ABSTRACT
In January 1911, Ellen Veblen had written her friend Lucia that she was living in a twelve-by-fourteen-foot hut with an earthen floor, which she had built herself. She wished she had put in a real floor, as with all this rain the tamped earth wasn't working out. She continued: Mr. Thorstein Veblen is in Columbia, Missouri. He once more wishes me to get a divorce. On January 12, 1912, Ellen, dressed like Dickens's Miss Havisham, took the stand in her divorce action against Thorstein. Her extended absences had made her vulnerable to charges of desertion. After 1903 she had never stayed with Thorstein more than six months at a time. Thorstein could have divorced her on those grounds. In early 1914 Veblen was ousted from the Davenports' comfortable abode by the arrival of a second Davenport offspring, and his hosts' need to use Veblen's quarters for a live-in nursemaid. Veblen had long been working on The Instinct of Workmanship.
