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The uncomfortable truth about tipping, explained with stick figures.

It's about time we got to the bottom of this.

This post was originally published on Wait But Why.

Tipping is not about generosity.

Tipping isn’t about gratitude for good service. And tipping certainly isn’t about doing what’s right and fair for your fellow man.


Tipping is about making sure you don’t mess up what you’re supposed to do.

In my case, the story goes like this: In college, I was a waiter at a weird restaurant called Fire and Ice. This is the front page of their website (FYI: those lame word labels are on the site, not added by me):

All photos are from the original Wait But Why post and used with permission.

That sad guy in the back is one of the waiters. He’s sad because he gets no salary and relies on tips like every other waiter, but people undertip him because at this restaurant they get their own food so they think he’s not a real waiter even though he has to bring them all their drinks and side dishes and give them a full tour of the restaurant and tell them how it works like a clown and then bus the table because they have no busboys at the restaurant and just when the last thing he needs is for the managers to be mean and powerful middle-aged women who are mean to him, that’s what also happens.

Bad life experiences aside, the larger point here is that I came out of my time as a waiter as a really good tipper, like all people who have ever worked in a job that involves tipping. And friends of mine would sometimes notice this and say sentences like, “Tim is a really good tipper.”

My ego took a liking to these sentences, and now 10 years later, I’ve positioned myself right in the “good but not ridiculously good tipper” category.

So anytime a tipping situation arises, all I’m thinking is, “What would a good but not ridiculously good tipper do here?”

Sometimes I know exactly what the answer to that question is, and things run smoothly. But other times, I find myself in the dreaded Ambiguous Tipping Situation.

Ambiguous Tipping Situations can lead to a variety of disasters:

1. The Inadvertent Undertip

2. The Inadvertent Overtip

3. The “Shit Am I Supposed To Tip Or Not?” Horror Moment

I don’t want to live this way anymore. So , I decided to do something about it.

I put on my Weird But Earnest Guy Doing a Survey About Something hat and hit the streets, interviewing 123 people working in New York jobs that involve tipping. My interviews included waiters, bartenders, baristas, manicurists, barbers, busboys, bellhops, valets, attendants, cab drivers, restaurant delivery people, and even some people who don’t get tipped but I’m not sure why, like acupuncturists and dental hygienists.

I covered a bunch of different areas in New York, including SoHo, the Lower East Side, Harlem, the Upper East Side, and the Financial District, and I tried to capture a wide range, from the fanciest places to the dive-iest.

About 10% of the interviews ended after seven seconds when people were displeased by my presence and I’d slowly back out of the room, but for the most part, people were happy to talk to me about tipping — how much they received, how often, how it varied among customer demographics, how large a portion of their income tipping made up, etc. And it turns out that service industry workers have a lot to say on the topic.

I supplemented my findings with the help of a bunch of readers who wrote with detailed information about their own experiences and with a large amount of research, especially from the website of Wm. Michael Lynn, a leading tipping expert.

So I know stuff about this now. Here’s what you need to know before you tip someone.

1. The stats.

The most critical step in avoiding Ambiguous Tipping Situations is just knowing what you’re supposed to do. I took all the stats that seem to have a broad consensus on them and put them into this table:

This table nicely fills in key gaps in my previous knowledge. The basic idea with the low/average/high tipping levels used above is that if you’re in the average range, you’re fine and forgotten. If you’re in the low or high range, you’re noticed and remembered. And service workers have memories like elephants.

2. What tipping well (or not well) means for your budget.

Since tipping is such a large part of life, it seems like we should stop to actually understand what being a low, average, or high tipper means for our budget.

Looking at it simply, you can do some quick math and figure out one portion of your budget. For example, maybe you think you have 100 restaurant meals a year at about $25/meal — so according to the above chart, being a low, average, and high restaurant tipper all year will cost you $350 (14% tips), $450 (18% tips), and $550 (22% tips) a year. In this example, it costs a low tipper $100/year to become an average tipper and an average tipper $100/year to become a high tipper.

I got a little more comprehensive and came up with three rough profiles: Low Spender, Mid Spender, and High Spender. These vary both in the frequency of times they go to a restaurant or bar or hotel, etc., and the fanciness of the services they go to — i.e., High Spender goes to fancy restaurants and does so often and Low Spender goes out to eat less often and goes to cheaper places. I did this to cover the extremes and the middle; you’re probably somewhere in between.

3. Other factors that should influence specific tipping decisions.

One thing my interviews made clear is that there’s this whole group of situation-related factors that service industry workers think are super relevant to the amount you should tip — it’s just that customers never got the memo. Most customers have their standard tip amount in mind and don’t really think about it much beyond that.

