[274] A woman who had been for years a domestic employee left her place on account of sickness, and ultimately opened a small bakeshop. Her former employer called on her one day, and said, “Well, Sarah, how do you like your work?” She replied, “I never thought of it before, but now that you speak, I think the reason I like it so well is because everybody calls me ‘Miss Clark.’”
An employer invited her Sunday-school class to her home to spend an evening. One of the members went into the kitchen to render some assistance, and found there the housemaid, an unusually attractive young woman. The employer said, “Miss M, this is Kate.” The maid, who never before had showed the slightest consciousness of occupying an inferior position, said, under her breath, “I am Miss, too.”
[275] That this jest has a basis of fact in England is evident from the testimony of the footman of the Earl of Northbrook, who some time since stated under oath, in a court of law, that although his regular wages amounted to but $300 annually, yet he received from $2,000 to $2,500 more each year in the shape of tips from the Earl’s guests. “Her Majesty’s Servants,” in the New York Tribune, August 23, 1896.
[276] Mr. W. D. Howells has an excellent discussion of the feeing system in Harper’s Weekly, May 16, 1896; also, Julia R. Tutwiler in the American Kitchen Magazine, April, 1896; still a third is found in the Outlook, August 8, 1896.
[277] One illustration of the fact that domestic service is never judged by the same social canons as are other occupations, is seen in the unwillingness shown by a young woman to enter the service of a family having a questionable reputation. Her “squeamishness,” as it was called, excited only laughter in a circle of women, no one of whom would have exchanged calls with the family in question.
[278] First Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Connecticut, 1885, p. 12.
[279] An employer writes: “I recently advertised for a young woman to help me with the children, and be received as one of the family. The forty answers received formed the most pathetic reading I have ever seen. My selection was the daughter of a poor clergyman, and this was the class from which the majority of the answers came. All desired domestic service if unaccompanied with social degradation.”
How conscious many are of this inferior position is seen from a single illustration. An employer recently invited her housemaid to take a boat-ride with her. The maid replied, “I should love to go if you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me.”
[280] This is especially true in the matter of wages where wages and annual earnings are confused, the element of time lost never being considered. The fact is also often overlooked that when a young woman lives at home without paying her board, her family in effect pay a part of her wages and thus enable the employer to pay her low wages, though nominally more than paid in housework. Thus one employee writes: “If girls have homes where their board is given them, they can earn more money on other kinds of work than in housework.”
[281] Domestic service, as seen by the employee, cannot be dismissed without suggesting the fact that as many tragedies in life are found here as elsewhere. One employee had planned to be a teacher, but sudden deafness prevented, and domestic service was all she could do. Another hoped to become a physician, but loss of property prevented her from completing her education. A similar reason prevented another from becoming a trained nurse. One had hoped to be a dressmaker, but it became necessary to earn money at once without serving an apprenticeship. Could the struggles and disappointments in thousands of such lives be known, the household employee would cease to be the butt of jest and ridicule that she sometimes is.