Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 115
Afro-American women: in domestic service, 6, 12–13, 67–68, 69, 86, 182n.4; in domestic worker unions, 126; employer attitudes toward, as domestics, 61, 74, 84; families of, as domestics, workers, 12–13, 70, 183n.8; and New Deal, 100, 104, 108, 109, 119–21; as sexual objects, 203nn.12,14; and training in home economics, 94–95, 97, 98–99, 101; and treatment under Social Security Act, 131, 132–33, 199n.84, 200n.90; in YWCA, 120, 123
Aging. See Beauty
Altmeyer, Arthur, 131
Ambrose Holt and Family (Susan Glaspell), 34–35
American Association of University Women (AAUW): and members as domestic service employers, 8, 180n.61; and work to improve domestic service, 125
American Federation of Labor (AFL). See Labor unions
“American girl,” 21
American Home Economics Association (AHEA), 90, 116, 132; and adoption of vocational education laws, 92–93
American Indian women: in domestic service, 6, 12, 67, 68, 70, 182n.3; and home economics, 97
Ames, Jessie Daniel, 123–24
Anderson, Mary, 77, 80, 116, 117, 120, 123–24
Andrews, Benjamin, 52, 116, 122
Armstrong, Samuel Chapman, 94
Asian-American. See Chinese-American domestics; Japanese-American domestics
Atlanta, Ga., 72, 84, 124, 126
Bailey, Beth L., 38
Baltimore, Md., 83, 86, 108, 115, 120, 126, 129, 133, 134, 181n.71, 183n.8
Barberry Bush (Kathleen Norris), 23–24
Baylor, Adelaide, 95
Beauty, 137; denial of aging and, 149–50; and exercise, 33; as female obsession, 204n.29; of home, 27; as requirement for wives, 23, 33, 56, 137, 148, 150; of wife, and cosmetics, 36
Beavers, Louise, 40
Berlin, Mrs. Irving, 134
Bernstein, Irving, 119
Bethune, Mary McLeod, 108
Best Years of Our Lives, The, 19, 31, 35, 38, 40
Blackwelder, Julia Kirk, 132
Black women. See Afro-American women
Blair, Emily Newall, 27, 173n.32
Bobbitt, Pearl, 120
Boettiger, Anna Roosevelt, 129–30
Broun, Heywood, 126
Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 98–99, 116
Bush, George, 159
Businessman’s wife, 41; definition, 175n.5
California, 130
Cates, Jerry, 132
Chicago, Ill., 56, 70, 81–83, 117, 120, 124, 126, 154
Child care, 49, 56–60, 159, 160, 164n.2; training in, 95–99, 105, 107, 108
Children: and ADC, 130, 132, 190n.39; and dirt, 205n.31; employers’, and servants, 45, 70, 75, 77, 81, 84, 134, 186n.44; and housework, 51, 64; as less important than men, for women, 32, 37, 45; men as, 31; numbers of, in families, 9, 156; and psychological development, 141–43, 176n.8, 202nn.8,9; women’s responsibility for, 2, 3, 4, 5–7, 23, 25, 28–29, 41, 48–49, 110, 145, 151, 153, 157, 161, 164–65nn.3,4
Chinese-American domestics, 182n.3
Chodorow, Nancy, 141
Church: domestic workers’ attachments to, 66–67, 69, 124, 181n.2, 183n.12, 184n.17; employer attendance at, 48, 77
CIO. See Labor unions
Civil rights for domestics. See NAACP; National Negro Congress; National Urban League
Cleaning: divisions among women, in, 146–47; in housework routine, 46–52, 57, 59, 61, 69, 75–76, 78–80, 153; after meals, 56, 81; personal, as need for women, 33, 39, 149; social responsibility for, 159–60; standards for, 53, 70, 83, 87, 148; training in, 98, 101, 105, 107, 109; women’s responsibility for, 3, 5, 7, 45, 134, 156–57, 177–78n.27; in work relief projects, 102–3
Cleanliness: and dirt dualism, 150; of domestics, 62; of home, 51, 53; of MCHs, 35, 109, 138
Commodification of the home, 18, 171n.2
Companionate marriage, 37, 167n.17
Conservative attitudes toward women’s roles, 63; in Depression, 164n.3; in 1920s, 2, 164n.1; in WW II, 2, 165n.4
Consumption: as erotic substitute, 201n.6; as role of housewife, 5, 19, 22–36, 42, 91; as national value, 171n.4
Cook, duties of, 79
Cooking: and black women, 30–31, 40; description of, in house, 53–56; and dirt, 146; and domestic workers, 70, 75, 79–81; in housework schedule, 47–49, 53–57, 59, 60, 76; social responsibility for, 157; training in, 94–97, 99–102, 105, 107, 108; women’s responsibility for, 158, 160, 164n.2. See also Nutrition
