Domestic service

[1] These schedules are given in Appendix I.

[2] Partial discussions of the subject can be found in the First Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Minnesota, pp. 131-196; First Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Colorado, pp. 344-362; Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics of Kansas, pp. 281-326; Third Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the State of California, pp. 91-94; Fifth Biennial Report of the Department of Statistics, State of Indiana, pp. 173-229. The last is especially full and excellent.

[3] The total number of domestic servants is given as 1,454,791. This does not include launderers and laundresses, paid housekeepers in private families and hotels, or stewards and stewardesses. It excludes also the very large number of persons performing the same duties as domestic servants, but without receiving a fixed compensation.

[4] This estimate is based on the supposition that the average wages paid are $3.00 per week, and that two weeks’ vacation is given with loss of wages. Both of these are probably underestimates, as will be seen farther on. If the wages paid launderers and laundresses are included, and also the fees paid for hotel and restaurant service, $300,000,000 seems a fair estimate for the annual cash wages paid for domestic service.

[5] This estimate supposes the actual cost of board for each employee to be $3.00 per week, which is probably less than would be paid by each employee for table-board of the quality furnished by the employer. It excludes the cost of house-rent furnished, and also fuel and light, all of which are factors to be considered in computing the cost of service received.

[6] It is difficult to estimate the value of the materials of which domestic employees have the almost exclusive control. If the number of domestic servants and launderers and laundresses in private families, hotels, and restaurants is placed at 1,700,000, the number of employees in each family as two, and the number of persons in each family, including servants, as seven, it will be seen that at a rough estimate the food and laundried articles of clothing of six million persons pass through the hands of this class of employees. It was formerly a common saying, “a servant eats her wages, breaks her wages, and wastes her wages.” If this verdict of experience is taken as approximately true rather than as scientifically exact, it will be seen that the actual expense involved in domestic service is probably double that included under the items of wages and support.

[7] The Factory System, Tenth Census, II., 533-537.

[8] A. E. Kennelly, “Electricity in the Household,” Scribner’s Magazine, January, 1890; E. M. H. Merrill, “Electricity in the Kitchen,” American Kitchen Magazine, November, 1895.

[9] In Massachusetts, in 1885, the number of women employed in manufacturing industries exceeded the number of men in eight towns. These were Dalton, Dudley, Easthampton, Hingham, Ipswich, Lowell, Tisbury, and Upton. Census of Massachusetts, II., 176-187.

A weaver in Lawrence, Massachusetts, reported in 1882: “One of the evils existing in this city is the gradual extinction of the male operative.” Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, p. 10. Reprinted from Thirteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, p. 202.

In Massachusetts, in 1875, women predominated in fifteen occupations, eleven of them manufacturing industries. In 1885 there were also fifteen occupations in which women exceeded men in numbers, twelve of them manufacturing. These were manufacturers of buttons and dress-trimmings, carpetings, clothing, cotton goods, fancy articles, hair work, hosiery and knit goods, linen, mixed textiles, silk and silk goods, straw and palm-leaf goods, and worsted goods. Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1889, pp. 556-557.

[10] George Eliot in Felix Holt speaks of Mrs. Transome as engaged in “a little daily embroidery—that soothing occupation of taking stitches to produce what neither she nor any one else wanted was then the resource of many a well-born and unhappy woman.”

[11] Eddis, p. 63.

[12] DeFoe, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack; Mrs. Alpha Behn, The Widow Ranter.

[13] Sir Joshua Child, pp. 183-184.

[14] Charles Davenant, II., 3. Velasco, the minister of Spain to England, writes to Philip III. from London, March 22, 1611: “Their principal reason for colonizing these parts is to give an outlet to so many idle and wretched people as they have in England, and thus to prevent the dangers that might be feared from them.” Brown, p. 456.

[15] Force, Tracts, I., 19.

[16] Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668. Abstracts 101, 772, 791, 858. An admirable discussion of “British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies,” by James D. Butler, is found in The American Historical Review, October, 1896.

[17] Eddis says, p. 66, that Maryland was the only colony where convicts were freely imported; but Virginia seems to have shared equally in the importation.

[18] In Pennsylvania and Virginia transported criminals were so numerous that laws were passed to prevent their importation.

[19] William Smith, History of the Province of New York from its Discovery to the Appointment of Governor Colden in 1762, pp. 207-210. John Watson, pp. 485-486, quotes from contemporaneous writers in opposition to the practice in Pennsylvania, circa 1750; Hening, II., 509-511.

[20] “It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they ever live like rogues, and not fall to work; but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation.” Bacon, Essays, Of Plantations.

