Men in service were expected to dress in a manner that mirrored the formality of their employers (unlike women, who wore aprons) so that they looked, in some cases, as aristocratic as those who they served.

Sitting in a chair, dresed in a crisp white shirt and bowtie, a houseboy might be mistaken for a gentleman.

In his book The Saga of American Society, the American historian Dixon Wecter noted that for many American families, a servant conferred a certain kind of elite social standing. To many a parvenu, Dixon wrote, a well-trained servant is priceless not only on the score of efficiency, but because to have him in the house is a liberal education.

To the extent that some Irish men and women had trained among the British, the supposition was that the servant's presence in an American household might confer a kind of aristocratic authority.