Cott, Nancy, 31
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, 7
“Cult of True Womanhood,” 5, 171n.4
Cuomo, Mario, 157
Dating, 38
Davenport, Doris, 151
Davis, Katherine, 153
Days off, 77–78
Day work, 6, 8, 60, 68–71, 83, 86, 115, 155, 158; duties for servants in, 53, 69
Dinnerstein, Dorothy, 141, 176n.8
Dirt, 159; association with bodies, 149; association with food, 179n.51; association with sex, 143–44; association with women, 143–44; association with women of color, 16, 140, 146, 150; association with working-class women, 146, 204n.22; conceptions of, 139–40, 200n.2, 201n.5; psychoanalytic explanations of, 140–42, 201n.5. See also Purity; Whiteness, as identity
Dodge, Elizabeth, 113
Domestic and personal service: job titles for, 79, 154, 156, 166n.12; kinds of households employing, 8–13, 168n.26; legislation and, 112, 114, 119, 130, 205n.7; model contracts for, 124–25; in New Deal projects, 104, 109; numbers of employers of, 8, 9–10, 167n.22; numbers of women in, xiii, 7–13, 156, 167n.22, 169nn.32,34; racial-ethnic representation in, 67–68; USES and, 128–29; vocational training for, 92, 94, 97, 98, 100; after WW II, 153
Domestic revolution, 5
Domestic servant: family responsibilities of, 69–70, 86, 132; in workers’ summer schools, 194n.18. See also Day work; Domestic and personal service; Maid; Part-time employee
Domestic Service (Lucy Maynard Salmon), 118
Douglas, Mary, 139–40
Drinking, disapproved of, by servants, 61, 66–67
Dudden, Faye, 5
Dudley, Edith, 118
Dukakis, Michael, 160
Emerson, Mrs. Kendall, 124
Emotion, housewife’s management of, 41, 100
Employment, middle-class women’s gainful: married women’s, 18, 164–65n.3; married women’s, and need for domestic help, 11, 77; opposition to, 2
Ephron, Nora, 23
Euro-American domestics. See White women, as domestics
European immigrant domestics, 6
Exercise, 33, 46. See also Beauty
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938), 107, 155; race and gender differences under, 121
FDR. See Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 90, 122; women’s projects of, 101–2, 104
Field, Amy Walker, 114
Firth, Violet M., 125
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield, 19, 22
Flax, Jane, 141
Food. See Cooking; Nutrition
Forbush, A. R., 120
Frederick, Christine, 26, 47, 54, 55, 69–70
French Canadian domestics, 67
French domestics, 67
Freud, Sigmund, 140–42
Gandhi, Mahatma, 159
General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 125
George-Deen Act (1937), 94, 97
George-Ellzey Act (1934), 93–94
George-Reed Act (1929), 93
Gilbreth, Lillian M., 28–29, 34
Gilder, George, 157
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 2, 91
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 68
Groves, Ernest, 37
Groves, Gladys, 37
Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, 69, 70
Heads of household, women as, 86, 102, 104, 190n.39
Health: of domestics, 79, 82, 84, 85, 105, 107; food for, 53, 103, 158; of housewife, 66, 149; social responsi-bility for, 160–61
Heterosexual intimacy. See Sex, hetero-sexual
Hill, T. Arnold, 118
Holmes, Josephine, 116
Home: business in, 25; imagery of, 17–18, 27–29, 30, 40, 87, 158–59, 166n.11, 167n.18, 171 n.4; as linked with sensual existence, 145–48; as men’s work reward, 43–45, 176n.10; as unpolluted, 177n.27
Home economies: black educators and, 94, 98–99; black women in, 94–95, 97–99; careers for women in, 89, 93, 95, 102, 103, 116, 117, 187n.2, 188n.8; and housework standards, 46; and men, 187n.1; and New Deal employment, 102, 103; segregated training in, 94, 96–98, 100; as women’s profession, 90–91, 148–49
Homemaking: as concept of housewife’s role, 22, 28, 73, 92–93, 148–49; as distinct from housework, 42, 63; in home economics, 95–96, 99–100, 110; in New Deal projects, 109; as profession, 29
Hospitality: with men as hosts, 44; and stress on domestic worker, 80–81
