years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service, 42.1
per cent of whom were males and 57.9 per cent females. During the
succeeding thirty years there was an average increase for males and
females combined of 108,961 a year. So that in 1900, persons ten years
of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service numbered
5,580,657. As far as distinction from domestic service occupations
can be made, the number engaged in personal service has continued
to increase since 1900. By contrast, during the decade from 1900 to
1910 and from 1910 to 1920 there was a rather steady decline in the
number of those engaged in domestic service. However, the two groups
of domestic and personal service occupations combined showed that the
number ten years of age and over by 1910 had decreased 1,808,098,
and by 1920 had further decreased 367,667. Males constituted 6.4 per
cent of the decrease from 1910 to 1920 and females 93.6 per cent. The
number of children from 10 to 15 years of age engaged in domestic
and personal service in 1910 were 112,171. In 1920 the number had
decreased to 54,006.
The trend of the number of Negroes in domestic and personal service
occupations compared with the general trend of the total number
is indicative of the relation of Negroes and Caucasians in these
occupations. We may, therefore, discuss the number and sex of Negroes
ten years of age and over engaged in these occupations.
In 1900 there were in the United States 1,317,859 Negroes ten years
of age and over gainfully employed in domestic and personal service:
681,926 females and 635,933 males. In 1910 the number of females
had increased to 861,497 and the males had decreased to 496,100. In
1890 the total number of Negroes ten years of age and over gainfully
employed in domestic and personal service constituted 20.7 per cent
of the total number so employed and held third place among all
nationalities so employed. Negro men held first place among men thus
employed and constituted 40.8 per cent of the total number of male
domestic workers.[4] This proportion does not take into account the
fact that there were about eight white persons to one Negro in the
total population. At that time one in every 5.6 Negroes ten years of
age and over gainfully employed was in domestic and personal service.
In 1900 Negro women domestic workers occupied second place in point of
numbers among the total number and outnumbered the Negro male domestic
workers 3 to 1, while the white female domestic workers outnumbered
the white male domestic workers about 7 to 1.
The census figures dealing with servants and waiters for 1910 and
1920 in five Southern States where Negroes perform practically all
of the domestic service and in five Northern States where conditions
are quite different indicate the similarity in the trend of the
numbers for both races in domestic service. Although the number of
waiters increased by 40,693 between 1910 and 1920, the number of other
domestic servants so decreased that we have the following figures for
waiters and other domestic workers.
_Servants and Waiters 10 years of age and over, in selected States,
1901-1920_
====================================================
TABLE I | |
| 1910 | 1920
State +--------+---------+--------+--------
| Male | Female | Male | Female
---------------+--------+---------+--------+--------
Georgia | 8,719 | 38,165 | 7,752 | 38,165
N. Carolina | 5,553 | 28,555 | 4,855 | 21,321
Louisiana | 7,112 | 30,982 | 6,761 | 28,306
Maryland | 8,125 | 32,292 | 6,859 | 26,305
Virginia | 9,535 | 42,797 | 3,144 | 33,781
Massachusetts | 16,969 | 71,853 | 16,574 | 51,941
Ohio | 11,695 | 64,408 | 15,170 | 50,232
Minnesota | 6,581 | 37,207 | 6,134 | 26,969
Pennsylvania | 24,103 | 134,374 | 22,173 | 98,798
New York | 63,395 | 198,970 | 69,869 | 151,455
---------------+--------+---------+--------+--------
The figures show a decided decrease of domestic servants in both
Southern and Northern States between 1910 and 1920, except male
servants in Ohio and New York and female servants in Georgia.
The increase in male servants in Ohio and New York may be accounted
for by the large increase of waiters in those States. There is no
apparent explanation for the lack of change in the figures of female
domestic workers in Georgia. It may be said, however, that Georgia
has not suffered an actual decrease in its Negro population during
the past ten years as have Mississippi, with a 7.4 per cent decrease,
Kentucky with a 9.8 per cent decrease, Louisiana with a 1.8 per cent
decrease, Alabama with 0.8 per cent decrease, Delaware with a 2.7
per cent decrease, and Tennessee with a 4.5 per cent decrease. This
decrease in the Southern States has been due to the migration of
Negroes to Northern industrial centers.
For example, the Negro population of Chicago increased from 44,103 in
1910 to 109,456 in 1920; that of New York City increased from 91,709
to 152,467. The number of Negroes in domestic and personal service in
these and other Northern industrial centers has increased during the
past ten years because the Negroes who have migrated North could enter
domestic and personal service more easily than they could other fields
of employment.
Since the total number of Negroes in domestic service has decreased
while the total Negro population has increased, the question arises
as to why the number of domestic and personal service workers has not
kept pace with the growth of the Negro population. In twenty years
between 1890 and 1910 Negroes in the United States gainfully employed
increased about 65 per cent in agriculture, about 66.6 per cent in
trade and transportation, about 129.5 per cent in manufacturing and
mechanical pursuits, and about 65.3 per cent in domestic and personal
service.
The Census of 1920 shows that of the gainfully employed 4,824,151
Negroes ten years of age and over, 45.2 per cent were in agriculture,
forestry, and animal husbandry; 22.1 per cent were in domestic and
personal service; 18.4 per cent were in manufacturing and mechanical
pursuits; 9.4 per cent were in trade and transportation; 1.7 per
cent were in professional service; 0.8 per cent were in clerical
occupations; 1.0 per cent were in public service; and 1.5 per
cent were engaged in the extraction of minerals. This increase in
occupations other than agriculture and domestic and personal service
is largely due to conditions incident to the World War. Because of the
3 per cent immigration restriction, Negroes are being attracted to
the North in large numbers and are entering industrial pursuits. For
several years at least, this movement will most probably continue.
II. AGE AND MARITAL CONDITION OF NEGROES IN DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL
SERVICE
In 1900, 53.4 per cent of all the women sixteen years of age and
over engaged in domestic and personal service were from 16 to 24
years of age. Of the Negro women 16 years of age and over engaged in
domestic and personal service, 35.1 per cent, or more than one-third,
were between the ages of 16 and 24. The percentage in the other age
groups of the total number of women 16 years of age and over engaged
in domestic and personal service decreased by classes. That of Negro
women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal
service decreased by classes until those 55 years of age and over
constituted only 9.6 per cent of the total number of Negro women so
employed. The modal age of Negro male domestic workers like that
of white male domestic workers was from 25 to 44 years. The age
distribution of domestic and personal service workers for 1920 is
about the same as that for 1900. Because of the incompleteness of
the age data obtained from the general schedule sent to employment
agencies, they were not used for this study. The average ages of the
9,976 male and female Negro domestic and personal service workers of
Washington, D. C., were: 30.5 years for the males and 28.1 years for
the females.
In 1900, among Negro women the percentage of breadwinners did not show
such a marked decline after marriage as among white women. Of the
Negro female breadwinners 32.5 per cent were married, while only 9.0
per cent of the female breadwinners of all the races were married. The
percentage of married Negro male domestic and personal service workers
is higher than that of married female workers, while the number of
widowed and divorced is three and one-half times as great among female
as among male domestic and personal service workers. In 1920, 29.4 per
cent of all the female domestic and personal service workers 15 years
of age and over were married, while 70.6 per cent were classed as
single, widowed, divorced, and unknown.
The significance of age grouping and marital condition of Negro
domestic workers in their relation to employers is borne out by
the testimony of experienced employment agents in New York City,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D. C., Chicago, and Detroit.
Women domestic workers between the ages of 20 and 25 are the most
sought after by employers. Those between 25 and 35 years of age are
next in favor. All of the agents testified to the unpopularity of
the young girl domestic worker. She is employed principally because
of the tight domestic labor market. Employers apparently feel that a
majority of the women beyond the ages of 45 and 50 have become too
set in their ways, somewhat cranky, and largely unable to do general
housework. The most frequent objections of employers to young girl
domestic workers are: They are untrained and inexperienced; they are
unwilling to sleep in; they are saucy; and their interest in men
company causes them to neglect their work.
The older Negro women in domestic service, realizing that with
their advancing years their possibilities for employment become
less, often hesitate and even fail to give their correct ages when
applying at employment agencies for positions. For example, a New
York City agency registered a woman who gave her age as 34, but whose
written references, yellowed with age, showed that she had worked for
different members in one family for fifty years. Frequently an older
woman registrant when asked her age hesitates and ends by saying "just
say 'settled woman.'"
In addition to the age situation of Negroes engaged in domestic
service, the marital condition of female domestic workers furnishes
a perplexing problem for both their employers and themselves. The
testimony of employment agents relative to employers' most commonly
registered objections to hiring married women for domestic service
is: Married women take away food for the support of their families;
married women have so many responsibilities and problems in their own
homes they oftener than not go out to work with a weary body and a
disturbed mind; married women find it difficult to live and sleep on
employers' premises.
Besides these problems there is apparently a still more perplexing one
for the Negro domestic workers with children of their own or other
dependents, namely, how to provide proper care and protection for
their dependents while they are away from home at work, especially if
the hours are long. Day nurseries are often mentioned as a possible
solution for this particular problem, but they exist for Negroes in
very few cities of the South. Even in the District of Columbia with a
population of servants and waiters--servants largely Negroes--totaling
21,444, there is not one day nursery for Negro children. The other
alternative is to get some elderly woman to take care of a child.
The usual charge made by such a woman for a limited number of hours
during the day is from $5 to $6 a week, the mother furnishing food for
the child. With these two items and carfare deducted from a mother's
weekly wage of $9 there is little left for other necessities.
The problem of dependents manifests itself also among widowed and
divorced Negro women engaged in domestic service. The U. S. Employment
Office, Washington, D. C., registered 9,774 Negro women 15 years of
age and over for domestic service from January, 1920, to May, 1922.
Of this number 5,124 were single, 2,579 were married, 2,071 were
widowed or divorced. Of the widowed or divorced 2,056 had from 1 to
5 dependents; 79 had from 6 to 10 dependents. Although no record was
made of the number of breadwinners in each of these families, many of
these widows expressed their weight of responsibilities by referring
to the high cost of living when their children had no one to look to
for support but themselves.
Divorced domestic workers and also unmarried mothers constitute
marital groups that are not all together negligible. Three of the
divorced women sent from the Washington office had the added problem
of finding their husbands at their respective places of employment
after absences of 5, 2, and 2 years respectively. Among the 5,124
single women registered at the Washington office there were reported 9
unmarried mothers.
In the District of Columbia there is a Training School for delinquent
Negro girls, a large number of whom go into domestic service when
they are paroled. They are better trained than the average domestic
employee, but since the Training School requires them to keep their
young babies with them, it is difficult to place them in homes. If
they take a room and attempt to do day work they have the difficult
problem of getting someone to take care of their children.
The marital condition of 471 new applicants for domestic positions in
Indianapolis, Indiana, for 1922, is given in the following table:
_Showing marital condition of 471 women seeking work as domestic
servants--Indianapolis, Ind., 1922_
TABLE II
Widows 63
Separated from husbands 50
Married and living with husbands 238
Divorced 34
Single 85
Unmarried mothers 1
The large proportion of married persons in the table may be accounted
for, in part, by the fact that 51 per cent of the total number had
recently come into Indianapolis from the adjoining States of Kentucky
and Tennessee.
