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The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American

Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities Dolores Hayden

Article  in  The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians · March 1982

DOI: 10.2307/989785

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Review
Reviewed Work(s): The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for
American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities by Dolores Hayden
Review by: Eugenie L. Birch
Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp.
75-77
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
Historians
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/989785
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 BOOK REVIEWS 75

the coequal relationship between nature and

formations of these conventions connect him they borrowed. Thus, Menocal's view of Sulli-
humanity (and, by extension, the work of art).with or distinguish him from his contempora-van's practical and theoretical procedures from
As Menocal observes, Sullivan failed to achieve
ries, and how his transformations were assimi-
an internal perspective rather than from external
organic unity between the house and its site, lated by artists in succeeding generations. These
circumstances, prevents him from completing
even though his successors, the Prairie School theoretical procedures of historiography can what he sets out to do. Other than reaffirming
architects, were simultaneously beginning to augment biographical ones. Sullivan's adherence to an "earlier transcenden-
realize the holistic effect of Sullivan's organicThe limitations of Menocal's methodology talist-Romantic" tradition, he never systemati-
theories applied to interior spaces and eleva- are immediately apparent in the first chapter cally defines that tradition nor identifies Sulli-
tions. and anticipate impasses he later confronts in
van's place in American architecture. And be-
Menocal's commentary on Sullivan's late cause he never extends his observations to cur-
his historical observations. By using the Auto-
banks (1907-19 19) is noteworthy. He hypoth- biography of an Idea to explain Sullivan's in- rent artistic tendencies, he overlooks Sullivan's
tentions the author sacrifices his own historical
esizes that Sullivan derived "a new poetic func- alignment with other late 19th-century avant-
tion" of light and color in these banks from perspective to impose a romantic conceptual garde groups; these too extended romantic
"French [and Belgian] symbolist poetry and framework on his raw data. Sullivan self-con- tendencies into early modernism.
impressionistic music." Specifically, Menocal sciously wrote his own history to affirm his al- These critical observations should not under-
surmises that Sullivan's ideas about the recip- mine Menocal's scholarly accomplishments in
truistic goals and to justify his persistence in the
rocally metaphoric relationships between color,face of blind opposition. To this end he heroi- his attempt to locate Sullivan's intellectual and
light, sound, and allegorical imagery and verse
cized himself with Nietzsche's Superman as his formal sources. His bibliography and annota-
originate in a 1909 monograph on the Belgian role model. In addition he applied psychologi- tions are rich with possibilities for further re-
poet Maeterlink. However, Sullivan's earliest cal precepts, investigated by study of Nietzschesearch into the relationship between romanti-
and other writers during 30 years of profes-
theoretical statements, his first comprehensive cism and modernism, between architecture and
decorative cycle for the main auditorium of the
sional inactivity, to the narrative account of hisother visual arts, and between romantic ten-
Auditorium Building (1887-1889), and his
intellectual and artistic growth from childhooddencies in American and European art and aes-
to adulthood. Menocal accepts these a posteriori
adulation of Richard Wagner's operas testify to thetics. However, in the absence of a synchron-
self-explanations at face value and by adding
his much earlier acquaintance with sources of ic view of Sullivan's words and works, many of
such Symbolist precepts as "correspondances."
his own Nietzschean and Freudian interpreta- Menocal's attributions regarding Sullivan's
In the conclusion of Chapter 5 in which tions, he obscures the historical significance of
sources are, as he occasionally admits, incon-
Menocal describes Sullivan's "concept of de-
Sullivan's formulation of artistic problems and clusive. His intuitive associations often result in
sign," the author admits that he cannot "com-
their solutions at the beginning and height of superficial analogies and confusing terminology.
his career.
pletely detach" himself from "the tragic pattern" Thus, Menocal's methodology raises questions
of Sullivan's life. Unfortunately, this tragic view Menocal explains in his Preface that the or-
about the limits of understanding 19th-century
pervades the whole book and detracts from its
ganization of his material is determined by Sul- artists in their own psychological terms. Should
overall value. Although acknowledging the livan's "particular influences, attitudes, oppor- we consider the psychological approach to art
"utter beauty" Sullivan often achieved in his
tunities, and interests at each period of his life."
and architectural history as historical explana-
work, Menocal asserts that his inability to tion? Because Sullivan adhered to multifaceted
This arrangement results in a fragmented pre-
communicate his "idea" through architectural Romantic tendencies, some of which were ex-
sentation of Sullivan's conceptual themes. In-
forms of expression constitutes the tragedy deed, of such critical observations might seem to
tended by his early Modernist successors, he
Sullivan's life and the essence of his artistic fail-
contradict Menocal's original premise that Sul-
provides an occasion for a reassessment of these
ure. Yet Menocal finds neither the notion thatlivan adhered to one "idea" and its expression tendencies from a new historical perspective.
Sullivan was "a prophet doomed by forces of throughout his life. But Menocal attributes theMenocal's thoughtful observations on Sulli-
evil" nor Sullivan's "Promethean self-concep- lack of conceptual unity in the book to disconti-
van's Romantic behavior provide the occasion
tion" entirely accurate for explaining his nuity in Sullivan's life, personality, and intel-
to begin such reassessments.
"martyrdom." Rather, Menocal attributes it to lect: "By making each part seemingly unrelated LAUREN S. WEINGARDEN

