The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-06-11

The Detroit Free Press of June Sd contains
some pertinent remarks upon women as work
ers, bv which it will be seen that "genteel idle
ness is becoming less popular every day. and
women everywhere are aspiring to be self-sup
porting by honest labor. In an article on " Wo-
men and the Census" the Free Press says:
The Philadelphia Ledger suggests that wo-
men should be included in the industrial classes
more than they usually are. Twelve or fifteen
millions OF them are represented as absolutely
idle, whereas the fact is most of them are as
busily engaged in industry as the men. The
Ledger says
Farmers wives and daughters, who work as
hard as the hired hands, IN the dairy, in the
garden, and even in the field sometimes, or in
cooking and washing for the men in harvest
time, get no share OF the count, because they
get no wages. These are rather hard lines: to
dodge profit and credit TOO, and to be counted
as cyphers in both pay and mention IN the sum
total OF womanknd. But they ought TO he men
toned in the census at least as doing their
share OF the farm work. The last census gave
among agricultural returns IN the State OF
Pennsylvania only ,279 women OF all ages from
10 years upward engaged in farm work. Any
body can see that this is nonsense, and the
farmers wives and daughters who are proud OF
their butter and cheese, of their buckwheat
honey, their vegetables and chickens and eggs
sent to market, to cay nothing OF their house
hold labor, IN helping the farm along, ought to
see that they are counted this time, and not
among the unemployed"
Moreover, women Of the present day will have
less shamefscedness about admitting that they
work for their living. II they do nothing more,
they paint china and sell 1t, decorate and carve,
and many are earning money as copysts, re-
porteIs, telegraph operators, clerks, etc. If TO
those actually engaged in some sort OF employ
ment are added those who keep house for
their board and clothes and the privilege of
working for their husbands and children with
out pay, the number OF women actually idle will
prove 10 be very small and idleness, instead Of
becoming respectable and envlable may come
to be Objectionable, il not odious.
The same paper contains this:
Are women workers, who get no wages? This
is to be the problem for the present census-ta-
kers Formerly, all married women keeping
house were recorded az idlers, making a vast
army Of incapables, who added nothing to the
industrial hive. The Ledger, in an excellent
editorial upon the subject, makes the following
just remarks: . Twenty, and even ten yeaIs
ago, women who made their own living by keep
ing boarders. sewing or writing, thought that It
was rather more elegant TO be considered idle
! They preferred not TO own up to It. Probably
there was considerable lodging OF facts IN the
census returns. Now, all this is changed. The
girl who paints set OF china is proud when II
is sold, and she can put the money IN her pock-
ct, or point 10 what she has bought with her
own earnings. A great change has passed over
! the minds, and even sentiments, OF women IN
this respect and each one has found way to
self-support 10y honest industry would prefei
| to be known as self-supporting, rather than an
idle burden to friends. Most of the millions oi
women, it is true, are at work for other people
even in their own homes, and they ought 20 see
TO It that the census -taker gets them down "a
his list Of occupations as keeping house. Al
honorable occupation. although 10 salary goes
with IT, Every woman IN the house should sc;
herself put down as a worker at whatever worl
she has, so that the census returns shall nc
longer give out that million. Of American wo-
men do just nothing az all. " Verify, the world
moves, aud mauy Of the mean hypocr.tes iha'
have ,tun,ed women d lives and ru.aed ,ueir in
teilecs Will be removed, when they learn 20, 70
be ashamed OF honest labor, and feel a jas;
pride when by their own efforts they achieve
independence.