Any one who reads history with his eyes open will be impressed with the fact that this world has always been considered a man’s world. At one period woman was denied every right; she was the slave of man. Rome and Greece treated her as a child. Medieval ages found her working in the fields and supporting large families, while her husband and son fought for rights that could never be hers. The familiar figure of a woman and an ox yoked together and driven by a man well represents the spirit of the past. The Hebrew rabbis made many proverbs relating to woman’s condition: “When Jehovah was angry, he made woman.” “Woman is an afterthought of God.” “A man of straw is worth more than a woman of gold.” The statement has been made and repeated times out of number that woman’s sphere is the home. This statement is true, but not unqualifiedly so; in fact, home is no more a woman’s place than it is a man’s. Home is based upon mutual responsibility, consideration, and the willingness to share mutual burdens. There is no sense in the old saw, “Woman should leave her home but three times—when she is christened, when she is married, and when she is buried.” This is on a par with another old proverb: “Woman, the cat, and the chimney should never leave the house.” We have outlived these archaic notions, and to-day, while we recognize as never before that home is woman’s true sphere, we realize that home is the man’s true sphere also.

The home is the foundation-stone of our civilization. It is the strength and safety of society. Rome fell when her homes were destroyed. Public morals are gaged by the morals of the home. In the face of the divorce court, with its incessant grind of business, it is time to raise a voice of protest against the spirit of careless indifference which views the home as a mere boarding-house, and “a place to stay away from.” Who is the chief offender, man or woman? The woman’s club, the woman’s place in politics, woman’s interest in industry and in reform have all been cited as being the potent forces at work destroying the home. As a matter of fact it is the man who is chiefly responsible. The strength, the vigor, and the purity of the American home, which show to-day in the splendid type of soldiers that are being sent across the seas to fight in the battle for democracy, speak well for the work of woman. The average man knows where he lives, the number of the house, and the name of the street on which it stands. He is able to recognize his children usually when he meets them. He pays the bills and takes a general interest in the appearance and up-keep of the establishment; but when it comes to bearing his share of the heavy burdens, he is a poor partner in the concern. The wife and mother is the home-maker. We know how well she has done her part.

Woman and Necessity. Women have chosen their work because of necessity as well as because of opportunity. A mother of two boys was left a widow with no money. Her people were all poor. If she went back home, the added burden would be an injustice to her parents and would work hardship upon her brothers and sisters. She had too much self-respect to take this course. She knew little about business and had no trade, but she found work in a store and by hard study at night and close application became an expert saleswoman. She sent her boys through college. One of them to-day is a successful lawyer and has served as senator in the state legislature. The other is a practising physician in one of the large cities of the Middle West. Both of these men are eminently successful. This woman contributed more than her share to society and was cheerful and happy in her work. In speaking of her one of the partners in the firm where she was employed said, “There is no person connected with this firm who has created such a wholesome atmosphere as she has done.”

A little black-eyed boy was arrested in the north end of Boston and sent to the reform school. He was eleven years old and had become the leader of a gang of boys who had been robbing show-windows. His mother was a Jewess; his father had deserted her and left three children, one just a baby in arms. This woman could find nothing to do that would pay her enough to enable her to provide actual necessities for her children. The baby died and in the distress of the hour the mother appealed to a neighbor. She helped her financially and found a position for her in one of the millinery shops of the city. This woman, in reality a widow, had been able to struggle along but was not very capable. She fought her battle as bravely as she could and was always cheerful, but it was almost too much for her to do the earning that was necessary. Her little boy, without proper guardianship, with no place to play but the streets, got into trouble. It was not only because the mother was at work and thus unable to train her boy, that this new trouble came, but because there is no proper and adequate provision made for women left in her position.

