down and bought her cookbook, Mrs. Appleyard’s Family Kitchen. Why is it that homemakers are such good writers? Here is an excerpt from the chapter “January,” as she contemplates her New Year’s goals:

She also plans to glance occasionally at her engagement book instead of keeping the entries in it a secret from herself. She hopes she will keep her desk looking less like the town dump in a heavy fog… When people ask her how she is, she will try to bite her tongue before she tells them. If inquiries about her children are added, she will strive earnestly to conceal the fact that they are extraordinary. She thinks even the proudest mother ought to be able to tell about four children in four paragraphs.

…She could, of course, go on counting over the rosary of her faults, but she has decided it is too depressing; so she has taken a little time to dwell upon her virtues, too. If she doesn’t, who will?

Sixpence in Her Shoe

by Phyllis McGinley, 1960. I picked this up from a Little Free Library in my neighborhood. It was an old hardcover book, a rarity in a Little Free Library, which is typically jammed with tacky paperbacks. It looked interesting but turned out to be a treasure. I love so many of her perspectives on homemaking, even in the 1950s and 1960s when most wives were homemakers, she felt the need to defend their role in the world. She combines her thoughts with little stories from her home life. Here is one passage I enjoyed–one of many:

From the raw material of four walls and a a roof, a shelter over our heads, we will have made a home force of our own personalities. We will have warmed, cheered, and sustained the head of that house, turned progeny into a family. We will have learned a dozen skills and enjoyed the fruits of such skills. …A husband, no matter how willingly he gives himself to the role of householder or parent, never approaches such triumphs. To be jealous of his public busyness, then–which at its core of this complaint–is to denigrate ourselves and our worth. In reality, all the stock reproaches fail when they are logically examined, this one most of all.

Free choice, importance, the prizes as well as the perils of a career–they are all ours. What more can one ask of a profession? And the fact that we belong to the most ancient of any is, at least for me, the crowning feather in an enviable and becoming cap.

The Hidden Art of Homemaking

by Edith Schaeffer, 1971. I feel like this is probably one of the most well-known vintage books on homemaking, but in case you missed it, I include The Hidden Art of Homemaking because it’s a must-have.

Schaeffer writes about homemaking as an art and she explains how all aspects of keeping a home can be an expression of art. For example, did you ever think that your grocery list could become a thing of beauty?

She doesn’t include recipes, or garden diagrams, or directions for craft projects. It’s inspirational, meant to steer you into your own ideas and encourage you to be creative in the mundane. I read the book every so often and each time, it gives me a little boost of motivation to try a little harder to find the art in home life. Schaeffer writes this in her introduction:

I would define “hidden art” as the art which is found in the “minor” areas of life. By “minor” I mean what is involved in the “everyday” of anyone’s life, rather than his career or profession. Each person, I believe, has some talent which is unfulfilled in some “hidden area” of his being, and which could be expressed and developed.

So there you have it. My top favorite vintage homemaking books (that I’ve discovered so far). Do you have any books you’d add to this list?