Lucy Maynard Salmon

“ But while the economic woman, like the economic man, always sees these things, the actual woman looks at another side. She does not understand why work that society calls the most honorable a woman can do when done in her own home without remuneration, becomes demeaning when done in the house of another for a fixed compensation, but she recognizes the fact; she sees that discredit comes not from the work itself but from the conditions under which it is performed, and she does not willingly place herself in these conditions; she sees that a class line is always drawn as in no other occupation ”

“ We are busy women who have learned, in other lines of work outside the household, the value of order and system, and when we began housekeeping we saw no reason why the application to the kitchen of the same principles that were used in arranging a study or a library should not produce the same ease and joy in the work of the household. If a library, to be of service to those who work in it, must have its books classified according to some clearly recognized principle, would not a kitchen gain in usefulness if some principles of classifying its utensils were employed? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gamp into the trained nurse, and of the evolution of the modern hospital and the modern sick-chamber from the old-time crude, semi-barbarous methods of treatment?
The secret of it all lies in the one word,—investigation. Investigation is the product [86] of training, of education, of an eager and absorbing desire for knowledge, of minds open to conviction and ready to hold the judgment in suspense until it can be based on facts. The steps in the process of the evolution are equally clear. ”

“ Division of labor has made her in reality, though not in position, not a menial, a drudge, a slave, but a co-operator in the work of the household. The cook who prepares the raw material for consumption is not more a servant than is the farmer who produces the raw material; indeed her work is justly considered skilled labor, while that of the agricultural laborer is often unskilled. The cook is the co-operator with her employer in the same sense as the farmer is a co-operator in the industrial system ”

“ Nothing is so inexorable as law. Law works itself out whether recognized or not. If we accept the workings of the law and aid in its natural development, peace and harmony result; if we resist the action of law and struggle against it, we do not stay its progress but we injure ourselves as the bird that beats its wings against prison-bars. ”

“ The aristocracy of the household must succumb to this universal desire for personal independence on the part of employees.
The plan suggested of specializing household industries to as great an extent as possible and encouraging the domestic employee to live in her own home has much in its favor. It substitutes for the responsibility to an individual employer, so irritating to many and so contrary to the industrial spirit of the age, the responsibility to a business firm. ”

“ The labor vote, the Irish vote, the German vote, have been flattered and sought by party managers until the wage-earning man feels that “like Atlas of old he carries the world on his shoulders.” If the laboring man feels the weight of the world, his wife and daughter believe that some share of the burden rests on them. The democratic tendencies of the country, the political practices of the day, have everywhere broken down the high wall of separation between employer and employee. ”

“ In a word, the relation of college women to the question of domestic science is first of all the duty of recognizing the importance of the subject itself, and of its special importance to them as college women; and second, a duty of examination, of discussion, of intelligent study, of appeal to public sentiment, of effort to secure at no distant day the establishment of a technical school of domestic science which shall in no sense be a substitute for collegiate and academic training, but shall be built upon such training as its most secure foundation. ”

“ Moreover, every individual has the same right to work that he has to life itself, and to shut out the rich and the well-to-do from the privilege is as unfair to the individual as it is to society. Indeed, it may be assumed that the members of this class are, as a rule, better qualified for work than are other classes, since wealth has brought opportunities in the direction of education and special training, and society loses in the same proportion as it deprives itself of their services. ”

“ That spirit of restlessness, nervous discontent, and craving for excitement which foreigners find characteristic of all who breathe American air is not confined to business men and society women—it permeates the kitchen, the nursery, the laundry, and every part of the household. Among employers the mode of life tends more and more towards a winter in California, a summer in Europe, an autumn in the mountains, and a spring in Florida. ”

“ Certainly to-day we interpret equality to mean that all persons should have the opportunity of making of themselves all that is possible; to jump at the conclusion that reform in domestic service means subscription to the literal interpretation of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence is to make an unwarranted assumption. If, however, we were to accept the doctrine of equality, it would be with an appreciation of what it involves. The establishment of social equality would sometimes mean the elevation of the employer to the natural social and moral position of the employee. ”

“ The utter neglect of the subject by economic students and writers must give place to a scientific investigation of an employment which is at least wealth-consuming if not wealth-producing. A very large part of the wealth produced in the world is consumed in the household, yet neither those who produce nor those who consume know on what principles it is done. Time-saving and labor-saving devices are made at enormous cost for uses in production, while time and strength incalculable are wasted through consumption. In no other occupation [200] is there so much waste of labor and capital ”

“ America has none of these, but it has men and women who believe that if the future holds for us a solution of the problem it lies, not in the direction of reproducing on American soil the English flunkey, or in the introduction of German governmental control, or in increasing the number of French chefs who shall give us endless varieties of new soups and salads, or yet in crushing all interest in life out of the hearts and souls of those who serve us, as a pitiless fate seems to have done in Italy ”

