DOMESTIC SERVICE IN EUROPE
It is apparently a common belief in America that there are no
difficulties in domestic service in Europe, as it is an equally common
belief in Europe that the difficulties in domestic service are greater
in America than in any other country.[333] The judgment in one case
is as extreme as it is in the other. It is indeed as unsafe to make a
generalization in regard to all the phases of domestic service in Europe
as it is to make similar generalizations concerning all sections of
America—different countries have their own peculiar problems to meet,
and these vary in details as do the problems in different sections of
America. Yet a careful examination of the question may lead to the
conclusion that the differences in the condition of domestic service
in Europe and in America are those of degree rather than those of
fundamental principles; that the situation in Europe is modified rather
than radically altered by the social and political conditions existing
there; that as these conditions in Europe and in America become more
alike even these external differences will disappear, and that an ideal
form of domestic service exists as yet only in the castles of Spain.
Any consideration of domestic service as it is found in Europe to-day
must frankly recognize at the outset that the social and political
conditions that affect the question result on the one hand from tradition
and long-established customs, and on the other from the social and
political unrest that was born of the French Revolution. The past and
the present, the present and the future, stability and unrest, blind
obedience and personal freedom, aristocracy and democracy, have been
and are perpetually at war with each other. Every political revolution
that has widened the circle of democracy, every industrial movement that
has affected large classes of workers, every modification of national
ideals of education, every social change that has shifted the relations
of classes to each other, every barrier between nations that has been
broken down or that has been put up, has changed the problem of domestic
service. In England the tendencies towards social aristocracy on the one
hand and political democracy on the other, in Germany the trend towards
the exaction of military obedience in every walk in life and the counter
influences of the social democratic party, in France the deadening hand
of bureaucracy and the opposing unrestrained passions of the multitude,
in Italy the inherited prejudice against manual labor and the necessity
of gaining a livelihood by means of it,—all these forces so diametrically
opposed to each other, and so inevitably coming into collision, are but
illustrations of conflicting forces that have entered and that must
enter into the question. Political, industrial, educational, and social
changes have made England a manufacturing nation, have made Germany
one denominated by a military spirit and a military régime, have made
Italy a land given over to petty industries, and have emphasized in
France the tendency to seek official positions, no matter how small the
salary involved, rather than embark on individual enterprises involving
initiative. Some changes that have come within scarcely more than a
hundred years have been peculiar to a single country, most of them have
been shared by all, while not a few have affected America as well as
Europe. The changes have often been wrought silently, but they have been
none the less effective because they have come unnoticed and unrecognized
alike by the employer and by the employed in domestic service.
On the other hand, domestic service is affected by many external
conditions that are apparent to the most casual observer. These often
vary in the different countries, and often explain in turn some of the
conditions that differentiate domestic service in one European country
from that in another, as well as domestic service in Europe as a whole
from that in America. One illustration is found in the varying types
of domestic architecture which grow out of the varying national ideals
of home and of social life. The typical English dwelling, whether it
is detached, semi-detached, or one of a series, is complete in itself
and cut off from all communication with its neighbors. The huge French
apartment house containing half a dozen or a dozen families, without
an elevator and dominated by its concierge, has an artery in a common
stairway leading from the _loge_ of the concierge to the upper floor
occupied by all of the domestics in the building. The small apartment
house or detached house of the German is isolated, but it is in close
proximity to a garden café. The lofty, cheerless, mediæval palace in
which the Italian finds his abode is typical of the hardness of life for
those serving and those served. These fundamental differences in the
material construction of buildings must have an influence on the question
of domestic service. Houses arranged perpendicularly as in England, or
horizontally as in France and Germany, or located in the air as in Italy,
carry with them their own peculiarities of service and of work. Countries
where ice is not freely used, and apartment houses without places for
storage, make inevitable the daily marketing and purchasing all supplies
in small quantities; the delicatessen shop and the garden café simplify
the question of the evening meal in Germany; the elimination of breakfast
from the daily meals everywhere on the continent reduces to a minimum
that problem in domestic service. The isolation of life in one country,
the simplicity of life in another, the entire absence of hospitality
in still another, all affect the question, sometimes rendering it more
simple, sometimes more complex than in America.
Yet when everything has been said, the fact remains that in all
essentials the state of domestic service is the same in Europe as in
America. Employers on both sides of the Atlantic meet with the same
serious difficulties in their efforts to secure competent household
employees, and these difficulties find their explanation in precisely
the same conditions. They have already been enumerated in the case of
the American employer,[334] and the list tallies in every particular
with the enumeration of those met by the employer in Europe. It is hard
to secure the services of women in the household because they prefer
work in factories where the hours of work are definitely prescribed
and evenings and Sundays are free; because they prefer work in shops
where their individual life is less under control than it is in the
household of an employer; because they prefer service in hotels and in
large pensions since these give opportunity for specialized work, a
life of variety and excitement, and larger wages in the form of fees;
because they prefer short engagements with large fees at summer resorts
to permanent engagements with moderate wages in families; because the
growing spirit of democracy rebels against the inferior social position
accorded household employees, even to those whose work is rightly
classed as skilled labor. Obtaining help is difficult in small villages
because employees prefer the excitement of city life; on the other
hand, employers in large cities must meet the competition of shops and
factories.
In every country, it is true, there are districts where something of the
old patriarchal relationship between master and servant still exists,
where service in a household descends from parent to child, where
democratic ideas have not penetrated, where, be it said, the railway,
the telegraph, and the automobile are as yet unknown. In such districts
the question of household service is a simple one. But each year, as
these classes become more and more affected by new social and industrial
conditions, the perplexities in domestic service increase. Moreover, it
must be remembered that every period and every country has its legend of
an antecedent time and of a mythical Utopia where ideal service for every
one has always been found. These legends concerning service in Europe are
entitled to no more credence than are similar legends in America—the time
and the place where difficulties in domestic service are not and have not
been known are as vanishing points of the compass.
There are, however, certain variations of the problem in Europe and these
must be considered.
The European employer of domestic labor is at a distinct advantage in
comparison with the employer of such labor in America in that little or
no baking is done in the individual household, and washing as a rule is
done out of the house,[335] or if done in it, is often made a serious
matter like the semi-annual housecleaning,[336] while the continental
breakfast of coffee and rolls practically reduces the first meal of the
day to a negative quantity.
It is indeed an open question whether the simplification of household
work thus secured is not more than counterbalanced by the lack of modern
conveniences for doing housework, by the absence of any system of uniform
heating and the consequent necessity of carrying fuel to every room that
is to be warmed, by the absence of elevators and the hard work thereby
entailed on employer and employee alike, and by the necessity apparently
encumbent on every member of many households of crocheting endless yards
of trimming, working on canvas, and storing away for future use countless
piles of household linen. But these are at least variations from our own
problem, and both employer and employee in Europe have certain advantages
in their work even if these are counterbalanced by corresponding
disadvantages.
The employer in Europe, especially in Germany, is at an advantage in
being able, indeed often compelled by law, to make a contract specifying
the term of service for which the employee is engaged. In Germany[337]
contracts are usually made in the city by the quarter, in the country
by the year. If the contract is made by the quarter, notice of a change
on either side must be given six weeks in advance; if made by the year,
three months’ notice must be given; where the contract is made for only
a month, notice must be given fourteen days in advance; in all cases
notice must be given before twelve o’clock at noon.[338] If an employee
is dismissed without due notice before the expiration of the contract,
the employer must pay wages and board for the remainder of the time.[339]
If an employee leaves without giving the legal notice, he can be brought
back by the police and be also subject to fine and imprisonment.[340]
Again, it is impossible for a person to engage a servant while in the
employ of another without the knowledge and consent of the latter, while
any one who entices a servant away from his place is subject to fine and
imprisonment.[341]
It must be said, however, that there is another side to the contract.
If it protects the employer in reducing to a minimum the chances of his
being left without a servant, it also makes his life a burden during
the long period that intervenes between the notice and the time when it
takes effect. The service given by a servant during this time becomes
absolutely perfunctory, while the personal relations become so strained
as to render the situation almost intolerable. The temptation besets the
housekeeper to “rather bear those ills she has than fly to others that
she knows not of,” and thus she often encourages poor work by tolerating
it, because she is unwilling to give the necessary notice, endure the
still poorer service after it has been given, and in the end incur the
risk of getting another servant no more efficient than her predecessor.
Yet undoubtedly this extreme form of government supervision in Germany
is successful there. The police officials administer many a wholesome
rebuke to both parties to the contract. If an employer is in the habit
of changing servants often, that fact is known to the police through
the service books and the notifications of change that every employer
must make. When, therefore, such an one complains to the police that
his servant is impertinent or remiss in some way where he wishes legal
redress, the officer will probably advise him not to make the attempt.
“You had better not say anything about this, every one knows that you
cannot keep a servant long.”[342] If an employee makes too frequent
complaint of ill usage at the hands of his employer, he will probably be
dismissed with a reprimand for his own shortcomings.
One form of government supervision that has been specially commended in
other countries is the German service book. This represents the most
complete safeguard that has been devised to protect employers from
imposition on the one hand and, on the other, to assist employees in
securing places. Every person before going into domestic service must
obtain from the police one of these books. A blank page is filled out by
the police, giving a description of the person about to enter service.
When the first engagement is made, the name of the employer and the date
of beginning service are entered in the book and it receives the official
stamp. When an employee leaves a place, the date with the reason for
leaving and a statement in regard to the character and efficiency of the
servant must be entered in the book by the employer and the book then
returned to the police. No domestic employee can secure a position in
Germany without one of these service books—it is a passport that must be
viséd by the government officials and previous employers before he can
enter or leave a position, and no passport regulations in any country are
more stringent than are these service-book requirements in Germany. It
would seem, therefore, that this public statement concerning an employee
and the official recognition of it by the police authorities ought to
be an unimpeachable recommendation. That this is not the case, however,
seems to be the all but universal testimony. The service book is of
value in weeding out inefficient employees, whose inefficiency, however,
would often be self-evident without the aid of a service book. It is
not only true that in this, as in every other form of recommendation,
the mistress is anxious to say the best thing possible for a maid to
help her in securing another place, but the law compels an employer to
go still farther and to say nothing that will prevent an employee from
finding employment. If an employer suspects the honesty of an employee,
he is not free to state that suspicion in the service book; if he has
positive proof of his dishonesty, he must enter legal complaint against
the employee; if he has no such evidence, he must not even hint at his
suspicions. Moreover, the law goes yet one step farther and compels
every employer to believe an employee innocent in every respect until
he is proved guilty. Not only is he not free to say that he suspects
the honesty of an employee, or to leave out the word “honest,” but he
must state positively that the employee _is_ honest.[343] This policy
is justified on the ground that it is a necessary protection to the
weaker class, but it of necessity impairs the absolute reliability of
the testimonials given, and it lessens materially the value of the
service book as far as it concerns the employer. Even in Germany with
the aid of the strong arm of the law it seems as impossible as it is in
other countries to devise any system of recommendations that will tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that will at
the same time satisfy the desire of an employer to secure a place for
an employee he can himself no longer tolerate and also the claims of an
employee to the right to turn a fresh page and try once more to give
satisfaction to a new employer. The recommendations of the previous
employers of would-be employees must be discounted in Germany as well as
in America.
This government regulation of domestic service in Germany is acquiesced
in because government regulation extends to other industries and
because obedience is man’s first law throughout the empire. In so far
as the conditions can be reached by law this regulation seems to be
successful. But there are many factors in the problem that cannot be so
reached,—infirmities of temper, the visiting soldier, the preference for
an easy place, the desire for city life. Here the German housekeeper must
depend on her own resources, and her problem is the same as that in every
other country.
Another advantage domestic service in Europe has over service in America
lies in the large number of men engaged in the employment.[344] The
reasons for this are not indeed perhaps directly apparent. But domestic
service as an occupation for men must command a higher respect in Europe
than in America for two reasons: first, the competition with those
belonging to a foreign, or to a so-called inferior race is reduced to a
minimum.[345] Household service is performed in France by Frenchmen,
in Italy by Italians, and in Germany by Germans. In England it is given
in part by Englishmen, but also to a great extent by foreigners, and
the invasion of the occupation by those not English by birth may be
one explanation why the occupation is falling into ill repute among
native-born Englishmen. That the service is better performed by the
foreigner than it is by the Englishman explains why employers seek the
services of the former rather than those of the latter,[346] and perhaps
incidentally why the native-born servant so readily leaves the field to
his rival.
Another explanation why domestic service as an occupation for men
commands a higher respect in Europe lies in the relatively higher
qualifications that men must have. Not only must a man in domestic
service have the same qualifications as would be demanded of him in
the same occupation here, but he must be able to speak from one to
half a dozen languages in addition to his own.[347] Domestic service
is for men an occupation, and they make preparation for it as for any
other technical trade. They must spend from one to two years in other
countries learning the language[348] in order to increase their market
value; the position they can command and the wages they can earn depend,
other things being equal, on the amount of capital they have invested in
themselves. The social restrictions placed on women prevent their going
from one country to another in a similar way, and thus men, for this and
other reasons, command everywhere the best places, and they probably
occupy a relatively higher social position than do men in the same
occupation in America.
From the standpoint of the employer one advantage domestic service in
Europe has, is that it apparently costs less than it does in America.