Hours of work: for domestic worker, 51, 69–70, 76–77, 81; for housewife, 76; and labor unions, 126; New Deal regulation of, 119, 121; and overtime pay, 121–22, 196n.42; schedules of, 75, 78–79; as source of tension in domestic work, 59, 74–75, 78–79; state regulation of, 114, 129–30; voluntary contracts for, 118, 122, 124–25. See also Days off; On call
Household equipment, 4, 33, 82
Household workers’ training, 105, 107–8, 109–10
Housekeeping aides, 102–4
Houseworkers, general, 156; duties of, 47, 79
Howes, Ethel Puffer, 46
Hungarian domestics, 67
Hurst, Fannie, 19, 27, 30, 36, 134
Imitation of Life (Fannie Hurst), 30–31, 40
Immigrant workers, 4, 67, 84, 158, 160
Income, of households employing domestics, 8–9
Indianapolis, Ind., 9, 10, 12–13
Institute for the Co-Ordination of Women’s Interests (Smith College), 46, 57
Institute of Euthenics (Vassar College), 46
Interracial cooperation, 119–20, 123–35, 195nn.29,31
Jackson, Jesse, 161
Jackson, Miss., 9–10, 12–13, 120, 126
Japanese-American domestics, 6, 12, 68, 170n.35
Jewish women: as domestic servants, 110; as employers of domestic servants, 182n.6
Johnson, General Hugh, 119, 120
Jones, Jacqueline, 67
Jordan, Winthrop D., 140
Junior League, 125
Kitty Foyle (Christopher Morley), 19, 35, 37, 40
Kneeland, Hildegarde, 75–76
Labor unions: of domestic workers, 116, 120, 125–27, 134, 198n.66; and organization of domestic workers, 112, 126–27, 130
Lamont, Mrs. Corliss, 134
Laundry: in housework schedule, 47–49, 57, 75, 76, 87, 109; as source of pollution, 52, 177n.27; steps of, in home, 52–53, 79–80; training in, 97, 98, 105; types of commercial, 10, 69, 149; types of households purchasing, 9–11; women working in, 12, 65, 69; as women’s responsibility, 45, 60–61, 102, 104, 157, 159
League of Women Shoppers, 200n.92
League of Women Voters, 123, 125, 129, 132
Lesbians: hostility to, in 1920s, 3, 164n.1; and sex, 205n.30
Lewis, John L., 121
Lewis, Sinclair, 19, 21, 27, 31, 33
Lithuanian domestics, 67
Live-in service, 6, 7, 56, 71, 105, 107, 154; conditions of work in, 113, 118, 124; housework schedule with, 57, 70; as preferred by domestics, 68, 70–71; as preferred by employers, 8, 58, 60, 61, 153
Live-out service, 8, 66, 68, 69, 71, 105, 113, 115; conditions of work in, 60, 107, 118; housework schedule with, 77, 153
Los Angeles, Calif., 9, 10, 11
Loy, Myrna, 19, 24, 31, 37, 38
Lyford, Carrie, 98
Maid: as caretaker of employer, 24; hiring of, as sign of social status, 26; as inferior to mistress, 4, 34, 62, 63, 67–68; as label for domestic worker, 156, 158; as linked with dirt and sex, 140, 146; work schedule of, 48–49, 50, 51, 61. See also Domestic servant
Main Street (Sinclair Lewis), 19–20, 21, 27, 33, 40
Management: as conception of house-wife’s job, 26, 28, 42, 45, 46, 116, 148; of home, in home economics, 95, 97, 100, 103, 154; in housewife’s schedule, 50, 76
Manners: for dinner service, 54; for servant, 62, 98, 107–8
March, Fredric, 19
Marriage: and career, 8, 90, 92, 93, 110; of domestic workers, 68, 85; as ideal for women, 5, 6, 20, 22, 150, 157; men’s attitudes toward, 64, 99; in popular culture, 19, 21, 27; sex in, 36–37, 39, 143, 144–45, 151
Marshall, Herbert, 19
Mason, Lucy Randolph, 125
Maternalism, 4
Matthews, Glenna, 18
May, Elaine Tyler, 18
MCH. See Middle-class housewives
Men: as center of women’s existence, 6, 137; in competition with women, 101–2; and home economics, 90–91, 187n.1; housework expectations of, 15, 24, 27, 44–45, 52, 53, 139; and labor regulation, 112, 119, 121, 131; psychological analysis of, 141–42, 202 n. 7, 203 nn. 16, 19; women’s expectations of, 33, 35, 37, 39, 143–45, 149; as women’s partners, 7, 18, 20, 139; work of, 148
Mexican-American women: as domestics, 6, 12, 68, 70, 169–70n.34; and home economics, 96, 97; in New Deal projects, 109
Middle-class housewives: as “good” women, 138–39; popular culture images of, 19, 171 n. 1; self-conceptions of, 18, 40, 148–49; work of, 2, 22–23, 42, 46–51, 153, 156
Milwaukee, Wis., 126
Minimum wage: extent of workers’ coverage by regulations of, 121, 130, 155, 158; history of laws for, 114–15, 119; in model contracts, 118. See also Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)
