[129] Laws of the Duke of York.

[130] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.

[131] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1668, 1675; Trott, Act of 1717.

[132] Massachusetts Bay, Act of 1636.

[133] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1721.

[134] Iredell, 1741.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Laws of 1672.

[137] Ibid.

[138] Iredell, 1741.

[139] Act of 1636.

[140] Act of 1784.

[141] Neill, Founders of Maryland, pp. 77-79, gives the names of eighty servants brought over by Cornwallis between 1634 and 1651; and of these, five became members of the Assembly, one became a sheriff, and two were signers of the Protestant Declaration. Other noteworthy instances are found in Virginia. Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 297. Sometimes, however, the trail of the serpent remained. R. G., in a treatise published about 1661, says of the burgesses that they “were usually such as went over servants thither, and though by time, and industry, they may have attained competent estates, yet by reason of their poor and mean condition, were unskilful in judging of a good estate, either of church or Commonwealth, or by the means of procuring it.”—Virginia Carolorum, p. 290. George Taylor, a Pennsylvania redemptioner, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

[142] The Sot-Weed Factor describes a quarrel in which one says:

DeFoe says: “When their Time is expir’d, sometimes before it, (they) get marri’d and settl’d; turn Planters, and by Industry grow rich; or get to be Yearly Servants in good Families upon Terms.”—Behaviour of Servants, p. 140.

[143] Elkanah Watson, writing from London in 1782, compares the silent attention given by English servants with the volubility of those in France, and then adds: “In America, our domestic feels the consciousness, that he may in turn become a master. This feeling may, perhaps, impair his usefulness as a servant, but cannot be deprecated, whilst it adds to his self-respect as a man.”—Men and Times of the Revolution, pp. 169-170.

[144] Numberless advertisements are found like the following: “An Indian maid about 19 years of Age, brought up from a Child to all sorts of Household work, can handle her Needle very well and Sew or Flower and ingenious about her Work: To be sold on reasonable terms.”—Boston News Letter, June 8, 1719.

“An Indian Woman Aged about 30 Years fit for all manner of Household work either for Town or Country, can Sew, Wash, Brew, Bake, Spin, and Milk Cows, to be sold by Mr. Henry Hill.”—Ibid., January 4, 1720.

“A Very likely Indian Womans Time for Eleven Years and Five Months to be disposed of; she’s a very good Servant, and can do any Household work, either for Town or Country.”—Ibid., March 21, 1720.

“An Indian Woman aged Sixteen Years, that speaks good English; to be sold.”—Ibid., February 20, 1715.

“A Stray Spanish Indian Woman named Sarah, Aged about 40 Years taken up, which the Owner may have paying the Charges.”—Ibid., January 4, 1720.

[145] “A warr with the Narraganset is verie considerable to this plantation, ffor I doubt whither yt be not synne in vs, hauing power in our hands, to suffer them to maynteyne the worship of the devill which theire paw wawes often doe; 2lie, If vpon a Just warre the Lord should deliuer them into our hands, wee might easily haue men woemen and children enough to exchange for Moores, which wilbe more gaynefull pilladge for vs than wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive vntill wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for our children’s children will hardly see this great Continent filled with people, soe that our servants will still desire freedome to plant for them selues, and not stay but for verie great wages. And I suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant.”—Emanuel Downing to John Winthrop, 1645. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. VI., p. 65.

[146] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. VI., p. 101.

James Russell Lowell commenting on this letter says, “Let any housewife of our day, who does not find the Keltic element in domestic life so refreshing as to Mr. Arnold in literature, imagine a household with one wild Pequot woman, communicated with by signs, for its maid of all work, and take courage. Those were serious times indeed, when your cook might give warning by taking your scalp, or chignon, as the case might be, and making off with it into the woods.”—“New England Two Centuries Ago,” in Among My Books, I., 263.

[147] Teele, History of Milton, Massachusetts, 1640-1887, Journal of Rev. Peter Thatcher, Appendix B, pp. 641-642.