The money wages paid domestic employees are nominally much lower than
in America, apparently ranging from about three dollars a month for an
ordinary housemaid to eight dollars a month for an excellent cook,[349]
in addition to board and lodging.[350] But these wages are supplemented
in a score of ways. A present in money of from five to eight dollars is
often given at Christmas or New Year’s, another is given at Easter, and
a third on birthdays,[351] while at all times the temper of the cook
must be propitiated with gifts of clothing and the housemaid remembered
in a similar way.[352] Not only are members of the family expected to
make these additions to the nominal wages given, but guests and transient
visitors pay similar tribute.[353] Moreover, the butcher, the baker,
and the candlestickmaker all increase the monthly stipend of servants
by frequent fees given in return for trade secured through them,[354]
while no inconsiderable part of the wages received—or taken—comes in
the form of profits,[355] perquisites and “gratifications.”[356] Still
another factor must be added, the daily allowance for wine or beer, or
its money equivalent.[357] In France, according to Weber, men-servants
are paid while performing military service,—“it is an act of patriotism
and of social solidarity.”[358] In Germany girls in the country sometimes
receive part of their wages in the use granted of a small piece of land
where they can raise flax. This they spin, weave, and sell, adding thus
something to their wages. Compulsory insurance in Germany and in Belgium
materially increases the cash wages paid by the employer.[359] It is
thus extremely difficult to state with even approximate exactness the
amount of wages received by domestics in Europe, since the total amount
is affected to such an extent by the variable factors of fees and outside
perquisites.[360] It is still more difficult to compute the variations
that wages have undergone from a past to the present time.[361]
That the cost of domestic service is in many places in excess of what
it should be is indicated by the growing custom among certain classes
of employers of demanding as their right a percentage of the fees
received,[362] and the protests, as yet unavailing, on the part of
the public against the exactions of these fees by either employer or
employee.[363] It seems not unreasonable to conclude, in view of all the
various ways by which wages are augmented, that they are in reality much
greater than their face value indicates, and in many parts of the service
greatly in advance of wages in other corresponding occupations.
The question naturally arises whether the value of the service rendered
is commensurate with its cost, but it is a question that must remain
unanswered in default of any common standard by which service can be
gauged.[364] Figaro has answered the question theoretically in the
other question put to Count Almaviva, “Measured by the virtues demanded
of a servant, does your excellency know many masters worthy of being
valets?”[365]
But the wage received sums up as little in Europe as it does in America
the subject of domestic service. Even good wages do not altogether
compensate for long hours of service,[366] hardness of work[367] and of
life,[368] and entire lack of social intercourse.
It is undeniable that the social conditions that surround domestic
servants in Europe are harder than in America. They are the survivals
of the condition of serfdom, as this was in turn the survival of a
preëxisting state of slavery.[369] Literature everywhere testifies to
the social chasm that has at all times existed between master and slave,
master and servant, mistress and maid, and employer and employee, as it
also does to the manifold imperfections of both parties to the domestic
contract,[370] while on the stage as well as in the daily press it has
been the domestic servant who has always been made the butt of jest
and ridicule.[371] “Now, as before and during the Revolution,” says M.
Salomon, tersely, “it (the occupation) remains under the ban of society;
customs are not changed with laws.”[372] It is true that the domestic
servant is often apparently unconscious of the existence of this social
ban, and that even when he is conscious of it, he acquiesces in it and
accepts it as a part of the social order that he cannot and perhaps would
not change, yet this unconsciousness of it does not alter the fact of its
existence.
The social disadvantages of domestic service show themselves under the
same guise as in America, though often in a much more exaggerated form.
In England the existence of a tax on men-servants puts at once a social
chasm between the master who pays a tax on luxuries and the servant
who is an outward manifestation of that luxury, while the servility of
manner that an American finds so exasperating in an English servant is
encouraged and even demanded as the birthright inheritance of a well-born
Englishman.[373] The servants in their turn enforce among themselves
similar social distinctions and the recognition by their fellows of the
various grades of social superiority or inferiority[374]—a condition
that has its origin partly in a desire to imitate the customs and
manners of those above them in the social scale,[375] and partly in the
extreme specialization of every form of household work and the resulting
inflexibility of all parts of it.[376] It follows that in England
“domestic service provides no general bond—perhaps, indeed, rather
accentuates class indifferences,” and that, as an occupation, for this
and other reasons, “domestic service, though lucrative and in many ways
luxurious, is not popular.”[377]
In France, while the relations between employer and employee are much
more democratic than in England, the social stigma is put on the
household servant, in part because of the traditional character given
servants in French literature, in part because the construction of the
French apartment house places the rooms of all the servants in the
mansard story and thus draws a line of social demarkation between those
served and those serving, in part because of the bureaucratic character
of society.
In Italy, domestic servants have apparently no social life whatever.
This is partially explained by the long hours of work that leave them no
opportunity for it; it is in part because women servants never go out
in the evening, receive no callers, and are, as it is often explained,
“really servants,” in the sense of having no social ambitions; and it is
also because manual work in every form is considered degrading, and those
who engage in it are under the social ban—a condition that is apparently
accepted without outward protest.
Yet much is done to mitigate some of the hard features in the lot of
the domestic servant. One of the interesting features in the condition
of domestic service in Germany is the large number of benefactions
organized for the benefit of domestic employees. There are everywhere
homes for aged servants,[378] homes for servants out of work,[379] unions
for providing servants with recreation,[380] and schools and homes where
they are taught household employments.[381]
Yet when all has been said the fact remains that even in Germany the
lot of a household employee is a hard one. “Servants hate a dull place
worse than a hard one,” and when a place is both dull and hard it has
indeed little to commend it. Women in Europe as in America enter domestic
service by the line of least resistance, and this explains why in both
countries so many are found in the occupation and why so many of these
are incompetent in their work and unhappy in their lives.
In one important respect the condition of domestic service in Europe
is immeasurably behind that in America. Even more than here domestic
service and domestic servants are the targets at which are aimed the
satire and the ridicule of literature and the press, and this is not
counterbalanced by earnest study of the subject as is the case with
us. The question is everywhere discussed in America, not because the
difficulties here are greater than they are elsewhere, but because it is
coming to be recognized as a part of the great labor problem of the day.
If the future holds for us a solution of the problem, it is because we
believe it is worthy of historical study and of scientific investigation,
and in giving it this recognition we have put it on a higher plane than
the one it as yet occupies in Europe.[382]
FOOTNOTES
[1] These schedules are given in Appendix I.
[2] Partial discussions of the subject can be found in the _First
Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Minnesota_, pp.
131-196; _First Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
Colorado_, pp. 344-362; _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and
Industrial Statistics of Kansas_, pp. 281-326; _Third Biennial Report
of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the State of California_, pp.
91-94; _Fifth Biennial Report of the Department of Statistics, State of
Indiana_, pp. 173-229. The last is especially full and excellent.
[3] The total number of domestic servants is given as 1,454,791. This
does not include launderers and laundresses, paid housekeepers in private
families and hotels, or stewards and stewardesses. It excludes also the
very large number of persons performing the same duties as domestic
servants, but without receiving a fixed compensation.
[4] This estimate is based on the supposition that the average wages paid
are $3.00 per week, and that two weeks’ vacation is given with loss of
wages. Both of these are probably underestimates, as will be seen farther
on. If the wages paid launderers and laundresses are included, and also
the fees paid for hotel and restaurant service, $300,000,000 seems a fair
estimate for the annual cash wages paid for domestic service.
[5] This estimate supposes the actual cost of board for each employee
to be $3.00 per week, which is probably less than would be paid by each
employee for table-board of the quality furnished by the employer. It
excludes the cost of house-rent furnished, and also fuel and light, all
of which are factors to be considered in computing the cost of service
received.
[6] It is difficult to estimate the value of the materials of which
domestic employees have the almost exclusive control. If the number of
domestic servants and launderers and laundresses in private families,
hotels, and restaurants is placed at 1,700,000, the number of employees
in each family as two, and the number of persons in each family,
including servants, as seven, it will be seen that at a rough estimate
the food and laundried articles of clothing of six million persons pass
through the hands of this class of employees. It was formerly a common
saying, “a servant eats her wages, breaks her wages, and wastes her
wages.” If this verdict of experience is taken as approximately true
rather than as scientifically exact, it will be seen that the actual
expense involved in domestic service is probably double that included
under the items of wages and support.
[7] _The Factory System_, Tenth Census, II., 533-537.
[8] A. E. Kennelly, “Electricity in the Household,” _Scribner’s
Magazine_, January, 1890; E. M. H. Merrill, “Electricity in the Kitchen,”
_American Kitchen Magazine_, November, 1895.
[9] In Massachusetts, in 1885, the number of women employed in
manufacturing industries exceeded the number of men in eight towns. These
were Dalton, Dudley, Easthampton, Hingham, Ipswich, Lowell, Tisbury, and
Upton. _Census of Massachusetts_, II., 176-187.
A weaver in Lawrence, Massachusetts, reported in 1882: “One of the evils
existing in this city is the gradual extinction of the male operative.”
_Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence_, p. 10. Reprinted from _Thirteenth
Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor_, p. 202.
In Massachusetts, in 1875, women predominated in fifteen occupations,
eleven of them manufacturing industries. In 1885 there were also fifteen
occupations in which women exceeded men in numbers, twelve of them
manufacturing. These were manufacturers of buttons and dress-trimmings,
carpetings, clothing, cotton goods, fancy articles, hair work, hosiery
and knit goods, linen, mixed textiles, silk and silk goods, straw and
palm-leaf goods, and worsted goods. _Report of the Bureau of Statistics
of Labor_, 1889, pp. 556-557.
[10] George Eliot in _Felix Holt_ speaks of Mrs. Transome as engaged in
“a little daily embroidery—that soothing occupation of taking stitches to
produce what neither she nor any one else wanted was then the resource of
many a well-born and unhappy woman.”
[11] Eddis, p. 63.
[12] DeFoe, _Moll Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_; Mrs. Alpha Behn, _The Widow
Ranter_.
[13] Sir Joshua Child, pp. 183-184.
[14] Charles Davenant, II., 3. Velasco, the minister of Spain to England,
writes to Philip III. from London, March 22, 1611: “Their principal
reason for colonizing these parts is to give an outlet to so many idle
and wretched people as they have in England, and thus to prevent the
dangers that might be feared from them.” Brown, p. 456.
[15] Force, _Tracts_, I., 19.
[16] _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668._ Abstracts
101, 772, 791, 858. An admirable discussion of “British Convicts Shipped
to American Colonies,” by James D. Butler, is found in _The American
Historical Review_, October, 1896.
[17] Eddis says, p. 66, that Maryland was the only colony where convicts
were freely imported; but Virginia seems to have shared equally in the
importation.
[18] In Pennsylvania and Virginia transported criminals were so numerous
that laws were passed to prevent their importation.
[19] William Smith, _History of the Province of New York from its
Discovery to the Appointment of Governor Colden in 1762_, pp. 207-210.
John Watson, pp. 485-486, quotes from contemporaneous writers in
opposition to the practice in Pennsylvania, _circa_ 1750; Hening, II.,
509-511.
[20] “It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and
wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only
so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they ever live like rogues, and
not fall to work; but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and
be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit
of the plantation.” Bacon, _Essays_, _Of Plantations_.
[21] Bruce, I., 606, says that the order of the General Court of Virginia
prohibiting the introduction of English criminals after January 20, 1671
(Hening, II., 509-511), was confirmed by a royal order announcing that
the importation of Newgate criminals was to cease, and that this rule
was to apply to all the Colonies. But the frequent protests against the
practice found in other Colonies at a much later date would seem to show
that it could not have been generally observed.
[22] Eddis, pp. 71-75.
[23] _Ibid._, pp. 69-71.
[24] Berkeley’s Report, Hening, II., 515. Brantly, in Winsor, III., 545.
[25] “In the year 1730 ... Colonel Josiah Willard was invited to view
some transports who had just landed from Ireland. My uncle spied a boy of
some vivacity, of about ten years of age, and who was the only one in the
crew who spoke English. He bargained for him.”—“Mrs. Johnson’s Captivity”
in _Indian Narratives_, p. 130.
[26] Hildreth, III., 395.
[27] Samuel Breck writes under date of August 1, 1817, “I went on board
the ship John from Amsterdam, ... and I purchased one German Swiss for
Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.” _Recollections_, pp. 296-297.
[28] _Winthrop Papers_, Pt. VI., p. 387, note.
[29] Barber, _Connecticut Collections_, p. 166.
[30] Scharf, p. 209.
[31] Some improvement was soon seen in Virginia. “There haue beene sent
thither this last yeare, and are now presently in going, twelue hundred
persons and vpward, and there are neere one thousand more remaining of
those that were gone before. The men lately sent, haue beene most of them
choise men, borne and bred vp to labour and industry.” _Declaration of
the State of the Colonie and Affairs in Virginia_, 1620. Force, III., 5.
Hammond in _Leah and Rachel_, p. 7, also speaks of the improvement.
[32] A well-known case was that of Thomas, son of Sir Edward Verney,
who at the age of nineteen wished to marry some one of lower rank than
himself. He was sent to Virginia to prevent the marriage, not, however,
as himself a servant. _Verney Papers, Camden Society Publications_, vol.
56, pp. 160-162.
A niece of Daniel DeFoe is said to have been sent to America as a
redemptioner for the same reason.
