Many people are prepared to frown upon any attempt to improve the social condition of dependent women. They regard it as a part of that myth which they call opposition to constituted authorities, without any reference to the consideration which should form the basis of all society, namely, ensuring the greatest amount of good to the greatest number. Others who are opposed to any amelioration sustain their views by a libel upon woman, and upon her Almighty Creator. They assert that she has not sufficient intellect for any thing beyond routine employment, or blame her because she has received only such an imperfect education as the world has thought proper to award her, and thus has not had an opportunity to cultivate her faculties. It is not necessary to point to the productions and achievements of women even in our own days, omitting all mention of what has been done heretofore, to expose the fallacy of this proposition. The facts are patent to the world. With special reference to the subject in hand it may be asserted, unhesitatingly and without fear of contradiction, that were there more avenues of employment open to females there would be a corresponding decrease in prostitution, and many of those who are now ranked with the daughters of shame would be happy and virtuous members of the community.[390]

In the list of occupations pursued by the women who are now prostitutes in New York, a most lamentable monotony is visible. Domestic service and sewing are the two principal resources. From the gross number of two thousand deduct those who lived with their parents or friends, children attending school, domestic servants, and housekeepers, amounting in the aggregate to 1322, and there is a balance of 678, nearly six hundred of whom depend upon needles and thread for an existence. In the total number reported there are only four, or exactly one in every five hundred, who relied for support upon any occupation requiring mental culture, that is, one artist and three school-teachers. This fact in itself sustains the theories that mental cultivation and sufficient employment are restrictions to the spread of prostitution.

If women are compelled to undergo merely the slavery of life, no moral advancement can ever be expected from them. If every approach to remunerative employment is systematically closed against them, nothing but degradation can ensue, and the moralist who shuddered with horror at the bare possibility of a woman being allowed to earn a competent living in a respectable manner will ejaculate, “What awful depravity exists in the female sex!” He and others of his class drive a woman to starvation by refusing to give her employment, and then condemn her for maintaining a wretched existence at the price of virtue.

But to notice more particularly the employments which the courtesans of New York have followed. The domestic servants amount to 931. No modern fashion has yet been introduced to deprive females of this sphere of labor, but so progressive is the age that even that may be accomplished within a few years, and the advertising columns of the newspapers teem with announcements of some newly-invented “scrubbing-machine.” The space will not permit any extended remarks on this employment, but, while allowing that many employers treat their servants as human beings gifted with the same sensibilities and feelings as themselves, it must be regretted that there are others who use them in a manner which would bring a blush to the cheek of a southern slave-driver. With such mistresses the incapacity of servants is a constant theme, nor do they ever ask themselves if they have learned the science of governing. Assuming that they themselves are right, they conclude that the “help” is, of course, wrong. Is it any wonder that girls are driven to intoxication and disgrace by this conduct? Another reason which forces servant-girls to prostitution is the excessive number who are constantly out of employment, estimated at one fourth of those resident in the city, an evil which would be diminished were there more opportunities for female labor.

What is the position of the needle-woman? Far worse than that of the servant. The latter has a home and food in addition to her wages; the former must lodge and keep herself out of earnings which do not much exceed in amount the servant’s pay. The labor by which this miserable pittance is earned, so truthfully depicted in the universally known “Song of the Shirt,” is distressing and enervating to a degree. Working from early dawn till late at night, with trembling fingers, aching head, and very often an empty stomach, the poor seamstress ruins her health to obtain a spare and insufficient living. There is no variety in her employment; it is the same endless round of stitches, varied only by a wearisome journey once or twice a week to the store whence she receives her work, and where the probabilities are that a portion of her scanty wages will be deducted for some alleged deficiency in the work. She has no redress, but must submit or be discharged.

Nor is the position of a milliner or dress-maker much superior to this. She has a room provided for her in the employer’s establishment, and there she must remain so long as the inexorable demands of fashion, or the necessity of preparing bonnets or dresses for some special occasion require. It matters not if she faint from exhaustion and fatigue; Mrs. —— wants her ball-dress to-morrow, and the poor slave (we use this word advisedly) must labor as if her eternal salvation rested on her nimble fingers. But the gay robe which is to deck the form of beauty is completed; the hour of release has come at last; and, as at night the wearied girl walks feebly through the almost deserted streets, she meets some of the frail of her own sex, bedecked in finery, with countenances beaming from the effects of their potations, and the thought flashes across her mind, “They are better off than I am.” Her human nature can scarcely repress such an exclamation, which is too often but the precursor of her own ruin.

Paper-box-makers, tobacco-packers, and book-folders are no better off. They must work in crowded shops, must inhale each other’s breath during the whole day (for such work-shops are not the best ventilated buildings in New York, generally speaking), and receive, as their remuneration, barely sufficient to find them food, clothes, and shelter.

It is needless to pursue this subject. Enough has surely been advanced to demonstrate the necessity of a more extended field of female labor.

Question. How long is it since you abandoned your trade as a means of living?

Length of Time.Numbers.
3months 174
6" 151
1year 273
2years 254
3" 147
4" 104
5" 117
10" 90
12"and upward 16
Not abandoned 296
Unascertained 378
Total 2000