IX.

IDEALS OF BETTERMENT.

In view of the general purpose of this investigation, it is proper to discuss in conclusion the question of the improvement of Philadelphia Negro domestic service. In the first place, what remedies or improvements in domestic service have already been tried with any measure of success ? The answer to this question should indicate the lines along which progress may be expected.

The only two scientific studies of the subject up to the present time, are those of Mr. Charles Booth and of Miss Salmon, who in 1897 published her 300-page book entitled “Domestic Service.” Mr. Booth's treatment of the subject is purely statistical, simply stating and grouping facts; it has no theory of betterment to offer. But Miss Salmon, besides giving statistics of American domestic service, also treats the question in its historical aspects and considers it philosophically and practically, with an eye to its probable future development and to possible remedies for present difficulties.

Hence the best, perhaps the only answer, to the above question now to be found in print is that given by Miss Salmon in the closing chapters of her book; and a brief abstract of those chapters is therefore given here, with her permission.

Before suggesting any plan of betterment, Miss Salmon enumerates and discards various “doubtful remedies,” such as the removal cf all difficulties by the application of the golden rule, employing the system of service books in vogue in Germany, introducing domestic training in the public schools, and other methods. All these plans fail, says the author, because they assume that the adjustment to be made is a purely personal one, whereas larger relations—political, economic, industrial and social—are, in point of fact involved; and she believes that reform in domestic service, if it is to succeed, “must be accomplished along the same general economic lines as are reforms in other great departments of labor.” She shows that domestic service, though apparently isolated from other departments of the world's work, has been powerfully affected by inventions, by political revolutions and social changes, by the commercial development of the country and the introduction of the factory system, which took out of the household once and for all the making of men's garments, many kinds of woolen wear, boots and shoes, hats, gloves, etc., together with the preparation of many kinds of food now made chiefly in factories —cheese, canned vegetables, ice cream, etc.

Having shown that domestic labor is not isolated but forms an integral and closely interwoven part of the social fabric, the author turns to consider possible remedies which can succeed only as they harmonize with the all-pervasive economic tendencies of modern times. Miss Salmon first enumerates these tendencies and declares them to be:

“1. The tendency toward concentration of capital and labor in industry, shown in pools, trusts, department stores, etc.

“2. The tendency toward specialization in every department of labor.

“3. The tendency toward collective action growing from (1) and (2).

“4. The tendency toward profit-sharing and similar methods constantly becoming more far-reaching.

“5. The tendency toward greater industrial independence of women.”

The first of the remedies suggested by Miss Salmon as running in harmony with these tendencies is specialization of household employments. This is an important point deserving of most careful consideration. It is true that all advancement yet made in household employments has involved division of labor and unconscious co-operation; as, for instance, when spinning and weaving, once done by the women at home, was removed to the factory ; next, when the sewing machine took the making of underclothing largely out of the home and made of it the “white goods” industry. Cheese, a home product till 1860, is now wholly factory made.

It is important to notice that all these articles, both of food and clothing, though at first more expensive when factory made, are now both better and more cheaply made outside the household. The presumption is that other articles now in a ‘ransition state (such, for example, as glass-canned fruits and preserves, jellies, pickles, bread, cake, pastry, pressed meats, condensed milk, butter, etc.) would soon be among those things made both better and more cheaply out of the house than within, were the demand for them sufficient. These things, if purchased through women's exchanges, are more expensive only because the “demand for them has thus far been limited.” The author believes that their cheapening would follow upon their greater demand, together with improved quality, as has been the case with clothing, etc. She shows further that the delivery of practically all articles of food ready for the final application of heat is possible through business enterprise and scientific experiment, and believes that this would go a long way toward solving the “servant question” by taking most of the domestics out of the house and thus lessening the strain of personal relations of employer and employe. Employers would welcome such a change. The situation would be improved for the employes also, since many women could retain their homelife and at the same time earn money and support their families.²¹ This change, it is pointed out, “is in direct line with the tendency toward specialization everywhere else found, in that it enables each person to do exclusively that thing which she can do best; it allows the concentration of labor and capital and thus economizes and secures the largest results; it retains the woman's homelife without sacrificing her bread-winning opportunities; it improves the quality of products, thus made under the most favorable conditions; it brings the work of every cook into competition with the work of every other cook and thus incites improvement; it applies the principle of unconscious co-operation and thus harmonizes with other business activities.”

