The new housekeeping; efficiency studies in home management

Front matter

* 2^/.'

.0^ ^*

'^^^ ^81^"^ c> y W^J

Preface

A moderate income, two babies, and constant demands on my time, was the situation that faced me several years ago.

I hked housework, and was especially fond of cooking; but the deadening point about the whole situation was that I never seemed to finish my work, never seemed to ''get anywhere," and that I almost never had any leisure time to myself.

I wanted to read a bit, or write out some ideas I had been thinking about, or take a half hour for personal grooming. If I devoted my day to cooking, I was appalled later at the confusion and dirt I had neglected. If I specialized on cleaning, our meals were hurried and ill-prepared. If I tried to do justice to both cleaning and preparing of meals, I quite certainly neglected the babies and myself.

My husband came home only to find me ''all [vii]

PREFACE tired out," with no energy left to play over a song, or listen to a thoughtful article. I was constantly struggling to obtain a little ''higher life" for my individuality and independence; and on the other hand I was forced to give up this individuality to my babies and drudgifying housework.

About this time I became acquainted, through my husband's interests, with several men in close touch with the new movement of industrial efficiency. From them I learned what the new science of work was accomplishing for the office, the shop, the factory. At first it did not occur to me that methods which were applicable to organized industries, like shoe factories, and iron foundries, could also be applied to my group of very unorganized industries — the home.

Yet the more I studied it, the more possible it seemed, and I determined to try it. For once I found a use for some of the college training I had despaired of ever putting into practice. I applied to the task of bringing the science of efficiency into the home, the same detailed

[viii]

PREFACE analysis that I had applied many a time in " Zoology A." or " Physics B."

I confess that it was discouraging at first, due to the distractions and disturbed routines necessary in a home where there are small children. But gradually definite results began to come ■ — the most definite result and the most valuable benefit being the development of an efficiency attitude of mind. Once this attitude became thoroughly organized all the household problems, large and small, became invested with entirely new interests and new possibilities. Instead of becoming something upon which to slave, they became objects of keen mental interest — quite the same, I am now sure after investigation, as the tasks of the business and industrial world which men tackle with zest and results.

I put out this book, therefore, with a deeply earnest hope and belief that the beginnings made in the application of efficiency science to the household (however modest and inadequate) may yet assist in cutting from women the most dreary shackles of which they have ever complained.

[ixl

PREFACE

The many letters I have received from American housewives in response to the series of four articles on the subject appearing in the Ladies' Home Journal September-December, 1912, indicate definitely, and even pathetically, that conditions are sadly in need of remedy, and that in presenting this book I may entertain some hope of solving them.

Christine Frederick. '' Ayplecroft,'^

[xj

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface vii

\/ I. Efficiency and the New Housekeeping 3 II. Applying "Standard Practice ' ' and

Chapter One Efficiency And The New House- Keeping

I WAS sitting by the library table, mending, while my husband and a business friend were talking, one evening about a year ago. I heard them use several new words and phrases so often that I stopped to listen.

"Efficiency," I heard our caller say a dozen times; '* standard practice," "motion study," and "scientific management," he repeated over and over again. The words suggested interesting things, and as I listened I grew absorbed and amazed.

"What are you men talking about?" I interrupted. " I can't help being interested. Won't you please tell me what 'efficiency' is, Mr. Watson? What were you saying about bricklaying?"

" Your husband and I were just discussing this [3]

new idea developed in business, called 'efficiency/ or 'scientific management'/* Mr. Watson replied. ''A group of men, Emerson and Taylor among others, have come to be known in the business and manufacturing world as 'efficiency engineers.' These men are able to go into a shop or factory, watch the men at work, make observations and studies of motions, and from these observations show where waste and false movements occur and why the men lose time. Then they go to work to build up the ' efficiency' of that shop, so that the men do more work in less time, with less waste and greater output or gain to the owners, while the workers have shorter hours, higher pay, and better working conditions."

"Just how do they find out what is wrong?" I asked, laying my sewing on the table, and listening eagerly, "and how do they actually increase this 'efficiency'?"

"Well, for instance," answered Mr. Watson, "this is how they improved the method of laying bricks: Formerly a workman stood before a wall, and when he wanted to lay a brick he had to stoop, pick a brick weighing four and a half pounds from a mixed pile at his feet, and carry it to the wall. Suppose he weighed one hundred and eighty pounds; that worker would have to lower his one hundred and eighty pounds four feet every time he picked up each of the two thousand bricks he laid in a day ! Now an efficiency expert, after watching bricklayers at work, devised a simple little table which holds the bricks in an orderly pile at the workman's side. They are brought to him in orderly piles, proper side up. Because he doesn't need to stoop or sort, the same man who formerly could lay only one hundred and twenty bricks an hour can now lay three hundred and fifty bricks, and he uses only five motions, where formerly it required eighteen."