[148] The Report of a French Protestant Refugee in Boston, 1687, evidently submitted to guide friends in France thinking of coming to America, says: “You may also own negroes and negresses; there is not a house in Boston, however small may be its means, that has not one or two. There are those that have five or six, and all make a good living.”—Pp. 19-20.

The New England papers, even in the first part of the eighteenth century, are full of advertisements like the following: “A Negro Wench with a Girl Four Years old both born in the Country, used to all Family work on a Farm, to be sold on reasonable Terms.”—Boston News Letter, October 5, 1719.

“A very likely young Negro Wench that can do any Household Work to be sold, inquire of Mr. Samuel Sewall.”—Ibid., April 9, 1716.

“Lately arrived from Jamaica several Negro boys and girls, to be sold by Mr. John Charnock & Co.”—Ibid., May 11, 1719.

Most of the advertisements describe those offered for sale as “very likely,” and add the specially desirable qualification that he or she “speaks good English.” Judge Sewall, in 1700, gives this account of his first protest against negro slavery: “Having been long and much dissatisfied with the Trade of fetching Negros from Guinea; at last I had a strong Inclination to Write something about it; but it wore off. At last reading Bayne, Ephes. about servants, who mentions Blackmoors; I began to be uneasy that I had so long neglected doing anything.”—Diary, II., 16.

[149] But it is of interest in passing to note two contemporaneous judgments on the effect of slavery. Elkanah Watson, writing of his journey through the South in 1778, says: “The influence of slavery upon southern habits is peculiarly exhibited in the prevailing indolence of the people. It would seem as if the poor white man had almost rather starve than work, because the negro works.”—Men and Times, p. 72.

Thomas Anburey writes, “Most of the planters consign the care of their plantations and negroes to an overseer, even the man whose house we rent, has his overseer, though he could with ease superintend it himself; but if they possess a few negroes, they think it beneath their dignity, added to which, they are so abominably lazy.”—Travels, II., 328.

[150] A New England woman writes: “In several instances our ‘help’ was married from our parlor with my sisters for bridesmaids. I correspond with a woman doctor in Florida whose sister was our cook when I was a child, and who shared her sister’s room at our home while she earned her education, alternating work in the cotton mills and going to school.” This is but one illustration of hundreds that have doubtless come within the experience of most persons living in New England fifty years ago.

[151] A visit to many New England burying grounds will illustrate this statement. It was doubtless a survival of the English custom. A curious and interesting collection of epitaphs of servants has been made by Arthur J. Munby.

[152] “... Help, for I love our Yankee word, teaching, as it does, the true relation, and its being equally binding on master and servant.”—J. R. Lowell, Letters, I., 105.

[153] Even Americans commented on it. John Watson writes: “One of the remarkable incidents of our republican principles of equality is the hirelings, who in times before the war of Independence were accustomed to accept the names of servants and to be drest according to their condition, will now no longer suffer the former appellation; and all affect the dress and the air, when abroad, of genteeler people than their business warrants. Those, therefore, who from affluence have many dependents, find it a constant subject of perplexity to manage their pride and assumption.”—Annals, p. 165.

[154] Autobiography, I., 331.

[155] Society in America, II., 248.

[156] Society in America, II., 245.

[157] Ibid., II., 254-255.

It is of interest to contrast this picture of service in America by an Englishwoman with one given a little earlier of service in England by an American. Elkanah Watson writes from London in 1782: “The servants attending upon my friend’s table were neatly dressed, and extremely active and adroit in performing their offices, and glided about the room silent and attentive. Their silence was in striking contrast with the volubility of the French attendants, who, to my utter astonishment, I have often observed in France, intermingling in the conversation of the table. Here, the servant, however cherished, is held at an awful distance. The English servant is generally an ignorant and servile being, who has no aspiration beyond his present condition.”—Men and Times of the Revolution, p. 169.

[158] Democracy in America, II., 194.

[159] The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations, pp. 236-237.

Thomas Grattan also says, “The native Americans are the best servants in the country.”—Civilized America, I., 260.

[160] A Year’s Residence in the United States, p. 201.

Charles Mackay also says that “service is called ‘help,’ to avoid wounding the susceptibility of free citizens.”—Life and Liberty in America, I., 42.

