03019cam a2200433 i 4500 829738431 MeVbMML 20201202120739.0 130906s2013 nyuaf b 001 0 eng 2013028069 9780393241099 (hardcover) 9780393349801 (softcover) 0393241092 (hardcover) (OCoLC)829738431 AJM e-uk--- HD8039.D52 G7766 2013b 331.7/61640941 23 Lethbridge, Lucy, author 5871 Servants : a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times / Lucy Lethbridge First American Edition New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2013 ©2013 xi, 385 pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : illustrations ; 25 cm text txt rdacontent still image sti rdacontent unmediated n rdamedia volume nc rdacarrier 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 Household employees Great Britain History 20th century 5872 Household employees Great Britain Attitudes 5873 Social classes Great Britain History 20th century 5874 Great Britain Social conditions 20th century 5875 .b114988687 ddc BOOK 27277 27277 ddc 0 0 ABELJ ABELJ NF 2020-12-02 14.00 0 331.7 LETH 51950 2020-12-02 2020-12-02 BOOK