What do you think?
Rate this book
The Home-Maker
The Home-Maker (1924) describes Evangeline, an obsessively house-proud mother and home-maker (a word that is in everyday use in America but not in Britain) who without realizing it, is frustrated and bored - yet she thinks she is a good and devoted mother. Lester, her husband, is also unhappy, at home and at work. It is only when he falls off a roof that his family's life changes; he is wheelchair-bound at home and his wife goes to work in a department store (the setting is smalltown New England). The children gradually blossom; all sorts of practical ruses are devised (like covering the kitchen floor with newspaper when Evangeline leaves each morning); and a Montessori Father is born.
278 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1924
70 people are currently reading
5201 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
194 books139 followersAlso wrote under the name Dorothy Canfield.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early decades of the twentieth century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. In addition to bringing the Montessori method of child-rearing to the U.S., she presided over the country's first adult education program and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.
(from Wikipedia)
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early decades of the twentieth century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. In addition to bringing the Montessori method of child-rearing to the U.S., she presided over the country's first adult education program and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.
(from Wikipedia)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews
June 27, 2024
Part warm, lilting slice-of-life fiction, part searing social critique, there's no wonder The Home-Maker caused a stir when it was first published in 1924.
The story follows the Knapp family-- dedicated homemaker Eva Knapp, breadwinner Lester Knapp, and their three children, Helen, Henry and Stephen. When Lester is left disabled and unable to work, Eva seeks employment in a department store and Lester takes on the role of homemaker. To the shock of their friends and neighbours, both flourish in their new roles.
What I loved about this book-- and what was a revolutionary and deeply controversial idea at the time --is that the focus is not primarily on the embittered housewife who finds new purpose and passion in a career (though, it certainly does depict that) but instead on a man bending the gender roles.
While it does show a woman crushed under the drudgery of housework and stuck in a power struggle with her rebellious youngest child, it is actually more about a husband who is most suited to the role of homemaker. Eva is a brilliant woman trapped in domesticity, but equally Lester is a passionate father trapped in his job.
At the time the book was published, feminists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henrietta Rodman had proposed initiatives to get women into paid work, replacing them at home with hired cleaners and childcare. But a man taking care of the home? Unthinkable! With this book, Fisher dared to suggest otherwise.
The penultimate chapter of the book is a fantastic indictment of how a man is shamed for taking care of the home. As Lester realises, the only reason this is so is because of a prejudice against the role of home-maker.
To this day, I say to any man waxing poetic about the wonderful sacred duty of homemaking that he is absolutely welcome to do it. I guarantee-- the men who spout this stuff are talking about their wives!
I enjoyed The Home-Maker very much, and especially Stephen and his growth.
The story follows the Knapp family-- dedicated homemaker Eva Knapp, breadwinner Lester Knapp, and their three children, Helen, Henry and Stephen. When Lester is left disabled and unable to work, Eva seeks employment in a department store and Lester takes on the role of homemaker. To the shock of their friends and neighbours, both flourish in their new roles.
That complacent unquestioned generalisation, 'The mother is the natural home-maker'; what a juggernaut it had been in their case! How poor Eva, drugged by the cries of its devotees, had cast herself down under its grinding wheels-- and had dragged the children under with her. It wasn't because Eva had not tried her best. She had nearly killed herself trying. But she had been like a gifted mathematician set to paint a picture.
What I loved about this book-- and what was a revolutionary and deeply controversial idea at the time --is that the focus is not primarily on the embittered housewife who finds new purpose and passion in a career (though, it certainly does depict that) but instead on a man bending the gender roles.
While it does show a woman crushed under the drudgery of housework and stuck in a power struggle with her rebellious youngest child, it is actually more about a husband who is most suited to the role of homemaker. Eva is a brilliant woman trapped in domesticity, but equally Lester is a passionate father trapped in his job.
At the time the book was published, feminists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henrietta Rodman had proposed initiatives to get women into paid work, replacing them at home with hired cleaners and childcare. But a man taking care of the home? Unthinkable! With this book, Fisher dared to suggest otherwise.
The penultimate chapter of the book is a fantastic indictment of how a man is shamed for taking care of the home. As Lester realises, the only reason this is so is because of a prejudice against the role of home-maker.
He supposed that Harvey Bronson would die of shame if anybody put a gingham apron on him and expected him to peel potatoes. And yet there was nobody who talked louder than he about the sacred dignity of the home which ennobled all the work done for its sake-- that was for Mrs. Harvery Bronson of course!
To this day, I say to any man waxing poetic about the wonderful sacred duty of homemaking that he is absolutely welcome to do it. I guarantee-- the men who spout this stuff are talking about their wives!
I enjoyed The Home-Maker very much, and especially Stephen and his growth.
August 22, 2021
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is an excellent short book which was a best seller in 1924. It is now published by Persephone Press though I listened to an excellent audio version on Librivox. What a surprising find. I had no expectation of enjoying this novel as much as I did.
The story looks at the question of which parent should be the home-maker and raise the children and which should be the money-maker. The author finds a very clever way by which to explore these themes and related issues such as societal and gender norms and expectations. I was engaged from the start to the end and felt sympathy for every family member, mother, father and the three children. Fear, anger and joy were a few of the emotions I felt as the story moved along.
At times the book felt a bit dated. That isn't a criticism. It was interesting to see how these issues were treated in the 1920s. One hundred years later the issues may not be brand new by they are certainly still very relevant.
The story looks at the question of which parent should be the home-maker and raise the children and which should be the money-maker. The author finds a very clever way by which to explore these themes and related issues such as societal and gender norms and expectations. I was engaged from the start to the end and felt sympathy for every family member, mother, father and the three children. Fear, anger and joy were a few of the emotions I felt as the story moved along.
At times the book felt a bit dated. That isn't a criticism. It was interesting to see how these issues were treated in the 1920s. One hundred years later the issues may not be brand new by they are certainly still very relevant.
June 7, 2023
I like this book a lot for two reasons—for the messages conveyed and the small details that make the story convincing, that make the messages hit home with a punch. Some writers tell you things. This writer shows you things through how people behave and speak. There are people of widely different personality types. The world is richer for the existence of this variety. People are not meant to fit one mold—we’re all different and we are all valuable and each must live according to their way of being. This is best for society and the individual too. In this story, the husband is the homebody. Relating to kids comes naturally to him. The wife is better as the wage earner. The reverse of the traditional roles is accepted nowadays, but it wasn’t back in the 1920s when the book was written! Having read this book, I now understand why Eleanor Roosevelt claimed Dorothy Canfield Fisher, the author, to be one of the ten most influential American women of her time!
Let me repeat though, what makes the book special is how the story is told, not simply the message. A book can have a good message, but it must also be engaging. The story is well told.
I like that the book speaks out against materialism.
I like the focus upon Montessori teaching methods.
I like the ending—it’s much better than that of the silent film that ran in 1925.
The love that grows between the father and his children is movingly portrayed. I spoke of wonderful details. It is here they come in!
The audiobook is read by Anne Hancock. I liked the narration but didn’t love it. She puts herself between the listener and the author’s words. I prefer interpreting an author myself, without others getting involved. Hancock’s words are spoken clearly. Three stars for the narration.
This is better than I thought it would be! Wanting more from this talented author, I have immediately begun Understood Betsy. It’s considered a classic children’s book. I’m guessing and hoping it will be one of those books meant for all ages, the young and the old.
**********************
*The Home-Maker 4 stars
*Understood Betsy 4 stars
Let me repeat though, what makes the book special is how the story is told, not simply the message. A book can have a good message, but it must also be engaging. The story is well told.
I like that the book speaks out against materialism.
I like the focus upon Montessori teaching methods.
I like the ending—it’s much better than that of the silent film that ran in 1925.
The love that grows between the father and his children is movingly portrayed. I spoke of wonderful details. It is here they come in!
The audiobook is read by Anne Hancock. I liked the narration but didn’t love it. She puts herself between the listener and the author’s words. I prefer interpreting an author myself, without others getting involved. Hancock’s words are spoken clearly. Three stars for the narration.
This is better than I thought it would be! Wanting more from this talented author, I have immediately begun Understood Betsy. It’s considered a classic children’s book. I’m guessing and hoping it will be one of those books meant for all ages, the young and the old.
**********************
*The Home-Maker 4 stars
*Understood Betsy 4 stars
April 12, 2022
It is remarkable that this book was published in 1924 as it deals with a subject matter not really considered at that time- a woman working and a man staying at home. Of course, Lester Knapp has to stay home because of an accident, but nonetheless.....
When the book first starts, we meet Evangeline (Eva) Knapp. She is busy scrubbing a floor. Being a homemaker is a thankless job- we all know that- but this is the 1920’s. A woman’s role was to keep her home in a state of perfection. Mrs. Knapp takes it to the extreme- all 3 of her kids and her husband are scared of her- her rebukes and criticisms. We’ve all had our moments- a freshly washed floor and one of the kids spills apple juice or milk all over it. I’m sure I had a rant now and then. Hopefully, my adult children do not make that their sole memory of me.
“What was her life? A hateful round of housework, which, hurry as she might, was never done. How she loathed housework.”
Eva and I both, but yet her place was total perfection. Mine is not!
It was interesting to watch the transition- Eva to the workforce, Lester to homemaking and child rearing. Besides the two of them, we see how the children react and how the neighbours and friends respond.
I was totally invested in this book. Dorothy Canfield Fisher is an exceptional writer who definitely must have raised eyebrows when this book was published.
4.5 Stars.
Published: 1924
When the book first starts, we meet Evangeline (Eva) Knapp. She is busy scrubbing a floor. Being a homemaker is a thankless job- we all know that- but this is the 1920’s. A woman’s role was to keep her home in a state of perfection. Mrs. Knapp takes it to the extreme- all 3 of her kids and her husband are scared of her- her rebukes and criticisms. We’ve all had our moments- a freshly washed floor and one of the kids spills apple juice or milk all over it. I’m sure I had a rant now and then. Hopefully, my adult children do not make that their sole memory of me.
“What was her life? A hateful round of housework, which, hurry as she might, was never done. How she loathed housework.”
Eva and I both, but yet her place was total perfection. Mine is not!
