"Life in Victorian America is detailed in this domestic history of one middle-class family from Missouri. Author Margaret Baker Graham draws from an extensive collection of letters, journals, Bible entries, receipts, newspaper clippings and photographs from 1860 to 1902 to portray the family of boarding house proprietor Margaret Bruin Machette. These letters of Margaret Machette, her children, and other correspondents focus primarily on familial devotion, deep religious faith, the constancy of work, and commitment to education in Victorian America. The letters inevitably include references to critical points in American history such as Lincoln's assassination, Jesse James' robberies, controversial political elections, and the Civil War, with an emphasis on how war, epidemics, and drought affected the Machette family."--BOOK JACKET.