Settling In: Women, Immigration, and Domestic Work in Early 20th Century Toronto

Domestic service was the most popular occupation for women who emigrated to Canada in the early 20th century. 

A domestic servant, someone who worked in a family’s home to assist with cleaning, cooking, or other household duties, was one of the most common female professions in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With few other employment opportunities available to them, almost half of Canadian working women in the 1890s worked as domestic servants.

But even this high figure could not meet the demand for household help. Women from other countries, particularly Great Britain, were encouraged to immigrate to Canada based on the availability of domestic work. Recruitment campaigns took many forms, including one pamphlet from 1920 which claimed that Ontario was nearly identical to Britain in culture, tradition, and even landscape. These campaigns were hugely successful: approximately 170,000 British women immigrated to Canada between 1900 and 1930 to work as domestic servants.

Women’s groups in Toronto offered services to assist British women who had emigrated to work as domestic servants.

Toronto was an important hub for British domestic servants, as numerous local church and women’s groups organized assistance for British immigrant women. The most important form of assistance was the hostel, which offered short-term boarding, where newly arrived women could begin to settle themselves.

In 1905, Toronto’s Local Council of Women established the Women’s Welcome Hostel at 66 Wellesley Street. It offered free room and board for British domestic servants. After 1911, the hostel moved to 52 St. Alban’s Street.

By the late 1920s, the Hostel began to serve only Protestant British immigrants, as in 1923 the Catholic Women’s Hostel had been established by the Sisters of Service at 4 Wellesley Place.

In their earliest years, hostels did not usually offer training or assistance in finding jobs or acclimatizing to Canadian society. Instead, they were important locations for socializing and provided a place for servants to return if they were sick or between jobs. Many newly arrived servants had homemaking experience in their home countries, and this was considered to be the only education required for the role.

Women working as domestic servants often organized courses and other professional training opportunities for themselves and others in service.

Many domestic servants received little to no training for their work, and classes on related skills, such as cleaning or cooking, were often unavailable. In 1886 a domestic servant wrote to the Toronto Globe and suggested that an association for servants be established to provide mutual support. If each worker paid a small monthly fee, they could look after each other in times of need or receive training via classes on cookery and laundry work.

By 1919, a group of Calgary housekeepers had established such an organization. They requested more privileges from their employers in exchange for taking a public school cooking course. However, it was later reported that “the young women who took the course felt it was too simple after their practical experience.” Eventually, more formal training options aimed at new servants became available.

Some domestic servants did seek out additional training, but not for the sole purpose of bettering their working lives. One Toronto domestic enrolled in various night classes at Danforth Technical School where she studied cooking, nursing, and first aid. With these new skills, she eventually left domestic service to become a nurse. 

Social reformers established the field of Domestic Science in the late 1800s.

In 1896, the University of Toronto began offering classes to train teachers in a new discipline known as Domestic Science, which often included cooking, cleaning, and nursing. Several years later, Lillian Massey, heiress to the Massey family and advocate for Domestic Science, donated significant funding to established the Lillian Massey School of Domestic Science and Art.

Other Domestic Science resources emerged around this time in Canada. An 1898 textbook by social reformer Adelaide Hoodless focused on cooking, nutrition, and hygiene. While much of the book contains recipes and instructions for food preparation, it also provides a great deal of information about basic chemistry and nutrients as they were understood at the time.

Hoodless offered many suggestions to teachers using the book. They were encouraged to stress the importance of personal cleanliness, insisting that hands were carefully washed and hair tucked under a cap. On the subject of frugality, Hoodless additionally recommended teaching recipes seasonally, when ingredients would be the most abundant and inexpensive.

Hygiene, nutrition, and economy formed the basis of most future domestic training programs and guides. Beginning in the 1920s, education based on the Domestic Science philosophy became much more accessible to immigrant domestic servants through a variety of methods.

The 1920s brought a new emphasis on labour-saving devices as the number of domestic servants began to decline.

Recruitment literature aimed at bringing British women to Canada began to stress the differences between British and Canadian homes, tastes, and necessary domestic skills.

In the past, many domestic servants were expected to become familiar with Canadian homemaking methods, appliances, and food preparation when they took up their new positions. However, the new decade ushered in a variety of classes that encouraged women to train in advance for their roles; these courses were offered at Toronto hostels, churches, the YWCA, and through the Girl’s Friendly Society’s lodge on Charles Street.

The Girls’ Friendly Society (GFS) was established in Britain in 1875 as part of a social reform project designed to encourage traditional values and moral behaviour, and ultimately train girls and young women to become ideal wives and mothers. Within a decade, GFS branches were present in Canada as well as other parts of the British Empire. Leadership often encouraged working-class members to seek work in domestic service, nursing, or teaching.

Courses in domestic skills often highlighted new appliances and labour saving devices through pictures, film, or in-person demonstrations. These inventions included electric egg beaters, toasters, washing machines, irons, telephones, and most importantly, the vacuum cleaner.

One of the most popular and recommended cookbooks of the era was Nellie Lyle Pattinson’s Canadian Cook Book.

Nellie Lyle Pattinson (1878-1953) graduated from the University of Toronto’s Household Sciences Department in 1907 and went on to teach chemistry courses there. In 1915, she began to teach Domestic Science at the newly established Central Technical School, and was later promoted to director of the department.

Published in 1923, Pattinson’s Canadian Cook Book was designed to be used in cooking classes. As a result, it is very thorough and precise in regards to measurements, cooking times and temperatures. Many cookbooks of the era, including the popular Five Roses Cook Book, assumed that the user would be an experienced cook. Rather than including detailed instructions for each recipe, the books would sometimes only provide a list of ingredients.

Canadian Cook Book also had a strong focus on nutrition. For example, a section near the front defines and describes exactly what protein is, and which foods are the best sources for both complete and incomplete proteins. The approach taken by this cookbook ensured that even if a newly arrived domestic worker was not formally trained, she could quickly become familiar with Canadian nutritional requirements.

By the 1930s, other newcomer groups established resources for domestic servants in Toronto.

By the early 1930s, a quarter of immigrant domestics to Ontario were from Scandinavia, Eastern, and Central Europe. For women in many of these countries, agreeing to seek work as a servant or farm labourer was the only path to a new life in Canada.

The Canadian government encouraged Scandinavian and Finnish women to come to Canada as domestic workers. Large cities such as Toronto and Montreal were often attractive to prospective newcomers due to established Finnish communities that provided settlement assistance.

Domestic service was the most common occupation for Finnish immigrant women in Canada during the 1930s. As a result, many established Finnish communities scheduled social events, church services, and English classes to coincide with when servants had the day off. The Toronto branch of the socialist Finnish Organization of Canada allowed domestics to use their space at the Don Hall (957 Broadview Avenue) for group meetings.

Many of the domestic science classes established earlier through organizations such as the YWCA, GFS, or local technical schools would have still been available at this time. However, despite the availability of training courses, some servants felt that they did not have enough free time to attend classes or club meetings. As a result, many Finnish domestic servants primarily received their training on the job.

Meals for domestic servants were provided by employers, and these meals were how many domestics first learned about how Canadians liked to eat. They were introduced to new fruit, vegetables, and white bread, as well as the Canadian preference for smaller portion sizes. Many Finnish domestics hailed from rural areas where meals were as hearty as possible, and found themselves disappointed with the smaller meals offered in urban Canadian homes.