In Service in an Urban Ontario Household, ca. 1898.
In adolescence, many immigrant girls left the informality of rural placements for the strict hierarchy and starched uniforms of domestic service in towns and cities. The thirteen-year-old pictured here did not remain in service but left in 1906 to train as a nurse in New York state, graduating successfully in 1909. Because nursing required no tuition expenses, only the purchase of uniforms and books, it was one profession that was accessible to limited numbers of home children.
