Speaking of the domestic servant problem in the 1890’s…
The model up until then was generally a live-in servant. This cost a lot less because room and board was supplied. It didn’t cost extra for that attic dormer room, and the extra food was not a big expense.
When the mills and other industrial jobs cam along, they paid enough for a worker to get room and board, obviously. (Unless it was in the company dormitories.
Probably the biggest diference was freedom. A person living on their own, with fixed hours in the factory, even if it was 12 hours a day, 6 days a week - had a LOT more freedom than a maid living in someone else’s house full time; how much free time would one have when a prudish and controlling employer decided every aspect of your life, day and night?
If the employer could not compete with industrial wages, the only factor that could be adjusted was time; only work part of the day or part of the week.
Well, the family pile we sold had a front parlor, a rear living room with a lovely all windows on 2 sides ‘morning room’, a lovely alcove upstairs for dress fittings and a seamstress to work, a library opposite the hall from the formal parlor, a dining room separated from the kitchen by a butlers pantry, a servants dining room off the kitchen that we treated as a breakfast room, 2 2 bedroom suites with ensuite bathrooms, a childrens suite [classroom, governess’ room, 2 kids bedrooms and ensuite bathroom, a linen closet the size of a small bedroom with a chute down to the laundry room in the basement, the attic was a large office the size of half the house footprint, a full bathroom, and a dressing room with a cedar lined closet the size of a small bedroom that was for my great-grandfather, and in the kids/kitchen wing the attic was servants quarters. He built the house for he and my maiden great aunt Bessie [who founded an organization that started up as one of those ‘christian childrens’ organizations for American slum kids and ended up with a more world wide scope. She was one of those maiden ladies that was a missionary when young] and 4 guest rooms sharing 2 bathrooms.
[I will admit that to be properly kept clean, it really does need 2 maids. The basement was neat, though I have never been downstairs - it had the laundry which opened up on the servant’s yard where the laundry was hung out to dry, the furnace room with 2 coal rooms, 2 food storage rooms - one lined with metal to be mouse and rat proof, the other was where the vinegar barrel was and the shelves for the canned goods, a large storage room for stuff used in the gardens like chairs and tables] and it was set on 3/4 of an acre with a lovely commanding view of the mill and workers houses. It would have been a full acre if the strip of management houses hadn’t been built along the road near the mill.] My dad added a 2 car garage to the coach house/barn [it had a loose box stall and 3 regular stalls and space for 2 carriages and a tack room. My brother and I liked playing in the hay loft when the weather was nice.]
My grandmother lived in an Arizona border town in the 40s and 50s. She had a husband and 8 children and a Mexican lady that came every day to help. I’ve heard that that poor woman had to make 2 fruit pies every day just to keep the family in desserts.