ABSTRACT
In our day at last, we are hearing the woman’s side of the human story told, not as in Pamela and Moll Flanders by men, but by women. The heroine of this singing biography—and she is heroic—takes us into the little-known world of the serving maids and working-class women of middle America early in this century. Jennie Devlin was everybody’s slavey, and many were the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that fell upon her. Her staying power reminds one of the indomitable protagonists of Great Expectations and of Moll Flanders. Indeed, the account of how this unwanted waif became a serving maid, survived her bitter destiny, found a mate, and managed to raise a family has a true Dickensian flavor.
