The first point to be taken up is the life of the primitive woman. She was the great laborer. The man hunted and fished and fought, and the woman sowed and reaped, did the drudgery of the home, made clothing, prepared food, and bore the responsibility. As civilization slowly crept in she relinquished many of her out-of-door tasks and developed greater ability to meet the steadily increasing problems within doors.
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 class; 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 fashion. 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 (Mitchell 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).