It was interesting to watch the transition- Eva to the workforce, Lester to homemaking and child rearing. Besides the two of them, we see how the children react and how the neighbours and friends respond.
I was totally invested in this book. Dorothy Canfield Fisher is an exceptional writer who definitely must have raised eyebrows when this book was published.
4.5 Stars.
Published: 1924
May 18, 2016
'Oh Lester, let me do that! The idea of your darning stockings! It's dreadful enough your having to do the housework!'Evangeline Knapp is perfectly suited to be a successful business woman, while as a home-maker she is micro-managing, overbearing and miserable. Her children are crushed to the point of illness by her impatience and resentment, but her friends pity and admire her. Eva’s husband Lester works in an accounting office, where he is miserable, absent-minded, and disliked by his colleagues. He has the potential to be a sympathetic, nurturing parent who brings creative thought to the problems of housework, and lives his mind’s idle moments in poetic reflection. The enforcement of USian gender roles by the community leaves the family in a bind.
'Eva darned them a good many years,' he said, with some warmth, 'and did the housework. Why shouldn't I?' He looked at her hard and went on 'Do you know what you are saying to me...? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else.'
Mattie shouted indignantly, 'Lester Knapp, how dare you say such a thing! I never dreamed of having such an awful idea... Home-making is the noblest work anybody can do!'
'Why pity me then?' asked Lester with a grin, drawing his needle in and out of the little stocking.
The crystal clear scenario so crisply laid out by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is impossible to misunderstand; it is an extended feminist thought experiment that indicts the social body for policing gender, and asserts the value of autonomy. The oppression of Evangeline impacts her family as badly as it does her. Dorothy Canfield Fisher said that this novel was for the rights of children, not for women. This checks out for me – I was more engaged with the children, and while I sympathised with Evangeline, she seemed like a mighty machine at times; cold, powerful, automatic. The novel asserts the importance of innate character traits and drives, and sees the parent as responsible for leading out the potential of the child. Each person, in an ideal world, would be helped by parents to become whole, and then find fullfilment in the right kind of activity.
The individualistic philosophy is too strong for my coffee, the (dated) tips on how to be a great salesperson or department store manager too numerous, and the Christian literary quotes and references not to my taste. The style of parenting critiqued here has become duly unfashionable (I am not a parent, so can hardly comment further). Yet, I still enjoyed the book a lot. It reminded me strongly of The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, which is also a manifesto for the humanity and rights of the child = )
March 21, 2018
One of my favourites so far this year. I loved the exploration of 1920s gender roles, and the writing is smooth and brilliant, her capture of character's voices superb.
January 9, 2019
The Home-Maker written by Dorothy Canfield Fisher was among the ten bestselling novels in the US in 1924 and in Britain the 'Daily Express' called it one of the best novels of the year.
This thought -provoking book tells the story of Evangeline Knapp who is an obessively house-proud mother and home-maker.She works through her lists of jobs everyday but without realising it,she is bored and very unhappy.She thinks she is a good and devoted mother, but worries about the house work more than the emotional needs of her children.
Lester, her husband is also unhappy at work and is a dreamer thinking of poetry all day.
After an accident one day, Lester is left disabled and stays at home bringing up the children, while Evangeline goes to work instead.
This story was way ahead of its time and tackles the issues of role-reversal in marriage and what society expects of men and women.
This thought -provoking book tells the story of Evangeline Knapp who is an obessively house-proud mother and home-maker.She works through her lists of jobs everyday but without realising it,she is bored and very unhappy.She thinks she is a good and devoted mother, but worries about the house work more than the emotional needs of her children.
Lester, her husband is also unhappy at work and is a dreamer thinking of poetry all day.
After an accident one day, Lester is left disabled and stays at home bringing up the children, while Evangeline goes to work instead.
This story was way ahead of its time and tackles the issues of role-reversal in marriage and what society expects of men and women.
December 1, 2024
Dorothy Canfield Fisher published The Home Maker in 1924, and she opens her for the 1920s delightfully avant garde and forward thinking account of family dysfunction (and its opposite) by introducing and describing to us as readers the Knapp family (father, mother, and three children), all of whom are basically totally and utterly miserable and living lives of despair and often unrelenting discomfort and pain, are in fact just barely existing and not ever really and truly living (and for the two adults, for the parents stuck and glued into traditional gender prescribed spheres and roles totally and utterly unsuitable for them and for their respective temperaments). Now Lester Knapp, the father encountered in The Home Maker, he is presented by Canfield Fisher as being painfully and unhappily employed as a bookkeeper at department store (even though he would rather be writing poetry and not being out and about as the primary "breadwinner"), timidly shy daughter Helen is always fading into the background, whilst the eldest son Henry obviously suffers from stress and emotional torment based illnesses (and the youngest son Stephen, he lashes out angrily at everyone and at everything, and is basically shown in The Home Maker as absorbing all of negativity like some kind of monstrous sponge and then spewing forth what the rest of the family swallows and lets fester internally).
But while the mother, while Evangeline Knapp is shown in (or at least at the beginning of) The Home Maker to externally, to on the surface to be the perfect, the "golden standard" of a wife and mother and is praised by her friends and acquaintances for the efficiency and the energy with which she performs her multitude of domestic tasks, Evangeline herself is in fact massively, is absolutely unhappy and discontented with being just and simply a homemaker and finds her role as mother and as housekeeper anything totally fulfilling. And yes, this intense unhappiness, anger and sense of horrid and all encompassing family dysfunction, for me permeates every part of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's text for The Home Maker, that is until an accident leaves Lester Knapp injured and housebound (actually wheelchair bound) and forces a total change of parental roles, with Evangeline Knapp going to work and Lester becoming basically a so-called house husband, and with this basically representing the total and wonderful salvation of the Knapps' as both individuals and as a family, since Lester absolutely adores and appreciates being at home and responsible for the children and their welfare (and they, Helen, Henry and Stephen also really enjoy their father being at home with them and thrive magically and delightfully) and Evangeline equally and in her own right really enjoys going to work and no longer having the burden of being just a mother responsible for household chores and the children on her shoulders.
But of course (and sadly but for the 1920s and even still somewhat for today not surprisingly), when Dorothy Canfield Fisher describes in Home Maker that Lester Knapp might be on the road to recovery from his paralysis, friends, neighbours (and basically everyone) immediately expect that Lester should then go back to work and that Evangeline will go back to being a "just" a housewife. And even though Canfield Fisher clearly shows with The Home Maker that this state of affairs (Lester and Evangeline going back to the standard, the status quo) would be horrible, would be completely both physically and emotionally unhealthy for ALL of the Knapps, for both the parents and also for their children, the happy ending of The Home Maker can (in 1924) only happen through a bit of medical and almost deus ex machina like intervention, with Lester's physician simply claiming that any further treatment of Lester's paralysis could be dangerous, even fatal and that thus, the Knapps will now be left alone, with Evangeline going to work and Lester being at home. An ending for The Home Maker that some reviewers seem to consider morally problematic as it is in fact a falsehood that Lester cannot recover, but for me The Home Maker actually concludes with the doctor totally and superbly following the oh so important and often not anymore all that considered Hypocratic Oath of not doing harm, for it would indeed be very much harmful for the Knapps if Lester were forced to return to his job as a bookkeeper and if Evangeline would have to return to her role as being only a housewife and mother.
But while the mother, while Evangeline Knapp is shown in (or at least at the beginning of) The Home Maker to externally, to on the surface to be the perfect, the "golden standard" of a wife and mother and is praised by her friends and acquaintances for the efficiency and the energy with which she performs her multitude of domestic tasks, Evangeline herself is in fact massively, is absolutely unhappy and discontented with being just and simply a homemaker and finds her role as mother and as housekeeper anything totally fulfilling. And yes, this intense unhappiness, anger and sense of horrid and all encompassing family dysfunction, for me permeates every part of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's text for The Home Maker, that is until an accident leaves Lester Knapp injured and housebound (actually wheelchair bound) and forces a total change of parental roles, with Evangeline Knapp going to work and Lester becoming basically a so-called house husband, and with this basically representing the total and wonderful salvation of the Knapps' as both individuals and as a family, since Lester absolutely adores and appreciates being at home and responsible for the children and their welfare (and they, Helen, Henry and Stephen also really enjoy their father being at home with them and thrive magically and delightfully) and Evangeline equally and in her own right really enjoys going to work and no longer having the burden of being just a mother responsible for household chores and the children on her shoulders.
But of course (and sadly but for the 1920s and even still somewhat for today not surprisingly), when Dorothy Canfield Fisher describes in Home Maker that Lester Knapp might be on the road to recovery from his paralysis, friends, neighbours (and basically everyone) immediately expect that Lester should then go back to work and that Evangeline will go back to being a "just" a housewife. And even though Canfield Fisher clearly shows with The Home Maker that this state of affairs (Lester and Evangeline going back to the standard, the status quo) would be horrible, would be completely both physically and emotionally unhealthy for ALL of the Knapps, for both the parents and also for their children, the happy ending of The Home Maker can (in 1924) only happen through a bit of medical and almost deus ex machina like intervention, with Lester's physician simply claiming that any further treatment of Lester's paralysis could be dangerous, even fatal and that thus, the Knapps will now be left alone, with Evangeline going to work and Lester being at home. An ending for The Home Maker that some reviewers seem to consider morally problematic as it is in fact a falsehood that Lester cannot recover, but for me The Home Maker actually concludes with the doctor totally and superbly following the oh so important and often not anymore all that considered Hypocratic Oath of not doing harm, for it would indeed be very much harmful for the Knapps if Lester were forced to return to his job as a bookkeeper and if Evangeline would have to return to her role as being only a housewife and mother.
December 4, 2013
The very, very best novels leave me struggling for words, quite unable to capture what it is that makes them so extraordinary.
The Home-Maker is one of those novels. It was published in the 1920s, it is set in small town American, and yet it feels extraordinarily relevant.
It is the story of the Knapp family – Evangeline, Lester and their children, Helen, Henry and Stephen. A family that was unhappy, because both parents were trapped in the roles that society dictated a mother and a father should play.
The word saw Evangeline as the perfect wife and mother. Her house was always immaculate, she was a capable cook, her needlework was flawless, and she had the gift of being to make lovely clothes, and wonderful things for the home, from the simplest materials.