Sullivan's psychological make-up: "Sullivan to the others, I hope to single out the fact that Atlanta, Georgia
was emotionally unable to cope with his own variety was not only a product of [Sullivan's]
belated Romanticism," which resulted in "his random thinking but was, more important, a
obstinate dedication to anachronistic concep- result of emotional reactions to external circum-
tions." However, Menocal's psychological in- stances." Elsewhere, Menocal belittles Sulli-DOLORES HAYDEN, The Grand Domestic
terpretation of Sullivan's "failure" and his van's ability to reshape intellectual currents to
Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for
modernist antagonism toward Sullivan's ro- fit his own aesthetic and messianic ends becauseAmerican Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities,
mantic tendencies restrict our comprehension of his "unsystematic" procedures and his lim-
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1981, 367
of the significance of Sullivan's place in history. ited formal education resulting in a "superficialpp., 1z5 illus. $19.95.
As George Kubler recognized in The Shape understanding of German transcendentalism."
of Time (1962), biographical-psychological To accuse Sullivan of "random" or "unsys- In this book Dolores Hayden adds a new di-
studies of individual artists limit our knowl- tematic" thinking is shortsighted and mislead-
mension to her earlier work, Seven American
edge of art objects in regard to their expres- ing. Like other avant-garde artists such as his
Utopias, the Architecture of Communitarian
sions of cultural conditions, their relation to French contemporaries, the Symbolist painters,Socialism, z790-z875 (1976) and makes an
the rest of history, and "the continuous nature Sullivan used various disciplines for his own important contribution to the growing litera-
of artistic [and related intellectual] traditions" artistic ends. These artists adapted aspects ofture on domestic architecture. In the past few
(p. 6). Likewise, although Sullivan's autobio- years several books have appeared on this sub-
i9th-century philosophical, aesthetic, and sci-
graphical and theoretical statements facilitate a entific discourse to lend credibility to their mes-
ject. David R. Handlin has offered a compre-
means of interpreting his intentions and artistic sianic self-concept, their belief in an absolute,
hensive social history in The American Home,
behavior, they are insufficient by themselves to their search for a new means of expression, andArchitecture and Society, z8z15-19z5 (1979)
describe how he responded artistically to his the symbolic and edifying values of their art while Gwendolyn Wright injected a feminist
cultural conditions by using late 19th-century works. Most of these artists, like Sullivan, did
analysis in her two studies: Moralism and the
conventions, how his choices among and trans- not have a profound knowledge of the preceptsModel Home, Domestic Architecture and Cul-

