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“The Old Order Changeth”: A Favorite Servant Contest and the Debate about Domestic Work in Washington, D.C.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2025
Abstract
The Progressive Era was characterized by debates about the future of the United States and the role of individuals, households, and organizations in shaping that future. These debates included those about domestic work, sometimes specifically referred to as the “servant question” or the “servant problem.” This discourse considered not only paid household labor, but also the nature of race, gender, and American life after slavery. This article reviews the servant question in Washington, D.C., and reveals how commentators engaged with modernity and nostalgia to understand the contradiction between their sense of white and African American women’s failures and their belief that both groups of women belonged in white households. The servant question is key cultural context for a 1917 “favorite servant contest.” The second half of the article examines the clubwomen who organized the contest and the experiences of an elderly, formerly enslaved woman named Theresa Harper. The organizers responded to the D.C. servant question with an effort to carry racial hierarchies into the twentieth century, a vision of the future of household labor very different from that of Black domestic workers.
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- Article
- Information
- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2025 , pp. 38 - 54
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE)
References
Notes
1 “Prize Awaits ‘Best Maid,’” Washington Post, Oct. 28, 1916, 4.
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3 Case, Age of Questions, 80, 73–74.
4 Case, Age of Questions, 81.
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14 See, for example, McRae, Elizabeth Gillespie, Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 The Colored American was published weekly in Washington, D.C., from 1893 to 1904. Based on my search of available digitized issues from 1898 to 1904, it published one article that mentioned the servant question and one that mentioned the servant problem (6.4 percent of issues contained the terms). Based on my search of digitized issues of the Washington Bee, published weekly from 1882 to 1922, it published nine articles on the servant question and 23 on the servant problem (about 1.54 percent of issues mentioned the terms). The Evening Star, published six days a week between 1882 and 1905 and then daily until 1920, published 198 articles on the servant question and 340 on the servant problem, according to my search (approximately 8.71 percent of issues referred to the terms). I see articles on domestic work which did not explicitly choose to connect themselves to the frame of “question” or “problem” as related to but distinct from servant question discourse. For two examples of Black Washingtonians using the term “servant question,” see “On the Servant Question: Colored Women Discuss Training for Domestic Service,” Morning Times (Washington, D.C.), July 22, 1896, 2; “Many Negro Problems: Judge Terrell Speaks at National League Convention,” Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 20, 1905, 5.
16 Burroughs, Nannie Helen, “The Colored Woman and Her Relation to the Domestic Problem” in Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900–1959, ed. Kelisha B., Graves, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), 27–31 Google Scholar.
17 Sharpless, Rebecca, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 26–31 Google Scholar.
18 Burroughs organized the National Association of Wage Earners in 1921 to work for “the elevation of domestic service to a respectable profession.” See Thomas, Deborah Gisele, “Workers and Organizers: African-American Women in the Work Force and Club Movement, 1890–1930” (PhD diss., Brown University, 1998), 270 Google Scholar; and Popp, Veronica and Phillips-Cunningham, Danielle, “Nannie Helen Burroughs and the Descendants of Miriam: Rewriting Nannie Helen Burroughs into First Wave Feminism,” Gender Forum 79 (2021): 58–78 Google Scholar. On efforts later in the twentieth century, see Nadasen, Premilla, Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement (Boston: Beacon, 2015)Google Scholar.
19 Grundy, Miss Jr. “The Servant Question: Well-Known Washington Ladies Give Their Opinions of It,” Sunday Herald and Weekly National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.) Google Scholar Feb. 1, 1891, 9.
20 “The Servant Question: Ignorance of Household Duties by the Mistress Root of Troubles,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), June 6, 1902, 14. For other examples, see “Ameliorating the Conditions of Service,” Washington Times, May 26, 1902, 6; “The Servant Problem: A Domestic Question and Its Treatment,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Oct. 31, 1903, 29; “Man and the Maid,” Washington Times, Oct. 14, 1900, 6; “Domestic Service Examination,” Evening Times (Washington, D.C.), July 5, 1899, 4; Frederic J. Haskin, “The Servant Question,” Washington Herald, Jan. 25, 1907, 7.
21 “Readjustment of Nerves Over the ‘Cook’ Problem,” Washington Herald, Aug. 20, 1911, 3.
