It has been said that domestic service in America has passed through three distinct phases. The second phase began about the time of the Revolution, when at the North the indented servants as a class were gradually supplanted by free laborers, and at the South by negro slaves who inherited with large interest the reproach attached to the redemptioners. The social chasm that had existed at the North between employer and employee, under the system of bonded servants, disappeared. The free laborers, whether employed in domestic service or otherwise, were socially the equal of their employers, especially in New England and in the smaller towns. They belonged by birth to the same section of the country, probably to the same community; they had the same religious belief, attended the same church, sat at the same fireside, ate at the same table, had the same associates; they were often married from the homes[150] and buried in the family lots of their employers.[151] They were in every sense of the word “help.”[152] A survival of this condition is seen to-day in farming communities, especially at the West. In the South, on the contrary, the social chasm became impassable as negro slavery entirely displaced white labor.

This democratic condition at the North seemed especially noteworthy to European travellers,[153] and it was one to which they apparently never became accustomed. Harriet Martineau, in planning for her American journey, was perplexed by the difficulty of securing a travelling companion. “It would never do,” she says, “as I was aware, to take a servant, to suffer from the proud Yankees on the one hand and the debased slaves on the other.”[154] On arriving here, she found “the study of domestic service a continual amusement,” and what she saw “would fill a volume.”[155] “Boarding-house life,” she says, “has been rendered compulsory by the scarcity of labour,—the difficulty of obtaining domestic service.”[156] But she was quick to appreciate the difference between the spirit of service she found in America and that with which she was familiar in the old world. She writes:

She then gives illustrations to show “of how much higher a character American domestic service is than any which would endure to be distinguished by a badge.”[157]

De Tocqueville, also, found, that “the condition of domestic service does not degrade the character of those who enter upon it, because it is freely chosen, and adopted for a time only; because it is not stigmatized by public opinion and creates no permanent inequality between the servant and the master.”[158]

Francis J. Grund was also able to appreciate the difference between external servility and true self-respect, for he writes in 1837: “There are but few native Americans who would submit to the degradation of wearing a livery, or any other badge of servitude. This they would call becoming a man’s man. But, on the other hand, there are also but few American gentlemen who would feel any happier for their servants wearing coats of more than one color. The inhabitants of New England are quite as willing to call their servants ‘helps,’ or ‘domestics,’ as the latter repudiate the title of ‘master’ in their employers.” And he adds, “Neither is an American servant that same indolent, careless, besotted being as an European.” He has another word of praise too for the American servants, “who work harder, and quicker than even in England.”[159]

The absence of livery was a subject of constant comment. William Cobbett, in 1828, asserts that “the man (servant) will not wear a livery, any more than he will wear a halter round his neck.... Neither men nor women will allow you to call them servants, and they will take especial care not to call themselves by that name.” He explains the avoidance of the term “servant” by the fact that slaves were called servants by the English, who having fled from tyranny at home were shy of calling others slaves; free men therefore would not be called servants.[160]

But while the democratic spirit that prevailed during this period found commendation in the eyes of those of similar tendencies, it often evoked only mild surprise or a half sneer. Mrs. Trollope found that “the greatest difficulty in organizing a family established in Ohio, is getting servants, or, as it is there called, ‘getting help,’ for it is more than petty treason to the Republic to call a free citizen a servant.”[161] Chevalier asserted that “on Sunday an American would not venture to receive his friends; his servants would not consent to it, and he can hardly secure their services for himself, at their own hour, on that day.”[162] Samuel Breck considers that “in these United States nothing would be wanting to make life perfectly happy (humanly speaking) had we good servants.”[163] Isabella Bird wrote of Canada in 1854, “The great annoyance of which people complain in this pleasant land is the difficulty of obtaining domestic servants, and the extraordinary specimens of humanity who go out in this capacity.” “The difficulty of procuring servants is one of the great objections to this colony. The few there are know nothing of any individual department of work,—for instance, there are neither cooks nor housemaids, they are strictly ‘helps,’—the mistress being expected to take more than her fair share of the work.”[164] The conditions she found there were the same as in the United States.

