Domestic servant

“ Likewise, domestic servants are excluded by some of these acts, who are they? "A household servant is one who dwells under the same roof with the family under circumstances making him a member thereof." ”

“ We shall find the best and simplest illustration of the relations of master and operative in the position of domestic servants.
We will suppose that the master of a household desires only to get as much work out of his servants as he can, at the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be idle; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they will endure, and in all things pushes his requirements to the exact point beyond which he cannot go without forcing the servant to leave him. In doing this, there is no violation on his part of what is commonly called "justice." ”

“ Therefore the servants who read these sentences, and the women who have servants in their households, should interpret the word in the spirit it is written—that of true American courtesy and respect.
Domestic service requires a certain character lacking in most other professions. As a servant, you care for the things of others and it should be done with as much attention and regard as if they were your own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the terms of social intercourse, it seems somehow to be settled in the minds of many employers that their servants owe them and their family more respect than they and the family owe to the servants. But do they? What is the relation of servant to employer in a democratic country? Precisely that of a person who for money performs any kind of service for you. The carpenter comes into your house to put up a set of shelves—the cook comes into your kitchen to cook your dinner. ”

“ It is not to be supposed that a domestic servant occupied the humble position she held in previous times; for a well-appointed household requiring at least four servants, in the nineteenth century would at this period 8need but one. ”

“ In about one third of all the families with servants men are employed in some capacity about the house; in one family in every seven the number of servants is the same as the number of persons in the family or exceeds it, while in the average family one servant renders service to every two persons. ”

“ On the servant’s part the root of all difficulty is her want of respect for her work; and this, solely because her work has not yet been openly and universally put upon a commercial basis. When domestic service is put on the same plane as mechanical service, when it is looked upon as a mere business bargain, then the servant will not feel it necessary to be insolent and to do her work badly, simply to let her employer know how much she is above it. ”

“ He who employs laborers, with the right to command, is a master, and he who lets himself to work, with an obligation to obey, a servant. Thus there are house, or domestic servants, farm servants, shop servants, and various other servants ”

“ Large tracts of country have to be covered, generally on horseback, and the almost complete impossibility of getting domestic servants throws additional and heavy responsibilities on him, and still more on the wife and ladies of his family. ”

“ How are the evils of domestic service to be remedied? I quote, however, an extract from a recent article in The Victoria Magazine, in order to show how far the complaints made in England of the shortcomings of servants run parallel with those of our own housekeepers. It is to be noted that the writer confessedly holds a brief for the servants. If the facts are fairly stated, the relation between a servant in an English family and her employer differs widely from the like relation with us;
'The prizes in domestic service are few, the blanks many. Ladies think only of the prizes. ”

“ CHAPTER XLVI. THE HOUSE WITH ONE SERVANT. Many large families in this country employ but one servant. Although when life was simpler it was somewhat easier than it is now to conduct a house with such assistance as may be offered by a maid-of- all-work, it was necessary even then for the ladies of the house to do some portion of the lighter domestic work. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The right of the domestic worker to regular hours of labor, to freedom after her work is done, to a place to receive her friends, must be recognized. The self-respect of the servant must in all ways be encouraged. ”

“ D, a housekeeper with a large family, moderate income, and ambitious tastes, employs one general servant and requires, in addition to the ordinary duties of such a servant, dining-room and chamber service. ”

“ Domestic servants, and assistants in business and trade, come most closely and continually into contact with their employers; and they are about them from morning till night, and see them in every phase of character, in every style of humour, in every act of life. How powerful is the force of example! ”

“ The difficulties attending domestic service are so many and so pressing that a large number of measures intended to meet them have been proposed, all of them as varied as the personalities of those dealing with the problem. This difference of opinion in regard to the best methods of meeting the question is largely due to the fact that, not domestic service as an occupation, but domestic servants as individuals have been considered. ”

“ The universal neglect by domestic servants of their employer's interests, wherever these are not protected by some fixed rule, is matter of common remark; unless where long continuance in the same service, and reciprocal good offices, have produced either personal attachment, or some feeling of a common interest. ”

“ In families of humbler pretensions, where they must look for promotion elsewhere, they know that can only be attained by acquiring the goodwill of their employers. Can there be any stronger security for their good conduct,—any doubt that, in the mass of domestic servants, good conduct is the rule, the reverse the exception? ”

“ There were some indentured servants who willingly entered upon their temporary bondage, poor persons who agreed to serve for a fixed term in return for transportation to America, but they were not numerous. The third class of domestic servants were the free help, the only real wage-workers in this occupation, and it is they with whom we have to concern ourselves. ”

