Note 297 — Chapter XII · POSSIBLE REMEDIES—IMPROVEMENT IN SOCIAL CONDITION

It has been suggested that the word “homemaker” be applied to the mistress of the house and “housekeeper” to the employee; “working housekeeper” is often used of an efficient caretaker who does her work without direction; “domestic” and “house helper” seem wholly unobjectionable. It certainly is not necessary in abandoning one objectionable word to adopt another equally so. The Lynn, Massachusetts, papers, for example, advertise under “wants” for a “forelady in stitching room,” “a position as forewoman by a lady thoroughly familiar with all parts of shoe stitching,” “on millinery an experienced saleslady.” In other places one finds “a gentlewoman who desires employment at twenty-five cents an hour.” The public has much to answer for in the misuse of both “servant” and “lady.”