The members of the Ladies’ Guild were in awe of her, and they knew that, whatever question they had, Evangeline would have the answer. But they didn’t understand why her husband was so down-trodden, why Helen was so shy, why Henry has ‘a nervous stomach’, or why Stephen was so very naughty.
But, if Evangeline’s quest for perfection was unsettling for them it was hell for her family. They had to live with her high standards, her quest for perfection, and she was desperately unhappy at the prospect of endless days of drudgery.
“Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterday. And yet if she had warned him once about that, she had a thousand times! Warned him, and begged of him, and implored him to be careful. The children simply paid no attention to what she said. None. She might as well talk to the wind. Hot grease too! That soaked into the wood so, She would never get it clean.”
And Lester was no happier. He hated his job in the account office of a department store, that kept him away from his children, that pinned him down, that stole the time he desperately wanted to think and create.
Now I may make that sound horribly dark and depressing. But it isn’t, because Dorothy Canfield Fisher makes her characters live and breathe, makes their situation utterly real, and pulls her readers into the lives of the Knapp family.
Something had to change, or something was going to break.
Something changed; Lester lost his job. He contemplated suicide, believing that his family would be better off without him, but fate had something else in store. He saw a fire at a neighbour’s house; he rushed in to help, unconcerned for his own safety; and then he fell from their roof as he tried to extinguish the flames.
Lester survived, but he was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk or work.
Evangeline realised that she has to keep the family going. She applied for a job at the store where her husband had worked and the owners, sympathetic to the family’s situation and aware of Evangeline’s reputation, decided to give her a chance.
They didn’t regret it: Evangeline’s organisational skills, her attention to detail, her determination to find a solution to every problem, had found the right home. She was promoted and very soon she was earning more than her husband ever had. She came home at the end of the day tired, but happy and fulfilled.
Meanwhile, Lester stayed at home with the children and took on the role of home-maker. His talents found their natural home too, and housework and thinking went together in a way that thinking and book-keeping never had. He worked with his children to manage the cooking and the cleaning.
“The attic was piled to the eaves with old newspapers. Every day Helen or Henry brings down a fresh supply. We spread them around two or three thick , drop our grease on the with all the peace of mind in the world, whisk them up at night before Eva comes in, and have a spotless floor to show her.”
And he found time to talk to them, to draw them together as a family, to understand their concerns, to make them feel loved and valued. He talked to Helen about her hopes and dreams; he learned that Henry has a dog, kept at a friend’s house because he didn’t think he would be allowed to bring it home; and he discovered that much of Stephen’s naughtiness stemmed from his fear that his mother would subject his beloved teddy bear to trial by washing machine. Lester coped with all of this, and much more, quite magnificently.
Evangeline, with her work to engage her, with her responsibility for housework taken from her, finds herself able to come home and relax and enjoy her time with her family. She had always loved them, of course she had, but she couldn’t cope with being at home all the time.
The family thrived, and the neighbours were astonished. It wasn’t what they had expected at all!
All of this was quite wonderful to watch, and the narrative shifting between family members worked quite beautifully.
And Dorothy Canfield Fisher did something rather clever, that brought the central question of this story into sharp focus.
The owners of the department store, Mr and Mrs Willing had found a wonderful way to balance their family and their business life. Mrs Willing was happy at home with the family, and she worked on business ideas at her kitchen table, while her husband went out to manage the day-to-day running of their story.
Different families need different solutions!
And that makes it clear that there is a bigger question here than how society should look at women who want to work outside the home, and at men who are happy to play significant roles in the home.
Should every family, every person, not be able to work out how to do things in the way that works best for them without having to worry about what the world may think … ?
We’ve come some way since this book was published, in 1924, but we aren’t there yet.
The Knapp family faces a crisis when Lester and Evangeline have to face the fact that his paralysis is psychological, that there is nothing physically preventing him walking again. Neither can face the possibility of going back to the way things were, but neither is brave enough to defy convention.
Both are in turmoil: it’s a little melodramatic, but the emotions are true and the dilemma utterly real.
It is left to a wise, and far-sighted, doctor to save them.
A little neat maybe, but the story needed the resolution.
It brought the important issues, about how to live, how to share responsibilities, how to raise children, to the fore.
I put the book down a week ago, but I’m still thinking about it.
The Home-Maker is one of those novels. It was published in the 1920s, it is set in small town American, and yet it feels extraordinarily relevant.
It is the story of the Knapp family – Evangeline, Lester and their children, Helen, Henry and Stephen. A family that was unhappy, because both parents were trapped in the roles that society dictated a mother and a father should play.
The word saw Evangeline as the perfect wife and mother. Her house was always immaculate, she was a capable cook, her needlework was flawless, and she had the gift of being to make lovely clothes, and wonderful things for the home, from the simplest materials.
The members of the Ladies’ Guild were in awe of her, and they knew that, whatever question they had, Evangeline would have the answer. But they didn’t understand why her husband was so down-trodden, why Helen was so shy, why Henry has ‘a nervous stomach’, or why Stephen was so very naughty.
But, if Evangeline’s quest for perfection was unsettling for them it was hell for her family. They had to live with her high standards, her quest for perfection, and she was desperately unhappy at the prospect of endless days of drudgery.
“Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterday. And yet if she had warned him once about that, she had a thousand times! Warned him, and begged of him, and implored him to be careful. The children simply paid no attention to what she said. None. She might as well talk to the wind. Hot grease too! That soaked into the wood so, She would never get it clean.”
And Lester was no happier. He hated his job in the account office of a department store, that kept him away from his children, that pinned him down, that stole the time he desperately wanted to think and create.
Now I may make that sound horribly dark and depressing. But it isn’t, because Dorothy Canfield Fisher makes her characters live and breathe, makes their situation utterly real, and pulls her readers into the lives of the Knapp family.
Something had to change, or something was going to break.
Something changed; Lester lost his job. He contemplated suicide, believing that his family would be better off without him, but fate had something else in store. He saw a fire at a neighbour’s house; he rushed in to help, unconcerned for his own safety; and then he fell from their roof as he tried to extinguish the flames.
Lester survived, but he was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk or work.
Evangeline realised that she has to keep the family going. She applied for a job at the store where her husband had worked and the owners, sympathetic to the family’s situation and aware of Evangeline’s reputation, decided to give her a chance.
They didn’t regret it: Evangeline’s organisational skills, her attention to detail, her determination to find a solution to every problem, had found the right home. She was promoted and very soon she was earning more than her husband ever had. She came home at the end of the day tired, but happy and fulfilled.
Meanwhile, Lester stayed at home with the children and took on the role of home-maker. His talents found their natural home too, and housework and thinking went together in a way that thinking and book-keeping never had. He worked with his children to manage the cooking and the cleaning.
“The attic was piled to the eaves with old newspapers. Every day Helen or Henry brings down a fresh supply. We spread them around two or three thick , drop our grease on the with all the peace of mind in the world, whisk them up at night before Eva comes in, and have a spotless floor to show her.”
And he found time to talk to them, to draw them together as a family, to understand their concerns, to make them feel loved and valued. He talked to Helen about her hopes and dreams; he learned that Henry has a dog, kept at a friend’s house because he didn’t think he would be allowed to bring it home; and he discovered that much of Stephen’s naughtiness stemmed from his fear that his mother would subject his beloved teddy bear to trial by washing machine. Lester coped with all of this, and much more, quite magnificently.
Evangeline, with her work to engage her, with her responsibility for housework taken from her, finds herself able to come home and relax and enjoy her time with her family. She had always loved them, of course she had, but she couldn’t cope with being at home all the time.
The family thrived, and the neighbours were astonished. It wasn’t what they had expected at all!
All of this was quite wonderful to watch, and the narrative shifting between family members worked quite beautifully.
And Dorothy Canfield Fisher did something rather clever, that brought the central question of this story into sharp focus.
The owners of the department store, Mr and Mrs Willing had found a wonderful way to balance their family and their business life. Mrs Willing was happy at home with the family, and she worked on business ideas at her kitchen table, while her husband went out to manage the day-to-day running of their story.
Different families need different solutions!
And that makes it clear that there is a bigger question here than how society should look at women who want to work outside the home, and at men who are happy to play significant roles in the home.
Should every family, every person, not be able to work out how to do things in the way that works best for them without having to worry about what the world may think … ?
We’ve come some way since this book was published, in 1924, but we aren’t there yet.
The Knapp family faces a crisis when Lester and Evangeline have to face the fact that his paralysis is psychological, that there is nothing physically preventing him walking again. Neither can face the possibility of going back to the way things were, but neither is brave enough to defy convention.
Both are in turmoil: it’s a little melodramatic, but the emotions are true and the dilemma utterly real.
It is left to a wise, and far-sighted, doctor to save them.
A little neat maybe, but the story needed the resolution.
It brought the important issues, about how to live, how to share responsibilities, how to raise children, to the fore.
I put the book down a week ago, but I’m still thinking about it.
December 20, 2018
This was a pretty progressive story as it was written in 1924. It examines gender roles and societal norms; whether home-making can or should be enough; how to raise children. It raises issues of emotional neglect in children. It’s funny: I’m a teacher and in the staff room, we often bemoan parents who stick their children in front of the tv or a computer as a common form of childcare- where children are not engaged with or conversations are not had- and say ‘it never used to be like this’. But of course, it’s not only absorption in the latest technology that leaves children emotionally neglected from ‘absent’ parents, as this book reminds us. The story would have left an emotional glow from how this family resolve their difficulties, the rightness of the solution, were it not for the adults’ attitudes to Lester’s health and well-being.
July 15, 2017
Firstly; I can understand that is is quite a shocking book of its time. The idea of a woman being employed whilst the father stays at home looking after his children and making the dinner. However, that didn't change the fact that I found it a pretty hard slog. I didn't seem to be getting any closer to finishing despite reading countless pages at each sitting. I do feel the book length could've been shortened. I'm giving it three stars because some pages were wonderfully written, witty, warm and perceptive, whilst others were dull and a pain to get through. I love Persephone books and it won't put me off reading them, but I will probably stay clear of this author in the future.
