| 21 Mar 2010 |
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Women & the Home Before World War One, a women’s place was ‘in the home’ and society expected married women to be homemakers and mothers. Looking after a house and a family was physically demanding and time-consuming, and middle-class families employed extra help to complete household chores.
The number of women in domestic service gradually decreased each decade after 1911, until the onset of World War Two (1939) when women were urged to turn their attentions away from the home to help with the war effort. After World War Two, employing domestic help was no longer affordable for many families and the wider employment opportunities available to women meant that the supply of women prepared to go into domestic service was greatly reduced.
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Many
unmarried women and girls were ‘in service’ and living in
the household of their employer. In the 1911 Census Returns, 1,865 females
were engaged in domestic service out of Walsall’s total female population
of 46,740. 
The
introduction of gas and electric household appliances meant that household
chores could be completed more quickly, without having to hire extra help.
Electric and gas fires caused less dirt than coal fires and the introduction
of the electric vacuum meant that any dirt or dust could be cleaned up
quickly and easily. Developments in washing-machine technology reduced
the amount of time and effort needed to complete the weekly wash and the
refrigerator meant that shopping could be done in bulk, rather than on
a daily basis.