What Makes Victorian Governess
Different servants had different levels of responsibility and different levels of privileges.
The cook, is one of the most important members of the domestic staff of a Victorian household. She would typically have her own bedroom, and earn a salary about double that of a housemaid or chambermaid. Her realm is the kitchen and dining room. She would be involved in menu planning with the lady of the house, and from that would be responsible for shopping, running the kitchen, preparing the meal, cleaning the china and polishing the silverware. She would cook for the family and for the service staff.
The housemaid, would assist the lady of the house with her changes of clothes (typically three changes a day). She would clean the front door and …show more content…
She was typically a single, middle-class woman who had to earn her own living. Although being a governess might be a degradation, employing one was a sign of culture and means. The psychological situation of the governess made her position unenviable. Her presence created practical difficulties within the Victorian home because she was neither a servant nor a member of the family. She was from the same social level as the family, but the fact that she was paid a salary put her at the economic level of the …show more content…
These attitudes are true of the great majority, though not of all. Their intellectual and cultural horizons are strictly limited: very few concern themselves with national events or politics, they are uninterested in material acquisition or achievement; they are not socially mobile and barely conscious of class beyond a recognition that the ‘masters’ constitute a different order of society into which they will never penetrate. Their aspirations are modest to be respected by their fellows, to see their families growing up and making their way in the world, to die without debt and without sin. Any happiness which life has to offer was to be found in social contacts within the family, the work-group, or the church.
Toward the end of the Victorian age, there became a shortage of domestic workers as young women preferred the more social atmosphere and shorter working hours in factory work to the longer hours worked in domestic service. A housemaid’s day would typically extend from 6 A.M. until 10 P.M., during which she had two-and-a-half hours for meals and an hour-and-a-half in the afternoon for needlework, a total of four hours “rest.” This meant twelve hours of actual work, longer by two hours than a factory woman’s
The cook, is one of the most important members of the domestic staff of a Victorian household. She would typically have her own bedroom, and earn a salary about double that of a housemaid or chambermaid. Her realm is the kitchen and dining room. She would be involved in menu planning with the lady of the house, and from that would be responsible for shopping, running the kitchen, preparing the meal, cleaning the china and polishing the silverware. She would cook for the family and for the service staff.
The housemaid, would assist the lady of the house with her changes of clothes (typically three changes a day). She would clean the front door and …show more content…
She was typically a single, middle-class woman who had to earn her own living. Although being a governess might be a degradation, employing one was a sign of culture and means. The psychological situation of the governess made her position unenviable. Her presence created practical difficulties within the Victorian home because she was neither a servant nor a member of the family. She was from the same social level as the family, but the fact that she was paid a salary put her at the economic level of the …show more content…
These attitudes are true of the great majority, though not of all. Their intellectual and cultural horizons are strictly limited: very few concern themselves with national events or politics, they are uninterested in material acquisition or achievement; they are not socially mobile and barely conscious of class beyond a recognition that the ‘masters’ constitute a different order of society into which they will never penetrate. Their aspirations are modest to be respected by their fellows, to see their families growing up and making their way in the world, to die without debt and without sin. Any happiness which life has to offer was to be found in social contacts within the family, the work-group, or the church.
Toward the end of the Victorian age, there became a shortage of domestic workers as young women preferred the more social atmosphere and shorter working hours in factory work to the longer hours worked in domestic service. A housemaid’s day would typically extend from 6 A.M. until 10 P.M., during which she had two-and-a-half hours for meals and an hour-and-a-half in the afternoon for needlework, a total of four hours “rest.” This meant twelve hours of actual work, longer by two hours than a factory woman’s