Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America

by David M. Katzman

A critical examination of women in domestic service in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries makes extensive use of the writings of domestics and contemporary interviews

Genres: History

Hardcover

First published October 19, 1978

About the author

David Katzman has been a professor of History and American Studies at the University of Kansas (KU).

Reviews

[Heidi Bakk-Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very academic, explains a whole lot about what domestic workers in the US went through, and what the work was like.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katzman gives readers a detailed stufy into the lives of American servants at the turn of the century, when anyone who was anyone employed themselves a maid of all work to assist with the keeping of houses. I loved hearing the first hand accounts of women who were maids at one time, why they left it, and just how time consuming and back breaking this work really was for women back before the conviences of swifters and vaccuum cleaners. What I did not like about this book was that at times it was too general, lumping it all together.

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Katzman, Seven Days a Week; Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America (1988)
1. On the whole domestic servants were paid more (room and board) than other non-skilled jobs yet their job was only temporary and held low status
2. Based on primary sources such as domestic servants diaries

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is an older book, it is still useful. The author looks at domestic service (both employers and employees) from 1870-1820. Because this is a time of rapid industrialization, other occupations were opening to women, leading to an end to live-in work.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borderline four stars.