Hidden Servants

Labor Day seems a better day than most to post about servants. I've been reading Bill Bryson's book At Home recently. Bryson in the past has written some travel books that have left me helpless with laughter.  His writing is now more historical than hysterical, but he certainly knows how to draw out the more interesting and entertaining tidbits from history which helps keep my eyes on the page.

At Home is a history of the home, or more accurately, how history ends up and accrues in our homes, making them the way they are today. One of the things Bryson covers is how servants kept a household running back in the 18th and 19th century. Mostly their tales were ones of hardship, humiliation and unreasonable employers. Yet they were lucky in a way, as they had a certain modicum of security and stability unavailable to peasant farmers. Still, they worked brutal hours, had no rooms of their own in many cases, and were not exactly treated like people.

It got me to thinking about the many hidden servants we have now. To live the middle class lifestyle Jen and I have grown accustomed to except transplanted to the 18th century would require a coterie of servants. This has made me more grateful for the hidden servants we do employ. Some of the obvious ones are our washer and dryer that keep us in clean clothes and the dishwasher that supports my cooking habits. Servants doing the laundry had one of the worst tasks. Not only were they having to scrub and rinse and mangle, but they had to come up with their own cleaning agents. There was no bleach or detergent back then, so they had to manufacture their own. They also had temperamental fabrics to work with that were treated with dyes that were less stable than their modern counterparts. And if fabrics were mixed, say a linen tablecloth with lace accents, a laundress might have to disassemble the tablecloth to wash each part separately and then reassemble the whole thing afterwards. Then they had to dry the laundry and hope no one stole the laundry (a common occurrence) and cost them their job.

We have more servants still, though less obvious ones. Instead of footmen, we have phones and email that carry our messages to their intended destinations. Plumbing takes the place of those servants that would do the difficult task of drawing a bath or the unpleasant task of emptying chamber pots. Electric lighting takes the place of a host of candles and lamps that would require constant attention from servants to keep lit and prevent them from burning down the house. Then there's the vacumn cleaner, the blender, my car engine, my sprinkler system, and more.

Of course, we no longer have some classes of servants. I dress myself, thank you very much. One noble back in the day was unable to work his own toothbrush because he had a servant who always handed it to him foaming. Without his servant, he thought his toothbrush was broken because it wasn't already foaming. I somehow manage to make it through this life without that service.

So, I am grateful for the hidden servants that support my bourgeois existence. I'm grateful that people no longer must suffer through laundry or larding knives to prevent rust or scrubbing flagstones. I am grateful for those who pick my fruit, ship it across continents and oceans, stock it in my store and manage the checkout process so I can get my pears in July. Thanks!