Once upon a time, before Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith, there were 1800s domestic advice manuals. Article continues after advertisement In the middle of the 19th century, writers Lydia Maria Child and Catherine Beecher were busy defining what the ideal home—and the ideal woman—should be. The American Frugal Housewife (1829), A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1842), and The American Woman’s Home (1869) offered instructions on everything from bread-baking to furniture to babies, all wrapped up with a submit-to-your-husband bow. Today’s social media tradwives have resurrected Beecher and Child’s blueprint almost beat for beat. I’m talking about the Little House on the Prairie cosplay kind of tradwife. The ones who say you’re doing homecare and motherhood and marriage all wrong if you aren’t doing it in a floral dress. Who preach getting married and having babies when you’re very young, romanticize homesteading, and extoll scratch cooking—heavy on the sourdough. It’s an aesthetic that runs on pure nostalgia.…