The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-05-05

working women of Boston that Hon.
Carroll D. Wright, Chief of the Massa-
chusetts National Bureau of Statistics
Of Labor, devoted one hundred and
thirty-four pages of his fifteenth An
nual Massachusetts Report, published
in 1884, to consideration Of the twen-
ty thousand women of the city employ
ed in occupations other than domestic
service. He instituted most thorough
and searching investigation to ascer-
tain their moral, sanitary, physical,
and economical condition. Taking an
average thousand of these workers as
number amply sufficient for the scien-
tific purposes of the investigation, he
learned their personal histories, and
from these deduced tabulated state
ments of great value, which startled
the whole community; for he proved to
us by figures, which are said not to lie,
that 1.-THE average yearly income of the
working women of Boston from all
sources is $269.07, and that her average
yearly expenses for positive needs are
1921 80, leaving but $7.77, on the aver
age, as margin for occasions of ill
ness, religious purposes, books, amuse-
ments," etc. In his summary Of these
stern facts, MIR. Wright assures us that
''the working girls of Boston are, as a
close bopact ipductriouc opd uirfu.
GUS; that they are making heroic
struggle against many obstacles and in
the face of peculiar temptations to
maintain reputable lives, and are en-
titled to the aid, sympathy, and respect
of all who love good order, honest lives,
and industrious habits" 1 have no
doubt similar investigation into the
lives of the working women of other
cities would reveal similar condition
of things.
1t is the popular belief that women
have hardly entered the field Of inven-
ton. In late magazine article, writ
ten by one of the ablest and noblest
women, the statement was made that
''only three hundred and thirty-four
patents had ever been issued to women,
and these were mostly for articles of
household use." But Mr.. r. G. Gill,
who has been in charge of the model
hall in the Patent Office since 1871,
has made "a record of female inventors,
who have obtained letters patent from
the United States for their inventions"
The record is complete to Dec. IA, 1885,
up to which date women had taken
out patents for one thousand nine
hundred and thirty-fve Inventions
six times the number usually quoted"
Mr.. Gill's record shows that 'there
is no branch of industry in which
woman has operated and not left proof
of her mechanical skill" The first
patent granted by the United States
for submarine telescope was issued to
a woman in 1915. Women have re-
ceived letters patent for fre-escapes, a
life-preserver skirt, life-boats, and life
RATS, and for improvements in boot
and shoe making. They have patented
machines for driving barrel hoops, a
steam generator, a baling-press, asteam
and fume box, an automatic floor for
elevator shafts, rail for street rail-
ways, an electrical Illuminating appar-
atus, railway car safety apparatus,
packing for piston rods, car coupling,
electric battery, improvement in loco
motive wheels, materials for packing
journals and bearings, machine for
drilling gun-stocks, stock car, an ap-
paratus for destroying vegetation on
railways. another for removing snow
from the tracks, non-inductive elect
ric cable, an apparatus for raising sunk
en- vessels, dredging machine, a
method of constructing screw propell-
ers, improvements in locomotive and
other chimneys, a railway tie, covering
for the slot of elevated railways, and a
device for deadening the sound on
elevated railways"
The women farmers of the United
States, of whom there are many, have
taken out patents for grain elevator.
several varieties of fences zone of them
a flood fence, grain and cookie separ-
ator, grain and malt dryer, reaping
and moving machine, a mode of pro-
tecting fruit trees from curculio; sever
al improvements for harness, wagons,
and carriages, cotton picker, COW
mixers, detachable spouts for milk
pals, butter tubs, churns, bee-hives, a
machine for manufacturing honey
comb foundations, a bee-feeding device,
and many more of a similar nature. In
1879, Harriet Hosmer, the distinguish
ed sculptor, patented a method of max
ing artificial marble.
/ am firm believer in the theory
that in the higher civilization, which
is our ideal, and of which we dream,
every man who chooses will have wife,
and every woman a husband. The
husband will be the bread winner and
the wife the read-maker, the artist
in the shaping and rearing of well
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