III. TURNOVER, TRAINING, AND EFFICIENCY OF NEGRO DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL
SERVICE WORKERS
The increase of 13,738,354, or 14.9 per cent, in the total population
of the United States during the last decade, and a decrease of 367,667
in the domestic and personal service occupations population increases
the possibilities of turnover. In 1890, the average tenure of service
of a domestic worker in the United States was less than one and
one-half years.[5] Ten years later the average length of service of
a Negro domestic worker in the seventh ward of Philadelphia was five
years less than one month.[6] Many of these workers perhaps had been
for a long time in the older families of Philadelphia. Figures for a
three-year period, from 1906 to 1908, show that the modal period of
service of the New York Negro domestic worker was at that time from
six to eleven months.[7] In 1914, among 104 unskilled Negro workers
of St. Louis--cooks, laundresses, porters, chambermaids, waiters,
scrubwomen, manual laborers, and the like--the greatest frequency
for length of service among the men was from one to three months,
and among the women from three to six months.[8] Six years later the
largest proportion of Negro domestic workers of Gainesville, Georgia,
showed a disposition to remain in one position less than three months,
while the next largest proportion remained in one position from three
to six months.[9]
Some concrete illustrations of the frequency of turnover may be
referred to as further evidence. Nearly two hundred different women
were sent out from the Springfield, Massachusetts, office for day work
in 1915. Two years later over 500 different workers were sent out from
that office, about 200 of whom were Negro women. Of these 167 white
women and 124 Negro women were placed with employers less than ten
times in 1917; 2 white and 4 Negro women were sent out from 41 to 50
times; 3 white and 1 Negro woman were placed fifty times during 1917.
In 1918, the Springfield office reported as having filled 4,000 places
with 1,000 women.[10]
In 1920 the United States Employment Office, Washington, D. C., placed
1,488 different women for day work, all of whom were Negroes except
one. Of these, 458, after being given permanent positions for every
day in the week, were referred again not over twelve times; 23 of them
were sent out over fifty times, and 5 of them over one hundred times
during the year. General housework was so unpopular during that year
that few would take it. Although the turnover in day work was greater
than that in any other specific employment handled by the domestic
service section of that office, the 164 cooks remained in one position
on an average of about three months.
There was, however, in the District of Columbia during the fall and
winter of 1920 a decrease in the rate and volume of turnover for Negro
day workers and hotel workers consequent upon the minimum wage law
which became effective for hotels and restaurants in the spring of
1920. Many Negro women displaced in the hotels turned to day work.
For this reason added to the normal increase during the first half of
1921, the number of day workers increased to 3,115. White workers did
not have to apply for day work because they could secure positions in
hotels and restaurants.
During an unemployment period which extended over the latter half of
1921 and the first half of 1922, when so many men were thrown out of
work, the day workers increased to 4,615. There were more day workers
than there were positions for them. Consequently the turnover in day
work decidedly decreased, but it increased in general housework. Many
who could not get a sufficient number of days' work to make ends meet
were forced to turn to general housework.
The difficulty of keeping an accurate record of the turnover in
general housework makes the value of figures on turnover in general
housework seem very questionable. However, the length of service of
1,000 general houseworkers sent out from the Washington office for the
latter half of 1921 and the first few months of 1922 gives a fairly
accurate picture of the situation at that time.
_Length of Service of 1,000 General Houseworkers, Washington, D. C.,
1921-22_
TABLE III
317 remained in one position 1 week or less.
582 remained in one position from one to three months.
101 remained in one position 4 months and over.
Some of the conditions of the turnover at that time are illustrated
by typical cases. One employer advertised for a general houseworker
without laundry, with the privilege of going at night, and with hours
off. Eleven domestic workers answered the advertisement in person,
and no two met at the house at the same time. The employer engaged
every one of them, to return to work the next morning. Every one
of them gave assurance of being there, but not one of them came.
Another employer with only two in family, very desirous of securing
a general houseworker, called up six different employment agencies,
each of which sent her a worker. Among the number there was one man.
The employer put every one of them to work, each in a different room,
with the idea of choosing the two best ones at the end of the day and
engaging them for permanent work--thus assuring herself of securing
one worker. She managed her plan, as she thought, very successfully,
but the next morning she did not have a single worker.
Employers' statements on reference blanks, and reports from employment
agencies indicate that the reasons generally given by domestic workers
for leaving positions are that they wish a change, or the hours are
too long, or the work is too hard, or the employer is too particular,
or they have no time off. Time off for domestic employees is no doubt
greatly limited. Negro domestic workers, however, proverbially take
Christmas Day and the Fourth of July off, giving such various excuses
for their absence as death in the family, automobile accidents, and
the like. Just after these two holidays, large employment agencies
handling Negro help are for the most part swamped with applicants.
To some extent turnover in domestic service is linked up with lack of
training and efficiency of domestic workers. Because of their great
need of domestic help, employers frequently engage persons who are so
utterly untrained that they cannot be retained. There is a tendency
on the part of employers to propose to a domestic worker that each
take the other on a week's trial. Domestic workers are inclined to
refuse such offers on the ground that they are looking for permanent
employment. This suggestion of trying out domestic workers leads
logically to the question of training and efficiency in domestic
service.
_Training of White Domestic and Personal Service Workers_
Some facts relative to the special opportunities for the training of
white household workers in England and in the United States may throw
some light on the problem of efficiency. In England, following the
World War and under the ministry of reconstruction, there was created
a women's advisory committee to study the domestic service problem.
Each of the four sub-committees appointed made a report. Among the
advisory committee's final recommendations for getting the work of the
nation's homes done satisfactorily and reducing waste, were technical
training for domestic help and fixed standards of qualifications
for them. This committee reported that in 1914 there were only ten
domestic service schools in England and Wales, and four of these were
in the London area. During the year of 1922 courses of three months'
duration were given at some technical institutions in England in all
branches of household work and management. This training enabled women
to take the better posts in daily or residential work. Training in
cooking and catering could be had at any technical college for three
or more months as required.
To help meet the serious unemployment situation the Central Committee
on Women's Training and Employment in cooperation with the Ministry
of Labor set up homecraft training centers in districts where
unemployment was most noticeable. At these centers a course of
training was given for about three months, such as would enable women
to take posts in domestic service at the end of the course. These
classes were most successful. By August, 1922, about 10,000 women had
received the training and the courses were still continued. These
courses were given to women and girls between the ages of 16 and 35
upon their signing an agreement to be punctual in attendance, to
do their best in making the classes successful, and stating their
willingness to enter domestic service after receiving their training.
In the United States, in 1900, there were more illiterate persons in
domestic and personal service than in any other field of employment
except agriculture. The number of agricultural colleges in the
different States for the purpose of developing improved farming and
farmers has increased since that time, and the Federal Government
farm demonstration agents are actually teaching the citizens on the
plantations where they live and work. Facilities for the training of
domestic help, however, have received little attention from State or
Federal Government, and private enterprise in this field has been very
limited.
Just twenty years ago the Home Economics Committee of the Association
of Collegiate Alumnae of the United States, through the inspiration
of Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer and Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, undertook an
experiment for studying at first hand the problems of household labor.
Among the disabilities in domestic service regarded as fundamental
causes of the disfavor in which it was held, was the low grade of
intelligence and skill available among domestic service workers. This
household aid company committee opened a training center and applied
educational tests to its candidates and undertook to give a course of
six weeks' training to each aid before she was sent out to work. The
number of aids taking the training was small. Mainly because of a lack
of funds, however, the experiment was given up after a trial of two
years. Prior to that time the civic club of Philadelphia attempted to
standardize the work and wages of domestic workers in that city.
Nearly twenty years later, a committee on household assistants was
organized in New York City by the United States Employment Service.
The committee succeeded in planning a household occupations course to
be given at the Washington Irving High School, and made efforts to
advertise the course; but since no one registered for it the committee
concluded that the matter would have to be taken up and pushed by
employers before it could succeed.[11]
Some of these efforts, however, have met with a measure of success.
The Bureau of Household Occupations of the Housewives' League of
Providence, R. I., organized in November, 1918, has conducted very
successful training classes for domestic workers. No meals or lodging
are to be furnished the household attendants of the Bureau. The
Bureau of Occupations under the auspices of the Housewives' League
of Hartford, Connecticut, has given its training courses through the
generosity of some of its members. One member taught cooking, another
taught waiting table, another laundry work. Classes were taught in the
homes of some of the members with much success.
_Training of Negro Domestic Workers_
Available data shows that opportunities for the special training
of Negro domestic workers have been even less than those for white
domestic workers. During the latter quarter of the 19th century
Mrs. L. J. Coppin, of Philadelphia, maintained a small home for
the training of the Negro domestic workers of Philadelphia. In the
comparatively few social settlements for Negroes there is meagre
opportunity for training in domestic service. The Domestic Efficiency
Association of Baltimore, Maryland, an organization of employers,
has announced its plans for opening a training school for white and
Negro domestic workers. This Association maintained in 1921 and 1922
a training school for Negro domestic help, in which special lessons
could be given or general training for one month or more. A rate of $5
a week for board, lodging, and training was charged. If an applicant
had no money the Domestic Efficiency Association advanced it on her
signing an agreement to secure her position through the Association
when ready for it, and to repay the debt out of her wages at the rate
of at least $2.50 a week.
The domestic science training given in the public schools may be a
small factor in the efficiency of Negro domestic workers, but most of
the permanent domestic workers do not go beyond the fifth grade in
school and thus do not go far enough to get an appreciable amount of
domestic science training. Negro workers who go through the high or
normal schools do not enter permanently into domestic service. This
statement is based on the data indicated by the permanent occupations
of 606 Negro graduates of the Sumner High School, St. Louis,
Missouri, of 305 graduates of Miner Normal School, Washington, in the
District of Columbia, of 15 graduates of the Gainesville, Georgia,
public schools 1917-1919;[12] and on data for students applying at
the Washington, in the District of Columbia, and the Indianapolis
Employment Agencies. Tables IV and V below set forth these facts.
_Occupations of 606 Negro High School Graduates, Sumner High School,
St. Louis, Mo., 1895-1911_[13]
TABLE IV
Occupation Number
Those engaged in, or prepared for, teaching 288
Entered college 49
Clerical work 43
Postoffice clerks 30
Entered business 4
Mechanics 17
Women at home or married 120
Miscellaneous 32
Unknown 23
Although Tables IV and V direct one's attention to the limited fields
of employment for Negro high school graduates, especially so since
clerical and mechanical work, business and professional service, must
be engaged in almost wholly among Negroes, yet few if any of the 911
graduates have entered domestic service. The young women graduates
of the Gainesville, Georgia, schools 1917-19, with the exception of
three, entered higher institutions of learning.
In Washington, in the District of Columbia, during the academic year
1920-22 there were among the 9,976 applicants for domestic work, 17
male and 159 female students who had attended or were attending high
school; 75 female normal school students; 13 male and 126 female
college students. Also in Indianapolis, in 1922, 73 female high
school students and 12 female college students applied for domestic
service. These large numbers of high school, normal school, and
college students seek domestic service mainly for after-school hours,
Saturdays, Sundays, summer months, and temporarily for earning money
to continue their education, or until they can find other employment.
_Occupations of 305 Negro Graduates of Miner Normal School,
Washington, D. C., 1913-1922_
TABLE V
Occupation Number
Teaching in Washington, D. C.:
Elementary 207
Kindergarten 50
Domestic Science 4
Domestic Art 3
Manual Arts 1
Drawing 1
Music 1
Ungraded 1
Teaching in Maryland 8
Teaching in Virginia 2
Teaching in North Carolina 1
Teaching in South Carolina 1
Teaching in New York 1
Substitute teachers in Washington, D. C. 2
Students 5
Government Service 7
Housekeepers 5
Printers 1
Private Music Teachers 1
Physicians 1
Insurance 1
Y. W. C. A. 1
Table VI shows the grades on leaving school of 8,147 Negro domestic
workers--men and women--of the Washington, D. C., office; and Table
VII shows grades on leaving school of 471 Negro domestic workers,
not separated by sex, of an Indianapolis Employment Office conducted
by Flanner House in that city. Each of these workers was personally
interviewed by the agent at each respective office. The reported
grade of each on leaving school was placed on an application card
which was filed for reference. The application cards were filled out
solely on the testimony of the applicants. The agent in the Washington
office handling the women did not ordinarily register men except as
man and wife applied at the same time, or a woman sent her husband to
the agent, or a special employer asked the agent to select male help,
or teachers in the Negro schools sent boys and men who were in search
of work. Therefore, the number of men from the Washington office for
whom grades are given is comparatively small.
