According to the article, housekeepers were “the largest occupational group outside of farmers and agricultural laborers; that is more than four times as large as the total number of miners” and yet nobody had studied the conditions of housekeepers as the other industries had been studied. Their living conditions, working hours, days off, etc, were all unregulated.

The article is interesting, but I especially enjoyed the illustrations which depict a servant’s “palatial apartment” and imagines the awkwardness of a maid dining with her employers. The bottom drawing shows “The Breakfast Table Of the Future,” where a servant has been replaced by a machine.

DID YOU KNOW THAT HOUSEHOLD SERVICE IS A PROBLEM? It Is, and a Government Official Marshals Some Impressive Facts to Prove That It Is Not the Less a Labor Question Because There Is No Housekeepers’ Union. (PDF)

From January 8, 1911