For generations, we have been promised that the latest labor-saving device is sure to bring us more leisure time, more opportunities to do what we wish, more time to pursue activities with meaning. We'll be able to have more family time, more quality time, more me time... and yet, somehow, we never do. We know all too well that if some innovation makes it possible to do ten things in the time it once took to do one, that simply means that from that point on, we'll be doing ten things when, once, we only used to do one. And we wonder why we're so tired... I always supposed this was a modern problem, born of the machines and devices of the 20th century onward. So when I came across this editorial in Century Magazine, I really wanted to double-check the date. Surely this couldn't be a Victorian complaint? And yet, Dear Reader, that's exactly what it is. This author reveals that our propensity for using time "freed" by labor-saving devices to make more work for ourselves is nothing new. Its roots are firmly planted in the Victorian era – not simply in that era's invention of "labor-saving devices," but in its mindset, a mindset that we seem to have inherited and, I fear, will surely pass along to our descendants. Here's what happens when you can sew "fifty tucks instead of one." Fifty Tucks Instead of One by Julia C.R. Door Century Magazine, 1888 One does not need to be a Mrs. Methuselah to remember the breeze that stirred the waters of domestic life when the sewing-machine first became an actual, practical fact, and the world began to realize that a new and positive working power was at hand. It was, to begin with, a real godsend to the gentlemen of the press... The emancipation of woman from the drudgery of the needle - what a theme it was for the glowing pens of the young journalists of, say, twenty-five summers ago!... Poets sang paeans to it, and in plainest prose manufacturers and agents told us what it could accomplish. Long statements were tabulated, with hand-work and machine-work in opposing columns... A Singer Sewing Machine Harper's Monthly, 1875 Some of the brethren took another tack, and wondered what this evil world was coming to. The weaker sex was constitutionally lazy, as everyone knew. American women, especially, were always ready to shirk their duties and responsibilities. Had they not forgotten how to spin and to weave? And now if they were to give up the sharp, disciplining needle, well might the lover of his country stand aghast. But it must be acknowledged that this tone was taken by but few. By most of the writers and speakers of the day the sewing-machine was hailed as the benefactor of womankind - the herald of release from an intolerable bondage. An hour or two was to accomplish the labor of days. Then would follow abundant leisure -long, quiet hours with book or pen; time to think, time to grow, time for one's long neglected music, or for art; time for the cultivation of all the minor graces, and of that genial hospitality which can be found in its perfection only where there is leisure for social enjoyment. In the monotonous measure of that tireless arm of steel lay the hope of the nation... That was the dream of twenty-five years ago....How is it, O my country-women? Have we any more leisure than we used to have? Or do we put fifty tucks where we used to put one, and find a dozen ruffles indispensable where two used to suffice – to say nothing of the fact that we make garments now by dozens, where we used to make them by pairs? ...We all complain of being tired. High or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, we are all in a hurry - all trying to crowd ten hours of work, or study, or pleasure into six. Alike in city and in country, we meet women with harassed faces and tired eyes, nervous, restless... And, more's the pity, when it all seems so needless, they are by no means the women who have the most really necessary work to do. Is there no way to help it? "Tired Out" The Girl's Own Paper, 1891 Let the fifty tucks, which are good in their place and by no means to be quarreled with, unless they cost too much, stand for the many things that bring into our lives useless toil, useless burdens, useless perplexities; and then ask the Yankee question, Does it pay? Does it pay to have the tucks at the cost of what is better worth having?... Fifty tucks instead of one - tucks that speedily "perish with the using." The principle of the thing runs through the whole warp and woof of our modern life. As has been said before, there is no need to quarrel with the tucks. They are all well enough in their places. But to put our whole time and strength into them, even while we give utterance to the frequent complaint that there is no peace, no rest, no time for the grand old books or the bright new ones, or even to read the newspapers and thus follow the onward march of the stirring events of our own clay - surely this is an absurdity. It is paying too dear for the whistle. It is selling one's birthright for a very poor and unsavory mess of pottage. ...Tucks are not all alike, by any means; and they are not all made on the sewing-machine. Tucks mean one thing to me and another to you and still another to our neighbor.... But there are women to whom it means just this: a relentless war with flies and dust, speckless windows, mirrors on the polished surfaces of which there is never a spot or blemish, and rooms too prim to be comfortable. It means keeping the blessed children, with their toys and trumpery and pretty confusion, out of the parlor, little finger-prints off the piano, and every daisy and buttercup off the carpet. To some it means the handsomest and costliest house in town, with the most elaborate furnishings, and perfection in every detail. It means the finest and whitest linen, the most lustrous silver, the daintiest china.... To others it stands for the latest fashion, the last new wrinkle in drapery, the newest fancy in laces, or for whatever may chance to be the brief rage of the moment. To others still it means puff-paste and kickshaws, and all the countless dainty devices of the table that are a delight to the eye but a weariness to the flesh. No one has a right to quarrel with these definitions. They stand, in most instances, for things good and desirable in themselves... If only there were not so many of them! It is the whole fifty that weigh us down. One straw does not break the camel's back. It is the last one of many that breaks it. The difficulty lies in learning just where to draw the line, which certainly must be drawn somewhere. Just what good thing is it that we should give up for the sake of having something better still? He or she who can satisfactorily answer this query will deserve the thanks of all womankind. The question of household service grows year by year more perplexing and harder to solve. When one... remembers that it is stated on good authority that three-fourths of the women in this country do their own work and that of the other fourth full one-half employ but one servant, how to make life more simple and easy seems a matter of the utmost importance. It is not a mere question of money. The having it or the lack of it does not settle the matter. There are many parts of the country in which anything like competent service cannot be obtained for love or money. Of the three-fourths above referred to, it is safe to say that at least one-half of them do not belong to the class that is content to be merely drudges. They, like their sisters, are fond of books, of art in so far as they know it, of beauty in all its forms. They long for leisure with all its golden possibilities. But, in full accord with the spirit of our institutions, they are proud and ambitious - if not for themselves, yet for their children. And if there is one that the average American woman cannot calmly endure it is to be supposed ignorant of what is or is not "good form..." She wishes it to be understood that she knows what it is "the thing" to do as well as her neighbor does. Shall she have hash - the hash of her grandmother, savory and toothsome, on her table when the last new cook-book abases that plebeian dish and exacts patties, croquettes and rissoles?... Is not this servitude of the worst description, - to say nothing of the folly of it, - this spending of precious strength and golden hours in doing what in the long run does not add one iota to our own happiness, or to that of any other living being, merely because somebody regards it as "the thing" to do, or to have it? Undoubtedly, whether one lives in city or country, it is well to follow, as far as one can without the sacrifice of higher things, the customs and usages of so-called polite society. As a rule they have at the bottom some wise foundation. But when we are gravely told by those who speak with authority that "self-respect" demands of us this or that, - the observance of the merest trifles as to the etiquette of table service, or of anything of a like nature, - is it not time to pause and to take a fresh start? The loss of self-respect is a terrible thing. Its preservation is so vital a point that it seems hardly wise to set up standards that are absolutely out of reach of the vast majority of American housewives and home-makers. Is it certain that the new ways are always better, and wiser, and more refined than the old ways? Then again, have we not all read something about the folly of putting new wine into old bottles?... In short, there are many conceivable circumstances under which one tuck is infinitely better than fifty. (Dear Reader, for space purposes I trimmed a fair amount from this piece; see the original article here. I also apologize for any transcription errors.)

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