The Sot-Weed Factor says of a maid in a Maryland inn,
“Kidnap’d and Fool’d, I hither fled,
To shun a hated Nuptial Bed,
And to my cost already find,
Worse Plagues than those I left behind.
These are the general Excuses made by _English_ Women, which are sold or
sell themselves to _Mary-land_.” p. 7.
[33] James Annesley when twelve years old was transported to
Pennsylvania. His father died soon after, and his uncle succeeded to the
peerage. The boy was sold to a planter in Newcastle County, but his title
to the peerage was subsequently proved. Anglesea Peerage Trial, Howell,
_State Trials_, XVII., 1443-1454.
[34] Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 108; _The Verney Papers, Camden
Society Publications_, vol. 56, pp. 160-162, give a long and detailed
account of the method of obtaining and transporting servants.
[35] Neill, _Terra Mariæ_, pp. 201, 202,
“In better Times, e’re to this Land,
I was unhappily Trapann’d.”
_Sot-Weed Factor_, p. 6.
A young woman in search of employment was told that by going on board
ship she would find it in Virginia, a few miles below on the Thames.
Another young woman was persuaded to enter the ship, and was then sold
into service. Cited by Bruce, I., 614, from _Interregnum Entry Book_,
vol. 106, p. 84, and _British State Papers, Colonial_, vol. XIII., No.
29, 1.
The evil of “spiriting away” both children and adults became so great
that in 1664 the Committee for Foreign Plantations interposed, and the
Council created the office of Register, charged with the duty of keeping
a record of all persons going to America as servants, and the statement
that they had voluntarily left England. This act was soon followed by
another fixing the penalty of death, without benefit of clergy, in every
case where persons were found guilty of kidnapping children or adults.
But even these extreme measures did not put an end to the evil; and it
is stated that ten thousand persons were annually kidnapped after the
passage of the act. Bruce, I., 614-619.
[36] “The Forme of Binding a Servant” is given in _A Relation of
Maryland_, pp. 62-63, and reads as follows:
This Indenture _made the ____ day of ____ in the yeere of our
Soveraigne Lord King_ Charles, _&c. betweene ____ of the one
party, and ____ on the other party_, Witnesseth, _that the
said ____ doth hereby covenant promise, and grant to, and with
the said ____ his Executors and Assignes, to serve him from
the day of the date hereof, untill his first and next arrivall
in_ Maryland; _and after for and during the tearme of ____
yeeres, in such service and imployment as the said ____ or his
assignes shall there imploy him, according to the custome of
the countrey in the like kind. In consideration whereof, the
said ____ doth promise and grant, to and with the said ____
to pay for his passing, and to find him with Meat, Drinke,
Apparell and Lodging, with other necessaries during the said
terme; and at the end of the said terme, to give him one whole
yeeres provision of Corne, and fifty acres of Land, according
to the order of the countrey. In witnesse whereof, the said
____ hath hereunto put his hand and scale, the day and yeere
above written._
_Sealed and delivered in the presence of _____
Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 5-7, gives a similar copy. Bruce, II.,
2, gives the indenture of one Mary Polly whose master was to “maintain
ye sᵈ Mary noe other ways than he doth his own in all things as dyett,
cloathing and lodging, the sᵈ Mary to obey the sᵈ John Porter in all his
lawful commands within ye sᵈ term of years.”
[37] Hening, I., 257, 1642.
[38] Hening, I., 411, 1655.
[39] _Ibid._, I., 441-442, 1657.
[40] _Ibid._, I., 538-539, 1659.
[41] _Ibid._, II., 113-114, 1661.
[42] _Ibid._, II., 240, 1666.
[43] _Ibid._, 1705, 1748, 1753.
In North Carolina no “imported Christian” was to be considered a servant
unless the person importing him could procure an indenture. Iredell,
1741, chap. 24.
In West New Jersey servants over twenty-one without indenture were to
serve four years, and all under twenty-one to serve at the discretion of
the Court. Leaming and Spicer, 1682, chap. XI.
In Maryland servants without indenture of over twenty-one years of age
were to serve five years; if between eighteen and twenty-two, six years;
if between fifteen and eighteen, seven years; if under fifteen, until
twenty-two years old. Browne, 1692.
[44] Alsop, pp. 57-58.
[45] _Leah and Rachel_, pp. 12, 14.
[46] Neill, _Terra Mariæ_, pp. 201-202.
[47] Howell, _State Trials_, XVII., 1443-1454.
[48] Eddis, pp. 69-70.
[49] Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 58. Neill adds: “While some of
these servants were treated with kindness, others received no more
consideration than dumb, driven cattle.”
[50] P. 7.
[51] A negro servant in the family of Judge Sewall died in 1729, and the
latter writing of the funeral says: “I made a good Fire, set Chairs,
and gave Sack.” _Diary_, III., 394. _The New England Weekly Journal_,
February 24, 1729, has a detailed account of the funeral: “A long train
followed him to the grave, it’s said about 150 black, and about 50
whites, several magistrates, ministers, gentlemen, etc. His funeral was
attended with uncommon respect and his death much lamented.”
[52] She complains of the great familiarity in permitting the slaves to
sit at table with their masters “as they say to save time” and adds,
“into the dish goes the black hoof, as freely as the white hand.” She
relates a difficulty between a master and a slave which was referred
to arbitration, each party binding himself to accept the decision. The
arbitrators ordered the master to pay 40 shillings to the slave and to
acknowledge his fault. “And so the matter ended: the poor master very
honestly standing to the award.”—_The Journal of Madame Knight._
[53] John Winter writes from Maine, “I Can not Conceaue which way their
masters Can pay yt, but yf yt Continue this rates the servants will be
masters & the masters servants.” _Trelawny Papers_, p. 164. John Winthrop
makes a similar comment in narrating “a passage between one Rowley and
his servant. The master, being forced to sell a pair of oxen to pay his
servant his wages, told his servant he could keep him no longer, not
knowing how to pay him the next year. The servant answered, he would
serve him for more of his cattle. But how shall I do (saith the master)
when all my cattle are gone? The servant replied, you shall then serve
me, and so you may have your cattle again.” Winthrop gives as a reason
for high wages the fact that “the wars in England kept servants from
coming to us, so as those we had could not be hired, when their times
were out, but upon unreasonable terms, and we found it very difficult to
pay their wages to their content, (for money was very scarce).”—_History
of New England_, II., 219-220.
[54] Lechford, _Note-book_, p. 107.
[55] Lechford, _Note-book_, p. 81.
[56] Bruce, II., 2.
[57] _Travels_, I., 303-304.
[58] _Recollections_, p. 297.
“Before the Revolution no hired man or woman wore any shoes so fine as
calf-skins; course neats leather was their every day wear. Men and women
then hired by the year,—men got 16 to 20_l._, and a servant woman 8 to
10_l._ Out of that it was their custom to lay up money, to buy before
their marriage a bed and bedding, silver teaspoons, and a spinning-wheel,
&c.”—Watson, _Annals_, p. 165.
[59] Hening, III., 451.
[60] _Ibid._, V., 550.
[61] _Ibid._, VI., 359.
[62] Trott, 1736.
[63] Purdon, Act of 1700; Carey and Bioren.
[64] _Body of Liberties_, chap. 88, Laws of 1672; _Laws of the Duke of
York_.
[65] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV.
[66] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1682, chap. VIII.
[67] _Ibid._, chap. X.
[68] Browne, 1692.
[69] Bacon, 1715.
[70] Force, _Tracts_, III.: “Articles, Lavves, and Orders, Diuine,
Politique, and Martiall, for the Colony in Virginea Brittania.”
[71] “All such Bakers as are appointed to bake bread, or what else,
either for the store to be giuen out in generall, or for any one in
particular, shall not steale nor imbezell, loose, or defraud any man
of his due and proper weight and measure, nor vse any dishonest and
deceiptfull tricke to make the bread weigh heauier, or make it courser
vpon purpose to keepe backe any part or measure of the flower or meale
committed vnto him, nor aske, take, or detaine any one loafe more
or lesse for his hire or paines for so baking, since whilest he who
deliuered vnto him such meale or flower, being to attend the businesse
of the Colonie, such baker or bakers are imposed vpon no other seruice
or duties, but onely so to bake for such as do worke, and this shall
hee take notice of, vpon paine for the first time offending herein of
losing his eares, and for the second time to be condemned a yeare to the
Gallies, and for the third time offending to be condemned to the Gallies
for three yeares.” The same penalties are attached in case cooks or those
who dress fish withhold any part of the provision given them. Every
minister was to read these laws publicly every Sunday before catechising.
Force, _Tracts_, III.: “Articles ... for the Colony in Virginea.”
[72] _Trelawny Papers_, _Collections of Maine Historical Society_, III.,
166-168.
[73] _Ibid._, 169.
[74] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Fifth Series, I., 64-67.
[75] _Ibid._, 68.
[76] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Fifth Series, VIII., 427.
[77] _Winthrop Papers_, Pt. VI., 353-354, note.
[78] Trumbull, _Blue Laws_, p. 155.
[79] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Sixth Series, II., 112.
[80] Purdon, _Digest_.
[81] Purdon, _Digest_, Act of 1700. In East New Jersey the privilege
was restricted to white servants. Leaming and Spicer, _Acts of East New
Jersey, 1682_. In Massachusetts no servant was to be put off for more
than a year to another master without the consent of the Court. _Body of
Liberties_, § 86, Act of 1672. In New York no servant, except one bound
for life, could be assigned to another master for more than one year,
except for good reason.—_Laws of the Duke of York._
[82] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV., § 4; Leaming and Spicer, _Acts
of East New Jersey, 1682_, chap. XXVI. Any white servant burdened beyond
his strength, or deprived of necessary rest and sleep, could complain to
the justice of the peace. This officer was empowered, first, to admonish
the offending master; second, to levy on his goods to an amount not
exceeding ten pounds; and third, to sell the servant’s time. Trott, Act
of 1717. In New York and Massachusetts servants were to have convenient
time for food and rest.—_Laws of the Duke of York_; Massachusetts, Act
of 1672. In Maryland the penalty for insufficient meat, drink, lodging,
and clothing, burdens beyond their strength, or more than ten lashes for
one offence, was for the first and second offence a fine of not more
than a thousand pounds of tobacco, and on the third offence the servant
recovered his liberty. Permission to exceed ten lashes could be obtained
from the Court, but the master could not inflict more than thirty-nine
lashes.—Dorsey, _Laws of 1715_, chap. LXIV.
[83] Trumbull, _Public Records_, p. 263; Massachusetts, Act of 1700;
Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV. In North Carolina if a master did not
use means for the recovery of a servant when ill, and turned him away,
he forfeited five pounds for each servant so turned away, and if this
was not sufficient the Court was empowered to levy an additional amount.
Such servants on their recovery were to have their freedom, provided
they had not brought the illness on themselves. In Connecticut if the
injury came at the hands of the master or any member of his family, the
master was obliged to provide for the maintenance of the servant, even
after the expiration of his term of service, according to the judgment
of the Court. But if the injury “came by any providence of God without
the default of the family of the governor,” the master was released from
the obligation of providing for him after his term of service expired.
In South Carolina masters turning away sick or infirm servants were to
forfeit twenty pounds.
[84] Leaming and Spicer, _East New Jersey_, 1682; _Body of Liberties_, §
87, Act of 1672; _Laws of the Duke of York_. In Maryland the Act of 1692
freed a mulatto girl whose master had cut off both her ears.
[85] _Body of Liberties_, § 85, Act of 1672; _Laws of Connecticut_, 1673.
[86] _Laws of the Duke of York._
[87] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.
[88] Leaming and Spicer, _East New Jersey, 1682_, chap. VIII.
[89] _Instructions of the Crown_, November 16, 1702.
[90] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.
[91] Carey and Bioren, chap. 635.
[92] Trott, Act of 1717.
[93] Act of 1673.
[94] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. This is practically the
re-enactment of a similar law in Carteret’s time, 1668, and of the law of
1675.
[95] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[96] Trott, Act of 1717.
[97] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715, chap. XLIV.
[98] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. The Acts of 1682 and 1675 had
similar provisions.
[99] Act _circa_ 1784; Trumbull, _Public Records_, 1665-1678.
[100] Trott, Act of 1717.
[101] _Laws of the Duke of York._
[102] Purdon, _Digest_, Act of 1700.
[103] Act of 1704.
[104] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[105] Bacon, 1748.
[106] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[107] Bacon, 1748.
[108] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[109] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1700.
[110] Trumbull, _Public Records_.
[111] Acts of 1692 and 1715.
[112] Act of 1692.
[113] Connecticut, _circa_ 1784; New York, Act of 1672; Maryland, Acts of
1692, 1715.
[114] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[115] Act _circa_ 1784.
[116] Act of 1646.
[117] Trott, 1717; Massachusetts, Act of 1698.
[118] Act of 1646.
[119] Act of 1728.
[120] Iredell, Act of 1741. But corporal punishment was not to deprive
the master of such other satisfaction as he might be entitled to by the
Act.
[121] Act of 1717.
[122] _Body of Liberties_, § 88, Act of 1672; _Laws of the Duke of York_.
[123] Iredell, 1741.
[124] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682.
[125] Purdon, _Digest_, 1700.
[126] Act _circa_ 1784.
[127] Laws of 1672.
[128] Act governing white servants, 1717.
