American Experience

Interview with Mrs. Marie Haggerty, Maid

Interviewee: Mrs. Marie Haggerty
Age: 72 years old
Occupation: Maid
Location: 63 Austin Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Date: February 20, 1939
Interviewer: Mrs. Emily Moore

Interview Excerpt: "When you worked as a maid, did you mainly do housework?"

But my dear, it wasn't housework I did.. I was a nurse maid or a second girl -- never just an ordinary girl out to service... You got hired by your looks and even if you looked honest, they would test you out. Why, once I was making up a bed, and right beside the bed was a five dollar bill. I knowed nobody dropped that for nuthin', so I didn't know if I should pick it up and tell them, or what, but my face burnt like fire, for I knowed I was gettin' tested.

Excerpt from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writer's Project Collection, Transcript #15010211.

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