Here’s what service workers want you to consider when you tip them:

Time matters. Sometimes a bartender cracks open eight bottles of beer, which takes 12 seconds, and sometimes she makes eight multi-ingredient cocktails with olives and a whole umbrella scene on each, which takes four minutes, and those two orders should not be tipped equally, even though they might cost the same amount.

Effort matters. Food delivery guys are undertipped. They’re like a waiter, except your table is on the other side of the city. $2 really isn’t a sufficient tip (and one delivery guy I talked to said 20% of people tip nothing). $3 or $4 is much better. And when it’s storming outside? The delivery guys I talked to all said the tips don’t change in bad weather — that’s not logical. Likewise, while tipping on takeout orders is nice but not necessary, one restaurant manager complained to me about Citibank ordering 35 lunches to go every week, which takes a long time for some waiter to package (with the soup wrapped carefully, coffees rubber-banded, dressings and condiments put in side containers) and never tipping. Effort matters and that deserves a tip.

Their salary matters. It might not make sense that in the U.S. we’ve somewhat arbitrarily deemed certain professions as “tipped professions” whereby the customers are in charge of paying the professional’s salary instead of their employer, but that’s the way it is. And as such, you have some real responsibility when being served by a tipped professional that you don’t have when being served by someone else.

It’s nice to give a coffee barista a tip, but you’re not a horrible person if you don’t because at least they’re getting paid without you. Waiters and bartenders, on the other hand, receive somewhere between $2 and $5/hour (usually closer to $2), and this part of their check usually goes entirely to taxes. Your tips are literally their only income. They also have to “tip out” the other staff, so when you tip a waiter, you’re also tipping the busboy, bartender, and others. For these reasons, it’s never acceptable to tip under 15%, even if you hate the service. The way to handle terrible service is to complain to the manager like you would in a non-tipping situation. You’re not allowed to stiff on the tip and make them work for free.

Service matters. It seems silly to put this in because it seems obvious, and yet, Michael Lynn’s research shows the amount that people tip barely correlates at all to the quality of service they receive. So while stiffing isn’t OK, it’s good to have a range in mind, not a set percentage, since good service should be tipped better than bad service.

I also discovered some other interesting (and weird) findings and facts about tipping.

1. Different demographics absolutely do tip differently

“Do any demographics of people — age, gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, profession — tend to tip differently than others?” ran away with the “Most Uncomfortable Question to Ask or Answer” award during my interviews, but it yielded some pretty interesting info. I only took seriously a viewpoint I heard at least three times, and in this post, I’m only including those viewpoints that were backed up by my online research and Lynn’s statistical studies.

Here’s the overview, which is a visualization of the results of Lynn’s polling of over 1,000 waiters. Below, each category of customer is placed at their average rating over the 1,000+ waiter surveys in the study:

Fascinating and awkward. Throughout my interviews, I heard a lot of opinions reinforcing what’s on that chart and almost none that contradicted it. The easiest one for people to focus on was foreigners being bad tippers because, first, it’s not really a demographic so it’s less awkward, and second, people could blame it on them “not knowing,” if they didn’t want to be mean. Others, though, scoffed at that, saying, “Oh they know…” As far as foreigners go, the French have the worst reputation.

People also consistently said those who act “entitled” or “fussy” or “like the world’s out to get them” are usually terrible tippers.

On the good-tipping side, people who are vacationing or drunk (or both) tip well, as do “regulars” who get to know the staff, and of course, the group of people everyone agrees are the best tippers are those who also work in the service industry (which, frankly, creeped me out by the end — they’re pretty cultish and weird about how they feel about tipping each other well).

2. Here are six proven ways for waiters to increase their tips:

  • Be the opposite gender of your customer
  • Introduce yourself by name
  • Sit at the table or squat next to it when taking the order
  • Touch the customer, in a non-creepy way
  • Give the customer candy when you bring the check

Of course those things work. Humans are simple.

3. A few different people said that when a tip is low, they assume the customer is cheap or hurting for money.

But when it’s high, they assume it’s because they did a great job serving the customer or because they’re likable (not that the customer is generous).

4. When a guy tips an attractive female an exorbitant amount, it doesn’t make her think he’s rich or generous or a big shot — it makes her think he’s trying to impress her.

Very transparent and ineffective, but she’s pleased to have the extra money.

5. Don’t put a zero in the tip box if it’s a situation when you’re not tipping — it apparently comes off as mean and unnecessary.

Just leave it blank and write in the total.

