Servants were once required to perform many tasks that would be seen as unnecessary today. They ironed newspapers that had been read, making them 'like new' again for the next reader. They polished perfume bottles on Milady's dressing table, leaving no fingermarks whatever. They squeezed out the preferred amount of toothpaste onto Sir's toothbrush, and ran his bath water at precisely the temperature he liked.
The reason for all this was job justification. A hundred years ago, most servants - in both grand households and humble ones - were live-in, getting room and board as well as payment. Given that simple survival was fairly iffy for poorer people, servant's jobs were considered very desirable - whatever the downsides, you weren't on a farm or in a coal mine or starving in Whitechapel. And given that a servant could be dismissed for any reason or no reason at all - without recourse - it was natural to make good and damned certain that your employers got plenty of positive proofs of your devotion to their well-being.
In grand houses, such services were instituted by the butler, who had overall executive responsibility for the house. In smaller houses in large cities like London, simple fear of the street was often the motivator; for a young, uneducated lower-class woman, the choice was often between being comparatively warm and safe - if somewhat overworked - in someone's house, or prostitution. It is very hard to be "decent" in a truly impoverished environment, and many a servant accepted almost incredible amounts of abuse to avoid such a fate. If you want to know more about the lot of a servant in a small house, look up the Lizzie Borden murder case in Fall River, Massachusetts - the Bordens' "hired girl," Bridget Sullivan, had been ordered to wash windows on the 100-degree day of the killings in August, 1892, in addition to all her other duties.
Some vestiges of yesteryear's services like turn-downs survive for reasons similar to those for which they were created - to make guests feel cared-for, and therefore more content with spending the money they are splashing out on lodging.
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