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The Coming Sex

By Walter Hope

UT of the 305 "gainful occupations" enumerated by the Census of the United States, there are only eight in which women do not appear. In all the other 297, there are accredited representatives of "the coming sex" in numbers ranging from 2 to 600,000.

The eight occupations in which women do not appear, fall into two classes:

In the first of these classes, the absence of woman is due to the tyranny of man. There are no women soldiers in the United States Army. There are no women sailors in the United States Navy. There are no women marines in that navy. And there are no women firemen in the municipal fire departments of American cities. All this is simply because women have been ruled out. With different regulations, there might be different results. In Sweden there is a fire department in which women are frequently enrolled. And the fighting done by women at the siege of Saragossa in Spain during the Napoleonic wars, has always stood as a spectacular and sufficient proof of feminine valor.

In the remaining four of the eight womanless occupations in this country, the absence of women cannot be so readily explained away. It must be simply due to feminine neglect, that at the time of the last census there were no women "apprentices and helpers to roofers and slaters," no women "helpers to brassworkers," no women "helpers to steamboiler makers," and no women street-car drivers. The next census will probably repair this defect. There is no reason why women should not enter these four trades. Already they can be found in trades which are similar but more difficult. Already there are women roofers and slaters, women brass-workers, and women steam-boiler makers. It is hard to see why they shouldn't he "helpers"

in these trades if they can be full-fledged mechanics. And if, as is the case, there were two women motormen in 1900, there is no reason why there should not be women street-car drivers in 1910 in cities where horses are still used for local transportation.

Only four occupations, therefore, are to-day beyond the reach of women in the United States. They cannot be federal soldiers, federal sailors, federal marines, or municipal firemen. Everywhere else they have knocked, and they have been admitted.

The total number of women engaged in "gainful occupations" in 1900 was 5,319,397. This was an enormous advance over the number of women similarly employed in 1890. If the same rate of progress has been maintained since 1900, there cannot be the slightest doubt that at the present time there are fully six million women at work in various trades and occupations in the United States of America.

What this means it is impossible to realize unless the total number of women in the United States is taken into consideration. In the year 1900 there were some 28,000,000 American women over ten years of age. Many of these women were of course mere children. Many of them were so old as to be beyond the working age. Millions of them were engaged in the task of keeping house, of bringing up their children, of providing homes for the p.esent generation, and of laying the foundations of the character and of the culture of the future. In other words, they were discharging woman's "historic mission." Yet, with all these deductions, there were in the year 1900 more than 5,300,000 women who were engaged not only in spending money but in earning it; not only in managing the expenditure of wealth, which is the acknowledged function of woman, but in creating it, which is supposed to be the duty of man.

In other words, in the year 1900, out

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of every five American women over ten years of age, there was one who was going outside of her family duties and. who was taking part in the "gainful" work of the working world.

Just about 1,000,000 of America's 5,300,000 "gainful" women in 1900 were engaged in what the Census calls “agricultural pursuits." Among these 1,000,000 women agriculturists, there were 665,791 farm laborers and 307,788 laborers and 307,788 "farmers, planters, and overseers." There were also 100 women lumbermen and raftsmen, and 113 women wood-choppers.

In the professions, women are accepted more as a matter of course than they are in "agricultural pursuits." And among all the professions, that of teaching is the most thoroughly feminized. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that in the United States in 1900 there were more than 325,000 teachers. It is decidedly surprising, however, to wake up to the fact that there were only 6,418 actresses. It is clear that it takes about 1,000 teachers to make as much stir and get as much space in the newspapers as one stage-lady. And who would suppose from the relative amounts of comment made upon actresses and women clergymen, that the latter are more than half as numerous as the former? Yet there

were 3,405 women clergymen in the United States in 1900, and they were actively engaged in the religious life of many different denominations.

Engineering is properly regarded as the most difficult profession for women. The engineer has to do rough work in educating himself, and he has to do still rougher work when he begins to practice. Nevertheless, in 1900 there were 40 women civil engineers, 30 women mechanical and electrical engineers, and three women mining engineers.

Incidentally, there were 14 women veterinary surgeons.

And women should not forget that modern "library science," with its intricate technique, is providing them with a new and expanding field of professional effort. În 1900 there were 3,125 women librarians in the United States.

There were also 2,086 women saloonkeepers, and 440 women bar-tenders. Coming down from the professions of cataloguing books and of mixing drinks,

it is observable, in a perusal of the census statistics, that a man who wanted a new residence might conceivably have all the work done by the women who have gone into the mechanical trades. In 1900, besides the 100 women architects, who come more properly under the "professions," there were 150 women builders and contractors in the United States, 167 women masons, 545 women carpenters, 45 women plasterers, 1,759 women painters, glaziers, and varnishers, 126 women plumbers, 241 women paper-hangers, and 2 women slaters and roofers. A complete structure in honor of the sex might be erected by these representatives of its modern ingenuity and activity.

The most notable advance made by women in the decade from 1890 to 1900 was in stenography. In 1890 there were 21,270 stenographers and typewriters. In 1900 there were 86,118. This was an increase of more than 300 per cent.

The only occupations in which women are going backward, compared with men, are those in which they might be expected to go forward-namely, sewing, tailoring, and dressmaking. There were fewer seamstresses, tailoresses, and dressmakers in proportion to the number of men in these occupations in 1900 than there were in 1890. Work with the needle seems to be becoming too feminine for women.

On the whole, however, the increase in the number of women in the trade and industry of America is not only satisfactory but more than satisfactory. It is alarming. While in 1900 there were 5,300,000 such women, in 1890 there were only about 4,000,000. The number of women at work increased 33 per cent during the decade from 1890 to 1900. In that same period the total number of women in the United States increased only 22 per cent. In other words the number of women at work increased half again as fast as the total number of all the women in the country. Roughly speaking, it may be said that while in 1890 one women in every six went to work, in 1900 the proportion had increased to one in every five.

It is not surprising, therefore, that President Roosevelt, in his last message to Congress, strongly recommended a national investigation into the moral and

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H

We seek our shattered idols to replace,
Not one in all the myriads of the nations
Can ever fill another's vacant place.

Each has its own; the smallest and most humble,
As well as the revered the wide world through,
With every death some love and hope must crumble
Which strive to build them up anew.

If the fair race of violets should perish

Before another springtime had its birth,

Could all the costly blooms which florists cherish

Bring back its April beauty to the earth?

Not the most gorgeous flower that leaf uncloses
Could give the olden grace to vale and plain;

Not even Persia's garden full of roses

Could ever make this world so fair again.

And so with souls we love; they pass and leave us :
Time teaches patience at a bitter cost:

Not all the new loves which the years may give us
Can fill the heart-place aching for the lost.

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