By Ellen Zunon

Just imagine: It is April 1891 and your husband has come home with a brand new book to help you with your spring cleaning. The title page announces: Queen of the Household: A Carefully Classified and Alphabetically Arranged Repository of Useful Information on Subjects that Constantly Arise in the Daily Life of Every Housekeeper.
Indeed, the heavy volume, all 737 pages of it, is chock full of recipes for all occasions, laundry tips, hints on cleaning furniture and woodwork, child care, home remedies for common ailments, "many uses of common things" — and a whole chapter on fancy ways to fold napkins.

The book was written by Mrs. M.W. Ellsworth, also known as the Queen of the Household, published by her husband, and sold all through the United States by traveling salesmen. The edition I have was published in Detroit in 1891, and must have been purchased by my great-grandparents the year after my grandmother was born.
Now it is tattered, torn, and stained in spots, which bears witness not only to its advanced age, but also to the fact that it must have been used a lot. I picture Mrs. Ellsworth, née Tinnie Olmsted, as the Martha Stewart of her day, but her advice and instructions seem much more down-to-earth than those of today’s domestic diva. In fact, as her husband’s preface states, the book is "rigidly economical, thoroughly practical, with short but plain directions, and nothing put into it simply to fill [it] up.