Learn about American domestic servants at March talk

The 19th century wasn't all that different in many respects from life today: There is life for the "1 Percenters" and then there is life for everyone else.

Behind all of the cachet and claret surrounding the likes of "Downton Abbey," existed another world - a real world with plenty of hard work for the servants who performed a multitude of essential tasks.

Erika Hoist, curator of the Edwards Place historical home in Springfield, will discuss that world in "Domestic Servants in the 19th Century" at 7 p.m. Monday, March 30, at the McHenry County Historical Society Museum.

It was a time when "hired girls" were common in middle-class households across Illinois. According to the "Encyclopedia of Chicago," by 1870 one in five Chicago households employed domestic workers and they accounted for 60 percent of the city's wage-earning women. Over the next half century, domestic service represented the leading occupation of women in Chicago and around the country.

A lone woman, responsible for all cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing and general maintenance around the house was called a "maid of all work," Hoist said. Those of higher means often hired a cook, housemaid, butler and/or valet - not to mention gardeners and the like. But such a Vanderbilt lifestyle certainly was not commonplace.

"It was not a servant-mistress, upstairs-downstairs kind of thing," Hoist said. "Domestic servants worked side by side with the people who employed them."

Hoist said servant girls at the turn of the century literally were "girls." They ranged from 10 to 14 years old and often hailed from rural households around the state or had recently immigrated here from Europe - especially Ireland. Many were too poor to pay for housing or came from poor families who had more mouths to feed than they could afford.

It had little to do with social climbing and more to do with unlocking a better life, Hoist said. Working-class women could parlay skills learned while working as domestic servants when they married and kept their own homes. And it was the employers' best interests to keep their hired hands happy.

An article that appeared in the June 13, 1857, edition of the Chicago Tribune bemoaned the scarcity of domestic workers.

"We know of no complaint so common among housekeepers as the want of good servants. The cause of this is chiefly threefold - first, that servants are mostly taken from the most ignorant class; secondly, they do not remain long enough in service to acquire sufficient capacity; and thirdly, that there are not sufficient rewards and stimuli to induce servants to remain long enough or acquire a capacity."

At a time when young men and women lived and worked side-by-side with their employers, yet were considered second-class citizens - relationships could get strained.

"They could be fired in an instant and they could leave in an instant," Hoist said. "But they kind of needed each other."

An article in the March 8, 1908, Tribune offered some common-sense advice: "'The trouble with domestic service,' declared one woman, 'is that (it) has not yet found its place in industry - at least not as far as mistresses are concerned. It is still a feudal institution in the midst of 20th century civilization. The employer who hires a girl for his factory knows just exactly what he (will get) from this girl. There are certain rules and regulations with which the girl must comply. Beyond that he has nothing to say. He cannot dictate to the girl with whom she should associate, what theaters she should attend, what her tastes should be.

"We have little trouble with domestics," said Mary McDowell, head of the University (of Chicago settlement) in the (Union) Stockyards District. We attribute our success to the fact that we place the house at the disposal of our servants for their social life a much as we do for our own."

Upcoming Sampler Series lectures include:

• 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 14 - "The Man Who Knew Lincoln." The historical society is partnering with the McHenry County Civil War Roundtable to bring Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, to the McHenry County Historical Society museum. Herndon is portrayed by Ron Halversen of the Kenosha Civil War Museum.

• 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 28 - "The Journey to Mollie's War: WACs and World War II." Speaker Cyndee Schaffer traces the footsteps of the women who served in Europe and the WACs who were stationed in London, England, before D-Day and during the post-D-Day German buzz bomb attacks. WACs were the first women other than nurses to serve overseas in World War II.

A $10 donation is requested for individual programs. The domestic servants and WAC programs are made possible through a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council. For information, call (815) 923-2267 or visit www.mchsonline.org.