November 7, 2022
To me, it is a sacrosanct and personal book. It touched those parts of my soul I had thought that were too personal to find them somewhere else (e.g. in a novel).
In the copy, I have borrowed on LibriVox was also an article by Dorothy Canfield, published in the same year as the novel, entitled "Marital Relations". These two publications created an important message for all of us.
In the novel, one can see:
--> the heavy, crushing impact of tradition (social rules that one is expected to respect) on a human being
--> how different people can be from what is expected from them
--> what is (should be) a motherhood (fatherhood)
--> how big impact on children have parents
--> women in the marriages.
and also:
--> passion of young (rather small) entrepreneurs
--> the beginning of modern consumerism.
It was one of these books that are perfect to discuss. But I am not going to touch (in my review) all things that are worth it, otherwise, it would be a very long review.
The plot was rather predictable but it wasn't important. The important thing was how the family as a whole and its members changed after perhaps small and common change (in our modern eyes). From the beginning, I understood what was the source of Helen's helplessness and passivity (the feeling that she is not able to please her mother), Henry's weakness (the fear of his mother), Stephen's anger (the attempt to attract the attention of a mother), Lester's depression and Eva's unhappiness (the roles forced by society). Of course, they were more complicated, I have mentioned just some of their issues.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher was an advocate of the Montessori method. It was obvious in the novel. I am not going to tell if this method is the best (I simply don't know) but definitely, it is better than traditional upbringing.
What made the biggest impact on me was Eva as a mother and the reasons why she wasn't a good mother (in the meaning of upbringing children). She loved them, without a doubt, she loved them passionately. But her personality wasn't a personality of a mother because she lived from task to task, from goal to goal, from plan to plan. Upbringing a child is endless, there are no plans for it, there are no goals you can achieve and finish the task, there is no end. For people like Eva (and me) motherhood (upbringing children) is like a poison that kills a mother and children. Eva was lucky, she had Lester as a husband, not all such women have such luck (I don't, I love my partner and in this aspect, he has a personality like me, so we will stay childless).
As I wrote, this book was very moving and important to me. I will stay in some kind of awareness for some time yet. I have problems with articulating my feelings about this book so I quote below a few more examples, what I have extracted:
In the copy, I have borrowed on LibriVox was also an article by Dorothy Canfield, published in the same year as the novel, entitled "Marital Relations". These two publications created an important message for all of us.
What we ought to realize about marriage is, first of all, that, like every other human relationship, it is a problem that is never completely solved and settled, once and for all, until both parties are dead and buried. And secondly, that it is an intensely personal affair and that nobody on earth can know as much about it as the two people involved. Consequently, advice and pressure from the outside are always given on the basis of insufficient information, and have at least a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong.
In the novel, one can see:
--> the heavy, crushing impact of tradition (social rules that one is expected to respect) on a human being
--> how different people can be from what is expected from them
--> what is (should be) a motherhood (fatherhood)
--> how big impact on children have parents
--> women in the marriages.
and also:
--> passion of young (rather small) entrepreneurs
--> the beginning of modern consumerism.
It was one of these books that are perfect to discuss. But I am not going to touch (in my review) all things that are worth it, otherwise, it would be a very long review.
The plot was rather predictable but it wasn't important. The important thing was how the family as a whole and its members changed after perhaps small and common change (in our modern eyes). From the beginning, I understood what was the source of Helen's helplessness and passivity (the feeling that she is not able to please her mother), Henry's weakness (the fear of his mother), Stephen's anger (the attempt to attract the attention of a mother), Lester's depression and Eva's unhappiness (the roles forced by society). Of course, they were more complicated, I have mentioned just some of their issues.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher was an advocate of the Montessori method. It was obvious in the novel. I am not going to tell if this method is the best (I simply don't know) but definitely, it is better than traditional upbringing.
What made the biggest impact on me was Eva as a mother and the reasons why she wasn't a good mother (in the meaning of upbringing children). She loved them, without a doubt, she loved them passionately. But her personality wasn't a personality of a mother because she lived from task to task, from goal to goal, from plan to plan. Upbringing a child is endless, there are no plans for it, there are no goals you can achieve and finish the task, there is no end. For people like Eva (and me) motherhood (upbringing children) is like a poison that kills a mother and children. Eva was lucky, she had Lester as a husband, not all such women have such luck (I don't, I love my partner and in this aspect, he has a personality like me, so we will stay childless).
As I wrote, this book was very moving and important to me. I will stay in some kind of awareness for some time yet. I have problems with articulating my feelings about this book so I quote below a few more examples, what I have extracted:
A profound depression came upon her. These were the moments in a mother's life about which nobody ever warned you, about which everybody kept a deceitful silence, the fine books and the speakers who had so much to say about the sacredness of maternity. They never told you that there were moments of arid clear sight when you saw helplessly that your children would never measure up to your standard, never would be really close to you, because they were not your kind of human beings, because they were not your children, but merely other human beings for whom you were responsible. How solitary it made you feel!
Eva had passionate love and devotion to give them, but neither patience nor understanding. There was no sacrifice in the world which she would not joyfully make for her children except to live with them.
Lester said to himself, shivering, "What a ghastly thing to have sensitive, helpless human beings absolutely in the power of other human beings! Absolute, unquestioned power! Nobody can stand that. It's cold poison. How many wardens of prisons are driven sadistically mad with it!"
Anybody who knows anything knows how delicate and exacting a matter it is to try to tune in harmony two human beings, almost constitutionally out of tune even with themselves, full of strange complicated weaknesses and unexpected beauties and strength. Add to that the element of children, each of whom brings a full equipment of strange unexplored possiblities, and any fool can see that no outside complications are needed to make the problem a difficult one.
It wasn't because Eva had not tried her best. She had nearly killed herself trying. But she had been like a gifted mathematician set to paint a picture.
June 18, 2025
I loved this book!!
This novel, written in 1924, discusses the roles of men and women in society that, at that time, they basically couldn't get out of.
The story begins with Mr. Knapp, father of three, and his lack of ambition, ability, or desire to support his family as an employee of the local department store. He is a good man, but this job is just not for him. While Mrs. Knapp, his wife and mother of his children, does not care for the drudgery of housework. And though she loves her children, stay-at-home motherhood is not her forte. She is good at creativity in clothing and furnishing and has skills in organizing fundraising groups, etc. However, she has not time for these things because of her devotion to a clean house and teaching proper manners to her children -- and as you can guess, no one in this household is happy :/
So -- when Mr. Knapp is injured in an accident and must stay at home with the children while Mrs. Knapp goes out to become the family bread-winner, the family dynamics change! Oh, how they change! But can they stay in this situation for long?
Mrs. Fisher goes deep into the husband/wife roles and expectations of the era. The reader gets to inhabit the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Knapp, and each of their three children, and is able to see how each of them feels and transforms under this new regime. And it was so, so interesting!!
More people need to read this one! And as for me, I am definitely going to look for more books by this author :)
This novel, written in 1924, discusses the roles of men and women in society that, at that time, they basically couldn't get out of.
The story begins with Mr. Knapp, father of three, and his lack of ambition, ability, or desire to support his family as an employee of the local department store. He is a good man, but this job is just not for him. While Mrs. Knapp, his wife and mother of his children, does not care for the drudgery of housework. And though she loves her children, stay-at-home motherhood is not her forte. She is good at creativity in clothing and furnishing and has skills in organizing fundraising groups, etc. However, she has not time for these things because of her devotion to a clean house and teaching proper manners to her children -- and as you can guess, no one in this household is happy :/
So -- when Mr. Knapp is injured in an accident and must stay at home with the children while Mrs. Knapp goes out to become the family bread-winner, the family dynamics change! Oh, how they change! But can they stay in this situation for long?
Mrs. Fisher goes deep into the husband/wife roles and expectations of the era. The reader gets to inhabit the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Knapp, and each of their three children, and is able to see how each of them feels and transforms under this new regime. And it was so, so interesting!!
More people need to read this one! And as for me, I am definitely going to look for more books by this author :)
June 15, 2012
I discovered ‘The Home-Maker’ by Dorothy Canfield Fisher through the review of Nymeth from the Things Mean a Lot. I loved the basic premise of the book and couldn’t resist getting it. I started reading it a few days back and finished it in a couple of sittings. Here is what I think.
‘The Home-Maker’ is about a family and the interesting consequences of what happens when traditional gender roles are reversed. Evangeline Knapp is the mother who is a perfectionist. She likes her house to be spotlessly clean, she likes her children to behave properly all the time, she expects her husband to work hard and move up the professional ladder and she keeps her real feelings to herself. She doesn’t have time to let her hair down. Evangeline has a daughter and two sons. Her children love her but they are not able to connect with her emotionally. Lester Knapp, Evangeline’s husband, works at a local department store. He is not ambitious and is regarded as a cog in the wheel, at work. He doesn’t care about career advancement or about making more money. He likes poetry and literature. He is able to connect with his children, but doesn’t have the time to do that, because of his busy work schedule. The department store that Lester works in, gets a new boss who is young. This young gentleman, Jerome Willing, wants to re-organize the store and make things more efficient. The first casualty of this is Lester who gets sacked. A depressed Lester returns home, gets caught in a fire and has an accident, which paralyzes him waist down. The environment at home changes. Lester recovers enough after a few months though he is still paralyzed, stays at home, suddenly has time to spend with his children and is able to contribute to their emotional growth, helps them in dreaming and discovering their interests and suddenly the Knapp family’s home is a fun place to live in. However the problem of how to make money and bring bread to the table remains. Evangeline goes and meets Mr.Willing at the department store one day. Mr.Willing sees promise in her and hires her and puts her in the Cloak-and-suits department. Evangeline works hard, discovers that she has unexplored talent, has a knack for the business and rises up the ladder quite fast. Soon she is not just a stock girl, but she becomes a sales girl and is making more money than her husband ever made. Before long, she is promoted as the head of her department. Evangeline loves her life and she is able to let her hair down. Her children are able to connect with her emotionally. It looks like Lester’s accident was not bad at all because it seems to have helped the Knapp family members realize their potential. Just when we are thinking that the Knapp family is going to be happy ever after, a grey cloud arrives at the horizon. Lester’s doctor says that Lester can be cured and might be able to walk again. Though this news should make everyone happy, it makes everyone worried. Evangeline worries that she will have to give up her career, because if her husband is back to normal, he will have to go to work, as that is the norm at that time, and someone has to be at home to take care of things there and that someone will be her. Lester worries that eventhough he would like to stay home even if he gets back to normal, it will be difficult to face the criticism of his neighbours and society if he does that, because an able man is expected to work and not be a homemaker and so he would have to get back to the work he hated. The children worry that if their father goes back to work, things will go back to as they were before and that will be the end of their home as a fun-place. Does Evangeline give up her promising career? Does Lester give up what he loves, because that is what society demands? What happens to the Knapp family? The answers to these questions form the rest of the story.
