How to keep a servant girl – and keep her satisfied – in the country

Vignettes lightheartedly depict Irish domestic servants being pampered and coddled by their employers in efforts to keep them happy and happily employed, chiefly, by taking their minds off their domestic duties by providing pleasant distractions.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A Puck centerspread cartoon — the home, approximately once a month, of multiple genre gags on a social (not political) topic, occasionally merged two themes. In the example, artist S. D. Ehrhart falls back on two cliches frequently used by cartoonists — interestingly, social trends headed in opposite directions at the time.

Many middle-class families considered having at least one domestic servant an irreducible sign of respectability. Until different social norms, and labor-saving appliances for housewives, were asserted, cooks were common in households. Also common: they were difficult to keep (at least in cartoonists’ eyes) and keep happy, and often were Irish immigrants happy to work for modest wages. Other stereotypes — they were often romanced by policemen on the local beats (frequently Irish immigrants too) or ice deliverers. Hence Ehrhart’s hyperbolic suggestions to keep the cook satisfied on summer holidays.

The other cliche involves a situation that was fast disappearing in the new century’s first decade: the summer exodus to rural locations. Cartoonists had fun with the difficulties of loading up for excursions to putative arboreal dells, only to suffer in mosquito-infested swamps or dusty farms. The chimera of rural pleasures every summer was ameliorated by the social paradigm of exurbia as a year-round setting. With increasing prosperity, improved rail and trolley lines, the advent of the automobile, and other changes, families were leaving city centers and moving to the suburbs. In 1906, in the context of New York City, the “suburbs” still meant Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, and northern New Jersey, but that was enough of a migrational adjustment to affect living patterns.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1906-01-17

Creator(s)

Ehrhart, S. D. (Samuel D.), approximately 1862-1937

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation