POSSIBLE REMEDIES—SPECIALIZATION OF HOUSEHOLD EMPLOYMENTS
The efforts to remove the social stigma that now brands domestic service
will not alone accomplish the desired result. Another means of lessening
the difficulties in the modern household is to put all household
employments on the same business basis as all employments outside of the
household. The principles which lie at the foundation of modern business
activities are division of labor and unconscious co-operation. This
statement does not mean that both of these principles are carried out
perfectly, but that industrial progress has been made and is being made
along these lines, that the advance already made by household employments
has been in the same direction, and that the reforms proposed for the
household that diverge from these lines, however wise in themselves,
cannot lead to the best results because they are out of the current of
general progress.
In considering the historical phase of the subject, a long list of
articles was suggested[299] which were formerly made within the
household, but are now made out of the house both better and more cheaply
than they could be made at home.
A list can be drawn up of other articles made out of the house, which
if made in factories are inferior, and if purchased through the woman’s
exchanges, though as well or even better prepared, are more expensive
because the demand for such articles made in the homes of others has
up to this time been limited. The articles in this transitional state
are vegetable and fruit canning, the making of jellies, pickles, and
preserves, the baking of bread, cake, and pastry, the preparation
of soups, pressed meats, cold meats, ice-cream, and confectionery,
condensed, sterilized, and evaporated milk, and the making of butter not
yet abandoned in all rural homes. The transitional list also includes
the making of underclothes for women and children, which can be made
more cheaply out of the house but not always so well; and millinery and
dressmaking, which can be done better but at greater expense. There is
every indication that all the articles in this transitional state must
soon be enumerated among those articles made both better and more cheaply
out of the house than within.
A third list can be made of articles that are now seldom if ever
manufactured out of the house but which can be made elsewhere. This list
includes in the first place bread and cake of every description; it is
possible by taking all of this work out of the house to save, considered
in the aggregate both as regards the individual and the community, an
enormous waste of time and fuel and at the same time to secure through
the application of scientific principles articles often more uniform
and superior in quality to what can be produced in the home.[300] A
second class includes the preparation of all vegetables for cooking. It
is not sentiment but economic principle that should release the human
hand from performing this part of housework, more purely mechanical and
more justly entitled to be called drudgery than any other work carried
on in the house. A few years since coffee was roasted in every kitchen.
If it has been found that an article requiring such delicate treatment
as this can be prepared by business firms better than it can be in the
household oven, there can be no serious obstacle in the way of delivering
at the door all vegetables ready for cooking.[301] Compensation for
the additional cost at first incurred would be found in the hygienic
advantage of removing from many cellars the supply of winter vegetables.
A third class of articles includes the preparation of all cold meats,
half-cooked meats, as croquettes, all stuffed meats, as fowl and game,
all “made” dishes, as salads and cold desserts, and the cooking of all
articles which need only heating to make ready for use. The careful
study of a large number of elaborate menus as well as of more simple
bills of fare shows a very small proportion of articles which could not
be made out of the house and sent in ready for use or requiring only
the application of heat. The Aladdin oven constructed on scientific
principles renders the cooking and heating of food a most simple matter.
The sending of hot food to individual homes has in no case as far as can
be learned proved a success, but the delivery of all articles ready for
the final application of heat is possible through business enterprise and
scientific experiment.
This partial, although not entire, solution of the problem of domestic
service, by taking a large number of servants out of the house and by
having a large part of the work now done by them in the house done
elsewhere, is in direct line with the progress made in other occupations.
It was estimated by Mr. Gallatin in 1810[302] that two-thirds of
the clothing worn in the United States was the product of family
manufacturing—then in a flourishing state. During the twenty years
following, a part of this family weaving and spinning was transferred
to factories, and this transfer created the great factory industry. Its
rapid growth was due to the fact that the power loom and the factory took
the place of the hand loom and of home manufacturing. A similar change
has taken place in the manufacture of cheese. Until about 1830 all cheese
was made at home, and in 1860 not more than twenty cheese factories had
been built.[303] After that time factories multiplied rapidly, until
now practically all cheese is factory made. The demand for ready-made
clothing for men was a generation ago very small. It grew out of a demand
on the part of sailors, and was increased in large proportions at the
time of the Civil War; the manufacture of such articles is now so firmly
established in our industrial system that a return to the home system
of manufacturing, even in the most isolated and primitive communities,
would be as impossible as the revival of the spinning wheel. The demand
for ready-made clothing for women is nearly as great and is annually
increasing through the facilities offered by all large retail houses for
shopping by mail. The tailoress and the maker of shirts have disappeared
from the homes of their employers and have set up establishments of their
own, or have become responsible to large business houses; the dressmaker
and the seamstress are fast following in their footsteps, and the cook
must set her face in the same direction.
