It began toward the end of the eighteenth century, and the apparently innocent event that started it all was the invention of the steam engine by Watt—the great invention that ushered in the modern age. It seems hard to believe now that this almost outdated means of creating power could have been so important, but it was. It launched the so-called Industrial Revolution, which was to change the whole fabric of society, our ways of doing things and making things, our living quarters and our living standards, our morals, religion, art; name it and you will find that the Industrial Revolution has turned it upside down and inside out.
Most of all, and most tragically, it changed the home. It would be more accurate, if somewhat bleaker, to say that it destroyed the home, at least as home was known up to that time.
But let me tell you what home was like before the Industrial Revolution, for when you see that you will begin to discern the outlines of the great tragedy that happened to woman when the old-fashioned family home ceased to exist.
In that era our society was almost entirely rural and agricultural. In other words, most homes were farms. There were cities and some industry, of course, but where industries existed they were almost entirely home industries run by individual families.
Home, then, was, almost without exception, the center of all life, economic, social, and educational. Everything was produced at home; all food was grown; suits and dresses and underclothing were made from cloth woven on the premises. There were simply no stores in which to buy anything. The leather for shoes was taken from the hides of animals one had reared oneself, and the shoes were made at home, the leather tanned, the shoes fashioned. A man made his own tools, was his own blacksmith, carpenter, architect. He built his own house, too, and kept it in repair.
