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Servants
A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times
New York, N.Y. : W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Format: Book
Edition: First American Edition.
Description: xi, 385 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
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.
Contents:
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."
Subjects:
Household employees -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
Household employees -- Great Britain -- Attitudes.
Social classes -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
Household employees -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
Household employees -- Great Britain -- Attitudes.
Social classes -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
ISBN:
9780393241099 (hardcover)
Availability | |||
---|---|---|---|
Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
HISTORY Europe England Let | Main (Downtown) | Third Level, Nonfiction | In |
HISTORY Europe England Let | Main (Downtown) | Third Level, Nonfiction | In |
HISTORY Europe England Let | Southeast | Nonfiction | In |
Originally published under the title: Servants : a downstairs view of twentieth-century Britain.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [327]-368) and index.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [327]-368) and index.