The Vanishing Servant

Examples of the present state of the U.S. servant problem:

> In San Francisco, where there were twice as many domestics as jobs 18 months ago, demand now exceeds supply by 10-to-1. One cook got a job last week at $250 a month plus board.

> Cinemactor Alan Hale closed his Encino ranch for lack of help, moved to Hollywood. Cinemactor Robert Armstrong got tired of rattling around helplessly in his twelve-room house, moved into a six-room home on the lot next door.

> One West Coast family gave the maid evenings off to go to night school, discovered that she had studied riveting and landed a job with Lockheed Aircraft.

> In Chicago's suburb Highland Park, one harassed young housewife gets up early, prepares breakfast, packs the children off to school, sets about the housework--while the maid she has employed for five years sleeps till noon. The maid married a soldier at Fort Sheridan a few months ago, now rents the servant's room in exchange for a few afternoon's work a week. Occasionally she works by the hour for neighbors, earns more in 10-15 hours a week than she did as a full-time maid.

> In Cleveland, socialites who started a charity school to train domestics, now attend their own school to learn the finer points of housekeeping.

> The South has a servant shortage for the first time in its history. Surprised Atlanta, Nashville and Winston-Salem wives find that even inexperienced Negro girls demand at least five days off a month, won't stay in, won't cope with children, won't do laundry and insist on dinner at 6 p.m. (which in wartime is practically mid-afternoon).

> Girls who sit up with children while parents spend an evening out have upped rates from 35-c- to 50-c- an hour. In some cities main takers for such jobs are American Women's Voluntary Service juniors who mind war workers' children for "credits" toward the right to wear a uniform.

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