The Legal Status of American Women
In the United States the legal and political status of woman varies largely with the laws of the different states. For example, as is well known, in certain states women have the same right as men to the ballot. Wyoming (1869) and Colorado (1893) were the first women’s suffrage states. In more than half the states, roughly everywhere except in the South and a few eastern states, she has the right to vote for the members of school boards and has a general school suffrage. In Louisiana since 1898 women tax-payers may vote on questions of tax levies. As regards property rights, in the state of New York, a woman in possession of property, who marries, has the unqualified use, irrespective of the wishes of her husband, of her property. That is, she owns and can spend as she pleases the whole of the income of her property, while, on the other hand, her husband is compelled by law to give her a certain proportion of his income. In other states, Mississippi, notably, the laws as regard property of married women are precisely the same as that for married men. If the husband is compelled to give a certain proportion of his income to his wife, she is compelled to give the same proportion of her income to him. This is true in several states, Michigan, for example, except that married women cannot usually convey property without the husband’s permission. In the state of New York a married woman making her will has a right to dispose of her property as she pleases; whereas in other states, Missouri for instance, the law prescribes that at least one-half shall go to her husband, if there are no children. In other words, in no two states of the Union is the legal and political status of woman the same. It is often important, and in these days always a matter of interest, for a woman to know just what her legal position is in the state in which she lives. This information the Britannica gives.
What a mother can do for her children she may learn from the Britannica articles indicated in the chapters of this Guide For Children and in the chapter For Teachers. Similarly she will find assistance in choosing, building or furnishing a house from the chapters For Builders and Architects, For Designers, For Manufacturers of Furniture, etc.
Such articles as Lace, Embroidery, Carpets, Tapestry, Furniture, Painting, Sculpture, Jewelry, Plate, particularly as they are all remarkably well illustrated, will be of great value either for the general formation of taste or for giving definite information about a particular style. For the adornment of “the House Beautiful” the Britannica is, however, valuable not merely because of the information it contains. The set on India paper, compact, slender and graceful, handsomely bound in leather, and contained in one of the “period” bookcases designed especially for the books, is in itself an adornment and an ornament for any library or drawing room. For the country home with flower or vegetable gardens the article Horticulture (Vol. 13, p. 741) will be found full of helpful information, both in its general treatment, and in the gardeners’ calendar for the United States, which tells in the most practical fashion what to do each month in the garden.
Home Making
For the transformation of a house, well-situated, well-built, well-furnished, well-decorated into a home,—for home-making,—any course of study in the Britannica should be helpful to a woman, by broadening her sympathies and her knowledge and by making a more interesting and better-informed companion to her husband, a more competent hostess to his and her guests, and a wiser mother to her children. But home-making is an art and not a science—or, if the modern woman will forgive the use of so old-fashioned a phrase, it is a spiritual grace rather than an intellectual achievement—and even a Guide to readings in the Britannica cannot give an exact formula for it.
Domestic Science
But there is a science whose field is the home and whose formulas are definite, and this “domestic science” may be learned from the Britannica. Of primary interest is the article Dietetics (Vol. 8, p. 214), equivalent in length to 25 pages of this Guide. It is by the late Dr. Wilbur Olin Atwater, professor of chemistry, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, who was special agent of the U. S. Department of Agriculture in charge of nutrition investigations, and R. D. Milner, formerly of the same Department. It contains 6 valuable tables: I. Percentage Composition of some Common Food Materials (64 in all); II. Digestibility (or Availability) of Nutrients in Different Classes of Food Materials (22 in all); III. Estimates of Heats of Combustion and of Fuel Value of Nutrients in Ordinary Mixed Diet; IV. Quantities of Available Nutrients and Energy in Daily Food Consumption of Persons in Different Circumstances; V. Standards for Dietaries—Available Nutrients and Energy per Man per Day; and VI. Amounts of Nutrients and Energy Furnished for one Shilling in Food Materials at Ordinary Prices (22 food materials, at 44 different prices). The topics of the article are:
Food and its functions—refuse, water, mineral matter, protein, including albuminoids and gelatinoids, fats, carbohydrates.
Conversion of food into body-material and of food and body-material into heat, muscular energy, etc., with results obtained from Dr. Atwater’s famous experiments with men in the “respiration calorimeter,” from measurement and analysis of food and drink, and from measurement of energy expended as heat and as external muscular work.