‘Don’t give the servant’s room the look of a perpetual rummage sale by making it a dumping ground for old defaced pictures, furniture, and bric-a-brac. Remember that it is her only haven of rest, and have it restful, if only for selfish reasons, for renewed bodily vigor means well-done work and a made-over disposition. When we think of the average servant’s room, small, stuffy, poorly ventilated, hot in summer, cold in winter, and unattractive to a degree, it ought to bring a blush of shame.’
Excerpt from The Complete Home (1879)

‘The servants’ rooms should be made as healthy and convenient as any other rooms in the house, well lighted, and, being in part in the roof, care should be taken in all new houses to protect them from undue heat and cold by means of boarding and slates, by overlaying the former with battens, on which the slates are hung, so that, as far as practicable, the rooms may not be rendered hot and close in summer, or icy cold in winter.’ Excerpt from Popular Science Monthly (1885)

‘The writer would here urge every mistress of a family, who keeps more than one domestic, to provide them with single beds, that they may not be obliged to sleep with all the changing domestics, who come and go so often. Where the room is too small for two beds, a narrow trucklebed under another, will answer. Domestics should be furnished with wahing conveniences in their chambers, and be encouraged to keep their persons and rooms neat and in order.’ (Excerpt from A Treatise on Domestic Economy by Catherine Esther Beecher (1845)

The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by