COMMON SENSE IN THE AMERICAN KITCHEN.
BY LAURA LORAINE.
The great middle class of American society to which, perhaps, most of us belong, contains an unsolved element, a puzzling factor, a something for which, so far, we have found no satisfactory niche. We have more girls than we know what to do with. In every town we find them bright, loving, energetic, ambitious, but sphereless. They are not needed at home, and there are no husbands available, for whom they can make homes; their needs are many and the parental purse is half empty; their energies are boundless, and they have no channel in which to turn them. What can they do? It is a sorely perplexing question. They might copy, but the business men of all the towns from the lakes to the Gulf will tell you there are twenty copyists for every position; they might teach, but school teachers overrun every community; there are more seamstresses than seams; more clerks than counters, more bookkeepers than desks.
A bright, stylish, well informed and popular girl lately applied at the office of a friend of mine, asking for “anything at all. I’ll make the fires, sweep the floors, run errands, do any kind of work to earn a little money. I have tried everywhere, but there are no positions of any kind vacant.”
Another young girl, an excellent musician, inquiring for work, said: “I have been given an ordinary musical education, but I can’t use it here. No one needs a music teacher or organist of my medium ability. If I had $2,000 to fit myself to be a superior teacher there would be no trouble about a position; but see there,” pointing to a shabby glove, “that is absolutely my best pair of gloves, and one must have clothes.” But these are common remarks, painfully common.
A gentleman who employs a large number of girls, remarked in my hearing recently: “One of my hardest trials is to listen to the pathetic stories of girls who come to me for work. Many of them are from good families, often moving in my own circle. They need something to do, and the positions which they are fitted to fill are overflowing. I can not give them work, and to refuse them seems cruel. There ought to be some way for such girls.”
But there is in this same class of society a second problem equally puzzling—the troublesome kitchen question, which haunts so many of those women who manage their own households and employ girls for “general housework.” They find it almost impossible to fill these positions with the proper kind of help. For such work they need willing, strong, reliable, lady-like girls; girls who will appreciate the importance of the domestic machinery, and who will be able not only to keep up the fire, but keep the cogs all greased and smoothly running. They need those who will take pleasure in the beauty of the home and the health of the family, who will be, in short, helpmates and supports to them, burdened as they are with social duties, care of children, and the sometimes unfathomable question of making the two ends meet. They need such helpers, but alas, not one in a thousand possesses such. There is one way to satisfy the want. It is to make the plus of our first problem satisfy the minus of the second. To so adjust matters that the thousands of girls waiting for work or dying under the strain of their poorly paid sewing, or of their weary days on their feet at the counter may take up the general housework in the thousands of homes where they are needed.
By many, such a solution is declared “out of the question.” The girls themselves flatly settle it by declaring they’ll starve first; the housekeepers give it little encouragement. It is generally conceded that it might be a good thing, but that “it is not practical.” But why not practical? Why is starvation preferable? Why can not the housekeepers adopt the plan? What objections are to be urged against such work by the girls themselves? They can earn more—we have no hesitation in saying that, for look at the figures in the case. Let us suppose that a girl has obtained a position as a copyist or clerk; she will receive $1.00 per day in our average towns—not more; and in nearly all cases absence, whether from sickness, trouble or a holiday, will be deducted; however, as employers differ in this particular, let us suppose that she have regular work, her yearly receipts will be in a year of 365 days, deducting fifty-two Sabbaths, $313. Of this, $4.00 per week at least will be spent for board, fire, lights and washing; she has a balance of $105. Put her in the school room at the ordinary salary of the primary teacher, $400, she will have a balance of $192, if her board be rated as above at $4.00 per week. Now this same girl in the kitchen doing general housework would have no difficulty in securing $3.00 per week. Her cash balance at the end of the year would be her entire wages, $156; $51 more than the girl at the counter, $36 less than the school teacher, but think of the difference in the expenses of the last two. A girl doing general housework needs no work dress the year round save calico. In this she will be becomingly and appropriately dressed. A teacher must, a large part of the year, dress in wool, a goods at least five times as expensive. She has a large item for the wear and tear of wraps, hats, gloves, and rubbers, and another for stationery and books. It is not unfair to say that an economical and industrious girl earning $3.00 per week at housework can more easily lay up $50 in a year and dress better on the street and for church than the school teacher on $400 per year. It is not a question of money. There is, if anything, a cash balance in favor of the housework.
Is it then the work which makes such places so undesirable? Housework is undeniably hard. There is much of what we call drudgery about it. There is scrubbing, and washing and ironing, but the drudgery of housework does not last the week through. There is but one washday in a week. Done faithfully and with spirit, it leaves in ordinary households a frequent hour for sewing or chatting, one or two afternoons of each week, and almost invariably every evening. More leisure, we honestly believe, than either a clerk, seamstress or teacher finds. It is healthy. Compare the effects upon the constitution, of housework and of those employments which keep the worker sitting or standing most of the day. Go over your list of acquaintances in kitchens, school rooms, shops, and at desks, and you will find that though the housework may make grimy hands, it leaves the spring in the step, that though it may tire the body it does not stretch the nerves, that it is followed by a good appetite and sound sleep, where too often the other pursuits exhaust the nerves, depress the spirits, and wear out the girls.
