Closet Tax Question in Colonial America
Though some sources claim that colonial American houses often lacked closets because of a "closet tax" imposed by the British crown, others argue that closets were absent in most houses simply because their residents had few possessions.
Read more about this topic: Closet
Famous quotes containing the words colonial america, closet, tax, question, colonial and/or america:
“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“I was a closet pacifier advocate. So were most of my friends. Unknown to our mothers, we owned thirty or forty of those little suckers that were placed strategically around the house so a cry could be silenced in less than thirty seconds. Even though bottles were boiled, rooms disinfected, and germs fought one on one, no one seemed to care where the pacifier had been.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“O.J. Berman: Well, answer the question now. Is she or isn’t she?
Paul: Is she or isn’t she what?
O.J. Berman: A phony.
Paul. I don’t know. I don’t think so.
O.J. Berman: You don’t think so, huh? Well, you’re wrong. She is. But on the other hand, you’re right. Because she’s a real phony.”
—George Axelrod (b. 1922)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“Elvis’ disappearing body is like a flashing event horizon at the edge of the black hole that is America today.”
—Arthur Kroker (b. 1945)