Table II
W.E.B. Du Bois, “Special Report on Negro Domestic Service,” The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, 1899. University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library.
Table XV
W.E.B. Du Bois, “Special Report on Negro Domestic Service,” The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, 1899. University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library.
Length of Service
W.E.B. Du Bois, “Special Report on Negro Domestic Service,” The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, 1899. University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library.
Background
Ninety percent of Black working women in the late 19th century were employed in domestic service. Domestic service is work in a private home, which includes cleaning, laundry, cooking, and childcare. It was an industry in which Black women could easily find work. Black servants tended to stay in the industry longer than immigrant domestics. Immigrant domestics typically left the workforce after marrying or having children. In many cases, Black families could not afford for women to leave the workforce. As a result, Black women often spent more time with the white families they worked for than with their own.
Relationships between Black domestics and their white employers could be challenging to navigate. This was especially true in the South, where Black domestics often performed the same household duties they did during slavery. White employers took advantage of their Black workers by paying them poorly and treating them harshly. In addition, Black women often faced sexual harassment. Freedom from enslavement, however, empowered some Black women to stand up for better working conditions. Others decided to leave the South and move to northern states in search of better employers.
About the Document
Isabel Eaton was an assistant to W.E.B. Du Bois, a famous Black writer, teacher, and activist. Eaton was a white middle-class woman, who conducted research in working-class com