An assistant or servant.
1645. Such of his servants and helps as have been employed about ye attendance of ye court.—‘Mass. Col. Records,’ ii. 139 (Bartlett).
1815. Our kitchen-girls (ladies, I should say, for that, nephew, is the appellation to which you are more accustomed,) rival their mistresses in the splendour of their dresses, and have already begun to have their routs and tea-parties…. If our friends knock at the door, our lady and gentleman “hired helps” do not understand who is meant when their master is inquired for, and [do not] comprehend what is wanted when our visitors ask for a Servant.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 23.
1817. House-slaves are called “servants,” and the words “slave” and “servant” are in many places synonymous.—M. Birkbeck, ‘Journey in America,’ p. 178 (Phila.).
1819. I’m s’prised to find you making cheese, when you are so abundantly able to hire help.—Mass. Spy, July 28: from The Connecticut Courant.
1825. All of whom, though two were servants, or ‘helps,’ ate of the same fare, at the same table; and sat in the same best rooms.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 18.
1832. The greatest difficulty in organizing a family establishment in Ohio, is getting servants, or, as it is there called, “getting help,” for it is more than petty treason to the Republic, to call a free citizen a servant.—Mrs. Trollope, ‘Domestic Manners of the Americans,’ i. 73.
1835. Two dollars a week are commonly given here for a female help.—A. Reed and J. Matheson, ‘Visit to America,’ i. 166.
1836. A gentleman by the name of Glover advertised in the [N.Y.] Sun for a help.—Phila. Public Ledger, Nov. 12.
1842. The first week our new ‘help’ fully equalled our wishes.—Knick. Mag., xix. 524 (June).
1850. Our ‘help’ told it to the neighbor’s ‘help,’ who of course told it to our neighbor’s wife.—Donald G. Mitchell, ‘The Lorgnette,’ ii. 169 (1852).
1855. There is no class so destitute of help, as the Yankees call it, as the wives and mothers of Oregon.—Weekly Oregonian, Jan. 6.
1858. Our ‘help,’ a buxom Irish girl, has a very devoted lover down East, who writes such ‘lofty’ letters to her, that they are entirely above her comprehension.—Knick. Mag., li. 541 (May). (Italics in the original.)
1858. ‘We call our servants, Sir, Helps. They air not oppressed: they air not Russian scurfs.’—Id., lii. 534 (Nov.). (Italics in the original.)
1859. The Yankee farmer cannot employ slave labor. He is accustomed to associate with “helps”; he has never learned to play the part of a master.—Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 30, p. 2/1.
1860. Children often make use of odd words and phrases, which they have carefully remembered from the indiscriminate remarks of the help, to whom in many families they are at times necessarily confided.—Id., lv. 105 (Jan.).
1860. Oh, I must be a-goin’,—it’s time; my help will be standin’ on her head by this time, like enough.—Atlantic Monthly, vi. p. 599/1 (Nov.).
1878. Land! if you want to know folks, just hire out to ’em! They take their wigs off afore the help, so to speak, seemin’ly.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Happy Dodd,’ chap. xvi.
1909. Book Agent. “Madam, here is an admirable work I have on how to manage servants.” Housewife. “Don’t want it. You cant get any help in this town to manage.” Book Agent. “Then here is a still better series on self-help.”—Baltimore American, April.
