Flora Nicholson and May Watters in Nantucket, 1908.
I spent my primary and elementary school years in a duplex in Montreal, 5 rooms.
We had a living room, my mother sometimes called a parlour.
The place we watched TV.
I see that in the UK they call living rooms reception rooms. Most Victorian row houses have 2 reception rooms. I assume this is because, in Victorian houses, you had a sitting room for the family and a parlour, closer to the door, for guests.
It was this way in Tighsolas in 1910.
The parlour was closed most of the time. In Threshold Girl, www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf Flora airs the room out for the Ladies Aid meeting.
A parlour, then, is a formal ‘reception room.’ A living room is where the family gathers, when it is cold you stay in the kitchen. In French Canadian homes, there were huge kitchens, and the huge families congregated there.
Today we have living rooms and family rooms… home theatre rooms, whatever. There’s a TV screen and other screens in everyroom, so the ‘electronic fireplace’ has no special allure, unless, like in our house, it is the biggest screen, with dvd player.
In my house, while the kids were at home, all the house was a living room. The kids went where they pleased. I recall being surprised when a woman told me she kept the kids out of the living room.
It’s obvious why in 1910 they kept the parlour closed. A clean house was sooo important, that’s how a woman was judged. A clean house meant a clean mind and clean morality.
So keeping a room always clean for visitors decreased the chance of being the target of criticism and evil gossip.
