The Intellectual Family Behind the Scenes. Some Remarks on Household Management in Warsaw in the Second Half of the 19th Century Based on the Notes of Amalia Bartoszewicz

Abstract

This article is based on sources from the Bartoszewicz Family Archive, held at the State Archive in Łódź. It presents the everyday life of Warsaw’s intelligentsia in the 19^th century from the perspective of household management. The primary source material consists of notes by Amalia Bartoszewicz, wife of Adam Bartoszewicz – a teacher and inspector of Warsaw schools – and mother of historian Julian Bartoszewicz. The analysis of available sources made it possible to show how households were managed in Warsaw in the second half of the 19^th century. Thanks to her notes as the lady of the house, it was possible to reconstruct individual expenses, diet, culinary customs, and the role of women in managing the household during this period.
The documents indicate that the family lived off Adam Bartoszewicz’s teaching salary and, later, his pension. Purchasing food products was a daily routine and one of the duties of the household servant, although closely supervised by the housewife. The diet was seasonal, determined by the time of year and based on products available at Warsaw markets, with a clear influence of religious fasting practices. The bourgeois cuisine, although less recognized in literature than that of the nobility or peasantry, was rich and diverse. Its variety depended on the resources and culinary tastes of the family members, especially the head of the household, whose preferences shaped the family’s culinary habits. Housewives used cookbooks and household management guides, including those by Jan Szyttler and later Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, whose publications introduced innovative approaches to meal planning and facilitated household management for women. Scholarly literature, as well as fiction from the period, complements the picture of bourgeois cuisine in mid-19^th-century Warsaw.