Occupations for Women

Title: Occupations for Women: A Book of Practical Suggestions for the Material Advancement, the Mental and Physical Development, and the Moral and Spiritual Uplift of Women by Frances Willard

Location: Google Books       Date:  1897

American women have always worked, but until the twentieth century most occupations available to them were simply extensions of their traditional domestic roles. Frances Willard, educator, suffragist and temperance reformer, strongly believed that a woman was capable of achieving any occupational goal she chose and wrote Occupations for Women to encourage those endeavors. You might be a little surprised, given the period when the book was written, of the types of occupations Willard addresses.  The selection I have chosen is a chapter comparing the number of women in 1870 and those in 1890 engaged in different types of work. It was obvious to Willard that the times were a changin’. This book is one of my personal favorites.

Frances Willard

A CHAPTER OF FACTS

POSSIBLY some of you girls who prefer romance to reality may feel inclined to turn up your noses at this chapter, but I assure von you will find very much of interest and profit in it, and will be paid by a careful study of the statistics which it contains. Figures aren’ t always interesting, to be sure, but a study of them is almost certain to be helpful, and this is submitted to you that you may know for a fact what women already are doing in the world of labor, and the many opportunities there are for you in whatever field you may think you will excel.

The detailed table of occupations just issued from the Census Office gives many interesting facts in relation to the entrance of the American woman into various branches of trade and industry, and also throws light upon her advent into the professions.

The totals of the occupation tables were published a year or two ago, and from them it was learned that the number of women engaged in the gainful occupations increased between 1880 and 1890 nearly 48 per cent, while the number of men engaged increased about 28 per cent. During this period professional women increased 75 per cent, and those engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits nearly 63 per cent, while in trade and transportation the increase was 263 per cent and over — two and a half times as great as in 1880. These were figures to make one think and they naturally awakened curiosity as to what particular professions, trades and industries women had selected as a means of earning a livelihood.

To satisfy this curiosity and reply to the inquiries the Census Bureau made a comprehensive inquiry as to the occupations in which women find a means of support and usefulness. The inquiry included also the comparative work and wages of men, women and children. The information elicited is just given to the public.

Broadly speaking, it would appear that the American woman, like her British kin beyond the sea, has taken a dip into every occupation. The advance of woman has been complete, and, with the exception of the United States army and navy, there are no blanks. She labors in the field and dairy, and thrives as a farmer, planter and overseer. She goes forth in a boat and braves the wind and sea in fishing, and drags the bed of the ocean for oysters. She may be found in lumber camps, doing duty as wood-chopper and lumberman, and even as a raftsman woman has tried her hand, and is not afraid to own up to the census man. With pick and dynamite she quarries stone and delves into the earth in search of the common minerals and the precious metals.

In the professional world woman has made here appearance in every occupation save that of marshaling armies and conducting war. Her progress in professional life has been as marked as in trade and industry. Here we have it with all the authority of the government official:

Occupation	1870	1890
Actors	692	3949
Architects	1	22
Artists and teachers of art	412	10815
Authors and literary	159	2,725
Chemists, assayists and metallurgists	0	39
Clergymen	0	1143
Dentists, draughtsmen and inventors	13	305
Engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical and mining)	0	124
Journalists	35	888
Lawyers	5	208
Musicians and teachers of music	5753	34518
Officials (government),	414	4875
Physicians and surgeons	527	4557
Professors and teachers	84047	246066
Theatrical managers, showmen, etc	100	634
Veterinary surgeons	0	2
Other professional service	8	479
TOTAL	92257	311687

Isn’t that an interesting story told in figures? A story of advance, of endeavor, of actual accomplishment. It is full of suggestion to the bright girl who needs only a hint to set her in the way in which success will be found.

