In this book, all the really interesting bits that in other books are smushed into one chapter, are given their rightful place. Using many quotations, mostly from women, Garrett brings us into earlier American domestic life.Why did 18th Century people keep the furniture around the walls of the rooms? Aesthetics, or, as Garrett suggests, to avoid falling over a stool as you make your way around in the dark, with only a candle? And how did they anything done with a lively toddler running around, when it is "too cold to tye her into a chair"?Possibly my favorite word picture in the book is "Benjamin Franklin Perry, visiting in Columbia, South Carolina, reached out automatically in his sleep to make sure his son's crib covers were up, awakening to find that he wasn't at home after all."It's a lovely book--large, glossy, with a bibliography and index, with notes at the end where they are out of the way yet findable, and illustrated thoroughly.