IV.

GRADES OF SERVICE AND WAGES.

In his study of household service in the eighth volume of “Life and Labour of the People,” Mr. Charles Booth distinguishes three grades or divisions among women in domestic service. The lowest group is made up of those employed in the “roughest single-handed places.” The next group is made up of those in single-handed places, but of a better class; while the third group “includes those employed in many middle class homes and in the large establishments of the wealthy, it being scarcely possible to make any practical division between these two classes of servants.” Each group merges imperceptibly into the next above it, so that it is practically impossible to separate them in statistical enumeration. If another grade be supplied between the second and third given here—a grade found in well-to-do Philadelphia families, where two women servants are employed—this grading of London service applies very fairly to the condition of colored service in Philadelphia. A considerable number of families in Philadelphia employ but one woman servant, and hire no extra help to do laundry work, house cleaning or outside work. The one woman does the “cooking, washing, ironing, and drags up all the ashes, tends furnace, cleans the front, and does every single thing “—as one woman put her own case. A second sort of household has only one domestic, but also hires extra service for laundry work, etc. Then follows the large number of houses where two women servants are kept, cook and “second girl,” sometimes with and sometimes without the weekly extra service; and finally, the establishments with many domestics, each having his or her own special duties. The only classification of househould servants which is at all practicable in this inquiry is that into sub-occupations or specialized kinds of work resulting from division of labor within domestic service. Such a classification of colored domestic service in Philadelphia shows seven sub-divisions of the work engaging the labor of men servants, while there are no fewer than twelve in which women are employed. These are here given in tabulated form:

TABLE V.

SUB-OCCUPATIONS IN PHILADELPHIA DOMESTIC SERVICE(SEVENTH WARD) BY NUMBER AND SEX.

Work Required of Various Sub-occupations.—The work usually assigned to each of these sub-classes is known in a general way by everyone. In one of the appendices to her book on “Domestic Service,” Miss Salmon publishes a circular letter from one of the committees of the Philadelphia Civic Club to the members of the club, submitting standards of work and wages for the various classes of sub-occupations among domestic servants. A single paragraph may be quoted, which gives the duties of one sub-occupation minutely and accurately, though all sorts of cross-classifications occur in practice, the waitress often being also chambermaid or laundress:

“Waitresses at 3.00 or 3.50 per week; must understand care of dining-room, of silver, glass and china; care and attention in waiting on table, care of parlor and halls and answering the doorbell properly.”

The requirements for cooks, laundresses, chambermaids, nurses, etc., are given with equal accuracy of detail, but this is so generally understood that it is not necessary to dwell on the point here. The term “janitress” may need a word of explanation; this was what the hall servant and generally useful domestic at a large private boarding school called herself, and there were several others who seemed best classed with her. The duties of the butler in many cases extend to those of steward, and he is often to a large degree responsible for the selection and purchase of the food materials used in his particular establishment. The colored butler thus honorably commissioned generally styles himself “butler and steward,” though he has not, in any case thus far personally encountered, the responsibility of engaging and paying the other servants, as is the case with the English steward. The Philadelphia use of the word is evidently a modification of the English term and bears a quite different significance.

The wages paid for these services vary in accordance with many modifying influences, as will be shown. Domestic service, however, is generally acknowledged to be well paid, as compared with other occupations which are open to women. A cook receiving 4.50 a week, the average pay in Boston, can save as much in a year as the average teacher in American public schools, as is shown by a comparison of the average teacher's salary, based on 6512 records,⁷ and the statement is made on the authority of cashiers of banks in factory towns that domestics as a class save more than do factory hands. The question of the savings of colored domestics is treated in the latter part of this report.

Table VI, which follows, shows the range of wages paid to men in the various sub-divisions of colored domestic service and also the average wage in each class of service. This table and Table VII represent the statements of the workers themselves in regard to their earnings.

TABLE VI.

RANGE OF WAGES AND AVERAGE WAGES OF COLORED MEN SERVANTS IN PHILADELPHIA.