Thomas Grattan wrote of the condition:

Grattan’s observations lead him to believe that the democratic spirit is not always to be deplored.

But like all Europeans, he never ceases to be surprised by this spirit, particularly by those manifestations of it that led to active work on the part of the mistress of a home and to the use of the word “help.” “There are no housekeepers,” he writes, “or ladies’ maids. The lady herself does all the duties of the former.... Servants are thus really justified in giving to themselves the favorite designation of ‘helps.’”[167] But he closes a long and interesting chapter on the subject with the prophecy, “They (employers) will, by degrees, give up the employment of native servants who will be in future less likely than even now to submit to their pretensions, and confine themselves to the fast increasing tribes of Irish immigrants.”[168]

Curiously enough nearly forty years earlier Madame d’Arusmont had written of friends who thought of coming to America and urged, “Let them by all means be advised against bringing servants with them. Foreign servants are here, without doubt, the worst; they neither understand the work which the climate renders necessary, nor are willing to do the work which they did elsewhere.”[169] She, like all travellers, found that however subservient domestic servants might be when they left Europe, the first contact with the democratic atmosphere of America wrought a sudden change; subserviency disappeared, and the servant boasted of his equality with all. She explains that those educated in America perceive the difference placed between the gentleman and the laborer by education and conditions, but the foreigner taking a superficial view of the matter sees no difference.[170]

This second period in the history of domestic service continued from about the time of the Revolution until 1850. It was the product of the rapid growth of democratic ideas fostered by the Revolution and the widespread influence of the French philosophical ideas of the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was a period chiefly characterized by social and industrial democracy, as the political system was also in its spirit democratic. This democratic industrial spirit showed itself in the universal use at the North of the term “help,” in the absence of liveries and all distinguishing marks of service, in the intolerance on the part of both employer and employee of servility and subserviency of manner, in the bridging of the social chasm between master and servant as long as the free employment of native born Americans continued, and in the hearty spirit of willingness with which service was performed. The results of this democratic régime were the difficulty of securing help, since new avenues of independent work were opening out to women and the class of indented servants had disappeared; the lack of all differentiation in household work, since the servant conferred a favor in “going out to work” and did what she knew how to do without troubling to learn new kinds of work; and, most important, the subtle change that the democratic atmosphere everywhere wrought in the servants who came from Europe.

This condition of free, democratic, native born white service at the North and compulsory slave service at the South continued practically unchanged until about the middle of the century. Between 1850 and 1870 four important political changes occurred which revolutionized the personnel in domestic service and consequently its character. These changes brought about the third period in the history of the subject.

The first of these changes was due to the Irish famine of 1846. Previous to this time the immigration to this country from Ireland had been small, averaging not more than twenty thousand annually between 1820 and 1846. In the decade preceding the famine the average number of arrivals had been less than thirty-five thousand annually. In 1846 the number was 51,752, and this was more than doubled the following year, the report showing 105,536 arrivals in 1847. In 1851 the number of arrivals from Ireland had risen to 221,253. Since that time the number has fluctuated, but between fifty and seventy-five thousand annually come to this country from Ireland.[171] A large proportion of these immigrants—forty-nine per cent during the decade from 1870 to 1880—have been women who were classed as “unskilled laborers.” Two occupations were open to them. One was work in factories where as manufacturing processes became more simple unskilled labor could be utilized. The Irish immigrants, therefore, soon displaced in factories the New England women who had found, as has been seen,[172] new opportunities for work of a higher grade. The second occupation open to the Irish immigrants was household service. Here physical strength formed a partial compensation for lack of skill and ignorance of American ways, and the Irish soon came to form a most numerous and important class engaged in domestic employments.[173]

