The Chimney Corner
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Stowe wrote over 30 books. This one is a fascinating collection of her post Civil War musings on a variety of cultural topics, staged mostly as conversations between Christopher Crowfield (Stowe's masculine nome de plume), and his wife, their son Ben, daughter Jenny, their friends, and various neighbors who drop in to chat around the fireside. Lively topics include women's suffrage & their education, entertainment, fashion, the economy during reconstruction, youth entertainment, and how society and its institutions should prepare young women for useful, meaningful lives besides getting married or simply depending on other family members to support them while they do little or nothing, or worse, fall into a street life. She reflects on the economic after-effects of the Civil War, and the struggle to create a more civilized nation. ( ~ Michele Fry) (7 hr 51 min)
Chapters
Ch.1 What will you do with her? or The Woman Question | 37:55 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch.2.1 Woman's Sphere | 24:59 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch. 2.2 Woman's Sphere | 26:31 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch. 3.1 A Family-Talk on Reconstruction | 25:02 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch 3.2 A family-Talk on Reconstruction | 30:54 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch.4 Is Woman a Worker? | 34:25 | Read by susanjhudson |
Ch.5 The Transition | 26:53 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch. 6 Boily Religion: A Sermon on Good Health | 34:21 | Read by weezer |
Ch. 7 How Shall we Entertain our Company? | 31:01 | Read by Michele Fry |
Ch.8 How Shall we be Amused? | 27:40 | Read by William Allan Jones |
Ch.9 Dress, or who makes the Fashions | 46:47 | Read by Kathleen Moore |
Ch.10 What are the sources of Beauty in Dress | 39:36 | Read by Kathleen Moore |
Ch.11 The Cathedral | 32:29 | Read by William Allan Jones |
Ch.12 The New Year | 32:09 | Read by William Allan Jones |
Ch.13 The Noble Army of Martyrs | 21:13 | Read by KevinS |
Reviews
women’s Occupations
Michele Fry
As one of the readers on this book, I can say it was quite interesting a discussion of women’s occupations. We’ve come a long way, but the problems remain largely the same. Stowe did a marvelous job writing about all the psychological snafus between the classes.