Domestic service and female domestic servants: A port-city comparison of Bremen and Liverpool, 1850-1914

The author analyzes the development of domestic service in Bremen and Liverpool as two examples of major commercial ports in the 19th century characterized by significant merchant wealth and casual, dock-related employment. The migration pattern and age structure of domestic servants are examined and key aspects of their employment history are explored in terms of residential location, length of service, and social background of their employers. Census data are used for both port cities (drawing, in particular on the relational database currently being constructed for the Liverpool Mercantile Project), together with the Bremen civil registers for marriages and deaths, and qualitative material, such as diaries and autobiographies from members of the merchant class. By developing an explicitly comparative analysis within the framework of an established typology the article provides a basis for assessing the extent to which the nature of domestic service in the two port cities, as well as the recruitment and retention of domestic servants, was determined by similarities in the growth of merchant wealth and culture or by distinct regional or national characteristics in the underlying pattern of urban migration.