A Letter to Elizabeth “Lizzy” Thompson (1704–1791)
Dear Lizzy,
In 1776, household chores were not “chores” as much as they were survival rituals performed daily against dirt, hunger, cold, exhaustion, disease, and entropy itself.
A modern American complaining about loading a dishwasher would not have survived three colonial Tuesdays.
Your world, Lizzy, revolved around relentless labor. The household was essentially a tiny production facility fueled by firewood, muscle, and determination. Every basic comfort modern people now treat as invisible, clean clothes, warm meals, soap, light, preserved food, heat, drinking water, required staggering amounts of human effort.
Water alone was a full-body commitment.
It had to be hauled from wells, pumps, rivers, or streams in heavy buckets multiple times daily. Then heated over open fires if used for cooking, laundry, or bathing.
Laundry itself was practically a medieval side quest: boiling water, scrubbing fabric against washboards, wringing heavy garments by hand, hanging them to dry, then ironing with literal chunks of heated metal.
One load of laundry today takes forty-five minutes and a podcast.
One load in 1776 required spiritual endurance.
Cooking was equally brutal.
Meals emerged from smoky hearths demanding constant maintenance and attention.
Bread needed baking.
Meat spoiled quickly without refrigeration.
Food preservation became a year-round anxiety operation involving salting, drying, pickling, smoking, and praying the cellar stores lasted through winter.
A burned dinner did not mean takeout…
It meant consequences.
And then there were the endless supporting tasks orbiting domestic life like exhausted moons:
spinning wool,
sewing clothes,
knitting stockings,
making candles,
producing soap from lye and animal fat,
mending tools,
tending gardens,
feeding animals,
cleaning soot from walls,
and sweeping floors that often fought back aggressively because…they were dirt.
The colonial home was alive with labor from sunrise until collapse.
Of course, this labor was also profoundly unequal.
Women carried the overwhelming burden of domestic work.
Men generally handled field labor, heavy repairs, wood chopping, and livestock management, though the lines blurred constantly in survival settings.
Children joined the workforce almost immediately because childhood as a protected, leisurely phase barely existed for most families.
And beneath all this stood another truth impossible to ignore:
Much of colonial domestic labor, especially in wealthier households, depended upon enslaved people whose work sustained entire homes and economies while their own freedom was violently denied.
The polished image of the colonial household often rested atop invisible exploitation.
…History keeps receipts.
Then came the 19th century, and household chores somehow became even more organized and exhausting simultaneously.
Industrialization transformed society faster than it transformed homes.
Cities modernized.
Factories expanded.
Railroads spread.
Yet inside many households, especially rural ones, domestic labor still resembled a physically punishing marathon of soot, water, fire, and repetition.
Victorian America approached housekeeping with the intensity of a military campaign.
Monday was wash day.
Tuesday was ironing.
Wednesday for mending.
Thursday for baking.
Friday for cleaning.
Entire weeks rotated around chore cycles because maintaining a “productive” home was considered central to moral respectability itself.
The so-called “cult of domesticity” elevated women as guardians of the household while quietly trapping many inside endless unpaid labor systems disguised as virtue.
A truly diabolical productivity framework.
Coal and wood stoves intensified the workload.
Homes filled constantly with soot and ash requiring endless sweeping and dusting.
Laundry remained infamous enough to earn nicknames like “the weekly affliction.”
Ironing involved heavy irons heated repeatedly on stoves.
Candles and oil lamps created additional grime.
Indoor plumbing remained limited for much of the century, meaning water still had to be carried manually.
And yet, even amid all this drudgery, homes increasingly became emotional symbols of comfort, morality, and identity. The housewife was expected not merely to clean the home, but to shape civilization itself through discipline, hospitality, and domestic order.
No pressure there either.
Then the 20th century arrived carrying electricity and appliances like tiny mechanical liberators.
At first, it looked miraculous.
Vacuum cleaners appeared.
Washing machines arrived.
Refrigerators eliminated many preservation burdens.
Electric irons,
ovens,
dishwashers,
and indoor plumbing
radically reduced physical strain.
Advertisements promised women freedom from endless labor through technology.
But something peculiar happened.
The workload changed shape instead of disappearing entirely.
Because as technology reduced physical effort, standards exploded upward.
Suddenly homes were expected to be spotless constantly.
