DOMESTIC SERVICE: WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE NEGRO FEMALE SERVANT IN THE SOUTH de Roebuck, Julian - 1944

Durham: Privately published, 1944. First Edition. Hardcover. Collectible Very Good. UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT. "A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Duke University 1944." Quarto clothbound carbon copy with gilt title. 143pp. In this thesis, the author explains that the role of the female black domestic servant in the South is under attack and explains why. Because of the war, black men who did not go into the military were finding betting paying jobs at home and their wives did not need their domestic jobs. Among the other reasons was the purported, but false and widely circulating rumor of "Eleanor Clubs, named after Eleanor Roosevelt. The assertion was that Mrs. Roosevelt was encouraging black domestics to demand higher wages or quit their jobs, and the supposed motto was "a white woman in every kitchen by Christmas." Howard Odum's, Race and Rumors of Race: The American South in the Early Forties, "reports that Mrs. Roosevelt asked the FBI to look into those rumors. This thesis collects a lot of interesting anecdotal stories. The author also explores by way of comparison of the role of "servant," servants in Victorian England, and also other countries like Egypt, China, & Japan. Very good condition but somewhat spine faded. Rare. Only this copy known to exist.