Beside all the old occupations, we find women planning houses and decorating them; in the chemical laboratory; administering gas and pulling teeth; designing and inventing; and grappling with the difficult problems of civil engineering. They are on the road as theatrical agents and managers, and in the roll of veterinary surgeons, administering to the ailments of dumb animals. Notice, if you please, the increase of newspaper women—that is so much better term than journalists—from 35 in 1870 to 888 in 1890, and as authors, from 159 to 2725. There are six times as many women on the stage in 1890 as in 1870; three times as many professors and teachers; ten times as many women government officials; nine times as many women physicians and surgeons; more than forty times as many women lawyers; six times as many women musicians and teachers of music; twenty-five times as many artists and teachers of art; while the number occupying the pulpit has increased from 67 in 1870 to 1143 eleven years later. Summed up, we find an army of over 300,000, or about one-third of all persons engaged in professional services in the United States, to be women. This is not only a large actual increase, but, relatively to the men, the number of women is greater than in 1870.

Turning from this brilliant advent into professional life, we will follow woman’s progress in what the dry tables of the census office generally term “domestic and professional service.” Beside the old stand-by occupations— lodging-house keepers, laundresses, nurses and servants—we find the nineteenth century woman pushing into heretofore unheard-of avocations; as a barber, her dexterous fingers lightly remove man’s grizzly beard; 19 women brave the wilds of forest and mountain as hunters, trappers, guides and scouts; while, more . singular still, perhaps, 28 evince no fear of ghosts and spirits in the somewhat mournful occupation of sexton. There are three times as many women hotel keepers as in 1870; nearly twenty times as many janitors; while entirely new occupations have been discovered for women as engineers, watchmen and detectives, under which last head 279 are returned.

It is in trade and transportation that woman has made her most tremendous record in these years. Over 200,000 intelligent, industrious, capable women have found a sure and honest way of making a living. As bookkeepers, clerks, typewriters, stenographers, cashiers, telegraph operators, women have found a profitable field of labor and occupation for which they are as well fitted as men, if not better. In the largest class—bookkeepers, clerks and saleswomen—the increase has been phenomenal. As agents and collectors, the number of women has increased from 97 to 4875. There are five times as many women returned as merchants and dealers, and over thirty times as many under the head of ” packers and shippers”—aggregating in 1890, 6520 women. From 355 operators in 1870, women telegraph and telephone operators increased to 8474 in 1890, and probably number over 10,000 now. Women seem to flourish and increase and multiply in trade, transportation, as bankers and brokers, commercial travelers, dairymen, peddlers, weighers and gangers, as bank officials; yet as sailors, undertakers, auctioneers, boatmen and pilots, they have met with no success.

In manufacturing and mechanical pursuits women have found new and important industries and have not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered for bread-winning. The census shows five times as many women bookkeepers, nearly four hundred times as many engaged in making boots and shoes, seven times as many employed in box making, as there were in 1870. In 1890 clock and watch making gave employment to nearly 5,000 women, and in 1870 to only 75. The increased demand for confectionery of all kinds brought the number of women employed in that industry from 612 to 5674. About one third was added to our cotton operatives. The tremendous increase in dressing the women and children of our country may be studied in the fact that our army of dressmakers, milliners and seamstresses multiplied more than five times in the period mentioned. Pottery, photography, lithography—all now give employment to nearly 10,000 women. The printing office, the rope and rubber factories, the shirt, collar and cuff manufactories, the silk mills, are employing more than 50,000 women.

In the industries American women are literally taking a hand in all branches. As blacksmiths they ply the hammer on the anvil and make the sparks fly. They bind books, and make bottles; as contractors, they build houses. They work in all the metals, including gold and silver. They cut stone, lay brick and plaster walls. And one woman has returned herself to the census man as a well digger.

A study of the figures given above not only suggests the intense fight for existence which has been going on for the last quarter of a century and has made it necessary for the women of the family to do something for themselves, but it likewise brings out the fact that they have not been slow in taking advantage of opportunities afforded them for a wider range of employment. While they have taken up some peculiar occupations, the satisfactory feature of the inquiry lies in the fact that they have made greatest headway in the occupations which are best fitted for them, namely, the professions and trades and many branches of manufacture. Upon the whole, the 4,000,000 women bread-winners of the United States may be congratulated on the headway they have made on the road to independence, and still more are they to be congratulated at the reputations they have won for themselves as workers. In almost every case those who employ women speak of their honesty, their sobriety, and above all their extreme faithfulness. They obey not only the letter, but the spirit of the unwritten rules that are set for the guidance of every employee. With these qualities, it is no wonder that women have come so well to the front and that the positions which they occupy are constantly increasing in importance.

Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Potter Palmer

Title: Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs Potter Palmer by Ishbel Ross

Location: Internet Archive     Date: 1960

This is the only book of which I am aware that is devoted solely to the life of Bertha Honore Palmer.

A City in Flames

A brisk wind rustled the withered autumn leaves in the garden of Potter Palmer s country house on the outskirts of Chicago on the fateful night of October 8, 1871. The grass on the lawn was like tinder for it had been one of  the driest summers in the city s history. Bertha Honore Palmer,  a bride of twenty-two, was passing a quiet Sunday evening by herself in the home she was about to leave to take up quarters in the newly finished Palmer House, her husband s wedding gift to her. Potter Palmer, millionaire merchant and real estate man, had gone east to attend the funeral of one of his sisters in upstate New York. It was Bertha s first separation from her husband since their marriage fourteen months earlier.

Soon after nine o clock she became conscious of a yellowish glow hanging over the city. She studied the scene with concern. Fires were an everyday occurrence but before long she saw that this was no ordinary blaze. Shafts of flame shot across the skyline until it seemed as if most of the city were on fire. She thought anxiously of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hamilton Honore, who lived on Michigan Avenue, right in the path of the flames, which seemed to leap out in different areas, leaving no clue to their focus. It was not until some time later that the legend spread of Mrs. Catherine O’ Leary’s cow kicking over her kerosene lamp in a De Koven Street barn at milking time. But in any event this was where the fire began and a dry southwest wind funneled the flames to adjoining shacks. Soon homes, shops, churches, factories, were going up like matchsticks. The downtown business area was quickly enveloped. From the slums to La Salle Street devastation prevailed.

At first Mrs. Palmer had confidence that the new water-works on the North Side would be equal to the situation, but when the fire jumped the river and set them ablaze, all hope of staying its demoniac course was ended. When she saw that things were completely out of control she went into practical action with her servants and neighbors. Although at a safe distance from the burning city they all began assembling their treasures and preparing their houses for the dispossessed. Bertha murmured prayers for her family as she busied herself around the house. There was no way of reaching them in the blazing city.

By this time the sky was an awesome yellow, streaked with vivid columns of crimson where fire flashed out in yet another section of the city. There was little smoke because of the speed and intensity of the conflagration. Here and there the blaze was sharp and clear, illumining the distorted motions of a frantic population. The streets were jammed with fleeing families, carrying babies, bundles, furniture and armfuls of clothes. They ran in all directions, shouting and crying, while cinders hit them like stinging hailstones and sparks danced be fore their eyes like twinkling stars. Embers seemed to rain from the sky. Jets of flame pulverized safes and buildings that had been pronounced fireproof. Synthetic granite walls seemed to offer little more resistance than wooden shacks.

The noise was unearthly. To one it sounded like the lake on a stormy night. To another the crackling murmur suggested an enormous bundle of dry twigs burning. There were sharp explosions as barrels of oil and paint were touched off by the flames.

For days and weeks afterward Bertha heard tales of the terrible scenes enacted in the streets that night. One little girl with flames licking her long golden hair ran screaming through the crowd. But silence followed when a distracted onlooker threw a container of liquor over her. It flared up and enveloped her in blue flame. Fire touched off the skirt of a woman who knelt in the street, praying with her crucifix. Her anguished face was long remembered by those who saw her and survived. A forgotten canary sang in its gilded cage in a hotel window which was brightly lit by the approaching curtain of flame.  A bride with half -wrapped wedding presents in her arms ran frantically back and forth calling for her husband. Women dragged Saratoga trunks along the sidewalks.
Wheelbarrows and perambulators were piled high with family possessions.

There were screams and shouts and curses, tears and voice less despair. The slum sections tossed up thieves, footpads and murderers, who plundered and rioted as the city burned. All along Lake Street they ravaged the shops. Liquor ran in the gutters and many were drunk. But the most desperate scenes were at the bridges, where struggling masses converged while fire already licked the foundations and one after another of the structures went down. Human beings and horses were inextricably mixed in the jam as carriages and teams attempted to cross the river. The horses, half mad from the flick of cinders and the frantic crowding, trampled men and women. Scores of the trapped clung to the guard rails; some wound up in the river. The ships drifted like sagging ghosts as sails and masts caught fire. The sirens of tugs trying to get through added piercing blasts.