Morgenthau, Henry, 131
Motherhood, 8, 31, 36, 151, 157
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, 7, 19, 37, 40
Muller v. Oregon (1908), 114
NAACP: as advocate of domestic servants, 112; as critic of New Deal programs, 100, 119, 131; domestic servants’ letters to, 74–75, 81
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 125
National Committee on Employer-Employee Relationships in the Home. See National Committee on House-hold Employment
National Committee on Household Employment (NCHE), 116, 118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 133, 153; and Eleanor Roosevelt, 122; and organization for improving domestic work, 116, 118, 120, 126, 133; and standards for domestic employment, 106, 118, 124, 156
National Consumers’ League (NCL), 112, 119, 125
National Council of Jewish Women, 105, 123, 129
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) (1933), 119, 120
National Negro Congress, 126, 133
National Recovery Administration (NRA): exclusion of domestic workers from, 120–22, 127; race and gender discrimination in, 119, 195n.25
National Reemployment Service (NRS). See United States Employment Service (USES)
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE), 92. See also National Society for Vocational Education (NSVE)
National Society for Vocational Education (NSVE), 93
National Urban League, 112, 118, 126, 154
National Women’s Trade Union League (NWTUL), 112, 114, 123, 130, 134, 197n.48, 200n.91
National Youth Administration (NYA), 129; race and gender discrimination in, 108–10
Negro. See Afro-American women
Negro Workers’ Council, 198n.65
New Deal, 129; legislation for workers in, 71, 106–7, 112, 126; race and gender discrimination in, 100–101, 108–9, 118–23, 195n.25; women’s work relief projects in, 90, 101–6, 107–10
Nicholson, Gene, 127
Norris, Frank, 19
Nutrition, 53, 55, 96–97, 103, 158, 178n.33
Oakland, Calif., 126, 127, 130
Object-relations theory, 141
Occupational hazards, in domestic work, 82–83; and burns, 79, 186n.46; and cleaning with chemicals, 82; and confinement, 82; and cuts, 186n.46; and diet, 83; and scrubbing, 83; and standing, 82
O’Donnell, Cathy, 35
On call: definitions of, 118, 124; in domestic workers’ schedule, 57, 58, 75, 77, 80; as source of housewife–domestic conflict, 78–79
Opportunity homes, 118
Parallel Lives (Phyllis Rose), 20
Park, Marion Edwards, 115
Part-time employee, 51, 60, 69–70, 184n.24
Perkins, Frances, letters to, 71–73, 77–81, 83
Philadelphia, Penn., 56, 68, 86, 115, 120, 126
Philadelphia Story, The, 19, 38–39
Postmodernist, 15
“Problem that has no name,” 64, 156
Professionalization, 91
Protective labor laws, 114–15, 121–22
Puerto Rican domestics, 134, 154
Purity, 150; and association with white, middle-class housewife, 16, 138–39, 144; as standard for middle-class homes, 53, 147–48. See also Cleanliness
Reagan, Ronald, 157
Richards, Ellen Swallow, 91
Roelofs, Henrietta, 92, 95, 113, 195n.29
Rogers, Ginger, 37
Rollins, Judith, 4
Romero, Mary, 158
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 71, 78, 106, 122, 123, 129–30
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 71; letters to, 73, 81–84
Rose, Phyllis, 20
Rural migrant, 6
Russell, Harold, 35
Ryan, Neva, 120
St. Louis, Mo., 77, 120, 126, 154
Salmon, Lucy Maynard, 118, 184n.25
San Diego, Calif., 126–27
Scandinavian domestics, 67, 182n.3
Schedules, housework: of domestic workers, 69–70, 75–79, 158; of housewives, 56–57, 58
Scientific management. See Management
Scottish domestics, 67
Sewing, 76, 96, 100, 109; in women’s work relief projects, 102, 104–5, 191 n.52
Sex: association with dirt, 138–41; association with food, 204 n.29; association with working-class women and women of color, 143–45, 202n.9, 203n.12; heterosexual, and women’s responsibility in, 36–39, 150–51, 203n.14; unconscious feelings about, infant development of, 141–43; women’s, men’s fear of, 202 n. 7, 203 n. 16. See also Lesbians