A second important European change, influencing the condition of domestic service, was the German Revolution of 1848 with the events preceding and resulting from it. Before this period the emigration from Germany had been insignificant, fewer than fifteen thousand having come to this country annually between 1830 and 1840. In 1840, owing to political reasons, the number had risen to 29,704. It soon became evident that the hopes raised by the accession of the new monarch were without foundation, and emigration rapidly increased until the number of emigrants coming to America reached 74,281 in 1847. During the year of the Revolution the number decreased, but the failure of the cause of the revolutionary party and the political apathy that followed again increased the movement towards America. This reached its climax in 1854, when the sympathies of the Court had been openly expressed during the Crimean War in favor of Russian despotism. During this year the number of Germans arriving in this country was 215,009—a number equalled but once since that time, although the number has averaged nearly a hundred and fifty thousand annually during the last decade.[174] A large number of these immigrants have been women, the proportion of women emigrating from Germany being greater than from any other foreign country except Ireland.[175] The ranks of domestic service have been recruited from their number also, the Germans being second only to the Irish as regards the number and proportion engaged in this occupation.[176]

A third political influence affecting the question was the establishment of treaty relations between the United States and China in 1844. This fact and the discovery of gold in California in 1848, together with the building of the Union Pacific railroad in 1867-1869, opened the doors to the immigration of considerable numbers of Chinese. Many of these found their way into domestic service, and on the Pacific coast they became formidable competitors of household servants of other nationalities.[177]

The political and economic conditions in Europe and the breaking down of long-established customs in Asia have thus since 1850 brought to this country large numbers of men and women who have performed the household service previously done by native born Americans. The presence of the Irish in the East, of the Germans in the West, of the Scandinavians in the Northwest, and of the Chinese on the Pacific coast has thus introduced a new social, as well as a new economic, element at the North. It has led to a change in the relation of employer and employee; the class line which was only faintly drawn in the early part of the century between employer and “help” has been changed into a caste line which many employers believe it to their interest to preserve. The native born American fears to lose social position by entering into competition with foreign labor.

While this change, owing to political conditions in the Old World, was taking place at the North in the character of the service, a similar change was taking place at the South growing out of the abolition of slavery in 1863. The negroes who had previously performed all domestic service for their personal expenses have since then received for the same service a small remuneration in money. This fact prevents now as effectually as during the slavery period any competition in domestic service on the part of native born white employees. It does not prevent all competition on the part of foreign born white employees, since prejudice against the negro does not exist in Europe owing to the fact that negro slavery has not prevailed there. The effects of these great movements upon the nature and personnel of domestic service will be discussed later in considering its present condition. They have had a direct and conspicuous influence on the condition of domestic service and even in the use of the term applied to those who engage in it.

But other political influences more subtle and possibly more far-reaching in their effect have been at work. Our loose naturalization laws, and the determining of the qualifications for the right of suffrage by as many standards as there are states, have made the enormous number of men coming to this country annually an easy prey to scheming politicians and demagogues. The labor vote, the Irish vote, the German vote, have been flattered and sought by party managers until the wage-earning man feels that “like Atlas of old he carries the world on his shoulders.” If the laboring man feels the weight of the world, his wife and daughter believe that some share of the burden rests on them. The democratic tendencies of the country, the political practices of the day, have everywhere broken down the high wall of separation between employer and employee. They are subversive even in the household of that patriarchal relationship that has been driven from every stronghold but this.

While the political movements of the century have thus changed the personnel of domestic service in America, the development of the material resources of the country has affected its status. Before the present century employees of every kind were in a sense stationary. This was due partly to the influence of the English poor laws; partly to the system of indenture which bound a servant for seven, five, or four years, and to the system of slavery which bound the servant for life; partly to the system of apprenticeship which made the servant a member of the family of his master; partly to the custom prevailing in the country districts and small towns for unmarried workmen in all industries to board with their employers; and partly to the lack of facilities for cheap and easy means of communication between different sections of the country. There was no mobility of labor as regards either employment or place of employment—a fact true alike of domestic service and of other occupations. But this condition of affairs gradually changed. As has been seen, indented servants disappeared and every employee was free to break as well as to make an engagement for service. The establishment of the factory system of manufactures and the consequent substitution of mechanical for skilled processes of labor broke down the system of apprenticeship, and workmen of every occupation, except domestic service, ceased to be members of the families of their employers. A mobility of labor was made possible such as could not have been secured under the old system. At a later time the great era of railroad development and similar enterprises gave opportunity for a certain mobility as regards place of employment. The tide of western emigration due to the discovery of gold and the cheapness of western land caused much shifting of labor among the non-capitalist class, and this was increased as means of communication were rendered more easy. The establishment of companies to encourage foreign immigration with the object of developing the material resources of the country was another weight in the scale in favor of greater mobility of labor as regards both place and employment. The abolition of slavery removed the last important legal barrier against perfect mobility.