That the laundry department also could thus be taken outside the household will not be questioned, since Troy laundries already do many articles better and more cheaply than can be done at home. Troy prices would lessen with increased demand and competition among laundries.

The care of lawns, gardens and orchards in summer, and of furnaces in winter, also tends to become a business in itself ; and many cases are recorded of men who care for eight or ten different furnaces, or who have charge of from ten to fifteen lawns or gardens, and of women who wash windows once a week for a large number of families.

There are many reasons why this tendency should develop. It has much in its favor, while the only objection to it—that the cost of living would be increased—is not valid, since it is certain that the added expense would only be temporary, as in the case of factory-made garments, and would finally operate decidedly to cheapen living expenses.

The second possible remedy suggested is profit-sharing, and its application to housework is interesting. “It is possible,” says Miss Salmon, “to fix a sum, as 50 or 100 for monthly expenses, including food, fuel, lights, a pro-rata for guests, etc. If by care in the use of materials the expenses amount to but 45 or 9° monthly, the 5 or 10 saved can be divided according to a proportion previously agreed upon, between the employer and the employees; the cook, who is in a position to save most, receiving the greatest percentage of the bonus.”

Domestics thus become interested partners in the concern and with most satisfactory results. Miss Salmon states that this is not untested theory but has been successfully practiced and actually does place the household on a business basis.

A third possible remedy proposed is thorough education in household science. It is maintained that the organization of a great professional school fully equipped for the study of domestic science and open only to graduates of the leading colleges and universities would start household science in the right direction —that in which advancement in all other occupations has been made —and thus make possible true progress and further harmonious development in this “belated industry.”²²

The result, should these remedies be applied on a large scale, Miss Salmon believes would be far-reaching and of inestimable value. She says: “This readjustment of work and the willingness of large numbers of women to work for remuneration would be as productive of improvement in all household affairs as division of labor has been elsewhere. A far-reaching benefit is suggested by Maria Mitchell when she says:—‘the dressmaker should no more be a universal character than the carpenter. Suppose every man should feel it his duty to do his own mechanical work of all kinds—would society be benefited?—would the work be well done? Yet a woman is expected to know how to do all kinds of sewing, all kinds of cooking, all kinds of any “woman's work,” and the consequence is that life is passed in learning these only, while the universe of truth beyond remains unentered.’ It must be said in conclusion,” the author continues, “that little can be accomplished in domestic reform except through the use of means which already exist, developing these along lines marked out by industrial progress in other fields.”

This brief extract gives the gist of the best thought thus far devoted to the subject. Now, we must ask ourselves, how can all this be applied to Negro domestic service in Philadelphia ? What facts now existing in service there can be laid hold of and developed along these lines of progress observed in other fields of industry ?

Most of the facts of Negro domestic service which are amenable to such adaptation and development are to be found under the head of specialization of employments. Considerable outside service is already being done by colored people in Philadelphia. The degree to which laundry work, for example, has been removed from the household may be seen by the fact that there are but thirty-one private laundresses in the ward, while 1097 colored women in the ward support their families by taking in washing or doing “day's work,” as they call washing by the day at the employer's house. There is every evidence that sending out the washing instead of keeping a laundress as one of the regular domestics is more satisfactory both to employer and employee; for the laundress would rather do the work at home, and often must do it there or not at all when there are young children in her family, while the employer gains a peaceful Monday and Tuesday by having the work done out, besides saving the slight but constant expense of coal and washing supplies. Aside from these 1097 individual laundresses in the ward, there are also two regular laundries managed by Negro families, where all the working members of the family are busily employed for six days in the week with the work of a large number of families. Such colored people as these are justly jealous of the work given to Chinamen, while many native Negroes cannot get work to do. There is no doubt that successful and excellent laundries would grow up under the management of Philadelphia colored men and women if employers could be satisfied to “put the washing out” and to admit the possibility of having clothing laundered on some other week day than that which was usual in the Plymouth colony. The domestic economy of America to-day is more complex than was that of the Plymouth colony, and we can very easily make due allowance for the fact by letting our laundresses choose their own “Monday.”

