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Lydia Maria Child on economy
Mrs. Child has an eloquent philosophy of republican virtue and simplicity, and she is one of my favorite 19th century authors. Here are some passages I had already typed in (having included them in papers), though I'm sure Elizabeth will find many more!
From Child's The American Frugal Housewife, Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy, 12th ed. Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1833. Reprint, Worthington, Ohio: Worthington Historical Society. :
“The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time, a well as materials [. . . .] Time is money” (3).
Children should be taught “to save everything,--not for their own use, for that would make them selfish—but for some use” (6).
“[I}t is always easy to know how to spend riches and always safe to know how to bear poverty” (93).
“[L]et any reflecting mind inquire how decay has begun in all republics, and let them calmly ask themselves whether we are in no danger, in departing thus rapidly from the simplicity and industry of our forefathers” (99).
Side note--A fascinating person in many respects, Lydia Maria Child also wrote several powerful anti-slavery works, including An Appeal in Favor of Americans Called Africans in 1836 and Right Way, The Safe Way, Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies and Elsewhere in 1862. She gives many 'radical' abolitionist arguments and graphic accounts of slavery, but as she wrote in An Appeal, “We must not allow our nerves to be more tender than our consciences” (12).
Kira Sanscrainte
Mrs. Child has an eloquent philosophy of republican virtue and simplicity, and she is one of my favorite 19th century authors. Here are some passages I had already typed in (having included them in papers), though I'm sure Elizabeth will find many more!
From Child's The American Frugal Housewife, Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy, 12th ed. Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1833. Reprint, Worthington, Ohio: Worthington Historical Society. :
“The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time, a well as materials [. . . .] Time is money” (3).
Children should be taught “to save everything,--not for their own use, for that would make them selfish—but for some use” (6).
“[I}t is always easy to know how to spend riches and always safe to know how to bear poverty” (93).
“[L]et any reflecting mind inquire how decay has begun in all republics, and let them calmly ask themselves whether we are in no danger, in departing thus rapidly from the simplicity and industry of our forefathers” (99).
Side note--A fascinating person in many respects, Lydia Maria Child also wrote several powerful anti-slavery works, including An Appeal in Favor of Americans Called Africans in 1836 and Right Way, The Safe Way, Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies and Elsewhere in 1862. She gives many 'radical' abolitionist arguments and graphic accounts of slavery, but as she wrote in An Appeal, “We must not allow our nerves to be more tender than our consciences” (12).
Kira Sanscrainte
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