Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

Domestic service has been until very recently a field untouched by the statistician and investigator. The studies already made show not so much what has been done as how much yet remains to be done. But the territory is already being occupied. Trained investigators are mapping out the field, workers are at hand, and in a few years we shall have a body of facts that will afford a sufficient basis for scientific deductions in regard to the condition of domestic service in the entire country.

Opinions may honestly differ as to whether it is advisable to substitute in schools and colleges subjects along the line of household affairs for other subjects more properly classed as liberal studies. But it is interesting to note how much has been done in this direction. Courses in household economics have been given in recent years in the state universities of Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as in the Leland Stanford Junior University, while Columbia University through Teachers College has offered similar work.

In many agricultural colleges, and in seminaries and academies like those in Auburndale, Massachusetts, and Painesville, Ohio, there are such courses in the curricula. On the other hand, there can be no question whatever as to the propriety and necessity of introducing, as has already been done, courses in domestic science into the great technical schools, such as Pratt, Drexel, and Armour institutes.

The School of Housekeeping established in Boston in 1897 under the auspices of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union went still further, in that it was not so much a technical school as a more truly genuine professional school for the training of experts in the great profession of housekeeping. The honorable record it made while an independent institution gives reason to believe that, now that it has been merged in Simmons College, it will go on to still greater achievements under the new conditions. The establishment of similar schools elsewhere has been much discussed, while in some places there have been sporadic efforts to establish classes in household training. Indeed, it must be said that in certain classes of fashionable schools it is at this moment the latest fad to have instruction in all household matters, quite is much as in art and music.

Study and investigations have led to organization, and the first association in the field was the National Household Economic Association, formed in 1893, with branches in many states, some of which did admirable work.

The Lake Placid Conference that met first in 1899 is not strictly an organization, but an informal gathering of workers who have discussed the subject particularly on its scientific side, since the attendance has been largely made up of those interested in the educational and scientific side of household economics. Its proceedings give an admirable summary of the latest scientific discussions of the subject.

The most recent as well as the most important of all such organizations has been that of the Inter-Municipal Research Committee formed “for the purpose of studying existing phases of household work, to aid in securing fair conditions for employer and employee, and to place their relations on a sound business basis.” Much has already been accomplished by it, especially in the direction of investigating employment agencies, establishing a bureau of information, and studying the conditions under which colored girls from the South are brought to the North to enter domestic service. Its programme for the future lays out a constantly enlarging sphere of activities.

All these investigations and educational measures have been undertaken in the belief that household employment has its economic side, like other forms of industry. The widespread recognition of this fact has been a most significant advance, since earlier discussions of the subject had considered only the ethical factors involved. But an interesting reversion to the more purely ethical consideration of the question has been seen in the various efforts to follow the injunction of Charles Reade: “Put yourself in his place.” A number of young women have entered domestic service in disguise, and from personal experience have narrated the life of a domestic employee. It may well be questioned whether the actual results reached are commensurate with the effort expended;—the experiment has meant months of unnatural life and strained relationships, and in the end we probably know little more in regard to the condition of domestic employees than could be known by turning the inner light of our own consciousness on our own households and those of our acquaintances. But the experiment has been interesting as indicative of a determined effort to look at the subject from every point of view.