The woman of the family is always the most overburdened member. She has serious responsibilities and the heaviest tasks. When she is left with the care of children, it is inevitable that she should turn to industry for her own and her children’s support. Another group of workers are the young girls who go into work for a few years until they are married. Still another are the young women who feel that there is no reason why women should not have the same chance to make a place for themselves in the world of industry that is accorded to men. We must come to believe in the independence of both men and women and grant to each the right to choose his or her own place and work in life. A newspaper woman in Cincinnati said: “I determined that I had qualifications necessary for success as a writer. I went to school and studied hard with the intention of becoming a reporter. When I received my diploma, I was as proud as any member of the class, but not half as happy on that day as I was a week later when I received my first assignment from the city editor of a paper that had employed me ‘on trial.’ I have succeeded and am happy in my work.” Why should any one attempt to limit this woman in her vocation? She has chosen and chosen well. She is making her contribution and it is just as important as that made by thousands of the best men in similar positions.

In War Time. Since the war began nearly a million and a quarter additional women have been brought into the industries of Great Britain. This is an increase of nearly forty per cent. of the number employed in July, 1914. Moreover, the percentage of the increase is rising. In France we find the same situation. In the United States as the war goes on larger numbers of women are taking places as wage-earners. Women are replacing men in running elevators in all public buildings, working in hotels, as conductors on street-car lines, guards on subway trains, ticket sellers, baggage agents, and crossing tenders in the railroad service. Thousands more are going into the different forms of agricultural work. Besides these new pursuits, women are running the lathes in the shops and factories, while thousands are employed in the making of munitions. Probably it is safe to say that for every man who has gone to the front at the present time there is a woman in America who is doing the man’s work.

A study of the conditions shows that nearly all the work done by women in the warring nations is unskilled or semi-skilled. There are not very many opportunities for advancement and most of the women feel that they are simply working in an emergency; hence there is not a chance of their becoming efficient as skilled workers. The ability of these workers is remarkable, especially when we take into consideration the fact that most of the women had no training before the war. In the working of automatic machines where technical skill is of less value than carefulness, attention, and dexterity, women are much more efficient than men. In a report made upon the conditions in the employment of women in Great Britain during the war, is this statement concerning the efficiency of women: “In regularity, application, accuracy, and finish women have proved very satisfactory.”

Quality of Work. In the work that women are able to do, they learn quickly, more so than the men employed in the same places; and they increase the output above what was usual with the men workers. The experience in the United States in pre-war times proves the efficiency of the women workers. The treasury department employs women for the detecting of counterfeits in paper money. After a bad bill has gone through half a dozen banks, and has been subjected to the closest scrutiny, and yet has not been detected, these experienced women can detect it by its “feel.” According to statistics color-blindness is much more prominent in men than in women. A noted educator is authority for the statement that in the public schools four per cent. of all the boys are color-blind, while only one tenth of one per cent. of the girls are color-blind. It is now generally conceded that the sight is the most intelligent of all the senses. The average woman, no matter what she undertakes, will work harder to make herself proficient than will the average man. One result of so many women entering into industry is to raise the grade of employment and make the workers more competent. It may not seem that this would be the result at first, but that rather the reverse would be true. It was the entering of women into the ranks of the physicians that changed the meager ten or eleven months’ course of the medical college into the four years’ course that is required to-day.

There never has been a time when women were not in industry. When the loom left the home, women followed it into the factory. More than eight million women and girls were employed in gainful occupations outside the home in the United States just before the war began. This number has been increased, yet it is not out of proportion to the number of women in the country. It is logical that women should continue in industry. A woman must live, and for her living a certain amount of money is required. This money must be given to her or she must earn it; not only that, but the women of to-day will demand the right to do some constructive work in the midst of the new conditions under which we live.