The trend in this direction can be seen in many ways. The growing
prevalence of camping has increased the demand for articles of food
ready for use, and even tea, coffee, and soups are delivered hot for the
benefit of pleasure seekers.[304] The development of Western resources
by Eastern capitalists has also increased the demand for such articles,
and at least one housekeeper among the Black Hills of South Dakota, one
hundred miles from a railroad station, speaks casually of doing her
marketing in Chicago, and a housekeeper in North Carolina gives frequent
and elaborate lunches through caterers in Philadelphia. The tendency even
among persons of moderate means is more and more towards the employment
of caterers for special afternoon and evening entertainments, although
in villages and small towns this course as yet involves the employment
of persons from large cities. The practice is not uncommon for the women
connected with church organizations to hold every Saturday afternoon
sales for the benefit of the society, of all articles of food that can be
prepared the previous day for Sunday dinners and teas.[305]
The most important medium for the sale of such commodities is the
Woman’s Exchange.[306] It has already become an economic factor of some
little importance, and it will become of still greater importance when
it is taken out of the domain of charity and sentiment and becomes
self-supporting on a business basis. One of its most valuable results
is that it has set a high standard for work and has insisted that this
standard be reached by every consignor, not only once or generally,
but invariably. It has maintained this standard in the face of hostile
criticism and the feeling that a charitable organization ought to accept
poor work if those presenting it are in need of money. It has shown that
success in work cannot be attained by a simple desire for it or need
of it pecuniarily. It has taught that accuracy, scientific knowledge,
artistic training, habits of observation, good judgment, courage,
and perseverance are better staffs in reaching success than reliance
upon haphazard methods and the compliments of flattering friends. It
has raised the standard of decorative and artistic needle work by
incorporating into its rules a refusal to accept calico patchwork, wax,
leather, hair, feather, rice, splatter, splinter, and cardboard work. It
has taught many women that a model recipe for cake is not “A few eggs,
a little milk, a lump of butter, a pinch of salt, sweetening to taste,
flour enough to thicken; give a good beating and bake according to
judgment.”
But still more it has opened up to women what has been practically a new
occupation. Domestic work within the house performed by members of the
family without fixed compensation and by those not members of the family
with compensation had been the previous rule. The Exchange has shown that
it is possible for the women of a family to prepare within the house for
sale outside many articles for table consumption, both those of necessity
and luxury. Innumerable instances are on record of women who within the
past fifteen years have supported themselves wholly or in part by making
for general sale or on orders different articles for the table.[307]
It seems inevitable that eventually all articles of food will be
prepared out of the house except those requiring the last application
of heat, and that scientific skill will reduce to a minimum the labor
and expense of this final stage of preparation. This change is in direct
line with the tendency towards specialization everywhere else found in
that it thus becomes possible for every person to do exclusively that
thing which he or she can do best; it allows the concentration of labor
and capital and thus by economizing both secures the largest results;
it permits many women to retain their home life and at the same time
engage in remunerative business; it improves the quality of all articles
consumed, since they are produced under the most favorable conditions;
it brings the work of every cook into competition with the work of
every other cook by providing a standard of measurement now lacking and
thus inciting improvement; it is the application of the principle of
unconscious co-operation and therefore in harmony with other business
activities. More definitely, as one illustration, it permits all fruits
to be canned, pickled, and preserved in every way in the locality where
they are produced at a cost ultimately less than can now be done when
fruit is shipped to cities and there sold at prices including high
rents; it prevents a glut in the market of such perishable articles by
providing for their preservation on farms and in villages and subsequent
transportation to cities at leisure; it makes it possible to utilize
many abandoned farms in the East which could be used as fruit farms but
are too remote from shipping centres to permit the transportation of
ripe fruit; it ultimately lightens the labors of many women on farms by
enabling them to purchase in cities many articles now produced by them
at a disadvantage. The canning in cities, by individual families, of
fruits, often in an over-ripe condition, is as anomalous as would be
to-day the making of dairy products in city homes. The preservation of
fruit is but one example of articles that could be prepared better and
more cheaply in the country than in the city. Miscellaneous articles of
every description, as plum-pudding, boned turkey, chicken broth, jelly,
croquettes and salad, minced meat, pressed veal, bouillon, calf’s-foot
jelly, pure fruit juices, blackberry cordial, and a score of other
articles, could be added to the list.
