It is remarkable that this fact, showing so forcibly one of the
greatest disadvantages connected with housework, should attract so
little attention. No one seems to care about the fate of the "servant
girl," as she is so often disdainfully called. During six days of the
week she works on the average fourteen hours a day, but no one stops
to notice that she is tired. On the seventh day, instead of resting as
every other employee has the right to do, her work is merely reduced to
nine, eight, or perhaps seven hours; and yet she needs a day of rest
as much as every other woman who earns her bread. The rights of the
domestic employee are ignored on all sides apparently. In public
demonstrations of dissatisfaction between employers and employees the
most oppressed class of the working people--the women who do
housework--has never yet been represented.

This is probably due to two causes: the first is because women
dissatisfied with housework are rapidly finding positions in business
where they enjoy rights and privileges denied them in domestic labor;
and the second is because the great majority of women engaged in
housework are foreign-born. These women learn quickly to understand and
speak English, but they do not often read and write it, and as they are
kept in close confinement in their employer's house, they have rarely
the opportunity of hearing about the emancipation of the modern working
woman. Most of them are of a very humble origin, and being debarred from
business positions on account of their ignorance and inexperience, they
are thankful to earn money in any kind of employment regardless of the
length of working hours.

Their children, however, who are American born and enjoy better
educational advantages, do not follow in their footsteps when the
time comes for them to earn their living. They become stenographers,