[129] _Laws of the Duke of York._
[130] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[131] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1668, 1675; Trott, Act of 1717.
[132] Massachusetts Bay, Act of 1636.
[133] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1721.
[134] Iredell, 1741.
[135] _Ibid._
[136] Laws of 1672.
[137] _Ibid._
[138] Iredell, 1741.
[139] Act of 1636.
[140] Act of 1784.
[141] Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, pp. 77-79, gives the names of eighty
servants brought over by Cornwallis between 1634 and 1651; and of these,
five became members of the Assembly, one became a sheriff, and two
were signers of the Protestant Declaration. Other noteworthy instances
are found in Virginia. Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 297. Sometimes,
however, the trail of the serpent remained. R. G., in a treatise
published about 1661, says of the burgesses that they “were usually such
as went over servants thither, and though by time, and industry, they may
have attained competent estates, yet by reason of their poor and mean
condition, were unskilful in judging of a good estate, either of church
or Commonwealth, or by the means of procuring it.”—_Virginia Carolorum_,
p. 290. George Taylor, a Pennsylvania redemptioner, was one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence.
[142] The Sot-Weed Factor describes a quarrel in which one says:
“... tho’ now so brave,
I knew you late a Four-Years Slave;
What if for Planter’s Wife you go,
Nature designed you for the Hoe.”—P. 21.
DeFoe says: “When their Time is expir’d, sometimes before it, (they) get
marri’d and settl’d; turn Planters, and by Industry grow rich; or get to
be Yearly Servants in good Families upon Terms.”—_Behaviour of Servants_,
p. 140.
[143] Elkanah Watson, writing from London in 1782, compares the silent
attention given by English servants with the volubility of those in
France, and then adds: “In America, our domestic feels the consciousness,
that he may in turn become a master. This feeling may, perhaps, impair
his usefulness as a servant, but cannot be deprecated, whilst it adds
to his self-respect as a man.”—_Men and Times of the Revolution_, pp.
169-170.
[144] Numberless advertisements are found like the following: “An Indian
maid about 19 years of Age, brought up from a Child to all sorts of
Household work, can handle her Needle very well and Sew or Flower and
ingenious about her Work: To be sold on reasonable terms.”—_Boston News
Letter_, June 8, 1719.
“An Indian Woman Aged about 30 Years fit for all manner of Household work
either for Town or Country, can Sew, Wash, Brew, Bake, Spin, and Milk
Cows, to be sold by Mr. Henry Hill.”—_Ibid._, January 4, 1720.
“A Very likely Indian Womans Time for Eleven Years and Five Months to be
disposed of; she’s a very good Servant, and can do any Household work,
either for Town or Country.”—_Ibid._, March 21, 1720.
“An Indian Woman aged Sixteen Years, that speaks good English; to be
sold.”—_Ibid._, February 20, 1715.
“A Stray Spanish Indian Woman named Sarah, Aged about 40 Years taken up,
which the Owner may have paying the Charges.”—_Ibid._, January 4, 1720.
[145] “A warr with the Narraganset is verie considerable to this
plantation, ffor I doubt whither yt be not synne in vs, hauing power
in our hands, to suffer them to maynteyne the worship of the devill
which theire paw wawes often doe; 2lie, If vpon a Just warre the Lord
should deliuer them into our hands, wee might easily haue men woemen
and children enough to exchange for Moores, which wilbe more gaynefull
pilladge for vs than wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can
thrive vntill wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all
our buisines, for our children’s children will hardly see this great
Continent filled with people, soe that our servants will still desire
freedome to plant for them selues, and not stay but for verie great
wages. And I suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20
Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant.”—Emanuel Downing to John
Winthrop, 1645. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Fourth Series, vol. VI., p. 65.
[146] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Fourth Series, vol. VI., p. 101.
James Russell Lowell commenting on this letter says, “Let any housewife
of our day, who does not find the Keltic element in domestic life so
refreshing as to Mr. Arnold in literature, imagine a household with one
wild Pequot woman, communicated with by signs, for its maid of all work,
and take courage. Those were serious times indeed, when your cook might
give warning by taking your scalp, or _chignon_, as the case might be,
and making off with it into the woods.”—“New England Two Centuries Ago,”
in _Among My Books_, I., 263.
[147] Teele, _History of Milton, Massachusetts, 1640-1887_, Journal of
Rev. Peter Thatcher, Appendix B, pp. 641-642.
[148] _The Report of a French Protestant Refugee in Boston, 1687_,
evidently submitted to guide friends in France thinking of coming to
America, says: “You may also own negroes and negresses; there is not a
house in Boston, however small may be its means, that has not one or two.
There are those that have five or six, and all make a good living.”—Pp.
19-20.
The New England papers, even in the first part of the eighteenth century,
are full of advertisements like the following: “A Negro Wench with a Girl
Four Years old both born in the Country, used to all Family work on a
Farm, to be sold on reasonable Terms.”—_Boston News Letter_, October 5,
1719.
“A very likely young Negro Wench that can do any Household Work to be
sold, inquire of Mr. Samuel Sewall.”—_Ibid._, April 9, 1716.
“Lately arrived from Jamaica several Negro boys and girls, to be sold by
Mr. John Charnock & Co.”—_Ibid._, May 11, 1719.
Most of the advertisements describe those offered for sale as “very
likely,” and add the specially desirable qualification that he or she
“speaks good English.” Judge Sewall, in 1700, gives this account of
his first protest against negro slavery: “Having been long and much
dissatisfied with the Trade of fetching Negros from Guinea; at last I
had a strong Inclination to Write something about it; but it wore off.
At last reading Bayne, Ephes. about servants, who mentions Blackmoors; I
began to be uneasy that I had so long neglected doing anything.”—_Diary_,
II., 16.
[149] But it is of interest in passing to note two contemporaneous
judgments on the effect of slavery. Elkanah Watson, writing of his
journey through the South in 1778, says: “The influence of slavery upon
southern habits is peculiarly exhibited in the prevailing indolence of
the people. It would seem as if the poor white man had almost rather
starve than work, because the negro works.”—_Men and Times_, p. 72.
Thomas Anburey writes, “Most of the planters consign the care of their
plantations and negroes to an overseer, even the man whose house we rent,
has his overseer, though he could with ease superintend it himself; but
if they possess a few negroes, they think it beneath their dignity, added
to which, they are so abominably lazy.”—_Travels_, II., 328.
[150] A New England woman writes: “In several instances our ‘help’ was
married from our parlor with my sisters for bridesmaids. I correspond
with a woman doctor in Florida whose sister was our cook when I was a
child, and who shared her sister’s room at our home while she earned her
education, alternating work in the cotton mills and going to school.”
This is but one illustration of hundreds that have doubtless come within
the experience of most persons living in New England fifty years ago.
[151] A visit to many New England burying grounds will illustrate this
statement. It was doubtless a survival of the English custom. A curious
and interesting collection of epitaphs of servants has been made by
Arthur J. Munby.
[152] “... Help, for I love our Yankee word, teaching, as it does, the
true relation, and its being equally binding on master and servant.”—J.
R. Lowell, _Letters_, I., 105.
[153] Even Americans commented on it. John Watson writes: “One of the
remarkable incidents of our republican principles of equality is the
hirelings, who in times before the war of Independence were accustomed
to accept the names of servants and to be drest according to their
condition, will now no longer suffer the former appellation; and all
affect the dress and the air, when abroad, of genteeler people than
their business warrants. Those, therefore, who from affluence have many
dependents, find it a constant subject of perplexity to manage their
pride and assumption.”—_Annals_, p. 165.
[154] _Autobiography_, I., 331.
[155] _Society in America_, II., 248.
[156] _Society in America_, II., 245.
[157] _Ibid._, II., 254-255.
It is of interest to contrast this picture of service in America by an
Englishwoman with one given a little earlier of service in England by
an American. Elkanah Watson writes from London in 1782: “The servants
attending upon my friend’s table were neatly dressed, and extremely
active and adroit in performing their offices, and glided about the
room silent and attentive. Their silence was in striking contrast with
the volubility of the French attendants, who, to my utter astonishment,
I have often observed in France, intermingling in the conversation of
the table. Here, the servant, however cherished, is held at an awful
distance. The English servant is generally an ignorant and servile being,
who has no aspiration beyond his present condition.”—_Men and Times of
the Revolution_, p. 169.
[158] _Democracy in America_, II., 194.
[159] _The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations_,
pp. 236-237.
Thomas Grattan also says, “The native Americans are the best servants in
the country.”—_Civilized America_, I., 260.
[160] _A Year’s Residence in the United States_, p. 201.
Charles Mackay also says that “service is called ‘help,’ to avoid
wounding the susceptibility of free citizens.”—_Life and Liberty in
America_, I., 42.
[161] _Domestic Manners of the Americans_, I., 73.
[162] _Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States_, p. 284.
[163] He adds the interesting facts that cooks usually received $1.50 per
week; chambermaids, $1.25; gardeners, $11 per month, and waiters $10 per
month.—_Recollections_, pp. 299-300.
[164] _The Englishwoman in America_, pp. 43, 214.
[165] _Civilized America_, I., 256-258.
[166] _Ibid._, I., 259.
[167] _Civilized America_, I., 264.
[168] _Ibid._, I., 269.
[169] _Views of Society and Manners in America_, p. 338.
[170] _Views of Society and Manners in America_, pp. 338-342.
[171] _Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United States
from 1820 to 1890_, pp. 16, 23.
By the _Census of Massachusetts_ for 1885 it is seen that forty-nine per
cent of all women in that state of foreign birth are Irish. I., 574-575.
[172] _Ante_, p. 11.
[173] Lowell says of the Irish immigration, “It is really we who have
been paying the rents over there [in Ireland], for we have to pay higher
wages for domestic service to meet the drain.”—_Letters_, II., 336.
A racy discussion of the influence of the Irish cook in the American
household is given by Mr. E. L. Godkin under the title “The Morals and
Manners of the Kitchen,” in _Reflections and Comments_, p. 56.
[174] _Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United States
from 1820 to 1890_, pp. 15, 22.
[175] Women constituted 41.8 per cent of the total number of German
immigrants arriving here during the twenty-two years ending June 30,
1890; the Irish forming 48.5 per cent.—_Ibid_., p. 11.
[176] The United States Census for 1890 gives the number of domestic
servants born in Ireland as 168,993; the number born in Germany was
95,007.
[177] The number of Chinese in domestic service in 1890 was 16,439.
[178] Walker, _Wages_, pp. 376-377.
[179] An illustration of these various changes is seen in the case of one
employee, who was born in Ireland, engaged in service in New York, and
afterwards drifted to Minnesota, where the report was made.
[180] This is indicated by the various definitions given in early
dictionaries. It is a curious fact that _The New World of Words or
General English Dictionary_, large quarto, third edition, London,
1671, does not contain the word “servant.” Phillips’ _Universal
English Dictionary_, London, 1720, has “_servant_, a man or woman
who serves another.” Bailey’s _Dictionary_, London, 1721, 1737, and
1770, defines servant as “one who serves another.” _The Royal Standard
English Dictionary_, first American edition, Worcester, Massachusetts,
1788, “being the first work of the kind printed in America,” defines
_servant_ as “one who serves.” The second edition, Brookfield, 1804, has
“_servant_, one who serves for wages.”
Some interesting illustrations of this early use of the word are found in
colonial literature. Thus Thomas Morton in his _New English Canaan_, p.
179, says, “In the month of June Anno Salutis, 1622, it was my chance to
arrive in the parts of New England with thirty servants and provisions of
all sorts fit for a plantation.”
Governor Bradford in his _History of Plymouth_, pp. 235-236, speaks
of “Captaine Wolastone and with him 3. or 4. more of some eminencie,
who brought with them a great many servants, with provisions & other
implments fit for to begine a plantation.”
A “Narrative concerning the settlement of New England,” 1630, says,
“This yeare there went hence 6 shippes with 1000 people in them to the
Massachusetts having sent two yeares before betweene 3 & 400 servants
to provide howses and Corne against theire coming, to the charge of
(at least) 10,000_l._, these Servants through Idlenes & ill Government
neglected both theire building & plantinge of Corne, soe that if those 6
Shippes had not arived the plantation had ben broke & dissolved.”—_Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1860-1862, pp. 130-131.
The same use of the word is found a number of times in the list of the
Mayflower passengers.
[181] J. F. D. Smyth says, London, 1784, “However, although I now call
this man (a backwoodsman of the Alleghanies) my servant, yet he himself
never would have submitted to such an appellation, although he most
readily performed every menial office, and indeed every service I could
desire.”—_Tour in the United States_, I., 356.
[182] Fanny Kemble writes, “They have no idea, of course, of a white
person performing any of the offices of a servant;” then follows an
amusing account of her white maid’s being taken for the master’s wife,
and her almost unavailing efforts to correct the mistake.—_Journal of a
Residence in Georgia_, pp. 44-46.
[183] An illustration of this change is seen in the different definitions
given to the word. In the _Royal Standard English Dictionary_, 1813,
a servant is “one who attends and obeys another, one in a state of
subjection.”
Johnson’s _Dictionary_, London, 1818, gives: “(1) One who attends another
and acts at his command; the correlative of master. Used of man or woman.
(2) One in a state of subjection.”
Richardson’s _New Dictionary of the English Language_, London, 1838,
defines _servant_ as the correlative of _master_.
