The housekeeper of 1960s was usually brought into the household to help the woman of the house, whether she worked or not. The housekeeper’s duties might include cooking, cleaning, ironing, laundry, running errands, grocery shopping, and child-minding.  She may have worked anywhere from one day to five or six days a week.  In some situations, she lived with the employer’s family, seeing her family only on her day(s) off; in other circumstances, she worked long hours, sometimes just a couple of days a week, but returned home each evening to her own family.


For many adults and children of the 1960s, the housekeeper also played a role of complex emotional significance. Her frequent, if not daily presence in her employer’s home meant that she was not only privy to most everything going on in the family, but that she was a regular presence around the children.  In some families, she may have been the emotionally available adult, or the physically available adult, a confidant or a friend.  Sometimes a bond was established with all of the children, but more often, the strongest relationship existed between the housekeeper and just one of them.


And then there was the housekeeper’s own world, which included a husband and/or children, from whom she was necessarily absent much of the week, and her friends and community . . . all of which her employers, in many cases, knew very little.


They all have stories to tell and we look forward to sharing them with you in Under One Roof.

relationship diagram

How did the complex relationships that existed Under One Roof between blacks and whites in the North in the era of the Civil Rights Movement lead to the development of intimate bonds, raise questions about the meaning of family, influence views on race, and stir strong emotions that have lasted a lifetime?