[21] Bruce, I., 606, says that the order of the General Court of Virginia prohibiting the introduction of English criminals after January 20, 1671 (Hening, II., 509-511), was confirmed by a royal order announcing that the importation of Newgate criminals was to cease, and that this rule was to apply to all the Colonies. But the frequent protests against the practice found in other Colonies at a much later date would seem to show that it could not have been generally observed.

[22] Eddis, pp. 71-75.

[23] Ibid., pp. 69-71.

[24] Berkeley’s Report, Hening, II., 515. Brantly, in Winsor, III., 545.

[25] “In the year 1730 ... Colonel Josiah Willard was invited to view some transports who had just landed from Ireland. My uncle spied a boy of some vivacity, of about ten years of age, and who was the only one in the crew who spoke English. He bargained for him.”—“Mrs. Johnson’s Captivity” in Indian Narratives, p. 130.

[26] Hildreth, III., 395.

[27] Samuel Breck writes under date of August 1, 1817, “I went on board the ship John from Amsterdam, ... and I purchased one German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.” Recollections, pp. 296-297.

[28] Winthrop Papers, Pt. VI., p. 387, note.

[29] Barber, Connecticut Collections, p. 166.

[30] Scharf, p. 209.

[31] Some improvement was soon seen in Virginia. “There haue beene sent thither this last yeare, and are now presently in going, twelue hundred persons and vpward, and there are neere one thousand more remaining of those that were gone before. The men lately sent, haue beene most of them choise men, borne and bred vp to labour and industry.” Declaration of the State of the Colonie and Affairs in Virginia, 1620. Force, III., 5. Hammond in Leah and Rachel, p. 7, also speaks of the improvement.

[32] A well-known case was that of Thomas, son of Sir Edward Verney, who at the age of nineteen wished to marry some one of lower rank than himself. He was sent to Virginia to prevent the marriage, not, however, as himself a servant. Verney Papers, Camden Society Publications, vol. 56, pp. 160-162.

A niece of Daniel DeFoe is said to have been sent to America as a redemptioner for the same reason.

The Sot-Weed Factor says of a maid in a Maryland inn,

These are the general Excuses made by English Women, which are sold or sell themselves to Mary-land.” p. 7.

[33] James Annesley when twelve years old was transported to Pennsylvania. His father died soon after, and his uncle succeeded to the peerage. The boy was sold to a planter in Newcastle County, but his title to the peerage was subsequently proved. Anglesea Peerage Trial, Howell, State Trials, XVII., 1443-1454.

[34] Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 108; The Verney Papers, Camden Society Publications, vol. 56, pp. 160-162, give a long and detailed account of the method of obtaining and transporting servants.

[35] Neill, Terra Mariæ, pp. 201, 202,

A young woman in search of employment was told that by going on board ship she would find it in Virginia, a few miles below on the Thames. Another young woman was persuaded to enter the ship, and was then sold into service. Cited by Bruce, I., 614, from Interregnum Entry Book, vol. 106, p. 84, and British State Papers, Colonial, vol. XIII., No. 29, 1.

The evil of “spiriting away” both children and adults became so great that in 1664 the Committee for Foreign Plantations interposed, and the Council created the office of Register, charged with the duty of keeping a record of all persons going to America as servants, and the statement that they had voluntarily left England. This act was soon followed by another fixing the penalty of death, without benefit of clergy, in every case where persons were found guilty of kidnapping children or adults. But even these extreme measures did not put an end to the evil; and it is stated that ten thousand persons were annually kidnapped after the passage of the act. Bruce, I., 614-619.

[36] “The Forme of Binding a Servant” is given in A Relation of Maryland, pp. 62-63, and reads as follows:

Neill, Virginia Carolorum, pp. 5-7, gives a similar copy. Bruce, II., 2, gives the indenture of one Mary Polly whose master was to “maintain ye sᵈ Mary noe other ways than he doth his own in all things as dyett, cloathing and lodging, the sᵈ Mary to obey the sᵈ John Porter in all his lawful commands within ye sᵈ term of years.”

[37] Hening, I., 257, 1642.

[38] Hening, I., 411, 1655.

[39] Ibid., I., 441-442, 1657.

[40] Ibid., I., 538-539, 1659.

[41] Ibid., II., 113-114, 1661.

[42] Ibid., II., 240, 1666.

[43] Ibid., 1705, 1748, 1753.

In North Carolina no “imported Christian” was to be considered a servant unless the person importing him could procure an indenture. Iredell, 1741, chap. 24.

In West New Jersey servants over twenty-one without indenture were to serve four years, and all under twenty-one to serve at the discretion of the Court. Leaming and Spicer, 1682, chap. XI.

