Irish Workers at Salem’s Phillips House

For St. Patrick’s Day, we’re revisiting a story from the Fall 2007 issue of Historic New England magazine that highlights the Irish men and women who worked in the Phillips household in the early twentieth century. Like many prosperous American families of the period, the Phillipses depended on a skilled domestic staff to keep their busy home running smoothly. Many of those employees were Irish immigrants whose long service left a lasting mark on life at 34 Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts.

The Phillips family’s home at 34 Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts, operated with the help of a substantial domestic staff, reflecting a pattern common among affluent American households in the early twentieth century. Managing a large house and an active social calendar required a carefully organized division of labor, with workers responsible for childcare, cooking, dining service, transportation, and maintaining the grounds.

Many of the Phillips family’s employees were Irish immigrants or Irish Americans, part of a larger wave of workers who filled domestic service positions across the United States during this period. In 1919, three Irish-born women lived in the home’s third floor servants’ quarters and handled much of the indoor work. Domestic service typically attracted young, unmarried women who received room and board along with their wages and often remained in such jobs only until marriage. Some members of the Phillips staff, however, built long careers in the household.

One of the most notable was Catherine Shaughnessy, hired in 1910 as nursemaid to the Phillipses’ young son. Over time, she took on additional responsibilities in the house and ultimately remained with the family for more than fifty years. Another long-serving employee, Delia Cawley, oversaw the dining room and pantry as a waitress. While certain positions, such as cook, experienced more frequent turnover, these lengthy tenures demonstrate the close and often enduring professional relationships that could develop within domestic service.

Irish American men also played key roles in maintaining the property and supporting the family’s transportation needs. Cornelius Flynn first worked as the Phillips family’s coachman and later continued as caretaker and groundskeeper well into the age of automobiles. Chauffeurs, including Patrick O’Hara and Clarence Sullivan, managed and drove the family’s motorcars, reflecting the growing importance of mechanical skill in domestic employment.

Taken together, the experiences of these workers illustrate how immigrant labor sustained the routines of a prominent household while also adapting to social and technological changes in the early twentieth century.

Read the full story in our magazine archive.