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76 JSAH, XLI:1, MARCH 1982

tural Conflict 1873-19 13 (1980) and Building nology and/or cooperative activities. In illumi-non-traditional design solutions improved a
the Dream, A Social History of Housing in nating the female response to American urba-given domestic function. For example, she ex-
America (198 i1). Finally, Suzanne Keller has as- nization, Hayden's work is a valuable contri-amines forms for food preparation: the early
sembled several essays in Building for Women bution to U.S. history and can be compared19th-century Shaker kitchen with space for a
(1981) addressing contemporary issues. In The favorably with Thomas Hines's Burnham ofcommunity work force and efficiency-promot-
Grand Domestic Revolution, Hayden provides Chicago (1974) and Stanley Buder's Pullman,ing inventions; Catherine Beecher's mid-century
a bridge between the general approach of An Experiment in Industrial Order and Com- streamlined workplace; Melusina Fay Pierce's
Handlin and Wright and Keller's modern de- munity Planning, r880-i930 (1967). cooperative arrangements featuring a central
mands. She does this by uncovering a long lost Hayden coined the term "material feminists." housekeeping unit surrounded by kitchenless
tradition, the work of the "material feminists." Her proof for the existence of this tradition is cottages; the cooked food delivery service, an
The material feminists, as defined by Hay- based on her assertion that they were united by aidea premised on dense urban settlements; the
den, were determined to undertake the "com- common premise: environmental determinism.community or public kitchen, also a city phe-
plete transformation of the spatial design and Despite their varied backgrounds and motiva-nomenon; and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's
material culture of American homes, neighbor- tions, they all argued that adjustments to theapartment hotel. She traces other domestic
hoods and cities." They called for functional physical environment would promote sexualconcerns such as child care in a similar fashion.
changes in physical structures. They sought to equality. They held that once women were re- As she documents individual experiments
relocate domestic activities so as to free females lieved of the weight of uncompensated domes-Hayden evaluates them. Each has one of two
from unpaid, household labor. Finally, they tic responsibilities, they would be free for moreresults. Either it heightens individualism by
demanded control over the ensuing designs. socially desirable work. Unfortunately, this as-lightening some aspects of the workload through
In this exhaustive survey, Hayden examines sumption also held the seeds of failure. By link-spatial re-organization and the use of technol-
every material feminist experiment and exposi- ing the environment with economic indepen-ogy or it socializes domestic activities by offer-
tion in a three-generation period between the dence in a causal relationship, the theoristsing collective solutions. Hayden favors the lat-
end of the Civil War and the beginning of the made a strategic mistake. As long as womenter. Her assessment is based on two strongly
Depression. She has classified her topic under were economically and politically impotent,held values, one architectural and the other so-
four categories: communitarian socialism and they were powerless to implement their propo- cial. In her view, the cooperative approaches
domestic feminism, cooperative housekeeping, sitions; thus their demands remained dreams.offer equal if not better performance in pro-
urban reform efforts, and experiments in the The theorists were always hampered in imple-perly designed buildings. Furthermore, they are
tradition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman menting their ideas because the sole measure of not exploitative. Hayden rightly concludes that
(1860-1935) wrote extensively on women andsuccess, the monetary standard, would natu-the real value of the material feminists was their
society in the early zoth century. Although otherrally favor the "costless" (i.e., unpaid) tradi-"two insights into women's oppression, a spa-
scholars have offered partial accounts of manytional solution over the experiment. In these
tial critique of the home as an isolated domestic
of these items, Hayden's book is the first com- circumstances the recommended changes wereworkplace and an economic critique of unpaid
prehensive assemblage which demonstrates rarely considered economically feasible by menhousehold work."
their evolution as a continuous stream. who held power in late 19th- and early zoth- Like Catherine Bauer, one of her predeces-
Hayden has selected a sensible time period century America. sors in the zoth-century housing reform move-
for her study. In the 6o years prior to the De- In Hayden's view, however, these difficulties ment, Hayden makes her judgments within a
pression, America was transformed from a rural only partially explain why material feminismlarger political framework. Bauer successfully
to an urban nation. The movement into an in- remained a minority tradition. She employs aargued, in the early thirties, that public housing
dustrially-based economy and rapid populationconspiracy theory blaming government andwould not become an American phenomenon
growth (the urban population grew from io mil-business for promoting economic growthwithout the support of the American labor
lion in 1870 to 54 million in 19z20) occurred atthrough production of consumer goods, not- movement. This is echoed in Hayden's parting
this time. Responses to these changes took variedably products used by the non-working house-words in the Grand Domestic Revolution:
forms. In the city, real estate speculators usedwife. Although this disappointingly simplisticMany current feminist campaigns tend to di-
mass production techniques to create the tene-proposition lacks the subtlety of interpretation vide housewives and employed women; they
ment in order to house the burgeoning popula-that otherwise characterizes Hayden's work, itappear to attack women's sphere, not extend it.
tion. In the realm of thought, philosophersnonetheless provides a framework for under-Employed women do not encourage each other
erected utopian communities to solve urban-re- standing material feminism as social criticism. to think of themselves as housewives although
lated problems. Concurrently a subtle change Despite the above-mentioned weakness inthey usually have a second unpaid job at home.
in the status of women occurred; many entered the author's argument, her uncovering of the
Housewives sometimes oppose the employment
of women as harmful to woman's sphere and
the urban work force. Working class womenlost feminist tradition represents far more than
social reproduction, although in 1970 the av-
found jobs in factories while those of the mid-a narrative of historical curiosities. It provideserage American Woman could expect to spend
dle and upper classes earned college or univer-the basis for a modern feminist analysis of ar-zz.9 years of her life in the paid labor force.
sity degrees and attempted to enter the profes- chitecture and planning, one which has increas- Clearly a more synthetic feminist organizing
sions. In college, office, or factory, these womening relevance in the late zoth century as thestrategy will make it clear that employed women
encountered new opportunities to experienceeconomic questions involved in women's issuesand housewives have an overwhelming mutual
the effects of group behavior and frequentlyare slowly being resolved. Clearly women, par-interest in the creation of homelike neighbor-
sought to formulate collective solutions toticularly employed women and their families,hoods which do not spearate home and work as
capitalism has done.
problems encountered in the urban environ-are a critical mass. These women constitute a
ments where the majority lived. Their move-work force of 41 million and contribute, on theHayden's appeal is exciting and her vision is
ment into municipal housekeeping activities isaverage, 25 percent of the nation's family in-
a beginning. Not all contemporary supporters
of domestic reform share her advocacy of a so-
an example of this phenomenon. Hayden pro-come. Given this new role, they have particular
vides other examples when she demonstratesspatial demands which must be defined and ac-cialist solution. Nonetheless, the lack of agree-
how women, discontented with the routine, in- commodated. Hayden's impeccable scholar- ment on method and form will not prevent fur-
ther serious thinking and action on the issue.
efficient and isolated nature of domestic work, ship and thought-provoking suggestions initiate
proffered new housekeeping methods. Theythis process. For example, at the present time, in New York
Hayden's method is to demonstrate how
based their suggestions on contemporary tech- a Ford Foundation-funded Women and Hous-