''That sounds like a fairy tale," I laughed skeptically. "What else wonderful can they do with this magic wand of 'efiiciency'.^^"

"It does sound like magic," Mr. Watson replied, "but it is only common sense. There is just one best way, one shortest way to perform any task involving work done with the hands, or the hands and head working in cooperation. These efficiency men merely study to find that one best and shortest way, and when they have found it they call that task * standardized/ Very often the efficiency is increased because the task is done with fewer motions, with better tools, because of even such a simple thing as changing the height of a work-bench, or the position of the worker."

"Yes," my husband put in, "by applying the principles of efficiency, manufacturers are enabled to save thousands of dollars. You know, Brandeis, in the famous railroad rate hearing at Washington, showed that if the railroads would work under conditions of scientific management, they could save a million dollars a dayr

"Why, I suppose you smart men and efficiency experts will soon try to tell me and all the other women that washing dishes can be 'standarized,'" I bantered, "or that we could save a million dollars if we would run our homes on 'scientific management'!"

"Now, Mrs. Frederick," replied Mr. Watson [6]

seriously, "that is really not too much to imagine. There is no older saying than 'woman's work is never done.' If the principles of efficiency can be successfully carried out in every kind of shop, factory, and business, why couldn't they be carried out equally well in the home.?^"

''Because," I answered, "in a factory the workers do just one thing, like sewing shoes, or cutting envelopes, and it is easy to standardize one set of operations. But in a home there are dozens, yes, hundreds, of tasks requiring totally different knowledge and movements. There is ironing, dusting, cooking, sewing, baking, and care of children. No two tasks are alike. Instead of working as she would in a factory, at one task, the home-worker peels potatoes, washes dishes, and darns stockings all in the same hour. Yes, and right in the midst of peeling the potatoes she has to drop her knife, and see why the baby is crying.

"You men simply don't understand anything about work in a home," I continued, heatedly. "One day a woman sweeps and dusts, and the next she irons, and the next she bakes, and inbetween-times she cares for babies, and sews, answers call bells and 'phones, and markets, and mends the lining of her husband's coat, and makes a cocoanut cake for Sunday!

"Perhaps she can afford one maid ^ — perhaps she belongs to the fortunate but very small class that can afford two. But even then she has to see that servants don't waste, that they work the best way, and, in addition, put up with their foibles, which is almost as bad as having to do all the work herself.

*'Do you mean to tell me that so many kinds of household tasks could be ' standardized,' or that the principles of scientific management could be applied in the home?" I concluded a little triumphantly. "I've talked with numbers of maids, and they all have the same plaint : that there are too many kinds of work to be done by the same person, that they never have any dependable 'off hours,' and that no two families do the same task in the same way. That is why they prefer to work in factories where one set of operations can be standardized;

and there you have the whole crux of the servant question."

Mr. Watson shifted his chair with a reahzation that he had been put up against no simple problem, nor one in which he had experience. Then he answered, "Well, I hadn't considered the idea before, but I believe so strongly in the principles of efficiency and have seen them work out so satisfactorily in every kind of shop where there are different kinds of work and where the owners have said just what you say, that I absolutely know that these principles must have application to any kind of work, and that they could be carried out successfully in the home if you women would only faithfully apply them.

'*I must leave iiow, but I tell you what I'll do. I'll come over some evening to talk to you, and see what we can figure out on home efficiency. I certainly don't see why you couldn't work out some of its principles in a mighty interesting way. Suppose you read this book on scientific management?"

After Mr. Watson had gone, I turned eagerly [9]

to my husband. "George," I said, "that efficiency gospel is going to mean a great deal to modern housekeeping, in spite of some doubts I have. Do you know that I am going to work out those principles here in our home! I won't have you men doing all the great and noble things ! I'm going to find out how these experts conduct investigations, and all about it, and then apply it to my factory, my business, my home."

The more I thought about it, the stronger hold the idea took upon me. Just a few days previous I had been reading an article by a prominent clubwoman who was solving the servant problem by substituting expensive household equipment in place of her three servants. Another review discussed the number of women who were living in apartments and boarding-houses, and who refused to shoulder the burdens of real homemaking. A third writer enlarged on the lack of youthful marriages, a lack which he claimed was due to the fact that young women of this era refuse to enter the drudgery of household tasks. On all sides it was the prob-

[10 1 lem of the home, the problem of housekeeping and homemaking.

