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Paper short abstract:

The American home cellar in the late 1800s was reportedly “a damp, dark, musty, foul-smelling place…the unrelenting enemy of the family physician.” After decades of envirotechnical developments co-piloted by homemakers and cement, the basement became instead a welcoming amenity of suburban life.

Paper long abstract:

Enmeshed technical and cultural developments underneath American homes led to a new domestic ideal. Modern basement living became recognizable across the U.S. by the middle of the twentieth century, even though basements were not found in every region of the country. This paper is an account of that massive cultural change, in which the physically uncomfortable and socially condemned experience of living underground became an enviable component of everyday life. The account follows basements as an evolving entanglement of technology and culture and in particular considers the role of modern cement in changing American domesticity.

Americans did not set out to live beneath their homes and then employ cement in that mission. Rather, homeowners first cemented cellars to keep rats away from vegetables and keep moisture away from coal. Cement was quite successful in those tasks, limiting an array of odors, organisms, and other matter and creating the possibility of clean, congenial space. Over decades, people and cement cooperated to regulate basement environments and develop attendant cultures. Cement not only aided existing domestic practices but also guided new practices. Middle-class white women, increasingly tasked with managing both home and family, took the lead in co-creating basement cultures. With cement, housewives created new methods of keeping their homes presentable, raising children, and recreating as a nuclear family. Basements were touted as a convenience to homemaking even as they generated new expectations for American women that allowed basement living to become a fixture of the ideal suburban single-family home.