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Servants : a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times / Lucy Lethbridge.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2013Copyright date: ©2013Edition: First American EditionDescription: xi, 385 pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0393241092 (hardcover)
  • 9780393241099 (hardcover)
Subject(s):
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.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 331.793 L647 Available 33111007235936
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 331.793 L647 Available 33111007465392
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers--even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust--as popular culture would have us believe--they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.

Spanning over a hundred years, Lucy Lethbridge?in this "best type of history" (Literary Review)?brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession.

At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids who were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill's butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own.

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.

Originally published under the title: Servants: a downstairs view of twentieth-century Britain.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-368) and index.

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.

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.

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