Household Accounts

In 1928 a white student at a private women's college in Georgia submitted a short essay titled “Domestic Problem in My Home” for her sociology class. Instructed to write about the Black household workers employed by her family, she compared the woman who had previously occupied the position to their current cook. “Our negro ‘mammy,’” she wrote, “left us after thirteen years of faithful service. The cooks we have had since then have been of an entirely different nature. Our present cook, an efficient negro, refuses to work longer than four in the afternoon. Her tone of voice is always respectful, but her replies without the customary ‘ma'am’ grated sharply on our ears for a time. It is generally conceded that the new type is not as satisfactory, due no doubt to their attitude which is new to us.”1 This student's unfavorable comparison of her family's new “efficient” cook

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