colored domestics were employed.[1] This ward includes among its inhabitants all grades of wealth and comfort, from the houses with a coachman and coachman's assistant, a butler and butler's assistant, and a retinue of female domestics as well, to those houses where only one woman is employed, who does "general housework," sometimes including not only cooking and laundry work, but also the furnace work, removal of ashes, "cleaning the front," and other outside work usually delegated to a man. And thus, since nearly all degrees of wealth are represented in the district investigated—that is to say, from the present point of view, all grades of service-employing families—it is probable that all grades of colored domestic service have been encountered in this survey.
In this house-to-house canvass, every domestic scheduled, with a very few exceptions, was personally interviewed. Occasionally the butler or waiter would answer for the cook, if both chanced to have served long in the same family, or sometimes the lady of the house would herself supply the answers, but in every case the information given was such as to warrant belief in its reliability. To the domestic servants personally interviewed in this way have been added the far greater number scheduled by Dr. DuBois in his canvass of the homes of the colored people within the ward limits. Altogether 677 men have been recorded and 1612 women, making a total of 2289 domestics, male and female, either working or living in the Seventh Ward.
- ↑ For map showing the ward boundaries see page 59.
