Parlor or Living Room
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By David E. Booker Do you have a parlor or a living room in your home? Do you know the difference? While this is not an architectural subject in the strictest sense, it is none-the-less an item of interest. In earlier columns we have discussed the Queen Anne style Victorian home and the Craftsman/Bungalow style home. More than likely, the Queen Anne would have a parlor and the Craftsman a living room. But what’s the difference? To a certain extent the difference is simple semantics. Both are family rooms or at least sitting rooms. Historically, a parlor could be an apartment in a religious house set aside for conversation, or a smaller room in a mansion for private talk. In a Victorian home it was also a sitting room used by the family, a room in which games, particularly word games might be played, hence the phrase “parlor games.” Parlor could and sometimes still is used to describe a specialty shop, such as beauty parlor, or for a while, a funeral parlor. However, in 1910, thanks to Edward Bach, editor of the Ladies Home Journal, and others parlors were renamed living rooms. A living room was a place where the family gathered for activities. It was a room for everyday use. This change in semantics also coincided with rise of the Bungalow/Craftsman style home, which was less formal in design, more egalitarian. One could also speculate that this movement toward the “living room” was meant to get the dead out of the house, so to say. Up until the early twentieth century, visitation or viewing of dead often took place in the home. After the Civil War, when photography grew in popularity, it was not uncommon to have a photographer come to the home of the deceased and take photographs of the dead family member. The deceased might even be posed with living family members for the photographs. A mother would have her picture taken with her recently dead child positioned in her lap, the mother doing her best to hold the stern formal look seen in most posed photographs of the Victorian era. Certainly, one could not have a visitation in a “living room.” Death was still a solemn and formal occasion. Over time, the phrase funeral home replaced that of funeral parlor. I guess it wouldn’t quite fitting to have a “funeral living room.” Sounds a bit Stephen King-ish. |