Advice Books - Guides for and by Women
Advice books, like cookbooks, were ways that women (usually) taught other women the right ways to be proper middle- or upper-class women. Sometimes writing advice books was considered a more proper outlet for women authors than fiction would be.
Lydia Maria Child published The Frugal Housewife in 1829, a ground-breaking advice book for women. She also wrote and published other advice books for women.
Management during the Teenage Years, 19th Century Style: a how-to adapted from Lydia Maria Child's 1831 book, The Mother's Book.
Noted 19th century housekeeping advice maven Catharine Beecher is highlighted in this biography, which also includes a list of her publications.
Find online copies of Catherine Beecher's two advice manuals, "A Treatise on Domestic Economy" (1841) and "The American Woman's Home" (1869, written with her more famous sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe), plus commentary on the importance of such domestic manuals to women's history.
Documentation on a microfilm collection on women's lives from 1837-1910, including many advice books, cook books, self-help manuals, and periodicals and journals focused on women's lives.