Another branch of domestic work showing the specializing tendency is that known as “general work,” which with men servants usually denotes care of furnaces, cleaning the front of the house, etc. Nearly all of these men do such work for a considerable number of families and devote their entire time to it. One man was encountered who was in charge of the furnaces and “outside work” of not less than eight different establishments. In this direction employers could easily co-operate to effect further specialization, as only a little over two per cent of Negro male wage-earners are at present general workers. It was observed that such men were found almost exclusively in the more fashionable and wealthy quarter, while elsewhere the waiter manservant undertook the outside work as part of his duty. The specializing tendency in this department of Negro service is much less marked than in the laundry work. Still progress in the right direction is practicable, since the tendency, though not greatly developed, still exists.

A much more significant fact in the matter of specialization of work is the presence in the Seventh Ward alone, of eighty-three colored caterers and cateresses, whose employment by families who entertain to any extent surely diminishes the need in those families for the services of such large numbers of domestics as would otherwise be employed by them. The use of such outside professional help is clearly a development in the right direction and the service thus secured is manifestly better, because skilled. It is equally evident that it is cheaper to employ a caterer periodically than to keep an extra number of trained domestics permanently employed in the household for such occasions. Here again, then, specialization is found actually at work among the colored people of Philadelphia.

A fourth instance of it which is found in the city is worth citing. This is a Woman's Exchange. The preparation of foods, such as fruit in glass jars, preserves, jellies, pickles, etc., and the making of simple garments, underwear, aprons, shirt waists, baby's caps, etc., are the kinds of work specialized upon by the “Exchange for Women's Work,” located at 756 South Twelfth street, in connection with the parsonage of Bethel Church. This Exchange is outside the Seventh Ward, but is so notable a case of the tendency here discussed that it seems well to mention it. The articles offered for sale are of excellent quality and are sold at moderate prices. The investigator has noticed, in a high grade provision store on Chestnut street, not far from Rittenhouse Square, that jellies, jams and fruits are offered for sale bearing conspicuous sale cards marked, “Miss—'s Pickled Peaches,” “Miss—'s Currant Jelly,” etc. This suggests that there might be an exchange for colored women's work at such provision stores and high grade groceries if the proprietors could be induced to co-operate, as many of them doubtless could be by judicious and business-like suggestions from their leading customers or from some well-known and influential organization of women. Colored women who have unusual skill in the preparation of any kind of foods might in this way be able to place their goods advantageously, greatly to their own benefit and also to that of the community of which they form often an unemployed part.

To sum up : the facts of colored domestic service which can be laid hold of and developed along the lines of specialization of household work then, are these facts connected with “Extra Service” : (1) Laundry work can be done more conveniently and as cheaply or more cheaply outside of the house than within it, and many excellent laundresses among the married colored women are anxious to get such work to do. (2) “Outside work,” furnace work, etc., can similarly be done by men making it their business, and a man servant thus be left free for other duties or dispensed with altogether. (3) Patronage of caterers rather than the employment of supernumerary domestics is a step tending to simplify household work in large establishments and the employment of competent colored caterers a step tending to simplify the problem of unemployed colored men in Philadelphia. (4) Anything tending to extend the patronage of exchanges for women's work, and, by inducing competition in such work, to cheapen articles so offered for sale is a step in the direction of taking food preparation outside the household, and anything tending to secure a steady sale for the work of skilled colored cooks in such exchanges is a step in the direction of solving the “colored unemployed” problem of Philadelphia with all the degradation and suffering implied in that problem.

In regard to the second possible remedy proposed by Miss Salmon, it can only be said that the method of profit-sharing is as practicable with colored as with white or foreign employes —perhaps more so since colored domestics are proverbially “anxious to please.”

