Love, Wages, Slavery
Subtitle: The Literature of Servitude in the United States
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: June 12, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780252030710
Subjects: American history: c 1800 to c 1900; Ethnography; Women's studies; Social Science; Sociology; USA; Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General; United States - 19th Century; Women's Studies - General; Social Science / Women's Studies; Domestics; Domestics in literature; History; Master and servant; United States
First sentence: Sentimental advice literature structured nineteenth-century complaints about nonkin service by setting up criteria for judging attendants as good or bad.
Description: "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.