The Struggle for Household Help at the Turn of the Century
A Seattle employer recounts the candid, often frustrating process of interviewing domestic workers in 1900.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The next applicant was unmistakably of African descent. I did not have to wait for her to speak to discover as much. I had heard that they made good help and rejoiced at the sight of her, but she lost no time in telling me that she never worked for less than $25 a month. 'I can make more at day work any way,' she added as she turned to go. Then I decided that I would not even answer the door again that day and was washing baby’s face amid screams and kicks when there came a faltering tap at the kitchen door. Come in, I answered and a little girl, seemingly not over sixteen years of age, entered. I talked with her and soon had her story: Father and mother were divorced and mother had married again. Father said he was not able to save anything and support the two girls that mother left. They had to go out to work. 'I am experienced and can do everything.' But do you like children, I questioned. 'Yes, indeed, would like to adopt one for myself,' was her reply. So she answered everything that I asked and agreed to all I said until I could find no further excuse, and when she declared that as young as she looked she was 18 years of age I had to employ her. She has only one beau. He drives a laundry wagon and stops for just a little while every now and then.
“I can make more at day work any way.”
Domestic labor remains a highly charged and often invisible sector of the labor economy. This personal account reflects the class anxieties and racial dynamics that defined household hiring in 1900, a conversation that persists in contemporary debates about the 'care crisis' and fair wages.
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