Judge — December 22, 1888 — page 18: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Judge magazine cartoon satirizes the difficulty of hiring domestic servants in the late 19th/early 20th century. The image shows multiple women (likely representing different servant girls or "types") displayed as if in an employment agency or marketplace. The caption's ironic suggestion—establishing an "agency for Mistresses" instead of servants—implies that finding suitable household help was so problematic that it was easier to replace servants than to manage them properly. The joke blames servants' pickiness ("so hard to suit") for marriage failures, suggesting that poor domestic service disrupted household harmony. This reflects period anxieties about the "servant problem"—the growing difficulty wealthy households faced hiring and retaining domestic workers as labor became more available and working conditions elsewhere improved. The cartoon mocks employers' frustration while exposing class tensions underlying domestic labor dynamics.