WANTED, A YOUNG WOMAN TO DO HOUSEWORK Business Principles Applied to Housework by C. HÉLÈNE BARKER Author of _Automobile French_ New York Moffat, Yard & Company 1915 PREFACE This little book is not a treatise on Domestic Science. The vacuum cleaner and the fireless cooker are not even mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed without doing it one's self. If the propositions that she advances seem at first startling, the writer begs only for a patient hearing, for she is convinced by strong reasons and abundant experience, that liberty in the household, like social and political liberty, can never come except from obedience to just law. C.H.B. CONTENTS PART I CAUSES OF THE PRESENT UNSATISFACTORY CONDITION OF DOMESTIC LABOR Ignorance and Inefficiency in the Home 1 Difficulty of Obtaining Women to Do Housework 11 The Disadvantages of Housework Compared with Work in Factories, Stores, and Offices 19 PART II BUSINESS PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO HOUSEWORK Living Outside Place of Employment 31 Housework Limited to 8 Hours a Day 47 Housework Limited to 6 Days a Week 61 The Observance of Legal Holidays 75 Extra Pay for Overtime 81 PART III EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES IN THE HOME Eight Hour Schedules for One Employee 93 Eight Hour Schedules for Two Employees 109 Eight Hour Schedules for Three Employees 121 PART I CAUSES OF THE PRESENT UNSATISFACTORY CONDITION OF DOMESTIC LABOR Ignorance and inefficiency in the home. Difficulty of obtaining women to do housework. The disadvantages connected with housework compared with work in factories, stores, and offices. IGNORANCE AND INEFFICIENCY IN THE HOME The twentieth-century woman, in spite of her progressive and ambitious theories about woman's sphere of activity, has allowed her housekeeping methods to remain almost stationary, while other professions and industries have moved forward with gigantic strides. She does not hesitate to blazon abroad with banners and pennants her desire to share with man the responsibility for the administration of the State, but she overlooks the disquieting fact that in the management of her own household, where her authority is absolute, she has failed to convince the world of her power to govern. When confronted with this accusation, she asserts that the maintenance of a home is neither a business nor a profession, and that in consequence it ought not to be compared with them nor be judged by the same standards.