>The most vivid history I have read of women's work at home was in Robert Caro's monumental biography of LBJ. The first book, I think. It described a housewife's life in the Hill Country of Texas in enough detail to make your back hurt just reading it. So many trips to the well every day, the average distance, the average weight of the pails on her shoulders, the number of gallons of well water needed every day, on and on and on. They literally labored from before the sun rose until after it set.

Another good read along those lines is "Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression" by Margaret Armstrong. It describes the author's childhood.

I found it interesting because my mother grew up on IL farms post-depression. A LOT of stories from the book match family memories, recipes match a lot of what was on the table when I was a kid, etc.