THE HOUSE WORKER--DOMESTIC SCIENCE
A young woman who is now the author of two successful novels earned the
money she needed to attend a teachers' training school by working as a
domestic servant. It was the quickest and most convenient way for her to
earn a certain sum of money. Her decision and independence of character
kept her from hesitating for a moment to make use of this employment. One
young woman who is a capable real estate agent takes a position as an
experienced general servant when her usual business is slack. A woman at
the head of a large business, which she originated and developed herself,
earned her living as a domestic until she was twenty-five years old. There
is no reason why any of us should be kept from doing good domestic work if
it is the most suitable and convenient employment for us.
The disadvantages of domestic work, as it is generally arranged at present,
are that the house worker is required to live away from home; her own
special sleeping and living accommodation is sometimes not of the best; she
has comparatively little time that is absolutely her own; she feels that
she is placed at a social disadvantage as compared with other girls who are
her friends and who are earning a living in other paid work, and she may be
lonely, as a consequence of being often the only paid worker in the
household. These are facts to be considered. But it is possible that a
re-arrangement of household work, undertaken by modern employers and clever
modern girls, who have a gift for household management, as well as
character and initiative, may provide a solution for these disadvantages.
The advantages of domestic work include good wages, and more comfortable
living conditions than the average paid worker can secure for herself. The
house worker has also variety in work, freedom to move about at her work,
and freedom from the rigid rules necessary in big business establishments.
She is afforded an opportunity to become a highly skilled worker, and she
can find a permanent position if she is competent and wishes to remain in
one place. Above all, the house worker is getting the best training for
home-making.
The wages of the house worker include board, lodging, and washing, and
often some part at least of her working clothes. She has two weeks'
holidays with wages. She may save in a year a quarter or a third as
much money as the entire earnings of her girl friends. At twelve dollars
a week, working forty-two weeks in the year, the girl in a factory can earn
five hundred and four dollars, out of which she has of course to pay all
her expenses. The house worker who is earning twenty-five, thirty or
thirty-five dollars a month can easily save two hundred dollars in a year,
and a number of them do so. Girls in other paid employments, who pay board
and lodging, washing, and carfare out of ten or twelve dollars a week,
are practically unable to save anything.
A competent house worker is beyond the fear of unemployment, while the
possibility of unemployment or of being laid off for a number of weeks is
an anxiety to many other paid women workers. When she marries and has a
home of her own to take care of, the house worker is at a great advantage.
She can take up the work of a home easily, and her management is a success
from the beginning.
The accomplishment most frequently required from the domestic worker is
ability to cook. The girl who has a natural gift in this direction should
take pains to develop it. She may have to begin to earn her living when she
is quite young. In this case she should apply for a position as second maid
in a household where a cook is kept, and she should be careful to learn
from the cook all that she needs to know in order to become a professional
expert in cooking. Or she should look for a position as house worker with
an employer who is herself a good housekeeper and who is willing to train
her.
The improvement of housework conditions is largely in the hands of
household employees. If a young woman is an excellent cook and a competent
household manager, she can make practically her own conditions with women
employers. If she prefers to live at home or in a room of her own outside
the house where she is employed, she can explain to her employer the hours
that she is willing to be on duty and how the work of the house can be
arranged so that she can accomplish the greater part of it during these
hours. She will be certain to find some intelligent woman employer who
will agree to her conditions. Only the first-class worker, who can plan
and carry out her plans successfully, will be able to do this; and every
woman employer may not see the benefit of such an arrangement. There are
a number of households where the woman in charge will be glad to accept
service during half the day, but here also the house worker must be first
class. The trained domestic worker of high qualifications, able to do her
work to perfection, and to consider intelligently how the work of the
household can be organized, will add greatly to the standing of this
employment.
The house worker should have a fairly good general education. The better
her general education, the more successful she is likely to be. She should
be intelligent, obliging, and adaptable. She should have a strong sense of
honour, for she is largely on her own responsibility, and the welfare of
the home is often trusted in her hands. The ideal household employee should
have some of the qualities of the artist. The work of a fine cook is
artistic, and the perfect care of a house requires both the eye and the
hand of an artist. No woman can be a success as a paid house worker who is
not kind. She often has some part of the care of children, and it is wrong
to have an ill-tempered or unkind person in charge of, or in company with,
children. Besides this, the care of a house, the cooking of food,
cleanliness, and the work of adapting oneself to the wants of others cannot
be carried out well and cheerfully unless the worker responsible for this
work is kind.
Wages are unusually good in domestic work as compared with other
employments for women. Some girls, however, are underpaid. A girl may
receive, for instance, twelve dollars a month. No girl with initiative or
knowledge of housework needs to remain in such a position. Wages vary from
twenty, twenty-two, to twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five dollars,
according to the locality, the nature of the work, and the skill of the
worker. A first-class cook commands high wages. So also does a first-class
managing housekeeper. A general servant of ability and character, who
undertakes most of the work of a household, with the exception of the
washing, will receive twenty, twenty-five or thirty dollars. In some parts
of the country her wages may be higher. If trained workers, who have
special gifts for household management and who feel that they can do better
in this employment than any other, would undertake the re-organizing of
house work, this occupation should take its rightful place as one of the
best occupations for the average woman.
From a consideration of domestic service we naturally pass on to those
occupations of girls which grow out of a knowledge of "domestic science."
The study of domestic science is making itself felt in the homes of the
country and is opening up many avenues of employment for girls. The
management of clubs, hotels, restaurants, tea-rooms, cafeterias, and
lunch-rooms in connection with colleges, departmental stores, and banks,
affords employment for those who have the gifts and training necessary.
Special cooking for invalids, the supplying of specialties, such as
marmalade, pickles, preserved fruit, canned fruit and vegetables, salted
nuts, cakes of various kinds and other dainties is work which is being
carried on successfully by numbers of women and girls. The girl, in
considering employment, should remember that she will be at an advantage
in any specialized women's employment and that the world is offering her
opportunities for good work which a few years ago had not been dreamed of.
The occupation of house work, household management, cooking, all the arts
of the home, will well repay the enthusiasm and energy of every girl who
has a gift in this direction. What the girl with ability for this work
needs to bring to her problem is, not only enthusiasm and energy, but
originality and initiative. "I have a real gift," she should say to
herself; "how can I make the best use of it?"
Universities have established departments of domestic science, and there
are also domestic science training schools. Numbers of graduates find
positions as instructors. Many other positions are open to the domestic
science graduate. Practical experience is required in most of these
openings. After graduating it is advisable to find a position as an
assistant. In this way the young woman in this occupation will become
fitted to hold the most responsible and remunerative posts. There are
possibilities in household work and domestic science which have not yet
been realized.