Wanted: a Young Woman to Do Housework | Page 5

relatives and friends. To ask them to visit her in her employer's
kitchen is not a very agreeable alternative either to herself or her
employer, and even then she is obliged to be on duty, for she must still
wear her uniform and hold herself in readiness to answer the bell until
the family for whom she works retires for the night.
With such restrictions it is not surprising that the majority of women
feel that they are losing "caste" if they accept positions in private
families. There are two more causes to which this feeling of the loss of
caste may be attributed. One is the habit of calling household
employees by their first name or by their surname without the prefix of
"Miss"; the other is the custom of making them eat in their employer's
kitchen. These are minor details, perhaps, but nevertheless they count
for much in the lives of women who earn their own living, and
anything, however small, that tends to raise one's self respect, is worthy
of consideration. Perhaps, too, while the word "servant" (a noble word
enough in its history and its moral connotation) carries with it a stigma,
a sense of degradation, among the working women, it should be
avoided.
Briefly summed up, then, the present disadvantages of housework
compared with work in factories, stores, and offices, are as follows:
Enforced separation from one's family. Loss of personal freedom. Lack

of promotion. Unlimited hours of work. No day of rest each week.
Non-observance of legal holidays. Loss of caste.
In the present comparison of housework with work in factories, stores,
and offices, a recital of the advantages of domestic service, even under
the present method of housekeeping, must not be omitted, for such
advantages are important, although unfortunately they do not outweigh
the present disadvantages.
To the woman whose home ties have been disrupted by death or
discord, and to the newly arrived immigrant especially, housework is a
great boon, inasmuch as besides good wages, all meals and a room to
sleep in are given her. Moreover housework is the only form of labor
where unskilled work can command high wages. This, however, is
much more fortunate for the employee than for her employer.
Housework in itself is certainly not worse than any other kind of
manual work in which women are engaged; it is often more interesting
and less fatiguing. It also helps a woman more than any other
occupation to prepare herself for her natural sphere of life:--that of the
home maker. A girl who has spent several years in a well ordered
family helping to do the housework, is far better fitted to run her own
home intelligently and on economic lines than a girl who has spent the
same number of years behind a counter, or working in a factory or an
office.
Again, work in a private house is infinitely more desirable, from the
point of view of the influence of one's surroundings, than daily labor in
a factory or store. The variety of domestic duties, the freedom of
moving about from one room to another, of sitting or standing to do
one's work, are much to be preferred to the work that compels the
worker to stand or sit in one place all day long.
If it be admitted, then, that housework is in itself a desirable and
suitable occupation for women who must earn their living by manual
labor, it can not be the work itself, but the conditions surrounding it
that make it so distasteful to the modern working woman.

PART II
BUSINESS PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO HOUSEWORK
Living outside place of employment. Housework limited to eight hours
a day. Housework limited to six days a week. The observance of legal
holidays. Extra pay for overtime.
LIVING OUTSIDE PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT
There are many housewives who are very much opposed to the
adoption of a plan enabling household employees to live outside their
place of employment. They claim that it is wiser to keep them under
constant supervision day and night in order to prevent the introduction
of disease or the acquisition of bad habits.
There is more risk of disease being introduced into the home, and of
bad habits being contracted by allowing one's children to associate with
other children in schools, public or private, and by letting them play in
the streets and public parks, where they mingle with more or less
undesirable companions, than by having the housework performed by
employees who come each day to their work and return to their homes
at night when their duties are over. Nevertheless no sensible parents
would keep their children shut up in the house, only allowing them to
go out of doors for a few hours once a week, for fear of contagion or
contamination,