The American Woman's Home Sweet Home: Recentering and Commodifying the Hearth in National Ideology

At 14 James Lane, in the center of colonial East Hampton, New York, sits a gray-shingled, sloping-roofed cottage. Its front door knocker bears the words “Home, Sweet Home.” The cottage was built in the seventeenth century, when East Hampton’s residents were hardy villagers who made their living on the land and sea. Though mellowed with age and embowered with wisteria, it has for the most part been preserved against the ravages of time, weather, and fire. Today this old house—with its custom wainscoting and hand-wrought hardware, antique furniture, and silver lusterware—attracts sightseers far and wide, serving as inspiration to artists and homemakers alike.