The Journals of Martha E. McMillan

In House and Home Papers , Stowe both maps the parlor and warns against consumer excesses that make the parlor uninhabitable. Martha’s December 16 entry reflects the influence of nineteenth-century domesticity discourses and its conflation of parlor furnishings and religion when she writes that because “home is the temple of our sweetest kinsman…the highest earthly estate…it is a place of dignity. Therefore [one should] give it honor; make it beautiful….” Yet the entry also reflects how Martha heeds Crowfield’s warning about creating uninviting and uninhabitable parlors since she and her husband can enjoy “their first sitting in the front room” (McMillan, December 16, 1867). Martha does not create a home-space that is unwelcoming or uninhabitable. The numerous community members and travelers who people the pages of the remainder of Martha’s journals seem to indicate that, in fact, Martha creates the very kind of home Stowe imagines and represents in House and Home Papers . 33