Sexual division of labor, 157; in New Deal education and work projects, 101–2; in professions, 90, 93, 187 nn. 1,2
Sexuality: women’s heterosexual, as career, 3; homosexual, 15; of servants, 27, 62
Slav domestics, 67
“Slave market,” Bronx, 72
Slavery: and American unconscious, 140, 146, 201 n.6; as analogy for domestic work, 72–73; domestic service in, 4, 6, 138–39; as precedent for domestic work, 12, 185n.27; and sexuality, 144
Smith, Hilda Worthington, 101
Smith, Lillian, 202n.9
Smith Rosenberg, Carroll, 6
Smith-Hughes Act (1917), 90, 92–93, 97, 98
Smoking, disapproved of, by servants, 61, 66–67
Snedden, David, 92
Social Security Act (1935), 101, 133; ADC and race differentials under, 132–33, 200n.90; exclusions of domestic workers from, 127; 1939 Amendments, 130, 132–33, 155; Old Age Assistance and domestic workers under, 131, 132, 199nn.84,87; provisions of, 130, 199n.85; race and gender differences under, 131; and retirement benefits for domestics under, 133, 155, 158; and unemployment assistance for domestics, 155
Spock, Mrs. Benjamin, 134
Standard of living, 22, 24, 26, 99, 171 n.4
Steinberg, Ronnie, 121
Stewart, Jimmy, 39
Stigler, George J., 9
Suffrage, women’s, 3, 20, 21, 113, 114, 150
Summer industrial conference, YWCA, 117, 120, 123
Swiss domestics, 67
Talbot, Marion, 91
Thompson, Clara, 143
Townsend, Dr. Francis, 131
Unemployment compensation, 130, 131, 134, 155
Uniforms, domestic workers’, 11, 85, 98, 105, 116
Union. See Labor unions
United States Employment Service (USES): and placement of domestic workers, 127–29, 156; and standards for domestic work, 107, 127, 155
van Rensselaer, Martha, 91
Van Slyck, Katherine R., 125
Vassar College, 46
Virgin/whore dichotomy, 144
Vocational education. See Home economics
Wages: of domestic workers, 60, 65, 69, 71, 79, 83–86, 134, 154, 183n.14; in-kind, for domestic workers, 73, 83, 84, 118, 185n.27; in model contracts, 124; security of, in New Deal, 102, 104, 106, 191n.52; and USES, 129, 155; of women, 145, 159, 196n.42, 199n.76. See also Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); Minimum wage; National Recovery Administration (NRA)
Wagner, Senator Robert, 126, 127, 134
Wagner Labor Relations Act (1935), 126
Warrick, Emily, 123
Washington, Booker T., 94
Washington, D.C., 21, 70, 83, 98, 104, 126, 134, 158, 160
Washington State, 129
Weaver, Robert, 119–20, 195n.29
West Indian domestics, 67, 181–82n.2
White, Walter, 131
Whiteness, as identity, 14, 16, 138, 147–51, 170–71n.40
White women: class differences among, 15, 146–47; as domestics, 12, 67, 68, 70, 86, 104, 134, 182n.4; as employers of domestics, 6, 40, 110; home economics training of, 94–95, 97; under New Deal, 119; as pure beings, 138–39, 144, 150–51, 203n.14
Wisconsin, 129
Wladaver-Morgan, Susan, 102
Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, 112, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122, 133, 154, 156
Women’s clubs, 42, 43, 45, 61, 122, 123, 125, 127, 129, 194n.13
Women’s liberation movement, 157
Women’s Trade Union League. See National Women’s Trade Union League (NWTUL)
Women workers, summer schools for, 194 n.18
Woodward, Ellen, 79, 102, 104–6, 108, 122
Woolman, Mary Schenck, 91
Works Progress Administration (WPA): and domestic work projects, 79, 84, 99, 105–8, 122, 129, 190n.39, 199nn.48,52; and women’s projects, 101–8, 110
World War 1, 2, 12, 20, 21, 52, 63, 67, 113, 115, 127
World War II, 2, 12, 18, 45, 63, 133, 149; conservative effects on married women of, 165n.4
Wright, Teresa, 31
Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA): as advocate of domestic service reform, 92, 99, 105, 106, 112, 113, 115–18, 122–27, 133; as advocate of employer-employee understanding, 60, 63, 127, 186n.44; and attitudes of domestic workers in, 75, 78, 112, 117, 120, 130, and attitudes of middle-class housewives in, 54, 115, 117, 125, 154; surveys of domestic work by, 70–71, 83–84, 129, 155. See also Interracial cooperation