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The Cost of Shelter by Ellen H. Richards
page 30 of 105 (28%)

Lack of study and experience leads the family living in the suburbs, in
one of the worst legacies of the past, to attempt the same style as
friends maintain in a lately built apartment house, without in the least
understanding wherein the difference lies.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to Texas, comes the same dull
and sullen roar of domestic unrest. Lack of faithful service is causing
the abandonment of the family home, and the fear of the obstacles in the
way of establishing new ones threatens the whole social fabric.

The housewife is inclined to connect this state of things almost entirely
with food preparation, and is prone to fancy that if eating could be
abolished peace would return.

The trouble goes much deeper, however, even to the foundations. The
nineteenth-century house is not suited to twentieth-century needs. In
other words, lack of adaptation to present conditions of the houses we
live in is a large factor in the prevailing domestic discontent. The next
largest has been referred to as attempting a style of living beyond one's
income.

In all other walks of life, in transportation, in manufacturing, machinery
has come in to replace the heavier and more mechanical portions of labor.
The steam-shovel, the hoisting-engine, an infinite combination of
mechanical principles have been applied to the doing of things to save
human muscle. To stand by the machine which turns out the familiar
grape-basket, ready to fill with the fruit, and then to watch the
housemaid bending over some piece of work, is to realize the difference.
In few, very few operations is it necessary to-day that men should bend
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