[161] Domestic Manners of the Americans, I., 73.

[162] Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States, p. 284.

[163] He adds the interesting facts that cooks usually received $1.50 per week; chambermaids, $1.25; gardeners, $11 per month, and waiters $10 per month.—Recollections, pp. 299-300.

[164] The Englishwoman in America, pp. 43, 214.

[165] Civilized America, I., 256-258.

[166] Ibid., I., 259.

[167] Civilized America, I., 264.

[168] Ibid., I., 269.

[169] Views of Society and Manners in America, p. 338.

[170] Views of Society and Manners in America, pp. 338-342.

[171] Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United States from 1820 to 1890, pp. 16, 23.

By the Census of Massachusetts for 1885 it is seen that forty-nine per cent of all women in that state of foreign birth are Irish. I., 574-575.

[172] Ante, p. 11.

[173] Lowell says of the Irish immigration, “It is really we who have been paying the rents over there [in Ireland], for we have to pay higher wages for domestic service to meet the drain.”—Letters, II., 336.

A racy discussion of the influence of the Irish cook in the American household is given by Mr. E. L. Godkin under the title “The Morals and Manners of the Kitchen,” in Reflections and Comments, p. 56.

[174] Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United States from 1820 to 1890, pp. 15, 22.

[175] Women constituted 41.8 per cent of the total number of German immigrants arriving here during the twenty-two years ending June 30, 1890; the Irish forming 48.5 per cent.—Ibid., p. 11.

[176] The United States Census for 1890 gives the number of domestic servants born in Ireland as 168,993; the number born in Germany was 95,007.

[177] The number of Chinese in domestic service in 1890 was 16,439.

[178] Walker, Wages, pp. 376-377.

[179] An illustration of these various changes is seen in the case of one employee, who was born in Ireland, engaged in service in New York, and afterwards drifted to Minnesota, where the report was made.

[180] This is indicated by the various definitions given in early dictionaries. It is a curious fact that The New World of Words or General English Dictionary, large quarto, third edition, London, 1671, does not contain the word “servant.” Phillips’ Universal English Dictionary, London, 1720, has “servant, a man or woman who serves another.” Bailey’s Dictionary, London, 1721, 1737, and 1770, defines servant as “one who serves another.” The Royal Standard English Dictionary, first American edition, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1788, “being the first work of the kind printed in America,” defines servant as “one who serves.” The second edition, Brookfield, 1804, has “servant, one who serves for wages.”

Some interesting illustrations of this early use of the word are found in colonial literature. Thus Thomas Morton in his New English Canaan, p. 179, says, “In the month of June Anno Salutis, 1622, it was my chance to arrive in the parts of New England with thirty servants and provisions of all sorts fit for a plantation.”

Governor Bradford in his History of Plymouth, pp. 235-236, speaks of “Captaine Wolastone and with him 3. or 4. more of some eminencie, who brought with them a great many servants, with provisions & other implments fit for to begine a plantation.”

A “Narrative concerning the settlement of New England,” 1630, says,

“This yeare there went hence 6 shippes with 1000 people in them to the Massachusetts having sent two yeares before betweene 3 & 400 servants to provide howses and Corne against theire coming, to the charge of (at least) 10,000l., these Servants through Idlenes & ill Government neglected both theire building & plantinge of Corne, soe that if those 6 Shippes had not arived the plantation had ben broke & dissolved.”—Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1860-1862, pp. 130-131.

The same use of the word is found a number of times in the list of the Mayflower passengers.

[181] J. F. D. Smyth says, London, 1784, “However, although I now call this man (a backwoodsman of the Alleghanies) my servant, yet he himself never would have submitted to such an appellation, although he most readily performed every menial office, and indeed every service I could desire.”—Tour in the United States, I., 356.

[182] Fanny Kemble writes, “They have no idea, of course, of a white person performing any of the offices of a servant;” then follows an amusing account of her white maid’s being taken for the master’s wife, and her almost unavailing efforts to correct the mistake.—Journal of a Residence in Georgia, pp. 44-46.