The Field of Women’s Activity. Certain vocations are closed to women. All those occupations which demand great physical strength belong of right to man. The heavy work in the steel-mills, much of the work in constructural iron trades, wood-work, bridge-building, stone masonry, heavy carpentry, mining, smelting, refining minerals, and the heavy work of shoveling and lifting are men’s tasks. Many of the trades are also closed to women, because in these trades it takes at least five years’ apprenticeship before a man is able to earn a salary. Women do not care to enter into such a long apprenticeship. They will not give five years to non-productive work, for the great majority of women have not accepted industrial work in preference to married life. If the right man comes along, the average woman would feel that as a home-maker cooperating with her husband she could accomplish more than by continuing alone as an industrial unit. Of this attitude Miss Alice Henry says, “Give her fairer wages, shorten her hours of toil, let her have a chance of a good time, of a happy girlhood, and an independent, normal woman will be free to make a real choice of the best man. She will not be tempted to accept passively any man who offers himself, just in order to escape from a life of unbearable toil, monotony, and deprivation.”4

A Woman’s Chances in a Man’s World. Woman is an organic part of society. This means that she is a part of every one of the organizations that enter into modern society. She has always had a part in literature. Julia Ward Howe in writing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” contributed not only to our wealth of song, but made a direct contribution toward the winning of the freedom of the slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe also gave her remarkable aid to the same cause. George Eliot was one of the great novelists. In the field of reform Frances E. Willard takes first place. Maud Ballington Booth, the “little mother” of thousands of prisoners, is making a new world for the men into which they may enter when they leave the penitentiary door. It is the Pilgrim mothers rather than the Pilgrim fathers who ought to be given the credit for New England’s contribution to national history. All other attempts to colonize failed because the adventurers in their quest for gold and fortunes did not bring their women with them. Anna the prophetess of old in the temple and Susan B. Anthony in the suffrage cause each represent an age and an enthusiasm and an ability to persist until results are achieved.

Now we have a new situation. Many people view with concern the increasing numbers of women that are employed in gainful occupations in the United States and Canada at the present time. The employment of women presents not one question but many. The problem that is familiar to nearly all housekeepers—that of securing domestic service—presses upon our attention the number of women employed in this kind of work. Domestic service engages the largest number of women outside of the home. Women are now doing everything that men have done, and in most cases are doing the work just as well, while in many occupations they show an efficiency that men have never achieved. Charles Kingsley’s phrase, “For men must work and women must weep,” did very well in that age, but under the economic conditions under which we are living to-day, the contrast he makes is absolutely inappropriate. The question of work and workers has been settled. In the army of laborers the girl and the woman are drafted as well as the boy and man.

Before the great war began there was in the United States about one woman worker for every five men. This number has been greatly increased. Of the three hundred specific occupations the census of 1900 enumerated there were only two occupations in which women were not engaged in some capacity. The census of 1910 gives a larger number of occupations, and not one in which women are not employed. Women are on the street-car lines and are line women and telegraphers, riveters, blacksmiths, steam-boiler makers, brass workers, and foundry workers. In fact, no work seems too hard or too heavy for some woman to make a success of it. From the time of the invention of the cotton-gin, which brought more women into the world of industry than any other one machine, to the present day we have the story of women and men gaining larger visions, receiving better wages, and together making the world a more habitable place for us all.

Justice to Women Workers. It would be impossible for us to manage business as we do to-day without the efficient help of secretaries, stenographers, telegraph-operators, and other office assistants, nearly all of whom are women. The question arises as to what treatment a woman should receive. For some reason, when a woman does a piece of work, no matter how well it is done, or howsoever efficient she becomes, we have a feeling that she should receive less pay for the same work than a man would receive. There are many reasons why women are suffering from this injustice. One arises from the conditions which bring a large number of women into industry.

A number of salesgirls, some stenographers, and a great many helpers in different industrial firms live at home and work for what is known as pin-money. They are not primarily dependent upon their wage. The money comes in handy and they can use it to good advantage. They are not forced to work, hence, they can and will accept a lower wage than if they were absolutely dependent upon what they earn. “I receive $3.50 a week for clerking in this store,” said a bright girl in Chicago, “and I don’t take anything from the floor-walkers. Whenever they try to order me around, they have got another guess coming. I don’t have to work, and I let them know it. They are mighty lucky to get me.” This was all right for this girl, but the fact that she was situated so that a salary of $3.50 a week satisfied her made it possible for the firm to set that as a standard wage, and other girls who did have to take bossing from the floor-walkers, and were dependent upon their wages, were forced to accept what the firm offered. A friend of mine who has an interest in a dry-goods store holds that the average girl is not worth more than $6 a week because she works simply to tide her over a few years until she gets married. He said, “I cannot afford to pay more than $6 because my competitors pay this same rate to their clerks; and if I am going to sell goods I have to take into consideration the conditions in the trade.”

