Domestics mid twentieth century

Domestics in the Mid Twentieth-Century

Prior to the twentieth-century domestic work had been performed by " “ [f] ree-willers"- Europeans forced to sell themselves into slavery to pay for their passage to America,”¹ , and by indentured servants. In the mid twentieth-century this inferior occupation was performed by Irish and German immigrants and blacks.

Domestic work could encompass: scrubbing floors, ironing, vacuuming, cleaning out closets and cleaning multiple bedrooms and bathrooms. The invention of the washing machine eliminated the job of laundress, the most physically demanding chore. Ten to sixteen hour days often working with outdated or cumbersome equipment forced the worker to compensate with extra physical labor.²

Non-native whites had been able to advance economically from domestic service into upwardly mobile professions through education, the industrialization of cities and marriage. “Dressmaking, seamstress, milliner, waitress and [catering] had always been virtually the only employment open to black women.” ³ Domestic service for black women did not function as a gateway into the mainstream.

Well into the mid twentieth-century, to support their families many black women were ”ghettoized into the occupation of domestic service, a maid-of-all-work status [which] appears to be directly related to racism not only through the exclusion of these women from other jobs but also by the prevention of men of color from obtaining wages sufficient to support their families.” ⁴ .

1 Judith Rollins, "Between Women Domestics and Their Employers," (Philadelphia:
Temple Press, 1985), 55.

2 Rollins, "Between Women Domestics and Their Employers", 63-69.

3 Rollins," Between Women Domestics and Their Employers", 49.

5 Barbara Mills," “Got My Mind Set on Freedom”: Maryland’s Story of Black & White
Activism 1663-2000 "(Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 2002), 35.