I liked ‘The Home-Maker’ very much. To me it looked like a book which was not written to entertain the reader with an interesting story or which had deep philosophical prose to make the reader think, but it was a book which was written to make a point and make the reader think by playing with extremes. It explores what happens when traditional gender roles are reversed and when a woman becomes the breadwinner of the family and a man becomes the homemaker. One of my friends who is a personal coach and who is one of the wisest persons I know once told me that if we are not sure what we like with respect to a particular aspect of life, we should explore extremes. That way we will be able to find the right balance of the two opposites which fits our lives. My friend mentioned this in the context of work-life balance. This book does the same with respect to gender roles at home. I am guessing that ‘The Home-Maker’ must have created quite a controversy when it first came out. The year it was published, 1924, was really a long time back, and the world was a different place then, when compared to now. The roles of men and women at home were defined by tradition then and were set in stone. Any kind of deviation from the norm was probably regarded with suspicion then. Looking at the book from that perspective, I think Dorothy Canfield Fisher must have been really brave to write it and publish it.
I thought it will be interesting to see how the book’s main theme applies to the world today. Karen Knox says this in the introduction to the book (written in 1999) – “The Home-Maker is seventy-five years old, but the situation it examines is as current today as when the book was first published. There are, of course, obvious differences in small town American life then and now, mostly technological advances in housekeeping and in business, but the basics remain depressingly the same.” I found it quite depressing to read that. I think that things have changed in many positive aspects with respect to what women can do to realize their potential. But some things remain the same. For example, if the husband and the wife are in similar positions at work, the wife’s career typically takes the backseat. When the husband is transferred to a new country on work, the wife is expected to tag along with him, giving up her career, or she is expected to find a job in the new country. But if the wife is transferred to a new country on work, she is not sure whether she can take up that position, because the husband may not tag along with her. Managing the home is still regarded as the wife’s responsibility, though the husband might help out in cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the house. There are, of course, exceptions to all this, which is good news. On the other hand, if we look at things from the husband’s perspective, if he decides to become a fulltime home-maker, it is going to be tough for him. It might be difficult for him to find a wife, or if he is already married, his wife might stop respecting him or she might even leave him. The idea of the husband being the breadwinner of the family is imprinted so deeply in the human mind for millennia that it is not going to go away anytime soon. It might require humans to unlearn their conditioned thinking with respect to gender roles, not just intellectually (which we have successfully done already, I think), but in a deep, emotional, fundamental way. I think till then, the themes depicted by ‘The Home-Maker’ will continue to be relevant to us.
I read the Persephone edition of ‘The Home-Maker’. This was my first Persephone and I loved it – I loved the cover, the Galway-fabric-style endpapers, the thick pages, the wide spacing between lines, the easy-on-the-eye font, the wonderful introduction by Karen Knox. My only complaint was that Persephone editions are expensive – each book costs 10 pounds. But if one wants fine French wine or delicious Belgian chocolate – or Persephone editions – one shouldn’t complain about the price
I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
Rest
The bed, the floor, the bureau, everything looked different to you in the times when Mother forgot about you for a minute. It occurred to Stephen that maybe it was a rest to them, too, to have Mother forget about them and stop dusting and polishing and pushing them around. They looked sort of peaceful, the way he felt. He nodded his head to the bed and looked with sympathy at the bureau.
Beautiful words and children
‘He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride,’
Said Lester Knapp aloud to himself. It was a great pleasure to him to be able to say the strong short Saxon words aloud. For years he had been shutting into the cage of silence all the winged beautiful words which came flying into his mind! And beautiful words which you do not pronounce aloud are like children always forced to ‘be quiet’ and ‘sit still’. They droop and languish.
Teaching and loving literature
“What makes you think colleges want teachers who love literature? They want somebody who can make young people sit still and listen whether they feel like it or not. They want somebody who can “keep order” in a class room and drill students on dates so they can pass examinations. I couldn’t do that! And I’d loathe forcing literature down the throats of boys and girls who didn’t want it as I’d loathe selling things to people who didn’t need them. I’d be just a dead loss at it the way I always am.”
The morning poets
Not infrequently his first early-morning look at the world told him with which great spirit he was to live that day. A clear, breezy, bird-twittering dawn after rain meant Christina Rossetti’s child-poems. A soft grey downpour of warm rain, varnishing the grass to brilliance and beating down on the earth with a roll of muted drum-notes, always brought Hardy to his mind. Golden sun spilled in floods over the new green of the quivering young leaves meant Shelley. And Browning was for days when the sun rose rich and many-coloured out of confused masses of turbid clouds.
A Mathematician painting a picture
Eva had no bread to give them – he saw that in this Day-of-Judgement hour, and no longer pretended that he did not. Eva had passionate love and devotion to give them, but neither patience nor understanding. There was no sacrifice in the world which she would not joyfully make for her children except to live with them. They had tried that for fourteen dreadful years and knew what it brought them. That complacent unquestioned generalization, ‘The mother is the natural home-maker’; what a juggernaut it had been in their case! How poor Eva, drugged by the cries of its devotees, had cast herself down under its grinding wheels – and had dragged the children in under with her. It wasn’t because Eva had not tried her best. She had nearly killed herself trying. But she had been like a gifted mathematician set to paint a picture.
Have you read ‘The Home-Maker’? What do you think about it?
‘The Home-Maker’ is about a family and the interesting consequences of what happens when traditional gender roles are reversed. Evangeline Knapp is the mother who is a perfectionist. She likes her house to be spotlessly clean, she likes her children to behave properly all the time, she expects her husband to work hard and move up the professional ladder and she keeps her real feelings to herself. She doesn’t have time to let her hair down. Evangeline has a daughter and two sons. Her children love her but they are not able to connect with her emotionally. Lester Knapp, Evangeline’s husband, works at a local department store. He is not ambitious and is regarded as a cog in the wheel, at work. He doesn’t care about career advancement or about making more money. He likes poetry and literature. He is able to connect with his children, but doesn’t have the time to do that, because of his busy work schedule. The department store that Lester works in, gets a new boss who is young. This young gentleman, Jerome Willing, wants to re-organize the store and make things more efficient. The first casualty of this is Lester who gets sacked. A depressed Lester returns home, gets caught in a fire and has an accident, which paralyzes him waist down. The environment at home changes. Lester recovers enough after a few months though he is still paralyzed, stays at home, suddenly has time to spend with his children and is able to contribute to their emotional growth, helps them in dreaming and discovering their interests and suddenly the Knapp family’s home is a fun place to live in. However the problem of how to make money and bring bread to the table remains. Evangeline goes and meets Mr.Willing at the department store one day. Mr.Willing sees promise in her and hires her and puts her in the Cloak-and-suits department. Evangeline works hard, discovers that she has unexplored talent, has a knack for the business and rises up the ladder quite fast. Soon she is not just a stock girl, but she becomes a sales girl and is making more money than her husband ever made. Before long, she is promoted as the head of her department. Evangeline loves her life and she is able to let her hair down. Her children are able to connect with her emotionally. It looks like Lester’s accident was not bad at all because it seems to have helped the Knapp family members realize their potential. Just when we are thinking that the Knapp family is going to be happy ever after, a grey cloud arrives at the horizon. Lester’s doctor says that Lester can be cured and might be able to walk again. Though this news should make everyone happy, it makes everyone worried. Evangeline worries that she will have to give up her career, because if her husband is back to normal, he will have to go to work, as that is the norm at that time, and someone has to be at home to take care of things there and that someone will be her. Lester worries that eventhough he would like to stay home even if he gets back to normal, it will be difficult to face the criticism of his neighbours and society if he does that, because an able man is expected to work and not be a homemaker and so he would have to get back to the work he hated. The children worry that if their father goes back to work, things will go back to as they were before and that will be the end of their home as a fun-place. Does Evangeline give up her promising career? Does Lester give up what he loves, because that is what society demands? What happens to the Knapp family? The answers to these questions form the rest of the story.
I liked ‘The Home-Maker’ very much. To me it looked like a book which was not written to entertain the reader with an interesting story or which had deep philosophical prose to make the reader think, but it was a book which was written to make a point and make the reader think by playing with extremes. It explores what happens when traditional gender roles are reversed and when a woman becomes the breadwinner of the family and a man becomes the homemaker. One of my friends who is a personal coach and who is one of the wisest persons I know once told me that if we are not sure what we like with respect to a particular aspect of life, we should explore extremes. That way we will be able to find the right balance of the two opposites which fits our lives. My friend mentioned this in the context of work-life balance. This book does the same with respect to gender roles at home. I am guessing that ‘The Home-Maker’ must have created quite a controversy when it first came out. The year it was published, 1924, was really a long time back, and the world was a different place then, when compared to now. The roles of men and women at home were defined by tradition then and were set in stone. Any kind of deviation from the norm was probably regarded with suspicion then. Looking at the book from that perspective, I think Dorothy Canfield Fisher must have been really brave to write it and publish it.