In Maryland servants without indenture of over twenty-one years of age were to serve five years; if between eighteen and twenty-two, six years; if between fifteen and eighteen, seven years; if under fifteen, until twenty-two years old. Browne, 1692.

[44] Alsop, pp. 57-58.

[45] Leah and Rachel, pp. 12, 14.

[46] Neill, Terra Mariæ, pp. 201-202.

[47] Howell, State Trials, XVII., 1443-1454.

[48] Eddis, pp. 69-70.

[49] Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 58. Neill adds: “While some of these servants were treated with kindness, others received no more consideration than dumb, driven cattle.”

[50] P. 7.

[51] A negro servant in the family of Judge Sewall died in 1729, and the latter writing of the funeral says: “I made a good Fire, set Chairs, and gave Sack.” Diary, III., 394. The New England Weekly Journal, February 24, 1729, has a detailed account of the funeral: “A long train followed him to the grave, it’s said about 150 black, and about 50 whites, several magistrates, ministers, gentlemen, etc. His funeral was attended with uncommon respect and his death much lamented.”

[52] She complains of the great familiarity in permitting the slaves to sit at table with their masters “as they say to save time” and adds, “into the dish goes the black hoof, as freely as the white hand.” She relates a difficulty between a master and a slave which was referred to arbitration, each party binding himself to accept the decision. The arbitrators ordered the master to pay 40 shillings to the slave and to acknowledge his fault. “And so the matter ended: the poor master very honestly standing to the award.”—The Journal of Madame Knight.

[53] John Winter writes from Maine, “I Can not Conceaue which way their masters Can pay yt, but yf yt Continue this rates the servants will be masters & the masters servants.” Trelawny Papers, p. 164. John Winthrop makes a similar comment in narrating “a passage between one Rowley and his servant. The master, being forced to sell a pair of oxen to pay his servant his wages, told his servant he could keep him no longer, not knowing how to pay him the next year. The servant answered, he would serve him for more of his cattle. But how shall I do (saith the master) when all my cattle are gone? The servant replied, you shall then serve me, and so you may have your cattle again.” Winthrop gives as a reason for high wages the fact that “the wars in England kept servants from coming to us, so as those we had could not be hired, when their times were out, but upon unreasonable terms, and we found it very difficult to pay their wages to their content, (for money was very scarce).”—History of New England, II., 219-220.

[54] Lechford, Note-book, p. 107.

[55] Lechford, Note-book, p. 81.

[56] Bruce, II., 2.

[57] Travels, I., 303-304.

[58] Recollections, p. 297.

“Before the Revolution no hired man or woman wore any shoes so fine as calf-skins; course neats leather was their every day wear. Men and women then hired by the year,—men got 16 to 20l., and a servant woman 8 to 10l. Out of that it was their custom to lay up money, to buy before their marriage a bed and bedding, silver teaspoons, and a spinning-wheel, &c.”—Watson, Annals, p. 165.

[59] Hening, III., 451.

[60] Ibid., V., 550.

[61] Ibid., VI., 359.

[62] Trott, 1736.

[63] Purdon, Act of 1700; Carey and Bioren.

[64] Body of Liberties, chap. 88, Laws of 1672; Laws of the Duke of York.

[65] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV.

[66] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1682, chap. VIII.

[67] Ibid., chap. X.

[68] Browne, 1692.

[69] Bacon, 1715.

[70] Force, Tracts, III.: “Articles, Lavves, and Orders, Diuine, Politique, and Martiall, for the Colony in Virginea Brittania.”

[71] “All such Bakers as are appointed to bake bread, or what else, either for the store to be giuen out in generall, or for any one in particular, shall not steale nor imbezell, loose, or defraud any man of his due and proper weight and measure, nor vse any dishonest and deceiptfull tricke to make the bread weigh heauier, or make it courser vpon purpose to keepe backe any part or measure of the flower or meale committed vnto him, nor aske, take, or detaine any one loafe more or lesse for his hire or paines for so baking, since whilest he who deliuered vnto him such meale or flower, being to attend the businesse of the Colonie, such baker or bakers are imposed vpon no other seruice or duties, but onely so to bake for such as do worke, and this shall hee take notice of, vpon paine for the first time offending herein of losing his eares, and for the second time to be condemned a yeare to the Gallies, and for the third time offending to be condemned to the Gallies for three yeares.” The same penalties are attached in case cooks or those who dress fish withhold any part of the provision given them. Every minister was to read these laws publicly every Sunday before catechising. Force, Tracts, III.: “Articles ... for the Colony in Virginea.”

[72] Trelawny Papers, Collections of Maine Historical Society, III., 166-168.

