When did the uber rich stop having live in servants?
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Anonymous
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My mother and MIL grew up with a full house staff in large homes. In my family, the housemaids lived in the top floor garret. The governess lived next to the girls' bedrooms on the third floor. My grandparents lived on the second floor, that also had guest rooms. My great-grandparents has a wing of the first floor. Rest of first floor was salons and dining room. Kitchen was in the basement.
Now they're in much smaller places: my mother hates having anyone come in and even refuses a cleaning lady, and my MIL has a rotation of aides that cook and clean for her, but they don't live in her house. The night nurse stays overnight, but doesn't "live" in the house. I would love a daily maid, but I'm also a private person and would prefer she live in a separate building. |
Anonymous
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Many of the servants quit their servant jobs to fight in World War II.
Those that did not picked up factory work making planes and munitions as the pay was higher and it was the patriotic thing to do to support the war effort. |
Anonymous
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I’m friends with a billionaire and this is what they’ve told me about hired help:
It’s not like back in the old days where you could hire downton abbey level staff for cheap. That level of staff costs well into six figures. For what the wealthy want to pay, they can only get immigrants who don’t really understand culturally what is expected of “butlers” and many don’t do things the exact way the employer wants (and it’s difficult to explain bc of the language barrier). So there really wouldn’t be much of a point to having full time staff - they’re not waiting on you hand and foot 24 hours a day, they’re just there to help tidy/clean and run some errands. If you want more than that, you have to pay a LOT more, and it’s not worth it for most. Easier to just hire out specialists when you need them (for example, my friends’ family hires professional makeup artists and hair stylists for big events, whereas back in the day the servant would help with your clothes and hair. Another friend has a housekeeper plus a personal assistant). Also, I’m guessing labor laws are pretty strict, with overtime and caps on how many hours worked. For why they aren’t discovered: I don’t think my friends’ help have housekeys. They have things in their home worth millions and millions of dollars, it’s probably not worth the risk for them. I’d imagine if they showed up and nobody answered the door, they’d wait around maybe for an hour then leave, figuring they were out and forgot to notify them. I doubt their first thought would be they were mirdered. |
Anonymous
| Nobody wants someone living in their house with them. I know people who have day staff and night staff, but why would you have someone have their actual life with you if you don't have to. |
Anonymous
| PP who says that the staff doesn't have keys knows nothing. Obviously nobody wants to have to open the door every time someone comes to work at the house. Ridiculous. |
Anonymous
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There is a line attributed to Agatha Christie where she said something like “I never thought I’d be so rich that I could afford an automobile or so poor I couldn’t afford a nanny or servants.”
And when I went looking for the exact quote I came across this Ask Historians on this topic— https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/CCzpCl5T2o |
Anonymous
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Quality of service in America is horrible across the board - domestic help, at stores, at work, at school, on calls. Many are illiterate and/or ESOL- more lost in translations (voluntary or involuntary!).
Think of how many times you find mistakes in orders, sizes, your instructions, the final product? Now multiply that for someone you give the keys to your house and your kids to. Other countries people have more pride in their work- like Japan. No need to double check anything. Other countries domestic service industry is more professional- se Asia, Mideast, Eastern Europe. No matter, they get here, act entitled, assume everyone is a multi millionaire, and quality of service declines— especially if you’re weak at managing people and tasks. So many do-the-bare-minimum workers here. Such a PITA. Thus when and if you find someone who cares you pay more. But do not pay more for imposters. |
Anonymous
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Live in help was commonplace for the UMC up through the 1940s. Cheap immigrant labor and cheap black labor made it possible, along with far fewer labor saving devices. Cooking wasn't as fun as it is today, for example. And when it's relatively cheap to have many servants, the very wealthy could create lifestyles and elaborate homes based on having full staff, their lives were really that much more formal.
After the war the pool of affordable labor dried up, though lasted another 20 years for inexpensive black labor, but by the late 60s it was rapidly fading out for the UMC (according to my mother, it went from 1940s live in to 1950s daily help who came in the morning and left once she got dinner ready to the 1960s several times a week to the 1970s once a week). Labor costs spared and now comes with all the social and Healthcare benefits if you have full time help. There are still very wealthy with help but even that world has changed. It's far more private, people don't want to see help around so they're not waited upon at the table, but the help takes on different forms. You have personal assistants, personal stylists, personal chefs, house managers. |
Anonymous
For the love of god it is a book. A book. Yes it was turned into a movie. But the book is phenomenal. |
Anonymous
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In Asia live in help is still quite common. They are usually foreign workers who are paid very poorly for house cleaning, child care, and cooking. The homes aren’t necessarily large, but they have special small beds that fit in the small rooms available or the helper will sleep on the floor of the children’s room.
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Anonymous
Live in help is such a love it and hate it relationship. Not worth the hassle or lifestyle or addl responsibilities. They also try to no longer count food and board as compensation. There are huge chat rooms telling Nannies and housekeepers all kinds of goodies to demand each year from their families. |
Anonymous
| I don’t know but I was recently thinking about this too, listening to the Martha moxley podcast. The people they interview mention casually their live in staff that they had when she was murdered- not just the Skakel family’s live in staff (multiple people) but another friend casually mentioned their own live in housekeeper as well. So in the 70s in Greenwich it still seemed to be commonplace. I had many friends from college from that very rich Greenwich/ Darien crowd and only two of them had live in help. One had two BigLaw parents and a live in nanny because presumably the parents were never home . The other was just stupid rich and had their own plane, etc and had live in staff in both their manhattan home and their CT home. Everyone else who was just “normal rich” did not. |
Anonymous
Essentially having live in help stopped when we started treating people more humanely, and not like a commodity. |
Anonymous
When I nannied for a billionaire, his house manager gave us a keypad code to enter/exit parts of the property. They were always watching remotely. I assume when you're done, they just change the code. |
Anonymous
| PP here who said nobody wants to have staff live with them. PP above definitely noted an exception. Most people that I know with that type of wealth and multiple houses have people who live in their houses when they are not there. Sometimes they are hired help. Sometimes they are friends. But it is generally helpful to have a caretaker for when you aren't at a residence. I know some who basically switch houses with the caretakers when the houses are close to each other. |