[183] An illustration of this change is seen in the different definitions given to the word. In the Royal Standard English Dictionary, 1813, a servant is “one who attends and obeys another, one in a state of subjection.”

Johnson’s Dictionary, London, 1818, gives: “(1) One who attends another and acts at his command; the correlative of master. Used of man or woman. (2) One in a state of subjection.”

Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language, London, 1838, defines servant as the correlative of master.

The American usage was practically the same. The first edition of Webster, 1828, gives: “(1) Servant, a person, male or female, that attends another for the purpose of performing menial offices for him, or who is employed by another for such offices, or for other labor, and is subject to his command. Servant differs from slave, as the servant’s subjection to a master is voluntary, the slave’s is not. Every slave is a servant, but every servant is not a slave.”

Worcester, 1860, says of servant: “(1) One who serves, whether male or female; correlative of master, mistress, or employer. (2) One in a state of subjection; a menial; a domestic; a drudge; a slave.”

These various definitions all suggest the class association of the terms “servant” and “slave.”

[184] A curious illustration of the social position of servants in Europe is seen in their lack of political privileges.

The French Constitution of 1791 was preceded by a bill of rights declaring the equality and brotherhood of men, but a disqualification for the right of suffrage, indeed, the only one, was “to be in a menial capacity, viz., that of a servant receiving wages.” Title III., chap. 1, sec. 2. The Constitution of 1795, after a similar preamble, states that the citizenship is suspended “by being a domestic on wages, attending on the person or serving the house.” Title II., 13, 3. The Constitution of 1799 has a similar disqualification. Title I., art. 5. It is probable that these provisions were intended to punish men who would consent to serve the nobility or the wealthy classes when it was expected that all persons would be democratic enough to serve themselves, not to cast discredit on domestic service per se.—Tripier, pp. 20, 105, 168.

During the revolutionary movement in Austria, the Hungarian Diet at its session, in 1847-1848, passed an act providing that the qualification for electors should be “to have attained the age of twenty years; Hungarians by birth or naturalized; not under guardianship, nor in domestic service, nor convicted of fraud, theft, murder, etc.” Act 5, sec. 2.—Stiles, II., 376.

The qualifications for suffrage in England also excluded domestic servants, but there was no discrimination against them as a class.

The Declaration of Independence, declaring all men free and equal in the presence of African slavery, thus has its counterpart in these free constitutions disfranchising domestic servants.

[185] Some of the figures given in this chapter have been taken from advance sheets kindly furnished by the Census Bureau, and hence it is impossible to give in every case page references.

[186] Preface, p. 1, and Appendix I.

[187] The percentage of foreign born as given here differs slightly from that given on page 80, as it includes a small number of Chinese and Japanese.

[188] Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island.

[189] Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

[190] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia.

[191] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.

[192] Eleventh Census, Population, Part I., p. lxxxiii.

[193] Census of Massachusetts, 1885, Part II., p. 38.

[194] Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

[195] Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont.

[196] New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

[197] Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin.

[198] Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia.

[199] Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas.

This classification is made with reference to conditions apparently similar as regards domestic service.

[200] Eleventh Census, Occupations, p. 20. It is interesting to note the increasing proportion of women of foreign birth who go into domestic service. The Tenth Census shows that, in 1880, 49.31 per cent of all women of foreign birth employed for pay were engaged in domestic service; thus in ten years an increase of 10.06 per cent was made.

[201] Census of Massachusetts, 1885, Part II., pp. xxxvi, xxxviii. In this statement only the number of women engaged in domestic service for remuneration is considered.

[202] Eleventh Census, Population, Part I., p. lxxxix.

[203] Eleventh Census, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., p. 16, Chart.

[204] Ibid., p. 59.

[205] Eleventh Census, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., pp. 376-403.

[206] Brooklyn, Buffalo, Camden, Fall River, Jersey City, Lowell, Newark, Paterson, Rochester, Trenton, Troy.

[207] P. 68.

[208] Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1885, pp. 196-312.

[209] In the classification in these two tables the employees in several large boarding houses were omitted. All of those included under the term “nurses” are nurse-maids, with the exception of the few receiving the highest wages.

[210] Post, p. 136.

