The most popular motto late 19th-century perforated cardboard motto was God Bless Our Home and around 60% of the mottoes of the era carried an explicitly Christian message. Patriotic themes and nostalgic references to home or family members, such as this example, were also popular. “The Old Arm Chair” was a tribute to the importance of a mother in the home. These prominently displayed mottoes reflected the values of the cult of domesticity (also called the cult of true womanhood), a prominent theme in middle class American and British culture beginning around 1820.
“The Old Arm Chair” was a poem by Eliza Cook, set to music by Henry Russell Listen to the song performed here.
I love it, I love it, and who shall dare,
To chide me for loving that old arm chair.
I’ve treasured it long as a holy prize,
I’ve bedew’d it with tears, and embalm’d it with sighs;
‘Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart,
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell, a mother sat there,
And a sacred thing is that old arm chair.
I sat and watch’d her many a day
When her eye grew dim and her locks were gray;
And I almost worshipp’d her when she smil’d
And turn’d from her Bible to bless her child.
Years rolled on, but the last one sped,
My idol was shattered, my earth star fled,
I learnt how much the heart can bear,
When I saw her die in that old arm chair.
‘Tis past, ’tis past, but I gaze on it now,
With quivering breath and throbbing brow.
‘Twas there she nursed me, ’twas there she died,
And memory flows with lava tide.
Say it is folly and deem me weak,
While the scalding drops start down my cheek,
But I love it, I love it, and cannot tear
My soul from a mother’s old arm chair.
Image from Mottoes and Designs for Embroidery on Perforated Card Board (1870s) available full-text from Archive.org.
To learn more about historical home and family, see Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies.