The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-10-22
WOMAN AT THE FAIR
Her Opportunity and Experiment
Resulted I'm Failure.
She Exploited Herself and Her Sex and
Displayed Her Weaknesses-Dis-
appointment of Visitors.
New York Sun.


itor to Jackson Park has made bee fine
from the turnstiles to the great and glori-
Gus Woman's Building. upon which the
hystefical pens Of woman writer's have for
more than a year focused their frantic
rhetoric. And however loyal she may be
to the woman with the yard-wide, three
ply capital W, every mothers daughter
has come away with a feeling OF disap-
pointment more or less defined and intensi-
fed, according to the degree Of intelligence
She has attained. OF course, there is occa-
sionally woman SO excited over being a
woman, so unemancipated from herself so
crosseyed with her own deceit, that she
cannot see what a colossal failure is this
woman's structure, which has neither the
majesty and grandeur of the work of men
about 1t. nor the finer grace and beauty
one expects from the refining touch of the
woman's hand.
For the first time in the history of the
commonwealth woman here recognized
by Congress as a separate institution. She
had exactly what she has wanted for CEN
turies-her own pocketbook and the free
dom TO spend its contents without fear or
favor of man. The result is the most con-
vincing proof that she should have been al
lowed to have this privilege some years
ago. so that she might know better how to
live up to it. Her committees argued them
selves into such a hopeless tangle that the
authorities were obliged to disband them.
Her building Is inartistic in architecture,
poosy lighted, badly arranged, unattract-
i've III its interior, while the best exhibits
OF woman'S work In nne and liberal arts
and in mechanical invention are every
where at the fair except in the Womans
Building.
One difficulty is. of course that the
women tried TO make the building conform
to too many purposes. You can't put an
art gallery and cooking school. assembly
rooms and a hospital, a restaurant. sales
rooms. and accommodations for the ex-
hibit of everything under heaven from ev-
cry country in the universe all under one
roof, and have any one OF the several de-
partments an overwhelming success. Only
a woman would have attempted it. She
wanted to show the men how much better
she could manage thing OF that sort
than they could. She has done it. Another
and grave difficulty is the lack of a suf-
ncient amount or money TO carry out SO
ambitious an enterprise. With the petty
prudence of her mothers and grandInoth-
ers, who have always had to make so
cents do the work of a dollar rather than
ask the lord and master, who never gave
it unasked or with any particular degree
half dollar, she has made the money cover
too much territory. There is something
pathetic IN the effort OF the women 70 20
they expected TO be called to account for
1t, and, as in the domestic circle, be asked
what in thunder they had bought with 1t
all. II the women commissioners had car
ried out their own womanly ideas, unmind-
fIl OF what might De expected OF fhem
building fitted up with the exquisite taste
for which women are noted, with pictures
by women artists hanging on the walls
by way of ornament, not as a collection,
with books by women authors on the book
shelves, with inventions by women mechan-
les all in actual operation In the house
hold. and with the work Of woman's hands
everywhere making attractive this House
Beautiful, the Womans Building would
ought
have made Ii. The Ohio State building,
in which most OF the decoration, the win
dows, paintings and arrangement were the
work Of women, approaches more nearly
the ideal of a womans building than the
ambitious creation on the shore or the Ia
COON. And the Cincinnati parlor decorated
by women, with pottery peculiar TO this
country and invented by woman, with
beautiful wood carvings and tasteful ar
rangements, and the New York library of
women's books, with the hospital exhibits,
are really the redeeming features of the
Woman's Building.
AN AGGRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE.
But 1t is the atmosphere of the woman's
Building that is most vexing to the soul
of man. There is tension in 1t, an ag-
gressiveness, that makes a man defiant
who encounters it. All the lovers quarrel
in the womans Building. All the brand
new wives and husbands that were never
going to speak unkindly to each other
like ordinary married people, have their
first battle somewhere in that fated struc-
ture. All the old married people argue
their way right through, from the En-
glish exhibit in the corner all the way
down the hall TO the French doll show in
the opposite section. A man begins to be
nettlesome and scornful as soon as he
comes into the place. He will not allow
himself TO admire anything, even If 1T is
deserving. He wants to hurry through and
have it done with only that he insists in
no one would blame him. He is
unjust and she is aggressive. She brides
and gets independent and tremendously
knowing as soon as she comes in through
the portals. hates a woman that
knows it all, especially If she tries to give
him the unsolicited benefit of her informa-
such wonderful progress as they have been
advertising and he doesn't understand
what all the fuss is about or why women
should have an appropriation from Con-
gress for building to put in a. case of
French dolls and an assortment of doylies
Even the gentle. gracious man of liberal
ideas and broad views on the woman Ques-
ton gets his ideas all perverted, and is un-
that the only wonderful thing about it is
like the man playing the piano with his
Toes IL Is nan snar IL mas been done Lone
women that initiate the mind masculine to
the degree Of Feasibility it manifests For
note books and bags of documents and
guides. They know all about the exhibits
last winter. They make elaborate notes OF
their impressions of everything; this is fol-
discussion next winter. They will not adj
nit that they are disappointed in any.
thing, not even in the Queens pictures OF
which they have all read so much that they
expected 10 find one side Of the Woman's
Building covered with them The persever-
Ing woman who goes all round the gallery
six times without finding these works OF
art, and then under the escort of a guide
hunts out the little lead-pencil sketches
and the badly colored paintings. the whole
collection set in single frame not two
feet square and gorgeously draped with tn,
Queens colors, begins to realize somethine
vocation il is to be Queen of Great Britain
and Empress of India but they are in ne
mood to hear any disagreeable remark.
from the man they have promised to love
honor and obey even about this royal ex
hibit from the daughter OF a hundred
kings.
One thing that aciduates the sweetness
Of even the gentlest woman is the unique
method they have Of catalogung the ex.
hibits in the Woman's Building. Some time
In the far-to-be somebody may find ou-
the connection between the catalogue anC
the things catalogued. But no one has time
for IL at the fair. Three catalogues have beer
prepared. and Of the last one il is suf
fcient TO say that you would know that 8
woman had made it. 1t is orderly beau
tifully arranged, prettily bound; there 4:
only one thing wrong with 1.-THE number.
on the articles do not correspond will
those in the catalogue.
But In spite OF, and perhaps because of
the vague disappointment she experience.
the little bride feels very important anC
high and mighty as she goes about in THU