6. According to valets and bellhops, when people hand them a tip, they almost always do the “double fold” where they fold the bills in half twice and hand it to them with the numbers facing down so the amount of the tip is hidden.

However, when someone’s giving a really great tip, they usually hand them the bills unfolded and with the amount showing.

7. Some notes about other tipping professions I didn’t mention above:

  • Apparently no one tips flight attendants, and if you do, you’ll probably receive free drinks thereafter.
  • Golf caddies say that golfers tip better when they play better, but they always tip the best when it’s happening in front of clients.
  • Tattoo artists expect $10-20 on a $100 job and $40-60 on a $400 job, but they get nothing from 30% of people.
  • A massage therapist expects a $15-20 tip and receives one 95% of the time — about half of a massage therapist’s income is tips.
  • A whitewater rafting guide said he always got the best tips after a raft flipped over or something happened where people felt in danger.
  • Strippers not only usually receive no salary, they often receive a negative salary, i.e. they need to pay the club a fee in order to work there.

8. According to Lynn, tips in the U.S. add up to over $40 billion each year.

This is more than double NASA’s budget.

9. The U.S. is the most tip-crazed country in the world, but there’s a wide variety of tipping customs in other countries.

Tipping expert Magnus Thor Torfason’s research shows that 31 service professions involve tipping in the U.S. That number is 27 in Canada, 27 in India, 15 in the Netherlands, 5-10 throughout Scandinavia, 4 in Japan, and 0 in Iceland.

10. The amount of tipping in a country tends to correlate with the amount of corruption in the country.

This is true even after controlling for factors like national GDP and crime levels. The theory is that the same norms that encourage tipping end up leaking over into other forms of exchange. The U.S. doesn’t contribute to this general correlation, with relatively low corruption levels.

11. Celebrities should tip well because the person they tip will tell everyone they know about it forever, and everyone they tell will tell everyone they know about it forever.

For example: A friend of mine served Arnold Schwarzenegger and his family at a fancy lunch place in Santa Monica called Cafe Montana. Since he was the governor, they comped him the meal. And he left a $5 bill as the tip. I’ve told that story to a lot of people.

  • Celebrities known to tip well (these are the names that come up again and again in articles about this): Johnny Depp, Charles Barkley, David Letterman, Bill Murray, Charlie Sheen, Drew Barrymore
  • Celebrities known to tip badly: Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey, LeBron James, Heidi Klum, Bill Cosby, Madonna, Barbara Streisand, Rachael Ray, Sean Penn, Usher

I’ll finish off by saying that digging into this has made it pretty clear that it’s bad to be a bad tipper.

Don’t be a bad tipper.

As far as average versus high, that’s a personal choice and just a matter of where you want to dedicate whatever charity dollars you have to give to the world.

There’s no shame in being an average tipper and saving the generosity for other places, but I’d argue that the $200 or $500 or $1,500 per year it takes (depending on your level of spending) to become a high tipper is a pretty good use of money. Every dollar means a ton in the world of tips.

This post was originally published on Wait But Why, and all photos are used here with permission. Wait But Why posts regularly, and they send each post out by email to over 275,000 people! Enter your email here and they’ll put you on the list (they only send a few emails each month).

Peter Dinklage on "Game of Thrones?

When it comes to actors doing accents across the pond, some Americans are known for their great British accents, such as Natalie Portman ("The Other Boleyn Girl"), Robert Downey, Jr. ("Sherlock Homes"), and Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady").

Some have taken a lot of heat for their cartoonish or just plain weird-sounding British accents, Dick Van Dyke ("Mary Poppins"), Kevin Costner ("Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves") and Keanu Reeves ("Bram Stoker's Dracula").

Some actors, such as Tom Hardy (“The Drop”) and Hugh Laurie (“House”), have American accents so good that people have no idea they are British.

Benedict Townsend, a London-based comedian and host of the “Scroll Deep” podcast, says there is one word that American actors playing characters with a British accent never get right. And no, it’s not the word “Schedule,” which British people pronounce the entire first 3 letters, and Americans boil down to 2. And it’s not “aluminum,” which British and American people seem to pronounce every stinking letter differently.

@benedicttown

The one word American actors aways get wrong when doing an English accent

What word do American actors always get wrong when they do British accents?

“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American. One word that always trips them up. And once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it,” Townsend says. “You would see this lot in ‘Game of Thrones’ and the word that would always trip them up was ‘daughter.’”

Townsend adds that when British people say “daughter,” they pronounce it like the word “door” or “door-tah.” Meanwhile, Americans, even when they are putting on a British accent, say it like “dah-ter.”