[73] Ibid., 169.

[74] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fifth Series, I., 64-67.

[75] Ibid., 68.

[76] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fifth Series, VIII., 427.

[77] Winthrop Papers, Pt. VI., 353-354, note.

[78] Trumbull, Blue Laws, p. 155.

[79] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Sixth Series, II., 112.

[80] Purdon, Digest.

[81] Purdon, Digest, Act of 1700. In East New Jersey the privilege was restricted to white servants. Leaming and Spicer, Acts of East New Jersey, 1682. In Massachusetts no servant was to be put off for more than a year to another master without the consent of the Court. Body of Liberties, § 86, Act of 1672. In New York no servant, except one bound for life, could be assigned to another master for more than one year, except for good reason.—Laws of the Duke of York.

[82] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV., § 4; Leaming and Spicer, Acts of East New Jersey, 1682, chap. XXVI. Any white servant burdened beyond his strength, or deprived of necessary rest and sleep, could complain to the justice of the peace. This officer was empowered, first, to admonish the offending master; second, to levy on his goods to an amount not exceeding ten pounds; and third, to sell the servant’s time. Trott, Act of 1717. In New York and Massachusetts servants were to have convenient time for food and rest.—Laws of the Duke of York; Massachusetts, Act of 1672. In Maryland the penalty for insufficient meat, drink, lodging, and clothing, burdens beyond their strength, or more than ten lashes for one offence, was for the first and second offence a fine of not more than a thousand pounds of tobacco, and on the third offence the servant recovered his liberty. Permission to exceed ten lashes could be obtained from the Court, but the master could not inflict more than thirty-nine lashes.—Dorsey, Laws of 1715, chap. LXIV.

[83] Trumbull, Public Records, p. 263; Massachusetts, Act of 1700; Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV. In North Carolina if a master did not use means for the recovery of a servant when ill, and turned him away, he forfeited five pounds for each servant so turned away, and if this was not sufficient the Court was empowered to levy an additional amount. Such servants on their recovery were to have their freedom, provided they had not brought the illness on themselves. In Connecticut if the injury came at the hands of the master or any member of his family, the master was obliged to provide for the maintenance of the servant, even after the expiration of his term of service, according to the judgment of the Court. But if the injury “came by any providence of God without the default of the family of the governor,” the master was released from the obligation of providing for him after his term of service expired. In South Carolina masters turning away sick or infirm servants were to forfeit twenty pounds.

[84] Leaming and Spicer, East New Jersey, 1682; Body of Liberties, § 87, Act of 1672; Laws of the Duke of York. In Maryland the Act of 1692 freed a mulatto girl whose master had cut off both her ears.

[85] Body of Liberties, § 85, Act of 1672; Laws of Connecticut, 1673.

[86] Laws of the Duke of York.

[87] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.

[88] Leaming and Spicer, East New Jersey, 1682, chap. VIII.

[89] Instructions of the Crown, November 16, 1702.

[90] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.

[91] Carey and Bioren, chap. 635.

[92] Trott, Act of 1717.

[93] Act of 1673.

[94] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. This is practically the re-enactment of a similar law in Carteret’s time, 1668, and of the law of 1675.

[95] Iredell, Act of 1741.

[96] Trott, Act of 1717.

[97] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715, chap. XLIV.

[98] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. The Acts of 1682 and 1675 had similar provisions.

[99] Act circa 1784; Trumbull, Public Records, 1665-1678.

[100] Trott, Act of 1717.

[101] Laws of the Duke of York.

[102] Purdon, Digest, Act of 1700.

[103] Act of 1704.

[104] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.

[105] Bacon, 1748.

[106] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.

[107] Bacon, 1748.

[108] Iredell, Act of 1741.

[109] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1700.

[110] Trumbull, Public Records.

[111] Acts of 1692 and 1715.

[112] Act of 1692.

[113] Connecticut, circa 1784; New York, Act of 1672; Maryland, Acts of 1692, 1715.

[114] Iredell, Act of 1741.

[115] Act circa 1784.

[116] Act of 1646.

[117] Trott, 1717; Massachusetts, Act of 1698.

[118] Act of 1646.

[119] Act of 1728.

[120] Iredell, Act of 1741. But corporal punishment was not to deprive the master of such other satisfaction as he might be entitled to by the Act.

[121] Act of 1717.

[122] Body of Liberties, § 88, Act of 1672; Laws of the Duke of York.

[123] Iredell, 1741.

[124] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682.

[125] Purdon, Digest, 1700.

[126] Act circa 1784.

[127] Laws of 1672.

[128] Act governing white servants, 1717.