Domestic work

“ Men in all classes gave time and care to the education of their children, and the young unmarried men, who generally occupied positions as apprentices and servants, were partly employed over domestic work. ”

“ But still more it has opened up to women what has been practically a new occupation. Domestic work within the house performed by members of the family without fixed compensation and by those not members of the family with compensation had been the previous rule. The Exchange has shown that it is possible for the women of a family to prepare within the house for sale outside many articles for table consumption, both those of necessity and luxury. ”

“ In this consideration of the subject of domestic work in middle-class households, I hope to show in what way the mistress may be rendered more self-reliant, and how the master's purse may be spared the perpetual drain the present system entails upon it at both ends, and from every mesh. ”

“ Now domestic service is all the while fitting a girl physically, mentally, and morally for her ultimate vocation and sphere,—to be a happy wife and to make a happy home. But factory work, shop work, and all employments of that sort, are in their nature essentially undomestic,—entailing the constant necessity of a boarding-house life, and of habits as different as possible from the quiet routine of home. ”

“ In the foregoing suggestions,—that the historical study of the subject points to relief through the removal of the social stigma; that the specialization of household employments in consequence of the removal of as much work as possible and the removal of the domestic employee as well from the home of the employer leads to a simpler and better manner of life for both employer and employee; that the introduction of profit sharing is one means of placing household employments on a business basis ”

“ First, that, besides board, washing, fuel, and lights, which she would have in a family, she would have also less unintermitted toil. Shop-work exacts its ten hours per diem; and it makes no allowance for sickness or accident.
“A good domestic in a good family finds many hours when she can feel free to attend to her own affairs. Her work consists of certain definite matters, which being done her time is her own; and if she have skill and address in the management of her duties, she may secure many leisure hours. ”

“ The work of the home differs in many ways from the work of the factory or the office, and always to the advantage of domestic pursuits.
In the first place it is work done for the personal ends of the worker herself, and not for some one, or some company of people, with whom she has not the smallest personal concern. ”

“ Observing closely the lives of the immense majority, I think we shall see, that, in conducting their household affairs, the object they have in view is one and the same. I think we shall see that they all strive, some by their own labors wholly, the rest by covering over and piecing out the shortcomings of "help," to present a smooth, agreeable surface to husbands and company. ”

“ Every young girl and woman, who in her sphere and by her example shows that she is not ashamed of domestic labor, and that she considers the necessary work and duties of family life as dignified and important, is helping to bring on this good day. ”

“ In many families all the house-work was done by the daughters and mother, without any imported help. It was considered becoming and praiseworthy for all females, of whatever age or family connections, to engage on hire in domestic service. ”

“ Domestic employees would be benefited by having these extra days of liberty, just as much as all other employees. A trial is all that is necessary to show how much better a household employee will work after having a holiday. ”

“ In the present comparison of housework with work in factories, stores, and offices, a recital of the advantages of domestic service, even under the present method of housekeeping, must not be omitted, for such advantages are important, although unfortunately they do not outweigh the present disadvantages. ”

“ Families look forward to the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothers and sisters work awhile in domestic service to gain, the common fund for the purpose; your seamstress intends to become a dressmaker, and take in work at her own house; your cook is pondering a marriage with the baker, which shall transfer her toils from your cooking-stove to her own. ”

“ But domestic service has through these causes been affected in certain specific ways. The employee who [68] disliked housework, but to whom no other occupation had been open, could go into a factory or a mill, since no time was consumed in learning the simple processes of mechanical work. Every invention formed the basis for a new occupation. Domestic service had a hundred competitors in a field where before the era of inventions it had stood alone. ”

“ A domestic employee sums up the question from her point of view when she says, “Most women like to follow one particular branch of industry, such as cooking, or chamber work, or laundry work, because it enables one to be thorough and experienced ”

“ The young ladies of great families were brought up not only strictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference and respect, and even counted upon their earnings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Knight, Madame, on treatment of servants in 1704, 28. Labor, division of, in women’s work, caused by factory system, 11; has resulted in unequal distribution of work, 13, 14; in household employments only partially accomplished, 15; characteristic of modern industry, 212; results in greater variety of products, 222. Labor of women more productive through specialization of household employments, 231, 232. Labor question, domestic service a part of, 129, 264. Laundresses, average wages, statistics, 89, 94-97. See also Cooks. Laundry work, better done out of the house, 222, 223 ”

