Career
This book was one of the earliest such guides published in California, and catered to a Western audience. The introductory chapter to The American Pictorial Home Book notes that Suddoth was Christian and had engaged in missions before finding her calling as a writer This Christian influence is communicated through the social guidance the book offers.
The introduction to The American Pictorial Home Book, written by West.A. He states that he hopes that "it will find a place in thousands of families, especially on this side of our continent, in the homes of our mountains and valleys, where everything is yet in a forming state, and where the foundations of future greatness shall be wisely laid and firmly established on a good family government, and on sound principles so that we may hope for the virtue and high culture of generations to come."
Suddoth also wrote under the pseudonym "Lumina Silvervale." Her book under this name was entitled "An Orphan of the Old Dominion: Her Trials and Travels, Embracing a History of Her Life Taken Primarily from her Journals and Letters." In that book, she chronicles her life in the South, details injustices toward women (especially in the realm of inheritance), and writes about the pioneer experience.
Suddoth had previously published The Housekeeper"s Encyclopedia. Her Pictorial Home Book and "An Orphan of the OLd Dominion" are available online.
Her obituary notes that she died in Saint Louis, Missouri.
