For this section I have selected documents found in the SSC that can help to show us what the SSC collection holds. The first document is a mock contract, written by the Indiana Subcommittee. The document is titled “Suggested Standards for Household Employment”. The second document is a publication from the Subcommittee on Household Employment of Pennsylvania, that addresses employers, asking them questions about how they are treating their employees. The final two images are selected from the book in the fourth photo, a publication from the Chicago Subcommittee. While the YWCA records hold a vast variety of different documents, these documents show the connection to employers that the YWCA worked to foster. While all of these documents help employers to treat their employees better, they put the focus on the employers.

Indiana Subcommittee “Suggested Standards for Household Employment”:

Below this text you can view the two pages of the model contract written up by the Hammond, Indiana Subcommittee, providing a starting point for employers to base their employee contracts off of. This document gives the employer something to work off of. It gives them a good idea about how to set up their schedule and what wages are reasonable to certain skill sets. It works to really regulate these jobs so that domestic workers are not over worked, but these regulations are what employers were pushing back against as they felt they did not get enough room to set their own standards for employees.

Pennsylvania Subcommittee “Madame Employer”:

Below this text you can see a pamphlet for employers. It gives similar information as the model contact above, but in a more accessible, visually appealing way. It is a way in which the Subcommittee worked to reach out to employers, making the information easily readable, asking thought-provoking question and giving statistics aimed to make employers reconsider how they treat their employees.

Illinois Subcommittee: “The Women in the House”:

Below this text is a book published by the Chicago Subcommittee followed by two images of the text inside the book. This publication was another way of reaching out to employers in a more accessible way. The book runs through scenarios where situations went wrong, followed by questions asking the reader to think critically about the situation. This was beneficial to both domestic workers and employers as it worked to find ways to negotiate.

All documents courtesy of the YWCA of the USA, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.