I met scores of these friendless women. Some I took into my house; for others I found work and made myself a sort of guardian; while to others I gave friendship to keep them morally alive. It is a curious fact that these women are chiefly Germans. The Irish resort at once to beggary or are inveigled into brothels as soon as they arrive, while the French are always intriguing enough either to put on a white cap and find a place as bonne, or to secure a private lover.
I am often in despair about the helplessness of women, and the readiness of men to let them earn money in abundance by shame while they are ground down to the merest pittance for honorable work.
Shame on society, that women are forced to surrender themselves to an abandoned life and to death when so many are enjoying wealth and luxury in extravagance! I do not wish the rich to divide their estates with the poor—I am no friend to communism in any form. I only wish institutions that shall give to women an education from childhood that will enable them, like young men, to earn their livelihood. These weak women are the last to come forth to aid in their emancipation from inefficient education. We cannot calculate upon these; we must educate the children for better positions, and leave the adults to their destiny.
How many women marry only for a shelter or a home! How often have I been the confidante of girls who the day before, arrayed in satin, had given their hands to rich men before the altar, while their hearts were breaking with suppressed agony! And this, too, in America, this great free nation, which, notwithstanding, lets its women starve.
It is but lately that a young woman said to me, “I thank Heaven, my dear doctor, that you are a woman, for now I can tell you the truth about my health. It is not my body that is sick, but my heart. These flounces and velvets cover a body that is sold—sold legally to a man who could pay my father’s debts.”
Oh! I scorn men, sometimes, from the bottom of my heart. Still, this is wrong, for it is the fault of the woman—of the mother—in educating her daughter to be merely a beautiful machine fit to ornament a fine establishment; not gaining this, there is nothing left but wretchedness of mind and body.
Women, there is a connection between the Fifth Avenue and the Five Points! Both the rich and the wretched are types of womanhood, both are linked together forming one great body, and both have the same part in good and evil. I can hardly leave this subject, though it may seem to have little to do with my American experience, but a word spoken from a full heart not only gives relief but may carry a message to at least one listening ear with far-reaching results.
CHAPTER XII
Her former rival (and later her successor), Sister Catherine, comes from Berlin to New York to ask her aid—Marie is joined also by a second sister and a brother—She is robbed of all her savings—The end of her first year in America finds her profoundly depressed because, though successful in business, she has found no opening in her profession—Her hopes are suddenly renewed by hearing of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell upon whom she calls. (Twenty-four years of age: 1853-1854.)
I must now return to my new enterprise. The business paid well, and, although I was often forced to work with my sister till the dawn of morning, we were happy, for we had all that we needed, and I could write home that the offered assistance was superfluous.