Before many hours had passed Bertha knew that the Palmer and Honore fortunes had gone up in flames.Her husband’s thirty-two fine new buildings on State Street, as well as the nearly finished Palmer House, were burned to the ground.  Honore Block, a magnificent building for its time, put up by her father, with walls decorated with colonnades of synthetic marble, was in ruins. Most of his other properties were burned, too. The Palmer House was one of the first large buildings to go, although its fireproof equipment had promised protection. Terrified citizens sought safety in its lobby, bringing their valuables with them. But liquor or explosive oils had been stored in the cellar by some of the refugees and a terrific explosion wrecked the building when the fire reached this area. Detonations were so frequent that night that Bertha never knew which one signaled the collapse of her wedding gift.

The Rise and Fall of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Parable on Populism

Title: The Rise and Fall of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a ‘Parable on Populism’ by David B. Parker

As published in the JOURNAL OF THE GEORGIA ASSOCIATION OF HISTORIANS, vol. 15, pp. 49-63.

Location: Bluegrass Special      Date: 2009

Cartoon by Herblock, first appeared in the Utica Observer Dispatch, August 31, 1939

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of America’s favorite pieces of juvenile literature. Children like it because it is a good story, full of fun characters and exciting adventures. Adults–especially those of us in history and related fields–like it because we can read between L. Frank Baum’s lines and see various images of the United States at the turn of the century. That has been true since 1964, when American Quarterly published Henry M. Littlefield’s “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.” Littlefield described all sorts of hidden meanings and allusions to Gilded Age society in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: the wicked Witch of the East represented eastern industrialists and bankers who controlled the people (the Munchkins); the Scarecrow was the wise but naive western farmer; the Tin Woodman stood for the dehumanized industrial worker; the Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryan, Populist presidential candidate in 1896; the Yellow Brick Road, with all its dangers, was the gold standard; Dorothy’s silver slippers (Judy Garland’s were ruby red, but Baum originally made them silver) represented the Populists’ solution to the nation’s economic woes (“the free and unlimited coinage of silver”); Emerald City was Washington, D.C.; the Wizard, “a little bumbling old man, hiding behind a facade of paper mache and noise, . . . able to be everything to everybody,” was any of the Gilded Age presidents.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was no longer an innocent fairy tale. According to Littlefield, Baum, a reform-minded Democrat who supported William Jennings Bryan’s pro-silver candidacy, wrote the book as a parable of the Populists, an allegory of their failed efforts to reform the nation in 1896. “Baum never allowed the consistency of the allegory to take precedence over the theme of youthful entertainment,” Littlefield hedged at one point; “the allegory always remains in a minor key.” Still, he concluded that “the relationships and analogies outlined above . . . are far too consistent to be coincidental.”

It was an interesting notion, one scholars could not leave alone, and they soon began to find additional correspondences between Populism and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Continue reading the article by following the link above.

For more information, see Political Interpretation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Photo credit: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Website

The Bomb by Frank Harris

Title: The Bomb by Frank Harris

Location: Google Books     Date: 1909

It began as simply a labor rally for striking workers.  But, when a bomb was thrown and seven Chicago police officers and numerous citizens were killed, it became known as the Haymarket Riot. Eight men considered to be anarchists were put on trial; four were executed and one committed suicide. But, the question of who threw the bomb has been left unanswered until this day.

One man, however, is at the top of the suspect list:  Rudolph Schnaubelt (1863-1901). Schnaubelt was identified as the thrower and indited but fled the country before his guilt or innocence could be determined. Through the years, the basis for Schnaubelt’s guilt has been based primarily on a fictionalized account of the incident written from his point of view. That book is “The Bomb” by Frank Harris.

