What the lowest class of women need is active brains to plan and think for them. There are plenty of these active brains at the West End, tingling with neuralgia, hot with idleness, dizzy with waltzing. Offer a government testimonial to the first girl of rank who will carry her brains to a market, and you will see what a throng of aspirants we shall have; letting it be understood, mind you, that the public feeling sustains the government testimonial.
Let us ask, then, a few questions about the state of female labor in the United States. Our census is by no means so complete as that of Great Britain; and our statements will, therefore, be less accurate.
At the close of the Revolution, there were in New England, and perhaps farther south, many women conducting large business establishments, and few females employed as clerks, partly because we were still English, and had not lost English habits. Men went to the war or the General Court, and their wives soon learned to carry on the business upon which not only the family bread, but the fate of the nation, depended; while our common schools had not yet begun to fit women for book-keepers and clerks.
The Island of Nantucket was, at the close of the war, a good example of the whole country. Great destitution existed on the establishment of peace. The men began the whale fishery with redoubled energy: some fitted out and others manned the ships; while the women laid aside distaff and loom to attend to trade. A very interesting letter from Mrs. Eliza Barney to Mr. Higginson gives me many particulars. "Fifty years ago," she says, "all the dry-goods and groceries were kept by women, who went to Boston semi-annually to renew their stock. The heroine of 'Miriam Coffin' was one of the most influential of our commercial women. She not only traded in dry-goods and provisions, but fitted vessels for the merchant service. Since that time, I can recall near seventy women who have successfully engaged in commerce, brought up and educated large families, and retired with a competence. It was the influence of capitalists from the Continent that drove the Nantucket women out of the trade; and they only resumed it a few years since, when the California emigration made it necessary. Five dry-goods and a few large groceries are now carried on by women, as also one druggist's shop." Mrs. Gaskell, in her "Life of Charlotte Bronté," mentions a woman living as a druggist, I think, at Haworth; and I have always been surprised that this business was not left to women. Our Nantucket druggist is doing well. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker view of the duties and rights of women contributed to throw many into trade at the same period. One lady in Philadelphia transferred a large wholesale business to two nephews, and died wealthy. I saw a letter the other day, which gave an interesting account of two girls who got permission there to sell a little stock in their father's shop. One began with sixty-two cents, which she invested in a dozen tapes. The other had three dollars. In a few years, they bought their father out. The little tape-seller married, and carried her husband eight thousand dollars; while the single sister kept on till she accumulated twenty thousand dollars, and took a poor boy into partnership.
I have spoken of English female printers. The first paper ever issued in Rhode Island was printed by a brother of Dr. Franklin, at Newport. He died early, and his widow continued the work. She was aided by her two daughters, swift and correct compositors. She was made printer to the Colony, and, in 1745, printed an edition of the laws, in 346 folio pages. That she found time to do something else, you may judge from this advertisement:—
"The printer hereof prints linens, calicoes, silk, &c., in figures, in lively and durable colors, without the offensive smell which commonly attends linen printed here."
Margaret Draper printed the "Boston News Letter," and was so good a Tory that the English Government pensioned her when the war drove her away. Clementina Bird edited and printed the "Virginia Gazette," and Thomas Jefferson wrote for her paper. Penelope Russell also printed the "Censor," in Boston, in 1771.
When we record these things, and think how women are pressing into printing-offices in our time, it is pleasant to find a generous action to sustain them. At a recent Printers' Convention held in Springfield, Ill., the following resolution was adopted:—
"Whereas, The employment of females in printing-offices as compositors has, wherever adopted, been found a decided benefit as regards moral influence and steady work, and also as offering better wages to a deserving class; therefore, be it—
"Resolved, That this Association recommends to its members the employment of females whenever practicable."
Mrs. Barney tells us that failures were very uncommon in Nantucket while women managed the business; and some of the largest and safest fortunes in Boston were founded by women, one of whom, I remember, rode in her own chariot, and kept fifty thousand dollars in gold in the chimney corner, lest the banks should not be as cautious in their dealings as herself. While writing these pages, I have visited such a woman, still living in Prince Street, at the age of ninety-five. Her name is Hillman. She lived for sixty-four years in the same house, and made her property by a large grocery business, and speculations on a strip of real estate. Her father, Mr. William Haggo, was a nautical-instrument maker; and she has a very remarkable head, and as conservative a horror of modern changes—steam-bakeries, for instance—as any of you could wish.[23] Some of you will remember the two sisters Johnson, who, for more than half a century, kept a crockery-shop on Hanover Street, and separated about two years ago,—one sister to retire on her earnings; the other to rest in a quiet grave, at the age of fourscore. The spirit of modern improvement has since seized hold of the old shop.