In the United States. the earliest white serv ants were the transported convicts and the re demptioncrs. The redemptioner's services were sold for a tent) of years to a colonist, either by himself, by one of his creditors, or by the cap tain of the vessel in which he took passage. In addition to the servants from these two classes, there were slaves. limn hidian and negro.
This state of domestic service lasted through the colonial period to the time of the Revolu tion. when indented service was replaced in the North by free labor, and in the South was en tirety superseded by negro slavery.
From the Revolution until the middle of the nineteenth century the servants in the North, except in the great cities, were the social equals of their employers, as is still the case in many parts of the \C'est and Middle West. It was in deference to this equality that the use of the word 'servant' was all:110011M and that of 'help' substituted. All suggestion of servitude was abolished. Liveries, even caps. were not worn. The 'help' sat at table with their employers, called the members of the family by their Chris tian names, and were, in fact. what their name implied—friendly assistants, salaried but inde pendent. This condition of domestic service in the North lasted almost as long as the patriarchal state of slavery in the South.
About the middle of the nineteenth century a change in the state of affairs throughout the United States began with the flood of iminig.ra lion. The famine of 1816 in Ireland, the Ger man Revolution of 184S, and the conditions pre ceding and following it, and the treaty of the United States with China in 1844, loosed upon this country an unprecedented number of for eigners. Of the Irish and German immigrants, nearly one-half were women. They entered as 'unskilled laborers.' The household industries have always been sought by unskilled labor. In the East these immigrants entered at once into the class. In the \Vest, along the Pacific coast, the Chinese became the competitors of the natives in household labor, working more cheap ly and more skillfully, and rapidly displacing 'such Americans as were engaged in domestic service. These conditions have been somewhat
modified by the restrietions on Chinese immigra• t ion.
The question of domestic service in the South has been a vexed one since the Civil War. The negroes, long held in servitude and unaccustomed to think for themselves, were suddenly loosed upon the community. and given the same rights and privileges as the whites. without knowledge of limy to use them. The habit of solooi,ion did much to restrain them. and their inherent tendencies have prevented them from organizing to any great extent. Many of them have conic North to compete with the immigrants: but this has had no marked effect upon the conditions of domestic service. nor until recently have many white servants been employed in the South. Those who remained in the South have many of the faults of the slaves, with an independence which makes them to eontrol: but time, patience, and (-(location are bettering these comfit ions.
The foreigners in the East found the field ready for them. The women in New England who had in the early days acted as 'help' in their neighbors' Manes were entering the recently established factories in large mothers. lu the early times each household had raised not only its own food products, but its own clothing stuffs as well. The home had been cotton and woolen mill. dressmaking and tailoring shop. 'Flue de velopment of maehinery had taken this class of work out of the house, and many of those who had been accustomed to do it in the house fol lowed it to the mills. It was a more remunera tive and more independent occupation than house hold labor, even under the free and equal rt. ghne. The Northern women were glad to give over the household labor to the immigrants, but set themselves the difficult task of adapting European methods to American conditions. With increased wealth ennui. the desire for display, and the patterning of household after foreign usage. The result was that the word 'servant' came again into use, and domestic ser vice sank in the social scale, while at the same time the immigrants themselves were eagerly imbibing the democratic ideas of their adopted country.