February 2, 2015

"Tipping as an American practice stretches back centuries. 'There are records of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson giving tips to their slaves'..."

"... said Michael Lynn, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, who has studied changes in tipping habits. In the 1940s, he said, the average restaurant tip was about 10 percent. 'It’s very clear that tip sizes have increased over time,' he said, adding that he could not predict how high they would go."

From a NYT article titled "$3 Tip on a $4 Cup of Coffee? Gratuities Grow, Automatically."

So iPads are being used these days to prompt customers to give huge tips, but I was interested in the history of tipping and the tipping of slaves. I found "The Private Life of George Washington's Slaves":

A slave might receive a tip for special services. In the spring of 1768, when George Washington left the home of his brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett, he was probably acting properly when he left fifteen shillings and nine pence for the "Servants," who would have had extra duties to perform in caring for him or for any other houseguest. When a slave who belonged to overseer James Cleveland returned a horse to Mount Vernon in the summer of 1783, he received three shillings, which he could, presumably, spend as he wished. In 1785 Washington gave several slaves six shillings in gratitude for their assistance in getting his valet, William Lee, to the home of a friend, Dr. David Stuart, after Lee broke his kneecap while surveying with Washington. (It is unclear whether the people were from Mount Vernon or from Stuart's home, or if they just happened upon the accident.) Washington's contemporaries, benefitting from the help of one of his slaves, would quite likely have tipped them as well.

Where someone of Washington's social class paid a slave for service with cash, a person of lower rank might barter something in their possession. In 1784, for example, a young, indigent white woman stole from the wife of Charles MacIver, a Highland Scot living in Alexandria, garments including a dress (of Indian chintz with a white ground and red stripes) and an apron. The thief gave the dress and apron to one of Dr. Stuart's slaves in exchange for ferrying her across a body of water; the slave then gave the clothes to his wife.
That second link has other details about slaves making money, including by selling their teeth:
Since at least the end of the Middle Ages, poor people had often sold their teeth for use in both dentures and in tooth-transplant operations for those wealthy enough to afford the procedures. Sometimes the teeth were perfectly healthy; others were diseased and needed to be pulled anyway....

[I]n May of 1784, Washington paid several unnamed "Negroes," presumably Mount Vernon slaves, 122 shillings for nine teeth, slightly less than one-third the going rate advertised in the papers, "on acct. of the French Dentis [sic} Doctr. Lemay [sic]," almost certainly Le Moyer. Over the next four years, the dentist was a frequent and apparently favorite guest on the plantation. Whether the Mount Vernon slaves sold their teeth to the dentist for any patient who needed them or specifically for George Washington is unknown, although Washington's payment suggests that they were for his own use. Washington probably underwent the transplant procedure--"I confess I have been staggered in my belief in the efficacy of transplantion," he told Richard Varick, his friend and wartime clerk, in 1784--and thus it may well be that some of the human teeth implanted to improve his appearance, or used to manufacture his dentures, came from his own slaves.
Also, the slaves' dogs:
His slaves' ownership of dogs also troubled and economically threatened George Washington. They apparently trained the animals quite well. "It is astonishing to see the command under which their dogs are," Washington commented to his manager Anthony Whiting in 1792. Although the slaves probably kept the dogs ostensibly for hunting, both men felt that they used the dogs during "night robberies" to round up Mount Vernon sheep, which they then sold to certain outside "receivers." Washington and Whiting also feared that dogs might kill the sheep. Washington eventually ordered Whiting to decide which dog or dogs to keep on each farm, then kill all the others. Afterward, "if any negro presumes under any presence whatsoever, to preserve, or bring one into the family. . .," Washington proclaimed, "he shall be severely punished, and the dog hanged." Washington was not the only plantation owner to resort to such drastic measures; Thomas Jefferson, on at least one occasion, ordered the destruction of all dogs belonging to his slaves, while permitting his overseer to retain a pair for his own use. At least one of the condemned dogs was hung as a disciplinary warning to the Monticello slaves.

29 comments:

MadisonMan said...

I won't pay using an iPad. Cash all the way.

If you have to go out of your way to get cash -- I do -- then you're a little more circumspect in using it.

That's today's saving tip from MadisonMan. :)

LYNNDH said...

At a Restaurant I normally give 20% on pre tax amount. I don't tip fast food. If I have under $10 the amount of tip varies.

Scott said...

Like most gay men, I overtip at restaurants and barber shops -- $1 for every $5 on the bill. We know how hard it can be.

On the other hand, I won't put anything in the Starbucks tip bucket. This is a company that paid decent wages and offered its employees a health plan even before the government forced them to do so. And they're begging for tips? Please.

There is no functional difference between what Starbucks and Burger King and McDonald's employees do for a living. I'll start tipping at Starbucks when other fast food joints start begging for spare change as well.

paminwi said...

