The Home as Environment

In spite of the relentless processes of modernization and the efforts of modernists, the Victorian ideal of the home persisted to a substantial extent on both sides of the Atlantic through the twentieth century. The home was a safe moral sphere, dominated by a wife-mother. But this psychological haven was also a physical construction. Walls and screens kept the cruel, dangerous world shut outside. Housing therefore created a private place of material safety while the ‘home within’ provided a safe psychological environment. Particularly for children, the home sheltered youngsters from the physical elements and, at the same time, kept undesirable, worldly influences at bay. ²