The figures here given of course represent the weekly pay for the services classified; but such sums as 1.00 as the weekly-pay for the service of a cook, or 2.00 as that of a waiter should be recognized as unusual and as recording facts which are far from typical, which represent the extreme of underpay offered only under extraordinary circumstances, probably to a young and inexperienced boy or to an aged or otherwise inefficient cook.

Table VII gives the same set of facts in regard to the earnings of women servants:

TABLE VII.

RANGE OF WAGES AND AVERAGE WAGES OF COLORED WOMEN SERVANTS IN PHIIADEIPHIA

These two tables show that in domestic service, as in every other department of the economic world, it is the office of skill or of trust which is the best paid. The offices of skill and trust among the men are those of butler and valet, or trusted personal attendant. Frequently the coachman is also butler. Comparison of the average pay of butlers with that of waiters or general work of “utility men,” as they are called, shows very clearly the higher pay for skilled work. Men cooks'wages are here seen to be low in comparison with the butlers'or coachmen's,—this for several reasons: first, because in so small a number as were encountered one man.receiving only 1.00 brings down the average appreciably; further, because in the wealthiest establishments almost no men-cooks were encountered. The majority of men-cooks reporting were employed in boarding houses, where presumably the pay was not allowed for on a lavish scale; but, finally and chiefly, wages of men-cooks are lower because a man servant who is a cook practically competes with the woman-cook. The services of an excellent woman can be gotten for 4.50 or 5.00, while no woman can take the place of a butler or coachman; hence butlers'wages are not affected by woman's competition. Doubtless the same tendency operates to lower the wages of waiters, now that such capable waitresses can be obtained. The same tendency is noticeable in England, where Mr. Booth says the butler is “giving place to the neat parlor-maid.” In Table VII, showing women's wages, the skilled specialists are cooks and laundresses, while the office of trust is held by the janitress, and these are seen to head the list in the matter of pay, being the only women domestics who receive on the average more than 4.00. The Boston Employment Bureau publishes a list⁸ showing the same thing. The average wages of cooks in Boston is given as 4.45, while chambermaids receive 3.86, waitresses 3.76, second girls 3.34 and general servants 3.16. The factotum, who does everything from cooking to furnace work and house cleaning, is evidently not considered a skilled hand, nor paid as such.

Secondly, these two tables also show clearly a very large difference between the pay of men and of women in domestic service; the men receiving on the average close upon 100 per cent more than the women. Miss Salmon's averages,⁹ showing the wages of men and of women domestics throughout the country, are 167.96 yearly for women and 373.36 yearly for men. The difference here is more than 100 per cent. These figures, therefore, emphasize this difference between men's pay and women's pay, showing that men servants are generally paid moie than double the wages which women accept.

Are wages in domestic service affected by race or color ? How do theory and practice agree in this matter of wages ? How nearly does the wage which ought to be paid agree with the actual average pay of domestics? A comparison of the figures given in Table VII, with the standard of wages suggested by the ladies of the Philadelphia Civic Club in the letter already quoted, is interesting as showing the close agreement between pay which the best intelligence of the city believes to be just and the actual average wages of Philadelphia domestics. The following table compares these average wages with the Civic Club estimates:

TABLE VIII.

COMPARISON OF “THEORETICAL WAGES”WITH ACTUAL WAGES OF DOMESTICS IN PHILADELPHIA.

This agreement points to the probability that among women in domestic service at least, there is no difference between “white pay and black pay,” however much of it there may be in other departments of work in Philadelphia ; for the Civic Club estimate is given for the whole field of service, white as well as black. Among men servants, however, there probably is a variation in wages determined largely by color. This first became evident on Rittenhouse Square,¹⁰ where the colored butlers encountered were receiving on the average 36.90 monthly—(a slightly better wage than that of the Seventh Ward employes doing the same work), while the white butlers, according to the statement of one of their number, “generally get 40.00 to 45.00 a month in the houses that keep one man. Where there are two men—two white men—the first may get 50.00 and the second 45.00 ; but there are not many houses that pay 50.00.”^ll