It is sometimes objected that this plan of taking out of the house
to as great an extent as possible all forms of cooking lessens the
individuality of the home by requiring all persons to have the same
articles of food. But the objection presupposes a limited variety of
articles, while the method suggested must result in an unlimited variety,
as has been the case in regard to articles used for wearing apparel
since the custom has been established of having so many made out of the
house. It presupposes also that individuality depends on externals. The
gentleman who wishes to preserve his individuality through his cook
could also preserve it through employing a private tailor, but he gladly
sacrifices it in the latter case for the better work of one who serves a
hundred other customers as well. Individuality is preserved when a person
builds his own house, but the doubtful benefit of the result is suggested
by Oliver Wendell Holmes when he says, “probably it is better to be
built in that way than not to be built at all.” The individuality of
the present generation is certainly not less than that of the preceding
one when all clothing worn by a family was made up in the house, or of
an earlier one when all cloth was spun and woven, as well as made up,
in the house, or of a still more remote one when our ancestors troubled
themselves comparatively little about either the weaving or the making.
The very perfection of the principle of the division of labor makes
possible the expression of the greatest individuality in that it offers
the possibility of selection from a hundred varieties whereas before no
choice was given. The ability to choose between the work of a hundred
cooks permits a truer individuality than does the command of the services
of but one. Whims, caprices, and eccentricities sometimes masquerade as
individuality and are not always entitled to respect.
Another form of work now done in the house that could be done outside
is laundry work. The inconveniences resulting from the derangement of
the household machinery according to the present method have formed the
theme of many jests; a serious consideration of the subject must lead
to the conclusion that this system results in great waste as well as in
unnecessary wear and tear of the household machinery. An objection on
hygienic grounds is sometimes made to the proposal to have articles of
clothing laundered out of the house together with articles sent by other
families. But science has already accomplished much at the bidding of
business enterprise, and this objection can be overcome. Even as it is
the question may well be asked whether the price paid is not a heavy
one for individual laundresses. The vast army of persons who board are
compelled to send out articles to be laundried, and this is apparently
done without serious results. A beginning has been made in many families
where a competent laundress cannot be secured by sending to public
laundries all starched clothing, especially all collars and cuffs.
The laundries of Troy, New York, have branches for the reception and
delivery of goods in all parts of the country, and laundry many articles
better and more cheaply than can be done at home. The amount of space
now occupied in cities for laundering purposes that could be used for
business or for homes is far from inconsiderable. It seems not altogether
unreasonable to believe that if the space now occupied by laundries
in individual homes could be used for other purposes rents would be
perceptibly lower. On economic grounds alone this generation should
relegate the washing machine and the wringer to the attic or the front
parlor, where it has already placed the spinning wheel of its ancestors.
Still another field is open for business enterprise in connection with
the household. A very large part of the work connected with it concerns
the care of the house and grounds. This includes the semi-annual
housecleaning and the cleaning of windows, floors, brass, silver, and
lamps; the sweeping, dusting, and general care of rooms, including the
special attention that must be given to books, pictures, and bric-à-brac;
the care of lawns, walks, porches, and furnaces; the repairing of
articles of clothing and furniture; table service and chamber service.
Here again economic tendencies are showing themselves. Much if not all of
this work can be done by the piece or by the hour, and men and women are
everywhere taking advantage of the fact.[308] A very large part of the
work of the household can be thus done, especially if housekeepers are
willing to waive the tradition that silver must be cleaned on Thursdays,
sweeping done on Fridays, and all sleeping-rooms put in order before nine
o’clock in the morning.
One other measure of relief concerns the purchase of supplies. Marketing
is a science and might be made a profession. At present it is usually
done in a haphazard, make-shift fashion. It is done by the head of the
household on his way to business and thus done in haste; or orders are
given through a clerk who goes from house to house and thus serves
primarily the firm he represents, while at the same time the purchaser
loses the benefit of competition in the markets; or commissions are given
by telephone and the customer has no opportunity of inspecting the goods
before purchase; or marketing is done by the mistress of the household,
who is unable to reach the markets in time to make her purchases with
the care that should be given; or it is done by the cook, who may know
the best articles to purchase but is ignorant of their money value. It
requires time, skill, and experience to purchase judiciously the supplies
for a household, and in many households time, skill, and experience are
lacking. It would seem possible for one person to do the marketing for
fifteen or twenty families, taking the orders at night and executing them
in the morning. Supplies could then be purchased in quantity, this gain
would pay the commission of the purchaser, and marketing would be done in
a much more satisfactory manner than it is at the present time. At the
same time such a plan would relieve the members of individual households
of the burden and care of a difficult part of household management.
