The Frugal Housewife by Emily Dickenson

"My mother does not care for thought," she says. "She probably had no time for anything but collapsing on her bed with a wet washcloth that she's woven." The pressure was high to educate your female children in all these economies or you have failed them, the author adds. 'It's safe to say that book and its philosophy were writ large in the dickinson family'