22 Masterson, Kate, “Her Highness the Cook,” Evening Star Sunday Magazine (Washington, D.C.) Google Scholar, Sept. 26, 1909, 3.
23 For a visual example of the mammy figure as the solution to the servant question, see “Adventures of Adkin, the Want Ad Scout,” Washington Times, May 20, 1913, 13; Micki McElya, Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 8, 18; Morgan, Jo-Ann, “Mammy the Huckster: Selling the Old South for the New Century,” American Art 9 (Apr. 1995): 87–109 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Case, Age of Questions, 180–209.
25 Grundy, “Servant Question.”
26 “The South’s Trouble with Domestic Servants,” Washington Times, Aug. 26, 1911, 6.
27 Downing, Margaret B., “Mrs. Lee S. Overman, Wife of the Senator from North Carolina,” Jan. 23, 1910, Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.)Google Scholar, 6. On white American’s association of African American Southerners with nature, see Paul Outka, Race and Nature from Transcendentalism to the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), esp. 93.
28 “Servant Question No Imponderable Problem to Mrs. Miller’s Associates,” Washington Times, Mar. 6, 1914, 11.
29 Downing, “Mrs. Lee S. Overman, Wife of the Senator from North Carolina.”
30 Sharpless, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens, 67.
31 “The Cook’s Position: Domestic Matters and Affairs of State Should Not Be Mixed,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Apr. 14, 1890, 18.
32 Emma Southworth’s novel, The Hidden Hand; or Capitola the Madcap, features a protagonist named Capitola Black. This article is signed by Capitola Converse. For more on Southworth, see Homestead, Melissa J. and Washington, Pamela T., eds., E.D.E.N. Southworth: Recovering a Nineteenth-Century Popular Novelist (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012)Google Scholar.
33 “The Prize Problem: How Housewives are Handicapped by the Servant Question,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Oct. 8, 1892, 11.
34 Yellin, Eric S., Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson’s America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Haskin, “The Servant Question”; Joyce Shaw Peterson, “Working Girls and Millionaires: The Melodramatic Romances of Laura Jean Libbey,” American Studies 24 (Apr. 1983): 19–35.
36 “Cook’s Position.”
37 “Here’s a Problem: Women Who Cannot Manage Servants Want to Vote,” Washington Times, May 7, 1899, 18.
38 Masterson, “Her Highness the Cook.”
39 For the report, written by Ellen Marshall Rugg, see “Clubwomen to Extend Efforts for Servants,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 9, 1917, 9.
40 Sarah Deutsch emphasizes that social workers posed a threat to clubwomen, since their work “replac[ed] domestic moral authority with scholastic expertise.” Similarly, Vanessa May argues that middle class reformers in New York were invested in not defining middle class homes as workplaces, in order to protect their own authority. Deutsch, Sarah, Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 263 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, Unprotected Labor, 11.
41 Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 60, roll 161, page 4, via Ancestry.com; Petition #176, Petition of Susanna Boarman, May 13, 1862, Records of the Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862–1863, via Ancestry.com.
42 Fifth Census of the United States, 1830, Charles County, Maryland, District 3, roll 56, page 152, via Ancestry.com.
43 Petition #176.
44 Petition #176.
45 Sylvester Boarman, boxes 0117 (Utermehle, George W.) through 0122 (Tungel, Ernst, 1889–1890), Probate Records (District of Columbia), via Ancestry.com
46 On dissemblance and domestic workers, see Sharpless, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens, 145; Tamika Y. Nunley, At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021).
47 Compilation of President’s Reports, folder 1, container 1, District of Columbia Federation of Women’s Clubs Records, MS 350, 1; Kiplinger Research Library, Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
48 Compilation of President’s Reports, 35.
49 Compilation of President’s Reports, 9
50 Compilation of President’s Reports, 15.
51 Prizes to encourage domestic workers to remain in the same position also appeared across borders and eras. For Atlanta in the 1970s, see Eshe Sherley, “Household Technicians or Maids of Honor? The National Domestic Workers Union and Black Women’s Political Power in the 1970s Atlanta,” George State University Special Collection and Archives Reed Fink Award Talk, May 25, 2022; for New York, Philadelphia, and Boston in the 1820s, see Sumner, Helen L., History of Women in Industry in the United States, vol. 9 in Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States in 19 Volumes (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910), 181 Google Scholar; for Japan in the Edo period, see Stanley, Amy, Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and her World (New York: Scribner, 2020), 131 Google Scholar. Compilation of President’s Reports, 18 and 26.