The American usage was practically the same. The first edition of
Webster, 1828, gives: “(1) Servant, a person, male or female, that
attends another for the purpose of performing menial offices for him, or
who is employed by another for such offices, or for other labor, and is
subject to his command. _Servant_ differs from _slave_, as the servant’s
subjection to a master is voluntary, the slave’s is not. Every slave is a
servant, but every servant is not a slave.”
Worcester, 1860, says of _servant_: “(1) One who serves, whether male or
female; correlative of _master_, _mistress_, or _employer_. (2) One in a
state of subjection; a menial; a domestic; a drudge; a slave.”
These various definitions all suggest the class association of the terms
“servant” and “slave.”
[184] A curious illustration of the social position of servants in Europe
is seen in their lack of political privileges.
The French Constitution of 1791 was preceded by a bill of rights
declaring the equality and brotherhood of men, but a disqualification
for the right of suffrage, indeed, the only one, was “to be in a menial
capacity, _viz._, that of a servant receiving wages.” Title III.,
chap. 1, sec. 2. The Constitution of 1795, after a similar preamble,
states that the citizenship is suspended “by being a domestic on wages,
attending on the person or serving the house.” Title II., 13, 3. The
Constitution of 1799 has a similar disqualification. Title I., art. 5. It
is probable that these provisions were intended to punish men who would
consent to serve the nobility or the wealthy classes when it was expected
that all persons would be democratic enough to serve themselves, not to
cast discredit on domestic service _per se_.—Tripier, pp. 20, 105, 168.
During the revolutionary movement in Austria, the Hungarian Diet at its
session, in 1847-1848, passed an act providing that the qualification for
electors should be “to have attained the age of twenty years; Hungarians
by birth or naturalized; not under guardianship, nor in domestic service,
nor convicted of fraud, theft, murder, etc.” Act 5, sec. 2.—Stiles, II.,
376.
The qualifications for suffrage in England also excluded domestic
servants, but there was no discrimination against them as a class.
The Declaration of Independence, declaring all men free and equal in
the presence of African slavery, thus has its counterpart in these free
constitutions disfranchising domestic servants.
[185] Some of the figures given in this chapter have been taken from
advance sheets kindly furnished by the Census Bureau, and hence it is
impossible to give in every case page references.
[186] Preface, p. 1, and Appendix I.
[187] The percentage of foreign born as given here differs slightly from
that given on page 80, as it includes a small number of Chinese and
Japanese.
[188] Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island.
[189] Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, Montana,
Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota,
Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
[190] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana,
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi,
Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia.
[191] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida,
Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
[192] _Eleventh Census_, Population, Part I., p. lxxxiii.
[193] _Census of Massachusetts_, 1885, Part II., p. 38.
[194] Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
[195] Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Vermont.
[196] New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.
[197] Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin.
[198] Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri,
Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia.
[199] Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North
Carolina, Texas.
This classification is made with reference to conditions apparently
similar as regards domestic service.
[200] _Eleventh Census_, Occupations, p. 20. It is interesting to note
the increasing proportion of women of foreign birth who go into domestic
service. The Tenth Census shows that, in 1880, 49.31 per cent of all
women of foreign birth employed for pay were engaged in domestic service;
thus in ten years an increase of 10.06 per cent was made.
[201] _Census of Massachusetts_, 1885, Part II., pp. xxxvi, xxxviii. In
this statement only the number of women engaged in domestic service for
remuneration is considered.
[202] _Eleventh Census_, Population, Part I., p. lxxxix.
[203] _Eleventh Census_, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., p. 16,
Chart.
[204] _Ibid._, p. 59.
[205] _Eleventh Census_, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., pp.
376-403.
[206] Brooklyn, Buffalo, Camden, Fall River, Jersey City, Lowell, Newark,
Paterson, Rochester, Trenton, Troy.
[207] P. 68.
[208] _Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1885_, pp. 196-312.
[209] In the classification in these two tables the employees in several
large boarding houses were omitted. All of those included under the term
“nurses” are nurse-maids, with the exception of the few receiving the
highest wages.
[210] _Post_, p. 136.
[211] The figures are taken from the annual reports of city
superintendents. The attempt was made to find the average salaries in
the fifty largest cities, but many cities do not publish in detail
the salaries paid. The reports used were those for the year ending in
1889,—the year for which reports were made through the schedules,—with
the exception of Paterson, where the report for 1890 was used. Half-day
teachers are omitted as far as known. In cities having separate schools
for colored and for white children, the teachers in colored schools are
included where the salaries paid are the same as those paid in white
schools of the same grade,—otherwise they are omitted.
[212] _Fourth Annual Report_, pp. 520-529.
[213] _Ibid._, p. 625.
[214] _Post_, p. 132.
[215] _Report of the Bureau, 1887_, pp. 216-219, 225.
[216] _United States Bureau of Labor, 1887_, pp. 794-797.
[217] More definitely, it numbered 4.85 persons.
[218] Forty-six per cent had kept house longer than this, averaging
nearly thirty years; while forty-four per cent had kept house for a
shorter period, averaging about eight years and a half. Seventeen reports
came from housekeepers of fifty years or more experience.
[219] Seventy per cent reported that they had boarded since marriage;
about one third of these had boarded less than the average time, and one
half had boarded from one to five years.
[220] This estimate is based on the supposition that a cook is employed
at $3.80 per week, a second girl at $3.04, and a man half a week at the
rate of 87 cents a day.
[221] Table II, p. 76.
[222] The place of birth of the employees represented by the schedules
included the following countries: Australia, Austria, the Azores, Canada,
China, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland,
Ireland, Japan, New Brunswick, Norway, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Poland,
Prince Edward’s Island, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden,
Wales, the West Indies.
[223] _Eleventh Census_, Occupations, p. 122.
[224] An employer in a large city where there is much complaint of
the inferior character of the foreign population writes: “A general
impression prevails in most foreign families that any girl, no matter
how stupid, dishonest, or untidy, can apply for and rightfully accept a
position as general servant or housemaid at current prices.” A similar
complaint comes from many other employers.
[225] _Tenth Census_, I., 708.
[226] “I went into housework because I was not educated enough for other
work.”
“I haven’t education enough to do anything else.”
“I would change my occupation if I knew enough to do anything else.”
[227] This is illustrated by the experience of one housekeeper who
frequently does her own work. At these times her ordinary kitchen
expenses come within $50 per month. This sum is exclusive of fuel, rent,
and water. When employing a servant, the same expenses amount to $80 per
month, while if fuel, light, and water were included (rent not being
affected) the difference would be still greater.
[228] Yet so great is the demand for help that this is apparently
sometimes done. In Milwaukee it is a common thing to see affixed to
houses, or standing upright in the dooryard, well-painted signs looking
as if ready for frequent use, reading “Girl wanted.”
[229] _Behaviour of Servants_, p. 298.
[230] A lady recently went to an employment bureau, and in answer to her
application for “a good cook,” received the reply, “Madam, good cooks are
an extinct race.”
One large bureau in Philadelphia reports that the demand for good
servants is twenty per cent greater than the supply.
[231] The character of some of the intelligence offices in another city
is described by F. Hunt, in _The American Kitchen Magazine_, November,
1895.
[232] An excellent blank is used by the employment bureau connected with
the Boston Young Women’s Christian Association. Seven questions are asked
the persons to whom the employee has referred:
“(1) How long have you known her?
(2) Is she temperate, honest, and respectable?
(3) Is she neat in her person, and about her work?
(4) Is she of good disposition?
(5) Is she faithful to her work, and is she trustworthy?
(6) In what capacity did she serve you, and how long?
(7) Was she capable and efficient in that capacity?”
The bureau states its aim to be “the recommendation of worthy persons
only.” The detailed form of the questions asked is more successful
in preventing an evasion of disqualifications, than is the personal
recommendation of a general character, which often tells the truth, but
not the whole truth.
One large bureau states that it formerly used blank forms, which it sent
out with each employee. Employers were asked to fill out these blanks
and return them at the end of service, and these were kept on file as
recommendations. It was soon found that employers grew lax and would not
take the pains to fill them out, and the practice was abandoned.
[233] DeFoe says, “To be a good Master is to be a Master that will do his
Servant Justice, and that will make his Servant do him Justice; he may be
kind to a Servant, that will let him sleep when he shou’d work, but then
he is not just to himself, or a good Governour to his Family.”—_Behaviour
of Servants_, p. 293.
[234] Repeated statements like the following are made by employers: “A
few wealthy families keep a large number of servants at high wages,
which wholly unfits them for general service and moderate wages, and
establishes customs and rates which cannot be met by the mass of people
with moderate incomes.”
[235] An employer recently engaged a cook at high wages with sufficient
recommendations it was supposed. The first dinner (an hour delayed)
showed her incapacity, and when questioned more closely it was found that
the only domestic work she had ever done was preparing vegetables in a
boarding house. When asked why she had engaged as a cook, the reply was,
“They told me I could get higher wages if I called myself a cook.” The
experience does not seem to be exceptional.
[236] An employer writes: “I find no place on the schedule for stating
that my cook and coachman have to-day each given notice of leaving unless
the other is discharged.”
[237] “When I began housekeeping in 1870 I had one ‘general housework
girl’ who stayed with me nine years. Now I consider myself fortunate to
retain a cook or a second girl as many weeks.”
“Thirty years ago I had no difficulty whatever. I do not think my
character has changed meantime, or my method of treating servants, or our
style of living, yet now it is almost impossible to secure servants.”
“The question is very different now from what it was forty years ago.”
“The problem in this place grows more perplexing every year.”
“Many housekeepers here are between the Scylla and Charybdis of trying to
tolerate wretched, inefficient servants, and the impossibility of getting
along with them.”
[238] “In advertising recently for a general housework girl twelve
answered the advertisement. Advertising the same week for my former
servant, twenty-two ladies applied personally and twelve others wrote
that a girl was wanted. Although I told each of the twenty-two that if
the girl were even fair I would keep her myself, only two hesitated on
that account to try to secure her.”
The report of a large employment bureau for the year 1889 is as follows:
Number of employers registered 1,512
Number of employees registered 1,541
Number of employers supplied with servants 1,366
Number of employees supplied with situations 1,375
The number of employees registered exceeds the number of employers, but
many register who are incompetent to fill the position they seek, and
therefore many employers are without servants. The bureau regrets “its
inability at times to supply with competent help the large number of
patrons.”
Another bureau reports 2,659 applications from employers, only 2,099 of
which could be filled.
Still another bureau filling about three thousand positions annually
reports that at times it has had six hundred applications from employers
in excess of the number that could be filled with competent applicants
for work.
The domestic employment bureau connected with the Boston Young Women’s
Christian Association reports for the year ending 1890:
Orders registered 2,120
Orders filled 1,753
[239] “Our committee have been greatly puzzled to know how to supply the
constantly increasing demand for good and efficient workers in small
households, where fair compensation is offered for moderate requirements.
This demand is great in the city, but more so in the suburbs and country.
It is very difficult to find a woman willing to take service in a family
living out of sight of Boston Common. It is still more difficult to
find any one who will go twenty miles into the country.”—_Report of the
Women’s Educational and Industrial Union_, Boston, 1888, p. 29.
One employer in an inland city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, who
has a family of eight, and employs sixteen servants, writes: “It is
impossible here to secure competent servants.”
Another employer, employing thirteen servants, in a city of twelve
thousand, writes: “It is very difficult to secure servants, since women
here prefer to work in the factories.”
One employer with seven servants and a family of two, in a large
manufacturing city, says: “It is impossible to find well-trained
employees.”
[240] “This is the first time this question has been put to me directly,
and I frankly answer, Yes—to-morrow, if an opportunity were offered me.
For years it has been my wish to find employment of some kind which
would keep me from being a servant. Mrs. X has been very kind to me, and
tried to find me other work; but, of course, a girl who has been in a
kitchen for so long (thirteen years) is inexperienced in different work.
Nevertheless, I have met girls who had no better education than I, and
now hold high and respectable positions and make a fair living.”
A colored man, who has been a cook for forty years, replies with some
caution: “I don’t know, unless the other work was in sight. Can’t say,
unless somebody had done offered me another job, and I could look into
it.”
[241] See articles by Mrs. Ellen W. Darwin, _The Nineteenth Century_,
August, 1890; Miss Amy Bulley, _Westminster Review_, February, 1891;
Miss Emily Faithful, _North American Review_, July, 1891; C. J. Rowe,
_Westminster Review_, November, 1890, on the question in the Australian
colonies.
“If things go on much longer in the present state, we shall have to
introduce the American fashion, and live in huge human menageries.”—_M.
E. Braddon._
An admirable scientific presentation of the subject of domestic service
in London is given by Charles Booth and Jesse Argyle in _Life and Labour
of the People in London_, Vol. VIII.
[242] It is of interest to notice some of these occupations. The list
includes apparently nearly every form of work in every kind of mill
and factory, farm work, cigar-making, sewing, dressmaking, millinery,
tailoring, crocheting, lace-making, carpet-making, copying; places
as cash girls, saleswomen, nurses, post-office clerks, compositors,
office attendants; six have been teachers; others, ladies’ companions,
governesses, and matrons. It is of interest, also, to note that the
per cent of native born who have been engaged in other occupations
is slightly higher than the per cent of foreign born (thirty-one to
twenty-five).
