The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-02-12
IN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
woMAN's WORK.
To Secure Success She Must Put 1t on the |
Market It's Merits Only.

| To Secure Success She Must Put 1t on the
Market on It's Merits Only.
The question of woman's work comes
up annually. Like the poor, it is al
ways with US, and it is the aspect of il
from charitable point of view which
is the greatest drawback to all efforts
| for the Improvement of woman's work.
We take it for granted as an axiom that
her work, being a marketable factor.
will improve in value just in proper
ton as it improves in quality. The
| proportion of women workers must al
ways be smaller than the proportion OF
male workers, so that women have this
advantage, they mset no such competi-
ton in their work in point of numbers
as men must do The fact remains de-
| spite all statements to the contrary,
| that in the avenues open to women ex-
clusively the demand for capable work
ers is far in excess of the supply.
| Dressmakers VINO understand their bus
mess thoroughly and do their work
conscientiously never need want for
labor at a high price. All kinds OF
plain sewing, if done with skill, find a
| ready market The market of unskill.
| ed labor in this direction is overstocled.
There are hundreds of women who
can simply run machine or
| to work only when it is
| laid out and put before them
to do. There is no demand for such
work as this, and such workers are
quite likely to- and do fall victims to
sharpers in trade. There is no depart
ment of the household where skilled
labor does not command a remunera-
tive price. Any woman who will IN
dertake baking in the vicinity of a
large city. supply her customers sys-
tematically with homemade bread and
cake, and come in direct competition
with bakers already established by
charging the same prices that they do,
will find a market at her feet. To be
sure, her whole time must be devoted to
her work for the first two or three
years. She must keep her books rigor-
ously, oversee her work carefully her.
self when she can not do it. AS her
work increases, she must still be over
seer, though the direct labor may be in
others hands She must do her work
in the same way that men do theirs,
without expecting sympathy or con-
sideration because she is a woman, and
she will receive the higher reward of
success for it. There is justly very lit
tie sympathy with the whine and
SWIVEL of women who are not so for
tunate as to be supported at home, and
who expect sympathy for that reason.
In an inland city of New York there are
two women bakers. One has been
working for fifteen years and one for
five. One is still poor struggler, who
barely meets her expenses, while she
has been three times longer in the field
than the other, who in the five years of
her work has built up an independent
fortune. The first woman began her
work by appealing to the charity of her
friends. She had large circle of fash
ionable acquaintance, who knew of her
financial distress and bought her goods,
which were of the best, at the high
price she charged for them. Her bread
was twelve cents loaf, her angel cake
one dollar, and her other prices fully
fifty per cent higher than the estab-
lished bakers charged for goods which
had hitherto met the demands of the
public. She has managed by supplying
the exclusive few to exc out an insecure
living. The other worker began
without any fashionable patronage.
Her father, a farmer, brought in her
first wares and sold them to the GUS
toners to whom he was accustomed to
sell vegetables and butter. She charged
the same prices for her bread and pies
that the city bakers did. She did not
attempt to make cake until she had es-
tablished a large custom for her cakes
and pies. The quality of her goods
never varied, and on their merits alone
she establish so large trade that the
family found it remunerative enough to
move nearer to the town and buy an
iron oven, and in a short time they out.
grew this and had to build regular
brick ovens. During all this time this
woman has stuck to her original pur-
pose to use home methods and the best
materials, and her income is now in the
thousands.
In a recent number of the London
Queen, attention is called to the last
published statistics concerning wom-
ans work in the textile industries and
in mining. These reports concerning
the women of Great Britain are espe-
cially gratifying, because they show
eonclusively, contrary to the general
belief, that women who do the same
work as men are paid the same wages.
Where they are paid lower wages it is
for lower grade of work. In the coal
and iron mining districts women do not
constitute one per cent. of the labor
ers. Where china clay is obtained, in
Devonshire and Cornwall, they consti-
tute less than two per cent, and in
heavy stone quarrying, as a matter of
course, girl and women workers are
unknown. In textile work girls and
women constitute the great majority.
In the lighter textile work not more
than ten per cent, of the workers are
men.
In all the higher intellectual depart
ments of art and literature there has
never been question of inequality of
pay for women. 1t is high time that
women stopped putting their work on
an eleemosynary basis, and put it in
market purely on its merit-N. Y. Tri-
bune.
SHE LABORS FOR LOVE.