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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 2. Domestic Service
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1084 An American Dilemma
stitute a factor of some significance. The depression of the ’thirties seems to have brought
about a great decline in household employment. A survey of subscribers to Fortune
magazine revealed that half the families who had had a servant in 1933 had none in
1938.*
It must be considered that the market for domestic service is much more restricted
in the North and West than it is in the South. According to the Study of Consumer
Purchases for 1935-1936, no less than 61 per cent of the nonrelief white families in a
sample of Southeastern villages had some expenditure for household help. For a sample
of small cities in the North Central region, on the other hand, the corresponding pro-
portion was only 22 per cent, and it was but 17 per cent for a group of villages in the
Middle Atlantic and North Central areas.** Large cities also show a similar differential
between the South and the rest of the country. It is particularly interesting to find that,
in the South, among families with an income of less than $1,000, or even less than
$500, there is a significant number who have domestics (Table 2), Among well-to-do
TABLE 2
Percentage of Nonrelief White Families, in Selected Income Groups, Who Had
Expenditure for Household Help; 1935-1936
Income
group
Atlanta New York
^
Chicago
South-
eastern
villages
North
Central
small
cities
Middle
Atlantic
and North
Central
villages
% 500- 749 8 4 8
750- 999 20 .
.
.
.
39 7 9
1,000-1,249 17 3 5 57 10 11
2,000-2,499 51* 22 80 54 29
5,000-7,499 •>
99 89 78 100 89
Sowctix Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, "Family Expenditure in Chicago,
1935-46" (1939), Bulletin No. 642, Vol. 2, p. 3c; ’’‘Family Expenditure in New York City, I93S”36" (i939).
Bulletin No. 643, Vol. 2, p. 36; "Family Eimenditure in Three Southeastern Cities, 1935-36" (1940), Bulletin
No. 64j,^yol. 2, p. 39^^and^United ^tes Department of^Agriculture^^ Fawi/yi Expenditure for Housing and
* Approximate figure.
^ ** ^ „
b For the three last columns; $5,000-9,999.
families in the South, the practice of having hired help is almost universal. In the North
and West, on the other hand, there are quite a few households in the higher income
brackets which get along without any servants, and it is extremely rare that low income
families have any expenditures for outside assistance in their homes. Moreover, it seems
that in the South, oftener than elsewhere, servants are hired on a full-time basis.
According to the samples for small cities and villages, half the Northern families having
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