I thought it will be interesting to see how the book’s main theme applies to the world today. Karen Knox says this in the introduction to the book (written in 1999) – “The Home-Maker is seventy-five years old, but the situation it examines is as current today as when the book was first published. There are, of course, obvious differences in small town American life then and now, mostly technological advances in housekeeping and in business, but the basics remain depressingly the same.” I found it quite depressing to read that. I think that things have changed in many positive aspects with respect to what women can do to realize their potential. But some things remain the same. For example, if the husband and the wife are in similar positions at work, the wife’s career typically takes the backseat. When the husband is transferred to a new country on work, the wife is expected to tag along with him, giving up her career, or she is expected to find a job in the new country. But if the wife is transferred to a new country on work, she is not sure whether she can take up that position, because the husband may not tag along with her. Managing the home is still regarded as the wife’s responsibility, though the husband might help out in cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the house. There are, of course, exceptions to all this, which is good news. On the other hand, if we look at things from the husband’s perspective, if he decides to become a fulltime home-maker, it is going to be tough for him. It might be difficult for him to find a wife, or if he is already married, his wife might stop respecting him or she might even leave him. The idea of the husband being the breadwinner of the family is imprinted so deeply in the human mind for millennia that it is not going to go away anytime soon. It might require humans to unlearn their conditioned thinking with respect to gender roles, not just intellectually (which we have successfully done already, I think), but in a deep, emotional, fundamental way. I think till then, the themes depicted by ‘The Home-Maker’ will continue to be relevant to us.
I read the Persephone edition of ‘The Home-Maker’. This was my first Persephone and I loved it – I loved the cover, the Galway-fabric-style endpapers, the thick pages, the wide spacing between lines, the easy-on-the-eye font, the wonderful introduction by Karen Knox. My only complaint was that Persephone editions are expensive – each book costs 10 pounds. But if one wants fine French wine or delicious Belgian chocolate – or Persephone editions – one shouldn’t complain about the price
I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
Rest
The bed, the floor, the bureau, everything looked different to you in the times when Mother forgot about you for a minute. It occurred to Stephen that maybe it was a rest to them, too, to have Mother forget about them and stop dusting and polishing and pushing them around. They looked sort of peaceful, the way he felt. He nodded his head to the bed and looked with sympathy at the bureau.
Beautiful words and children
‘He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride,’
Said Lester Knapp aloud to himself. It was a great pleasure to him to be able to say the strong short Saxon words aloud. For years he had been shutting into the cage of silence all the winged beautiful words which came flying into his mind! And beautiful words which you do not pronounce aloud are like children always forced to ‘be quiet’ and ‘sit still’. They droop and languish.
Teaching and loving literature
“What makes you think colleges want teachers who love literature? They want somebody who can make young people sit still and listen whether they feel like it or not. They want somebody who can “keep order” in a class room and drill students on dates so they can pass examinations. I couldn’t do that! And I’d loathe forcing literature down the throats of boys and girls who didn’t want it as I’d loathe selling things to people who didn’t need them. I’d be just a dead loss at it the way I always am.”
The morning poets
Not infrequently his first early-morning look at the world told him with which great spirit he was to live that day. A clear, breezy, bird-twittering dawn after rain meant Christina Rossetti’s child-poems. A soft grey downpour of warm rain, varnishing the grass to brilliance and beating down on the earth with a roll of muted drum-notes, always brought Hardy to his mind. Golden sun spilled in floods over the new green of the quivering young leaves meant Shelley. And Browning was for days when the sun rose rich and many-coloured out of confused masses of turbid clouds.
A Mathematician painting a picture
Eva had no bread to give them – he saw that in this Day-of-Judgement hour, and no longer pretended that he did not. Eva had passionate love and devotion to give them, but neither patience nor understanding. There was no sacrifice in the world which she would not joyfully make for her children except to live with them. They had tried that for fourteen dreadful years and knew what it brought them. That complacent unquestioned generalization, ‘The mother is the natural home-maker’; what a juggernaut it had been in their case! How poor Eva, drugged by the cries of its devotees, had cast herself down under its grinding wheels – and had dragged the children in under with her. It wasn’t because Eva had not tried her best. She had nearly killed herself trying. But she had been like a gifted mathematician set to paint a picture.
Have you read ‘The Home-Maker’? What do you think about it?
November 19, 2025
The Home-Maker is a 1924 novel that serves largely as a commentary on the respective roles society puts fathers and mothers in the home and workplace. It tells the story of the Knapp family: husband Lester, an accounts clerk for Willing’s department store, his wife, Evangeline, an incredibly efficient homemaker, and their three children, tweenaged Helen, slightly younger Henry and preschooler Stephen. The story is told in the third person point of view. At the beginning it is largely through the view of Evangeline who is effectively dealing with challenges of housework and child-rearing. While everyone in the town looks up to her as the model homemaker, Evangeline feels she is cut out for more and is stuck in a role that she clearly doesn’t enjoy hiding her true feelings from friends and neighbors alike. Her husband is shown at a workplace job he is nether good at nor happy at and getting unhealthily frustrated. When as accident changes their respective household roles, more of the chapters come from Lester’s point-of -view as the books’ title designation becomes more expansive and ambiguous. Eventually circumstances rise to a climax as to what the future of Lester’s and Evangeline’s roles in the family and household will be.
The writing, storytelling and characterization, except perhaps for preschooler Stephen, were surprisingly well-done. I found the writing very clear and the storytelling informative and compelling. It was an excellent portrait of post WWI American family and community. I especially enjoyed the scenes at Willing’s department store. One can learn a lot about a society by the methods and attitudes and goods involved in their shopping.
The family and societal dynamics were well-portrayed until the very end where I thought it got a bit too polemic, treacly and impractical for my tastes. But I forgive the polemic aspects as the relative parental roles in the household had not been dealt with so directly before when this was written and the book was trying to say something different and important. Even now, 100 years later, society still looks askance at a male who prefers to be a homemaker. Besides, I liked the storytelling enough that any deficiencies of the story’s ending portion only lower the story from a 4+ star to a solid 4 star book. (from a B+ to a B)
This was a very readable, enjoyable and important novel. A relatively unknown early 20th Century American classic. I am very glad I read it. I rate it as 4 stars.
The writing, storytelling and characterization, except perhaps for preschooler Stephen, were surprisingly well-done. I found the writing very clear and the storytelling informative and compelling. It was an excellent portrait of post WWI American family and community. I especially enjoyed the scenes at Willing’s department store. One can learn a lot about a society by the methods and attitudes and goods involved in their shopping.
The family and societal dynamics were well-portrayed until the very end where I thought it got a bit too polemic, treacly and impractical for my tastes. But I forgive the polemic aspects as the relative parental roles in the household had not been dealt with so directly before when this was written and the book was trying to say something different and important. Even now, 100 years later, society still looks askance at a male who prefers to be a homemaker. Besides, I liked the storytelling enough that any deficiencies of the story’s ending portion only lower the story from a 4+ star to a solid 4 star book. (from a B+ to a B)
This was a very readable, enjoyable and important novel. A relatively unknown early 20th Century American classic. I am very glad I read it. I rate it as 4 stars.
March 6, 2018
I read slightly more than a third of this novel, originally published in 1924. It concerns 40ish Evangeline Knapp who performs her housewifely duties intensely and aggressively. Meals are on the table at the designated hour, the Knapp house is meticulously kept, the furniture is tastefully made over (with beautiful donated fabric) and smartly arranged in spite of the family’s poverty, the children’s special health needs are attended to . . . and Evangeline is completely and utterly miserable in her limited sphere. Her only outings each week consist of attending the local ladies’ guild and church, where she is much admired for her managerial skills, taste, and competence. She resents her husband, Lester, a university English literature graduate with digestive problems. An impractical man, better at spouting poetry than gaining advancement in his job at the town’s department store, Lester is never openly criticized by his wife, but she seethes below the surface. When Lester is let go by the ambitious young proprietor of the local store and is subsequently seriously injured assisting a neighbour whose house is on fire, Evangeline seeks work outside the home, not surprisingly at Willing’s department store—where the unsatisfactory Lester formerly worked. Of course, she takes to work in the store like a fish to water, quickly familiarizing herself with the stock and intuitively sizing up customers.
While competently written, Canfield Fisher’s book is didactic and heavy handed. I was well on the way to the halfway mark when I decided not to finish the book. I simply didn’t care to read any more about the central character’s triumphs on the sales floor. I suspected the plot might thicken, but I was far from confident it would. I can imagine this novel was revolutionary in its time, suggesting that a husband might be better suited to life at home with the children than his ambitious wife, but the book’s historical significance and its highlighting of the dissatisfaction that both husbands and wives might feel with traditional marital arrangements weren’t enough to keep me going. In short, I was bored.
While competently written, Canfield Fisher’s book is didactic and heavy handed. I was well on the way to the halfway mark when I decided not to finish the book. I simply didn’t care to read any more about the central character’s triumphs on the sales floor. I suspected the plot might thicken, but I was far from confident it would. I can imagine this novel was revolutionary in its time, suggesting that a husband might be better suited to life at home with the children than his ambitious wife, but the book’s historical significance and its highlighting of the dissatisfaction that both husbands and wives might feel with traditional marital arrangements weren’t enough to keep me going. In short, I was bored.
January 22, 2016
The Home-Maker completely subverts the expectations that will undoubtedly be raised by its title and publishing date (1924).
The radical, revolutionary idea at the heart of this book is that a man, not a woman, might be better suited to the real work of the home. For Fisher carefully differentiates, in the unfolding of her storyline, between being competent or even gifted at home management -- and having the particular grace of understanding children and raising them lovingly. In the first chapters of the book, we learn that Eva Knapp is a brilliant home-maker -- admired by all. But she is nervous and unhappy, and she makes her children equally nervous and unhappy. The older two are cowed by her constant criticism, and the youngest is constantly engaged in an unhappy battle of wills with her. Eva is conscientious to a fault, and miserable from it. Meanwhile, her husband Lester works (unsuccessfully) at the local department store. He loathes his job, loathes American consumerism; Lester is a gentle man with poetry in his head. Of course, times and tradition being what they were (and to some extent still are) it would not occur to Eva and Lester to change roles . . . until an accident happens, and Lester is confined at home.
Fisher describes the family's misery so wonderfully -- she is really a master at showing, rather than telling -- that the reader feels every emotion with them. Even better, we sympathise with all of the characters -- which is quite a feat. When Lester takes over home-life and Eva goes out to work, it is such a joy to watch them all begin to flower in their new roles -- including, in fact especially, the children. When Stephen, the littlest, gets his first real taste of being actually wanted -- and not just tolerated -- it made me weep.
