There are said to be about 2000 women journalists. Their writings are often sensational, but in the United States sensationalism is characteristic of the profession.
Of women preachers there are 3,500, belonging to 158 different denominations. Among these women preachers there are also negresses. The women study in theological seminaries, are ordained and devote themselves either to the real calling of the ministry, social rescue work, or to the woman’s rights propaganda, as does the excellent speaker, the Reverend Anna Shaw. The women preachers who devote themselves to social rescue work usually study medicine also, so that they can first secure confidence as persons skilled in the cure of the body, and then later the cure of the soul is less difficult.
There are 7000 women in the medical profession,—more than in any other profession. The first women who studied medicine were American, Elizabeth Blackwell having done so as early as 1846. Only the University of Geneva (New York) would admit her; in 1848 she graduated there. Then she continued her studies in Paris and London, returning in 1851 to New York, in order to practice. Her first patients were Quakers. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily (Blackwell) then founded in New York the “Hospital for Indigent Women,” to which the medical schools in Boston and Philadelphia sent their graduates to obtain practical work.[20] A large number of women lawyers, preachers, and doctors are married. In 1900 the total number of women in the professions (exclusive of teaching) was 16,000. In 1900, 14.3 per cent of the female population were engaged in industries; since 1880 the number of women engaged in the professions and industries increased 128 per cent (while that of the men increased 76 per cent).[21]
Most of the technical schools admit women. There are fifty-three women architects. The Woman’s Building of the World’s Exposition in Chicago (1893) was designed by Sophia Haydn and erected under her supervision. It is not unusual for women who are owners of business enterprises to take technical courses. Thus Miss Jones, as her father’s heir, became, after a careful education, manageress of her large steel works in Chicago. The Cincinnati pottery [Rookwood], founded by women, is also managed by them. There are five women captains of ships, four women pilots, and twenty-four women engineers.
During twenty-five years, women have had 4000 inventions patented. The women of the South produced fewest inventions. But in these fields women still meet with prejudice and difficulties. In increasing numbers women are becoming bankers, merchants, contractors, owners or managers of factories, shareholders, stock-brokers, and commercial travelers. About 1000 women are now engaged in these occupations. As office clerks women have stood the test well in the United States. They are esteemed for their discretion and willingness to work. They are paid $12 to $20 a week. According to the most recent statistics on the trades and professions (1900) there were 1271 women bank clerks, 27,712 women bookkeepers, and 86,118 women stenographers.
In the civil service we find fewer women (they are not voters): in 1890 there were 14,692, of whom 8474 were postal, telephone, and telegraph clerks, and 300 were police officials. In 1900, the total number of women engaged in commerce was 503,574.
The prejudice against the women of the lower classes is still evident. Here at the very outset there is a great difference between the wages of men and women, the wages of the latter being from one third to one half lower. This is caused partly by the fact that women are given the disagreeable, tiresome, and unimportant work, which they must accept, not being given an opportunity to do the better class of work,—frequently because they have not learned their trade thoroughly. A further cause for the lower wages of women is that they are working for “pocket-money” and “incidentals,” and thus spoil the market for those who must pay their whole living expenses with what they earn. Among the women workers of the United States there are two classes,—the industrial class and the amateurs. The latter make the existence of the former almost impossible. Such a competition is unknown to men in industrial work. Mrs. v. Vorst[22] proposes a solution—to make the industrial amateurs become special artisans by means of a longer apprenticeship, thus relieving the industrial slaves from injurious competition.
Office work and work in the factories enables the American women of the middle and lower classes to satisfy their desire for independence; those who are not obliged to provide for themselves wish at least to have money at their disposal. That is a thoroughly sound aspiration. These girls become factory employees and not domestic servants, (1) because work in their own home is not paid for (the general disregard of housework drives the women striving for independence away from the house); (2) because of the absence of regularity in housework; (3) because the domestic servants are not free on Sundays; (4) because they must live with the employers. These facts are established by answer to inquiries made by Miss Jackson, factory inspector of Wisconsin.
The women employed in the stores and factories are in general paid about the same wages, $4 to $6 a week. A saleswoman, upon whom greater demands are made as to dress and personal appearance, finds it more difficult to live on these wages than would the woman employed in the factory. As pocket-money, however, this sum is a very good remuneration, and this explains why the girls of these classes, in imitation of the bad example set them by the members of the upper ranks of society, manifest such an extraordinary taste for costly clothes and expensive pleasures. In 1888, an official inquiry showed that 95 per cent of the women laborers lived at home; in 1891 another official inquiry showed that one third of the women laborers earned $5 a week; two thirds from $5 to $7, and only 1.8 per cent earned more than $12, while the men laborers earned on the average $12 to $15 a week. Women laborers are organized as yet only to a small extent (1 per cent, while 10 per cent of the men are organized). There are separate social-democratic organizations of women, formed through the Federation of Labor.
The workingwomen especially will be helped by the right to vote. In the “Political Equality Series” appears a pamphlet entitled Why does the Working-woman need the Right to Vote? In the first place she needs the right to vote in order to secure higher wages. Just suppose that the members of the typographical union were to-morrow deprived of their right to vote. Only their full political emancipation could again restore them to their former position of prestige among the working classes. This is exactly the case with the women, and they have not even reached the highly-developed organization of the typographers. A politically unfree laboring class is also unable to maintain its vocation against a laboring class possessing political rights; if the vocation is remunerative the unfree class will be deprived of it or be kept from it altogether. The oppression of the workingwomen has its effect also on men through its tendency to lower wages. Therefore at the present time the trades-unions have recognized that to organize women is in the interests of all workingmen, and while the women were refused organization forty years ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men and women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895, an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.