The home problem for the woman of wealth is simple: it is solved. Money, enough of it, will always buy service, just as it can procure the best in any other regard. The home problem for the women of the very poor is also fairly simple. The women of the poor themselves come from the class of servants. Their homemaking is far less complex, their tastes simple, and society demands no appearance-standard from them. Added to this, organized philanthropy is by every means teaching the women of the poor how to keep house in the most scientific, efficient manner. Settlements, domestic science classes, model kitchens and tenements, nursing stations, slum depots, charity boards, health boards, visiting nurses, night schools, and mission classes are teaching, free, the women of the poor how to transmute their oldworld ignorance into the shining knowledge of the new hemisphere.

The problem, the real issue, confronts the middle-class woman of slight strength and still slighter means, and of whom society expects so much — the wives of ministers on small salary, wives of bank clerks, shoe salesmen, college professors, and young men in various businesses starting to make their way. They are refined, educated women, many with a college or business training. They have one or more babies to care for, and limited finances to meet the situation.

The soaring cost of living and the necessity for keeping up a fair standard of appearances obligatory on the middle class prevent any but the more than "average" well-to-do from employing regular help. Among ten average families I know (scattered the country over) whose incomes range from $1,200 to $2,500 a year, the occupations range as follows:

Two high-grade mechanics One young doctor

One salesman in photo suppHes One lawyer

One salesman in ofl&ce equipment One advertising man

One artist and illustrator One literary man

Only one family of the ten employs regular help. The others depend on intermittent cleaning and a woman to do the washing. It is this better class of refined but small-salary-family woman who becomes "all tired out," who never has any "time to herself," or who is forced to endure the slipshod methods of one retreating Lizzie after another because she cannot afford experienced help. According to figures compiled by the Business Bourse, there are 1, 677,150 families in the country employing domestic help, while there are 19,023,952 families keeping house. In other words, only 8 per cent, of the families in the United States keep domestic help!

Figures of the United States Census show that each decade fewer women are entering service, chiefly because many new and apparently more attractive fields of employment are constantly being opened to the class who formerly confined their work to service alone. That is, there are fewer servants, there will continue to be less, and the wages of those few will be higher than at present.

After Mr. Watson's talk on efficiency I began to consider this middle class — to which I belong — and whose difficulties I faced every day.

[13 1

I had two babies and was struggling with young and inexperienced help. If 'efficiency' accomplished such marvellous results for the shop and factory, would it not accomplish as much for my home, if I studied its principles carefully, and practised them intelligently?

I determined then to give this gospel of efficiency a fair trial, but first I wanted Mr. Watson, himself an efficiency engineer, to explain it thoroughly.

"Now, Mr. Watson," I said a few evenings later, *' I want you to explain the principles of efficiency to me — the how, the why — so that I and all the other homemakers can understand it fully."

"Gladly," replied Mr. Watson; "I'll begin by stating the twelve principles on which the science of efficiency rests:

Ideals 7.

Dispatching

Common Sense 8.

Scheduling

Competent Counsel 9.

Reliable Records

Standardized Operations 10.

Discipline

Standardized Conditions 11.

Fair Deal

Efficiency Reward

"You notice that the first principle is that of 'ideals.' The first thing an efficiency expert finds out when he wishes to improve the standard of a plant is, what are its ideals? What is it running for? These experts say it is astounding how many people are running businesses and don't know why they are running them! I sometimes think that many women don't consciously know why they are running their homes. The ideal should be so strong, so clearly kept in mind, that it will overweigh any present petty difficulties. Ideals look to the future, they are the 'something' that guides, directs, propels the whole machinery, whether of business or the home — do you get my meaning?

''Women do have ideals as to why they run their homes," Mr. Watson continued "only they are not always concretely expressed to themselves. It may be health, it may be spotless cleanliness, social progress, or something else. I know a woman who takes her babies out for a morning's airing and leaves the parlor undusted, even though she dislikes untidiness. But her ideal of health comes first. Then another woman has turned her guest-room over to her two boys for their wireless and electricity apparatus. You know what a pretty guest-room means to a woman! But this mother has such a strong ideal of the future training and habits of her boys that she is willing to sacrifice a present pleasure for a remote end. Ideals can be so strong as to buoy up, overweigh difficulty, and be a vital spur to effort, in the home particularly. The clearer a woman's ideals, the easier her work, the greater her strength and success. She must know the 'why' of her business.

