, because it is performed in isolation, because it is purely
individual labor, has never been classed among the industries. It has
rather been looked upon as a normal feminine function, a form of healthy
exercise. No one has ever suggested to legislators that sweeping and
beating rugs might be included among the dusty trades; that bending over
steaming washtubs, and almost immediately afterwards going out into
frosty air to hang the clothes, might be harmful to throat and lungs;
that remaining within doors days at a time, as houseworkers almost
invariably do, reacts on nerves and the entire physical structure; that
steady service, if not actual labor, from six in the morning until nine
and ten at night makes excessive demands on mind and body.

Such conditions exist because the workers are too weak, too inefficient,
too unintelligent to change them. Yet the demand for servants so far
exceeds the supply that they are in a position, theoretically, to
dictate the terms of their own employment. If they elected to demand
pianos and private baths they could get them; that is, if instead of
remaining isolated individuals they could form themselves into an
industrial class, like plumbers, or bricklayers, or carpenters. Even as
isolated individuals they are able to command a better money wage than
more efficient workers, which proves how great is the need for their
services.

The housekeeper clings to her archaic kitchen, firmly believing that if
she gave it up, tried to replace it by any form of co-operative living,
the pillars of society would crumble and the home pass out of existence.
Yet so strong is her instinctive repugnance to the medieval system on
which her household is conducted, that she shuns it, runs away from it
whenever she can. Housekeeping as a business is a dark mystery to her.
The mass of women in the United States probably hold, almost as an
article of religion, the theory that woman's place is in the home. But
the woman who can organize and manage a home as her husband manages his
business, systematically, profitably, professionally--well, how many
such women do you know?

It would seem as if in the newer generations, the average housekeeper is
not in the professional class at all. Usually she lacks professional
training. If she was brought up in a well-to-do home where there were
several servants, she knows literally nothing of cooking, or of any
department of housekeeping. Even when she has had some ins