All of these industrial movements have been important factors in changing the condition and character of domestic service. It is true, in a general sense, that every great change in economic conditions affects all occupations. But domestic service has through these causes been affected in certain specific ways. The employee who disliked housework, but to whom no other occupation had been open, could go into a factory or a mill, since no time was consumed in learning the simple processes of mechanical work. Every invention formed the basis for a new occupation. Domestic service had a hundred competitors in a field where before the era of inventions it had stood alone. Moreover, these new occupations required little skill, no preparation, and possessed the charm of novelty. Again, the rapid development of railroad interests, with the increase of competition and consequent lowering of passenger rates, often influenced families emigrating to the West to take with them their trusted employees. The same fact made it possible for women seeking new employments to go from place to place in ways unthought of in the early part of the century.

In view of these changed and changing economic conditions it may be said that the immobility of labor, which has seemed to some economists so great an obstacle to the industrial advancement of women,[178] has practically ceased to exist in the case of domestic service. In fact, industrial development has so far changed conditions that the problem has now come to be how to make this form of labor not more mobile, but more stable. One illustration of this is found in the fact that when seven hundred domestic employees represented on the schedules were asked how many of them had ever been engaged in any other occupation, twenty-seven per cent replied that they had. The mobility as to the place of labor was found to be even greater. Twenty-seven per cent of the native born employees did not reside in the same state in which they were born, and adding to these the number of foreign born, it was found that sixty-eight per cent did not reside in their native country or state. Moreover, this statement is below the truth as it does not take into account the number of changes made within a single year and refers to only one change from place of birth to present residence.[179]

An indication of these various changes in the condition of domestic service during these different periods is seen in the history of the word “servant.” As used in England and in law at the time of the settlement of the American colonies it signified any employee, and no odium was in any way attached to the word.[180] But five things led to its temporary disuse: first, the reproach connected with the word through the character and social rank of the redemptioners; second, the fact that when the redemptioners gave place at the South to negro slaves the word “servant” was transferred to this class,[181] and this alone was sufficient to prevent its application to whites;[182] third, the levelling tendencies that always prevail in a new country; fourth, the literal interpretation of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence; and fifth, the new social and political theories resulting from the introduction of French philosophical ideas. At the North the word “help” as applied especially to women superseded the word “servant,” while at the South the term “servant” was applied only to the negro. From the time of the Revolution, therefore, until about 1850 the word “servant” does not seem to have been generally applied in either section to white persons of American birth.[183]

Since the introduction of foreign labor at the middle of the century, the word “servant” has again come into general use as applied to white employees, not, however, as a survival of the old colonial word, but as a reintroduction from Europe of a term signifying one who performs so-called menial labor, and it is restricted in its use, except in a legal sense, to persons who perform domestic service. The present use of the word has come not only from the almost exclusive employment of foreigners in domestic service, but also because of the increase of wealth and consequent luxury in this country, the growing class divisions, and the adoption of many European habits of living and thinking and speaking.[184]

These simple historical facts are one explanation of the unwillingness of American women to engage in work stigmatized by an offensive term applied to no other class of laborers.

In studying the question of domestic service, therefore, the fact cannot be overlooked that certain historical influences have affected its conditions; that political revolutions have changed its personnel, and industrial development its mobility. It is as impossible to dream of restoring the former condition of household service as it is of restoring former household employments, and neither is to be desired. In each case the question is one of preparing for the next step in the process of evolution, not of retrograding toward a condition impossible to restore. Any attempt to secure a change for the better in the present condition of domestic service must be ineffective if it does not take into consideration these historic aspects of the subject.