Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1911 — MUST CALL HER MISS [ARTICLE]

MUST CALL HER MISS

Unless Willing to Have Manners Branded as Passe. Familiarity of Past on Slight Acquaintance Must Cease Unless One Wishes to Advertise As Being Out of Swim. Chicago.—ls you call her Mary or Minnie or Olga—referring to the young woman who puts your meals before you apd keeps your home in order —it Is time to stoD. Hereafter It is to be Miss Jones or Miss O’Brien or Miss Olson —that is, unless you are willing to have your manners branded as hopelessly passe, not to say de trop. The familiarity of the past on five minutes’ acquaintance, or no acquaintance, must cease —unless you wish to advertise that you are totally out of the swim. Surnames alone are to be used in ordering the affairs of the household in the future, and you might as well begin rehearsing now. For fashion has so ordered, and, although there was the usual storm of protest, ridicule and revolt among the housewives of Chicago as the decree circulated, It is probable they will get into line as they always do. Furthermore, the discussion developed the fact that the whole servant problem and the attitude mistress should have toward maid is bound up In the question. Strong advocates were found for a complete change In methods of administering the American household, which shall include abolition of the custom of having servants live on the premises, and the usual attitude toward servants In America was declared totally undemocratic.

“Call Minnie by her last name? Let's see what It Is. O, yes, Morlarty. Just to show you how ridiculous It all to I will just try it,” said a South side clubwoman who lives in the University of Chicago neighborhood. Bhe was selected because Miss Sophonlsba Breckinridge, Instructor In household administration at the university, had said. In discussing the matter, that the young women who do the household work of that neighborhood are queens among women who earn their own living and the titular mistresses of the homes are meek and submissive before them. “Miss Morlarty, oh Miss Morlarty,” called the South side woman, and after an appreciable Interval a blueeyed daughter of Ireland put her head through the door and asked in a puzzled voice: “Were you a-callin’ of me, mum?" \

“Minnie—l mean Miss Mdriarty—would you rather be called by your first or your last name?*’ “It sounds sort of funny to have you call me that way after sayln' ‘Minnie’ so long,” said the girl. “There’re some people, though, that fresh grocery boy and then the people you have here, and your husband, too, mum, I’d rather have them call me by my last name.” “I hare always called my housekeeper by her last name, so if that Is the requirement I am strictly up to date,” said Mrs. Raymond Robins, who conducted the Investigations for the New York Association for Household Research, and whose report cm the employment of domestic servants was used as a basis for legislation In that state. “It Is because the attitude toward household employes has been so entirely undemocratic that It has been next to Impossible to get a girl of competence and spirit to go into domestic service. I know many girls who have refused good wages and many material comforts to work desperately hard at poor wages In a shop because they wanted a home and the Sundays and evening* and Saturday afternoons for themselves, which

they never have In domestic service.” “The attitude toward domestic servants that now prevails is simply intolerable.”