Chapter I: Preface

This little book is not a treatise on Domestic Science. The vacuum cleaner and the fireless cooker are not even mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed without doing it one's self.

If the propositions that she advances seem at first startling, the writer begs only for a patient hearing, for she is convinced by strong reasons and abundant experience, that liberty in the household, like social and political liberty, can never come except from obedience to just law.

C.H.B.

CONTENTS

PART I

CAUSES OF THE PRESENT UNSATISFACTORY CONDITION OF DOMESTIC LABOR

Ignorance and Inefficiency in the Home 1
Difficulty of Obtaining Women to Do Housework 11
The Disadvantages of Housework Compared with Work
in Factories, Stores, and Offices 19

PART II

BUSINESS PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO HOUSEWORK

Living Outside Place of Employment 31
Housework Limited to 8 Hours a Day 47
Housework Limited to 6 Days a Week 61
The Observance of Legal Holidays 75
Extra Pay for Overtime 81

PART III

EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES IN THE HOME

Eight Hour Schedules for One Employee 93
Eight Hour Schedules for Two Employees 109
Eight Hour Schedules for Three Employees 121