Title: Love, wages, slavery : the literature of servitude in the United States /
Authors: Ryan, Barbara, 1958-
Publisher: University of Illinois Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Household employees United States History.; Master and servant United States History.; Household employees in literature
Abstract: "With the home the sacred center of social life in the nineteenth-century United States, few social tensions carried more weight than "the servant problem." As slavery tore at the nation, tension about domestic dependency became a heated topic to which publishers responded by producing a steady stream of literature instructing homemakers how to hire, treat, and discipline staff. In Love, Wages, Slavery, Barbara Ryan surveys an expansive collection of these published materials to chart shifts in thinking about what made a servant "good" and how servitors felt about attending non-kin, as well as changing ideas about gender, waged and chattel labor, status, race, and family life." "Love, Wages, Slavery examines the nature of "free" servitude before and after Emancipation through an in-depth comparison of negotiations of attendance and household management. Paying particular attention to women servants, Ryan traces a complex discussion as it developed in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Godey's Lady's Book, and Harper's Bazar."--Jacket.
Contents: The family work -- Domestic and social experiments -- Educated friends, working -- Kitchen testimony and servants' tales -- Stupid sentimentality.