The Journal of Negro History, Volume 8, 1923

by Various

II. Age and Marital Condition of Negroes in Domestic and Personal Service

In 1900, 53.4 per cent of all the women sixteen years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service were from 16 to 24 years of age. Of the Negro women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service, 35.1 per cent, or more than one-third, were between the ages of 16 and 24. The percentage in the other age groups of the total number of women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service decreased by classes. That of Negro women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service decreased by classes until those 55 years of age and over constituted only 9.6 per cent of the total number of Negro women so employed. The modal age of Negro male domestic workers like that of white male domestic workers was from 25 to 44 years. The age distribution of domestic and personal service workers for 1920 is about the same as that for 1900. Because of the incompleteness of the age data obtained from the general schedule sent to employment agencies, they were not used for this study. The average ages of the 9,976 male and female Negro domestic and personal service workers of Washington, D. C., were: 30.5 years for the males and 28.1 years for the females.

In 1900, among Negro women the percentage of breadwinners did not show such a marked decline after marriage as among white women. Of the Negro female breadwinners 32.5 per cent were married, while only 9.0 per cent of the female breadwinners of all the races were married. The percentage of married Negro male domestic and personal service workers is higher than that of married female workers, while the number of widowed and divorced is three and one-half times as great among female as among male domestic and personal service workers. In 1920, 29.4 per cent of all the female domestic and personal service workers 15 years of age and over were married, while 70.6 per cent were classed as single, widowed, divorced, and unknown.

The significance of age grouping and marital condition of Negro domestic workers in their relation to employers is borne out by the testimony of experienced employment agents in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D. C., Chicago, and Detroit. Women domestic workers between the ages of 20 and 25 are the most sought after by employers. Those between 25 and 35 years of age are next in favor. All of the agents testified to the unpopularity of the young girl domestic worker. She is employed principally because of the tight domestic labor market. Employers apparently feel that a majority of the women beyond the ages of 45 and 50 have become too set in their ways, somewhat cranky, and largely unable to do general housework. The most frequent objections of employers to young girl domestic workers are: They are untrained and inexperienced; they are unwilling to sleep in; they are saucy; and their interest in men company causes them to neglect their work.

The older Negro women in domestic service, realizing that with their advancing years their possibilities for employment become less, often hesitate and even fail to give their correct ages when applying at employment agencies for positions. For example, a New York City agency registered a woman who gave her age as 34, but whose written references, yellowed with age, showed that she had worked for different members in one family for fifty years. Frequently an older woman registrant when asked her age hesitates and ends by saying "just say 'settled woman.'"

In addition to the age situation of Negroes engaged in domestic service, the marital condition of female domestic workers furnishes a perplexing problem for both their employers and themselves. The testimony of employment agents relative to employers' most commonly registered objections to hiring married women for domestic service is: Married women take away food for the support of their families; married women have so many responsibilities and problems in their own homes they oftener than not go out to work with a weary body and a disturbed mind; married women find it difficult to live and sleep on employers' premises.

Besides these problems there is apparently a still more perplexing one for the Negro domestic workers with children of their own or other dependents, namely, how to provide proper care and protection for their dependents while they are away from home at work, especially if the hours are long. Day nurseries are often mentioned as a possible solution for this particular problem, but they exist for Negroes in very few cities of the South. Even in the District of Columbia with a population of servants and waiters—servants largely Negroes—totaling 21,444, there is not one day nursery for Negro children. The other alternative is to get some elderly woman to take care of a child. The usual charge made by such a woman for a limited number of hours during the day is from $5 to $6 a week, the mother furnishing food for the child. With these two items and carfare deducted from a mother's weekly wage of $9 there is little left for other necessities.

The problem of dependents manifests itself also among widowed and divorced Negro women engaged in domestic service. The U. S. Employment Office, Washington, D. C., registered 9,774 Negro women 15 years of age and over for domestic service from January, 1920, to May, 1922. Of this number 5,124 were single, 2,579 were married, 2,071 were widowed or divorced. Of the widowed or divorced 2,056 had from 1 to 5 dependents; 79 had from 6 to 10 dependents. Although no record was made of the number of breadwinners in each of these families, many of these widows expressed their weight of responsibilities by referring to the high cost of living when their children had no one to look to for support but themselves.

Divorced domestic workers and also unmarried mothers constitute marital groups that are not all together negligible. Three of the divorced women sent from the Washington office had the added problem of finding their husbands at their respective places of employment after absences of 5, 2, and 2 years respectively. Among the 5,124 single women registered at the Washington office there were reported 9 unmarried mothers.

In the District of Columbia there is a Training School for delinquent Negro girls, a large number of whom go into domestic service when they are paroled. They are better trained than the average domestic employee, but since the Training School requires them to keep their young babies with them, it is difficult to place them in homes. If they take a room and attempt to do day work they have the difficult problem of getting someone to take care of their children.

The marital condition of 471 new applicants for domestic positions in Indianapolis, Indiana, for 1922, is given in the following table:

Showing marital condition of 471 women seeking work as domestic servants— Indianapolis, Ind., 1922

Table II
	Widows	63
	Separated from husbands	50
	Married and living with husbands	238
	Divorced	34
	Single	85
	Unmarried mothers	1

The large proportion of married persons in the table may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that 51 per cent of the total number had recently come into Indianapolis from the adjoining States of Kentucky and Tennessee.