The part-time workers, too, have definite hours. Many of them do cooking and general housework but for only specified hours. Some of them work four or five hours or less in the mornings, especially when the work is largely cleaning. Not a few of them begin in the afternoon and do general housework and prepare dinner and serve it. But the hours are fixed hours. Some part-time workers have a regular place of employment for mornings and another such place for afternoons. Their hours are definite and their wages are thus very good. Frequently the part-time worker has every Sunday off.
The hours for the other domestic service workers generally do not seem to be so well standardized as yet. Three Washington, D. C., employers wished their general houseworkers to come on duty at seven o'clock in the morning, with the promise that the workers could leave when they finished. Although 75.3 per cent of one thousand domestic workers, exclusive of day workers and part-time workers, in the private families and boarding houses of Washington, D. C., were on duty ten hours or over, this would show that the three employers mentioned above were not typical. Three other employers in the same mentioned city maintained an eight hour day for their help by having an extra worker prepare the dinners and serve them.
Apparently no attempt has been made to compare the hours of the private domestic and personal service workers with those of the workers in other industries. An estimate made of the full-time hours a week during 1920 and 1921 for the average employee in all enterprises of whatever size in the Continental United States discloses the fact that the average full-time hours a week for public domestic and personal service workers were from 56.6 to 57.1, while the average for workers in all industries including domestic and personal service was 50.3 to 51.3 hours a week. In New York City, according to employment agents, the practice of an eight to nine hour day for domestic workers generally obtains.
Specific Occupations of Negro Domestic Workers
The chief employment of the day workers in more than three-fourths of the States is laundry work and cleaning. It is significant that in twenty-one States for which the 1920 advanced occupational census sheets have been obtained, where the Negro population is negligible, there is no principal occupation given as that of launderer and laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States for which there are reports given in the cities of those States where the Negro population is large there is such a principal occupation. However, this occupation in spite of the increased popularity of day work during the World War is decreasing in numbers as the following table will indicate. Whether this decrease is due to the "wet wash" laundry system and to the increased facilities in hand laundries we have no data to prove.
Table XVIII given below represents the States so far as the 1920 census reports go, which have the principal occupation of launderer and laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States except Vermont, the Negro population is quite appreciable. Just why Vermont is not among the 21 States which have a negligible Negro population and no such principal occupation accessible data did not disclose. The reason why the 21 States have no such principal occupation is probably due to the fact that laundry work is so laborious that white domestic workers are averse to it, and those able to have the work done send it to a steam laundry.
The Number of Launderers and Laundresses in 14 States in 1910-1920
| Table XVIII State | Male | Female | ||
| 1910 | 1920 | 1910 | 1920 | |
| Louisiana | 406 | 389 | 23,051 | 17,034 |
| Georgia | 832 | 667 | 44,710 | 36,775 |
| No. Carolina | 387 | 296 | 23,192 | 15,185 |
| Florida | 394 | 342 | 14,844 | 16,552 |
| Dist. of Columbia | 121 | 93 | 7,920 | 6,095 |
| Maryland | 448 | 253 | 16,189 | 12,418 |
| Delaware | 20 | 26 | 1,665 | 1,110 |
| Indiana | 300 | 245 | 10,130 | 7,238 |
| Vermont | 34 | 21 | 1,256 | 684 |
| Kansas | 210 | 163 | 4,814 | 3,760 |
| New Jersey | 452 | 322 | 11,171 | 7,626 |
| New Mexico | 71 | 51 | 1,678 | 1,299 |
| Oklahoma | 154 | 124 | 5,349 | 4,350 |
| West Virginia | 140 | 84 | 3,923 | 2,505 |
A general houseworker has come to be thought of by the public as a maid of all work, and sometimes she is; but in many homes she is relieved of doing the laundry work. In some cities general housework does not always include cooking. For example, in New York City and Brooklyn it may not include cooking unless specified by the terms cooking and general housework. In New York and some other cities men have been tried as general workers.
According to employment agencies, butlers are not used in such large numbers as they were before the World War. During the war it was difficult to secure them because men were needed for war work. Since then wages have been such that employers have largely used chambermaid-waitresses or chauffeur-butlers instead of regular butlers. Among the 779 Negro men in domestic and personal service (New York City, 1921, Table XI), there is not one butler. This does not mean that there are no Negro butlers in New York City, but it indicates their scarcity and shows that employers living in apartment houses can do without them. Negro cooks, however, are yet an important factor in the domestic and personal service groups.