Books like A 1950s Housewife by Sheila Hardy

A contemporary day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a 1920s London politician’s wife, as she prepares for an evening party and is haunted by memories of youth, friendships, and past loves.

The Bell Jar is the sole novel by Sylvia Plath, a psychologically intense and autobiographical look at a young woman’s decline into mental illness.

Betty Friedan’s 1963 classic uncovers the invisible barriers that kept women confined to domestic roles, sparking a cultural awakening that reshaped ideas about equality and personal fulfillment in the United States.

In 1950s America, Frank and April Wheeler build a suburban dream, only to confront the crushing reality that their hopes and marriage are unsustainable, exposing the quiet torment of suburban life and the cost of chasing greatness.

Throughout history, effort, enterprise and energy have been expended by women in the ways of the household: cooking, cleaning, lighting, heating and laundrywork. This highly illustrated and delightfully written account looks at the changing role of the housewife over three hundred years. The period covered was one of immense social change - new social and family relationships, scientific advances and economic developments all had an effect on the housewife, some dramatic, others more gradual. Much of what we now take for granted - instant hot water, heat and light at the flick of a switch, fresh food all the year round - would have been inconceivable to the many 'household managers' represented in this book. Some of the evidence comes from the hands of housewives themselves via account books and domestic memoranda. Other material has been gathered from biographies, letters and 'improving tracts' aimed at housewives and the staff they employed. The lives of women from all walks of life and from all parts of Britain are discussed, creating a convincing picture of the similarities as well as the differences that have characterised women's domestic work from the early modern to the post-war period.

Examines the role of housewife and the esteem attached to the position both in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth.

Being a housewife in the 1950s was quite a different experience to today. This book collects heartwarming personal anecdotes from women who embarked on married life during this fascinating postwar period.

A collection of twelve sharp, humorous short stories that poke fun at modern womanhood, blending everyday domestic scenes with darker twists of revenge and reinvention.