All of these measures suggested must tend ultimately to take as far as
possible the domestic employee out of the house, letting her perform
her work through the operation of unconscious business co-operation.
This method would enable a large number of women to go into household
employments who have ability in this direction but who now drift into
other occupations which permit them to maintain their own home life. It
is generally assumed that an unmarried woman has no desire for a home
and no need of a place that she can call her own. When she goes into
domestic employment, therefore, she must merge her individual life into
that of her employer and relinquish all the social instincts, although
as strong in her as in another. But this is what many are not willing
to do. If the opportunity were presented of performing housework and
remaining at home, large numbers would in time enter the work. Many who
have no homes would still be glad to share the home of an employer, but
where no alternative is presented, as under the present system, except
where negroes are employed, the requirement of residence becomes irksome
and is a hindrance in this as it would be in any other industry. It is
also true that many employees particularly dislike to live in flats.
The sleeping accommodations are generally poor, with little light or
ventilation, and all parts of the household are cramped and crowded. To
take the employee out of the modern flat and let her go to her own home
or lodging place would be a boon to both employer and employee. The plan
proposed also lessens materially the amount of care and responsibility
now incurred by the employer, since it decreases the number of personal
employees. The presence of the employee in the family is a disadvantage
to the household of the employer as well as to the employee. Again, it
enables large numbers of women who have only a few hours each day or week
to give to outside work to do it in their own houses or in the homes of
others without neglect of their own households. Moreover, it lessens much
of the difficulty that now exists owing to the migratory habits of the
modern family. The question of what shall be done with the employees of
a household during the summer and how new ones shall be secured in the
autumn is answered in a measure if the work performed by them can be done
by the piece, hour, or season and a large part of the family supplies
can be purchased ready for use. Then, too, it renders both employer and
employee more independent. Whether the desire for independence is right
or wrong is not the question—it is a condition and must be met.
It has often been pointed out that the aristocracy of the Church broke
down at the time of the Reformation, that the aristocracy of the State
was overthrown by the Bastile mob, that aristocracy in education is
yielding to the democratic influences of university extension, and that
aristocratic economics are disappearing in the light of the industrial
discussions of the day. The aristocracy of the household must succumb to
this universal desire for personal independence on the part of employees.
The plan suggested of specializing household industries to as great an
extent as possible and encouraging the domestic employee to live in her
own home has much in its favor. It substitutes for the responsibility
to an individual employer, so irritating to many and so contrary to the
industrial spirit of the age, the responsibility to a business firm. It
throws the responsibility for success on the individual employees by
bringing them into more immediate competition with other workers in the
same field. It provides a channel through which advance becomes possible
and also independent business life if executive ability is present. It
reduces house rent in proportion as the number of employees is lessened,
or it places at the disposal of the family a larger portion of the house
than is now available for their personal uses. It simplifies the problem
in all families where there is more work than can be done by one employee
but not enough for two. It makes possible such a division of labor in
the household as will discriminate between skilled and unskilled labor.
Under the present system the employer expects to find in one individual
for $3 per week and expenses, a French chef, an Irish laundress, a
discreet waitress, a Yankee maid-of-all-work, a parlor maid a Quaker in
neatness, all this, “with the temper of a saint and the constitution of
a cowboy thrown in.” Expectations are often disappointed and the blame
is thrown, not on a bad system, but on the individual forced to carry
it out. The separation of skilled and unskilled labor permits each one
to do a few things well and prevents the friction inevitable when the
skilled workman is called upon to do unskilled work, or the unskilled
laborer to perform tasks requiring the ability of an expert. It is a
more flexible system of co-operation than the one technically known as
such, since all articles are purchased, not of a certain manufacturer
or dealer whom it has been agreed upon by contract to patronize, but
wherever it is most convenient. It is easily adapted to the present
system of living in flats and apartment houses rendered almost necessary
in some places by high rents; this way of living makes it difficult
to employ a large number of domestics, but on the other hand it makes
it possible to do without them. It enables the domestic employee to
have the daily change in going back and forth from her work which the
shop-girl and the factory-girl now have. The domestic employee now has
out-of-door exercise not oftener than once or twice a week, and the
effect is as deleterious physically, mentally, and morally as a similar
course would be in other walks of life. It must decrease that pernicious
habit, so degrading to the occupation as well as to the individual, of
discussing the personal characteristics of both employers and employees,
since the relationship between the two is changed from the personal to
the business one. It elevates to the rank of distinct occupations many
classes of housework now considered drudgery because done at odd moments
by overworked employees. It must in time result in many economic gains,
one illustration of which is the fact that the kitchen could be heated
by the furnace and all cooking done by kerosene, gas, or electricity; on
the other hand, the necessities of employers would cease to be the gauge
for measuring the minimum of work that could be done by employees without
losing their places.
