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BookPrinted Material
Author Delap, Lucy.

Title Knowing their place : domestic service in twentieth-century Britain / Lucy Delap.

Publication Info. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Item Status

Location Call No. Status OPAC Message Public Note Gift Note
 Moore Stacks  HD8039.D52 G7185 2011    Available  ---
Description xii, 260 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-258) and index.
Summary "Historians have traditionally seen domestic service as an obsolete or redundant sector from the middle of the 20th century. 'Knowing Their Place' challenges this by linking the early 20th century employment of maids and cooks to later practices of employing au pairs, mothers' helps, and cleaners. Lucy Delap tells the story of lives and labour within British homes, from great houses to suburbs and slums, and charts the interactions of servants and employers along with the intense controversies and emotions they inspired. [This book] also examines the employment of men and migrant workers, as well as the role of laughter and erotic desire in shaping domestic service. The memory of domestic service and the role of the past in shaping and mediating the present is examined through heritage and televisual sources, from 'Upstairs, Downstairs' to 'The 1900 House.' Drawing from advice manuals, magazines, novels, cinema, memoirs, feminist tracts, and photographs, this...book points to new directions in cultural history through its engagement in innovative areas such as the history of emotions and cultural memory"--Publisher description.
Contents Twentieth-century servants -- Servant-keepers and the management of servants -- "Doing for oneself" : the servantless home -- Kitchen-sink laughter : domestic service humour -- "The good, the bad, and the spicy" : servants in pornography and erotica --Heritage nostalgia : domestic service remembered and performed.
Subject Household employees -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
Household employees.
Great Britain.
History.
Chronological Term 20th century
Subject Great Britain -- History -- 20th century.
ISBN 9780199572946
0199572941