The Preface and Afterword of this Persephone reissuing are very enlightening. Do read them! Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a fascinating, accomplished woman, and one of her achievements was advocating (and writing about) the Montessori methods of early education and child-rearing. The idea that raising children should be creative and sympathetic work is very much evident in this book. She always maintained that the book was not so much about women's or men's rights as the rights of children.
It take a kind of "trick" and then a subterfuge to make it possible for the Knapp parents to trade roles. Fisher skewers the idea that women's work in the home is 'really' valued, and every modern reader will understand her perfectly. Many of the conflicts and problems she was describing in 1924 are only somewhat better today. Although the novel might seem 'sentimental' according to contemporary standards, I found it tough-minded and authentically emotional. It was a thought-provoking, thoroughly satisfying novel. I highly recommend it.
The radical, revolutionary idea at the heart of this book is that a man, not a woman, might be better suited to the real work of the home. For Fisher carefully differentiates, in the unfolding of her storyline, between being competent or even gifted at home management -- and having the particular grace of understanding children and raising them lovingly. In the first chapters of the book, we learn that Eva Knapp is a brilliant home-maker -- admired by all. But she is nervous and unhappy, and she makes her children equally nervous and unhappy. The older two are cowed by her constant criticism, and the youngest is constantly engaged in an unhappy battle of wills with her. Eva is conscientious to a fault, and miserable from it. Meanwhile, her husband Lester works (unsuccessfully) at the local department store. He loathes his job, loathes American consumerism; Lester is a gentle man with poetry in his head. Of course, times and tradition being what they were (and to some extent still are) it would not occur to Eva and Lester to change roles . . . until an accident happens, and Lester is confined at home.
Fisher describes the family's misery so wonderfully -- she is really a master at showing, rather than telling -- that the reader feels every emotion with them. Even better, we sympathise with all of the characters -- which is quite a feat. When Lester takes over home-life and Eva goes out to work, it is such a joy to watch them all begin to flower in their new roles -- including, in fact especially, the children. When Stephen, the littlest, gets his first real taste of being actually wanted -- and not just tolerated -- it made me weep.
The Preface and Afterword of this Persephone reissuing are very enlightening. Do read them! Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a fascinating, accomplished woman, and one of her achievements was advocating (and writing about) the Montessori methods of early education and child-rearing. The idea that raising children should be creative and sympathetic work is very much evident in this book. She always maintained that the book was not so much about women's or men's rights as the rights of children.
It take a kind of "trick" and then a subterfuge to make it possible for the Knapp parents to trade roles. Fisher skewers the idea that women's work in the home is 'really' valued, and every modern reader will understand her perfectly. Many of the conflicts and problems she was describing in 1924 are only somewhat better today. Although the novel might seem 'sentimental' according to contemporary standards, I found it tough-minded and authentically emotional. It was a thought-provoking, thoroughly satisfying novel. I highly recommend it.
November 24, 2022
I'm impressed with DCF -- her thinking was ahead of the times. This was written in the early 1920s, just about 100 years ago, yet much of it still rings true. She had a doctorate in Romance languages from Columbia University which she must have earned not long after the turn of the century, maybe c 1904 (at which time she would have been 25).
About the time this book came out, she wrote an article entitled, 'Marital Relations' which was published in the Los Angeles Examiner. In it, one sentence in particular summarized the pivotal issue in this novel:
We could realize that every human being is different from every other, and hence each couple of human beings is different from every other couple: and, within the limits of possibility and decency we could leave people free to construct the sort of marriage that is best for them.
This story also expresses her ideas about the responsibilities of a parent and the way children learn. She brought the Montessori teaching method to the U.S. and essentially describes the method using an anecdote about 4-year-old Stephen and his experience with an egg beater. The parent doesn't interfere but rather watches as the little boy struggles to coordinate his hands to make it work.
And she tackles the issue of materialism. As she says, ideally children should learn how to create rich, deep, happy lives without great material possessions. But, she declares, that would be considered heresy.
The first several chapters were somewhat of a struggle, but by the end (which had an unexpected twist), I came to appreciate this book and will find a place for it on my shelves.
About the time this book came out, she wrote an article entitled, 'Marital Relations' which was published in the Los Angeles Examiner. In it, one sentence in particular summarized the pivotal issue in this novel:
We could realize that every human being is different from every other, and hence each couple of human beings is different from every other couple: and, within the limits of possibility and decency we could leave people free to construct the sort of marriage that is best for them.
This story also expresses her ideas about the responsibilities of a parent and the way children learn. She brought the Montessori teaching method to the U.S. and essentially describes the method using an anecdote about 4-year-old Stephen and his experience with an egg beater. The parent doesn't interfere but rather watches as the little boy struggles to coordinate his hands to make it work.
And she tackles the issue of materialism. As she says, ideally children should learn how to create rich, deep, happy lives without great material possessions. But, she declares, that would be considered heresy.
The first several chapters were somewhat of a struggle, but by the end (which had an unexpected twist), I came to appreciate this book and will find a place for it on my shelves.
March 8, 2010
Fisher is best known today for the children's book Understood Betsy, which I read and liked a few years ago, but she also wrote many novels for adults. This one is a Persephone reprint -- I should just eventually buy everything they've reprinted, as I haven't disliked one yet.
Evangeline Knapp is a smart, organized, determined woman, stuck at home in a role she despises; she loves her children, but she can't seem to sympathize with them, and her passion for cleanliness and organization has become an obsession in her house. Her husband Lester, on the other hand, is a dreamy, empathetic man who would love to write poetry but who is instead stuck in the role of earner, in a dreary job at a department store. When Lester is injured in an accident, the chance comes for the two to switch roles. The Home-Maker is a perceptive and often searing exploration of "traditional" family roles; Fisher is sympathetic to the characters and their dilemmas, but not at all to the society which forces them into the gender roles which make them miserable.
Evangeline Knapp is a smart, organized, determined woman, stuck at home in a role she despises; she loves her children, but she can't seem to sympathize with them, and her passion for cleanliness and organization has become an obsession in her house. Her husband Lester, on the other hand, is a dreamy, empathetic man who would love to write poetry but who is instead stuck in the role of earner, in a dreary job at a department store. When Lester is injured in an accident, the chance comes for the two to switch roles. The Home-Maker is a perceptive and often searing exploration of "traditional" family roles; Fisher is sympathetic to the characters and their dilemmas, but not at all to the society which forces them into the gender roles which make them miserable.
January 9, 2019
The Home-maker, as has been mentioned numerous times, was way ahead of it's time. It is about Eva Knapp and her husband Lester. Eva stays at home to look after the children, while Lester is an account keeper in a local department store. Both are miserable in their roles and make family life miserable too. When an accident forces Eva to work in the store while Lester stays at home with the children, they both come thrive in their new roles, and their children start to thrive also. But can it last?
September 2, 2017
Read from OpenLibrary.org for group discussion.
Oh how wonderful. I read it all today, over a few sittings. So relevant! I always think of suffragettes and then a big gap and then Betty Friedan when I think of pioneering feminists, but here's a wonderful look at the issues from 1924. Thank you everyone who chose this for our BotM!
There are a couple of casually racist remarks that don't mean anything, and a few references to obsolete artifacts of century-old culture, but most of it is spot-on human psychology. We've certainly come a long way, but otoh we still have our Mrs. Andersons and other dragging influences. I highly recommend this book!
I don't want to return it already, but I will for the sake of ConnieD and any of the rest of you. :)
Oh how wonderful. I read it all today, over a few sittings. So relevant! I always think of suffragettes and then a big gap and then Betty Friedan when I think of pioneering feminists, but here's a wonderful look at the issues from 1924. Thank you everyone who chose this for our BotM!
There are a couple of casually racist remarks that don't mean anything, and a few references to obsolete artifacts of century-old culture, but most of it is spot-on human psychology. We've certainly come a long way, but otoh we still have our Mrs. Andersons and other dragging influences. I highly recommend this book!
I don't want to return it already, but I will for the sake of ConnieD and any of the rest of you. :)
August 9, 2023
Definitely makes some interesting points about education and gender roles, particularly given that it was written a hundred years ago. Slightly earnest and preachy for my liking but I’m glad I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. 3.5 stars
May 22, 2025
Magnificent. From the first scene where Evangeline scrubs the kitchen floor with a vengeance, I was hooked. Of course this is a book with a message, but what's wrong with that, as Dorothy Perkins Gilman used to say. What Canfield has at heart to demonstrate is that some women find raising children a crushing bore, no matter how much they love their offspring, while some men are natural home-makers and nurturers of children. This idea, which was utterly revolutionary in 1924, and is still not as widely accepted today as it should be, is developed through the story of the Knapp family. Dreamy Lester was making such a mess of his job as an accountant in a department store that he was sacked just as he was coming to the end of his tether anyway. Serendipitously, a fire in a neighbour's home gives him the chance to jump from the roof, hoping that his death will not be considered a suicide by the insurance company under the circumstances. But even in this undertaking, Lester fails and finds himself a cripple. The family seems about to fall on the town's charity when of course, Evangeline goes out and gets a job in the same department store. Although Lester and Evangeline are happily married, they have utterly dissimilar views on the world. Evangeline makes a roaring success of her job and is swiftly promoted to floor supervisor, with a much higher salary than Lester ever made. What's more, Evangeline thrives in her position just as Lester thrives as a stay-at-home parent. Under Evangeline's rule the house was spick-and-span but Helen, Henry and Steven feared her and became either etiolated or rebellious. Lester is actually interested in what his children think and feel and gives them fewer commands and much more support. The scene where he encourages Steven, the pugnacious one, to learn how to use an egg-beater all by himself is a triumph. When Evangeline realises that Lester might walk again one day, she cannot face the prospect of giving up her job and resuming their hand-to-mouth existence. Lester is similarly distraught, for the same reasons. Fortunately, the wise old family doctor consults with him and gives him his blessing to fake paralysis even if he should find himself able to leave his wheel-chair. The material, mental and spiritual future of the family depends on the shift in gender roles which they all know society is not prepared to accept under any other terms than dire emergency. Canfield's confident prose is a joy to read and this is one of Persephone's most stunning reprints.
