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.

The White Slaves of Free America by John T. McEnnis

The White Slaves of Free America: BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE SUFFERINGS, PRIVATIONS AND HARDSHIPS OF THE WEARY TOILERS IN OUR GREAT CITIES as recently exposed by Nell Nelson of the Chicago Timesby John T. McEnnis

Book Location: Harvard University Library     Date: 1888 

 John T. McEnnis (1854-1896) was the city editor of the Chicago Daily Globe. The paper was owned and published by staunch Democrat, and rather notorious, Michael McDonald. Theodore Dreiser worked as a reporter for the Globe and recounts his experiences in his autobiographical book, Newspaper Days. Dreiser covered the 1892 Democratic Convention. Unfortunately, the paper folded in 1893.

John T. McEnnis was a strong advocate of labor reform. In this excerpt from White Slaves of America, McEnnis recounts a day in the life of a poor working girl as reported by Nell Nelson.

 

The working girls in the morning are going to work–
long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores
and factories, thousands with little brick-shaped
lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms.

From “Working Girls” by Carl Sandburg

A  DAY IN A CHICAGO TAILOR-SHOP

NEVER, so long as reason reigns, writes Nell Nelson, shall I forget the day I worked in a Market-street tailor-shop, and never when I pray shall I forget to add “God help the shop girls.”

Thursday morning I stepped from an Ogden avenue car and walked down Market street in search of work. It was boiling hot, and I carried my brown veil on the breeze, and a small pasteboard box containing a cracker and a lemon, a paper of needles, a thimble, and a pair of scissors. The first woman I made inquiry of was carrying a bucket of sawdust from a neighboring ale-house. She didn’t know by name the shop I was looking for, but when I mentioned coats, she grew loquacious. “Oh, yes, the `slave hole’ it’s called; that’s the sheeny tailor’s! Don’t you go to him, my dear; he’ll grind the marrow from your bones. Go to service, girl, go to service. You can have a cot in my room till you find a place. I was with him one fortnight and worked my eyes `most blind, and he paid me $1.75. No, I’m from England, but I never had harder times in the old country than now. There I paid 5.. for lodgings, and here they cost me $4.” She told me she got the sawdust for sweeping out a corner dram-shop, and used it to boil her tea-kettle with.

Instead of a “hole” I found myself entering a large two-story red brick house still in process of construction. I ascended the front steps, and, after the maneuver of the celebrated king of France, marched down again to the basement-to the shop-into the presence of the proprietor. I handed him my letter, and while he read it I took him in-optically. He was an unctuous little fellow, with kinky hair, cunning brown eyes,  hatchet features, and a small mustache the color of roasted coffee. He was attired in two shirts-a nether one of chocolate flannel and a linen one a few shades lighter-a pair of check pantaloons, carpet slippers, and a huge gold ring of Masonic design. He read the letter with a cigar in  his mouth, the smell of which, combined with the flavor of his feet and the exhalations of his toilet, was something preponderant.

He asked me what I had worked at, and, after a few gasps, I gave him some of my history, slightly distorted. I was told to take off my hat, and while doing so he stepped back out in the entry and vacated a hook among the factory girls’ wraps, but, as I did not care to take the chances of tempting the gutter snipes and going home bare-headed, I declined his attention and hung them up in a corner on the floor. All ready, sewing-box in hand, I faced the gaping, silent throng, and was pointed to a chair at a long table, about which ten girls were sewing with a speed and a silence that was terrible to contemplate. They wore cotton dresses of the poorest quality, some of them open at the neck, and nearly all rolled to the elbow. The youngest were four little girls of thirteen, one of whom was operating, two basting, and the fourth finishing a blue cloth cloak. One large Irish hand, possibly twenty-five, sat at the upper end of the table. Of the rest fifteen years would be a fair average age. One poor girl, who was very lame, had a machine, and it made my heart ache to watch her pale face and follow her thin little hands guide coat after coat under the needle. All the girls were pale and haggard, some were very pretty, some few had color in their cheeks, but it was the hectic flush, not the healthy glow of youth and physical strength.