Laundry happened more frequently.
Children changed clothes daily.
Meals became more elaborate.
Consumer culture flooded homes with more possessions requiring cleaning, organizing, repairing, storing, and emotionally regretting.
Human beings possess a remarkable talent for converting convenience into expectation.
The postwar suburban housewife of the 1950s often spent nearly as much time on domestic labor as earlier generations, just differently…
She vacuumed instead of sweeping soot.
Loaded washing machines instead of scrubbing fabric by hand.
Managed increasingly complex households while television commercials smiled maniacally in the background insisting this was all deeply fulfilling.
Then, by the late 20th century, another major shift emerged:
Women entered the workforce in massive numbers.
And suddenly America confronted an awkward question it had delayed for centuries:
If women now worked outside the home too…
who exactly was handling the second shift inside it?
The answer, initially, was: mostly women still.
And now we arrive in 2026, Lizzy, where household chores exist inside a strange collision between equality, exhaustion, technology, and negotiation.
Modern homes contain astonishing conveniences your century could scarcely imagine.
Dishwashers clean plates automatically.
Robot vacuums wander floors like confused little domestic turtles.
Grocery delivery arrives through apps.
Washing machines complete entire loads unattended.
Meal kits portion ingredients in advance because apparently modern civilization collectively decided chopping onions was emotionally unacceptable after work.
Yet despite all this automation, Americans still spend enormous amounts of time managing households.
Especially women.
Even now, women perform significantly more daily domestic labor and childcare than men on average, particularly the repetitive “maintenance” chores:
cooking,
cleaning,
laundry,
scheduling,
emotional coordination,
remembering birthdays,
noticing empty toilet paper rolls before catastrophe strikes.
Men increasingly contribute more than previous generations, yes, but often toward “episodic” tasks:
yard work,
repairs,
occasional projects involving power tools…and suspicious confidence.
The emotional architecture of domestic labor remains uneven.
And technology, while helpful, introduced fresh complications.
Homes became command centers for modern chaos.
Dual-income households juggle
careers,
children,
schedules,
emails,
bills,
maintenance,
groceries,
school forms,
social obligations,
pet care,
streaming passwords,
and existential fatigue all simultaneously.
Chores no longer merely maintain survival…
They maintain complexity.
Which brings us to the newest development quietly arriving at the doorstep:
Domestic AI robots.
Yes, Lizzy. Humanity has now created humanoid robots capable of vacuuming floors, folding laundry, carrying objects, and performing basic household tasks.
Early models cost roughly $13,500, meaning the future currently belongs mostly to wealthy households and extremely optimistic tech investors.
Still, the trajectory is unmistakable.
The same civilization that mechanized factories and automobiles is now attempting to mechanize housework itself.
And honestly? Somewhere deep in history, millions of exhausted women probably just whispered, “Finally.”
But the arrival of domestic robots also raises uncomfortable questions.
Who benefits first from automation?
Will these technologies genuinely reduce labor, or simply raise standards yet again?
If chores disappear partially through AI and robotics, what happens to long-standing gender dynamics built around domestic responsibility?
And perhaps strangest of all:
What happens when the household itself stops requiring human effort?
Because chores, exhausting as they are, also structure family life strangely.
They teach responsibility, cooperation, patience, interdependence, and care.
Humans bond while cooking together, folding laundry, gardening, repairing homes, or preparing meals. …Shared labor often quietly becomes shared intimacy.
Civilization may automate drudgery…
But can it automate care?
Lizzy, if you could step into an American home in 2026, you would likely faint at indoor plumbing alone. Then revive briefly before witnessing a robot vacuum bump repeatedly into furniture while a family argues about whose turn it is to unload a dishwasher.
Some things survive every technological revolution.
Somewhat organized, always exhausted…and yours,
—The Radical Left 🧹🖤
And dear reader, perhaps this is the deeper question household chores ask us after 250 years: what does it mean to maintain a home together? Is domestic labor simply work to eliminate, or does shared responsibility form part of human connection itself?
As technology increasingly automates cleaning, cooking, and maintenance, will families gain freedom…
…or simply invent new forms of exhaustion?
Because from smoky colonial hearths to AI-assisted smart homes, humanity has always been engaged in the same endless battle:
Trying to hold chaos back long enough to call a place “home.”