Another thing that enters into the situation is the fact that women workers have never been as well organized as men. The points upon which the trade-union movement concentrates are the raising of wages, the shortening of hours, the diminution of seasonal work, the regulation of piece-work (with its resultant speeding up), the maintaining of sanitary conditions, the guarding of unsafe machinery, the making of laws against child labor which can be enforced, the abolition of taxes for power and for working materials (such as thread and needles), and of unfair fines for petty or unproved offenses. Miss Henry tells of a case in a non-union trade which suggests the reasons which make organization a necessity. “Twenty-one years ago in the bag and hemp factories of St. Louis, girl experts turned out 460 yards of material in a twelve-hour day, the pay being 24 cents per bolt, measuring from 60 to 66 yards. These girls earned $1.84 per day. Four years ago a girl could not hold her job under 1,000 yards in a ten-hour day. The fastest possible worker can turn out only 1,200 yards, and the price has dropped to 15 cents a hundred yards. The old rate of 24 cents per bolt used to net $1.80 to a very quick worker. The new rate to one equally competent is but $1.50.

“The workers have to fill a shuttle every minute and a half or two minutes. This necessitates the strain of constant vigilance, as the breaking of the thread causes unevenness, and for this mishap operators are laid off for two or three days. The operators are at such a tension that they not only stand all day, but may not even bend their knees. The air is thick with lint which the workers inhale. The throat and eyes are terribly affected, and it is necessary to work with the head bound up, and to comb the lint from the eyebrows. The proprietors have to retain a physician to attend the workers every morning, and medicine is supplied free, as an accepted need for every one so engaged. One year is spent in learning the trade; and the girls last at it only from three to four years afterward. Some of them enter marriage, but many of them are thrown on the human waste-heap. One company employs nearly 1,000 women, so that a large number are affected by these vile, inhuman conditions. The girls in the trade are mostly Slovaks, Poles, and Bohemians, who have not been long in America. In their inexperience they count $1.50 as good wages, although gained at ever so great a physical cost.”5 These wretched conditions are not uncommon. Thousands of women who are forced to earn their living and are contributing their full share toward making America the great commercial power she is to-day are laboring under just such injustice.

Women and Unions. Most of the union leaders have viewed with alarm the increasing number of women that are being drafted into industry each year. The reasons for this are clear to all who know the history of trade unionism and know how the workmen greet the coming into industry of any new group of available workers. The war has made labor conditions chaotic; and the shortage in certain lines has given opportunity for the employers to substitute women for men, because women for the most part are economically defenseless and, therefore, can be secured for a lower wage than men. Women are more easily exploited than men because they have not been so long in the industrial struggle with its keen competition. They are less able to appreciate the value of cooperation for mutual protection. One union leader said, “I look upon the large number of women who are being drafted into industry as a real menace to the women themselves, to society, and to labor.” The situation presents itself something like this: Organized labor has a very close relation in its feeling to all labor and to all the different groups of workingmen organized and unorganized; and it regards an injustice to an unorganized worker as being indirectly an injustice to itself. The reason for this sympathy is of course primarily selfish, for the union man knows that if his fellow laborers in another trade are unprotected, and an injustice is practised upon them, it will be only a short time until the same thing will be attempted upon the organized worker. If women go into competition with men under present conditions they will be employed rather than men because they can be secured for a lower wage. Look, for instance, at some of the cotton-mills in the South, where the whole family, father, mother, and two or three children all work, and the total wage of the family group amounts to just about what is considered a living wage.

