Lady's Book by Louis Godey

I was reading one of my history books and ran across this bit of information I found interesting.

Women were taking on stronger family roles. The industrial revolution was expanding from Europe to the US Northeast and slowing filtering South and West. As this was happening, furniture, clothing, shoes etc were dropping a bit in price due to the fact they were being made in factories instead of by artisans. Also there were campaigns in various states, leading up to the Civil War. Men were away from home, women were becoming more independent. This was changing how Americans were living. Women started relying on a book “Lady’s Book” by Godey’s, to educate and assist with their buying decisions, source of recipes, clothing patterns, poetry, music etc etc…..designed to inform WOMEN how to be LADIES of the time. It was expensive, but women came up with the money.

In 1845, Louis Godey began copyrighting each issue to prevent other magazines and newspaper editors from pirating their texts. This was a first in America.

What is even more cool….I have the January 1855 Book, purchased years ago in a little shop in Virginia. It dawned on me after reading about it….I had that same book. Pretty cool.