“ When this improved condition is brought about, there will be established what Professor Jevons considers the best of all trade-unions—that between the employer and employee.
It must be frankly said that the plan of adopting profit sharing in the household is a theoretical one; and to say it is “mere theory” is often considered an unanswerable argument with which to meet every new proposition. But theory lies at the basis of all successful action; difficulties have come in household service often because it has been conducted without theory—in a short-sighted, haphazard, hand-to-mouth fashion. ”

“ Few persons whose attention is attracted by the modest sign of the Woman’s Exchange, now found in nearly all our large cities, realize that a new competitor has appeared in the industrial market. Few even of those who have assisted in organizing and carrying on such exchanges know that they have been instrumental in introducing a new factor into economic problems. Yet in spite of unpretentious rooms and unconcern as to economic questions, the Woman’s Exchange has already had an appreciable effect on economic conditions, and must in future play a still more important part. ”

“ The argument that would maintain the present system because it provides women with work is the same as that which destroyed the machines of Arkwright and Crompton; it is the argument that keeps convicts in idleness lest their work should come into competition with the work of others; it is the opposition always shown to every change whereby the number of workers in any field is at first lessened. But the plan proposed does not contemplate abolishing household work for women, but changing its direction so that it may be more productive with less expenditure than at present. ”

“ The historian may forgive the one who has wandered from the fold, but the wanderer must in future remain within the pale. Yet how shall the collector of experiences be diverted from his diversion of collecting? The collector of old mahogany depletes his bank account and turns his modest dwelling into a veritable second-hand shop, but still his pony chaise is tied before every farmhouse that has advertised an auction sale of household effects. The lawyer whose country estate produces green peas that yearly cost him five dollars a peck, cheerfully proclaims that it pays to be a gentleman farmer. ”

“ The servility of manner demanded—at least in public—of all domestics is an anomaly in a country where there is no enforced recognition of social and political superiors. The price paid for it—high wages, poor service, constant change, household friction—seems a heavy one and the excuse for it small. As long as domestic service lacks the safety valve of personal independence and the outward expression of self-respect, just so long is there danger of too great repression and consequent explosion. ”

“ The household has not yet become a field for investigation. It resents intrusion into its domain and regards investigators as Paul Prys. It is sensitive to criticism, and it considers a suggestion of change as an unwarrantable interference with its affairs, and as an attack on it by outsiders. It does [88] not take kindly to new ideas, and it often rejects them on a priori grounds, not because experiment has proved them wrong. Clothed in a mantle of virtue, it feels itself above criticism, because the home is of divine origin. ”

“ But co-operative boarding is to the employer what high wages are to the employee—he is willing to sacrifice something for what seems to him life, that is, in this case, the unity, privacy, quiet, and independence of family life. The friction with servants is obviated since the plan includes a housekeeper who is to stand between the co-operators and the employees, but the common interest of desiring freedom from the care of servants and of securing the best board at the lowest rates is not a tie strong enough to bind together those whose interests in other directions are most diverse. ”

“ But alas, who shall give an infallible recipe for accomplishing the impossible? Who shall lay down the principle that will make coal-miners contented with low wages and [104] long hours, that will make the employers of masons satisfied with bungling work that threatens life and limb, that will lull into ease a conscience aroused by the iniquities of the sweating system? Nothing can be more chimerical than to expect a perfect automatic adjustment of the household machinery while other parts of the industrial world are not in harmonious relation to each other. ”

“ Household employers and employees may be indifferent to the changes that the industrial revolutions of a century have brought, they may be ignorant of them all, but they have not been unaffected by them, nor can they remain unaffected by changes that may subsequently come in the industrial system. The interdependence of all forms of industry is so complete, that a change cannot revolutionize one without in time revolutionizing all. The old industrial régime cannot be restored, nor can household employments of to-day be put back to their condition of a hundred years ago. ”

“ Cold, enduring statistical tables, as well as observation, go to show that there is an error in this assumption, and when this fact is pointed out, Society, forgetting that there are some who would but cannot, and others who can but will not, attributes the discrepancy between theory and reality to college education for women. If a few college women could add something to our knowledge of how household affairs are conducted, would that contribution serve to atone for both voluntary and involuntary neglect of matrimony? ”

“ We may prove from etymology that every person who confers a favor on another is his servant. We may present a lawyer’s brief showing to the satisfaction of every local and national court that every employee in the eye of the law is a servant. We may argue from the biblical standpoint and show without a flaw in our chain of reasoning that we are all servants of one another. We may point to the classification of occupations made by the national census bureau and show that clergymen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and domestic servants are placed together. ”