The third possible remedy suggested—thorough education in household affairs—aims to remove the odium now attaching to domestic service and to attract competent people to the employment by raising it to the rank of a profession. The Philadelphia colored people have already thought this subject through for themselves. A woman physician who is well known in Philadelphia, one of the most intelligent and interesting women of either race, said to the present investigator: “If domestic service were made more honorable, more tolerable, more human, it would not be so unpopular. If we had good training schools for service it would become an honorable branch of business. Mr. Booker Washington believes in ‘putting brains into common work,’ and that is just what I say about domestic labor. If a girl is taught to cook skillfully and to buy economically she becomes a dignified laborer. A trained worker is always honorable and dignified. I have often said there should be a school to train domestics. Many girls want to work who can't get the’ opportunity. If you ask them ‘What do you understand doing ?—What do you represent ?’they say, ‘I don't know how to do anything well;’it is a most lamentable answer and a most common one. But they want to learn; if you ask, ‘Would you go and work for fifty cents a week and be trained?’they will say: ‘yes, willingly.’ And I believe that we should have a school of instruction with a regular course, where graduates who reach a certain degree of excellence get a certificate of efficiency. Let this school be an employment bureau also. Such an arrangement would be a help both ways, to the employes and to the competent among the employed.”

That this idea of Dr.—'s could be made workable seems unquestionable when we study the situation in London as shown by Mr. Booth. There the girls from the workhouse schools, who have only the merest rudiments of training in household affairs, are nevertheless in such demand in London service that, as Mr. Booth says:²³ “There is no difficulty in finding places for the girls from the workhouse schools as the demand far exceeds the supply.” The M. A. B. Y. S. (Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants) has organized an employment bureau where these young servant girls may be engaged, and at this office the protection of the girl is insured by obliging the mistress to sign a form of agreement stating the number in her family, work required, wages paid, privileges granted, etc. The detailed workings of this bureau and its friendly connection with the girls after their places are secured are set forth fully in Mr. Booth's book. The chief thing to be noted here is the remarkable demand which actually exists for girls having any training at all, which fact leaves little doubt that the training does distinctly add to the value of the servant. A training school for domestic training could easily be established in Philadelphia in connection with institutions already organized. The best known colored institute in the city of Philadelphia is already doing admirable work in manual training and the teaching of trades from the building trades to millinery and dressmaking. Would it not be practicable to add courses in domestic science and economy, chemistry and sanitation, etc., to which only graduates of the institute should be admitted and where certificates should be granted only to graduates attaining a certain rank in their work, both theoretical and practical? An employment bureau in connection with such a training school could be undertaken on a fair business basis by some philanthropic or civic association, to insure fair treatment, as is done by the M. A. B. Y. S. in London. Such a plan would undoubtedly be facilitated by the presence at the head of this particular institution at the present time of one of the most gifted and progressive women in Philadelphia, whose views on domestic service are the leading ones in modern domestic reform.

In closing this paper it may be well to point out that these suggestions, all of which are in line with the views of the best thinkers upon the subject of reform in the administration of household matters, would obviate in large measure the greatest difficulties in the domestic service of to-day. What are these difficulties? In England the two greatest, in the opinion of Mr. Booth, are the dullness of the domestic servants'life and the difficulty of the personal relations between employer and employed. The same is true of American domestic service, with the added drawback of loss of social standing, which in this country is the greatest objection of all, though hardly consciously felt in England. When the domestic becomes a “trained worker, honorable and dignified,” this great objection will be removed, and it is clear that minimizing the number of domestics employed within the household would do away in large measure with the difficulty of the personal relations between mistress and maid, while the domestics thus set free to perform their special work according to their own methods, and in their own homes, would have no more reason to complain of the dullness of such life than a dressmaker or milliner would have. With the removal of these obstacles, better ability would enter domestic service, and the industry would become more honorable as well as more endurable and attractive to domestics, who we sometimes forget are also human beings, and naturally wish to live the lives of human beings.

21 A long list of bread-winners among women is given (“Domestic Service,” page 219 et seq.) showing how women are wholly or partly-supporting their families by preparing in their homes articles of food for sale in neighboring large cities, each woman usually making large quantities of only one or two articles, e. g., Saratoga potatoes, sold in large quantities to grocers, jams and pickles, chicken salad, cake, etc.

22 So called by Miss Addams in a recent address.

23 “Life and Labour of the People,” Charles Booth, Vol. 8, p. 215 and following.