“ Few of the parents in these parts have ever lived as domestic servants, so that it becomes no matter of surprise that the major part should have so little knowledge of improving their social condition even when the pecuniary means are within their reach. ”

“ Before domestic service is freed from all the difficulties that attend it there must be a more widespread recognition of the responsibility of the individual employer to those outside his own household. ”

“ Now if you ever have a family yourself, and have persons to help you, would you not think it right and proper that they should do your work as you wished it done?—and would you not feel that it was proper that your children should treat you with respect, and that your domestics should set them a proper example in this particular? No doubt you would, and therefore do unto your employers as you would that others should do unto you, if your circumstances are changed and you become employer instead of domestic. ”

“ It is true that in thousands of households no difficulty in regard to domestic service exists, but this fact does not relieve those in charge of such households from further responsibility in the matter. ”

“ Let servants feel, in their treatment by their employers and in the atmosphere of the family, that their position is held to be a respectable one; let them feel, in the mistress of the family, the charm of unvarying consideration and good manners; let their work- rooms be made convenient and comfortable, and their private apartments bear some reasonable comparison in point of agreeableness to those of other members of the family, and domestic service will be more frequently sought by a superior and self-respecting class. ”

“ These various explanations of the failure to consider domestic service in connection with other forms of labor are in reality but different phases of a fundamental reason—the isolation that has always attended household service and household employments. ”

“ It is impossible to understand the condition of domestic service as it exists to-day without a cursory glance at the changes in household employments resulting from the inventions of the latter part of the eighteenth century. ”

“ The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high trusts confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family—with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. ”

“ At least, care sits a little heavy on your husband’s brow; he perceives that you are deficient in all the requisites for a good wife; and when he looks round the uncomfortable apartment in which he is seated, his thoughts [77] naturally revert to the home of his youth, and his prudent, excellent mother; you are too much the lady to attend to domestic concerns. ‘Servants receive high wages: and they must do their duty.’ And what is their duty? ”

“ If there was a rule followed in every family that employs persons, that no man or woman should be hired unless he or she brought a letter of [Pg 155] recommendation from the last employer, we should find that the whole matter of domestic service would be lifted up a hundred per cent. ”

“ In proof of this, we always find that none make such hard masters, or such severe and unreasonable parents, as those who have never practised the duty of subordination themselves. In this happy country, domestics have as fair a prospect as any class of persons of becoming heads of a family, when others will have to be controlled by them. And nothing so efficiently prepares them for such a station, as having been themselves placed in the position which a domestic holds. ”

“ I now wish to point out some of the reasons why it is very important, both to employers and to domestics, that this employment should be raised, in general estimation, to that honour and respectability which really belongs to it.
To understand the subject properly, you must bear in mind these things. This nation is now more prosperous than any other in the world, and almost any man of intelligence, [79] industry, and honesty, can, after a few years, gain so much wealth that he can afford to hire a domestic to help his wife. ”

“ Another class of persons believes that the application of intelligence as well as of ethical principles is what is required of the employer. This position is best expressed by the correspondent of a leading journal who says: “The capable housekeeper is quite satisfied with the performance of her own domestic duties. If a true woman performs her whole duty, that which lies within her sphere of action, this everlasting cry of reform in domestic service would cease and in its place there would rise a more satisfied race of human beings.” ”

“ The treatment and conduct of domestics depend on causes which lie far deeper than the principles and tempers of particular servants and masters, as may be seen by a glance at domestic service in England, Scotland, and Ireland. ”

“ It seems possible in view of the facts stated in this second group of propositions to draw these conclusions. In states containing a relatively high urban population it is possible for wealth to command the services of a large proportion of persons for work in domestic service. ”

“ It has been seen how great a change the inventions of the past century have made in the character of household employments. A change in the nature of household service no less important has taken place by virtue of the political revolutions of the century, acting in connection with certain economic and social forces. The subject of domestic service looms up so prominently in the foreground to-day that there is danger of forgetting that it has a past as well as a present. ”

“ In the first place, there is no class who mean to make domestic service a profession to live and die in. It is universally an expedient, a stepping-stone to something higher; your best servants always have some thing else in view as soon as they have laid by a little money ”

“ Many persons, particularly those new to the country, do everything through their head servant, or “bearer”; but I make him stick to his own work, which is the control of the house and the house servants. ”

“ In the legislation in regard to service and servants, it is impossible always to discriminate between the general class of either bound or life servants and the particular class of domestic employees. But the smaller class was comprised in the larger, and household servants had the benefit of all legislation affecting servants as a whole. ”

“ An answer to the question may be of help in deciding whether the difficulties that are found in the present system of domestic service arise in every case necessarily from the personal relations which exist between employer and employee, or are largely due to economic conditions over which the individual employer has no control. ”