“So top tip if you are an actor trying to do an English accent, daughter like a door. Like you're opening a door,” Townsend says.



What word do British actors always get wrong when doing American accents?

Some American commenters returned the favor by sharing the word that British actors never get right when using American accents: “Anything.”

"I can always tell a Brit playing an American by the word anything. An American would say en-ee-thing. Brits say it ena-thing,” Dreaming_of_Gaea wrote. "The dead giveaway for English people playing Americans: ‘Anything.’ Brits always say ‘EH-nuh-thin,’” marliemagill added.

"I can always tell an actor is English playing an American when they say ‘anything.’ English people always say it like ‘enny-thin,’” mkmason wrote.



What is the cot-caught merger?

One commenter noted that the problem goes back to the cot-caught merger, when Americans in the western US and Canadians began to merge different sounds into one. People on the East Coast and in Britain pronounce them as different sounds.

“Depending on where you live, you might be thinking one of two things right now: Of course, ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound exactly the same! or There’s no way that ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound the same!” Laura McGrath writes at DoYouReadMe. “As a result, although the different spellings remain, the vowel sounds in the words cot/caught, nod/gnawed, stock/stalk are identical for some English speakers and not for others.”

American actors owe Townsend a debt of gratitude for pointing out the one thing that even the best can’t seem to get right. He should also give the commenters a tip of the cap for sharing the big word that British people have trouble with when doing an American accent. Now, if we could just get through to Ewan McGregor and tell him that even though he is fantastic in so many films, his American accent still needs a lot of work.

This article originally appeared last year.

via Blake Kasemeier, used with permission.

Blake Kasemeier and his children.

A video created by Blake Kasemeier has made a lot of people feel seen because it perfectly explains the mindset people develop when they grow up poor. But it’s not just about remembering the hard times of the past. It describes how even though Kasemeier has overcome poverty as an adult, the effects of growing up financially disadvantaged still follow him to this day.

Kasemeier tells stories on social media about parenting, grief, growing up, and where they sometimes collide. He documented the loss of his mom in the 2019 podcast series Good Grief and has written for some of the world’s leading health and fitness brands.

The video begins with Kasemeier admitting that when he was young, he'd always save half of his food until he got home "just in case." It was a symptom of living in a financially unstable family with a single mother who had him at 23 years old. To help them get by, she occasionally wrote "hot checks" at the grocery store and blasted a Counting Crows tape to cover up any scary sounds coming out of the car.

Even though sometimes it seemed like they wouldn't get by and it was “close most days” — "moms always find a way."

The video ends with a poignant stanza about the lasting effects of growing up in an economically unstable home.

“It sits inside of you. Kinda like a worry but a lot like a flame,” Kasemeier says. “These days, we are doing alright. Maybe the fire finally went out, but there is a part of me that will always taste the smoke.”

"The thing about being born rich or, rather, not poor, is that when you are broke, it feels like you are a tourist on a bad trip. A place that you don't belong," Kasemeier continues. "The thing about being born the other way around, is that as hard as you work to escape it, it's always gonna kinda feel like home."

The post received some emotional reactions from people on Instagram.

"I feel the last sentence is the most profound of this video—and the underlying sense of entitlement many have vs the underlying sense of lack of self-worth others may have," one commenter wrote.

"Tasting the smoke is a great way to put this. Growing up this way really makes you look at some of your frugality and not norm habits in a new light. Hard to relearn," another added.

Even though there were hardships growing up in an economically disadvantaged family, Kasemeier wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I am deeply grateful for the way I was raised,” he told Upworthy. “Unfortunately, everyone experiences some trauma in their upbringing—I wouldn't want to trade mine for someone else's. I grew up to be grateful for what I have and without a feeling of entitlement to success: I expected that everything that came to me was going to come through hard work and being kind to people and that has served me very well. It also allowed me to have a great deal of empathy for what everyone is going through.”

Kasemeier further explained the mindset to help those who weren’t raised in that environment better understand the mentality.

“I can tell you that what I experience is a feeling that the other shoe is going to drop, that when I'm up (financially), I don't expect it to last—that leads to a lot of imposter syndrome,” he told Upworthy. “There are little things—like constant anxiety that your card will decline when you go to check out at a grocery store (knowing full well that you have more than enough money). There are big things, like financial literacy.”

The video talks about economic insecurity, but is also touching tribute to his late mother, who, as he said in the post, "found a way.”

“She came from a tiny farm in rural Arkansas, moved to Hollywood where she met my dad and had me at 23 without a degree or any connections,” Kasemeier said. “They had a shotgun wedding and divorced shortly after, my mom was left to navigate parenthood in a pretty challenging way—something I appreciate so much having kids of my own at a totally different place in my life than she was.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing poverty, check out these resources to get connected with organizations and support.


