Servants in Victorian England Servants were imperative to the functioning of middle and upper class homes in Victorian England. Without the veritable army of servants for the upper and upper-middle classes, women would not be able to live the leisured lives they had grown accustomed, and would certainly not have the time to flaunt their status with neighbor-calling and the numerous balls and social activities. Even most lower-middle and middle-middle classes employed at least one servant, as assistance was almost a necessity in maintaining the home (Roberts 205). For the most part, these servants had an appreciation for their work, with the opportunity to live in an upper class home and have job security, as the alternative was industrial work with unexplained lay-offs and less than desirable, and often unsanitary, living conditions (Margetson 155). The highest classes of families would employ this “army” of servants, each servant having a specific duty, and providing them all with matching uniforms. For the less wealthy families, a “maid of all works” was common, where the maid would assist with cleaning, cooking, and raising the children (Roberts 205). In families where many servants were employed, a sort of ranking system occurred, between all of the servants, and even within particular positions. Head butlers, or stewards, were considered higher in ranking than the rest of the servants. The head butler would have managerial responsibilities over the other servants of the home. In the middle, there were valet's, which were the personal assistants to the gentleman, who would clean his clothes, assist him in dressing and in shaving. The lady's maid had similar duties for the woman of the home, mostly assisting in dress... ... middle of paper ... ...g to read the quotes of people telling their experiences of living as a servant versus the people living as a master. Also, here is a link to a picture of the Servant's Hall of a judge's home in Victorian England, to give an idea of the living conditions of servants. Works Cited Kelley, Grace. “Nineteenth-Century Medicine in the Literal Sense”. 1999. . Margetson, Stella. Victorian High Society. New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, INC, 1980. Roberts, Adam C. Victorian Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2003. “Servants' Hall.” The Judges Lodging Museum. . “The Victorians: The London Townhouse - The Servants.” Romance Ever After. 2001. .
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
The Victorian period is often defined by its antique images of flowers, doilies, rosy-cheek children and intricate fashion. However, these trite images shadow the true realities of middle-class families struggling to succeed in the emerging business world. Traditionally, the men spent long days in the city working out business affairs, while the women stayed home with the children preparing meals and planning for social gatherings. Work was often not an option for women because they were seen as incapable of any duty outside of the home. However, with the onset of Queen Victoria’s reign, the women of England slowly began to challenge their subservient roles, taking on jobs as teachers, writers, and charity workers. Over the next fifty years, women explored many occupational fields that were before only available to men. The Victorian women were able to controvert many of the stereotypes that existed about them, while also creating a future filled with new opportunities for women of all classes.
Throughout the period from 1750-1914, women would typically work in their husbands’ homes and would perform house duties at a very basic and fundamental level. Women would generally wait until they found a man that would marry them.
Prostitutes did not necessarily “enjoy” their sexual encounters with men, as Victorians tended to believe. Prostitution was their survival. Lower-class women did not become prostitutes because they wanted to. They became prostitutes because they had no alternate choice for survival. There were few options that allowed women to live off her own income instead of her family’s income, and once she e...
McBride, Kari Boyd. “A Boarding House is not a Home: Women’s Work and Woman’s Worth on the Margins of Domesticity.” The University Book second edition. 472-487.
Hart, Emma. “Work, family and the Eighteenth-Century History of a Middle Class in the American South.” Journal of Southern History. 78.3 (2012): 551-578. Web.
In the article, Cult of True Womanhood, the underlying theme is of what society thought was the ideal woman. Women of that time where thought of as homemakers “deeply shaped by the so called “cult of womanhood” a collection of attitudes that associated “true” womanhood with home and family.” Women were supposed to stay home and clean and take care of the children while men worked and provided for their families. The misconception that housework was not hard and that even these women didn’t work as hard as paid labors was a strong opinion of the time. “With economic value calculated more and more exclusively in terms of cash and men increasingly basing their claims to “manhood” on their role as “breadwinners,” women’s unpaid household labor went largely unacknowledged.” Many married women ran their households and took on extra work to support their families and many in underpaid positions. Many of these were even in the service of other’s houses working in “true womanhood”
Men in the upper class had jobs of high ranks and involved less manual work. Occupations of these high ranks would be in the possession of men that were considered Gentlemen. In the Victorian Era, jobs of high skill or importance would qualify men to be a gentlemen. (Victorian Web.) David Cody, in “The Gentlemen” specifies that some of these jobs would be clergymen for the church, parliament members and army officers.