In examining Tables VI and VII below one must take into consideration
several factors. In the first place, 81.2 per cent of the Washington
applicants and 73.9 per cent of the Indianapolis applicants were born
in the South where the standard is not so high as in the North; and
many of these applicants attended school in the rural districts of the
South where the schools were not standardized, and only a few schools
had any domestic science instruction. Then, too, a large proportion of
them left school some years ago when all of the grades or groups of a
school were taught by one teacher in one room.
Those persons who could not read or write seemed to feel their
illiteracy very keenly. Many of them offered excuses by saying that
the "white folks raised" them; or their parents died and they had to
help the other children; or they were "sickly," and the like. Those
who had never been to school but could read and write a little were
listed as being in the first grade. One applicant said that she had
never been through any grade but she could read and write and go
anywhere in the city she wished to go. Another one, an elderly woman,
expressed her regrets because she never had a chance to go to school,
but she had learned to read and write so that she could sign her name
instead of simply "touching the pen" when she was transacting her
business.
_Grades on Leaving School of 7,975 Female and 172 Male Negro Domestic
Workers from the U. S. Employment Service, Washington, D. C.,
1920-1922_
TABLE VI
Male Female
Illiterate 8 418
1st Grade 5 244
2d Grade 7 436
3d Grade 9 842
4th Grade 17 1,073
5th Grade 31 1,417
6th Grade 28 1,237
7th Grade 25 998
8th Grade 42 1,310
_Grades on Leaving School of 387 Negro Domestic Workers, Irrespective
of Sex, Indianapolis, Ind., 1922_
TABLE VII
Illiterate 21
1st Gr. 7
2d Gr. 11
3d Gr. 22
4th Gr. 44
5th Gr. 63
6th Gr. 51
7th Gr. 47
8th Gr. 120
The figures show that of a total of 7,975 female applicants for
domestic work in Washington, D. C., 4,430, or 55.5 per cent, had
received school training in the sixth grade or below; leaving only
29.9 per cent who had seventh or eighth grade training. Of the 387
applicants for domestic service in Indianapolis, 168, or 43.3 per
cent, had received school training up to the fifth grade or below;
and 219, or 56.7 per cent, had been to the sixth grade or below,
leaving 43.3 per cent who had been in the seventh or eighth grade.
The larger proportions of those from higher grades in Indianapolis
may be accounted for by the lesser opportunity in other occupations
as compared with Washington, and by the smaller number of applicants
involved. In short, domestic service as a regular occupation does not
attract and hold Negro workers of the higher grades of educational
training and intelligence.
In order to understand exactly what is meant by saying that
consideration of certain factors must be taken into account in any
attempt to formulate some idea of the educational status of the rank
and file domestic worker reckoned by his grade when he left school,
some letters, typical of the educational equipment among the 9,774
domestic workers (applicants), should be read. These letters were
written to the agent in the Washington, D. C., office by 5th grade
domestic workers.[14]
Many of these domestic workers also showed their lack of training by
their inability to figure out their weekly wages at the rate of $40,
45, or $50 per month. Such inability often caused them to feel and
say that their employers were "cheaters." To a considerable number of
them, $40 a month meant $10 a week, and vice versa; $45 a month meant
$11.25 a week, and $50 a month meant $12.50 a week. They generally
secured their pay twice a month--the first and the fifteenth. However,
such an arrangement did not seem to clarify matters, since they
thought of four weeks as making a month.
Then comes the question of the efficiency of Negro domestic workers.
In Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Washington,
D. C., agents find that employers of domestic labor, like other
employers, do not like to write down their grievances, but many of
them do make complaints to the agents over the telephone about the
inefficiency of domestic help. Agents in Detroit and Indianapolis
state that Negro domestic workers from the South--many of them from
the farms and untrained, unaccustomed to Northern methods of domestic
work--find it difficult to give satisfaction. The consensus of
opinion of eleven white and Negro agents in New York City was that
with respect to efficiency there are three distinct types of domestic
workers in New York City. In the first place, comes the West Indian,
who is unaccustomed to domestic work, and therefore unable to convince
himself that he is on that plane. He makes a more or less inefficient
domestic worker. Then there is the New York Negro who has difficulty
in adjusting himself to domestic duties. The southern Negro, however,
a decidedly different sort of laborer, makes a more efficient domestic
worker than either of the other two types.
Opinions elsewhere also vary. There was a migration of Negro women
domestic workers from Georgia to Springfield, Massachusetts, in
1916-1917. Many of these women were very satisfactory employees and
compared favorably with northern born Negro women domestic workers
of that locality, according to the _11th Annual Report of the
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics_. In the United States Employment
Office, Washington, D. C., where all sorts and conditions of domestic
workers were handled, reports from employers on the efficiency of the
new workers from the South indicated that they were unaccustomed to
modern methods of housework and were less efficient than northern born
workers.
In any attempt to rate the efficiency of Negro domestic workers by
verbal testimonials and written references from their employers or
by wages received or length of service period of the workers, due
consideration must be given to factors beyond the workers' control.
Some of these factors are differences in the standards of efficiency
in the many homes and the temperament of employers together with the
attitude of some employers toward Negroes generally. For example,
occasionally, a former employer, in sympathy with the struggles of
Negroes and not wishing to hinder an unsatisfactory worker from
securing another position, writes for her a letter of recommendation.
Sometimes another employer, because of misunderstanding of some sort
between her and the worker, refuses to give any reference whatever.
In 1890, 57 per cent of 1,005 housekeepers representing the whole
United States found more or less difficulty in securing efficient
help. This probably was an underestimate of the true condition.[15] In
1901, out of 1,106 domestic workers from all sections of the United
States, 34 per cent were rated excellent; 37.4 per cent good; 24.8
per cent fair; 3.8 per cent poor. Although these figures indicate
that 96.2 per cent of the total were between excellent and fair, the
Commission's report in summing up the matter states that according to
the testimony of employers of domestic labor and of employment agents,
the character of the service rendered by domestic laborers is in a
large proportion of cases unsatisfactory. It further states that the
quality of men's work is about the same as that of women's work.[16]
In New York City, employment agencies send reference blanks to former
employers of domestic workers to be filled out and returned.[17] These
references are kept on file as a record of the domestic worker's
capability, sobriety and honesty. From 1906 to 1909 efficiency
ratings taken from such blanks for 902 Negro domestic and personal
service workers were as follows: 25.6 per cent very capable; 10.2 per
cent fairly capable; 2.2 per cent inefficient, and 2.0 per cent not
stated.[18] One employment agency in this city made 304 placements of
Negro women domestic workers during January, 1923. According to those
workers' references from their former employers 93.3 per cent were
capable or fairly capable and honest. This high degree of efficiency
among domestic workers from this one office is due probably to the
fact that this office with its limited staff of secretaries makes
no attempt to handle the evidently inexperienced workers. The other
employment agencies in New York and Brooklyn visited in 1923 spoke
favorably of the quality of service rendered by domestic workers in
these cities, according to their reports from employers.
Opinions of employers are not conclusive evidence of the efficiency
or inefficiency of workers, but they throw considerable light upon
the question. Written references are more or less held in disfavor by
the Washington, D. C., employers of domestic labor because they feel
that domestic workers sometimes write their own references. This is
true to a limited extent. Many of the workers come from small towns
and rural sections where the employers of domestic labor do not use
elegant stationery, the best English, and the most correct spelling
in writing references for domestic workers who leave for the cities.
Such references do domestic workers coming to Washington, D. C., more
harm than good.
However, domestic workers are more and more seeking written references
on leaving their places of employment because they are beginning to
realize that such are generally required by employers. Often a former
employer has moved away from the city, is in Europe, or has died, when
the domestic worker needs most to refer to her. A prospective employer
usually doubts that such an excuse, if given, is true. Of course, some
workers do try to take advantage in this way, but most of them are not
so unwise.
Types of written and oral testimonials of employers of domestic labor
in Washington, D. C., are also informing.[19] In cases where three
or more employers testified to the efficiency or inefficiency of a
worker, the word "efficient," "inefficient," or "poor" was written
across the bottom of his application card. The following table in some
measure represents in detail the character of service reported to the
United States Employment Service, Domestic Section.
_Summary of Testimonials of Former Employers of 9,976 Wage Earners
Engaged in Domestic Personal Service, Washington, D. C., January
1920-May 1922_
==============================================================
TABLE VIII| Efficient |Fairly Efficient| Inefficient
|-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------
| No. | Per ct.| No. | Per ct.| No. | Per ct.
-----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------
_Male_ | 90 | 44.6 | 94 | 46.5 | 11 | 19.4
_Female_ | 3,008 | 30.8 | 4,543 | 46.5 | 1,892 | .05
-----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------
_Total_ | 3,098 | 37.7 | 4,637 | 46.5 | 1,903 | 9.7
-----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------
_No Report_
No. Per Cent.
_Male_ 7 .03
_Female_ 331 .03
_Total_ 338 .03
In this table 44.6 per cent of the males as over against 30.8 per
cent of the females are reported as being efficient, while 19.4 per
cent of the females and only 0.05 per cent of the males are listed
as inefficient. This should not lead to the conclusion that the male
Negro domestic workers of Washington, D. C., were more efficient than
the female Negro domestic workers of that city, since the 202 male
domestic workers do not represent the rank and file. They represent
men of family responsibilities, and students working their way through
high school and college. Both of these groups had a more or less
definite responsibility and aim in doing domestic work and therefore
were more willing, at least for a time, to accommodate themselves to
conditions obtaining in it. The office received no report concerning
.03 per cent of the workers. Occasionally both employer and employee
were so well pleased with each other that neither was heard from
unless the office in its follow-up work discovered the happy situation.
The opinion of employers that 19.4 per cent of 9,773 Negro female
domestic workers of Washington, D. C., were reported inefficient does
not, without other data, justify this as a scientific conclusion.
Some typical examples of their inefficiency are interesting.[20] The
inefficiency is due in large measure to pure ignorance which for
the most part is the sequel to lack of opportunity and training. For
example, the older type cook, who cannot read and write, finds it
difficult, if not impossible, to carry all the different modern salad
and dessert combinations in her memory and cannot supplement her
instructions by the use of literature on domestic science.
Employment agencies in Chicago in 1923, moreover, have hardly told
the whole truth in giving the following figures on the efficiency of
200 female domestic workers and 200 male domestic workers: _Women_,
satisfactory 175, or 87.5 per cent; unsatisfactory 10, or 5.0 per
cent; neither satisfactory nor wholly unsatisfactory 15, or 7.5 per
cent. _Men_, satisfactory 125, or 62.5 per cent; unsatisfactory 45, or
22.5 per cent; neither 30, or 15 per cent.
Efficient domestic workers apparently regret that they are in an
occupational group representing such a high degree of ignorance and
inefficiency. They sometimes take pride in saying that they have
never worked for poor people. Such a class of workers is represented
by a Washington, D. C., domestic worker who gave as her former
employers Mrs. John Hays Hammond, Mrs. Arthur Glasgow, Senator
Beveridge, Senator Guggenheim, and President Wilson. She took pride in
the fact that she could even show anyone a piece of the president's
wedding cake.