[211] The figures are taken from the annual reports of city superintendents. The attempt was made to find the average salaries in the fifty largest cities, but many cities do not publish in detail the salaries paid. The reports used were those for the year ending in 1889,—the year for which reports were made through the schedules,—with the exception of Paterson, where the report for 1890 was used. Half-day teachers are omitted as far as known. In cities having separate schools for colored and for white children, the teachers in colored schools are included where the salaries paid are the same as those paid in white schools of the same grade,—otherwise they are omitted.

[212] Fourth Annual Report, pp. 520-529.

[213] Ibid., p. 625.

[214] Post, p. 132.

[215] Report of the Bureau, 1887, pp. 216-219, 225.

[216] United States Bureau of Labor, 1887, pp. 794-797.

[217] More definitely, it numbered 4.85 persons.

[218] Forty-six per cent had kept house longer than this, averaging nearly thirty years; while forty-four per cent had kept house for a shorter period, averaging about eight years and a half. Seventeen reports came from housekeepers of fifty years or more experience.

[219] Seventy per cent reported that they had boarded since marriage; about one third of these had boarded less than the average time, and one half had boarded from one to five years.

[220] This estimate is based on the supposition that a cook is employed at $3.80 per week, a second girl at $3.04, and a man half a week at the rate of 87 cents a day.

[221] Table II, p. 76.

[222] The place of birth of the employees represented by the schedules included the following countries: Australia, Austria, the Azores, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, New Brunswick, Norway, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Poland, Prince Edward’s Island, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Wales, the West Indies.

[223] Eleventh Census, Occupations, p. 122.

[224] An employer in a large city where there is much complaint of the inferior character of the foreign population writes: “A general impression prevails in most foreign families that any girl, no matter how stupid, dishonest, or untidy, can apply for and rightfully accept a position as general servant or housemaid at current prices.” A similar complaint comes from many other employers.

[225] Tenth Census, I., 708.

[226] “I went into housework because I was not educated enough for other work.”

“I haven’t education enough to do anything else.”

“I would change my occupation if I knew enough to do anything else.”

[227] This is illustrated by the experience of one housekeeper who frequently does her own work. At these times her ordinary kitchen expenses come within $50 per month. This sum is exclusive of fuel, rent, and water. When employing a servant, the same expenses amount to $80 per month, while if fuel, light, and water were included (rent not being affected) the difference would be still greater.

[228] Yet so great is the demand for help that this is apparently sometimes done. In Milwaukee it is a common thing to see affixed to houses, or standing upright in the dooryard, well-painted signs looking as if ready for frequent use, reading “Girl wanted.”

[229] Behaviour of Servants, p. 298.

[230] A lady recently went to an employment bureau, and in answer to her application for “a good cook,” received the reply, “Madam, good cooks are an extinct race.”

One large bureau in Philadelphia reports that the demand for good servants is twenty per cent greater than the supply.

[231] The character of some of the intelligence offices in another city is described by F. Hunt, in The American Kitchen Magazine, November, 1895.

[232] An excellent blank is used by the employment bureau connected with the Boston Young Women’s Christian Association. Seven questions are asked the persons to whom the employee has referred:

The bureau states its aim to be “the recommendation of worthy persons only.” The detailed form of the questions asked is more successful in preventing an evasion of disqualifications, than is the personal recommendation of a general character, which often tells the truth, but not the whole truth.

One large bureau states that it formerly used blank forms, which it sent out with each employee. Employers were asked to fill out these blanks and return them at the end of service, and these were kept on file as recommendations. It was soon found that employers grew lax and would not take the pains to fill them out, and the practice was abandoned.

[233] DeFoe says, “To be a good Master is to be a Master that will do his Servant Justice, and that will make his Servant do him Justice; he may be kind to a Servant, that will let him sleep when he shou’d work, but then he is not just to himself, or a good Governour to his Family.”—Behaviour of Servants, p. 293.

[234] Repeated statements like the following are made by employers: “A few wealthy families keep a large number of servants at high wages, which wholly unfits them for general service and moderate wages, and establishes customs and rates which cannot be met by the mass of people with moderate incomes.”