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 BOOK REVIEWS 77

the vernacular exerted new influence. For

ing Seminar is addressing these issues at Hunter viduality and freedom to multitudes who es-
College. Heresies has just devoted one of their
Davey, "the final paradoxical irony of the caped
Artsfrom deprivation in the hearts of cities."
issues to the theme of "Women and Architec- and Crafts movement is that, as devoted Thisas itwas not an "entirely ignoble ending," for
ture," edited by Susana Torre. Hayden's work was to freedom and individuality, it should the author found an American parallel with
is an important and provocative contributionhave been the reservoir for two such authori- Gustave Stickley's Craftsman houses of which
to this effort. some zo million dollars worth were built in
tarian streams as v61kisch architecture and the
EUGENIE L. BIRCH Modem Movement," an irony, however, which19 15 alone. Davey finds that Arts and Crafts
Hunter College leads not to an indictment of the movement but architectural and planning theory led ultimately
to an admission of its moderate, all-embracingto an insistence upon the "quality of life" for all
inclusiveness. people. Because definitions of this quality varied,
The author readily accepts the concept of ana strong sense of "individualness" was also re-
PETER DAVEY, Arts and Crafts Architecture, international Arts and Crafts movement com- quired.
London: The Architectural Press, 1980, zz4 posed, as C. R. Ashbee implied in 1911, of art- Though the author is right in stating that the
pp., 237 illus. ?12.95. ists as geographically farflung as Josef Hoff- Arts and Crafts architects would never have
mann in Vienna and the Greenes in California. issued a manifesto, he would have strengthened
This book was written to fill a gap in the The story fittingly begins with A. W. N. Pugin his case for an international Arts and Crafts
history of modern architecture and that of Brit- and continues chronologically through Morris,movement by drawing more attention to simi-
ain in the period 1890-1914. No history of Voysey, Ashbee, Lethaby, Lutyens, and Baillielarities in the theories of, say, Lethaby, Wright,
Arts and Crafts architecture has ever been writ- Scott, culminating with Parker and Unwin andand Loos, and by making more comparisons of
ten which included its manifestations in Europe the Garden City. However, it fails to give atheir work, such as the one he drew between
and America. Gillian Naylor largely ignored definitive impression as to who are the majorWright's Larkin Building and Mackintosh's
architecture and town planning in The Arts and innovators, what are the major monuments,Glasgow School of Art. The similarities are there
Crafts Movement (197z). Alastair Service gave and how are individual oeuvres related or not and they outweigh and are more interesting than
the movement only one chapter among 13 in related to each other. The last chapters treat the the differences.
Edwardian Architecture (1977). Yet Davey ad- Arts and Crafts in Europe and America, but not Davey should have stressed the fact that the
mitted at the start of this volume that "a book much more extensively than this reviewer did Arts and Crafts movement was one of few in-
five times this size" is required for full justice to in his monograph on Baillie Scott. Frank Lloyd stances where British architecture and planning
the subject. Nonetheless his is a welcome at- Wright is accurately presented as an Arts and exerted a deep and wide influence abroad. He
tempt to correct past omissions, just as it is an Crafts architect, but since this is not widely ac- does find, however, that the movement has a
interesting one, since he is editor of The Archi- cepted, a greater defense is needed. new relevance today. He thinks Modernism did
tectural Review and most sympathetic to his One of the most original sections of the book not produce a fully acceptable, workable archi-
subject. is that devoted to some two dozen lesser known tecture and planning, and that Modernist faith
The earliest effort to find a place for the Arts architects presumably associated with the in large-scale mass production and standard-
