Strasser's book is carefully researched and is devoted to an examination of the American mass market which emerges out of the growth of mass production techniques. Her use of advertising documents the shift from product-based to consumer-based ads that was necessary to establish a national market.

Exceptionally fine read! Discusses with fascinating clarity what, on the surface, would appear to be a repellant subject. American History has a whole new meaning. This book answers the unspoken questions of "what DID they do with...." in an orderly, systematic yet very interesting way. Who would have known garbage could be so riveting?

Well written, without technical jargon and extremely well organized. Strausser has turned a sow's ear into a silk purse. Excellent discussion of the why and how of our detritus disposal through the ages right up through the Hippie revival of the 70's and the Recycling Exchange on the internet today.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone with even a slight interest in the cycle and re-cycle of our castoffs. The integral involvement of the homemaker in early days was a genuine eye-opener and a sparkling promise of future possibilities for us all.

The book takes a completely different view of our nation's history from the late 1800's through the late 19000's than the average history text book most of us read in high school. Side bars and tid bits add anecdotal highlights to the information covered in that section or chapter which keep it relevant and interesting. It was very refreshing to see things from the bottom up. i.e. What was happening with this or that wave of immigration that caused the City's and Urban areas to change in this way, that caused the political and religious environment to change in that way, that caused this person to be elected, that caused this law to be passed, that caused this backlash, that led to this conflict, that led to this resolution. Instead of - this war was faught and this official was elected and this country won. It is biased towards labor and labor's role in building this country, so if you want traditional conservative history, this isn't the book for you. But if you like to read some of the stuff they don't tell you in high-school history 101, this is it. I'll never look at labor disputes or the immigration question the same way again. I came away from the book with a greater understanding and retained more of how we got to the 21st century in America from the 19th century.

When I saw this book, I bought it straightaway, because labor history gets short-shrift in American society. I'm sorry to see it's out-of-stock, but am unsurprised.

While this book is fairly mainstream in its orientation, it is very readable and thorough, covering the struggle of working people through the late 1800s to the early 1990s.

I consider this book a good starting point for people interested in working people's history. What makes it especially rich is the narrative flow and personal stories that appear throughout it, and the sidebars with songs and other miscellaneous information. This is the way a history book should be written.

Who Built America? Is an excellent look at US history in the 20th century from the foundation up. The authors provide relevant and insightful information about immigration, the working class, unions, and the political and military events that shaped our country. The events are thoroughly discussed in terms of cause and effect, and followed through with anecdotal side bars and highilights. Because the text follows a contextual historical line, the information is readily understood and retained. Who Built America? was used as the assigned text in a US History class I took. While I read it willingly as assigned in the class, it is a book I have returned to on numerous occasions since. I highly recommend Who Built America? for everyone and anyone who would like to know not just who was elected when, and what wars were fought with whom, but why and how it effects every one of us.

A dry but thorough history of American housework from the Herculean tasks of colonial days to the consumerist present which ties in broader factors of social trends, economics, and technological advances. Through substantial research and appropriate illustrations, the book documents well the massive, though little noted revolution in the management of the American home over the last 200 years.

The author's interest in the history of American housework traces back to a 1968 undergraduate thesis later expanded to a Ph.D. thesis. She has used as sources old cookbooks, etiquette books, woman's magazines, household manuals, catalogs, and studies by government bureaus, etc. An example of her source material is the series of comprehensive 19th century manuals published over four decades, beginning in 1841, by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, which reveal in each subsequent edition essential changes in technique and expectations. Strasser noted that although it was clear that until recently woman's role was 'in the home', it was not clear what that entailed and how it meshed with broader societal and economic trends such as technology, urban growth, new work opportunities outside the home, etc.

The book's 16 chapters each address a major housework category: food availability and obtention; cooking; providing light and heat; the gradual advent of gas and electricity; water and sanitation; washing; making and mending clothing; home income opportunities like boarding, seamstressing, laundering; use of servants; growth of systemization and the home economics movement; child care; informed consumerism; proliferating appliances; fast food; and the environment of today's working mother.

She notes the colonial household WAS colonial society, serving the functions of home, factory, school, and welfare institution, albeit via Herculean labor and hazardous living conditions, institutions that little by little were usurped by private industry and government. Women spun and wove cloth; made clothing; grew and prepared food for storage and eating; cut wood; hauled water; tended wood fires; made soap, candles, etc.; laboriously laundered clothing ('blue Monday': the worst task by far); and cared for children in their 'spare' moments. Close living and dirt producing heat sources required massive annual spring cleanings. Socially though, families were close, sitting together before the fire (only warm/light part of the house), and neighborly, assisting in chores, sewing circles, laundry day, etc.

The first big break-through product to affect housekeeping was the cast iron stove. Appearing mid-19th century, it was an enormous improvement over the open hearth. Then in the 1890-1929 period, things really began to change as labor saving appliances appeared (especially plumbing, and gas and electric heat and lighting) and households began to consume the products of American industry like prepared foods, ready-made clothes, purchased and delivered energy/fuel, commercial laundries, and finally labor-saving appliances including electric refrigerators, washers and dryers. And with these changes came massive changes in the American economy. Industries consolidated. Advertising became pervasive. Consumption and the consumer mentality ballooned. The bygone social intimacy and value was lost to 'organized' work and 'organized' leisure at an untold societal price in lost civility, family dissolution, etc. But Strasser notes that these losses must be weighed against the better nutrition, health, and female emancipation that have also resulted.

The book is an excellent if scholarly study of a massive though little considered revolution that has affected us all.

I first heard about this book when I attended Evergreen State College. The topic of housework came up as we read "Roll, Jordan Roll" by Eugene Genovese. Some of my classmates wanted to know about housework in its relationship to slavery. And the teacher, Nancy Allen, mentioned that a great book on the subject of housework was "Never Done", by Susan Strasser. Nancy also used the book as a good example of source notes that we might want to learn from in our own course work/research.

Fast forward my life ten or so years. I'm in an English class and reading "O Pioneers!" by Willa Cather. I remember Ms. Strasser's book! So I read it to broaden my understanding of Ms. Cather's novel and of pioneer and womens domestic lives at that time.

I had a romanticised view of life in America; times were simpler and therefore better. Susan's book assisted in effectively yet politely dismissing those flowery notions from my thoughts.

The research required for such a book as this--- clearly labor-intensive, but Ms. Strasser effortlessly writes in a reader-friendly style which doesn't undermine the scholarly nature of this work and its value to Womens Studies.

Great book. Very interesting and intriguing.

I also dreamt life 100 years ago was so much better than today. So simple, so lovely...but Strasser's book blew that theory out of the water.

If you ever wondered what a typical day was like for women and girls at the turn of the last century, you'll love this book.

Well written and extremely interesting.