My goodness, I am agreeing with MM. I have gone to to using cash for all kinds of small transactions. No auto tipping for me. Also, even we charge a nice dinner, the tip is always in cash. Ask your server sometime if management takes something out of their tip if a credit card is used. Some places do. Cash makes sure the server gets the full tip. Tips in NYC cabs when visiting our kids are always in cash also.

traditionalguy said...

Good waiters are worth a minimum of a five dollar tip on a $20 dollar bill. It's not their fault that the prices are so low.

At the fine restaurant where the cost is 30 to 50 dollars per person, then revert a 20% tip, or 15% if service was lacking in something.



MadisonMan said...

@paminwi, I always tip in cash too, even if I pay for dinner on a credit/debit card (which is normal -- my first comment was more for penny-ante things like coffee). Every server/manager I've ever met, if I've asked them, has told me that's way preferred over credit card. With cash, the server gets it right away too. That's not always the case with a credit card tip.

Make your restaurant server's day: Leave them a tip in cash!

Scott said...

Tipping in cash vs. putting it on the bill: The IRS is forcing restaurants to pool tips so that the income can be reported. I have tipped in cash and paid the check with a debit card, but these days only to communicate to the waitron that I liked the service. But the fact is, a big tip won't significantly help the specific person serving you in many places.

Original Mike said...

Pay with an iPad? Not interested. I use cash almost exclusively.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Scott said...

Like most gay men, I overtip at restaurants and barber shops -- $1 for every $5 on the bill. We know how hard it can be.

So... are you saying waiters are treated so badly that they are taking it up the ass? That's the metaphor here?

Beldar said...

I have been fortunate in life compared to many, and I have never once begrudged or regretted an indulged impulse to give a larger-than-average tip when it's been earned. I have occasionally ignored or suppressed that impulse and felt bed about it after, though.

If you don't want to tip, don't. But you're shorting your server and yourself, if (but only if) a good tip has been earned.

Beldar said...

@ Scott: My daughter and several of my kids' young-adult friends have worked at Starbucks. You may be right that from your point of view, there's no functional difference between their work at Starbucks and an employee's work at McDonalds. But when people decide to go work at Starbucks instead of McDonalds, they absolutely, positively, as a matter of economic reality in current climes, take into account the fact that McDonalds customers don't tip, and Starbucks customers usually do.

My near-universal experience -- a completely subjective evaluation, but one in which I'm nevertheless confident, and that I'll bet many readers here share -- has been that Starbucks waitstaff is friendlier, more diligent, and more competent than their counterparts at McDonalds. The Starbucks employees are earning, in my estimation (and Starbuck's), the better benefits that go with both jobs' thin wages. And the customers get value from that.

So, with due respect: When you stiff your server at Starbucks, you've already gotten the benefit of a slightly different stratum of the work-force, whose members took their job with a reasonable expectations you've dashed. If you got a smile and a kind word or slightly better service at Starbucks that you wouldn't get at McDonalds, you've gotten the benefit of that economic difference, at the expense of those of us who do tip.

Universalize your actions, and soon there will be no difference between expectations of the workforces, or between levels of service. You might not regret that, but I would.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Expectations of a tip for a counter-service job are never reasonable expectations. If I don't tip in such a circumstance I have not stiffed anyone.

Scott said...

@Beldar

hahahahaha

"My near-universal experience -- a completely subjective evaluation, but one in which I'm nevertheless confident, and that I'll bet many readers here share -- has been that Starbucks waitstaff is friendlier, more diligent, and more competent than their counterparts at McDonalds."

They're a class of people you're more comfortable dealing with. Why, if they work at Starbucks, of course they must be better.

Do you know what "confirmation bias" is?

Shanna said...

I don't pay with my iphone and I don't have an ipad.

The GW tipping background regarding slaves is fascinating.

The bit about the dogs - I like dogs but my parents moved to the country and have had tons of sheep killed by roaming dogs, so I may be a bit more sympathetic to Washington on this point than I would previously have been...

Shanna said...

I always tip in cash too, even if I pay for dinner on a credit/debit card

I try to do this as well, although occasionally I will not have the cash on hand and tip on the card in that case. But this is why I am always suspicious of those 'poor me, this person didn't tip' articles going around periodically from waiters. How do I know that person didn't tip in cash?

Unknown said...

I confess. I hate tipping. I never do it. I'm not in an economic position to do it, having lost income rapidly under the current feckless leadership of the nation (including, most recently, a 40% increase in insurance costs that I am losing ground every month trying to keep up with), but I never liked it whether I was comparatively well off or not.

