Feminism and the Servant Problem
Class and Domestic Labour in the Women's Suffrage Movement

Reveals a hidden history of women's suffrage from the perspectives of working-class women employed as domestic servants.

Laura Schwartz (Author)

9781108457743, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 June 2020

245 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.336 kg

'A strength of this book lies in Schwartz's ability to combine her feminist commitment to the present with a sharp historical focus … Schwartz's confident, energetic book is a fundamental text for those wishing to understand how early feminists grappled with the burden of reproductive labour. Many of their questions remained unresolved today.' Grace Whorrall-Campbell, Family & Community History

In the early twentieth century, women fought for the right to professional employment and political influence outside the home. Yet if liberation from household 'drudgery' meant employing another woman to do it, where did this leave domestic servants? Both inspired and frustrated by the growing feminist movement, servants began forming their own trade unions, demanding better conditions and rights at work. Feminism and the Servant Problem is the first ever history of how these militant maids and their mistresses joined forces in the struggle for the vote but also clashed over competing class interests. Laura Schwartz uncovers a forgotten history of domestic worker organising and early feminist thinking on reproductive labour, and offers a new perspective on the class politics of the suffrage movement, challenging traditional notions of who made up the British working-class.

List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction. Whose problem was the 'servant problem'?
1. The 'servant problem' and the suffrage home
2. Servants in the suffrage movement
3. The housework problem
4. Domestic labour and the feminist work ethic
5. The domestic workers' union of Great Britain and Ireland
6. Servants and co-operative housekeeping
Conclusion
Index.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], British & Irish history [HBJD1]