[243] One employee writes, “I wanted to see for myself what it was to be
a hired girl.”
[244] An employee in Colorado, who receives $35 a month, writes: “I
choose housework in preference to any other, principally because for
that I receive better pay. The average pay for store and factory girls
is eight and nine dollars a week. After paying board and room rent,
washing, etc., very little is left, and what is left must be spent for
dress—nothing saved.”
“It pays better than other kinds of work.”
“My expenses are less than in any other kind of work.”
“I can make more. I have put $100 in the savings bank in a year and a
half. I had first $10 a month, but now I have $12.”
“I can save more.”
“I can earn more without constant change.”
“I can earn more than in anything else ($15 a month), but do not save
anything as I support my mother.”
“Any one that is industrious and saving can save a great deal by working
at housework.”
“I began to live out when I was thirteen years old, and I am now
twenty-seven. I have saved $1600 in that time. At first I had $.50
a week; now I have $3.00. One summer I earned $3.00 a day in the
hop-picking season.”
[245] “We are not as closely confined as girls who work in stores, and
are usually more healthy.”
“I chose it because I thought it was healthy work.”
“There is no healthier work for women.”
“It is healthier than most other kinds of work I could do.”
“You can have better-cooked food and a better room than most shop-girls.”
[246] “I came to a strange city and chose housework, because it afforded
me a home.”
“I am well treated by the family I am with, feel at home and under their
protection.”
“Housework fell to my lot and I have followed it up because it has
secured me a home.”
“Housework gives me a better home than I could make for myself in any
other way.”
“I have more comforts than in other work.”
“I like a quiet home in a good family better than work in a public place,
like a shop.”
“When I came to ⸺ and saw the looks of the girls in the large stores and
the familiarity of the young men, I preferred to go into a respectable
family where I could have a home.”
[247] _The New York Evening Post_, January 11, 1896, cites from _London
Truth_ an account of a bill under consideration in the New Zealand
Parliament providing that every domestic servant in the colony is to have
a half-holiday every Wednesday, and that the employer is to be fined
£5 if the domestic is deprived of this privilege. The “half-holiday”
practically means that the servant will be entitled to leave of absence
from two until ten. Inspectors are to be appointed to enforce the
provisions of this measure, if it becomes a law.
[248] “I choose housework as my regular employment for the simple reason
that young women look forward to the time when they will have housework
of their own to do. I consider that I or any one in domestic employment
will make a better housekeeper than any young woman who works in a
factory.”
“I think you can learn more in doing housework.”
“It requires both care and study and so keeps our mind in constant
thought and care, and ought to be respected.”
[249] “At home I was my mother’s help even when we had a girl of our own,
and from childhood had always loved to cook, and learned to do all kinds.”
“My mother was a housekeeper and did most of her own work and taught me
how to help her. When my father and mother died, and it became necessary
for me to earn my own living, the question was, ‘What can I do?’ The
answer was plain—housework.”
“I have a natural love for cooking, and would rather do it than anything
else in the world.”
“I like it best, was used to it at home, and it seems more natural-like.”
“I enjoy housework more than anything else.”
“I was a dressmaker several years because my mother thought dressmaking
more respectable than going out to work. But I always liked housework
better, and when my health broke down I was glad to get a place as parlor
maid.”
[250] A successful teacher says: “I have never liked teaching
particularly, and would much rather be a good cook.”
A sewing woman says: “I should prefer to do housework, but do not wish to
leave my home.”
A teacher says: “I am fond of children, and should like nothing better
than to be a nurse-girl, but I will not wear livery.”
[251] _Law of the Domestic Relations_, p. 599.
[252] _Commentaries_, II., 258.
[253] Kent, II., 260-261.
[254] Story, _On Contracts_, II., §§ 1297-1298.
[255] Starkie, _On Slander and Libel_, p. 19.
[256] Story, _On Contracts_, II., § 1304.
[257] Daly, IV., 401.
A good discussion of “The Legal Status of Servant Girls” is given by
Oliver E. Lyman, _Popular Science Monthly_, XXII., 803.
[258] An article on the last point is found in the _Boston Herald_,
November 23, 1890.
[259] “Housework soon unfits one for any other kind of work. I did not
realize what I was doing until too late.”
“I should prefer to housework a clerkship in a store or a place like that
of sewing-girl in a tailor-shop, because there would be a possibility of
learning the trade and then going into business for myself, or at least
rising to some responsible place under an employer.”
“I would give up housework if I could find another position that would
enable me to advance instead of remaining in the same rut day after day.”
[260] _Ante_, p. 113.
[261] “You are mistress of no time of your own; other occupations have
well-defined hours, after which one can do as she pleases without asking
any one.”
[262] “Women want the free use of their time evenings and Sundays.”
“If I could bear the confinement I would go into a mill where I could
have evenings and Sundays.”
“Sunday in a private family is usually anything but a day of rest to the
domestic, for on that day there are usually guests to dinner or tea or
both, which means extra work.”
“I wouldn’t mind working Sundays if it wasn’t for the extra work.”
“I suppose the reason why more women choose other work is, they
would rather work all day and be done with it, and have evenings for
themselves.”
“Some families have dinner at three o’clock Sundays and lunch at eight or
nine, and that makes it very hard for girls.”
[263] “A great many very ignorant girls can get housework to do, and a
girl who has been used to neatness and the refinement of a good home does
not like to room with a girl who has just come from Ireland and does not
know what neatness means.”
“In ⸺ they have much colored help and do not have white help, so the
white girls think any other work is better than housework.”
“In California self-respecting girls do not like to work with
Chinamen—they do not know how to treat women.”
“Before the introduction of Chinese labor a young girl never lost social
caste by doing housework; but since this element came, household service
as an occupation has fallen in the social scale.”—_Employer._
“When a native American girl goes out to housework she loses caste at
once, and can hardly find pleasure in the foreign immigrants that form
the majority of servants, and who make most of the trouble from their
ignorance and preconceived notions of America.”—_Employer._
[264] “The reason for dislike of housework is the want of liberty, and
the submission which girls have to submit to when they have to comply
with whatever rules a mistress may deem necessary. Therefore many girls
go into mechanical pursuits, that some of their life may be their own.”
“Girls in housework are bossed too much.”
“There are too many mistresses in the house when the mother and grown-up
daughters are all at home.”
“Most of us would like a little more independence, and to do our work as
we please.”
“In housework you receive orders from half a dozen persons, in a shop or
factory from but one.”
“A man doesn’t let his wife and daughters and sons interfere in the
management of his mill or factory—why does a housekeeper let everybody in
the house boss?”
[265] A description of domestic service in Japan is of value on this
point. “From the steward of your household, to your _jinrikisha_ man or
groom, every servant in your establishment does what is right in his own
eyes, and after the manner he thinks best. Mere blind obedience to orders
is not regarded as a virtue in a Japanese servant; he must do his own
thinking, and, if he cannot grasp the reason for your order, that order
will not be carried out.” “Even in the treaty ports [Japanese attendants]
have not resigned their right of private judgment, but, if faithful and
honest, seek the best good of their employer, even if his best good
involves disobedience of his orders.”—Alice M. Bacon, _Japanese Girls and
Women_, pp. 299, 301.
F. R. Feudge, in _How I Kept House by Proxy_, quotes from her Chinese
cook, who said that he could boast of forty years “of study and practice
in his profession.” “I am always willing to be told _what_ to do, but
never _how_ to execute the order—especially when in that department
I happen to know far more than my teachers.”—_Scribner’s Monthly_,
September, 1881.
[266] A shrewd young colored woman gives her version, verbally, of the
servant question. She lays great stress on her own “bringin’ up,” as “she
wa’n’t brung up by trash,” and thinks the average colored girl “only a
nigger.” She prefers to live “at service,” but insists upon “high-toned”
employers, and “can’t abide common folks.”
[267] “In some families no acquaintance can call on the servant; she may
have one or two friends, but the number is always limited, because, says
the lady of the house, not without truth, ‘Who wants a dozen strange
girls running in and out of one’s back door?’”
[268] “There are reasons why I sometimes feel dissatisfied with doing
housework for other people. I would prefer to do work where people would
say, supposing they were to give a company, ‘There is Miss So and So,
let us invite her.’” This is from an unusually intelligent employee who
says she does housework because she likes to do it best, and because a
domestic can have better-cooked food and a better-ventilated room than
most shop-girls, and who also writes, “Intelligence, brains, and good
judgment are essential in getting up a dinner for six or eight.”
[269] One illustration of this social barrier was found in a small
manufacturing city. The factory employees, all men and skilled workmen,
arranged one winter a series of evening entertainments. Invitations
were sent to the self-supporting women in the city, the list including
dressmakers, milliners, stenographers, saleswomen, and others, but the
social line was drawn at cooks.
[270] A lady was recently about to complete the engagement of a cook, a
German girl, when the head of the employment bureau said: “I fear after
all that A B will not suit you. You live in a flat, and as she wishes to
take violin lessons her practising might annoy you.” The incident was
narrated to a company of friends, and created much amusement, until one
said, “This shows how unregenerate we are; why should she not take violin
lessons?” It is not easy to find an answer.
A gentleman, whose family includes only himself and his wife, writes:
“Our maid-of-all-work is a young Swedish girl of eighteen, who recently
came to America. Three months ago she said, ‘If I had a musical
instrument and a place to practise, I would get a music teacher and
stay with you always.’ A few days later my married daughter sent us an
organ of sweet tone, which was placed in a small room little used. We
gave our maid permission to use it, and she at once secured a teacher.
This morning she said: ‘My father writes me if I am on the street much.
I write him, No, I enjoy myself better—I practise my music.’ We seem to
have solved the domestic question—at least for a time.”
[271] “I should like work where I could come in contact with more people
who would be of help to me.”
“A young woman doing housework is shut out from all society, nor can she
make any plans for pleasure or study, for her time is not her own.”
“No one seems to think a girl who works out good enough to associate
with, except those who are in domestic service themselves.”
“Domestics never have a chance to go to school or study.”
A domestic employee recently went to a public library for a book. The
attendant was about to give it to her, thinking from her manner and
appearance that she was a teacher in a neighboring school; but when
the question was asked and the answer given, “not a teacher, but a
housemaid,” the book was withheld, as servants were required to bring
recommendations.
[272] “Domestics are not admitted into any society, and are often for
want of a little pleasure driven to seek it in company that is often
coarse and vulgar.”
“It is very hard for a young, refined woman to give up a pleasant home,
and live constantly with ignorant and ill-bred people, as is very often
the case where more than one servant is kept.”
[273] “I fairly hate the word ‘servant.’”
“I don’t like to be called a ‘menial.’”
“The girls in shops call us ‘livers-out.’”
“No woman likes to be called a ‘hired girl.’”
“American girls don’t like the name ‘servants.’”
“I know many nice girls who would do housework, but they prefer doing
almost anything else rather than be called ‘servants.’”
“Some people call us ‘kitchen mechanics.’”
“I don’t know why we should be called ‘servants’ any more than other
people.”
[274] A woman who had been for years a domestic employee left her place
on account of sickness, and ultimately opened a small bakeshop. Her
former employer called on her one day, and said, “Well, Sarah, how do
you like your work?” She replied, “I never thought of it before, but now
that you speak, I think the reason I like it so well is because everybody
calls me ‘Miss Clark.’”
An employer invited her Sunday-school class to her home to spend an
evening. One of the members went into the kitchen to render some
assistance, and found there the housemaid, an unusually attractive young
woman. The employer said, “Miss M, this is Kate.” The maid, who never
before had showed the slightest consciousness of occupying an inferior
position, said, under her breath, “I am Miss, too.”
[275] That this jest has a basis of fact in England is evident from the
testimony of the footman of the Earl of Northbrook, who some time since
stated under oath, in a court of law, that although his regular wages
amounted to but $300 annually, yet he received from $2,000 to $2,500 more
each year in the shape of tips from the Earl’s guests. “Her Majesty’s
Servants,” in the _New York Tribune_, August 23, 1896.
[276] Mr. W. D. Howells has an excellent discussion of the feeing system
in _Harper’s Weekly_, May 16, 1896; also, Julia R. Tutwiler in the
_American Kitchen Magazine_, April, 1896; still a third is found in the
_Outlook_, August 8, 1896.
[277] One illustration of the fact that domestic service is never judged
by the same social canons as are other occupations, is seen in the
unwillingness shown by a young woman to enter the service of a family
having a questionable reputation. Her “squeamishness,” as it was called,
excited only laughter in a circle of women, no one of whom would have
exchanged calls with the family in question.
[278] _First Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
Connecticut_, 1885, p. 12.
[279] An employer writes: “I recently advertised for a young woman to
help me with the children, and be received as one of the family. The
forty answers received formed the most pathetic reading I have ever seen.
My selection was the daughter of a poor clergyman, and this was the class
from which the majority of the answers came. All desired domestic service
if unaccompanied with social degradation.”
How conscious many are of this inferior position is seen from a single
illustration. An employer recently invited her housemaid to take a
boat-ride with her. The maid replied, “I should love to go if you
wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me.”
[280] This is especially true in the matter of wages where wages and
annual earnings are confused, the element of time lost never being
considered. The fact is also often overlooked that when a young woman
lives at home without paying her board, her family in effect pay a part
of her wages and thus enable the employer to pay her low wages, though
nominally more than paid in housework. Thus one employee writes: “If
girls have homes where their board is given them, they can earn more
money on other kinds of work than in housework.”
