The Domestic Revolution

 

The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything- Ruth Goodman

W.W. Norton/Liveright

Release Date: October 20, 2020

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the twenty-first-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: it might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-sixteenth century—from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria. A pattern of innovation emerges as the women stoking these fires also stoked new global industries: from better soap to clean smudges to new ingredients for cooking. Laced with uproarious anecdotes of Goodman’s own experience managing a coal-fired household, this fascinating book shines a hot light on the power of domestic necessity.

__________________________________________________________________

The lives of ordinary people can change the world. The domestic lives of those who history tends to ignore in favor of battles and grand conquests can, and does, influence far more than one might imagine.  This is Ruth Goodman's premise in The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything.  And she makes a more than convincing argument that the switch from wood burning to coal burning in England, starting around 1600 (despite the subtitle crediting the Victorians) did in fact change everything in Britain.  Goodman specializes in living history and has decades of personal experience in wood burning and coal burning- how to burn, how to cook, and how to clean- that she shares to help flesh out the changes she describes.

Goodman introduces readers to the changing methods of heating homes and cooking by describing how peat, animal dung, wood, and coal all burn differently in a slightly tedious (yet still surprisingly interesting) beginning chapter.  Things pick up after that as she explains how homes and furniture changed due to changing heating methods, from rushes and pallets to high standing beds and chairs.  The unique British foods like puddings, boiled everything, and mushy peas are explained through a surprisingly simple answer: coal fires and wood fires cook foods differently. Cleaning homes and laundry are gone into in fascinating detail. This all might sound boring to some, but I found it fascinating. This detailed look into the lives of ordinary people- especially the women and servants who rarely left written accounts and whose lives must be guessed at through different approaches- gave me a great appreciation for what it would have been like to live in Britain in the past few centuries.

The Domestic Revolution is a fascinating, well-researched, and well-written book that will appeal to historians, students, casual readers, and anyone interested in how the lives of ordinary people changed with the popularizing of coal burning fires.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review