The Servants Who Lost Their Places for Asking for Time Off

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2OSafPW... Fall asleep to the story of one small window in a Gilded Age servant's week, and everyone who asked for it to open a little wider. In 1903 a maid in a great American house had a couple of hours a day, one afternoon and evening a week and half of every second Sunday, and was expected in by 10:30. In 1889 and 1890 a Vassar professor collected answers from 1,025 employers and 719 servants and found 123 different ways of arranging that time off. In 1901 a new maid on Spruce Street in Philadelphia was kept in on her very first Thursday and told she was entitled to either day, "whichever I choose to allow you." One woman of wealth locked out a maid for coming home 5 minutes late. So what was one afternoon a week worth, and what did it cost to ask for more? Subscribe to the channel: @oldsocietynights In this video, we talk about the servants who kept and lost their places over a few hours of their own, including the time-off rule at the Vanderbilts' Hyde Park, Lucy Salmon's count of 123 ways to give an afternoon, the click of the gate at three o'clock, the back door at half past ten, the housemaid pressed into a great dinner on her evening out, the lady's maid kept at the Waldorf, sewing on a summer Sunday, the Thursday kept in on Spruce Street, a rest day that was "no day," the girl dismissed for visiting her sister, Almira's seven places, sick mothers and kind mistresses, a cook's wedding in Ireland and the Wickwires who held her place, the Maids' Church in Boston's Back Bay, the houses that said yes, the written character and the intelligence office, the servants' own reckoning of houses, the housemaids' unions of 1901, why girls chose the mill, the servant shortage, and the slow move to living out. 🔔 Subscribe so the next long evening inside the old society finds you without any searching. 💬 Tell us where you're listening from, and what you would have done with one afternoon a week in a Gilded Age house. 📢 Share this with anyone who loves the great houses and the people who kept them, on Facebook, Reddit or the family group chat. You're the reason these quiet nights keep coming. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 16:30 The gate at three o'clock 38:20 A lady's maid at the Waldorf 1:00:12 It is no day at all 1:21:40 When someone at home was ill 1:42:43 The houses that said yes 2:04:28 The houses had characters too 2:24:51 When the hands grew few Sources: Lucy Maynard Salmon, Domestic Service (1897), Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73921 Mary Elizabeth Carter, Millionaire Households and Their Domestic Economy (1903), Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/millionai... Lillian Pettengill, Toilers of the Home (1903), Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/toilersof... National Park Service, Household Management at Hyde Park https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/hou... Christine Terhune Herrick, The Expert Maid-Servant (1904), Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43042 Hamilton Holt, ed., The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans (1906), Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/lifestori... Jane Addams, A Belated Industry (1896) https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/a-b... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #OldSocietyNights #GildedAge #OldMoney #Servants #DomesticService #BelowStairs #DayOff #Maids #Vanderbilt #HydePark #Biltmore #Philadelphia #NewYorkHistory #BostonHistory #IrishHistory #WorkingWomen #SocialHistory #AmericanHistory #HistoryForSleep #SleepStory