The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-11-02
Tile Self.Helpful Young Woman.

| There came down on a northern train
the other day girl whose case has a
good deal of interest to all of US be-
cause it is typical. Bright and pretty,
well educated and well bred, she came
from Vermont village to work in a
! Massachusetts factory, and her frank
talk to a travelling companion furnished
abundant food for reflection. 81 have
/ to take care of myself she said, land
in the place lived there was absolutely
nothing for girls like me to do except
teaching and sewing; circumstances
prevented my teaching, even if l could
get school at the small pay, and with
the needle can barely keep body and
soul together. So l come here; what
else can do? If l go to large city
and have the good luck to find employ
ment at all it must almost certainly be
at very low wages, and that would
mean q cheap clearinghouse, cheap
society, and life hardly worth having.
am everywhere at a disadvantage be-
cause I am a woman; it sometimes
seems to me that women are superhu-
ity in the world altogether. Yes, l
know that women who take care of
themselves are not infrequently happier
than those who are married, but the
taking care is hard Job, and it ought
to be easier. don't like to go into
mill and do little stupid work all day
long, and l hope in time to find some
thing better, but if were man l
could find something now. There is a
great wrong; l won't pretend to say
what or where it is, but it is some
where" And so she went on, not in
lamentation or despondingly, but in
deep Indignation because she was de-
MED an equal chance in the struggle
for bread and butter.
1t was the old story. Every one with
an acquaintance among women of the
living-and New England is full of them
has heard it in one shape or another
time and again; the supply of the better
class of female heads and hands is greatly
Z in excess of any demand, and so the
girl on the train was able to find fac
tory employing dozens of others like
herself in simple manual labor, and her
case is not unlike thousands of others.
1t is useless to say that these women
ought to become servants, for they can
not and will not; they will not because
Of the social aspect of the case, and can
not because they are Yankees-there
may be good '.hired men, and "hired
girls here, but no genuine New En-
glander ever made good servant, and
It is the servant that is demanded. The
Did hired help has disappeared. OF
course there are exceptionsto the gen
eral rule; many women can be found
with practically the same work and
pay given to men of the same mental
and physical capacity, and there are in
dividual women enough who succeed
better than individuals of the other sex
who are their equals; but the rule re-
mains. The actual difference will be
realized by remembering that the edu-
Gated man without family who merely
gets living is thought to be doing
nothing, while the woman who gains
the same is reckoned doing well. The
causes of the trouble are complex
enough-custom, prejudice, social pro-
prietfes and other good reasons, and
what not and the remedy can not be
named off-hand, por will it come in a
moment. The best that can be said is
| that the Improvement actually made m