live alone and like it by marjorie hillis

Running a home and playing hostess have changed a bit since 1936! Though, to be fair, she was writing to people of a certain social class. The funny bits were the parts where I learned that there are FOUR types of pajamas, and TWO of them are suitable for entertaining guests, or the parts that assume that you have access to a maid at least some of the time. Interestingly, republished copies of this book drop that phrase from the title and simply mention the 'single woman.'Įven though some parts of this book are heavily dated and others funny in an unintended way, I did enjoy the straight talk about how to not be pitiful, how to take control of your own social life and home atmosphere, and how to be a pleasant sort of person. Of course, this book does a lot to encourage single women to enjoy their lives and not feel sorry for themselves. No one should feel like they are an unneeded surplus number. Hence, the genesis of the 'extra women,' a phrase that I find wistful and sad. So many men had been killed in the war that many women would never have the chance to marry. It's enlightening to look at it within its social context: after the first world war, there was a lot of anxiety about the sudden imbalance between the male and female population. They are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.This vintage guidebook was written in 1936 for a rather new category of woman: she who is single, working, and self-sufficient. In 1939, Hillis married Thomas Henry Roulston, a widower who owned a chain of grocery stores in Brooklyn. Orchids on Your Budget, which was subtitled Live Smartly on What You Have, was built around hypothetical “cases” that encouraged women to match their goals with their financial means. It was followed in 1937 by Orchids on Your Budget, which became that year's number five nonfiction bestseller. In 1936, she published the year's number eight nonfiction bestseller, Live Alone and Like It, an advice book for young women on how to live independently. Hillis eventually became Vogue's assistant editor. After completing her education at Miss Dana's School for Young Ladies, a private school in New Jersey, and traveling abroad for a year, Marjorie went to work writing captions for Vogue magazine's pattern book.

The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1899, when Marjorie's father became pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church there, a pulpit once held by the famous abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. Newell Dwight Hillis (1858-1929), a Congregationalist minister, and Annie Louise Patrick Hillis (1862-1930), herself a published author.

Her book Live Alone and Like It was one of the most popular titles of the decade.īorn Margaret Louise Hillis in Peoria, Illinois, Marjorie Hillis was the second of three children of Dr. Marjorie Hillis (1889–1971) was an American author of popular nonfiction books for women in the 1930s. Live Alone and Like It, Orchids on Your Budget

Live alone and like it by marjorie hillis