Honesty in domestic service is so closely associated with efficiency
that practically no reference for a domestic worker is complete
without some statement about this qualification. In 1890 Miss Salmon
raised a serious question with regard to the honesty of Negro domestic
workers in the South. Her question was based on answers received from
schedules sent to employers of that section.[21] In 1901, 92.6 per
cent of 583 domestic labor employers representing the whole United
States testified that their employees were honest and responsible.
Most employment bureaus were also agreed upon the general honesty of
domestic workers.[22] In 1899 the Philadelphia Negro domestic worker
of the Seventh Ward was described as purloining food left from the
table but as having the balance in his favor in regard to honesty.[23]
In 1906 opinions of former employers of 902 Negro wage-earners in
domestic and personal service in New York City were that 91.3 per cent
were honest; 7.1 per cent were either honest or fairly so; 0.6 per
cent were dishonest, and no statement was given for 1.0 per cent.[24]
Out of 9,638 Negro domestic workers reported upon for Washington, D.
C, between the years of 1920-1922, only .2 per cent were rated by
their former employers with assurance as being dishonest; 90.4 per
cent were listed as being honest. There were various answers for the
9.4 per cent. Some did not remain long enough to have judgment passed
upon them. Others were in a doubtful class but with no proof against
them, and the like. This low percentage of dishonesty eliminates
the tradition of taking food except in seven cases. The seven cases
of food taking are included because they were directly reported and
regarded by the employers as dishonest. Some employers, according
to their own statement of the case, do not regard taking food left
from the table as stealing, although such is against the will of the
employer. According to the southern tradition of a low wage and taking
food to piece it out, domestic workers are still virtually expected to
follow this custom.
200 women and 200 men domestic workers of Chicago have the following
record for honesty: _Women_, honest, 199, or 99.5 per cent; dishonest,
1, or 0.5 per cent; _men_, honest, 197, or 98.5 per cent; dishonest,
3, or 1.5 per cent.
Employment agents in other leading cities already mentioned have very
little complaint against the honesty of Negro domestic workers except
in the matter of taking food. Their explanation of the psychology of
such dishonesty is as given above.
IV. WAGES, HOURS, AND SPECIFIC OCCUPATIONS
While wages and efficiency are in some degree related in domestic
service, there is the custom of paying the "going wage" for specific
occupations, irrespective of efficiency. Wages vary, of course,
in different sections of the country and in different localities.
Occasionally attempts are made to grade such laborers. One employment
bureau, in Indianapolis, for example, divides its day workers into
grades A and B with respective wages of 30 cents and 25 cents an hour
for each grade.
Two other questions current in the problem of wages in domestic
service, both of which seem to be slowly lending themselves to
adjustment, are the payment of weekly wages instead of bi-weekly or
monthly wages, and equal pay for equal work irrespective of whether
a man or a woman, a Negro or a white employee, does the work.
Bi-monthly payment in domestic service has come to be the custom due
largely to the convenience of the employer, and to the possibility of
weekly wages increasing the turnover. A domestic worker often leaves
unceremoniously as soon as he gets his first pay. However, workers
claim that the custom of bi-weekly or monthly pay inconveniences them
since they cannot arrange to pay their rent, or purchase clothing and
other necessities on that basis.
The question of equal pay for Negro domestic workers does not enter
the domestic service wage problem of the South because Negroes
pre-empt this field in that section. Although the scarcity of
domestic labor seems to be settling this matter in other sections of
the country, it still persists in some measure. Twenty-five years
ago Miss Eaton discovered that Negro butlers on Rittenhouse Square,
Philadelphia, received on an average $36.90 a month, while white
butlers were getting from $40 to $45 a month.[25]
In the fall of 1921, during the period of labor depression, eleven of
the Washington, D. C., clubs and expensive boarding houses attempted
to make a change from Negro to white chambermaid-waitresses at an
increase of $10 a month for each worker. The four clubs that succeeded
in making the change discharged their white chambermaid-waitresses
after one week each and re-employed Negroes at the old wage of $35
a month. One of the successful employers felt that, inasmuch as the
white servants were no more satisfactory than the Negro workers, she
had just as well keep the Negroes and pay them less.
When the minimum wage law for women and minors of Washington, D. C.,
recently declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court,
went into effect, practically all of the hotels and restaurants in
that city immediately discharged Negro workers and took on white ones.
Some of the managers told the agent at the United States Employment
Bureau that they were making the change because white servants were
more efficient than Negro workers. Other managers, some of whom had
used Negro labor for more than fifteen years, simply said that $16.50
a week was too much to pay Negroes, and, therefore, wished white
workers instead. The few hotels and restaurants that retained Negroes
as a rule put them on a much shorter working week than 48 hours, thus
reducing their pay.
Boarding houses and institutions such as private schools, sanatoria,
and the like, that offer excuses and fail to pay workers should
be mentioned in this connection. The manager of one such boarding
house in Washington, D. C., was sued by a worker who won her case
because other unpaid laborers testified against the manager. The
superintendent of a small private school in that city--also among
such paymasters--had repeatedly been reported to the Minimum Wage
Board which forced her to pay the Negro women day workers. After a few
months of such experience she changed her help and began to employ
men, over whom the Minimum Wage Board had no jurisdiction.
The wages of Negro domestic workers today are considerably higher than
they were in past decades, as is shown by a comparison of figures
in past periods for the Continental United States and for selected
cities with figures in 1920-1923. For the twenty-five years prior to
the World War there had been only a slight wage increase in domestic
and personal service. During the World War there was a considerable
increase in wages for both male and female domestic workers, the
increase for the latter being larger than that for the former. Since
the World War wages for such workers have fallen to some extent but
not anywhere near the pre-war level.
The following tables, with one exception, show the wage changes at
different ten-year periods over a range of 30 years. In Table IX the
figures from the Boston Employment Bureau illustrate the fact that
the average weekly wages for female domestic workers of Boston were
decidedly higher than elsewhere in the country. This table also makes
clear the fact that wages for men were considerably higher than those
for women.
_Average Daily and Weekly Wages in Selected Domestic Service
Occupations, 1889-1890_[26]
TABLE IX
Occupation Weekly Wages for Weekly Wages for
the United States Boston, Mass.
_Women_
Cooks $3.72 $4.45
Cooks and laundresses 3.39
Chambermaids 3.39 3.86
Waitresses 3.19 3.7
Second girls 3.16 3.7
Chambermaids and waitresses 3.10
Parlor maids 3
General servants 2.91 3
_Men_
Coachmen $7.84
Coachmen and gardeners 6.54
Butlers 6.11
Cooks 6.08
_Women_
Daily Wages
Laundresses .82
Seamstresses 1.01
_Men_
Gardeners 1.33
Chore-men .87
Table X below gives average wages for selected domestic service
occupations in the United States for a decade later than the figures
of Table IX. The slight variation in the figures of Table X from those
of Table IX may be due to probable error incident to the collection
of the data or to some other factor. The indications of these two
tables, however, with ten years intervening between the compilation of
the data, are that wages probably had changed very little, if any.
_Average Weekly Wages for Selected Domestic Service Occupations in the
United States, 1900_[27]
TABLE X
Occupation Average Weekly Wage
_Women_
General houseworkers $3.28
Cooks 3.95
Waitresses 3.43
Other specialists 3.54
_Men_
For all domestic service occupations 6.03
_Women_
For all domestic service occupations 3.51
In comparison with the two preceding tables, Table XI below gives
wages for domestic service in Philadelphia for about the same period.
The weekly wages range higher than for the country as a whole. The
lower wages in the southern border and middle sections of the United
States have reduced the average for the country below that for this
eastern city in which also special conditions may have operated to
bring such wages above the general level.
_Average Weekly Wages of Negro Domestic Workers of Philadelphia,
1896-1897_[27]
TABLE XI
Occupation Average Weekly Wage
_Women_
General worker $3.24
Janitress 4.06
Chambermaid-laundress 3.58
Cook-laundress 4.00
Laundress 4.04
Lady's maid 3.63
Chambermaid and waitress 3.17
Waitress 3.31
_Women_
Chambermaid 3.17
Child's nurse 3.35
Errand girl 2.00
Cook 4.02
_Men_
General worker 5.38
Valet 8.00
Cook 6.17
Waiter 6.14
Coachman 8.58
Butler 8.24
Bellboy 2.61
Table XII which follows is drawn from _The Negro at Work in New York
City_, and shows the modal wage groups for specific occupations in
domestic and personal service, New York City, 1906-1909. Although
data for New York City are not typical of the entire country, these
are the only available figures for this period, and they may indicate
the trend of wages in domestic personal service in that section.
In comparison with the preceding Table of Wages in Philadelphia,
the increase in wages in New York City may be due to differences of
conditions in the two cities rather than to any general increase or
decrease in wages.
_Modal Wage Groups for Selected Occupations, 1906-1909_[28]
TABLE XII
Occupation Range of Modal Wage
_Female_
Switchboard operator $4.00-4.99
Chambermaid 4.00-4.99
Chambermaid-cook 5.00-5.99
Chambermaid-laundress 5.00-5.99
Chambermaid-waitress 4.00-4.99
Kitchenmaid 4.00-4.99
Cook 5.00-5.99
Cook and general worker 5.00-5.99
Cook-waitress 4.00-4.99
Cook-laundress 5.00-5.99
Errand girl Less than 4.00
General houseworker 4.00-4.99
Laundress 4.00-4.99
Lady's maid 4.00-4.99
Parlor maid 4.00-4.99
Nurse Less than 3.00
Pantry girl 4.00-4.99
Waitress 4.00-4.99
Dishwasher 4.00-4.99
_Male_
Bellman Less than 4.00
Butler-cook 5.00-5.99
Waiter 5.00-5.99
Butler 5.00-5.99
Coachman 5.00-5.99
Cook 5.00-5.99
Elevator operator 5.00-5.99
Furnaceman 5.00-5.99
Gardener 4.00-4.99
Hallman and doorman 4.00-4.99
Houseman 5.00-5.99
Janitor 5.00-5.99
The last decade embraces the World War when wages in domestic and
personal service were at their maximum. The following tables for
selected cities present graphically the increase in wages for male and
female domestic workers and the slight increase in wages of females
over that of males. These tables also show how wages vary in different
sections of the country. Although these figures are for 1920, and the
first quarter of 1921, the decline in wages generally did not begin
until the fourth quarter of 1920, and it was not so pronounced in
domestic and personal service as in many other occupational groups,
and was scarcely appreciable in domestic service until the middle of
1921.
Tables XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII indicate that although wages in
domestic and personal service among Negroes have fallen somewhat, they
are still far above those of pre-war times. They also show that since
the War there has been considerable decline in rates paid men for day
work in New York City and Washington, D. C., but very little decrease
in the rates for women day workers in either of the two cities.
Any analysis of these tables must take into consideration that female
day workers in the cities included in the tables receive their carfare
and at least one meal; cooks, general houseworkers, waiters and
waitresses, housemen, mothers' helpers, some kitchen help, part-time
workers and nurses receive their meals and, in many instances, their
quarters.
In this table wages for clerical workers, factory workers, laborers,
truckers, butchers, etc., are given in comparison with the wages of
domestic and personal service workers. For example: a stenographer
receives $18 a week, while a cook receives from $18 to $25 a week and
board; a factory girl receives from 25 cents to 30 cents an hour,
while a day worker in domestic service receives $22 a week, and a cook
receives $25 a week and board.
