St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-09-19
A PLEA FoR wOKKING WOMEN
Some Common Sense Ideas on the
Employ of Working Girls.

Employment of Working Girls.
To the Editor of the Globe:
Complaint is often made because girls who
are compelled to support themselves are not
willing to serve as domestics. 1t is asserted
that false pride induces them to seek POSI-
tons as clerks to measure of ribbons
rather than accept a place in the kitchen,
where at least they may have comfortable
homes. Now, like all other things, this ques-
ton has two sides to it. If false pride re-
strains girls from mental service, what but
the same quality of pride prevents the more
fortunate class from recognizing or treating
a servant girl with as much respect as is
shown TO clerks? How many people we see
who will treat these clerks with at least
ordinary polteness, who would not show the
least sign of recognition to any domestic out
side of their own kitchens.
When our mothers and grandmothers were
young they worked with their "hired girls
until the work was done. then all sat down
together to their sewing. They also went
together to church. sitting in the same pew,
and at their meals sat at the same table, be-
ing treated as member of the family, or at
least as person having some rights that they
were bound to respect! Now the ''comforta-
Die bones that domesticS enjoy are usually
in the kitchen from early morn till bed time
even when the mercury is among the nIneties
and those kitchens hot as furnace from
baking, washing Or ironing being done in
them. If they are fortunate enough to get
4Iy time to sit down it is expected that the
kitchen. which is their work room, will also
be their sitting room.
THEY TAKE THEIR MEALS
in that silence and solitude which, however
well appreciated by poets and philosophers,
is not always agreeable to the laboring class.
Clerks. bookkeepers and the like can be
dressed neatly and tastefully, while domestlcs
are obliged to don dark prints and big aprons
which it is hard to keep clean at the best
with all the scrubbing and dirty work which
falls to their lot. Comparatively few girls at
the present day are strong enough to do the
work that is required of servants. If girls
are paid $40 or Sl2 per month. they are ex-
pected to perform all the work of family of
six or eight persons, often being employed by
mistresses who do not know when their work
is properly done, or that working people
sometimes need rest as well as others. Do
mestics usually get hard work and poor pay.
Their Sundays are not their own, for while
their mistresSes are attending church, they
are expected to remain at home, and to
have good dinner in readiness
for the family upon their return.
How many mistresses ever think of having
of having their work so planned for Sunday,
that sometimes their servants can also at
tend church? Would any one occasionally
share the necessary work of Sunday with
their domestic so that they also could enjoy
the privileges of the Sabbath. There is vast
difference between false pride, and a laud-
able ambitious pride which induces people to
do their best, and as long as their remain so
many avenues open to women whereby they
can earn better wages, have a little liberty,
and be treated with more respect, so long
they will hesitate about serving as domestics
G. A. 2.