Servants : a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times Lucy Lethbridge

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lethbridge, Lucy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Household employees--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Household employees.

Household employees--Great Britain--Attitudes.

Social classes--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Social classes.

Great Britain--Social conditions--20th century.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xi 385 p. : ill. ; 24 cm

Edition:

First American Edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : W. W. Norton & Company, c2013.

Summary:

From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers -- even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust -- as popular culture would have us believe -- they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order. Spanning over 100 years, Lucy Lethbridge -- in this "best type of history" (Literary Review) -- brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession. At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill's butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own. A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present. - Jacket flap.

A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present.

Contents:

Preface

The symbolic pantomime

"A sort of silence and embarrassment"

The dainty life

"A seat in the hall"

Centralising the egg yolks

Popinjays and mob caps

The desire for perfection

"Some poor girl's got to go up and down, up and down

"

The sacred trust

The ideal village

"Silent, obsequious and omnipresent"

Bowing and scraping

The age of ambivalence

Out of a cage

"Don't think your life will be any different to mine"

"It was exploitation but it worked"

"Tall, strong, healthy and keen to work"

The mechanical maid

Outer show and inner life

A vast machine that has forgotten how to stop working

Bachelor establishments are notoriously comfortable

The question of the inner life

"Do they really drink out of their saucers?'

"Of alien origin"

A new Jerusalem

A new and useful life

The housewife militant

"The change : it must have been terrible for them"

The shape of things to come

"We don't want them days again'

"We've moved to the front"

"I'd never done what i liked

never in all my life"

"We like it because the past is not so worrying as the news"

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index.

Notes:

Originally published under the title: Servants : a downstairs view of twentieth-century Britain.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-368) and index.

ISBN:

9780393241099 (hardcover)

0393241092 (hardcover)

9780393349801

0393349802

OCLC:

829738431