Prescriptions for productive female domesticity in a transitional era: Germany's Hausmutterliteratur, 1780-1840

In: History of European ideas, Band 8, Heft 1987

Abstract

The Hausmutterliteratur of late Eighteenth-century Germany, prescriptive writings for female agriculturalists, has often been overlooked. This is surprising because much recent research on the history of ideas has been based on the conviction that the revolutionary era 1750-1850 is the source of the modern political and social vocabulary and social institutions. Traces its origins and demise, and analyses the changing ideas of female domesticity in Germany. (JLN)