_Weekly Wages of 118 Negro Men in Domestic Service by Specified
Occupations, New York City, 1920-1921_[29]
TABLE XIII
Occupations Number Employed Weekly Wages
Cleaners 3 $ .50 per hour
5 3.00 per day
Cooks 2 15.00-17.99
3 18.00-19.99
3 25.00 or more
Dishwashers 2 10.00-12.99
4 13.00-14.99 and meals
1 15.00-17.99
11 18.00-21.99
1 26.00
Doormen 1 38.50 and meals
3 (monthly) 40.00-79.00
Elevator operators (apt. house) 1 under 10.00
1 10.00-12.99
11 15.00-17.99
1 18.00-21.99
Elevator and switchboard operators 6 14.00
6 17.00
1 18.00
Firemen (apt. house) 1 3.00 per day
1 20.00-24.99
1 20.00 and board
1 30.00
Janitors (apt. house) 1 (monthly) 20.00 and apartment
1 (monthly) 30.00 and keep
1 (monthly) 40.00 and keep
1 (monthly) 60.00 and keep
Assistant janitors (apt. house) 1 10.00-12.99
1 15.00 and room
Porters-apartment houses 1 16.00
6 18.00-20.99
Waiters 3 under 10.00
18 (exclusive
of tips) 15.00-17.99
6 18.00-20.99
7 10.00-11.99
_Range of Weekly Wages of 754 Negro Women in Domestic and Personal
Service, Specified by Occupations, New York City, 1920-1921_[30]
TABLE XIV
Occupations Number Employed Wages
General houseworkers 5 under $ 9.00
706 10.00-18.00
Chambermaids 1 under 9.00
Chambermaids-waitresses 7 12.00-18.00
Cooks 6 15.00-21.00
Kitchen helpers 8 12.00-17.00
2 under 9.00
Mothers' helpers and Nurses 9 10.00-15.00
Nurses (practical) 3 15.00-21.00
Waitresses 5 12.00-14.00
_Range of Daily and Weekly Wages of 1,565 Male and Female Negro
Domestic and Personal Service Workers, Washington, D. C., 1920_
=================================================================
Table XV | | |
| Number | Daily | Weekly
Occupations |Employed| Wages | Wages
---------------------------------+--------+---------+------------
Male | | |
Butlers | 7 | | 12.00-15.00
Chauffeurs | 3 | | 14.00-15.00
Chauffer-butler | 13 | | 14.00-15.00
Elevator Operator | 6 | | 9.00-10.00
Janitors and housemen | 34 | | 10.00-12.00
Cooks | 21 | | 18.00-20.00
Furnace and yardman | 10 | | 7.00-8.00
Waiters | 11 | | 9.00-10.00
Dishwashers | 12 | | 9.00-12.00
Day Workers | 6 | 4.00 |
| | |
Female | | |
General houseworkers | 49 | | 10.00-12.00
Cooks | 83 | | 10.00-20.00
Maids | 86 | | 9.00-10.00
Waitresses | 112 | | 9.00-10.00
Personal maids | 5 | | 10.00-12.00
Kitchen maids | 40 | | 8.00-9.00
Mothers helpers | 75 | | 5.00-7.00
Pantry maid | 62 | | 10.00-12.00
Permanent laundresses | 3 | | 12.00-14.00
Cook-laundresses | 81 | | 10.00-12.00
Chambermaid-waitresses | 240 | | 9.00-10.00
Janitress | 7 | | 9.00-10.00
Elevator operator | 82 | | 8.00-9.00
Parlor maids | 21 | | 9.00-10.00
Day workers | 362 |2.50-3.00|
Nurse maid | 91 | | 8.00-9.00
Part-time workers | 51 | | 6.00-7.00
----------------------------------------------------------------
_Weekly Wages of 200 Male and 200 Female Negro Domestic Workers
of Chicago by Occupations_, 1923
TABLE XVI
Occupations Number Enrolled Weekly Wages
_Male_
Factory 15 22.00
Waiter 8 15.00 and board
Bus Boys 6 10.00 and board
Elevator 1 14.00
Cook 10 25.00 and board
Cleaning 11 (per hour) .50
Wringer 2 20.00
Fireman 2 24.00
Shoe shiners 3 (per day) 2.00 and tips
Butchers 6 (per hour) .47 and up
Houseman 4 (per month) 70.00 room and
board
Dishwasher 43 17.00 and board
Porter 10 20.00-25.00
Trucker 25 22.00
Laborers 54 (per hour) .45-.60
_Average Daily and Weekly Wage of Negro Domestic Workers by Occupation
for Selected Cities_, 1923
==================================================================
TABLE XVII | Average Wage By Occupation
|------------------------------------------------
| |General | | |
| Day | House | Cooks | Maids | Waitresses
|Workers |Workers | | |
-----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+------------
New York | $3.80 | $13.85 | $16.50 | $13.00 | $7 and tips
Philadelphia | 2.75 | 12.50 | 13.50 | 9.50 | $7 and tips
Baltimore | 2.75 | 9.50 | 11.00 | 8.50 | $7 and tips
Washington, D. C.| 2.00 | 9.25 | 10.75 | 8.50 | $8 and tips
Detroit | 3.35 | 9.50 | 11.00 | 9.00 | $7 and tips
Indianapolis | 2.25 | 10.00 | 13.50 | 9.00 | $7 and tips
Boston | 3.00 | 12.00 | 12.50 | 10.50 | 10.50
Los Angeles | 3.80 | | 15.00 | 11.50 | 8.00
Montgomery | 1.75 | 7.00 | | 6.50 |
Nashville | 1.75 | 7.00 | | 6.50 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================
TABLE XVII |Average Wage By Occupation
(cont.) |-----------------------------
|Part-time | Mothers' | Child
| Workers | Helpers | Nurses
-----------------+----------+----------+-------
New York | $8.00 | $11.00 | $11.00
Philadelphia | 7.50 | 8.25 | 8.25
Baltimore | 6.00 | 5.50 | 6.00
Washington, D. C.| 7.50 | 8.00 | 8.00
Detroit | 9.50 | 9.50 | 10.00
Indianapolis | | 8.00 | 13.50
Boston | | |
Los Angeles | | |
Montgomery | | |
Nashville | | |
----------------------------------------------
==================================================================
Male | Day |Chauffeurs | Cooks |Janitors |Dishwashers
|laborers | | | |
------------+---------+-----------+--------+---------+------------
New York | $3.00 | $25.00 | $20.00 | $9.50 | $12.00
Boston | 4.00 | 25.00 | 22.50 | 20.00 | 12.00
Philadelphia| 3.80 | 25.00 | 20.00 | 15.00 | 9.50
Baltimore | 3.50 | 18.00 | 21.00 | 15.00 | 9.50
------------------------------------------------------------------
===================================================
Male | Bell | Waiters |Porters | Elevator
(cont.) | men | | | operators
------------+-------+---------+--------+-----------
New York | $9.50 | $10.00 | $15.00 | 15.00
Boston | 13.50 | 12.00 | 15.00 | 15.00
Philadelphia| 6.50 | 7.00 | 15.00 | 15.00
Baltimore | 7.87 | 9.30 | 15.00 | 9.30-15.00
---------------------------------------------------
The table above shows that wages in the specified occupations in
different sections of the country, for the most part, do not vary
very much. Wages for males are given for only four cities because the
wages for males in the other cities mentioned, with two exceptions,
are about the same as in these four cities. In addition to money wages
received for day work, women get their carfare and often one or two
meals, while men receive only the money wages. Elevator operators in
Baltimore hotels are paid from $40 to $50 a month instead of $15 a
week as in apartment houses because more tips are given in hotels.
Although in consideration of the present rate of wages the total
annual wage paid for domestic and personal service in the homes of the
United States must be large, there seems to be no available data on
this point. However, an estimate has been made of the total quarterly
wages for 1920 and 1921 and the first quarter of 1922 paid domestic
and personal service employees in the hotels and similar institutions
of Continental United States. The range of quarterly wages in such
institutions for 1920 was 666 to 700 millions of dollars; for 1921,
660 to 678 millions of dollars; and for 1922, 643 millions of dollars.
The maximum cyclical decline in the wages of such workers for that
period of time was 8.15 per cent.
Even though seven other groups of occupations had a smaller percentage
cyclical decline in wages following the war than public domestic and
personal service and twelve other groups of occupations had a larger
cyclical decline, the average earnings an hour for each domestic and
personal service worker are less than that for any other occupation
or industry except agriculture. The average earnings in cents an hour
for each employee in domestic and personal service were for the first
quarter of 1920, 34 cents; for the first quarter of 1921, 34 cents;
and for the first quarter of 1922, 33 cents.[31]
_Hours of Negro Domestic Workers_
Although during the past thirty years there has been considerable
advance made in the matter of hours for domestic and personal service
workers, the change in this particular has not kept pace throughout
the United States with the increase in wages in domestic and personal
service occupations. Thirty years ago 38 per cent of 1,434 female
domestic employees from all sections of the United States were
actually working ten hours a day, 6 per cent of them were working
eleven hours a day, 31 per cent were working twelve hours or more
a day, and 25 per cent of them were working less than ten hours a
day.[32]
In recent years the hours and wages of female domestic and personal
service workers in several states of the union have been standardized
by the enactment of state minimum wage laws. Utah, which has an eight
hour day and a 48 hour week for female workers generally, lists any
regular employer of female labor under those occupations covered by
law. This would include domestic service for women. The minimum wage
rate in this State for experienced women is $1.25 per day. Wisconsin,
which has a ten hour day and a 55 hour week for females and minors,
includes under its minimum wage law every person in receipt of, or
entitled to, any compensation for labor performed for any employer.
Domestic workers must be included in this number. Colorado includes
under its minimum wage law any occupation which embraces "any and
every vocation, trade, pursuit and industry." Since domestic service
is a pursuit or vocation, it must come under the minimum wage law
of Colorado. The state of Washington has an eight hour day and a 56
hour week and a wage of $18 a week and $3 a day for females engaged
in public housekeeping, but not for private domestic workers. North
Dakota publicly excludes domestic service and agriculture from its
occupations or industries covered by the minimum wage law. Although
the other seven State minimum wage laws do not openly exclude
domestic service, it is not included as yet among occupations and
industries. Two attempts were recently made in California to secure
through legislation a ten hour day for domestic workers. The first
bill was defeated. The second bill passed both houses but received a
pocket veto.[33] In States where there is no minimum wage legislation
the working hours for day workers and part-time workers are
standardized on an eight hour basis.
The extensive use of day workers came into popularity largely through
necessity during the World War. At that time such a large proportion
of the permanent domestic employees found openings in other lines
of work that housewives supplemented their own labor by hiring day
workers. The large demand for such workers gave them the leverage of
establishing for themselves an eight hour day and a wage commensurate
with that in many lines of industry. Day workers have retained since
the World War both the eight hour day and the advanced wages.
The part-time workers, too, have definite hours. Many of them do
cooking and general housework but for only specified hours. Some of
them work four or five hours or less in the mornings, especially when
the work is largely cleaning. Not a few of them begin in the afternoon
and do general housework and prepare dinner and serve it. But the
hours are fixed hours. Some part-time workers have a regular place of
employment for mornings and another such place for afternoons. Their
hours are definite and their wages are thus very good. Frequently the
part-time worker has every Sunday off.
The hours for the other domestic service workers generally do not seem
to be so well standardized as yet. Three Washington, D. C., employers
wished their general houseworkers to come on duty at seven o'clock in
the morning, with the promise that the workers could leave when they
finished. Although 75.3 per cent of one thousand domestic workers,
exclusive of day workers and part-time workers, in the private
families and boarding houses of Washington, D. C., were on duty ten
hours or over, this would show that the three employers mentioned
above were not typical. Three other employers in the same mentioned
city maintained an eight hour day for their help by having an extra
worker prepare the dinners and serve them.