Two objections are sometimes raised to this plan. The first is that the
cost of living would be increased. This would undoubtedly be the effect
at first, but it is not a valid objection to this mode of housekeeping.
The list of articles now made out of the house shows that every article
of men’s dress is made more cheaply and better than formerly when made
at home. This is due to the fact that in the transitional period men of
means were willing to pay a higher price for goods made out of the house
for the sake of obtaining a superior article. Competition subsequently
made it possible for men of moderate means to share in the same benefit.
The same tendency is seen among wage-earning women. They could make
their own dresses at less expense than they can hire them made, but it
would be done at a loss of time and strength taken from their own work,
and they prefer to employ others. Moreover cost of living is a relative
term—an increase in the family income makes it possible to employ more
service and therefore to live better than before. Families of wealth now
have two alternatives, either to employ more domestics within the home,
or to purchase more ready-made supplies. The alternative usually chosen
is the former, but if such families would choose the second and instead
of employing additional domestics would, as far as practicable, purchase
ready-made supplies for the table and have more work done by the hour,
day, or piece, as great ease of living would be secured as through the
employment of additional service within the house under the present
system. Though the cost of living might be increased, it is a price
many would be glad to pay for a release from the friction of a retinue
of domestics in the home. When it has become the custom for families
of wealth to have few or no domestics under their own roofs, the great
problem of how people of limited incomes can have comfortable homes will
be solved.
The second objection is the fact that it would take from the women of
the household much of their work. The problem, however, has not been to
provide a means of excusing from their legitimate share in the work of
the world one half of its population, but to use that labor at the least
cost of time and strength. The argument that would maintain the present
system because it provides women with work is the same as that which
destroyed the machines of Arkwright and Crompton; it is the argument that
keeps convicts in idleness lest their work should come into competition
with the work of others; it is the opposition always shown to every
change whereby the number of workers in any field is at first lessened.
But the plan proposed does not contemplate abolishing household work for
women, but changing its direction so that it may be more productive with
less expenditure than at present. It calls for specialization of work
on a business basis, rather than idleness or charity. It asks that the
woman who can bake bread better than she can sweep a room should, through
unconscious co-operation, bake bread for several families and hire her
sweeping done for her by one who can do it better than she. It asks
that the woman who likes to make cake and fancy desserts but dislikes
table service should dispose of the products of her labor to several
employers, rather than give her time to one employer and do in addition
other kinds of work in which she does not excel. It asks that the woman
who cannot afford to buy her preserves and jellies at the Woman’s
Exchange but crochets for church fairs slippers that are sold at a dollar
a pair shall dispose of the products of her industry at a remunerative
rate and buy her jellies put up in a superior manner. The plan allows the
person who has skill in arranging tables and likes dining-room work, but
dislikes cooking, to do this special kind of work, when otherwise she
would drift into some other light employment. It provides that women in
their own homes who are now dependent for support on the labors of others
shall have opened to them some remunerative occupation. The preparation
of food in small quantities always secures more satisfactory results
than when it is prepared in larger amounts. Women in their own homes
can give foods the delicate handling necessary for the best results and
at the same time use the spare hours that are now given to unprofitable
tasks. It makes every member of the family a co-operator in some form in
the general family life. What is needed indeed in the household is more
co-operation among the different members of it rather than conscious
co-operation with different families. It has been recently pointed out
that the carrying of electricity as a motive power to individual houses
may cause a partial return to the domestic system of manufacturing which
will be carried on under more favorable conditions than was the old
domestic system.[309] This is in the future—its possibility is only
hinted at. But the domestic system of housework, if that expression may
be used to distinguish it from the present individual system, and the
proposed system of unconscious co-operation, enables women to work in
their own homes and, by exchange of such commodities and services as each
can best dispose of, to contribute to the general welfare.
The plan of specialization of household employments has already been put
into partial operation by many housekeepers and its success attested by
those who have tried it.[310] Conscious co-operative housekeeping has
in nearly every case proved a practical failure, but the unconscious
co-operation that comes through business enterprise has brought relief to
the household in many directions and it is one of the lines along which
progress in the future must be made.