Domestic servants were an integral part of 19th-century households. Most of
the women who worked as servants, maids, cooks, nannies or washerwomen
came from the rural regions of Switzerland, France or Germany. Large and
forward-looking bourgeois households had electrical bell systems installed at
the end of the 19th century, which summoned servants to particular rooms.
This display panel with six numbers was used in a medium-sized household.