52 “John Edson Briggs Funeral is Held,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1928, 9.
53 Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 9, roll 158, page 19, via Ancestry.com; Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 101, roll T625_207, page 7A, via Ancestry.com
54 “John Lindsay, D.A.R.,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Oct. 18, 1914, 4; “More Patronesses for Charity Card Party,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Apr. 9, 1922, 7; “Kind Deed Daily Takes Place of Dues Paid by Members of Sunshine Society,” Washington Times, July 18, 1924, 4; “Rain Causes Postponement,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 12, 1915, 7; “Republican League Card Party Set for Tomorrow,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Oct. 17, 1937, D-12.
55 “Prize Awaits ‘Best Maid.’”
56 “Plans for Rewarding Faithful Domestics,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Dec. 12, 1916, 5.
57 “All Have Different Answers for That Servant Problem,” Washington Times, Nov. 7, 1916; “Homage is Paid to Old Servants,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 24, 1917, 10.
58 “Homage is Paid.”
59 “Wednesday is Last Day to Enter Your Servant for Prize,” Washington Times, Nov. 12, 1916, 7; “Gratitude Shown by Loyal Servants,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Nov. 12, 1916, 10.
60 “Aged 87, Theresa Gets First Servants’ Prize,” Washington Herald, Jan. 24, 1917, 14. Some writers more explicitly categorized Harper as a worker; see, for example, “Homage is Paid.”
61 For this phrase in the context of the servant contest, see “All Have Different Answers for that Servant Problem.”
62 Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Washington, District of Columbia, Washington Ward 7, roll M593_126, page 302A, via Ancestry.com; Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 77, roll 124, page 154A, via Ancestry.com
63 Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 60, roll 161, page 4, via Ancestry.com; Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 15, roll T623_149, page 7A, via Ancestry.com; Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Washington, District of Columbia, Enumeration District 19, roll T625_205, page 10B, via Ancestry.com
64 Sharpless, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens, 86–87.
65 “Aged 87, Theresa Gets First Servants’ Prize.”
66 “Homage is Paid to Old Servants.”
67 McElya, Clinging to Mammy, 8.
68 Grant, “Servanthood Revisited: Womanist Explorations of Servanthood Theology” in Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power, ed. Hopkins, Dwight N. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 126–37Google Scholar, esp. 129.
69 “Homage is Paid to Old Servants.”
70 Clark-Lewis, Living in, Living out, 115.
71 McElya, Clinging to Mammy, 239.
72 R. De Reef Miller, “Hotel Notes,” Washington Sun, Apr. 2, 1915, 3.
73 “New Ebbitt Waiters’ Dance,” Washington Bee, Oct. 18, 1913, 5.
74 Urban, Brokering Servitude, 246–47.
75 “Aged 87, Theresa Gets First Servants’ Prize.”
76 There is no evidence of how much – or whether – the Boarmans paid Harper. The weekly wage estimate comes from Elizabeth Ross Haynes, “Negroes in Domestic Service in the United States,” Journal of Negro History 8 (Oct. 1923): 384–442, esp. 413–23.
77 “Homage is Paid to Old Servants.”
78 “Homage is Paid to Old Servants.”
79 McElya, Clinging to Mammy, 116–59, esp. 116.
80 Washington Eagle, reprinted in Richmond Planet, Mar. 24, 1923, 1, in McElya, Clinging to Mammy, 159.
81 Johnson, Joan Marie, “‘Ye Gave Them a Stone’: African American Women’s Clubs, the Frederick Douglass Home, and the Black Mammy Monument,” Journal of Women’s History 17 (Spring 2005): 62–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
82 Mary Church Terrell, “The Black Mammy Monument,” Evening Star, Feb. 10, 1923, 6, in Johnson, “‘Ye Gave Them a Stone,’” 76.
83 Glazer, Lee and Key, Susan, “Carry Me Back: Nostalgia for the Old South in Nineteenth-Century Popular Culture,” Journal of American Studies 30 (Apr. 1996): 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 16–22.
84 “Homage is Paid to Old Servants.”
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