Indentured servants. Becoming a servant was an easy way for people to get to the New
Domesticity, as defined by The Merriam Webster, is “the state of being domestic; domestic or home life.” When someone mentions domesticity, an immediate association may be drawn to domesticated cats, dogs, or even simply animals people bring into our homes and domesticize. The household trains to be accustomed to home life, rather than life on the streets. We as people, generally, spend half our time in the home and half outside. Thanks to this we are often seen as domesticated creatures. However, as demonstrated clearly by through Dicken’s writing, as well as Cullwick’s, people can also become domesticized. During the Victorian Era, women left home rarely and were not seen as working people. Despite the limited exceptions most working women constrained to work inside homes other than their own. Hannah Cullwick’s relationship to domesticity is a complex one. Despite the fact that she was a working-class woman, who was employed by various different homes, she did not work in each of them for more than a limited amount of time.
In the Victorian era, in New York City, men and women roles within the society were as different as night and day. A man regardless of his extra curricular activities could still maintain a very prevalent place in society. A woman’s worth was not only based family name which distinguished her class and worth, but also her profession if that was applicable.
Many of people today feel trapped inside their homes, just how the women of Pre-Industrial Europe felt. Working day in and day out inside the homes, just to keep the family together, and make a little money on the side, these women were an integral part of Pre-Industrial families. Not only were the women important to Pre-Industrial European families, but so were the households. Much of the money was made in the households, and this is where families either succeeded or failed. The household and women of Pre-Industrial Europe played an integral role in the economy of the families, and more importantly, the women of these households kept them running smoothly. Without either of these important aspects of life in Pre-Industrial Europe, it is safe to say that the families would have collapsed, due to a lack of organization and structures. Pre-Industrial Europe, in which the women and the household were “the factories” per se, due to the income they generated, was much different from the Europe we know today. Leading into the Industrialization of Europe beginning in the late 1700's and lasting through the early 1800's, the household played an integral role in the family’s income. Without the household, the families would literally collapse, due to a lack of organization and stability. Within these important family sub-units, there was one married couple, their children, the family’s servants, and in some cases, depending upon the region of Europe, there were grandparents, aunts and uncles. Not only did the father and servants of the house work, but also the women and children. Also, in the case of there being more than one generation of family in a single household, depending upon the region of Europe, the grandparents, aunts, and uncles would also work within the house. Once the children of these households reached a certain age, usually the early teens, they were sent off to work in a house as a servant. These servants were different then the servants of today, as they worked for room, board, and food, not waiting on the family. Once they started to generate income, the teens would save up the money necessary to begin their own family. However, there were the few exceptions; teens that did not work as servants, and ended up marrying into an existing household. This however,...
During the Romantic Era, very few occupations were open to women, as most were expected to run their husbands house. For the women who remained unmarried (whether by choice or by circumstance), their opportunities to earn money were very limited. One of the most common choices available for a young maid unmarried is to be a governess. Though this was never a first choice, it was one of the most readily available jobs for women and included a lack of re...
In the Middle Ages houses of the poor and wealthy were often alike, except for the wealthy because they could occupy all their floors of the house. Their business would be on the first floor, living quarters on the second, and servant’s quarters on the third. If they family were poor they might have several families living under one roof, which makes the house very crowded (Gies, 243).
Family as known in the 1800’s denoted a relationship of dependency on the head of the household states Najeeb (2012). The positions of women working in the factories became a necessity. Not only did the financial necessity become evident but the feminine need became important in textile type factories, but also in child care, domestic and laundry care. Children, especially daughters, were also important in the economic recourse for working class families and were put to work as young as ages 10-14 years to contribute to family income. In the middle-class families, children and wives usually did not work. It was not financially necessary for them to work. The children went to school and the women were the chief organizer around the home they resided in. The middle and upper-class wives delegated the jobs of the working class employees within their homes. (Abdul Najeeb, (12th December