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.