Part 13 (1/2)
Notice where savagery still persists, women remain in the same condition as in primitive times. Read of the African women, and the Bushmen of Australia.
The study of the Hebrew women is the next point, for they advanced from a comparatively obscure position to one of honor. The Greek women may be compared with them. Read of the life of the Roman women. Next will come the study of the Anglo-Saxon women, working with their hands, but intelligent and forceful. Study the women of the next period, that of the Crusades. Read of the romantic lives of some, and follow with a paper on the women in convents and their occupations. From this point on, women's work remained much the same for the leisure cla.s.s; but as life grew socially more complex, work became more intricate and varied.
The study of cottage industries may be mentioned here. Have several papers showing the life of the time our own colonies were established, and the work done by women. The important thing to be noticed is that all women worked; idleness was not in fas.h.i.+on. They spun and wove, they knitted and dyed, they made candles and table linen, and cotton and woolen clothing. Some few still carried on cottage industries or taught dames' schools, and a few managed farms or kept shops or taverns; but most of them were employed in the home exclusively.
About the middle of the nineteenth century came the great world-wide industrial revolution which forever changed women's work, and for a time the work of men. Read of the introduction of machines into the English districts where the hand looms had been in use. Have papers or talks on conditions everywhere in this transition period. This was the beginning of the great work of women in factories. Especially in New England, factory work became a large part of life. Daughters of farmers, of shop-keepers, of the owners of the mills themselves, and many school-teachers in vacation, were employed from five o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock in the evening. There was no social stigma put upon them. Read from the early history of Mount Holyoke.
Mill towns were considered models of quietness and morality because of the presence of hundreds of women. Their life was full of intellectual stimulation; lyceums brought the best lecturers: Emerson, Lowell, and other great writers and orators often spoke; the women edited and published little newspapers of their own. Lucy Larcom was a mill girl; read her poem called ”An Idyl of Work,” and her paper published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, volume 48, called ”Mill Girls' Magazines.”
But the hours of work were too long, the boarding houses too poor, the pay too meager. Gradually the American girl was replaced by the foreigner, and this period of work was at an end.
From this point factory work, as we know it, will open before the club.
Study it especially in relation to cigar and cigarette and candy making, and in clothing industries of all sorts. Describe conditions as factory inspection has discovered them; notice the unsafe buildings, the long hours, heavy fines, and low pay. Discuss what should be done to remedy such evils. Have some of these questions taken up: Should Women Enter Trade Unions, or Is Organization Unnecessary? Do Strikes Pay? Should Women Insist on Compensation for Injuries and Old-Age Pensions? Can a Woman Work All Day and Still Bear Healthy Children and Bring Them Up Properly? Should There Be Mothers' Pensions? What of Night Work for Women? Describe the life of the night scrub-woman in a city. Read ”The Long Day.”
Turning to the work of women in shops, notice that it was about 1859 when the first women took this up. Compare the conditions then with conditions to-day. Describe welfare work. Discuss the ”living wage,” and question whether this should not depend on competence. What of lack of recreation and social life? Does the low wage drive girls to immorality?
What can be done locally to better conditions in our shops?
This all leads up to the enormous subject of women's work to-day. It is said that three hundred lines of work are open to them, and clubs should select what they prefer to study. Among the many books of reference to be found on these and similar topics are: ”Woman and Labor,” Olive Schreiner (F. A. Stokes Co.); ”Women and Economics,” Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Small, Maynard); ”Women in Industry,” Edith Abbott (D. Appleton & Co.); ”The American Business Woman,” J. H. Cromwell (G. P. Putnam's Sons); ”Women's Share in Social Culture,” Anna G. Spencer (Mitch.e.l.l Kennerley); ”The Long Day,” D. Richardson (Century Co.); ”Woman and Social Progress,” Scott and Nellie Nearing (The Macmillan Co.); ”The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living,” Anna Steese Richardson (Dodge); ”How Women May Earn a Living,” Helen C. Candee (The Macmillan Co.); ”The Business of Being a Woman,” Ida M. Tarbell (The Macmillan Co.); ”Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe and the Suffrage Movement,” by Florence Howe Hall (The Page Company).
CHAPTER XIV
WOMEN'S PROBLEMS OF WORK--CONTINUED
I--TO-DAY
Clubs may begin this study with the problems of the woman in the tenement. There is the home itself. She is hampered by a small, crowded s.p.a.ce in which to bring up the family; there is insufficient light and air, it is too cold in winter and too hot in summer; there are few conveniences for was.h.i.+ng or cooking; beds are generally uncomfortable, the walls are c.u.mbered with clothing, there is no s.p.a.ce for the children to play and no privacy.
The first paper may describe the home in detail and be followed with a reading from ”How the Other Half Lives,” by Jacob Riis.
The next paper may take up certain difficulties of management the woman in the tenement must contend with. If she takes in work, tailoring, or flower making, or anything of the kind, s.p.a.ce is even less than before.
If she goes out to work, the care of the house falls on the children, who are overworked and neglected. She seldom knows how to buy economically, or cook appetizingly, or make clothing for her family. If the husband loses work, she must feel the stress of need. All the tenement life tends to send the children to the streets for amus.e.m.e.nt and air, the husband to the saloon for entertainment. The boys are apt to grow up without the instincts of home, and the girls often become immoral.
The third paper may present some solutions of her various problems.
There are laws requiring s.p.a.ce and air in tenements, and landlords who neglect their buildings may be made to better them; the work of the Legal Aid a.s.sociation in these and other respects is to be studied.
Then women of the tenements should be brought into touch with Friendly Visitors and settlements, taught to clean up, to sew, to buy, to cook, to make home attractive. The children must be put into day nurseries if the mother goes out; the school teacher must come in to advise about the growing children; the music settlement may possibly give a hand; certainly the cla.s.ses for boys and girls in the settlements, and the libraries, and evenings of recreation there may help them. The Little Mothers' Aid a.s.sociation, and the fresh air work, the recreation piers, the small parks, and many other helps may be drawn upon. All these and others should be described.
Read from the report of the ”Housing Reform,” published by the Charities Publication Committee at 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York; also from the pamphlet on ”Remedial Loans,” National Federation of Remedial Loan a.s.sociations, 31 Union Square, New York, and the report of the Little Mothers' Aid a.s.sociation, 236 Second Avenue, New York, and from material from the National Federation of Settlements, 20 Union Park, Boston.
II--THE SICK POOR IN CITY AND COUNTRY
The second meeting may be on the subject of the sick poor, in country and city. One paper may be on personal experiences among the poor in country districts--what their conditions are, what is lacking, how to help them without injuring their pride. Discuss how relief can be given without pauperization. If possible have some one speak of the work in the country, such as is done by the neighborly settlement of Keene Valley, New York.
The state of things among the city poor is even worse than in the country. Mention the trouble if the man of the house is sick and out of work, and there is no other wage earner. Speak of the state of things when there is a new-born baby; describe the sick child alone all day with few toys or none, and the chronic invalid in the slums. Read ”The Lady of Shallott,” by Elizabeth Phelps Ward in Little Cla.s.sics.