In all we were twenty girls, eight men, and two boys-poor young fellows in their teens, with mealy complexions, wild eyes, hollow cheeks, and sunken chests. Neither weighed a hundred pounds, but both pressed goods with heavy irons, and were cuffed and pushed about by the boss and his assistant. The men worked in slippers and undershirts, without straps or suspenders to keep their trousers in place, and the girls wore heavy peg shoes. I noticed some of the machine hands worked the foot-plate in their stocking feet.

I had taken all this in when the boss came near my chair and threw a plaid sack coat in my lap and without a word walked away. Here was a nice predicament, I thought, as I looked the garment over. I asked the little yellow-haired Swede girl at my right where to begin, but she looked at me and resumed her “felling” without a word of reply. Then I asked a big, yellow-haired, dough-faced German girl on my left, and received the same kind of response. Instantly I realized their position. Compulsory silence.

I put twist in my needle, squeezed on my timble, and selected the side-seam in the farmer satin lining, for if there is any one kind of needle work that I pride myself on it is “felling.” Well, I felled an hour, up one seam and down another, around the collar, and along the bottom of the coat. Then I stitched and tacked the tail pockets, took a deep breath, and settled back in my chair to take a rest. I didn’t take it long, though. Before I could reel off two lines of Hood’s “Song of the Shirt,” the boss was at my elbow looking over my work with his nasty-smelling cigar so near my face that I was obliged to pull back to escape being burned. “Take smaller stitches,” he said. “Don’t `fell’ through. You haven’t, though. Now put in the sleeve-lining,” and he left me muttering inwardly, “Put in the sleeve-lining.” I did. In a great
deal less time I was told to rip it out. I put it in a second time, and a second time did Penelope’s work. The third time was not a charm, and when his unctuous honor, who had been watching me all the time, neared my chair I politely asked him to show me how to arrange the fullness. He grabbed the coat, shook the “muffy” thing in my face, dropped the ashes from his two-for-a-nickel in my hair, and observed:

“I don’t think you’ll do. I want experienced hands,” and although mute I thought-” You monster, to talk about experienced hands, and pay $3.50 a week!”

Well, he showed me how tailors put in sleeve linings, and I showed the merits of his teaching. In future I shall never let a coat-sleeve go about my waist without wanting its owner to unbutton and let me see where the lining is fulled and how the top seam is felled.

At noon we had forty minutes, for-I will not say dinner, because no one had anything that could be so designated. Most of the men had nothing to eat. I only saw two with a lunch. The girls had black bread and a can of cold coffee, which they consumed with evident relish. Not more than five minutes were spent over the repast. I devoured my crackers and gnawed at my lemon by way of desert. In a hurry to get at my work as soon as possible, to make up for lost time, I threw the sucked Messina under the table, and in a few moments saw a little stitcher pick it up and hide it in her pocket.

By a series of questions I got the following information from a pretty Jewess who had been in the shop for three years and was getting $3.50 a week. She said, regarding the salary: “Oh, I don’t care. The boss won’t pay any more. My mother has money and doesn’t mind so long as I learn to sew. I am fifteen in October. I came here at twelve, and don’t know how much longer I will have to stay. The boss thinks women are cows, that they must be driven. So he drives us. We have to be at work at seven in the morning and stay till six in the evening.”

“Half holiday Saturday?”
“Nix.”
“What if you are sick?”
“If you’re sick he `pulls’ you. He `pulled’ me for twenty cents for being late last week. He `pulls’ all the hands when they come late, and he `pulls’ if we talk.”

That’s why I could not get my neighbors to tell me how to start my work. Rosy told me she was thirteen, that her father peddled fish, and that she was the eldest of five sisters and two brothers. She had been in the shop two years, and was getting $2.25 a week. Another girl, whom I dare not indicate, said: “These beggarly Jews and Swedes are robbing honest girls of a living. Most of them have homes and are willing to work for nothing. I live with my mother and brother, and can not make any more than enough to pay our rent, $10 a month. I would go in a family, but my mother needs me; she is sick. The boss is an awful hard man to work for. He steals my hire from me, and I steal his cotton and silk whenever I get a chance.”

