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Away from Home

Middle-Class Boarders in the Nineteenth-Century City

Indiana University

Most scholars would agree that the nineteenth century was the golden age of the home as a cultural ideal, a concept that novelists, advice writers, poets, journalists, lyricists, and ordinary Americans celebrated ad nauseam. Residences that failed to approximate this middle-class model invited contempt, none more than boardinghouses. Nonetheless, in cities andprobablymany towns as well, Americansofall classes were more likely to live in boardinghousesthan in homes. This article takes a close look at the experiences of three middle-class urban boarders, examining how each negotiated the always-permeable boundaries between house and home.

Key Words: middle-class • boarder • boardinghouse • privacy • sociability

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