The variation in pay of colored and white butlers is probably partly due then to the fact already stated that there are relatively fewer white than colored men in service ; thus giving different ratios of supply and demand for white and colored men servants. But the matter of fashion counts much. It doubtless has more influence in determining the pay of an employee who is as much in evidence as is the butler or coachman than it has in fixing the pay of an “invisible employee” like the cook. The question of personal appearance and fashion holds also as between different grades of white employees, as will be seen from Mr. Booth's statements that in London “a second footman of five feet six inches would command £20 to £22, while one of five feet ten inches or six feet would not take under £28 or £30. Again, a short first footman could not expect more than £30, while a tall man would command £32 to £40.” The same principle operating in Philadelphia often obliges colored men, like short footmen in London, to take what they can get. There is a relatively smaller demand for them for these two reasons, and so their pay varies from white men's pay, while among the women those cooks and maids who are the most skillful are in greatest demand ; so that color makes less difference in the women's wages.

Does “imported service” affect wages of colored domestic servants in Philadelphia ? There can be little doubt that in household service, where hardly anything else could have affected their secure hold on at least this one branch of employment, fashion has militated against the colored people of Philadelphia. A Spruce street colored butler said, “What are you going to do when you're shut out of your work? I don't know no other country. I was born here. The colored are shut out more than when I come to Philadelphia in ‘65. The foreigners shut us out of even our ordinary work we've always done in service. I don't know why ; because the colored people are just as good help as they ever was. And the worst is it throws them into the slums when they can't get their work. I've been praying the Lord to help our people,” etc. A white butler on Rittenhouse Square sums up the situation from what might be called the impersonal point of view: “You see they (the employers) go to Europe and bring home Englishmen, and that knocks out the Negro.” Many colored women— natives—say that it is harder now than formerly to get good places, because there are so many more white girls—foreigners— seeking household work.

It is difficult to reduce to figures information on this point, but the following enumeration which shows the distribution of colored service with reference to the fashionable quarter seems to confirm the opinions of the butlers quoted, or at least to indicate that the people who employ the greatest number of servants employ fewer colored people than are to be found in plainer establishments.

TABLE IX.

DISTRIBUTION OF COLORED SERVICE WITH REFERENCE TO THE FASHIONABLE QUARTER.

The smaller number of colored domestics employed in the fashionable section is noticeable both on Pine and Spruce streets, the number to the east of Broad on Spruce being very nearly double that in the more fashionable region to the west. The greater divergence of the ratios east and west is where we should expect it in accordance with the butler's theory—that is on Spruce, the more fashionable street.¹² On the whole, it seems probable that the fashion of importing English and French service has an appreciable effect in the direction of complicating Philadelphia's Negro problem.

“Importation “from the butler's point of view is easily explained. The willingness of English butlers to come to America is doubtless largely, indeed almost wholty, due to the fact that their absolute money wages are so much higher here than in England. Few of them are political economists enough to realize that 600 in America may be worth only half that sum in England. So glittering an offer as that of “double his present salary,” is eagerly accepted by the majority of Englishmen of a certain grade of intelligence and this has quite definite results upon the domestic service of our large cities in America.

In the table which follows, the annual money wages of domestic servants in London are contrasted with the general yearly average wages for men's and women's work in thirty-seven of our States and also with the wages of colored domestic servants in Philadelphia.

TABLE X.

TABLE COMPARING ENGLISH AND AMERICAN “MONEY WAGES.”

(Annual Amounts Over and Above Board and Lodging.)

The comparison here offered shows that in the most of the sub-occupations of domestic service the actual sums paid are twice as large in America as in London.

The range of wages in England as given by Mr. Booth also strengthens the belief that American wages must sound very-large to English ears. “The actual wages earned,” says Mr. Booth, on page 217 of his eighth volume, “begin as low as one shilling a week, this amount being received in three cases (out of a total of 1692 servants), while forty-two more were paid less than £5 per annum—at the other end of the scale we find three servants all over thirty years old, receiving from £26 to £36 a year, three more receiving £20 and £39, others receiving from £15 to, £20.” To an American this sounds far from lavish although it is of course impossible to know how much this money is worth until we know the cost of staple articles in London. Still, to a servant who has been receiving even £36 a year (180), our highest women's wage (520 yearly) would doubtless present remarkable attractions.