During the noon hour the girls played in the front street, and afterwards amused themselves in the back yard with the men. At 12:45 o’clock the “boss” came into the shop, and five minutes later the place was noisy with flying shuttles, clicking needles, and the whizzing wheels of the roaring machinery. Fair young heads and pretty shoulders bent over heavy coats, and faces were so low that they almost touched the sewing in their owners’ laps. The clatter of the machines was deafening, and every now and then the shop resounded with the heavy hot irons wielded by the pressers in the back room. Nobody had any time to hand the work, instead of which the cutter threw it to the trimmer, who in turn threw it to the baster, and so it moved from hand to machine, going the round of the thirty odd workers with such rapidity that the air seemed filled with flying coats. The room was low, and with every passage of coattail muffy clouds of lint seemed floating about in space. Add to that poor light, bad ventilation, the exhalations of so many people, the smell of dye from the cloth, and the noxious odor of that ever-consuming cigar, and you have material for the makeup of this particular coat-shop. All afternoon we sewed; sewed incessantly, without uttering a syllable or resting a moment. The “boss” was building the third story of the house, and every hour or so he would leave the shop in care of an assistant and go up to look after the carpenters. During these intermittent spells the girls took advantage of the substitute and hummed. They didn’t sing; they hummed songs and hymns, marches and waltzes, and when the sub was not looking they actually whispered.

But the absentee possessed marvelous powers of ubiquitousness, and very little time was wasted in this manner. There are some people you would always know were in the room without seeing them. This hardheaded, godless little Jew was a character of that sort. We could feel his presence and a corresponding heaviness of atmosphere. Whenever he caught sight of a momentary idler he would glide up to her elbow and mutter a single word-work! She worked.

At 5 o’clock I was so tired I didn’t know what to do with myself. My hair was matted with moisture and dusted with lint, and my head throbbed with pain. I perspired at every pore, and the steel in my corsets rusted all the front of my nice Hamburg underwaist. I threw the big brown chinchilla overcoat I had finished on the floor, and for a period of three minutes fell into a state of voluptuous inertia. With my sixth sense I saw the “boss” pick up the garment, and the next moment another overcoat came flying across the table and dropped all over me. I threaded my needle preparatory to finishing my ninth garment, and began a light calisthenic movement of my right arm to scatter the pain and limber up my elbow. I went through perhaps seven motions, with my chair tilted back by way of stretching my lower extremities, when I was interrupted by the benevolent young tailor and his incombustible cigar.

Grabbing the frame of my chair, he jammed it down on all fours, and told me to “get to work.”
“How much am I going to get for this work?” I inquired, after recovering from my astonishment and the sudden shock of gravitation.
“Do you want to know?” he asked, with a contemptibly significant laugh.
“If you please.”
“Well, just finish that coat, and at 6 o’clock I’ll tell you.”
“I won’t finish any more. There’s your coat. Pay me.”
“Pay you! For what ?”
“For seven hours’ work; for finishing eight coats.”
“Without further notice of me than an insolent sneer, he picked up the coat, walked back to his cutting-board and began to draft out collars. I went back to the cutting-board, too, and stood at his side till commanded to “get out of his way.” I stepped back enough to give him elbow room, but did not leave the table.
“How long do you expect to annoy me by your presence?”
“I expect to remain where lam till you pay me for my seven hours’ work.”
“Your day isn’t up yet. We don’t quit till 6 o’clock, and it’s only ten minutes after 5.”
I told him I did not want to work for him another minute, and demanded my pay.
“Well, do you want to know what I’d pay you?”
“Yes.”
“One dollar and fifty cents a week, and you aint worth 75 cents.”
“You told me when I started that I would get $3, at least if I could sew.”
“And you can’t. All day you have been sitting up in your chair with your shoulders straight and your chair back as if you had a rocking-chair. There’s what I value you at,” and he threw a 25-cent piece at me. At first I hesitated about touching the money, and, as I looked at him to see whether he was serious or not, my eyes rested on the heavy gold ring he wore.
“Oh, you’re a B’nai Brith man, I see. Will you favor me with your card?”
“What for?”
“I want to send this money to the society for the orphans which you represent, with my compliments.”
“Get out of this shop or I’ll put you out.” Begging him not to go to that trouble, I got.
Whatever opinions I may have entertained about the dignity of labor, respectable poverty and the absurdity of fine feathers, my experience as a factory hand has unfitted me for future service, since in no place that I worked did I see any incentive to decency, honesty, or respectability, or any promise of success that did not carry with it the downfall of blindly climbing hope.

NOTE: The book was sold in many department and book stores in 1888 for 25 cents. I believe “Nell Nelson” to be a pseudonym.