And it is certainly respectable work. Were the kitchen of a duchess vacant her ladyship would only be honored if she bravely broiled her own steak and washed up her dishes.
No one will say the work degrades. But though it is honorable, healthy, and pays, yet strangely enough the girl feels that she can not be anybody if she undertake it, and the world believes she has forfeited her position when she does. Strange anomaly, that what is respectable in the mistress of the house should unfit her maid for social standing. Yet there are reasons for it, and one weighty reason is the popular opinion of housework—the feeling that it is belittling drudgery, that it requires simply muscles and no brains, that it unfits a woman for intellectual pursuits and for the finer accomplishments. If this be true, then girls are wise to shrink from such work, for mere drudgery is of all things the most benumbing to one’s facility, and can not but degrade one in the end. But this is not true. Housework is a profession. Cooking is a fine art. Upon the skill and wisdom with which the daily work of a home is done depends the comfort, health and happiness largely of a family. The woman who manages your kitchen has it in her power to make perpetual discord in your home if she has not brains to manage your work; she can ruin your digestion if she does not understand the preparation of food and its effects in the human system; she can make a barn of your rooms if she has not artistic taste. The idea that the person who is to cook and serve your meals need have only big muscles and stout hands is totally false; she must be educated to her profession, must respect it and take pleasure in it, if she is to be a success.
Gradually the importance of household arts is becoming evident to the best educated women. The home and its duties have become subjects for serious study of late years, and to-day there is hardly a topic on which so much is being written. Schools of cookery are becoming prominent features of our larger cities. They are patronized by our first ladies. Their teachers receive salaries equal to the best of our high school teachers and are everywhere received as ladies. Neither going to a cooking school nor teaching in a cooking school unfits woman for society; yet she does the same kind of work there as she would in a kitchen. The difference is just here: The cooking school pupil mixes her bread with brains and salts her potatoes with wits, and the brains and wits make a profession of what we have been pleased heretofore to call drudgery. It is the lack of this seasoning that has outlawed kitchen work. It is not the bread and potatoes. Why should we not have girls who are superior housekeepers, who are known as rising young cooks? Why should not ambition and skill be respected and rewarded in this profession as well as in any other? No reason, certainly, but the poor one that the girls have not been able to feel yet, that cooking and housework are really important; that though housekeepers have begun to study the subjects, the ideas are yet in the abstract and have not yet reached the kitchen. It is, however, we may be sure, but a question of time. Housework will be honored as it deserves, and the girls who undertake this labor will feel that they are doing as elevating and as intellectual work, certainly, as they would do at the counter, copying desk or sewing table.
But however much girls may respect housework, and however thoroughly they may prepare for it, our problems can never be solved by them alone. The kitchen millennium is largely in the hands of the housekeeper. There must be a radical change in her opinion of the position, and in her treatment of her help. When reform in the treatment of help is suggested, a woman usually asks: “Do you mean that I ought to make my girl one of my family? that she should sit at my table?” The ordinary opinion is that this is the pivotal point in the discussion, and that in order to reform, the mistress must make a friend of her maid. It seems to me that this is a great mistake, and does not touch the vital point at all. It touches a social relation; while the relation between mistress and maid is purely a business one. A girl enters a house to do certain duties, not to be a part of the family. She does her work, to be sure, within the dwelling, but because she works there is no more a reason why she should become a companion than there is reason for the clerk, bookkeeper, tailor or dress-maker of the family becoming a companion. Not that she is not so good—she is often better; not that she is less a lady—she is often more—but simply because her relations with the housekeeper are business relations, and in the family circle it is very undesirable that these duties should be obtruded. To make her a part of the family and one of your friends, her whole social life must be changed. She has different views, different surroundings, different friends, from the lady of the house. Either the two different sets must be amalgamated in order that a social relation may exist, or mistress or maid must one of them give up her friends. A ridiculous idea, and one as undesirable to the one as to the other. The girl has no idea of being companion to the lady; when she complains of not being invited into the parlor, and to the table, it is generally because she feels that in some way, still does not understand exactly how, she is not respected as she deserves to be.
But, some one says, supposing the girl be one of our own set or from among our friends, what then? I have seen daughters in certain families doing the work, and I never saw any trouble about adjustment of relations. If the girl be your friend, then treat her as your friend, of course, and take her into the “inner courts.” But, as would generally be the case, if she be a stranger the relation is purely a business one, and what you owe to any one with whom you do business you owe her. But you do not owe it to her to make her a part of your family circle unless both you and she wish it.
