In 1874, an article in The New York Times addressed the influx of Irish immigrants as a crisis to be managed—and a group to be infantilized. 

The Irish peasantry makes capital servants, but they are to be treated, not as equals, nor again as slaves or animals—but rather as children. 

Such disdain was, sadly, more common than not in the homes of the elite. 

For generations, it was the custom in many large houses for servants to hide their faces when their employers entered the room—as though labor itself was shameful. 

The idea conjures a preternatural stillness, bodies hovering in doorways, invisible and inert. You played your role by playing along. 

Obedience, observed one chambermaid, is rooted in my character.