[281] Domestic service, as seen by the employee, cannot be dismissed
without suggesting the fact that as many tragedies in life are found
here as elsewhere. One employee had planned to be a teacher, but sudden
deafness prevented, and domestic service was all she could do. Another
hoped to become a physician, but loss of property prevented her from
completing her education. A similar reason prevented another from
becoming a trained nurse. One had hoped to be a dressmaker, but it became
necessary to earn money at once without serving an apprenticeship. Could
the struggles and disappointments in thousands of such lives be known,
the household employee would cease to be the butt of jest and ridicule
that she sometimes is.
[282] An employer in South Carolina writes: “The difficulty here can only
be removed by the importation of competent servants.”
[283] The following table will indicate the preference:
=================+==========+============+============+==========
CITY OR STATE | NUMBER | NO | WHITE HELP | NEGROES
| EXAMINED | PREFERENCE | PREFERRED | PREFERRED
-----------------+----------+------------+------------+----------
Charleston | 259 | 143 | 65 | 51
Louisville | 200 | 104 | 80 | 16
New Orleans | 145 | 103 | 35 | 7
Savannah | 106 | 66 | 26 | 14
Texas | 67 | 31 | 35 | 1
Washington, D.C. | 135 | 61 | 54 | 20
+----------+------------+------------+----------
Total | 912 | 508 | 295 | 109
=================+==========+============+============+==========
The Charleston Employment Bureau advertises, “White help especially in
demand.” In Texas the proportion of the foreign born population is larger
than in any other of the Southern states, and advertisements from all
the leading cities in the state show a decided preference for German or
Swedish domestics. One from the _Fort Worth Gazette_ reads, “Wanted—A
white woman (German or Swede preferred) as cook in a private family.”
This illustrates a large number of “wants.” An employer writes from
Austin, “In Texas cities domestic service is furnished by Germans and
Swedes to a large extent, and the tendency to employ them is growing.”
[284] “The older generation of negroes who were trained for service have
nearly all died, and the survivors are too old to be efficient. The
younger negroes are too lazy to be of much use.”—_Brenham, Texas._
“Old colored servants that were trained before the war are now
inefficient; the younger ones will not submit to training.”—_Austin,
Texas._
“Old trained colored servants are no longer to be had,—younger
ones are not well trained, and consequently cannot do first class
work. White servants are better trained, but scarce, and therefore
independent.”—_Austin, Texas._
“We have 80,000 colored people in the city. The old trained servants of
slavery times are mostly passed away, and the younger ones have not been
properly trained.”—_Washington, D.C._
“The servants who were trained before ‘freedom’ are too old to
do good work, and they are not training their children to be
efficient.”—_Anderson, South Carolina._
“The majority of those now seeking domestic service are ignorant,
uneducated, untrustworthy.”—_Biloxi, Mississippi._
“Servants have no training.”—_Edgefield, South Carolina._
[285] “One difficulty here is the indifference of our colored servants
to what the morrow may bring forth. They are capable of living on
a very small amount, and they assist each other during the time
unoccupied.”—_Charleston, South Carolina._
“The negroes do not know how to render good service as a rule, and they
do not understand the term ‘thorough.’”—_Charleston, South Carolina._
“Colored help have to be very patiently and charitably dealt
with.”—_Washington, D.C._
“The difficulty here is the general shiftlessness and liking for changed
conditions that is characteristic of the colored race.”—_Austin, Texas._
“There is special difficulty here during the cotton-picking
season.”—_Austin, Texas._
“The majority of our servants, who are negroes, are not willing to do
steady, faithful work for reasonable wages. Their idea of freedom is to
come and go at will, and they expect full wages for light work.”—_Austin,
Texas._
“The ease with which subsistence can be obtained in this productive
climate and the high wages earned during the cotton-picking season make
the labor supply unstable.”—_Austin, Texas._
“The negroes need training, but rarely remain in one place long enough to
repay one for the trouble of teaching them.”—_Brenham, Texas._
“The negroes will do well enough if one is willing to overlook
carelessness.”—_Johnston, South Carolina._
“The colored servants do not like to be kept at steady
employment.”—_Trenton, South Carolina._
“The majority work only as a make-shift, with no idea of
remaining.”—_Biloxi, Mississippi._
“The whole colored race is in a transitional period which is full of
evils.”—_Marion, Alabama._
“Negroes are very stubborn under harsh treatment, but respond quickly to
kind treatment.”—_Crescent City, Florida._
“Most of the negroes are indifferent to improving in any way as
long as they have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and clothes to
wear.”—_Tallahassee, Florida._
[286] A southern gentleman well known as a student of social science
writes in regard to the importation of negroes to the North: “There is
nothing to hope from it. I have been reared in the South, and I know the
negro well. Speaking as one with no sectional prejudice and with the
broadest sympathy for blacks as well as whites, I must tell you that in
general negroes will not serve you as well as the Irish, Germans, or
Swedes. Personal attachment alone will secure good service from colored
people.”
[287] “I must say from my own experience and observation that
well-trained Chinese are the very best servants to be had here.”—_San
Francisco, California._
“I have grown up with Chinamen in the house, and it seems to me quite
revolting and unnatural to have in the heart of the house an alien woman
who speaks your language, knows your affairs, is even in a way dependent
on your companionship, yet is nothing to you as a friend, and would never
be asked even as a guest into the house if it rested on her personal
qualities.”—_San Francisco, California._
“Our Chinese cook is an admirable servant, invariably respectful,
and does his work beautifully; he has the self-respect to fill every
requirement of respectful and obedient behavior that the occasion calls
for.”—_San Francisco, California._
“Three Chinese were the most satisfactory servants we ever employed. In
a housekeeping experience of nearly fifty years we have employed negro,
Norwegian, and Irish servants.”—_San Francisco, California._
[288] “The difficulty can only be removed by repealing the restriction
act.”—_Centerville, California_.
“The Chinese have become very independent since the new restriction
act.”—_San Francisco, California._
“The restriction act made the Chinese very independent. They thought the
stopping of the supply would make those already here able to command
higher wages.”—_San Francisco, California._
“One difficulty is the exclusion act.”—_San Francisco, California._
[289] _Co-operative Housekeeping_. The book is now out of print, but the
original articles on which it is based can be found in the _Atlantic
Monthly_, November, 1868, to March, 1869.
[290] A full account of the plan is given in _Good Housekeeping_, July
19, 1890. It was also described in nearly all of the daily papers during
May and June, 1890.
[291] A more complete and possibly more serious account of Mr. Bellamy’s
views than that found in _Looking Backward_ is given by him in _Good
Housekeeping_, December 21, 1889.
[292] _The New York Tribune_ says of the sewing women in that city: “They
are a product of city life; a sort of vitalized machines, fitted only to
do a certain mechanical work and disabled for any other industry mainly
because they have been fastened to a sewing-machine all their lives.”
[293] “The men of my family would consider it the greatest disgrace if
one of the women connected with it were to support herself.”
[294] Mr. Charles Dudley Warner asserts that women teachers have no
social position (_Harper’s Monthly_, April, 1895). But his statements can
apply only to some of the ultra-fashionable finishing schools in two or
three large cities.
[295] It is the testimony of more than one employer that those domestics
remain longest in a place and are most content who have a taste for
sewing and reading. Those who are wholly dependent for pleasure on
excitement and change form of necessity a restless class.
[296] The word “servant” has been used many times in this work, but it
has seemed unavoidable in the absence of any other generally recognized
term.
[297] It has been suggested that the word “homemaker” be applied to
the mistress of the house and “housekeeper” to the employee; “working
housekeeper” is often used of an efficient caretaker who does her
work without direction; “domestic” and “house helper” seem wholly
unobjectionable. It certainly is not necessary in abandoning one
objectionable word to adopt another equally so. The Lynn, Massachusetts,
papers, for example, advertise under “wants” for a “forelady in stitching
room,” “a position as forewoman by a lady thoroughly familiar with all
parts of shoe stitching,” “on millinery an experienced saleslady.”
In other places one finds “a gentlewoman who desires employment at
twenty-five cents an hour.” The public has much to answer for in the
misuse of both “servant” and “lady.”
[298] _Japanese Girls and Women_, p. 304.
[299] _Ante_, Chap. II.
[300] This does not refer to ordinary baker’s bread, but to that made
according to scientific principles, such as is sold at the New England
Kitchen in Boston and by the Boston Health Food Company.
[301] A beginning in this direction has already been made in the case of
vegetables canned for winter use. In the canning factories of Western New
York an ingenious pea huller is in use which does away with much of the
laborious process hitherto necessary. In a trial of speed it was recently
found that one machine could shell twenty-eight bushels of peas in twenty
minutes. In some of the largest cities the principle has been applied,
and this vegetable is delivered ready for use; but such preparation
should be made universal and all other vegetables added to the list.
[302] Cited by Bolles, p. 413.
[303] Bolles, p. 130.
[304] The Oriental Tea Company of Boston sends out coffee and guarantees
it to maintain a temperature of 150° Fahrenheit for twenty-four hours.
The experiment has been tried of sending it from Boston to St. Louis,
with the result of maintaining a temperature of 148° at the end of three
days.
[305] The women connected with two churches in a city in Indiana
have maintained for some time such sales, and they have proved very
remunerative. In one city in New Jersey $1,200 was raised in a few weeks
to pay a church mortgage. In a Long Island village several hundred
dollars was raised for a similar purpose by the women of the church, who
took orders for cooking and sewing. In an Iowa city funds were obtained
in this way for missionary purposes. In a village of five hundred
inhabitants, in Central New York, the women of one of the churches have
sold, every Saturday afternoon for eight years, ices and ice-creams,
and have cleared annually about seventy-five dollars. In another town,
several women of limited incomes began paying their contributions to
the church by baking bread and cake for other families, and finding it
remunerative continued the work as a means of support. In one Western
city an annual sale is held at Thanksgiving time, and about one hundred
dollars netted for home missionary purposes.
[306] The Woman’s Exchange, _The Forum_, May, 1892.
[307] Many illustrations of this can be given outside of those connected
with the Exchange:
Mrs. A, in Central New York, has made a handsome living by making chicken
salad to be sold in New York City.
Mrs. B, in a small Eastern village, has for several years baked bread,
pies, and cake for her neighbors, and in this way has supported herself,
three children, and a father. She has recently built a separate
bakehouse, and bakes from thirty to one hundred loaves daily, according
to the season, and other things in proportion. She says she always had a
“knack” at baking, and that when she employs an assistant she has nearly
every afternoon to herself.
Mrs. C, in a Western city, supports herself, three children, and an
invalid husband, by making cake.
Mrs. D makes a good living by selling Saratoga potatoes to grocers.
Mrs. E has cleared $400 a year by making preserves and jellies on private
orders.
Mrs. F partially supports herself and family by making food for the sick.
Mrs. G supports a family of five by making jams and pickles.
Mrs. H has built up a large business, employing from three to five
assistants, in making cake and salad.
Mrs. I, in a small Eastern city, began by borrowing a barrel of flour,
and now has a salesroom where she sells daily from eighty to one hundred
dozen Parker House rolls, in addition to bread made in every possible
way, from every kind of grain.
Mrs. J, in a small Western city, sells salt-risings bread to the value
of $30 a week; and Mrs. K, in the same place, Boston brown bread to the
value of $75 a week.
Mrs. L, living on a farm near a Southern city, has built up “an
exceedingly remunerative business” by selling to city grocers preserves,
pickles, cakes, and pies. “One cause of her success has been the fact
that she would allow no imperfect goods to be sold; everything has been
of the best whether she has gained or lost on it.”
Mrs. M supports herself by taking orders for fancy cooking.
Mrs. N, living in a large city, sells to grocers baked beans and rolls.
Mrs. O, in New York City, has netted $1,000 a year by preparing
mince-meat and making pies of every description.
Mrs. P, in a small village on Lake Superior, has large orders from cities
in Southern Michigan for strawberry and raspberry jam.
Mrs. Q, in a country village of five hundred inhabitants, sells thirty
loaves of bread daily.
Mrs. R and two daughters last year netted $1,500 (above all expenses
except house rent) in preparing fancy lunch dishes on shortest notice,
and delicacies for invalids.
Mrs. S puts up pure fruit juices and shrubs.
Mrs. T prepares consommé in the form of jelly ready to melt and serve.
Mrs. U has made a fair income by preparing and selling fresh sweet herbs.
These illustrations can be multiplied indefinitely. They have come to
notice in nearly every state in the Union, and in places varying in
size from country villages without railroad stations to such cities as
Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.
[308] Mrs. A has for several years gone from house to house at stated
times sweeping and dusting rooms containing fine bric-à-brac.
Mr. B cares for all of the lawns of a large number of gentlemen, each of
whom pays him a fixed sum for the season in proportion to the size of his
grounds.
Mr. C cares for all of the furnaces and clears the walks in a city block.
Mrs. D earns a partial support by arranging tables for lunches and
afternoon teas.
Mrs. E washes windows once in two weeks for a number of employers.
Mrs. F takes charge of all arrangements for afternoon teas.
Mrs. G earns $3 a day as a cook on special occasions.
Miss H waits on a table in a boarding house three hours a day.
Miss I distributes the clothes from the laundry in a large city school.
