| Edition |
First American Edition. |
| Description |
xi, 385 pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Note |
Originally published under the title: Servants: a downstairs view of twentieth-century Britain. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-368) and index. |
| Contents |
Preface -- The symbolic pantomime -- "A sort of silence and embarrassment" -- The dainty life -- "A seat in the hall" -- Centralising the egg yolks -- Popinjays and mob caps -- The desire for perfection -- "Some poor girl's got to go up and down, up and down -- " -- The sacred trust -- The ideal village -- "Silent, obsequious and omnipresent" -- Bowing and scraping -- The age of ambivalence -- Out of a cage -- "Don't think your life will be any different to mine" -- "It was exploitation but it worked" -- "Tall, strong, healthy and keen to work" -- The mechanical maid -- Outer show and inner life -- A vast machine that has forgotten how to stop working -- Bachelor establishments are notoriously comfortable -- The question of the inner life -- "Do they really drink out of their saucers?' -- "Of alien origin" -- A new Jerusalem -- A new and useful life -- The housewife militant -- "The change : it must have been terrible for them" -- The shape of things to come -- "We don't want them days again' -- "We've moved to the front" -- "I'd never done what I liked -- never in all my life" -- "We like it because the past is not so worrying as the news" -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Index. |
| Summary |
A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present. |
| Subject |
Household employees -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
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Household employees -- Great Britain -- Attitudes.
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Social classes -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
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Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
|
| ISBN |
9780393241099 hardcover |
|
0393241092 hardcover |
|
9780393349801 (paperback) |
|
0393349802 (paperback) |
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