Exploring Gender In Vernacular – Jessica Ellen Sewell

These cultural rules, examined in combination with the house itself, allow us to see ways that rules of gender are interlinked with other cultural norms and embodied in the everyday life shaped by a house. In the case of the US and the United Kingdom in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars have explored how the ideal of the house as a haven apart from the world of work, rules of privacy, specialization of space, and the rise of the nuclear family have been expressed in house designs, which embody ideas about the household and gender within it.

For example, in their overview of the history of gender in house design, the feminist collective Matrix explore how upper-middle-class Victorian houses in the UK embody a concern with privacy and the separation between the adult couple and their children and servants. FIG. 4.5. The spaces for the elite family occupying this nineteenth-century English row house are segregated by gender, with the ground floor dining room and library (coded with horizontal lines) dominated by men and the first-floor drawing rooms (coded with diagonal lines) dominated by women. “Design for a Row of London Houses,” Robert Kerr, The Gentleman’s House, or How to Plan English Residences (London: John Murray, 1865), plate 44.

Spaces coded by the author, indicating gender of elite residents. FIG. 4.6. Spaces for servants within this nineteenth-century English row house are similarly gendered. Male servants (coded with dots) occupy the male bedroom, butler’s bedroom and pantry, and wine cellar on the basement floor; the carriage house on the ground floor; and the coachman’s room on the first floor.

They also serve in the library, front hall, and dining room. Female servants (coded with crosshatch) occupy the kitchen and related rooms, laundry, and housekeeper’s room in the basement, and the servants’ rooms on the first floor; they serve primarily in the drawing rooms and the upstairs floors (not pictured).

The Vernacular Architecture Studies series provides focused investigations into methodological and theoretical issues in the field of vernacular architecture studies. Written by experts in the field with the student, practitioner, and general public in mind, the series will comprise handbooks and historically grounded instructional texts that embody the very latest research from a burgeoning discipline in an accessible, practical form.

Copyright © 2025 by The University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville. All Rights Reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. First Edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data NAMES: Sewell, Jessica Ellen, author. TITLE: Exploring gender in vernacular architecture / Jessica Ellen Sewell. DESCRIPTION: First edition. | Knoxville : The University of Tennessee Press, [2025] SERIES: Vernacular architecture studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | SUMMARY: “In Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture, Jessica Ellen Sewell considers the gender of those who create and shape spaces, how gender ideology contributes to and manifests itself in built form, and what research methods make the observation of gendered experience possible.

She discusses single-gender, mixed-gender, and queer spaces, providing a comprehensive look at how gender influences the design and construction of those spaces, how those spaces are used, and the relationship between gender and the broader architectural landscape”—Provided by publisher. IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2024041127 (print) | LCCN 2024041128 (ebook) | ISBN 9781621909316 (paperback) | ISBN 9781621909323 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781621909330 (kindle edition) SUBJECTS: LCSH: Sex role in architecture.

| Vernacular architecture. | Space (Architecture)— Psychological aspects. CLASSIFICATION: LCC NA2543.S49 S49 2025 (print) | LCC NA2543.S49 (ebook) | DDC 720.81 —dc23/eng/20240919 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024041127 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024041128 ISBN-13: 978-1-62190-933-0 (electronic) OceanofPDF.com For all the students of my gender and the built environment classes, past, present, and future OceanofPDF.com Contents Acknowledgments 1. The Problem of Gender in Vernacular Architecture 2. Gender and the Shaping of Space 3. Single-Gender Spaces 4.

Mixed-Gender Spaces 5. Queer Spaces 6. Researching Gendered Experience Conclusion: The Future of Vernacular Architecture Studies Notes Bibliography Index OceanofPDF.com Illustrations 1.1. Fieldwork class, University of Virginia, 2016 1.2. Gender structures, conceptual drawing 1.3. Intersectional identities, conceptual diagram 2.1. Sod house in Nebraska, Chrisman sisters, 1886, photograph by Solomon Butcher 2.2.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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