Apparently no attempt has been made to compare the hours of the
private domestic and personal service workers with those of the
workers in other industries. An estimate made of the full-time hours a
week during 1920 and 1921 for the average employee in all enterprises
of whatever size in the Continental United States discloses the fact
that the average full-time hours a week for public domestic and
personal service workers were from 56.6 to 57.1, while the average for
workers in all industries including domestic and personal service was
50.3 to 51.3 hours a week. In New York City, according to employment
agents, the practice of an eight to nine hour day for domestic workers
generally obtains.
_Specific Occupations of Negro Domestic Workers_
The chief employment of the day workers in more than three-fourths
of the States is laundry work and cleaning. It is significant that
in twenty-one States for which the 1920 advanced occupational census
sheets have been obtained, where the Negro population is negligible,
there is no principal occupation given as that of launderer and
laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States for which there
are reports given in the cities of those States where the Negro
population is large there is such a principal occupation. However,
this occupation in spite of the increased popularity of day work
during the World War is decreasing in numbers as the following table
will indicate. Whether this decrease is due to the "wet wash" laundry
system and to the increased facilities in hand laundries we have no
data to prove.
Table XVIII given below represents the States so far as the 1920
census reports go, which have the principal occupation of launderer
and laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States except Vermont,
the Negro population is quite appreciable. Just why Vermont is not
among the 21 States which have a negligible Negro population and no
such principal occupation accessible data did not disclose. The reason
why the 21 States have no such principal occupation is probably due to
the fact that laundry work is so laborious that white domestic workers
are averse to it, and those able to have the work done send it to a
steam laundry.
_The Number of Launderers and Laundresses in 14 States in 1910-1920_
==================================================
TABLE XVIII | |
| Male | Female
State |-------+-------+--------+-------
| 1910 | 1920 | 1910 | 1920
-----------------+-------+-------+--------+-------
Louisiana | 406 | 389 | 23,051 | 17,034
Georgia | 832 | 667 | 44,710 | 36,775
No. Carolina | 387 | 296 | 23,192 | 15,185
Florida | 394 | 342 | 14,844 | 16,552
Dist. of Columbia| 121 | 93 | 7,920 | 6,095
Maryland | 448 | 253 | 16,189 | 12,418
Delaware | 20 | 26 | 1,665 | 1,110
Indiana | 300 | 245 | 10,130 | 7,238
Vermont | 34 | 21 | 1,256 | 684
Kansas | 210 | 163 | 4,814 | 3,760
New Jersey | 452 | 322 | 11,171 | 7,626
New Mexico | 71 | 51 | 1,678 | 1,299
Oklahoma | 154 | 124 | 5,349 | 4,350
West Virginia | 140 | 84 | 3,923 | 2,505
--------------------------------------------------
A general houseworker has come to be thought of by the public as a
maid of all work, and sometimes she is; but in many homes she is
relieved of doing the laundry work. In some cities general housework
does not always include cooking. For example, in New York City and
Brooklyn it may not include cooking unless specified by the terms
cooking and general housework. In New York and some other cities men
have been tried as general workers.
According to employment agencies, butlers are not used in such
large numbers as they were before the World War. During the war it
was difficult to secure them because men were needed for war work.
Since then wages have been such that employers have largely used
chambermaid-waitresses or chauffeur-butlers instead of regular
butlers. Among the 779 Negro men in domestic and personal service
(New York City, 1921, Table XI), there is not one butler. This does
not mean that there are no Negro butlers in New York City, but it
indicates their scarcity and shows that employers living in apartment
houses can do without them. Negro cooks, however, are yet an important
factor in the domestic and personal service groups.
There are still Negro personal maids who make provision for the
special comfort and well being of their employers as well as do their
little mending, and the like. And there are Negro pantry maids whose
first duty it is to make salads. Chambermaid-waitresses and parlor
maids to do such as to answer the door bell are also still used. The
tendency, however, is in the direction of having but the one general
maid, together with a laundress to come in by the day. Mothers'
helpers or young girls to assist in all the work of the house and with
the children are also being employed quite extensively, and at less
wages than would be paid to an older general houseworker.
These different occupations for the most part call for different types
of workers. A butler or a chambermaid-waitress who is tall and comely
may have access to a larger number and to better places than one who
is short. Especially is this true of cooks for apartment or for a
general houseworker where there are stairs to climb. These are much
more frequently chosen from among the medium-sized women than from
the stout women. The reason for the latter choice is apparent. In the
case of the butler or chambermaid-waitress, the basis of choice is
apparently appearance and custom.
V. LIVING CONDITIONS, HEALTH, SOCIAL LIFE, ORGANIZATIONS OF NEGRO
DOMESTIC WORKERS, AND THEIR RELATION TO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES
Living conditions here refer only to those on employers' premises.
The general living conditions of Negro domestic workers in different
parts of the country, or even in different localities of the same
section, vary so widely that the subject cannot be treated here. For
example, in the South laundresses for the most part take bundle wash
to their small homes, and do large "washes" there. Such a situation
makes it difficult for southern Negro laundresses to live comfortably
and healthfully. Laundresses in the North are relieved of this problem
by going to the homes of employers, but, on the other hand, are
affected by the excessive rents and the overcrowding in their own
homes.
Living conditions on employers' premises for domestic workers vary to
some extent in different homes of the same city but to a larger extent
in the different sections of the country and in different cities of
the same section. In Montgomery, Alabama, for example, out of two
hundred Negro female domestic workers interviewed, 54 or about 27 per
cent were living in a two-room detached frame house on the rear of the
employers' premises. The remaining 73 per cent did not "sleep in" or
live on their employers' premises. In Philadelphia, living conditions
on employers' premises are reported as being good. They consist, in
the main, of a third floor room. Very few basement rooms are offered
as living quarters for domestic workers in that city. In Indianapolis,
about 50 per cent of those working by the week among the 471 domestic
workers go home nights. Living conditions for those "sleeping in" are
fair as a rule. Some have basement rooms but a majority of them have
rooms either on the third floor or in the attic or over a garage. A
small percentage of the homes have a bath room for the maid.
Employment agencies in Boston, New York City, Brooklyn, Philadelphia,
Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles give favorable reports on the living
conditions of domestic workers who "sleep in." While the reports from
Baltimore are not as conclusively favorable as for the above-named
cities, one fact stands out prominently, namely: that in the main,
only apartment houses in that city offer basement rooms as living
quarters for domestic workers. Employment agencies in all of the
cities mentioned state that there are far more calls for workers to
"sleep in" than there are workers who are willing to do so.
Out of 500 domestic workers in Washington, D. C., selected at random
from 3,000 permanent employees for the year 1921-22, about 64.1 per
cent were requested to "sleep in." Out of an equal number of employers
requesting workers to "sleep in," selected in the same manner, about
83 per cent provided basement rooms as sleeping quarters for such
workers; about 10 per cent either provided first floor or third floor
rooms--some of them with baths; about 7 per cent either offered attics
or they failed to furnish a statement as to the location of the rooms.
Occasionally an employer would like to have the worker "sleep in" but
because of having only a basement room to offer, she would forego her
wish in the interest of the health of the employee. Two of the workers
sent out from this office were partially incapacitated by the poor
living and working conditions. One of the problems, however, involved
in housing domestic employees is the frequency of the turnover which
necessarily brings in different kinds of workers, varying in degrees
of personal cleanliness and health.
Closely connected with the living conditions, too, are the working
conditions of domestic employees. In fact, one of the strains of such
service often is the lack of break between the place of work and of
living, which makes for resulting monotony and much loneliness. Much
of a domestic worker's life is spent in the kitchen, in the laundry
or on the premises of his employer. The only available accurate data
on this point have come from Indianapolis, Ind. This was secured in
response to a questionnaire sent to the employers who were patrons
of the employment office at Flanner House. The following table gives
a summary of the replies as to the appliances employers had in their
homes for use of Negro domestic workers.
_Replies from 523 Employers Showing the Appliances in the Homes for
Doing Laundry Work, in Indianapolis, Ind., April, 1922_
TABLE XVIII Per Cent
Number having electric machines 249 47.6
Number having water power machines 2 .4
Number having hand power machines 5 .9
Number not having machines of any kind 267 51.1
-----
100.0
Number having electric irons 479 91.6
Number having gas irons 5 .9
Number having mangles--ironing machine 31 5.9
Number having stationary tubs 202 38.6
Number having driers 3 .6
According to this record about 48.9 per cent of the 523 employers had
washing machines of some kind and about 51.1 per cent had none at all;
about 38.6 per cent had installed stationary tubs and 0.6 per cent had
driers. To one who is conversant with the old way of doing laundry
work with heavy portable wooden tubs, and with the lighter weight
zinc tubs, into which water was lifted for washing and from which it
was lifted after washing, and then placed upon either a dry goods
box or a wash bench of uncertain height, this table shows marvelous
improvement in working conditions of Negro laundresses in Indianapolis
and indicates unusual possibilities there and elsewhere. However,
unless there were, in each of the homes having washing machines,
a stationary tub, or a rubber tube for draining the water out of
the washing machine, there still would be that lifting of water,
and possibly undue exertion because of the uncertain height of the
portable tub. The principle of having the tub set at the right height
involves relief from straining the back, an important item in relation
to good health. There were about 98.4 per cent of the 523 employers
who had either electric or gas irons or mangles. Such appliances
facilitate ironing as well as enable a laundress to do better work.
Washing machines and mangles make it possible to do the bed linen at
home instead of sending it to a steam laundry. Driers are particularly
serviceable in winter when drying out of doors is difficult as well as
being hard on the laundress because of the cold weather.
The employment agency that sent out the questionnaire congratulated
the employers on the marked improvement made in appliances for
laundering, and added that like improvements will in time be made in
the type and conditions of work rooms in which laundresses must labor.
_The Health of Negro Domestic Workers_
Although the health of domestic workers is an extremely important
matter because of the nature of their work and the homes into which
they go, and because their support depends so largely upon their
physical ability to work, no records apparently are kept by the
various employment agencies relative to the health of the workers. In
1899 out of 152 male and 395 female domestic workers in Philadelphia,
80 per cent of the men had not been ill during the year, and 74 per
cent of the women had not been ill during the year. This per cent of
good health excluded colds. The most prevalent disabilities among
them were: consumption, lagrippe, quinsy, sore throat, rheumatism,
neuralgia, chills and fever, and dyspepsia.[34] That there is much
opportunity for danger from infection incident to the ill-health of
domestic workers cannot be denied.[35]
Very careful note was taken for one week in March, 1922, of the health
of women domestic workers reporting at the United States Employment
Agency, Washington, D. C. It was not a typical week because of the
fact that it followed an epidemic of lagrippe. However, out of 1,043
domestic workers, only 325 or about 31 per cent had not been ill
during that winter and had no complaint whatever. Lagrippe, surgical
operations, indigestion, heart trouble, weak back, and neuralgia were
the illnesses of which they most commonly complained.
There were among the number above, five evident cases of mental
disturbance, one of which was taken to St. Elizabeth's Hospital
for observation and treatment. Another from the number had been
discharged from the same hospital after treatment for mental trouble.
This fact was not known by the Agency until an officer from the
hospital visited the woman at her place of work to see how she was
getting along. Three cases that were suspected of having tuberculosis
were referred as waitresses at different times to a public hospital,
at some risk of course to the reputation of the office, largely to see
what the reaction of the nurse in charge would be. In each case the
nurse reported that she could not use such a person about the food.
