Birmingham state herald., 1896-11-01


 suffered odium and underwent the hard ships ble to newaa and untried con ditiOns in order to open up all the. noble crafts, trades and professions on which the girl of today enters without strife or penalty. The multitude of pursuits in which the modern Eve may attain higher usefulness and development, the careers that crown her with honor. fame and for tune, are heritage to us of the last de- cade of the nineteenth century from wo- men and girls who toiled in factories in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
 "These privileges are not of eur -crea- tion. Let that fact sink deep and make us humble. Enjoying the fruit of eco homie liberty, we are apt to forget who won 1t for us We are even pronesto per- suade ourselves that we won 1t ;aprone to magnify and vaunt ourselves, shutting our eyes to the struggles and tasks of hundreds of thousands of ignorant de- spised mothers and maids and tiny chill dren whose lives were@one long martyr dom in mills and workshops in Great Britain and on the Continent, in order to render gainful pursuits and the control of their own earnings possible for woman kind. All the blessings which we accept as a matter of cpurse-the shortened working day, decent sanitary surround ings, frequent payments-are the outcome of a hundred years of toll and stress, of snail-like legislation following on timid protest, of concessions Wrung from care less or hostile public sentiment, until, finally, the present factory acts were se- cured. The crusade for govern ment interference and protection of the wage earner against insane and inhuman greed-alas. even the greed that makes parents wreck their offspring by early la bor-was carried on for seyenty-hve years by men alone. I am sorry to count no feminine helper among the reformers, to blazon no womans name alongside Lord Shaftesburys.
 "The industrial development of woman now in progress is far from satisfying the writer of this article. "To the least ob- servant 1t is plain," she continues, that the manual workers who today represent those factory operatives that led us to economic freedom are far less skilled in many branches of industry than were their primitive forbears' or rsfheir ances- tors under the domestic system of trades.
 Steam power inventions, and appliances tend to change the wage ~earners who watch them into soulless, almost brain less, machines. Labor is now so special ized that one repeats endlessly the same process-feeding presses, turning cranks, guiding seams. Reason is stultified, sen sibility is deadened. A1l-around perfected craftsmen exist no more. Who conserves the artistic workmanship, the esthetic and industrial skill of the primitive fe- male? It is not displayed by our prote- tariat certainly as Professor Mason re- marks; for when we take the exquisite sewing of the Eskimo women, done with sinew thread and needle of bone, or the wonderful basketryo and pottery of our American Indians, or the feather work of Polynesia, or the loom products of Africa, and compare them with the tasteless, use less decorations and clumsy needlework of the untrained daughters of our labor CTS and mechanics, the comparison is all in favor of the wives and daughters of the degraded savage. Household knowl- edge and pursuits are at the lowest ebb among many of our industrial popula- tion The mothers and girls can neither cook nor sew nor wash and iron nor care in the simplest way for the body. Igno- rance causes the death of infants and the i'll health and poverty of adults, whom poor food robs of their only capital, the power to earn.
 Mot only over the homes of workers, but over the shops, foundries, mills and factories the curse of incompetence hangs. Unless the grade of labor im- proves, the pay of the skilled workman will be still further lowered by unskilled competition Our wealth, our greatness, depend on the mastery of industrial arts. "Clearly, too, we shall continue at an ethical as well as commercial disad- vantage unless we replace the handi- crafts of the primitive woman and build up the industrial arts-the all important, ever dignif1ed and beautiful pursuits of cooking and sewing, cleaning and repair ing, needlework, embroidery, carving, coloring and house decoration The most
 unlovely homes in the world are the bare, untidy homes of our working popu-
 lation. The most wasteful housewife on earth Is the thriftless American house. wife. To reinstate the skilled industries, to weave in beauty with the life of the people, we must carry manual and tech
 nical training and applied art to the point of action. as 1t were, down among the degraded, the belated, the neglected
 the submerged. In the 'slums,' where
 ignorance revels crime fosters, and de- cent poverty hides, we should found cook
 ing, sewing and housekeeping schools,
 with carpentry centers, wood carving, brass hammering, drawing. modelling and
 other creative pursuits that will fasci- nate the toughest street girl and trans
 form the boy tough into an eager, in- dustrious artisan Belgium and France,
 whose products we in vain try to equal,
 have planted industrial and domestic science schools in every hamlet, technical schools in all the manufacturing towns. dairy and farm schools In the agricul- tural districts. The teaching is adapted to local industries: on the coast, to ship building and fisheries; in the quarries, to stonecuttfng: around textile mills, to weaving and dyeing; with drawing every where. Hence the industrial supremacy of these countries. their excellent food, absence of waste. national thrift and the love of art that pervades even the hum- blest classes. To educate by the same methods the children of America, to i'm prove our homes, to bring order, skill and on the propaganda for universal indus trial and art training. is the privilege and duty of the new woman.'"
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