I dislike the cost of tipping and I dislike the expectation of it and I dislike feeling as if I'm somehow short changing someone by not doing it. I manage this easily enough by never going anywhere that tipping is expected. Problem solved. If you live in such rosy circumstances that you take a dim view of my behavior, a fuller account will make me look even worse. In my second, part time, job I rely on tips for about 20% of my income. I accept them gladly, though I never solicit them.

I can tell you (anyone who works for tips easily can) that there are many people who never tip. I can tell with good accuracy who is going to tip as soon as I see them. Because of my own preference never to seek service where tipping is expected, I identify with them even though I had much rather see the other sort. I wondered at first, this being my first experience working where tipping is part of the picture, whether common beliefs about who tips and who doesn't would bear up under scrutiny. For the most part they do.

There are occasional surprises. I would be one of them, should I ever switch places at my job and become the customer, since I am as likely to the stereotyped as anyone else walking around. Anyone would think to look at me that I'd be pulling something extra out of my wallet. This increases the expectation of a tip in places where I am the customer. I avoid them like a disease.

Shanna said...

Starbucks waitstaff is friendlier, more diligent, and more competent than their counterparts at McDonalds

But this is also true of the staff at Chick Fil A. So, we might be talking about something other than money...

Scott M said...

If you're going to tip a slave, you have to sneak up on them while they're sleeping. Otherwise you could get trampled.

Ann Althouse said...

On servants and tips — from Bryson, Bill (2010-10-05). At Home: A Short History of Private Life (pp. 98-99). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition:

"Servants often made pretty good money from tips, too. It was usual when departing from a dinner party to have to pass a line of five or six footmen, each expecting his shilling, making a dinner out a very expensive business for everyone but the servants. Weekend guests were expected to be lavish in their tips, too. Servants also made money from showing visitors around."

PB said...

"It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping." Vincent "Vinnie" Antonelli (Steve Martin's character in My Blue Heaven).

Beldar said...

@ Scott: Relish, then, for what it gets you, your satisfaction in not tipping. We disagree.

Scott said...

Confirmation bias in a nutshell.

Captcha: iater

HoodlumDoodlum said...

It's always refreshing to see people appreciating subtle and surprising facts about historical topics (especially difficult ones); thanks for sharing those excerpts, Professor.

I remember not too long ago overhearing an argument between a grad student (hisotry of pollitical science I think) and his tablemate about slaves in SC in the 1840s saving money and pooling funds as a community--the other fellow wouldn't allow himself to believe that such a thing was possible. "No one paid slaves anything, jackass, they were slaves" was the phrase, if I reacall correctly.

MountainMan said...

Relatiionships between slaves and their owners could be quite interesitng. I am distantly related to a man named Ephraim Graham Ponder who, prior to 1860, lived in Thomasville, GA. He owned several slaves who were highly skilled craftsmen. When they were not working for him they were allowed ot hire themselves out and keep the money for themselves. One of these slaves was a leather worker and carriage trimmer named Festus Flipper.

Around 1860 Ponder decided to purchase a plantatinon just outside Atlanta. This caused Flipper a problem as his wife and sons were owned by a Methodist minister. He worked out a deal with Ponder where Flipper gave him the money to buy his family so they could move with them.

As the Union Army approached Atlanta in 1864 both Ponder and his wife fled their Atlanta home (separately, as their marriage had fallen apart). Flipper stayed behind and was left in charge of the property. The big white house, which sat just outside the NW corner of the Atlanta defenses, is famous today in photographs as "The Snipers Nest" as Rebel sharpshooters used it as a perch to take shots at the Union troops camped out nearby. The house sat on the west side of what today is the Ga Tech campus.

After the war, Flipper stayed in Atlanta and opened a leather and shoe repair business. He hired the wife of a former Conderate officer to tutor his five sons. The second son, Henry Ossian Flipper, would go on later to become the first African-American to graduate from West Point.

MadisonMan said...

Weekend guests were expected to be lavish in their tips, too.

I like the scene in Gosford Park where Aunt Constance is doling out tips into envelopes, complaining about the expense.

(I doesn't hurt that Maggie Smith played Aunt Constance).

kzookitty said...

My rule of thumb:
Order sitting - tip
Order standing - no tip

I had a server at a BK once: "yo, aintcha gonna spot me your change?"

kzookitty

David said...

The slaves teeth would likely have been in much better condition than Washington's. The upper classes put a lot of sugar in their mouths, chewing on cane among other things. Slaves did not have that luxury. Anthropologists can deduce the economic class of colonial Americans by several characteristics of their remains. The better the teeth, the more likely the person was poor.

David said...

Though it was against the law, slaves often made money by selling goods or services. This was especially true in towns and cities, but at one time or another many slaves had a chance to earn a little cash. Very little of course. The slave who could save enough to buy his or her freedom was exceedingly rare, though it did happen occasionally.



rhhardin said...

If you tip a barista, she just spends the money on more nose rings, Mike Munger points out.