and Crafts movement in architectural history movement. But since their work has not been ization may prove unfeasible because of an in-
was made in 1936 by Nikolaus Pevsner in Pio- assessed previously, it is unfortunate that thecreasing scarcity of energy sources and a need
neers of the Modern Movement. He saw it as author considered them in brief entries only toa find a technology midway between the ex-
the first modem movement which had attempted paragraph or two long. It is also unclear whytremes of total industrialization and traditional
to reweave the social-ethical and aesthetic fab- C. R. Mackintosh was included in this section. means of production. The so-called Post-Mod-
ric of architecture, design, and the environ- Davey seems to consider him an Arts and Crafts
ernist architects of today in rejecting much
ment. For him, the Arts and Crafts movement architect mainly because of Voysey's influence
Bauhaus theory and design also reject the Arts
was important for the foundations it laid for on him. Certainly Mackintosh deserves hisand Crafts faith in the artist-architect as a maker
the Bauhaus, which, he held, had finally pro- own chapter as do C. Harrison Townsend and
of all things for everybody. It is time, as Davey
duced "a style for the times." His thesis and the Smith and Brewer, whose works show that theconcludes, that the Morris vision not merely be
Bauhaus program have been unrelentingly at- movement was capable of sustaining large ur-
recognized but built upon.
tacked for nearly zo years. Reyner Banham and ban commissions. JAMES D. KORNWOLF
David Gebhard are among those who have tried It was not entirely a shortcoming of Arts and College of William and Mary
to show why Voysey, Lethaby, et al. are not Crafts theory that it went "into the country"
best understood as pioneers for the Bauhaus. and "lost the city." Rather, as Davey points
Davey acknowledges links between the Arts out, it was the taste for neo-Baroque imperial-
and Crafts and the Bauhaus without implying ism, whether in art or politics, that stole the dayVIRGINIA L. GRATTAN, Mary Coulter:
that this is what is important about either move- in Britain and in her colonies from Pretoria to Builder upon the Red Earth, Flagstaff, AR:
ment. He presents as mere fact Gropius's Arts New Delhi. It is to the credit of the Arts and
Northland Press, 1980, 13 1 pp., 70 pls. $15-50
and Crafts view that the artist is "indispensible" Crafts movement that it never became the ar- (cloth); $9.95 (paper).
as an environmental planner, that "the artist chitecture of the establishment on such terms.
has the power to give the lifeless machine a Here, the author joins Naylor in finding its A book about a woman designer practicing
soul." Yet the Bauhaus connection is reinforced, program most fully achieved in the "romantic in the American Southwest can expect to at-
for more similarities than differences are cited: nationalism" of the Scandinavian countries. tract readership from a broad spectrum of in-
teamwork, "total" design, an emphasis on func- It is refreshing that nowhere does Davey terests, including women's studies, Southwest-
tion, and, most importantly, a basic social poke fun at his subject, a tradition endemic ern regional studies, and architectural history.
idealism. Differences are found in the Bauhaus among British historians who write on i9th-Virginia Grattan has written such a book about
opposition to tradition, to the individual and and early zoth-century architecture, and on the Mary Coulter, who for almost half a century
the indigenous, and in its definition of social Arts and Crafts movement in particular. He was principal designer for the Fred Harvey
idealism in terms of minimum norms and stan- even refrains from apologizing for the many Company, concessionaire for the Atchinson,
dardization. With the rise of National Social- square miles of jerry-built imitations of Arts Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. The book is
ism and the demise of the Bauhaus in Germany, and Crafts housing after World War I, consid- largely biographical. Although Mary Coulter's
the Arts and Crafts ideal of the indigenous and ering these to have "offered a new life of indi- work is well illustrated and catalogued, the ac-

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