“ The young woman who has prepared herself for the profession of law or of medicine decides to marry and goes into business partnership with her husband. It would seem as if all plans for teaching household economics in the college or in the public school with reference to preparing young women for their future careers as housekeepers must be futile until [45] the orbit of the matrimonial comet can be predicted.
Yet it must be recognized that college education has already done much for the household, and presumably for that somewhat vague field denominated “domestic science.” ”

“ The very perfection of the principle of the division of labor makes possible the expression of the greatest individuality in that it offers the possibility of selection from a hundred varieties whereas before no choice was given. The ability to choose between the work of a hundred cooks permits a truer individuality than does the command of the services of but one. Whims, caprices, and eccentricities sometimes masquerade as individuality and are not always entitled to respect. ”

“ Could an industrial partnership be formed between employer and employee, with the agreement to divide, not positive profits, but negative savings, something might be done to save the forty per cent who now give up housekeeping and go into the bankruptcy of hotels and boarding houses, and also to lessen the fifty per cent who “vegetate” through the employment in the household of obsolete industrial methods.
It may also be said that profit sharing appeals to a selfish motive and therefore is objectionable. But much of the waste and extravagance in the household comes from ignorance ”

“ The so-called “woman question” is not, as was once popularly supposed, synonymous either with woman suffrage or with the higher education of woman—it is as broad and as deep as the thoughts and activities of woman. It was inevitable that for many years efforts should be made to open new occupations to women, to give them better preparation for their work, and to secure [54] fair remuneration for service well done. It was inevitable, because, however much some sociologists may wish it otherwise, the fact remains that woman is and must be to a certain extent a wage-earner. ”

“ A retinue of employees in a household becomes like a complicated mechanism used to attain simple ends. Taking the employee out of the house of the employer brings flexibility into household employments, since it results in greater personal independence and in openings for specialized work. An ambitious and energetic office boy is pushed on by his employer into more responsible positions, but the domestic employee is held back by impassable barriers. Industrial promotion is impossible as the occupation at present exists. ”

“ Those employers who “despise housekeeping,” who “cannot endure cooking,” who “hate the kitchen,” who “will not do menial work,” will come to regard household work in a different light. Indeed, until the members of this class, far too large in numbers, change either their opinion or their occupation, it is hopeless to look for a reform in domestic service. That “dignity of labor” so often prescribed as a panacea for the troubles in the kitchen must first be maintained in the parlor if reform is to come. The simple prescription of the remedy will not effect a cure. ”

“ The servile nature of domestic duties in Europe, and more particularly in England, is much more likely to make servants liable to the discontent which mars their merits, than the common understanding in America, which makes the compact between ‘employer’ and ‘help’ a mere matter of business, entailing no mean submission on the one hand, and giving no right to any undue assumption of power on the other.... Domestic service is not considered so disgraceful in the United States, as it is felt to be in the United Kingdom. ”

“ No improvement is possible in domestic service until every part of the household comes abreast of the progress made outside of the household; until the profession of housekeeping advances, like the so-called learned professions, through the accumulated wisdom of its individual members; until it ceases to be merely a passive recipient of the progress made elsewhere, and becomes on its own part an active, creative force. ”

“ In comparing the advantages and disadvantages of domestic service as an occupation it will be obvious that the advantages are numerous, substantial, and easily recognized; the disadvantages are many, but they are far more subtile, intangible, and far reaching. The advantages are those which the economic woman always sees and which take her from unhealthy tenement houses into country air and sunshine; from overcrowded occupations into one where the demand for workers is and always must be unlimited; from starvation wages to peace and plenty ”

“ At the present time a public discussion of domestic service meets with little else but jest and ridicule, while in private life the social stigma is cast on all engaged in it, as is the case in no other occupation. To attempt to dignify labor by saying, “we must dignify labor,” savors of the old problem of trying to raise one’s self by the boot-straps. ”

“ If employers are willing to yield all of the points now often unconsciously maintained by them in opposition to the teachings of political and industrial history, the social objections that now hold against domestic service as an employment will disappear. Sir Henry Sumner Maine has well said, “The true equality of mankind lies in the future, not in the past.” It is this true equality of the future, not the fictitious equality of the past, that must free domestic service from the social ill-repute it now bears. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ For a reform in domestic service a moral revolution is everywhere needed, bringing with it to every person an appreciation of his responsibility to all connected with the employment, whether employer or employee. ”

“ Yet domestic service is the only employment in which economic laws are so openly defied and all questions connected with it settled on the personal basis. No manufacturer can from charitable motives double the wages ordinarily paid to unskilled labor without being called to account for it by competing manufacturers, nor can he reduce unduly the wages of his employees without being held responsible for his course by the employees of other establishments, nor can he prolong by one fourth of an hour the daily period of labor without overstepping his legal privileges. ”