“ I look forward to a time, I believe it to be rapidly approaching, when the home of the workingman, like everyone's else home, will be truly the home, the happy resting-place, the sheltering nest of father, mother and children, and when through the rearrangement of labor, the workingman's wife will be relieved from her monotonous existence of unrelieved domestic drudgery and overwork, disguised under the name of wifely and maternal duties, when the cooking and the washing, for instance, will be no more part of the home life in the humblest home than in the wealthiest. ”

“ The Economic Function of the Home.—Up to this point the domestic function of the family has been under consideration. Marriage and parenthood must hold first place, because they are fundamental to the family and to the welfare of the race. But the family has an economic as well as a domestic function. ”

“ Depend upon it, if we thought of the poor primarily as husbands, wives, sons, and daughters, members of households, as we are ourselves, instead of contemplating them as a different class, we should recognise better how the house training and high ideal of home duty was our best preparation for work among them. ”

“ Further, in the numerous households where husband and wife alike go out to work—perhaps at the same form of labour, as is the case in many factory districts—the woman on returning home (after working all day, just as her husband does, to contribute her share to the weekly expenses necessary for the support of household and children) has to cook, clean, sew, etc., in the time which her husband can employ as he chooses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 mere manual performance of domestic labors is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional men; but, even here, and also in the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes, surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as to the purchasing of meal, salting meat, making bread, making preserves of all sorts ”

“ In the country and in families where the larger part of the domestic labor is done without servants, it is very easy to keep up an interest in domestic industrial employments. The tending of a small garden in summer—the preparation of fuel and food, the mending of household utensils—these and many other occupations of the hands will keep alive activity and interest, in a man ”

“ The peace of the family and the joy and comfort of one's home should be a great enough incentive to awaken the housewife to the realization that something must be wrong in her present methods. It is in vain that she complains bitterly, on all occasions, of the scarcity of good servants, asserting that it is beyond her comprehension why work in factories, stores, and offices, should be preferred to the work she offers. ”

“ Let me give two concrete illustrations of the practical application of housework on a business basis.
Mrs. A. lives in a small city in the Middle West. Her household consists of herself, her husband, and her twelve year old son. She had had the usual string of impossible maids or none at all until she tried the new system. Through a girls' club in a factory in the city, she secured a young woman to work for her at factory hours and wages. Her assistant came at seven-thirty in the morning. ”

“ Let a family among us be reduced, from any cause, to a condition in which they cannot maintain themselves, and what follows? The children find employment, some of them in families, in various kinds of domestic service. Indented apprenticeships in this commonwealth are within the memory of all who are forty or fifty years of age. ”

“ A natural result, moreover, is a general elevation in the standards of morals. Most of all, in an individual way it is of help to the employee; “to assist a person in improving his condition by his own efforts is to make a man of him.” [323]
What can be learned from these successful experiences in profit sharing that will be of value in domestic service? The usual difficulties that beset the employer of domestic labor are lack of interest, desire for change, negligence, waste of time, extravagance in the use of materials, in a word, the absence of the industrial virtues. ”

“ The labourer is surely worthy of his hire; and the wife, upon whose shoulders the domestic load presses most heavily, is as justly entitled to her payment as her housemaid, whose duties are more clearly defined. ”

“ Now this matter ought to be understood beforehand, for all employers would prefer to hire the time, even if they have to pay more wages. It is a great inconvenience to have domestics who feel that their time is their own, except when they are doing certain jobs they agreed to do. It is much the best for the comfort of a family, to have domestics who can be called on to help whenever they are needed. Of course there must be an understanding, in such cases, that domestics shall have time enough to do their own sewing and mending, and also for meetings and visiting to a suitable extent. ”

“ It is idle to complain of poor servants and of poor mistresses so long as domestic service is divorced from general labor questions, and employers everywhere are ignorant of the economic laws, principles, and conditions underlying the household. Men and women might better give to the study of domestic service as an occupation the time and energy that now are absorbed in considering the vices and virtues of individual employees. ”

“ By a systematic arrangement of school and domestic duties, a moderate portion of time, usually not exceeding two hours a day, from each of the pupils, accomplished all the domestic labor of a family of ninety, except the cooking, which was done by two hired domestics. ”

“ Every year, as the prosperity of this Nation increases, good domestics will decrease, and young mothers are hereafter to be called to superintend and perform all branches of domestic business, to nurse children, direct ignorant domestics, attend the sick, entertain company, and fulfil all other family duties ”

“ Household affairs would in time come to receive the respect now accorded the learned professions. Household service, instead of being taken up as a last resort by those who themselves say “have not education enough to do anything else,” would be dignified into a profession that would attract large numbers who now seek other occupations. ”