skip to content
Servants : English domestics in the eighteenth century Preview this item
ClosePreview this item
  • Preview this Item (Questia)

Servants : English domestics in the eighteenth century

Author: Bridget Hill
Publisher: Oxford, UK : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
The importance of domestic service in the eighteenth century has long been recognised by historians but apart from a number of recent controversial articles, this is the first detailed study of the subject since J. Jean Hecht's book of 1956. Bridget Hill's essays question the stereotype of the domestic servant - usually male and most often in large households employing many servants where a strict hierarchy prevailed
Rating:

(not yet rated) 0 with reviews - Be the first.

 

Find a copy in the library

Retrieving... Finding libraries that hold this item...

Details

Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Bridget Hill
ISBN: 0198206216 9780198206217
OCLC Number: 33862090
Description: 278 p. ; 23 cm.
Contents: Introduction --
Male and female servants --
The sexual vulnerability and sexuality of female domestic servants --
Vails, perquisites, and allowances: the moral economy of servants --
Opportunity, identity, and servility --
Kin as servants --
Pauper servants --
Nicholas Blundell's servants --
Serving the clergy --
A London domestic servant: Mary Ashford --
Richardson's Pamela and domestic service --
Literate and literary servants in eighteenth-century fact and fiction --
Conclusion.
Responsibility: Bridget Hill.
More information:

Abstract:

The importance of domestic service in the eighteenth century has long been recognised by historians but apart from a number of recent controversial articles, this is the first detailed study of the subject since J. Jean Hecht's book of 1956. Bridget Hill's essays question the stereotype of the domestic servant - usually male and most often in large households employing many servants where a strict hierarchy prevailed - that has dominated all discussion hitherto. Using eighteenth-century diaries, journals and memoirs as well as the press and literature of the period, she examines the lives of the majority of domestic servants, who were employed in more modest establishments, or in single or two-servant households. The book looks at the life of pauper apprentices to service, paid little or nothing for their efforts, and at the frequency with which both near and distant kin were employed as unpaid, or badly-paid, domestic servants.

It also examines the vulnerability of female domestic servants to sexual harassment and discusses the sexuality of servants. Bridget Hill's fascinating and detailed essays provide a new perspective on an important facet of English domestic life in the eighteenth century.

Reviews

User-contributed reviews
Retrieving weRead reviews...
Retrieving GoodReads reviews...
Retrieving Amazon reviews...

Tags

Be the first.
Confirm this request

You may have already requested this item. Please select Ok if you would like to proceed with this request anyway.

Close Window

Please sign in to WorldCat 

Don't have an account? You can easily create a free account.