It is a disagreeable fact that very many well bred women practice a system of “bossism” in their kitchens. They look upon their help as a necessary evil, a human machine, which by daily orders and scoldings they are to keep in running order. A vital mistake, for the girl who does your work is and ought to be regarded as holding an important position in your domestic economy. She is doing as honorable and necessary work in carrying out your directions as you in giving them. She sustains a relation as much to be respected as does a confidential clerk to your husband. Now, on this ground you owe her unfailing courtesy—a pleasant good morning, such as any well bred person will give to every one they meet, and kindly appreciation of her work and wants. This courtesy is oftenest wanting in giving directions. If she is to do the work, then it is due her that you plan with her, that you together talk over things. If her plans are better than yours, acknowledge it and give her her share of praise. If possible, inspire her with the feeling that this is “our” work, not merely “my work” that she is doing. When personal interest is inspired, almost invariably a home-like air will spring up in the kitchen. The girl who presides loses that belittling, humiliating feeling that she is only a drudge, and grows to know her real importance, to respect herself and her business, while the woman at the helm grows light hearted as she recognizes what a stanch, reliable support she has in this department of her home. Working together is the only successful plan for employer and employé.
Another just cause of complaint is the too common practice of making a girl extra work. She deserves consideration in this respect. If the breakfast hour is at eight o’clock, it is a breach of etiquette on the part of the family to stretch it out until nine. The duties of the day demand that certain work of the kitchen be done at certain times. “A woman’s work is never done” is in some households accepted as a natural law. No one hesitates to ask an extra service of the kitchen girl, or to interrupt her labors. No one thinks to apologize if they hinder her regular work, or to even give a reason for asking a troublesome service at a busy time in the day. Is it strange that girls refuse to undertake kitchen work, when they know by observation that thoughtful consideration and courtesy will be denied them by the family? When a girl keeps books, clerks, or teaches, her rights are recognized. She is as a rule treated like a lady. Her hours are respected; until housekeepers learn this first duty of the employer to the employé, it will not be strange if the better class of girls shun the work, however much they may need something to do.
There is a general impression—perhaps it would be true to say that it is a fact—that the comfort and surroundings of a girl are treated as matters of no importance. No special care is taken that her kitchen be homelike and airy, and her bedroom cheery. It is a most deplorable fact that in many households more attention is given to the stables than the kitchen, but it is a fact. The kitchen is the household laboratory. It is imperatively necessary that it be sunny and cheery, but how many times it is dark and dingy, poorly furnished, and uncomfortably arranged. The girl who finds her home in the house of another deserves further, a pleasant room, which shall be hers and hers alone. It ought to be neatly furnished, comfortably lighted and heated, and is it purely sentimental to say that she should have a rocking chair, a sewing table, a book rack and pictures? No, no. It is simple humanity to make her surroundings beautiful. The same nature is in her as in you; not only has she your taste, but a similar social nature; and beside pleasant surroundings she ought to have some provision made for her company. A pleasant room in which to entertain them, and time to give to them without being disturbed. I know a family in which the girl is allowed occasionally to have her friends to tea or to invite a friend to spend Sabbath with her. It is understood that this company never interfere with the work, and so perfectly do the mistress and maid work together that there is never any friction resulting from this—to most women—unendurable liberty. On the contrary, a higher value is put by the girl on her position. She respects the place which she sees her mistress respects, and grows more and more of a lady as she sees that she is treated in all respects like one. In this same home no Christmas ever goes by without a present to the girl as much as to any other member of the family. A little token is always brought her after a trip. In a word, she is valued, and the appreciation of the family proves it to her.
It is not in the home only that a barrier exists which makes proud girls shrink from this work which otherwise they would willingly do. It is a queer comment on our breeding to say that two thirds of American ladies will not recognize on the street the girls who do their kitchen work. Absurd! Of course it is, and it is purely a parvenu trick. The queen of England herself would blush at such a breach of both common sense and good breeding. No lady will pass on the street any one she may know without recognition, least of all will she pass a faithful, devoted servant, with whom she is associated in daily work. And if it may chance that both are members of one church, then by all means their relation should be cordial and natural. The footing of the church is one of common brotherhood, and no matter what work one may do, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, there should be an equal position.
Would any girl needing work and competent to do housework hesitate to take a place where she knew she would be respected, cared for and honestly dealt with by the lady of the house? You say though she were fairly treated in her place she would be despised without. I must differ with you. The girl who would have the sterling independence and pluck to adopt housekeeping as a profession, and who would go into the kitchen of a lady who was willing to honor and uphold her in her course would not be despised. On the contrary, her very independence would raise her in value. The loss of social position entailed by doing housework is purely fancied. Under the conditions which I have enumerated there could be no loss of social standing. The fact that almost invariably kitchen girls have little position does not prove that the kitchen and its work deprive them of it. Many of the girls (not all, let us be thankful for it!) doing housework in America are foreigners, ignorant, stupid, and too often unprincipled. They are unfit for the work they do. They are hard to deal with. They care nothing for the interests of the house. They cast a stigma on the work. But the fact that work of so much importance is being dragged down is a strong reason for its rescue by large-minded women and sensible, independent girls. It is, in truth, a pioneer’s field of infinite possibilities. A field which, redeemed and possessed, will solve two of the perplexities of the women of the day—what shall we do with these strong, good girls of ours, and how shall we save our kitchens out of the hands of the vandals?