Title page from "Home and Health and Home Economics."
Manuals of behavior, etiquette, deportment, and home economics are common publications even today. The authors of the 1880 Home and Health and Home Economics would probably have a very hard time recognizing the relationship between their publication and, say, Netiquette.
C.H. Fowler and W.H. De Puy do not leave a single issue that might pertain to any of the subjects in their title unexplored. In fact, the reader browsing through the first lengthy section of the book might be excused for thinking that this was a very specifically Christian advice manual for newly married couples; the focus is entirely on the “Church”-going family and neither Fowler nor De Puy seem to feel it necessary to define the “Church” in question.
There are lengthy lists of dos and don’ts: “How to Be a Good Husband,” “How to Be a Good Wife,” “Suggestions to Children,” “Good Manners,” and “Visits and Calls” are only a few! It is interesting to keep in mind that, while across the Atlantic Oscar Wilde was starting the climb to his peak of creative power, Fowler and De Puy chose to advise their readers that, in the course of conversation, they should aim to “Avoid satire and sarcasm” and to “Avoid oddity. Eccentricity is shallow vanity.”
Fowler and De Puy go on to give advice at length on choosing a physician, nutrition, the care of the eyes, and the proper choice of clothing (including the dangers of poisonous socks!)
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