Research Paper on:
More Work for Mother by Ruth Cowan

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the contribution that is made by unsung housewives toward society. Examining the topic of housework from colonial times to the present, Cowan points out that "Households are the locales in  which our society produces healthy people, and housewives are the workers who are responsible for almost all the stages in that production process."1 Yet, Cowan argues that housewives have never  received the recognition that this task for society should reasonably entail. The following examination of Cowans thesis demonstrates that this argument is well-founded and, in presenting this argument, Cowan offers  some long-overdue homage to the housewives who have provided the backbone of society. Of course, the student researching this topic may wish to alter or change the above-stated thesis in  writing his or her own paper, while still drawing on the following discussion of the book for substantiation. This paper is meant solely as a template upon which the student  bases his or her own composition. Cowan points out that while much of the work that was conducted by our forefathers has been industrialized, housewives have experienced only partial industrialization,  as well as a devaluation of their work in the present era, and remain persistently invisible to both historians and the public at large. Her text endeavors to account for  these attitudes, through an analysis of the shifting relationships between gendered activities, as well as technical and social changes. In a comprehensive and often entertaining manner, Cowan addresses such topics  as the nature of housework, the division of labor prior to the industrial age, early industrialization and the consolidation of separate spheres of work for men and women. Cowan  explains that in pre-industrial America, during the colonial period, men and women shared labor. Men were responsible for cutting down and stacking wood; growing crops and milling corn; breeding and