the.com/governess
hired into a family yet belonging to neither servants nor masters, fluent in awkward
means A woman employed to educate and care for children in a private household, typically living with the family.
from From 'govern' (via Old French 'governer', from Latin 'gubernare', 'to steer a ship') plus the feminine ending '-ess'. The word once simply meant a female governor or ruler — a queen could be called a governess of her realm — before it narrowed, by the 18th century, to the woman who steered children through their lessons rather than nations through their wars.
- social limbo
- Too genteel for the kitchen, too poor for the parlor
- bronte fuel
- Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey were both governesses
- victorian glut
- 25,000 in England by the 1850s census
- job description
- Refinement, languages, and obedience for servant wages
- royal upgrade
- Queen Victoria's children had a literal palace governess
jane eyre — charlotte brontë's 1847 novel protagonist, governess at thornfield hall
anna karenina governess — character in tolstoy's 1877 novel, governess to vronsky's household
sound of music — 1965 film where maria von trapp works as governess to 7 children in austria