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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Violetta HionidouORCiD
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Public perceptions of female living-in servants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Greece have been largely shaped by literature, cinema, theatre but also by middle-class expectations for women. Working class reality was different: domestic service offered young impoverished women the opportunity to earn money, create their own dowry, move to an urban environment, learn new ways and ultimately shape their future. Married and widowed women would also work as living-in servants, wet-nurses and nannies. The paper also investigates the employers’ view of their servants, revealing a paternalistic stance from the upper class but pity from the middle class. Moreover, the paper outlines the significant presence of part-time, occasional domestic help at least since the 1930s, a highly flexible employment that suited poor married and widowed women. It is this flexibility and informality of this kind of employment that makes it impossible to capture in the statistics.
Author(s): Hionidou V
Editor(s): Παναγιώτα Μήνη, Άννα Σταυρακοπούλου, Κωνσταντίνα Γεωργιάδη, Ιουλία Πιπινιά
Publication type: Book Chapter
Publication status: Published
Book Title: Υπηρέτριες και υπηρέτες: ιστορικά υποκείμενα και καλλιτεχνικές αναπαραστάσεις στον ελληνόφωνο χώρο (19ος-21ος αιώνας) (Domestic Servants: Historical Subjects and Artistic Representations in the Greek-Speaking World (19th-21st centuries)
Year: 2020
Pages: 75-95
Print publication date: 01/12/2020
Acceptance date: 01/03/2018
Publisher: Papazisis Publishers
Place Published: Athens, Greece
Notes: 6,500 words
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9789600237085
