Day: November 6, 2025

Built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, The Breakers was completed in 1895 and served as a summer home for the Vanderbilts, one of America’s wealthiest families during the Gilded Age.

Spanning 138,300 square feet and comprising 70 rooms, The Breakers required constant upkeep and a large staff to maintain it.

At its height, about 33 servants worked inside the home performing domestic tasks, while another 25 worked outside, maintaining the gardens and grounds.

During the Gilded Age, many servants would come from Western European countries, such as Ireland, England, and Scotland, to work for American families, according to the Driehaus Museum.

Household servants during the Gilded Age typically worked between 12- and 15-hour days, with the working day starting at around 6 a.m. and ending whenever the family retired for bed. If they were entertaining guests, this could be in the early hours of the morning.

Most servants lived in the homes where they worked, making it difficult or impossible for them to have romantic relationships outside the estate, have children, or pursue other jobs.

Wages were also meager, but boarding and food were most often included in a servant’s salary.

According to the National Park Service, housemaids at Hyde Park, another Gilded Age mansion owned by the Vanderbilt family in Upstate New York, earned $18 to $25 per month, while the chef earned between $100 and $180 a month.

The kitchen at The Breakers was designed to feed not only the Vanderbilt family, but also the hundreds of guests they entertained from across Newport, New England, and beyond.

The Breakers’ kitchen lacked many modern conveniences, such as electric refrigerators or dishwashers, but it was elaborate in its scale — the 21-foot-long stove powered by coal was capable of cooking multiple dishes simultaneously.

The kitchen was staffed by a team of cooks who prepared food in the French style, as was fashionable at the time, and a separate pastry room allowed an “army” of pastry chefs to provide desserts for the mansion’s grand parties, according to Newport Mansions.

When food was ready to be served to guests, it would be taken into the butler’s pantry, which adjoined the main kitchen.

The door between the two rooms was always kept shut to keep out the noise and chaos of dinner preparation, and a window inside the door allowed dishes to be passed through.

A dumbwaiter between the main floor of the butler’s pantry and a mezzanine above allowed fine china to be brought down. Afterward, a butler would plate and garnish the dishes.

In a Gilded Age mansion, the butler oversaw the dining room and pantry, managed the wine and caretaking of the silver, and directed the work of the footmen and other male household staff.

Fans of the show “The Gilded Age” might recognize the main kitchen space, as it served as the kitchen for the Russell family.

Roughly 40 servants worked in the home, living on the third floor of The Elms mansion. Hierarchy in the typical Gilded Age kitchen included a head chef, cooks, and a kitchen maid to assist with meal preparations, according to the National Park Service.

While chefs designed the menus, cooks performed more hands-on cooking tasks, such as chopping vegetables or preparing cuts of meat. They also cooked all the meals for the servants living in the mansion.

Fans of the show “The Gilded Age” might recognize the main kitchen space, as it served as the kitchen for the Russell family in the series.

The large coal-run stove in the main kitchen could generate a lot of heat, so a separate kitchen was used to prepare cold and room-temperature dishes.

In addition to cooking and serving food, other tasks for household servants, like chambermaids and parlor maids during the Gilded Age, included cleaning and dusting all of the main living spaces, stripping beds, laying out clothes, and doing laundry if there was no laundress.

Higher-class families might also have a ladies’ maid for their daughters as they reached maturity.

At estates like the Biltmore in North Carolina, ladies’ maids didn’t handle general household chores; instead, they dressed their employers, styled their hair, and joined them on daily outings.

In the pantry, a butler would plate, add finishing touches to dishes, and then send them up to servers on the dining room floor through a dumbwaiter.

During the Gilded Age, the butler was considered the highest-ranking member of the male staff, above the footmen and houseboys.

The male head of the household might also have a valet, who was responsible for making travel arrangements, dressing and undressing him each day, and maintaining his wardrobe.

The head housekeeper, however, was considered the highest-ranking servant overall, tasked with hiring and firing employees, paying bills, and managing the entire staff, according to the Biltmore.

Originally built in 1910 as a modest cottage, the home was expanded and renovated in 1936 to become a 24-room mansion, featuring a staff of 36 servants.

The kitchen, which is much smaller than that of The Breakers or The Elms, is shown to be much more modern, given its later time period.

The kitchen was also located on the same floor as the dining room, allowing staff members to easily take dishes in and out of the main living area.

Staatsburgh was owned by New York financier Ogden Mills and his wife, Ruth Livingston Mills, a popular socialite of the time.

The home was completed in 1896 and spanned a whopping 30,000 square feet, necessitating a large staff to maintain the house.

The butler’s pantry was located on the same floor as the main dining room, above the kitchen below.

However, a “speaking tube” between the two floors allowed staff to communicate and send food from the kitchen upstairs to waiting staff through a dumbwaiter in the butler’s pantry.

At Hyde Park, chambermaids’ schedules were demanding, though they received short daily breaks, one afternoon and evening off each week, and a half-day every other Sunday.

While it was typical for servants to live in the homes where they worked, they sometimes had to share a room with at least one other person.

Some servants lived in small rooms on the upper floors or even in the attic, while others, like those at Staatsburgh, were more centrally located.

Female servants, such as maids and kitchen staff, occupied rooms on the third floor, whereas male staff, such as footmen and butlers, slept in quarters located on the lower level.

Maids started working as young as 14 or 15 years old, and kitchen or scullery maids, who were the lowest-ranking servants in a Gilded Age household, were girls in their early teens. Higher positions, such as head housekeeper, butler, or valet, were typically held by older staff members.

In this recreated maids’ room, you can see the typical furnishings for a Gilded Age-era servant, including a bed, wash basin, chair, and wardrobe.