The Back of the House As Viewed from the Front of the House: Sarah Davis and the Irish Domestic Servants of Clover Lawn from 1872 to 1879

This paper details the experience of Irish servants in late nineteenth-century Bloomington who were employed at Clover Lawn (the David Davis Mansion). The house on Clover Lawn was divided into three regions: public, private, and the servant quarters. The division between front-of-the-house, back-of-the-house is the American equivalent of the British “upstairs-downstairs” arrangement. This paper examines the connection between the design of the home and the established middle-class domestic system, the cultural and social differences between the servants and the Davis family, and the impact the Irish domestic servant population had on the growing Bloomington community, in order to gain a better overall understanding of the solidification of the middle-class. This article is available in Constructing the Past: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol12/iss1/14 The Back of the House as Viewed From the Front of the House: Sarah Davis and the Irish Domestic Servants of Clover Lawn from 1872 to 1879 Gina Tangorra The house is the shell of the home, the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace which abides within its walls. Therefore everything that concerns the house is important, and no detail is insignificant 1 In June of 1871 the Bloomington Pantagraph announced that the house under construction on Clover Lawn would be ready to be occupied by the Davis family in September of that year. The new home on Clover Lawn carried greater significance than a mere commercial enterprise. The mansion had a ―novel and attractive‖ design which reflected more than the personal individual preferences of the Davis family. 2 The members of the Davis family were part of a refined and genteel class of Americans, and their home served to showcase their separation from those who lacked refinement. 3 The particular style of Davis house reflected the cultural and spiritual values of the genteel American middle-class. An important component of these values and, concurrently, the lifestyle of the middle-class inhabitants of the new house, were the house‘s servants. Between the years 1872 and 1879, there were approximately eight servants who lived and worked inside the Davis family home, not to mention the several outdoor workers and part-time help who served an important function during this period of time. 4 Most of the domestic servants and many of the other hired workers were Irish immigrants—a significant factor in determining the experience of these servants in the late nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth-century, the American middle-class had established a well developed ideology that was self-justifying and self-promoting. There was an emphasis on the role of the woman as a positive force within the space of the home. 5 In many ways, Sarah Davis embodied this doctrine. As the manager of her home, she was a moral authority over the physical space of the home and those who lived within the home. In 1859, Sarah Davis wrote to her brother, ―I have been very busy for two weeks past trying to renovate the old home—and its 1 Margaret E. Sangster, editor‘s introduction to House and Home: A Practical Book on Home Management, by Mary Elizabeth Carter (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1904), 9. 2 ―Judge Davis‘s New Residence,‖ (June 27 1871) 3 Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 404. ―Great mansions, books, fine dress became instruments of power, a superior culture to parade before the eyes of a deferential population whose compliance was necessary to the continuation of authority.‖ David M. Katzman, Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 147. The Victorian home functioned as an ―imaginary shield protecting the middle-class family from the evils and ugliness of the outside world.‖ 4 While there are various, usually interchangeable, terms to describe domestic servants, I will refer to the Davis family servants as ―domestic servants‖ or ―servants.‖ I will also group Willie Fitzgerald with the female domestic servants who lived in the Davis Mansion. According to Lucy M. Salmon, in the 1880 census, men like Willie Fitzgerald would have been classified as ―laborers‖ although Salmon‘s research grouped men employed in the house as ―domestic servants.‖ Lucy M. Salmon, ―A Statistical Inquiry Concerning Domestic Service,‖ American Statistical Association 18, 19 (June, September 1892): 95-96, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2276481 (accessed 25 March 2010). It is difficult to determine exactly how many servants there were during this period as Sarah generally referred to the servants by their first names only and many of them had the same first names. The census data from this period also is inconclusive, as, for example, Willie Fitzgerald is not listed as an employee of the family. 5 Margaret Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009), 61. inhabitants too.‖ 6 The cult of domesticity, as it is now referred to, promoted defined roles for both the female employee and her female domestic servants. The mistress of the home, with the help of her domestic servants, was expected to create a tranquil haven in which the master of the house could relax. However, the Irish servant was often perceived as, paradoxically, a disruption of this idealized space. ―Your Humble Servant,‖ an article in Harper’s New Weekly written by Robert Tomes, asserted that the ineptitude of ―Bridget‖ creates ―chaos‖ within the home. Tomes goes on to describe the uncouth, uncivilized practices of many Irish domestic servants. 7 The presence of the Irish servant in a middle-class home signified that the family was refined, and yet the Irish servant‘s lack of refinement made it difficult for the domestic system to function according to the rules of the cult of domesticity. The study of the relationship between Sarah Davis and the servants, then, shows how the middleclass cult of domesticity functioned. It reveals the ways in which this ideology was more complex in practice than it appeared on paper. An understanding of the experience of the Davis family‘s domestic servants, their role in the Victorian middle-class lifestyle, and their impact on the Bloomington community, creates a better overall understanding of the solidification of the middle-class. As the majority of the Davis family servants were of Irish origin, how did these women and men come to be over 3,000 miles away from home? A variety of factors, including reoccurring potato crop failures, the Great Famine, and a population that far outpaced the available resources, increased the flow of emigration out of Ireland and into countries such as England, the United States, and Australia. 8 After the Great Famine, an increasing number of single Irish women emigrated west. This phenomenon coincided with the emergence of a middle-class population which was striving to assert itself culturally. The domestic servant, especially the Irish domestic servant, became a necessary part of the rise of the middle-class in America. 9 The Irish immigrants who migrated inward would have hoped to begin a new life, with more economic and social opportunities in the relatively unsettled western and mid-western United States. 10 When the railroads came to the mid-west, Bloomington was advantageously positioned between Chicago and St. Louis. 11 According to the 1879 History of McLean County, the building of the Illinois Central and Chicago & Alton Railroads in Bloomington in 1853 provided not only the means of traveling but also a demand for labor, a demand which was met 6 Sarah Davis to George Walker, Bloomington, IL, June 18, 1859, Davis Family Papers, Transcripts provided by Illinois State Historical Society, David Davis Mansion State Historic Site, Bloomington IL. . I use Sarah Davis‘s correspondence for information on the servants who were employed by her family. While the letters are an invaluable source, it should be noted that they contain an inherent bias. We can see Sarah‘s interpretation of people and events, but we do not have access to the servants‘ interpretation. I will also use the following abbreviations for the Davis correspondence: S.D.=Sarah Davis; D.D.=David Davis II; F.W.=Fannie Walker. 7 Robert Tomes, ―Your Humble Servant,‖ Harper’s New Weekly 29, no. 169(June 1864): 55, http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=harp;cc=harp;rgn=full%20text;idno=harp00291;didno=harp0029-1;view=image;seq=66;node=harp0029-1%3A9;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset (accessed 20