At Milwaukee, in October, 1866, I found a young woman well established as a hair-dresser. She belonged to a superior class of society, and encountered great opposition in carrying out her plan. "People would treat her much better," said a resident clergyman to me, in detailing her struggles, "if she were the willing mistress of a rich man." She had no taste for teaching, but I found in her a cultivated and pleasant companion. Since the war began, a good many women have been employed as clerks in the public offices at Washington. There is now some talk of their removal. If this should occur, it would be in consequence of unfit appointments, and the habits and annoyances which demoralized women have imposed upon the departments. The proper place to begin removals is obviously with the corrupt men, who have pensioned their mistresses out of the public coffers.
In Chicago, I found Fanny Paine, a girl of thirteen, acting as paymaster to the Eagle Works Manufacturing Company. She will, in one year, pay out a quarter of a million of dollars. She keeps the time-sheets, pay-roll, and account-book of each of the four hundred men employed. She receives about five thousand dollars a week from the bank, and makes the proper balances with the cashier, after paying her men. She knows every man, earns six hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum, and is represented as perfectly robust. It gave me no pleasure to find so young a girl in a position so exposed. I would have her uncommon faculties mature in quiet. The "London Athenæum" lately said, "A phenomenon worthy of consideration is the increasing number of female players on stringed instruments in France. At the examination of the conservatory this year, Mademoiselle Boulay gained a first, Mademoiselle Castellan a second prize. The violoncello has its professional students among the gentler sex. Madame Viardot is about to turn her experience to account, by editing a classical selection of music."
A very dear friend of mine,—Charlotte Hill, of West Gouldsborough, in Maine,—born a farmer's daughter, too deaf to teach, and too delicate to sew, had an intense love for music. She taught herself the violin. She then made a profession for herself by offering to play it at rustic parties; and one year, in the pursuit of this profession, she travelled more than eight hundred miles, and laid by three hundred dollars. This money was not spent on jewelry, but on the best books that our best publishers could furnish. It takes a genius to do a thing like that,—trust in one's self, and a far deeper trust in God; but there are multitudes of women whom suggestion and sympathy would lead into such thriving ways.
I have heard recently of a young girl in Shirley, who supports herself and her father by gunning. She not only sends game to market, but prepares the breasts of birds for ornamental purposes. She has bought her own house by her profits.
When I was at Florence, Mass., in the summer of 1865, I drove over to the famous button-factory at Easthampton. This great industry was founded by a woman; and, as I had often heard mythical stories about it, I wished to get at the facts. I found Samuel Williston, a very good specimen of a fine old English gentleman. He is a man between sixty and seventy, with hair and beard as white as snow. I found him in a blue coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and white pants, and very willing to tell his wife's story, if it would "encourage other women."
"My wife's father," he went on to say, "was a Mr. Graves. He was a poor man, with a large family of children. His wife and daughters used to go over to Northampton to get knitting from the stores. One day, all the knitting had been given out; and Mrs. Graves showed her disappointment so plainly that the shopman asked her to take some buttons to cover. In those days, all our buttons came from England, where they were made by hand; but our tailor had got out, and wanted some for coats and vests in a hurry. Mrs. Graves made about a gross, all her daughters helping, and did it so well that the work was continued. Then my wife took it up. She got some of the work from her mother. That was in 1825-26,—forty years ago. I had invested in merino sheep. I had ninety ewes and a large farm; but I was a young man, and found it hard to get along. It looked as though this business would help. My wife wanted to control the work. She hired girls to help her, and took all the orders that came. J.D. Whitney and Hayden & Whitney sold all she could make. When she had had the business a year, I went to Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, New York,—in short, I went all round,—with samples. I got my orders at first hand, and from that the business began.
"When we heard that machine-made buttons had been introduced into England, we sent over to buy the right to make them, and Mr. Hayden introduced them here.
"Every man must have his small beginnings," added Mr. Williston, with an embarrassed blush; "but, when a man has such a wife as mine, he is lucky."
It is said that nearly a million of dollars is invested in this button business at Easthampton. The Willistons are Congregational Christians; and the "Round Table" stated lately, that the wealth thus accumulated, besides being of great local value in developing the resources of the State, had established one seminary, built three churches, and assisted colleges and schools without number.
It is very rare that the labor of women becomes consolidated into capital; but there is no reason why it should not. The mother of James Freeman Clarke, whose name I use here in compliance with her own expressed desire, was a wonderful illustration of what common sense and determination will accomplish. The petted darling of a wealthy family, Madame Clarke found herself summoned, by her husband's illness and early death, to retrieve, almost unaided, the fortunes of six children. The first money which she could lay aside, at the head of a boarding-house, lifted the mortgage from a small property which she knew she was to inherit, and which she felt sure would increase in value. For this property she ultimately received her own price, being, to the great amazement of applicants, her own "man of business" in all negotiations. The small sum it yielded she put out at interest in new States, where money was scarce, and multiplied it tenfold before she died, not by careless speculation, but by investing it wisely in the heart of the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, by buying what she saw with her own eyes to be valuable. "I want women to know how to manage their own concerns as I did," she would say. "It only takes a little common sense. Women ought not to give up their property to men, or even ask their advice about it. The best men will prop up their shaky plans with a woman's money; but women should watch men, see where shrewd men put their money, and do as they do, not as they say."