This article originally appeared last year.

@cosmo_andtheoddparents/TikTok

He wuvs his vet.

Not every dog might jump with joy after seeing their vet out in public. But for Cosmo the Golden Retriever, it was practically Christmas all over again when he spotted his own vet, Dr. Jones, at a brewery.

In an adorable clip posted to TikTok, we see Cosmo in pure, unadulterated bliss as he snuggles with an equally happy Dr. Jones, who, considering he’s still in his scrubs, might have just gotten out of work to grab a quick pint.

Watch:

Ugh, the cuteness is too much to handle! People in the comments could barely contain their secondhand joy.

“He looked over like, “Mom, do you see who this is?” one person wrote, while another said, “What in the Hallmark movie? Adorable!!”

One person even joked, “Did we all check the vet’s hand for a wedding ring? (Said as a married woman. Looking out for you all, or something.)”

According to Hannah Dweikat, Cosmo’s owner, the two actually share quite a history. She tells Upworthy that when Cosmo was but a wee pup, he “gave a scare” after eating a Sago Palm seed, which are highly toxic to dogs, from a plant in their backyard, which of course resulted in him being rushed to the animal hospital and staying there over the weekend.

While that’s every pet owner’s worst nightmare, and certainly a scary situation for the poor fur baby, Dweikat says that “the calm and patient demeanor” of Dr. Jones and his staff put Cosmo at ease. And because of this, “Cosmo has always loved going to see his friends—especially because they give him lots of treats and snuggles.”

Cosmo and Dr. Jones’ buddyship has also blossomed thanks to proximity, as Dweikat only lives down the street from the clinic. “Which means we get to see Dr. Jones and his staff out in public at times and Cosmo takes every chance he can get to say hi,” she explains. This time, however, she was able to capture it all on video. Yay for us!

What makes a good vet?

While not every vet, however gifted, will be able to elicit this type of reaction from their patients, having a calming presence like Dr. Jones is certainly a good sign for pet owners to be on the lookout for when shopping around for their own vet. But that’s not the only quality a good vet needs. According to Saint Matthews University, a vet also needs to have high stamina (both physically and mentally), as well as an ability to tolerate unpleasant situations (you can’t faint at the sight of blood or vomit), a high level of emotional intelligence (maybe all doctors should possess this skill, but especially those who work with animals), adaptability, a sense of enthusiasm, and finally, excellent communication skills.

Dr. Jones seems to have these attributes in spades, and his patients clearly love him for it. None so much as Cosmo, obviously.

By the way, if you’re in need of even more content featuring this precious pup, you can follow Cosmo on both TikTok and Instagram.

Science

A study reveals the cheapest time to buy airfare

The average flyer misses the best deal by 15 days.

Taking a trip on the airline.

Everyone seems to have a theory on the best time to purchase airfare to save the most money. Some say it's right before take-off. Others will swear that prices are lowest six months before the flight. Well, now we have the truth. In 2022, a scientific study was conducted by Expedia and the Airlines Reporting Commission that found the best times to buy flight tickets to get the best deal possible.


When we actually buy:

DOMESTIC: 32 DAYS IN ADVANCE

INTERNATIONAL: 59 DAYS IN ADVANCE


When we should buy:

a boarding pass on someone's smartphone in front of flight board

Get your boarding pass ready.

Photo from Pixabay.

DOMESTIC: 57 DAYS IN ADVANCE

The ideal advanced-purchase time for domestic flights to snag the lowest average airfare is 57 days before take-off. Prices climb most rapidly in the 20 days leading up to the flight. On a flight that averages $496, it will cost $401 57 days before the flight, and around $650 the day of departure.

INTERNATIONAL: 171 DAYS IN ADVANCE

For a ticket that averages $1,368, the lowest average of $1,004 happens around 171 days before take-off. On the day of, the price will be around $1875. Ticket prices begin to dramatically escalate 75 days leading up to departure.

(H/T Conde Nast Traveler)


This article originally appeared ten years ago.

Identity

Formerly enslaved man's response to his 'master' wanting him back is a literary masterpiece

"I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters."

A photo of Jordan Anderson.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled "Jordon") was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and Jordan and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled "Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master," was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in theNew York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child's The Freedman's Book.

The letter mentions a "Miss Mary" (Col. Anderson's Wife), "Martha" (Col. Anderson's daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson's son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jordon Anderson

Learn more about Jordan Anderson here.


This article originally appeared eight years ago.