“Save your steps”. The invention of household science and schedule from the late 19th century to the 1950s

Although the tendency towards domestic rationalization is a well-known fact to specialists in the field of labour, gender and consumption in 20th century France, this paper will expose how household chores were – first in America, then in France – depicted, from the end of the 19th century onwards as a science, then as an art, with the ambition to transform housewives’ everyday lives, by rationalizing domestic work. By granting them the status of experts on the matter, the schedule, minutely calibrated to ease their workload, was also a device to confine them to their home.