Mrs. J is kept busy as a cook, serving as a substitute in kitchens
temporarily vacant.
Mrs. K derives a considerable income from the supervision of party
suppers. “Her social position is quite unaffected by it.”
Mrs. L “makes herself generally useful” at the rate of ten cents an hour
if regularly employed and twenty cents when serving occasionally.
Mrs. M goes out as a waitress at lunches and dinners.
Mrs. N employs a young man working his way through school to keep
wood-boxes and coal-hods filled.
Many college students in cities partially pay their expenses by table
service.
Hotels and restaurants frequently send out waiters on special occasions.
One employer writes, “I think a central office in this city at which
competent waitresses could be hired by the hour would be largely
patronized.”
The Syracuse, New York, Household Economic Club publishes a _Household
Register_, giving the names and addresses of all persons in the city who
do by the piece, hour, or day all forms of household work. Thirty-five
different classes of work are enumerated.
[309] See also article on the “Revival of Hand Spinning and Weaving in
Westmoreland,” by Albert Fleming, _Century Magazine_, February, 1889.
[310] One writes, “I find it much better to employ one servant and to
hire work by the piece, and to purchase from the Exchange, rather than to
employ an extra servant.”
Another housekeeper writes: “I began housekeeping twelve years ago with
three servants and had more than enough work for all. I now have two
and have not enough work for them, although my family is larger than at
first. The change has come from putting work out of the house and hiring
much done by the piece.”
A business man writes: “Our family is happier than it ever dared hope
to be under the sway of Green Erin. We purchase all baked articles and
all cooked meats as far as possible. A caterer is employed on special
occasions, and work that cannot be done by the parents, three children,
and two aunts, who compose the family, is hired by the hour. Since we
signed our Declaration of Independence in 1886, peace has reigned.”
Still another says: “I used to employ a laundress in the house at $4
per week and board. I was also at expense in furnishing soap, starch,
bluing, and paid a large additional water tax. Now my laundress lives at
home, and does my laundry there for $4 per week, and we are both better
satisfied.”
Several small families who do “light housekeeping,” have found that they
have in this way been able to live near the business of the men of the
family, and thus have kept the family united and intact, as they could
not have done had it been necessary to employ servants.
One employee writes, “If more housework were done by the day so that more
women could be with their families in the evening, I think it would help
matters.”
[311] _Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of
Statistics of Labor_, p. 157.
[312] _Profit Sharing between Employer and Employee_, p. 8.
[313] _Methods of Industrial Remuneration_, p. 158.
[314] Schloss, _Methods of Industrial Remuneration_, p. 173.
[315] Gilman, _Profit Sharing_, p. 189.
[316] _Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor_,
p. 178.
[317] Schloss, _Report on Profit Sharing_, p. 157.
[318] _Ibid._, p. 160.
[319] Schloss, _Report on Profit Sharing_, pp. 158-159.
[320] Schloss, _Methods of Industrial Remuneration_, pp. 173-174.
[321] Schloss, _Report_, p. 158.
[322] Wright, _Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor_, 1886, p. 231.
[323] _Ibid._, p. 172.
[324] This included the purchase of two new labor-saving appliances for
the kitchen, costing $5.70. The maid was given the choice of having the
new utensils or dividing a surplus; she chose the former.
[325] This included the presence in the family of two guests for two
weeks.
[326] One housekeeper reports that she gives her cook five cents for
every new soup, salad, made-over dish, or dessert that proves acceptable
to the majority of the family. She thus secures variety and economy in
the use of materials.
One reports that she has a German cook who understands thoroughly the
purchase and use of all household materials. The cook is given a fixed
sum each week with which to make purchases, and she keeps whatever sum
remains after these have been made. The family report that they have
never lived so well, or with so much comfort and so much economy as since
the plan has been tried.
Another states that she adds at the end of the month twenty per cent
to the wages of her waitress if no article of glass or china has been
nicked, cracked, or broken during the time.
These are all variations of the same principle.
[327] An admirable work on _Household Sanitation_ has been published by
Miss Marion Talbot and Mrs. Ellen S. Richards.
[328] The work in this direction carried on by Professor W. O. Atwater
of Wesleyan University has been of the greatest value, and indicates the
lines along which future investigation must be made.
[329] _Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of New York_, May 15, 1886.
[330] _The Century_, June, 1894.
[331] An excellent classification of standards of work and wages has been
drawn up by the committee on Household Economics of the Civic Club of
Philadelphia. See Appendix III.
[332] Maria Mitchell, p. 26.
[333] “However grievous the ‘servant problem’ may be in some English
households, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the
conditions on the other side of the Atlantic.” Alice Zimmern, in _The
Leisure Hour_, May, 1899.
[334] _Ante_, chaps. VI., VIII., IX.
[335] This is apparently the case universally in France and in Italy. In
Italy, while the washing is always done out of the house, the ironing is
often done at home. In Lombardy “a woman of color” washes the colored
clothes and flannels, which are kept distinct from the ordinary laundry.
On the continent bed linen is often changed only once in two, three, or
even four weeks—a custom that has at least the advantage of reducing to a
minimum this part of the household work.
“In England it is becoming the rule, except in large households with
laundries of their own, and in households managed on narrow means, to
send this work out.”—Miss Collet, _Report_, p. 9.
“Washing is put out, as it is now almost impossible to get a girl who
will do it.”—Employer, cited by Miss Collet, _Report_, p. 30.
[336] In some parts of Switzerland women come in from outside every six
weeks and do all the laundry work of a household for that period.
[337] The legal relations between employer and employee are everywhere
prescribed with more or less fulness, but in Germany the laws are very
minute in character, while the contract in particular is much more rigid,
and it is carried out in much greater detail than elsewhere. The laws for
Prussia are given in Posseldt, while a summary for the Empire is given in
Braun. Each state has its own laws on the subject, but as far as I have
been able to examine them, they are practically the same in principle.
I am indebted to Mrs. John H. Converse for permission to use an
exhaustive statement of the legal relations between mistress and maid in
England prepared by Mrs. Henry C. Lea of Philadelphia.
Weber, in _Les Usages locaux_, sums up many of the points in French law.
[338] Braun, chaps. VII., XI.
“In England situations are usually subject to a month’s notice on either
side.”—Booth, VIII., 221.
No special contract is made in France, with the result that “one changes
domestics these days almost as often as political convictions.”—Weber, p.
45.
In Italy, also, no special contract is required, though a servant cannot
be turned off without giving him ten days’ notice or a week’s wages.
[339] Posseldt, p. 75. Braun, chap. XIV.
But under many circumstances, specified with great exactness, a servant
may be legally dismissed without notice. Posseldt, pp. 64-70, gives a
list of nineteen cases where this may be done in Prussia; the laws for
Saxony are very similar (pp. 28-30); Braun, chap. XII., gives twenty-one.
[340] Braun, p. 64. In Saxony he is at liberty to choose between
returning to his place, paying a fine of 30_M._, or being imprisoned for
eight days. _Gesindeordnung für das Königreich Sachsen_, p. 8.
The employee is also privileged under certain conditions to break the
contract without notice. Braun, chap. XII., enumerates seven. These are
the same in Prussia, Posseldt, pp. 70-74; Schork, p. 38, gives only five
for Baden.
[341] The fine in Saxony is a maximum one of 150_M._, and the
imprisonment the maximum one of six weeks. _Gesindeordnung_, p. 10.
[342] Weber says, “If you have serious complaints to make, either seek
legal redress or say nothing.” Pp. 53-54.
[343] In Italy the servant is protected by very stringent laws punishing
slander and defamation.
[344] In England “the majority of adult male indoor domestic servants are
in large households employing over six servants.”—Miss Collet, _Report_,
p. 23.
“Every English man-servant is apt to consider himself a specialist....
This want of elasticity has led to his gradual disappearance from all
except the most wealthy households.”—Booth, VIII., 227.
In Italy cooks are very generally men. In France nearly all domestic work
in the provincial hotels is performed by men. In Germany waiters are, as
a rule, men.
[345] This competition is not wholly unknown. In a pension in Athens the
second waiter, a Greek, left because unwilling to take orders from an
Armenian head waiter. French servants sometimes go to the French cantons
of Switzerland, and the reverse. The same is true of German and Italian
servants who are found in the German and the Italian cantons. But the
permanent migration of servants from one country to another, especially
on the continent, is very slight. The reason usually given is, “They do
not understand the ways of another country and are unhappy in it.”
[346] “Not only will the foreigner work for less wages, but he is better
educated and more thoroughly trained. Whilst in this country a waiter’s
duties are ‘picked up’ in an irregular way, in Germany or Switzerland
the work is properly taught by a regular system of apprenticeship. The
knowledge of continental language which the foreigner possesses is found
useful, and he has, moreover, a higher reputation than our own countrymen
for neatness and civility.”—Booth, VIII., 235.
[347] English, French, and German are universally spoken by waiters in
all the large hotels and pensions on the continent. Two or three other
languages in addition are often found. One waiter in a very primitive
hotel in Olympia, Greece, spoke eight. This can scarcely be considered
exceptional. “The waiting staff of the great modern hotels consists
mainly of foreigners.”—Booth, VIII., 231-232.
[348] In certain quarters of London the boarding-houses are full of
waiters who have come over from the continent to learn English. Many
waiters not French by birth took advantage of the Exposition in 1900 to
improve their French by going to Paris at that time. It is not unusual
for travellers to be asked concerning possible openings in hotels and
pensions where waiters would have an opportunity of learning a new
language.
[349] For wages in England, see Miss Collet, _Report on the Money Wages
of Indoor Domestic Servants_, and Booth, VIII., 217, 221-224, 227-228,
231-235; for wages in France, M. Bienaymé in _Journal de la Société de
Statistique de Paris_, November, 1899, and M. Salomon in _La Nouvelle
Revue_, February 1, 1886. I have been unable to find satisfactory
statistics concerning the wages paid in Germany and in Italy. Numerous
inquiries lead me to believe that they are somewhat lower in Italy and
in Spain than elsewhere (an English housekeeper residing in Spain for
twenty-five years reports that general servants in Spain receive from
$1.25 to $2.00 a month, cooks, who are considered “artists,” receiving
somewhat more), and that in Germany the variations are not so great as in
England in the wages paid in different classes of society. This, however,
is but an impression, and the judgment cannot be considered authoritative.
[350] “We understand that the plan of paying board-wages throughout the
year instead of providing food is increasing, and is usually at the rate
of 16_s._ per week for upper men-servants, 14_s._ for footmen, and 12_s._
to 14_s._ for women-servants.”—Booth, VIII., 230.
“Another disturbing feature in many Irish households is the practice
of paying ‘breakfast wages’ in some cases, and ‘full board’ wages in
others.”—Miss Collet, _Report_, p. 10.
[351] M. Babeau says that in France as far back as 1692 a good cook
expected presents at Easter and on Saint Martin’s day as well as at New
Year’s. P. 283.
“To the 600 francs (given a domestic in the fashionable quarters of
Paris) must be added gifts and New Year’s presents.”—M. Jules Simon,
cited by M. Salomon, p. 549.
“A usually substantial Christmas box is given the waiters in West-End
London clubs.”—Booth, VIII., 231.
In Germany, while a servant cannot legally claim presents at Christmas,
New Year’s, and similar times (_Welche Rechte und Pflichten haben
Herrschaft und Gesinde?_ p. 30), the custom of giving them is universal.
“I would not _dare_ to give less than thirty marks at Christmas to the
cook and twenty marks to the chambermaid.”—German housekeeper, Dresden.
It is not uncommon in Germany for housekeepers to give presents on the
anniversaries of the days their servants come to them, and medals on
special anniversaries, as the tenth or twenty-fifth. This explains the
custom of the German Housewives’ Society in New York of presenting $10
gold pieces to employees who have served faithfully for two years in the
home of a member of the society. _The Evening Post_ (New York), December
12, 1900.
“I always give my cook twenty lire at Christmas and ten lire at the fête
of the Madonna.”—Italian housekeeper, Milan.
[352] “I often give a present of two marks between times, pay often for
extra service, and give my servants a great deal of cast-off clothing.
The head of a factory is not obliged to propitiate the bad temper and
sullen moods of his employees with gifts and fees as we housekeepers have
to do.”—German housekeeper, Berlin.
“I give my cook a great deal of my husband’s cast-off clothing and the
housemaid much of my own.”—Italian housekeeper, Rome.
[353] “I would not think of leaving less than two shillings with the
housemaid when I have spent a night in a friend’s house.”—Englishwoman,
Cambridge.
“I always leave five shillings with the servant when I spend Sunday with
friends, and as she always seems glad to see me when I return I imagine
it is enough.”—Englishwoman, London.
The traditional reply ascribed to Hanway (Bouniceau-Gesmon, p. 134) in
declining an invitation from an English lord, “I am not rich enough to
dine with you,” is typical of what one often hears in England.
“Vails to servants in households where a considerable number of visitors
are entertained must be an important item in the real earnings of
servants.”—Miss Collet, _Report_, p. 29.
An admirable discussion of the whole subject of fees paid by guests is
given by W. J. Stillman in _The Nation_, October 11, 1900. See also _The
Nation_, November 8, 1900. Mr. Albert Matthews in _The Nation_, December
13, 1900, cites an extract from the London _Chronicle_ that shows that
the custom dates back certainly as far as 1765.