The question must also arise as to what it is hoped will be accomplished through this investigation. It is not expected that all, or even any one of the perplexing questions connected with domestic service will be even partially answered by it; it is not expected that any individual housekeeper will have less trouble to-morrow than to-day in adjusting the difficulties arising in her household; it will not enable any employer whose incompetent cook leaves to-day without warning to secure an efficient one without delay. It is hoped, however, that the tabulation and presentation of the facts will afford a broader basis for general discussion that has been possible without them, that a knowledge of the conditions of domestic service beyond their own localities and households will enable some housekeepers in time to decide more easily the economic questions arising within every home, that it will do a little something to stimulate discussion of the subject on other bases than the purely personal one. The hope has also come that writers on economic theory and economic conditions will recognize the place of domestic service among other industries, and will give to the public the results of their scientific investigations of the subject, that the great bureaus of labor—always ready to anticipate any demand of the public—will recognize a demand for facts in this field of work.
The writer has followed the presentation of facts by a theoretical discussion of doubtful and possible remedies. But if fuller and more searching official investigation, establishing a substantial basis for discussion, should point to conclusions entirely at variance with those here given, no one would more heartily rejoice than herself. It may reasonably be said that in view of the character of the investigation no conclusions at all should have been advanced by the investigator. Three things, however, seemed to justify the intrusion of personal views; a recognition of the prevalent anxiety to find a way out of existing difficulties, a belief that improvement can come only as each one is willing to make some contribution to the general discussion, and a conviction that no one should criticise existing conditions unless prepared to suggest others that may be substituted for them.
The following discussion would have been impossible without the hearty co-operation of the thousand and more employers and the seven hundred employees who filled out the schedules distributed. The great majority of these were personally unknown to the writer, and she can express only in this public way her deep appreciation of their kindness, as she also wishes to do to the many friends, known and unknown, who assisted in distributing the schedules. She also desires to express her obligation to the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, for help received in preparing the schedules and for the receipt of advance sheets from the Census of 1890; to the Hon. Horace G. Wadlin and Mr. Charles F. Pidgin, for the courtesies extended at the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, and also to Professor Davis R. Dewey, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to Dean Marion Talbot of the University of Chicago, and to Professor Mary Roberts Smith, of the Leland Stanford Junior University; to Mrs. John Wilkinson of Chicago, Mrs. John H. Converse of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Helen Hiscock Backus of Brooklyn, for their constant encouragement and assistance in the work. Most of all the writer is under obligation to Miss A. Underhill for her assistance in reading both the manuscript and the proof of the work, and for the preparation of the Index.
Articles bearing on the subject have at different times appeared in the Papers of the American Statistical Association, The New England Magazine, The Cosmopolitan, and The Forum. These have been freely used in the work, and the writer acknowledges the courtesy of the publishers and editors of these periodicals in allowing this use of her papers.
January 18, 1897.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
It has seemed advisable in sending out a second edition of this work to add a supplementary chapter on the condition of domestic service in Europe. This is based largely on the inquiries made in season and out of season at different times during the past ten years of heads of households and of housekeepers in England, France, Germany, and Italy. It has naturally been impossible to sum up in a single chapter the mass of information thus gleaned, but a few features common to all of these countries have been indicated, as well as some peculiar to each. The literature bearing directly on the subject is very meagre, but a few titles have been indicated.
For information bearing on this part of the work, I am under special obligation to M. Levasseur of Paris, to Miss Collet of the Labor Department of the Board of Trade, London, to Miss E. M. Hall of Rome, to Professor Victor Böhmert, recently of the Royal Statistical Bureau, Dresden, and to Mrs. J. H. W. Stuckenberg of Cambridge, recently of Berlin.
January, 1901.