The attitude of organized labor toward women workers is about the same as its attitude toward cheap foreign labor, and the reason for the feeling is due wholly to the fear that the women brought into the industry will lower wages and bring down the standard of living of the entire group. The attitude is dictated as a defense measure in behalf of the standard of living for all. The attitude of union labor is indefensible except as a measure of self-defense. It should be said, however, that union labor is not a unit in this attitude. There are a large number of broad-minded men in the ranks of the organized workers who recognize present conditions, and see that it is inevitable that larger numbers of women shall be employed in gainful occupations in the future. Instead of putting up the bars and attempting to keep women out, those who have given the matter most thought are putting forth their efforts to organize the workers. The Women’s National Trade Union League, of which Mrs. Raymond Robbins is the president, has rendered great service for the women workers of the nation. Legislation has been secured and minimum wages established in some places. But best of all this movement has been teaching the women workers the necessity of organization in order that they and other women may be protected, and that the women drafted into industry may not become a menace to the American standard of living which has been built up at such great pains and through such toilsome efforts. This league voices the protest of American working women against the notoriously bad conditions surrounding the work of women and children.

Women have always been taken into some of the men’s unions, but the growth of certain trades—such as glove-making, coat- and suit-making, shirt, collar, and shirt-waist manufacturing—employing women almost exclusively made such cooperation impossible. These trades were organized after much effort on the part of the leaders of the Women’s National Trade Union League. This organization has conducted several strikes in big cities in the last ten years, and in nearly every case has won. Girls strike just as hard as men. They have more persistence; are more willing to sacrifice and suffer and generally show more intelligence in conducting their affairs. They make good pickets and because of their aggressive, earnest work are successful. Their resources are not so great and when they are out of work they have more difficulty in getting temporary jobs. Another important feature of their problems is that the supply of non-union workers to take their places is almost unlimited.

Women and the Church. Women in all the Christian ages have recognized the church as their friend and in appreciation of what it has done they have worked unceasingly for its success. There is a big task before the church in behalf of women, and especially in the interests of the women laborers in industry. There is the opportunity for the church groups to influence the individual employer to improve conditions pending regulation by the community. In addition to the question of wages and hours the demands of the churches must involve the abolition of the speeding-up process by which, under the piece-work system, the amount of work required for a specified task is constantly increased. The fastest worker is used as the pace-maker, so that the wage of the slower worker continually drops, and the amount of work done by the fastest workers continually increases. The law may specify a minimum wage, but it cannot specify the amount of work to be done in each particular trade.

Here is where the church groups must cooperate with the working women themselves, and must assist them to secure some voice in determining the conditions under which they shall work. Legislation alone can never achieve the standards now demanded in common by the church and social workers; nor can they be realized by the benevolence of employers. If the health and morals of the community are not to suffer from the employment of women in industry, it can be accomplished only by the cooperation of working women to this end. The church must educate its community to think in terms of the greatest good to the greatest number. And this means that we must come to realize more than ever that the strength of the childhood of the nation is dependent upon the home; and that the strength of the home is dependent upon the physical, intellectual, and moral welfare of the women of the nation. It is possible for the church to accomplish much by arousing purchasers to the necessity of using their conscience in their shopping. Local white-lists of stores and factories which meet the Consumers’ League conditions can be made by representative groups. The Consumers’ League label and the labels of the organizations affiliated in the Women’s Trade Union League should be demanded. They will protect the conscience of the buyer and assure him that his comfort is not being secured at the cost of strain upon the health and morals of the women of his city or nation. It is for the churches to make this fight for the working women a community issue. It is a religious issue, and the pulpit may help to realize these religious values in the lives of the working women.

When we pray “God save the people,” it would be well for us to use our heads in our prayers, and to remember that the people will perish if we do not protect the womanhood which is the foundation of the home. God cannot save the people if we destroy the mothers of men.