"Common Sense is the next principle, and some people think this homely term covers all the principles. It is only common sense not to stoop for a pot if you can hang it where you don't need to stoop — and it is efficiency as well."

"And what does 'competent counsel,' mean.?" I questioned.

"Competent Counsel means expert advice and help. The efficiency engineers who are called in to large factories to find what is wrong, or suggest better methods, are one kind of competent counsel."

''Yes, but there are no efficiency experts in housekeeping, are there?" I inquired.

''If the housewife would only realize it, there is more expert advice being offered her free than is being offered any manufacturer. Take the pages in all the best publications devoted to the science of home management. The finest specialists and experts are retained by magazines to tell women how to care for babies, prepare foods, how to economize and how to make clothing. Both the booklets and the advertisements of various advertisers inform the housewife of new methods, recipes, devices, materials. The so-called ' Farmers' Bulletins' issued by the Department of Agriculture are many of them equal to a correspondence course in home economics, as for instance, 'Eggs and Their Uses as Food,' 'Economical Cuts of Meats,' which are sent free to any one on application. Perhaps you do not know how to use your oven properly. Large corporations like the gas company and others are only too glad to send a representative to tell you just how to use your stove, and inform you on other points. I learned the other day that

[ 17 1 it costs a certain sum an hour for the large burner, so much for the small burner, and so much for the little * simmerer.' This exact knowledge should help one to save fuel. Demonstrators of other concerns, food and household shows, all act as 'competent counsel' to the housewife and homemaker.

"Then comes Standardized Operations, which includes the oft-mentioned 'motion study,'" Mr. Watson continued. '*The homemaker takes countless steps and motions in every task, many of which are entirely avoidable. She may walk twenty feet to hang up the egg-beater; she may wash dishes in a way that wastes time and effort; or she lifts separately each piece of laundry from the basket at her feet, when the efficient thing would be to place the whole basket at her own level. Standardized conditions mean the right height of work-table, proper light, ventilation, and the correct tool for the purpose. In shops and factories where the experts have studied the manner in which work is done, and where, after repeated experiment, the one best method and best set of conditions has been determined, this best, shortest and most efficient way is written down so that all workers may read it. That is, the task is reduced to 'standard practice,' and the housekeeper can find countless tasks which she can reduce to standard practice, with a saving of effort, time, and vitality."

"What is this next point of * Dispatching ' .^ " I asked. ''I know the best way to do a number of things, but I never can plan my work so as to get it done without interruption. I begin to cut out a waist, and the children want a drink and I have to stop and get it, and when I come back my pattern and goods are all upset, and I have almost forgotten what I was doing."

"There," laughed Mr. Watson, "is just where you need the principles of 'dispatching,' and 'scheduhng.' Planning and arranging work come under these points. For instance, a train starts from New York at 4 p. m., and arrives at Chicago the next morning at nine. The 'dispatching' consists in moving the train along so that it will reach every station at the right time. A^pphed to housework it would mean that there was a definite regular time for each task, so that each task was done at a certain time in relation to other tasks. You wouldn't cut out your waist unless you were sure you wouldn't be interrupted, you see.

" The ' Schedule' is the eighteen hours it takes the train to reach Chicago, and it is based on various trials and methods which enable it to make Chicago in just eighteen hours and no less. A housewife can find out her schedules for various tasks, how long it takes to make a cake, or clean the bathroom. Then, when she knows her schedule, she can more accurately plan or dispatch her work without fear of interruption."

"Very often I read some helpful article in the magazines," I remarked, "but when I want it, I can't find it."

"Ah, I thought so," Mr. Watson laughed. "You need 'Reliable Records' in your homemanagement, I see. We will take that up in detail later.

"And if the remaining principles of 'Discipline,' 'Fair Deal' and ' Efficiency Reward ' could be carried out in the home," he concluded, "I venture to say that this whole awesome ' servant problem' would be solved. One of the remarkable things about scientific management is that there have been few, if any, strikes in the shops where its principles are in practice. The men remain because they are treated fairly, and their interests looked out for by the owner.

''Ninety per cent, of servant troubles are at bottom the fault of the mistress," Mr. Watson declared. "Now if a woman knew and applied scientifically the principle of 'fair play' her help wouldn't leave her, sick, in bed, as I have heard some maids have done. An efficient mistress would handle her help as scientifically as the manager of a big shop. She will use the principle of 'efficiency reward' with her helpers, and know how to secure from them that 'initiative' — that something over and above mere work which is essential, while at the same time she improves the conditions under which they work."