February 3, 2022
Dorothy Candle Fisher decide, en la década de 1920, crear una familia literaria en la que el padre, Lester Knapp, tiene un sueldo que no le gusta, que le deprime y del que es despedido por falta de ambición. La madre, Evangeline (Eva), es la que tira del carro, de los tres niños: dos de ellos enfermizos y el tercero ingobernable, la que estira el dinero que gana Lester, la que restaura muebles para reutilizarlos, la que no tiene un minuto para si misma. Sucede que tras su despido, Lester intenta tener un accidente para que su familia cobre su seguro, pero sale mal y queda inválido. Su ex-jefe contrata a Eva, que tiene un don para “leer” a la gente, para trabajar en sus grandes almacenes y a partir de ahí, los roles de ama de casa y ganapán se intercambian entre marido y mujer.
Esta idea, aunque pueda sonar muy común en la actualidad, era realmente revolucionaria en 1920 y varias décadas posteriores. Entonces surgieron las segunda y tercera olas feministas y las cosas empezaron a cambiar, pero no cuando la autora escribió y publicó esta novela. Ademas de hablar de los roles asignados según el género, también se habla sobre educación, maternidad y paternidad, la mujer trabajadora, el hecho de que el hombre eduque a los hijos… etc.
Aunque suene fatal decirlo, Lester me gusta mucho más a partir del momento en que tiene que vivir en silla de ruedas. Por increíble que parezca ahí es el punto en el que tanto él como Eva crecen como personajes. Al intercambiarse los papeles, sus vidas florecen y con ellos sus hijos, dado que Lester les escucha y les educa según las personalidades de cada uno de ellos. Eva, por su parte, al trabajar fuera consigue una vitalidad y unas experiencias que también benefician a su marido y sus hijos, es como si ambos padres encontraran su verdadera vocación. Los Knapp se salen de la familia tradicional, pero también son más felices. En conjunto son una familia increíblemente entrañable.
Como apunte comento que al principio me gustaba mucho más Eva y pensaba que a ella se refería el título. Sin embargo, a partir del momento en que todo cambia me di cuenta de que no podía elegir entre ella y Lester y que, en realidad, el título hacía referencia a los dos. La conclusión es que cuando la necesidad obliga, todos tenemos el potencial de ser el “home-maker”.
Esta idea, aunque pueda sonar muy común en la actualidad, era realmente revolucionaria en 1920 y varias décadas posteriores. Entonces surgieron las segunda y tercera olas feministas y las cosas empezaron a cambiar, pero no cuando la autora escribió y publicó esta novela. Ademas de hablar de los roles asignados según el género, también se habla sobre educación, maternidad y paternidad, la mujer trabajadora, el hecho de que el hombre eduque a los hijos… etc.
Aunque suene fatal decirlo, Lester me gusta mucho más a partir del momento en que tiene que vivir en silla de ruedas. Por increíble que parezca ahí es el punto en el que tanto él como Eva crecen como personajes. Al intercambiarse los papeles, sus vidas florecen y con ellos sus hijos, dado que Lester les escucha y les educa según las personalidades de cada uno de ellos. Eva, por su parte, al trabajar fuera consigue una vitalidad y unas experiencias que también benefician a su marido y sus hijos, es como si ambos padres encontraran su verdadera vocación. Los Knapp se salen de la familia tradicional, pero también son más felices. En conjunto son una familia increíblemente entrañable.
Como apunte comento que al principio me gustaba mucho más Eva y pensaba que a ella se refería el título. Sin embargo, a partir del momento en que todo cambia me di cuenta de que no podía elegir entre ella y Lester y que, en realidad, el título hacía referencia a los dos. La conclusión es que cuando la necesidad obliga, todos tenemos el potencial de ser el “home-maker”.
July 1, 2018
How this book has slipped through the cracks and evaded notice is beyond me. Possibly on the surface it seems a simple story? It doesn't really have fireworks, and yet, within it are the contentions and battles of millions of marriages and families - the question of roles vs. identity, of what makes a man masculine or a woman feminine, and how our perception of what is expected of us warps the truth of what is necessary for the thriving of our relationships and families. And there, I just made it sound boring when in actuality it's remarkable.
I couldn't possibly get into all the issues it brings up - but one moment illustrates how punchy the entire book is -
Lester, the father, is discovered by Mattie, at home, darning socks.
"Oh, Lester, let me do that! The idea of your darning stockings! It's dreadful enough your having to do the housework!"
"Eva darned them a good many years," he said, with some warmth, "and did the housework. Why shouldn't I?" He looked at her hard and went on, "Do you know what you are saying to me, Mattie Farnham? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else."
The man in this book gets liberated - what can I say?! There are several stories going on at once here, and all are very worth the read. Highly recommended.
I couldn't possibly get into all the issues it brings up - but one moment illustrates how punchy the entire book is -
Lester, the father, is discovered by Mattie, at home, darning socks.
"Oh, Lester, let me do that! The idea of your darning stockings! It's dreadful enough your having to do the housework!"
"Eva darned them a good many years," he said, with some warmth, "and did the housework. Why shouldn't I?" He looked at her hard and went on, "Do you know what you are saying to me, Mattie Farnham? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else."
The man in this book gets liberated - what can I say?! There are several stories going on at once here, and all are very worth the read. Highly recommended.
December 13, 2008
What a charming book! For one, it was ahead of its time--depicting a family in which the woman much more enjoyed being in the workforce, the man better at being a stay-at-home Dad. Fisher was a Vermont writer and wrote extensively about Montessori school and childrearing. She didn't see "The Home-maker" as a feminist book, but as a children's book--namely, that it represented children, their personhood, their feelings, more than it was out to make a statement about gender roles of women or men. And she is a champion in this book for children, especially unruly ones--she seems to say that many kids act out out of a lack of understanding from their parents. There are some truly tender scenes--one in which a boy is terrified his mother may wash his beloved teddy, and the moment when his father recognizes his son's terror and tender affection for his beloved bear. I cannot wait to read more of this author's work!
November 1, 2020
I really really wanted to enjoy this (I had high hopes for this one so I’m afraid that might have blurred my vision a bit), but it fell quite flat for me. I didn’t really connect to the characters and I felt like the story really struggled with pacing, structure and character arcs. The premise was great, the product was less so.
January 9, 2022
I loved Canfield Fisher's children's book *Understood Betsy* about an overly cosseted girl who needed to figure things out for herself in order to bloom. And I liked *Home-Maker* for some of the same reasons. But this 1924 manifesto in the form of a novel is not for everyone.
The author's rage about rigid domestic roles and about capitalism and materialism works for me, and I loved discovering anew her insights into child development. But the question of whether a man can stay home and raise the children, especially if he is more suited to that role than the woman, is no longer an issue -- even if a reminder about how you can help children blossom is always good.
I don't think contemporary readers will appreciate the notion that only a parent can pay the close attention children need, can give the love -- and the intellectual work -- to figure out what's going on with small personalities. I certainly wanted that daily connection for myself, but many couples need or prefer jobs for both parents and believe in good day care. More-limited but deep connections with their own kids during evenings, weekends, and vacations work for most parents today.
In this book, the initial "home-maker" is a woman, ferociously and miserably dedicated to perfection -- and a terrifying figure for her children. Her husband hates his Tradition-assigned money-making role and is a failure at it. A crippling accident he suffers creates the necessity for his wife to go into the workforce, a situation she was made for. As much as I disliked her, I was rooting for her to succeed in the department store.
As the husband recovers many of his abilities, he discovers the wondrous minds of his three children, collaborates with them to keep an efficient if messy house, and is generally beautiful with them. Mysteriously, everyone's psychosomatic illnesses start to clear up.
I think this author's wisdom was amazing for 1924, and I do recommend the book. I just want you to understand what you're getting into.
The author's rage about rigid domestic roles and about capitalism and materialism works for me, and I loved discovering anew her insights into child development. But the question of whether a man can stay home and raise the children, especially if he is more suited to that role than the woman, is no longer an issue -- even if a reminder about how you can help children blossom is always good.
I don't think contemporary readers will appreciate the notion that only a parent can pay the close attention children need, can give the love -- and the intellectual work -- to figure out what's going on with small personalities. I certainly wanted that daily connection for myself, but many couples need or prefer jobs for both parents and believe in good day care. More-limited but deep connections with their own kids during evenings, weekends, and vacations work for most parents today.
In this book, the initial "home-maker" is a woman, ferociously and miserably dedicated to perfection -- and a terrifying figure for her children. Her husband hates his Tradition-assigned money-making role and is a failure at it. A crippling accident he suffers creates the necessity for his wife to go into the workforce, a situation she was made for. As much as I disliked her, I was rooting for her to succeed in the department store.
As the husband recovers many of his abilities, he discovers the wondrous minds of his three children, collaborates with them to keep an efficient if messy house, and is generally beautiful with them. Mysteriously, everyone's psychosomatic illnesses start to clear up.
I think this author's wisdom was amazing for 1924, and I do recommend the book. I just want you to understand what you're getting into.
March 19, 2019
THE HOME-MAKER (1924) is an interesting novel about gender roles and how they affect families. When published it was very much ahead of its time, however, the subjects Canfield Fisher explores in this book are still relevant today.
It starts as the grim, depressing story of an unhappy family until the ruthlessly efficient mother and wife is forced to let her husband become a house-maker when he is injured and becomes confined to a wheelchair and she becomes a working mother.
Canfield Fisher explores what happens when gender roles are reversed and she plays with extremes to make her point. At times she becomes overly didactic in her effort to make sure her point of view is understood. The ending is too neat, melodramatic and controversial, to say the least.
Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable and thought provoking novel.
3.5 stars.
It starts as the grim, depressing story of an unhappy family until the ruthlessly efficient mother and wife is forced to let her husband become a house-maker when he is injured and becomes confined to a wheelchair and she becomes a working mother.
Canfield Fisher explores what happens when gender roles are reversed and she plays with extremes to make her point. At times she becomes overly didactic in her effort to make sure her point of view is understood. The ending is too neat, melodramatic and controversial, to say the least.
Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable and thought provoking novel.
3.5 stars.
October 10, 2014
What a gem of a book which was way ahead of it's time with a father Lester, looking after his children while his wife Eva went out to work.
I loved it and can highly recommend it.
I loved it and can highly recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews