Men in service were expected to dress in a manner that mirrored the formality of their employers (unlike women, who wore aprons) so that they looked, in some cases, as aristocratic as the the men they served. Sitting in a chair in a bowtie, a young houseboy might be mistaken for a young gentleman.

Was he or wasn't he?

In his book The Saga of American Society, the American historian Dixon Wecter noted that for many American families, a servant conferred a certain kind of elite social standing. To many a parvenu, he wrote, a well-trained servant is priceless not only on the score of efficiency, but because to have him in the house is a liberal education.

To the extent that some Irish men and women had trained among the British, the supposition was that the servant's presence in an American household might bestow a kind of instant (Btitish) aristocracy

A "liberal" education in that the employer felt at liberty to press his servant into duty, to expect him to wait and serve at his beck and call--liberally, yes--but also literally.