Mr. Watson looked at me across the table. "Now you understand clearly what efficiency means — not expensive equipment or impractical theories, but simple principles of work which enable you and every homemaker to do her household tasks in the best way, with least effort and greatest success."

"If efficiency in the home can accomplish all you make me believe it can," I replied, "a new housekeeping will have come, and homemaking will be the greatest profession."

Chapter Two Applying ''standard Practice" And **motion Study" To House- Hold Tasks

Usually after our dinner I wash forty-eight pieces of china, twenty-two pieces of silver and ten utensils and pots, or eighty pieces in all; and for years I never realized that I actually made eighty wrong motions in the washing alone, not counting others in the sorting, wiping, and laying away. Like all other women I thought that there couldn't be much improvement in the same old task of washing dishes.

The drainboard of my sink is at the right. Now imagine me at the sink, dishes in dishpan, with a tray at my right to lay the dishes on when washed. What do I do.^ I take up a plate with my left hand and scour it back and front with the dishcloth which I hold in my right hand. Then I pass my left hand across my right arm, away over the tray, and lay the plate on the tray.

I move my left arm across my right arm in this awkward way every time I lay a dish on the tray. If I didn't do this I would have to drop the cloth from my right hand and change the plate from my left hand (in which I had held it while washing it) to my right hand, which would lay it on the tray. What else could I do.^ I will tell you in a minute.

I measured the height of the bottom of my sink from the floor and found it was only 24 inches. The sink basin was only 5 J inches deep. That is why the water slopped over the pan and over the edge of the sink. Besides, our builder had carefully planned a dish closet over the sink at the exact height to strike the top of my head when I bobbed it up from my work!

Now for some other mistakes : I didn't scrape my dishes thoroughly, so the water became greasy very soon. I sloshed a cake of soap, about in the water— particles of which stuck to the edges of the dishes. I used a tray to drain on, and the bottom dishes became cold and sloppy before they could be dried. My towels became wet, and I had to walk to the hall shelf for others. I dried the dishes and laid them on the table, then I picked them up (a second handling) and carried them to the pantry at the far end of the kitchen.

It took me forty-five minutes to scrape, wash, and dry those eighty dishes by using wrong methods; now I wash the same number of pieces in thirty minutes, or a gain of fifteen minutes.

How did I do it.^ I couldn't raise the sink because it is built in at that height; but I raised my pan four inches by placing it on an inverted sink-strainer (or I might have bought a sinkrack, costing 10 cents, for the same purpose). Lifting the pan to a table or the top of set tubs is not wise, as the pan must be lifted up and down each time the water needs changing. Neither could I make the sink deeper. Stupidity of builders is the only reason why sinks are low and shallow, and why out of sixty house and apartment sinks examined recently two thirds measured only from 22 to 30 inches from the floor.

I have made careful tests on women of different heights to find the approximate proper height of sink for any given height of woman. A uniform ratio seems to be in effect; for every five inches diflference in the woman's height there is a corresponding change of two inches and a half in the proper height of sink, table, or ironing-board. That is, the best height for a woman 5 feet 2| inches tall is 2 feet 5 inches, or 29 inches. For a woman five inches taller the proper height is 2 feet 7| inches, or 31j inches. I have also found that the proper and best height for a table is, for the same woman, the proper height for the bottom of her sink to be from the floor, and the best height for her ironing-board. This shows that there is one best height for all working surfaces in the home at which the least strain is felt on the arms.

The following figures will show you if your ironing-board or sink or table is at the proper level for your height:

Height of Proper Height of

Woman Working Surface

4 feet 10 inches 27 inches

5 " 28 "

5 " 1 " 28| "

Height of

Woman

5 feet 2 inches

5 '

3 *

5 '

4 *

5 '

5 '

5 '

6 '

5 '

7 '

5 '

8 '

5 '

9 '

5 '

= 10 '

5 '

11 '

Proper Height of

Working Surface inches

29|

32|

Fortunately I have been able to have my drainboard changed from the right to the left of the sink, which is always the one best position for a drainboard. Now I pick up a plate with my left hand, scour it with the cloth held in the right hand, and lay the plate on the tray with my left hand, without changing hands or passing my left arm across my right arm. My left hand is capable of repeating the ''laying-down motion" very fast and very easily, while the right hand never drops the cloth, but scours one dish after another rapidly. Try it and see the difference it makes. Had I not been able to change the drainboard from right to left I might have wheeled a table to the left side of the sink. I also bought a wire dish-drainer costing 50 cents, and a soap-shaker, a dish-mop and a plate-scraper costing 10 cents each. Then I carefully separated the whole process into three operations: scraping and stacking, washing, drying and laying away.