Dorothy Dix Says...

The most popular advice columnist of the 1940s was Dorothy Dix, pen name for Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (1861-1951). At her height in popularity, Ms. Dix had a syndicated column which reached approximately 60 million readers around the world. In 1940 alone, she received some 100,000 letters --- many of which were written by American housewives. I think it's high time we bring some of these voices back to life, so Wednesdays will now be dedicated to these vintage advice columns.

What were housewives thinking about? What kinds of concerns did they have when it came to life, love, children, and other relationships? Do these letters fit the picture you have of the '40s housewife? Is Dorothy Dix's advice sound - or does she miss the boat completely?

DEAR DOROTHY DIX - I have been married 15 years. Am still young and enjoy living. My husband is a good provider. We have a beautiful home and two lovely youngsters. I do all of my own sewing and housework. My husband tells me that I would be an ideal wife if I didn't care to smoke or play bridge. Now I only play bridge once a week and I do not smoke excessively.

I have waited on my husband hand and foot all these years and have endeavored to do everything possible to make him happy and comfortable, but I am not going to give up my bridge, which is my only outside pleasure. I love my husband, but I cannot permit him to take away every scintilla of my personal liberty. After all, I never tell him what he can or cannot do.

Just what is your opinion of a man who will let a little innocent game of bridge and an occasional cigaret separate him from an otherwise ideal wife?

INDIGNANT WIFE.

Answer - No man ever makes a bigger mistake than when he deprives his wife of any innocent amusement and tries to keep her shut up inside of the four walls of her home. Yet many husbands do this because they are the victims of the old superstition that a woman should be like the turtle and carry her house on her back, though why, goodness only knows. Turtles don't get very far. Nor are they interesting and amusing as household pets.

Still the idea prevails among old fashioned husbands that there is something meritorious in a woman being a stay-at-home and never going places or seeing things and having no conversational range beyond the children and the next door neighbors and the price of pork chops.

Now men have the wrong angle on this subject, and if they realized what was good for them, instead of trying to keep their wives locked up in the house all the time and objecting to their belonging to clubs and having their little games of bridge they would encourage them in it. For it would be money in their pockets and peace and happiness in their homes.

To begin with, it would save husbands a lot of doctor's bills for their wives to get around a little. Half of the neurotic women who are being treated for mysterious ailments are just simply bored.

They have no interest outside of their homes, meet few strangers, get no new ideas and they get so fed up on doing the same dull, monotonous round of chores, day after day and year after year, that they devise symptoms just to get something they can get a kick out of.

And, furthermore, the wife who belongs to clubs makes many friends who are valuable assets to her husband and children in a business and social way.

House of Cards

Along with books, magazines, newspapers, music, and victrola records, the writers of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) reminded their readers to be sure to pick up any games or cards left about the living room. And though I've already discovered how little my own living room resembles the room described by the writers, they've given us a little peek into the kinds of functions a 1940s living room served.

The living room was the place to entertain visitors with music, radio programs, and games - including Mothers's bridge party. (More fortunate families might have a tabletop radio or two in the kitchen or a bedroom, but the large cabinet radios were reserved strictly for living rooms.) The living room was the place to entertain yourself by reading, listening to records, maybe even playing a game of Solitaire. The old fashioned kind. It was a place shared by the whole family in an era before our bedrooms, rumpus rooms, "media rooms," home gyms, and craft rooms splintered us off into separate areas of the house in the evenings. The '40s living room was a busy place... No wonder there were so many things to pick up when the evening was over!

The manual recommends that games and "playing cards" be stored where they were handiest when needed again:

Shallow, enclosed shelves may be built in the living room... to keep games and cards in order and out of sight when not in use.

I don't have any games or decks of cards tucked away in my own living room. Though if I moved my computer in there, I might have to occasionally close a game of Microsoft Solitaire. And speaking of tidying up the living room, I think it's about high time I got started.