Below is a 1905 report about a nine-year-old girl who is placed into servitude for $5 a year. That money goes to her “father.”
The whole situation reads like an incel’s wet dream. (I’ve read the crap posted on Parlor and this sort of stuff is right up their alley.)
Leases Child for $5 a Year
Freeport, Ill. — Grace a. Bolander, a nine-year-old girl, binds herself to serve a seven-year apprenticeship to the housekeeping art, and will take her lessons from Jacob Lauck, according to a unique paper that has been filed with the recorder of Stephenson County.
Grace is the daughter of Frank J. and Hattie E. Bolander. All the parties to the agreements are residents of Rock Grove.
In the paper that has been placed on record, the girl binds herself to serve in the Lauck household until she is 16 years old.
During that time she is to:
Serve her master faithfully, honestly and industriously, to keep his secrets and obey his command.
The party of the first part agrees to teach the art of housekeeping, to have her instructed in the “ground rules of arithmetic,”
and at the end of her apprenticeship, to give her $20, a new Bible, and two dresses.
Aside from this, the father of the girl is to receive $5 a year for the service of the child.
Source: The Grenada sentinel. (Grenada, Miss.), 07 Jan. 1905.