Yet such persons were taken into some of the most desirable homes in
Washington as household employees.
_Social Life of Negro Domestic Workers_
The social life of the older domestic Negro workers centers largely in
their church and secret order society connections. From 1916 to 1920
seven out of every eleven Negroes in the United States were enrolled
in churches. Many of them are willing to accept a place at a much
lower wage than another if it gives them their Sundays off so that
they may attend their churches.
It is important then to see the scope of such organizations in Negro
city life. Kansas City, Missouri, with a Negro population in 1910 of
23,566, had 19 Negro churches and 16 Negro missions in 1913, with
a total membership of 7,156. In this city there were 135 different
lodges, or households (women's chapters), with a total membership
of 8,055, 4,226 men and 3,829 women. The average initiation fee in
the men's orders was $11.50 and in the women's $4.51 with additional
monthly dues of 50 cents and 25 cents respectively. Endowment
insurance policies of these lodges for which there is an annual fee
from $2 to $4 are for the most part optional. These 8,055 members pay
into their lodges annually $55,411.40. Their property in Kansas City
is valued at $46,100. Each of the 135 orders has sick benefits ranging
from $2.50 to $4.50 a week and all of them, with one exception, pay
burial expenses in case of death.[37] In Harlem, New York, with a
Negro population of about 90,000 in 1920 there are 25 Negro churches
and about 16 missions. There are in this densely populated section six
moving picture theatres which cater largely to Negro patronage.[38]
Gainesville, Georgia, with a Negro population in 1910 of 1,629 had a
Negro church membership of 1,023. Five of the Negro lodges in that
city admit women, some of whom are members of several lodges.[39] In
the lodges composed as they are very largely of the masses of the
Negro people with a few of the more intelligent leaders as officers,
there are many possibilities for improving the efficiency of the
domestic workers.
Just what is the social life of the younger Negro domestic workers,
many of whom are away from their own families, is a question. Of the
471 Negro domestic workers registered at the Indianapolis office,
about 44.5 per cent were rooming and only about 2.3 per cent were
living with parents or relatives. As possible attractions for such
workers there are the moving picture and low vaudeville theatres,
usually located in Negro neighborhoods, the pool and billiard rooms,
cabarets and questionable dance halls.
Dr. Rubinow says that of 2,300 domestic white workers, a large
majority of whom were under 30 years of age, interviewed by the
Michigan Bureau of Labor, only 51 belonged to fraternal societies of
any kind. Of 230 questioned by the Domestic Relation Reform League, 20
belonged to clubs and 15 to classes of some kind, and 118 entertained
no men callers. A domestic worker, he says, not only loses caste among
other groups of workers, but she loses at the hands of her employers
even her family name. She lives a life of loneliness, "in a family but
not of it."[40]
_Organization of Domestic Workers_
In order to show concretely what domestic workers themselves have
attempted to do to improve their conditions, some discussion of their
organizations as an expression of that attempt is in place here. It
is not certain how many of these organizations are still active nor
how many have Negro members. Some of them have such members, no doubt.
However, three of them are composed entirely of Negroes.
In Los Angeles, California, the "Progressive Household Club" with
a membership of 75 domestic workers is still active. This club was
organized primarily for the purpose of furnishing a cheerful and
welcome home for a domestic worker taking a rest or not employed
for a time. It has a self-supporting home which will accommodate
twenty-five girls. Their recreational and educational features are
not startling, as the secretary writes, but they enable the girls to
pass some cheerful hours out of their "humdrum" lives. This club was
among the 15 other domestic workers' clubs organized in 1919 and 1920.
In 1919 a Domestic Workers' Alliance with a membership of over 200,
affiliated with the Hotel Waitresses under the American Federation
of Labor, was granted a charter. During that year, the secretary of
Hotel and Restaurant Employees of the International Alliance and
International League of America reported that this organization had
established a domestic workers' union in each of the following cities:
Mobile, Alabama; Fort Worth, Texas; and Lawton, Oklahoma. A union of
domestic workers was also organized in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1919. The
following March a charter was granted to a domestic workers' union
in Richmond, Virginia.[41] In 1920 there were 10 unions of domestic
workers affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. These unions
were located in the following cities: Los Angeles and San Diego,
California; Brunswick, Georgia; Chicago and Glencoe, Illinois; New
Orleans, Louisiana; Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania; Denison, Harrisburg,
and Houston, Texas. The New Orleans Union, a Negro organization, was
composed of about 200 members. All of these organizations have now
ceased to be affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. There
is, however, one union of domestic workers in Arecibo, Porto Rico,
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
_Relation of Negro Domestic Service to Employment Agencies_
In view of the volume and extent of turn-over in domestic service,
employment agencies, especially in the North, East, and West, have a
close relationship to both employers and workers. A person in need
of domestic help secures it either by advertising in the help wanted
section of the newspapers, by applying to one or more employment
agencies, by means of inquiries among friends and acquaintances
who may have been a former employer of some available laborer, by
accepting some one who may by chance apply in person or by hiring a
former worker.
In some of the southern cities where there is no local employment
agency, domestic workers are secured in all other of the
above-mentioned ways. For example, this condition prevails in
Montgomery, Alabama. Although the United States Employment Service,
the Department of Labor, and the Municipal Employment offices of
Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, are co-operating, there is no State
license applying to local employment agencies except those soliciting
laborers to go outside of the State, according to a recent statement
from the Alabama Tax Commission. A like condition exists in the State
of Louisiana. Georgia, however, issues licenses to employment agencies
for domestic positions. In this State as in some others, there is no
law regulating the fee which an agency may charge either employer or
employee for service rendered. Neither Ohio, Pennsylvania, California,
nor Maryland, and several other States have such a fee regulated
by law. However, in Pennsylvania, every employment agent must file
with the commissioner for his approval a schedule of fees, proposed
to be charged for any service rendered to employer or employee, and
these may be changed only with the approval of the commissioner.
Every employment agent in this State is required to give a receipt to
any applicant for any money which the applicant pays him; and if an
applicant fails through no fault of his to secure a position to which
he is referred, the entire amount paid by such a person to the agent
is to be refunded. Such a law obtains in some other States.
In Baltimore there are 50 employment agencies, mainly of a domestic
nature. The usual fee charged an employer, though not regulated by
law, is $2. An agency ordinarily agrees to supply an employer with
help for at least 30 days without additional cost.
New York State issued in 1918, 674 licenses to employment agencies
engaged in various kinds of employment business. In 1919, 719
employment agency licenses were issued; in 1920, 728 and in 1921, 788.
The law stipulates that the fees charged domestic work applicants by
employment agencies shall not in any case exceed ten per cent of the
first month's wages. If a domestic worker does not accept a position
to which he is referred or fails to obtain employment, the full amount
which he paid the agency is to be refunded after three days allowed
for obtaining facts. If an employee fails to remain one week in a
position, the agency is required to furnish the employer with a new
employee, or return 3.6 of the fee paid in by the employer, provided
the employer notifies the agency within thirty days of the failure
of the worker to accept the position or of the employee's discharge
for cause. If the employee is discharged within one week without his
fault, another position is furnished him or 3.5 of the fee returned.
Employment agencies in New York State must also give receipts for
money paid them. Day workers receiving a rate of $3.60 to $4.00 per
day each pay an initial fee of 50 cents to the agency furnishing
them with work. Employers of domestic labor pay the agency for one
month's service a flat rate of from $6 to $10 for general houseworkers
and from $3 to $5 for part-time workers. For a temporary laborer,
employers pay a fee of $1 and for a day worker they pay a fee of 50
cents. For commercial and industrial placements an employee pays to
the agency 5 per cent of her first month's wage, but no charge is made
for the employer furnishing the work.
The laws of Massachusetts regulating employment agencies of a domestic
nature are almost similar to those of New York State, the difference
in the main being in the size of the fees. In Massachusetts an
intelligence office keeper is entitled to receive from an applicant,
employer or employee, a fee of 25 per cent of the first week's wages;
and in case of day work a fee of 10 per cent of a day's pay. The
Michigan domestic employment agency fees for employee and employer are
about the same as that for New York State.
In the District of Columbia, a domestic employment agency is entitled
to receive in advance from an employer $2 for each employee for at
least 30 days service, and from an applicant for work $1. One-half
of this fee is to be returned on demand if such applicant does not
have a fair opportunity of employment within 15 days from date of
payment. When an applicant actually receives employment at a wage of
$25 a month or more he pays the agency an additional $1. However, it
is a common practice among Washington employment agencies to have
applicants pay $2 in advance of securing a place for work. In the
light of the total amount of money paid in wages of domestic and
personal service, especially with such a heavy turnover, the fees
paid to employment agencies by both employers and employees evidently
amount to quite a considerable sum.
Thirty years ago Miss Salmon in her study of domestic service pointed
out, not only the exorbitant fees charged by employment agencies, but
the vice and crime nurtured by them.[42] In 1915 investigations of
Miss Kellor in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other
cities brought out some more striking facts. In Philadelphia 84 per
cent of the employment agencies were in private residences and 3 per
cent of them were in business buildings. In New York 85 per cent of
these agencies were conducted in very close contact with the families
of the agents. In Chicago 81 per cent of them were in buildings
occupied by families. In Boston 73 per cent of the agencies were in
business buildings and only 27 per cent were in residences. The poor
business methods of many private intelligence offices, surrounded
by gambling dens, fortune tellers, palmists and midwives, and their
frauds are insignificant as compared with their conscious, deliberate
immorality. Miss Kellor says that many Negro intelligence offices are
hopelessly immoral but that some city authorities often argue that
since they do not affect the whites there is no reason for disturbing
them.[43]
The Third Biennial Report of the Department of Labor and Industry of
Maine for the year 1915-1916 contains a warning against employment
agencies collecting fees in excess of the law. This report recommends
that the important economic task of employment be taken out of
the hands of the agents and placed under management of the State.
A similar note was voiced by one of the committees of President
Harding's conference on unemployment.
The large experience with both municipal and State offices and with
the United States Employment Service has given unmistakable evidence
that the recruiting and placement of labor is a public necessity and a
general benefit to the whole community. It can therefore well become
a matter conducted under public supervision and at public expense.
Domestic service, especially in large cities and particularly because
of the absence of organization and group connection of the workers,
is especially in need of such public direction.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
From 1870 to 1900 there was an increase in the total number of persons
engaged in domestic and personal service in the United States. Since
that time there has been a steady decrease in the number so engaged.
Although Negroes have followed the general trend of increase and
decline, in proportion to their population, they furnish a larger
percentage of domestic workers than any other group in the United
States, the female workers outnumbering the male.
The fact is also evident that Negroes are gradually entering trade
and transportation and manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. With
the existing conditions following the World War, and the present
restriction on immigration, the opportunities in these fields of
labor are enlarging and domestic and personal service workers are,
therefore, correspondingly decreasing.
The ranks of the domestic service workers are being recruited to some
appreciable extent from the younger Negro women, between the ages of
16 and 24 years. The very young women and the old women are not the
most sought after by employers because of their inexperience on the
one hand, and on the other, their inability to do domestic work. The
problems of married women in domestic service are increasing because
of their family responsibilities and cares which make demands upon
their earnings and energy.
The domestic labor turnover has increased the past thirty years.
During and since the World War, it has been so greatly accentuated
that the modal period of service is from 3 to 6 months. The length
of the period of service will perhaps become still shorter because
of the increasing opportunities in trade and transportation and in
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.
