In recent years, undergraduate History students at Malaspina University-College have written original and innovative research papers.

One such paper was written in 2006 by Erica Cook and Erika Frith for History 351 (Twentieth Century British Columbia). In their paper, they addressed a question known as the "servant problem" in Victoria, B.C. at the turn of the last century. The problem was vexing to some wealthy householders who did not wish to employ Chinese domestic servants, and had difficulties finding suitable white female servants. For those householders, "good help was hard to find." Erica and Erika used 1901 census data available at the viHistory.ca web site to locate families that employed white servants. Then they mapped the census households to locations in Victoria. Here is a PDF version of their essay, and the statistical data they compiled.

Good Help is Hard To Find [text]

Families with Domestic Servants [table]