Harried homemakers / Stress-free cookouts

Today: Harry Siegel, senior editor at THE CITY, co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast, and columnist at the New York Daily News; and Emily Flake, cartoonist, writer, performer, illustrator, and proprietress of St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency for Ladies in Williamsport, PA.

Issue No. 104

Pleasure-Mad, or, A Brief History of HOUSEWIFE FINDS TIME
Harry Siegel

Are You Ready For Grilling and Quiet Existential Panic Season?
Emily Flake

Pleasure-Mad, or, A Brief History of HOUSEWIFE FINDS TIME

by Harry Siegel

Shortly after Alice Munro’s death earlier this year, Jeet Heer resurfaced an old headline patting the future Nobel laureate on the head: 

“Housewife Finds Time To Write Short Stories.”

Trying to track down the full article from 1961 in the Vancouver Sun, or possibly the North Vancouver Citizen—which isn’t available on newspapers.com or any other digital archive I searched—turned up four decades’ worth of “Housewife Finds Time” headlines and stories, not counting material on the women’s pages of papers, starting in 1934 with an article that stands out mainly for its lede:

“Not all good writers are men.”

After that, the piece details the work of a woman who, “though a devoted mother and busy housewife, finds time for many duties in the conference connected with the Woman’s Missionary Society work.”