What was it like to be a woman in service in early modern England? More fundamentally, who were these women? Where did they come from? In what kinds of households did they work and what were they ...hired to do? How did their lives intersect with the local communities in which they lived? Female Servants in Early Modern England answers these questions by exploring over 1000 witness testimonies from English church courts which record the experiences of women in service between 1532 and 1649. Drawing a wide circle around the experiences of women in service, this book analyses their lives from demographic, geographical, economic, and social perspectives. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of evidence, Female Servants in Early Modern England challenges our understanding of service in several key ways. These women, it argues, were intrinsic to the economy, contributing their labour to a range of types of work. Despite being itinerant workers, they were nonetheless embedded in social networks and communities. Though service is seen as a rigid institution designed to regulate labour and youth, this book shows it to have been contingent, operating with a flexibility unsanctioned by law and policy makers but nonetheless accepted within early modern society.
Like Family examines the ambivalent position of domestic workers in South Africa in the contact zone between race and class, urban and rural, rich and poor, and white and black. Ena Jansen offers a ...historical perspective whilst analysing South African literary texts to understand their representation of domestic workers.
Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award This book comprises contributions from a distinguished group of international researchers who examine the historical development of "new ...women" and "good wife, wise mother," women's roles in socialist and transitional modernity and the transnational migration of both domestic and sex workers as well as wives.
The New maids Lutz, Helma
2011., 2011, 2011-08-11, 2010-12-09, 20110101
eBook
The New Maids is a pioneering study, grounded in rich empirical evidence, which expertly addresses the thorny questions surrounding the growing number of migrant cleaners and caregivers who maintain ...modern Western households. Supported by an ethnographic study of immigrant domestic workers and their German employers, the author argues that domestic work plays the defining role in global ethnic and gender hierarchies. This exciting book not only will enhance the reader's understanding of the new care economy, it also sets a new standard for feminist methodology.
A poor peddler, John Durbeyfield learns he is related to an ancient noble family: the d'Urbervilles. To gain part of the fortune, he sends his eldest daughter, Tess, to the d'Urberville mansion. But ...the relationship is not as it seems, and she ends up working as a servant. The wealthy family's son, Alec d'Urberville, tries to seduce Tess and eventually rapes her. Left pregnant, Tess returns home to have the baby, but the baby dies. Later, Tess falls in love with a man named Angel. She keeps the painful secret until their wedding night, when she reveals the horror in her past. Will Angel stay with her? This unabridged version of Thomas Hardy's important novel challenges the Victorian notions of female purity and double standards. It was first published in 1891 in the UK.
The majority of Aboriginal families I know in South Australia carry intimate histories of domestic service through living memory and intergenerational blood-memory passed on. Despite the significance ...of these stories within families, this government-orchestrated system of indentured labour targeting Aboriginal girls remains largely hidden and unacknowledged in the state's dominant and official public narrative of history. This paper considers the historical, unfolding rationale for inter-dependent policies of child-removal, institutionalisation and training, as context to the burgeoning Aboriginal domestic service workforce into the twentieth century. It also examines popular culture discourse, coupled with prevailing racialised attitudes toward Aboriginal women at the time, exemplified through representations of 'Abo Maids' in a prominent national women's magazine, The Australian Woman's Mirror. 'Archival-poetics', as an active, embodied reckoning with history and the colonial archive, is also introduced as creative praxis; one way to bridge this labour knowledge gap and contribute to larger stories of resistance, resilience and refusal with healing and decolonising intent.
In Workers Like All the Rest of Them, Elizabeth Quay Hutchison recounts the long struggle for domestic workers’ recognition and rights in Chile across the twentieth century. Hutchison traces the ...legal and social history of domestic workers and their rights, outlining their transition from slavery to servitude. For most of the twentieth century, domestic service remained one of the key “underdeveloped” sectors in Chile’s modernizing economy. Hutchison argues that the predominance of women in that underpaid, under-regulated labor sector provides one key to persistent gender and class inequality. Through archival research, firsthand accounts, and interviews with veteran activists, Hutchison challenges domestic workers’ exclusion from Chilean history and reveals how and under what conditions they mobilized for change, forging alliances with everyone from Church leaders and legislators to feminists and political party leaders. Hutchison contributes to a growing global conversation among activists and scholars about domestic workers’ rights, providing a lens for understanding how the changing structure of domestic work and worker activism have both perpetuated and challenged forms of ethnic, gender, and social inequality.
Cleaning Up Coble, Alana Erickson
2020, 2020-11-25
eBook
Over the course of the 20th century, American domestic service changed from an occupation with a hierarchical, top-down structure to one in which relationships were more negotiated. Many forces ...shaped this transformation: shifts in women's role in society, both at home and in the work force; changes in immigration laws and immigrant populations; and the politicization of the occupation. Moreover, domestic workers themselves took advantage of the resulting circumstances to demand better treatment and a say in their working conditions.
The majority of Aboriginal families I know in South Australia carry intimate histories of domestic service through living memory and intergenerational blood-memory passed on. Despite the significance ...of these stories within families, this government-orchestrated system of indentured labour targeting Aboriginal girls remains largely hidden and unacknowledged in the state's dominant and official public narrative of history. This paper considers the historical, unfolding rationale for inter-dependent policies of child-removal, institutionalisation and training, as context to the burgeoning Aboriginal domestic service workforce into the twentieth century. It also examines popular culture discourse, coupled with prevailing racialised attitudes toward Aboriginal women at the time, exemplified through representations of 'Abo Maids' in a prominent national women's magazine, The Australian Woman's Mirror. 'Archival-poetics', as an active, embodied reckoning with history and the colonial archive, is also introduced as creative praxis; one way to bridge this labour knowledge gap and contribute to larger stories of resistance, resilience and refusal with healing and decolonising intent.
