Market Sentiments

In this study Elizabeth White Nelson challenges a central tenet of 19th-century American history: namelly that men and women lived in separate spheres. Women supposedly lived lives focused around hearth and home; men focused on trade and commerce. Marketplace and home were believed to be separate and distinct.Market Sentiments turns this argument on its head showing how the market revolution was inextricably linked to sentimental beliefs for both men and women. Whether through the invention of Valentine's Day (called this important Business of Love by one 19th-century observer) or the popularity of fashion magazines that used a sentimental language for market relations the market and the parlor were closely intertwined. Sentiment and commerce existed together quite comfortably in the Victorian American home.Through her use of sources such as literary bestsellers fashion magazines the decoration of Victorian parlors and hair jewelry produced in the parlor Elizabeth White Nelson shows that for 19th-century Americans hearth home and the pursuit of cash came together in one big sentimental enterprise.