Cooperative Housekeeping

Melusina Fay Peirce was a writer, a social scientist, and a feminist who developed a model for carrying out housework collectively, designed to free women from their daily chores in order to pursue other interests. She was motivated by what she characterised as the daily drudgery of women's lives and men's patronising attitudes towards those who tried to do other things. Peirce thus laid out a detailed critique of the domestic economy of the home, being as critical of bourgeois women's 'laziness' as she was of men. She coined the term 'cooperative housekeeping' for her proposal, which was published in the journal Atlantic Monthly. A group of 15-20 women would organise and run a co-operative to carry out the common tasks of cooking, laundry and sewing. These would be done by skilled women on a wage, the goods and services being sold to members at a fair price with profits also being shared. Whilst women from richer backgrounds like herself would act as managers, it was the poorer women who would carry out the work. Although Peirce's scheme kept class divisions intact, it was radical for its time, bringing together women from hugely different backgrounds. It also did away with house-servants and she hinted at the working women eventually being allowed to become full members of the co-operative. She was one of the first women to make a detailed critique of domestic life in the United States, Peirce demanded pay for housework and organized the women of her own town to get it. Forming the Cooperative Housekeeping Association in Boston in 1870, Peirce tried to put her ideas into practice, but her experiment was short lived, undermined by husbands not allowing their wives to participate fully. A communal kitchen was planned but it was never implemented and the collective buying of goods did not become profitable.