(The Nicholsons didn't have any servants in 1910, although when a young mother Margaret took in a series of young girls (usually relatives) to help. I know because they kept records, of course.  This must have been quite common. Considering it took Flora two days to iron her 2 white dresses in 1912 (see letter) keeping up a house alone was hard labour, especially when guests arrived--and that was often. PS. I have two of the irons the Nicholsons used. They must weigh 8 pounds each. We've been using them as door stops. I now use them for exercise weights. In a 1910 letter, a Boston relative, Mrs. Coy, complains of all the hard housework she has to do. She only has a sick husband and an 'old bachelor' son at home.  She says she is not lucky like Margaret, who has three daughters to help her out. I guess it is Mrs. Coy's  son's job to marry and find a wife to  help out, but this particular son,  Chester, appears to be in no rush to marry. When Marion visits Boston in 1912, everyone talks up Chester, which Marion finds funny. "Chester is the man, these days," she wryly writes.


The servant problem, why did not women solve it before asking to be permitted to regulate the affairs of the nation?

To that effect spoke Mrs. William Forse Scott, when addressing a women's club in New York the other day.

"If women want to prove their ability to handle great public problems, let them solve their own first," she said.
"The modern women are pushing into the market place, offering to help the men solve the tremendous problems of labour, transportation, the social evil or national destiny, and their own problem is left unsolved in their kitchens. They cry to assist the downtrodden woman in labour and 40 percent of those women are labouring in private kitchens. Why legislate for the factory girl when the parlour maid needs you?

This has drawn forth a number of replies from prominent suffragists of New York. One, Mrs. John Rogers claims the servant problem is not a domestic problem. "It is a municipal problem," he says. "Take the question of nights out. I would be willing for my maid to have every night off if she wanted it, but I am helpless. Suppose I order dinner at 6 o'clock. Nobody would be there then. It is late before we dine so the maid's evening is spoiled. It is the transportation - the rush hour problem, business hours, that keeps women worried about servants."