A minute afterwards, as it seems to me now, we had reached our goal; we were in Desplaines Street, between Lake Street and Randolph Street. Desplaines Street is a mean thoroughfare on the west side, three or four hundred yards from the river, and fully half a mile from the edge of the business centre downtown. The Haymarket, as the place was afterwards called, is nearly a hundred yards away. As we came up from the south we passed the Desplaines Street police station, presided over by Inspector Bonfield; there was already a crowd of police at the door.

“They mean business,” said Lingg, “tonight, and so do we.”

When we got to the outskirts of the meeting we saw the mayor of the city, with one or two officials; the mayor was an elderly man called Carter Harrison. He had been, asked to prohibit the meeting, but was unwilling to interfere with what might be a lawful assembly; he attended in person to prevent any incitement to rioting.

The speakers’ stand was a mere truck-wagon, placed where a blind alley intersected the street, in the centre of the block. We were at the rear of the building occupied by the Crane Brothers’ great elevator factory. I should think two or three thousand people were already gathered together.

Rudolph Schnaubelt

Spies had finished speaking as we came up. He was followed by Parsons, who rose to the height of the argument if ever a man did. He began by asking the crowd to be quite orderly; he assured them that if they kept order, and simply gave expression to their grievances, the American people would hear them with sympathy, and would see that they had fair play. He really believed this claptrap. He went on to say that their grievances were terrible; unarmed men, women, and children had been shot down. Why were they shot? he asked, and then began his reform speech.

The mayor listened to everything, and evidently saw nothing in the utterances to object to. “Parsons’s speech,” he said afterwards, “was a good political speech.” After Parsons had made an end, the Englishman, Samuel Fielden, with his bushy beard, stood up and began to prose. Some rain-drops fell, a lull came in the rising wind; darkness began to overshadow us. Evidently the storm was at hand.

The crowd began to drift away at the edges. I was alone and curiously watchful. I saw the mayor and the officials move off towards the business part of the town. It looked for a few minutes as if everything was going to pass over in peace; but I was not relieved. I could hear my own heart beating, and suddenly I felt something in the air; it was sentient with expectancy. I slowly turned my head. I was on the very outskirts of the crowd, and as I turned I saw that Bonfield had marched out his police, and was minded to take his own way with the meeting now the mayor had left. I felt personal antagonism stiffen my muscles. It grew darker and darker every moment. Suddenly there came a flash, and then a peal of thunder. At the end of the flash, as it seemed to me, I saw the white clubs falling, saw the police striking down the men running along the side-walk. At once my mind was made up. I put my left hand on the outside of my trousers to hold the bomb tight, and my right hand into the pocket, and drew the tape. I heard a little rasp. I began to count slowly, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven”; as I got to seven the police were quite close to me, bludgeoning every one furiously. Two or three of the foremost had drawn their revolvers. The crowd were flying in all directions. Suddenly there was a shot, and then a dozen shots, all, it seemed to me, fired by the police. Rage blazed in me.

I took the bomb out of my pocket, careless whether I was seen or not, and looked for the right place to throw it; then I hurled it over my shoulder high in the air, towards the middle of the police, and at the same moment I stumbled forward, just as if I had fallen, throwing myself on my hands and face, for I had seen the spark. It seemed as if I had been on my hands for an eternity, when I was crushed to the ground, and my ears split with the roar. I scrambled to my feet again, gasping. Men were thrown down in front of me, and were getting up on their hands. I heard groans and cries, and shrieks behind me. I turned round; as I turned a strong arm was thrust through mine, and I heard Lingg say—

“Come, Rudolph, this way”; and he drew me to the side-walk, and we walked past where the police had been.

“Don’t look,” he whispered suddenly; “don’t look.”

But before he spoke I had looked, and what I saw will be before my eyes till I die. The street was one shambles; in the very centre of it a great pit yawned, and round it men lying, or pieces of men, in every direction, and close to me, near the side-walk as I passed, a leg and foot torn off, and near by two huge pieces of bleeding red meat, skewered together with a thigh-bone. My soul sickened; my senses left me; but Lingg held me up with superhuman strength, and drew me along. “Hold yourself up, Rudolph,” he whispered; “come on, man,” and the next moment we had passed it all, and I clung to him, trembling like a leaf. When we got to the end of the block I realized that I was wet through from head to foot, as if I had been plunged in cold water.