Provision for the training of domestic workers generally has been
meager, and in the case of Negro domestic workers it has been less
than that for them as a group. Since the World War greater attempts
have been made to extend training to domestic workers both in England
and the United States, the government in each of these countries
taking a small part in this extension of education. Training
especially for Negro domestic workers has been undertaken. Employment
agencies under government supervision, with the co-operation of
domestic service employers, offer possibilities for such training and
for the standardization of private household work. However, Negroes
with any appreciable degree of intelligence are not entering domestic
service as a permanent employment. This field in the United States is
being left largely to the untrained and inefficient.
During the twenty years preceding the World War, very little advance
was made in the wages of domestic workers, but during the war their
wages increased about 150 per cent. Since the war, according to Dr.
King, while the decline in public domestic service wages has not been
as great as that in many other fields of employment, the average
earnings an hour in money wages of public domestic service workers are
still below those in a majority of the industries. Although there has
been an increase in wages of domestic service workers, their working
hours are longer than those of any other group of laborers.
In some cities living conditions on employers' premises for domestic
workers are good, in others there is need of great improvement along
this line. However, with the increasing disinclination on the part
of the domestic workers to "sleep in" and the slowly growing public
interest in standardizing house work, this problem will in time be
solved. There has been much improvement in the working conditions of
domestic employees, but there is still need of much more.
The indications are that little attention is paid to the health and
the social life of domestic workers. This neglect, especially of
the health of domestic workers, is no doubt fraught with dangerous
consequences, not only for themselves but for the homes and welfare of
the nation.
That the social life of the older Negro domestic workers is supplied
at least to some extent in their churches is proved by the fact that
about seven out of every eleven Negroes in the United States are
enrolled as members of churches. Their interest in secret orders
is also shown by the number of members and the money spent in such
organizations. As social attractions for the younger domestic
employees, there are such places as dance halls, moving pictures,
pool and billiard rooms, and the like. The social stigma attached
to domestic service bars young domestic workers from many of the
entertainments of real value and benefit.
Domestic workers in ten or more cities of the United States have
attempted to better their conditions by means of organized effort. The
organization in California is rendering real service to its members
through its home. With the present large percentage of domestic
workers who are rooming in the various cities, and the conditions
obtaining in many rooming houses connected with employment agencies,
there is urgent need of establishing clubs or homes for domestic
workers.
Many private employment agencies in their relation to the homes of
the United States act as brokers. The fees charged both the employer
and the employee are generally exorbitant. The service rendered by
them is on the whole poor. The harm inflicted upon society by many of
them is irreparable. Public control of employment agencies has great
possibilities for social betterment.
ELIZABETH ROSS HAYNES
FOOTNOTES:
[A] This thesis was submitted in 1923 in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of
Political Science of Columbia University.
[1] Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia in the 17th Century_, Vol. I,
p. 573.
[2] _Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia._
[3] The following works were found helpful in preparing this
dissertation: W. A. Crossland, _Industrial Conditions Among Negroes
in St. Louis_ (_Studies in Social Economics_, Washington Univ., Vol.
I, No. 1, St. Louis, 1914); Isabel Eaton, _Special Report on Domestic
Service_ in THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO by W. E. B. DuBois (Philadelphia,
1899); George E. Haynes, _The Negro at Work in New York City_ (New
York, 1912); Frances A. Kellor, _Out of Work_; _Knickerbocker Press_
(New York, 1904); W. I. King, _Employment, Hours and Earnings in the
United States, 1920-1922_; Asa E. Martin, _Our Negro Population_
(Kansas City, 1913); _Monthly Labor Review_ (U. S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 1919-1920); Ruth Reed, _The Negro Women of Gainsville,
Georgia_ (1921--A Master's Essay--Phelps Stokes Fund Scholarship);
_Report of U. S. Industrial Commission, Domestic Service_, Vol. XIV;
I. M. Rubinow, _Depth and Breadth of the Servant Problem_ (McClures
Magazine, Vol. 34, 1909-1910); Lucy M. Salmon, _Domestic Service_ (New
York, 1901).
[4] _Report of the U. S. Industrial Commission_, Vol. XIV. DOMESTIC
SERVICE, p. 745.
[5] Salmon, Lucy M., _Domestic Service_, p. 109.
[6] Eaton, Isabel, _Special Report on Domestic Service_ in THE
PHILADELPHIA NEGRO, by W. E. B. DuBois, Philadelphia, 1889, p. 480.
[7] Haynes, George E., _The Negro at Work in New York City_, New York,
1918, p. 85.
[8] Crossland, W. A., _Industrial Conditions among Negroes in St.
Louis_, St. Louis, 1914, p. 30.
[9] Reed, Ruth, _The Negro Women of Gainesville, Georgia, 1921_, p. 25.
[10] _Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, Springfield Report_,
1915-1918.
[11] U. S. Department of Labor, _Monthly Labor Review_, Aug., 1919, p.
206.
[12] Reed, Ruth, _op. cit._, p. 44.
[13] Crossland, William A., _op. cit._, p. 93.
[14] THREE SAMPLE LETTERS OF THE 5TH GRADE DOMESTIC WORKERS OF
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Miss X (The agent)
Dear Friend i am sorry to any that i am confind to bed this week
but hope to see you again some day i taken sick last friday but i
full fill that other place all right but could not go out saturday.
_Daisy_
Daer Mrs. X (The agent) daer Madam can you get my husban are job
in are lunch room cafe boarding or apt. house he is are well
exspierence sheref cook we both would like are job together if
could get me are dash (dish) wash place please maggie.
_Letter from Bell Jones_
Dear Mrs. X (the agent) i am writing you a fue lines to let you
here from me i am the lady you got me a home with Mrs. Jones at
Smithburg, Md I have a little boy with me you know by the name
of Bell Jones i dont want to stay up here much longer and i want
you to get me a good home down in Washington for me and my little
boy with some good white people with no children and a room in
the house for me and my little boy my little boy is a mighty good
little boy he is not noisy i want to leave sept. 4 i am tired of
this place because there is no cullard people up here they are
all white i have not been off the lot since i have been out here
please get me a good home dont let it be out of town.
Yours Bell Jones
[15] Salmon, Lucy M., _Domestic Service_, p. 124.
[16] U. S. Industrial Commission Report, _op. cit._, p. 751.
[17] THREE SAMPLE REFERENCES FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS, NEW YORK CITY
Winchester Ave., Bronx, N. Y. July 14, 1921.
To Whom it may Concern:
Doris X has been in my employ and performed her duties
satisfactory. She is honest and capable.
Signed ----
The following person had two reference blanks containing the same
questions filled out by her former employers. She had been a child's
nurse in the first position and nurse-maid in the second.
_First Blank._ _Second Blank._
January 27, 1923. Jan. 30, 1923.
Is she honest? Exceptionally so Yes
Is she temperate? Yes Yes
Is she neat? Yes Yes
What of her disposition? Best I have ever seen Wonderful
Does she thoroughly
understand her work? Yes Yes
Why did she leave? Presumably to be near Because she was
her husband tired of permanence
and had a chance to
go to the states
with our friend
Remarks--Her services with our family for five years have always been
most satisfactory.
[18] Haynes, George E., _op. cit._, p. 87.
[19] FIVE SAMPLE REFERENCES FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS AND ONE LETTER FROM
AN EMPLOYER, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Woodford Land, Va.
Lillie worked for me for a long time and she is a nice worker and a
fine cook and she worked for Mrs. ---- three years going on four, and
she got married there with them and she worked for Mrs. ---- and she
nursed Mrs. ----'s three children.
From Mrs. ----
The following reference is for Fannie B.--who, evidently half crazy,
changed her name after registering at the Washington office because
she said she had so many "Enemons" (enemies).
To Whom in May Concern:
This is to certify that Fannie B has been a trustworthy maid. As to
her honesty none come no better. She is very capable and in general
very satisfactory.
Mrs. ----
To Whom it May Concern:
This is to say that Sarah ---- has been in my employ 8 months and that
she is a good cook, tries hard to please, and has been nice always to
the children.
She has been honest and reliable and likes to try new or fancy dishes.
Signed----Mrs. E. M.
(The foregoing Mrs. E. M.'s name and telephone number were given to
another lady who had interviewed Sarah relative to offering her a
position, Mrs. E. M. told the second lady that Sarah once stole things
but she had had a good lesson so she thought she would not steal any
more. She also said that Sarah was none too clean, and that she gave
the girl the above reference because she thought she had improved
greatly.)
Sarah Jackson held a domestic worker's certificate bearing the golden
seal of a Washington, D. C., Federation of Women's Club.
The X Federation of Women's Clubs awards this certificate to Sarah
Jackson for 13 years faithful service in the employ of ----
Signed,
Mrs. ---- President,
Mrs. ---- Chairman Home Economics Dept.
Robert and wife, each about 40 years of age, bring this written
reference from a southern town:
This is to certify that I have known "Shine" and his wife for about a
year, during which time he has been running a shoe shine establishment
in this town. "Shine" is a steady, alert, energetic boy and I feel
sure he will please his employer in the work in which he is given a
trial.
Signed, H. C. L.
(Letter to the Employment Agent from an Employer.)
My dear Mrs. X.
I fear you think I am very hard to please but having had a butler for
38 years, since dead, a maid and a cook 32 years, since married, it
cannot seem that I am, when I once get the right one.
The last girl you sent me Anna by name disliked very much being
directed or being spoken to. I am giving her up for she has a most
violent temper, the most impertinent person I have ever seen. In a way
I am sorry for her. None of us think she is all there. Will you try
again for me?
[20] TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF INEFFICIENCY AMONG WASHINGTON, D. C.,
DOMESTIC APPLICANTS
(1) A day worker--laundress--not knowing how to cut off the current
and unscrew the wringer on an electric washing machine, when a garment
wrapped around the cogs, ruined the cogs by trying to cut the garment
from between them.
(2) A day worker--one of the best laundresses--hurrying to finish her
work placed her hands on a revolving electric machine tub, both arms
were carried beneath the tub and had not the current been speedily
cut, her arms would have been crushed. As it was the tubs had to be
cut in order to extricate her arms. After that she was afraid to use
an electric washing machine.
(3) To ask at the office in a group of from 200 to 250 women for a
first class laundress--one who knew how to fold the clothes just so
after they were ironed as well as wash them out according to rule--and
not find one who felt that she could do the work properly was a common
occurrence.
(4) A young woman sent out to do general housework and cooking cut
the bone out of a 3-1/2 pound sirloin steak which she fried up into
such bits that it was not recognized by her employer. When she was
questioned about it, she said "that is every bit of that steak. You
did not expect me to cook bone and all, did you?"
(5) A young girl sent out to do general housework and cooking when
questioned by her employer about the kinds of dessert she could make,
said she sure could make jello but was not so good at making other
desserts.
(6) The rank and file of general houseworkers looked upon making salad
dressing and salads as an art belonging to fine cooks. Many said they
had never tried to make bread of any kind.
(7) An elderly cook who had been at the business for 50 years wished
cooking and cooking only. Her price was $75 per month. That's what she
"ingenally" got. When she was asked if she could read or write she
said she could not. She had never been to school a day in her life,
but she realized that cooking is tedious work. "Everything I does,
I does by my head; its all brain work, you see I has a good 'eal to
remember," said she. However, she felt confident that she could cook
anything that was put before her to cook.
(8) A young woman sent out to do cleaning left the print of her hand
greasy with furniture oil in a freshly papered wall.
[21] Salmon, Lucy M., _op. cit._, p. 123.
[22] _Industrial Commission Report_, _op. cit._, p. 1901.
[23] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, p. 486.
[24] Haynes, G. E., _op. cit._, p. 87.
[25] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, p. 449.
[26] Salmon, Lucy, _Domestic Service_, p. 90.
[27] **Transcriber Note: No footnote text in original.**