Do board and lodging enter into, or affect, wages? A comparison of the items of Table X shows a very large difference between the pay of American men servants and American women servants. This seems hardly to be accounted for by the fact that a much larger per cent of women in domestic service than of men receive board and lodging in addition to wages. Miss Salmon's investigation estimates that only 60 per cent of the men servants receive board and lodging while 98 per cent of the women do.

In the Philadelphia investigation the facts upon this point seem to indicate that the amount of wages is only slightly affected, if at all, by the question of board and lodging. When these are given in addition to wages they apparently do not stand, in the mind of either employer or domestic, as part payment for service. A comparison of the pay of women cooks who lodge at their place of work with that of women cooks who lodge at home will illustrate this. The average pay of those who lodge at their place of work, and therefore receive board and lodging in addition to wages, is 4.13 as contrasted with 3.95 received by those who go home at night. Here the difference will be seen to be in the opposite direction from what we should expect if board and lodging are reckoned as part of the wages of cooks. The same facts hold good for the other sub-occupations among colored domestic servants in the ward, which would seem to indicate that in Philadelphia, at least board and lodging are customarily given or not according as it suits the convenience or the preference of mistress or maid, but are not, except rarely, considered a part of the wages paid for service. Many employers doubtless believe that the service rendered by girls who lodge in their place of work is better, and they may perhaps consider the board and lodging given as added pay for better quality of service. Be this as it may, the actnal money wages do not appear to be affected by it in Philadelphia, where, as will be seen by the following table, only 50 per cent of the colored women in service and only 24 per cent of the colored men lodge at their employers'establishments.

TABLE XI.

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF COLORED DOMESTIC SERVANTS, BY SEX, IN SEVENTH WARD, WHO LODGE AT PLACE OF WORK.

To the thoughtful and thrifty colored domestic this ought to suggest an easy way of saving a good bit for the “old folks at home” if they can only see it that way, for they reduce the home expenses both for meals and for rent in many cases by lodging at place of work, while they themselves receive the same money wages and very likely higher ones, whether their board and lodging comes out of their employer or is drawn from their own home circle.

The majority of the single colored girls in service board and lodge in their employers'establishments, only 38.7 per cent of them going home at night; while most of the married women in service, as is natural, do go home from work, only 27.5 percent of them lodging in the employers'house. Of the men reporting in regard to lodging place 29 per cent of the single men sleep at their places of work, while 71 per cent have lodgings elsewhere. Of the married men only 17.6 per cent lodge at the place of work while 82.4 per cent lodge at home.

7 L. M. Salmon, “Domestic Service,” p. 99.

8 L. M. Salmon, “Domestic Service,” p. 90.

9 L. M. Salmon, “Domestic Service,” p. 88, or see Table X, following.

10 Rittenhouse Square is not in the Seventh Ward, but being probably the most fashionable quarter of the city, was investigated for purposes of comparison.

11 The remainder of this conversation gives a side light on the reason for this difference in men's wages. The investigator, seeing this butler was communicative, said, “The colored butlers get less than that, I suppose you know, only 30 or 35, and a few get 40. Don't you think they make as good or better butlers and waiters than you white men do ?” He laughed and said, (i Yes, they're better at that than we are, and “— in a half-confidential, half-amused tone—” they aren't so lazy as we are. We're lazy, but they are always anxious to please, and they work harder ‘an we do.” “Well, why don't they get the same pay, then ?” “Well,” he said, stiffening, “but even if they do, you don't expect a white man is going to work for what a nigger will take. You can't expect that.”

12 In corroboration of this belief that colored men are displaced by imported English and foreign men servants comes the statement made to the investigator by the business manager of the Continental Hotel. He says that the Continental, which at the change of seasons often adds at one time as many as thirty colored waiters and bellmen to its force, “can always get as many colored waiters as are wanted at a few hours'notice,” which certainly indicates that there are many unemployed colored men in Philadelphia who are anxious to work but are crowded out in the supply and demand adjustments.