Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1898-01-20
WOMEN OF THESOUTH
Their ENTRANCE INTO THE FIELD
or HONEST LABOR.

Their ENTRANCE INTO THE FIELD
OF HONEST LABOR.
Activity Among Ladies' In Section
Where Work Was once Considered
| Unladylilse Competing With Men In
| New Channels of Employment.
Before the war there were literally no
avenues for self support open to ladies
in the south. Teaching was the only
conceivable line in which lady could
with proper family pride and dignity
support herself, and it was resorted to
only when all the male members of the
house had passed away and the family
reduced to positive need. 1t did not en-
ter intosthe minds of southern gentle
| men to conceive such thing as the fact
that the women of their name could or
would be self sustaining. 1t is only
since the war-and the encroachment
has been very gradual--that women have
entered the lists with men, and now
they compete with them in nearly every
field of honest labor In the large dry
goods stores two thirds of the clerks are
women and girls. Men still preside in
the heavy dress goods carpet and linen
departments, and of course as fioorwalk-
ers and window dressers. The head book
keeper is a man, but his assistants and
cashiers are women. Cash girls are as
common as cash boys, andswhen en-
ployed in store are employed exclusive
ly. They are usually attired in neat
uniform, wearing long aprons on which
their numbers are marked. They range
from 10 to Is years of age, at which lat
ter age, if their capacity and term of
service warrant it, they are promoted to
be clerks.
Girls in stores in the south are al
lowed much more freedom than in the
large stores in New York and other
metropolitan places. Their hours are
shorter, their work lighter, their wages
higher. They all live at home or in
some reputable boarding houses, lodg-
ing houses, and the hand to mouth dis
comfort of hurried cheap meals at poor,
cheap restaurants do not enter into the
life of the southern saleswoman. Twen-
| ty or 80 years ago women and girl clerks
were few and far between; now they
can be seen in every good sized city,
hurrying in throngs to their work every
morning little before O. clock.
A large proportion of the teachers i'll
the public schools are women. Many of
the clerks in the postofices are girls.
Every large business house, manufac
! tory and lawyers Office has it's woman
stenographer and typewriter. 1t is only
in the railway offices, managing editors
| offices and the supreme and United
States courts that men are employed as
| stenographic reporters. The telephone
operators are girls. All the large agen-
insurance companies employ girl short
hand and type writer's. OF course they
! do not get as good salaries as men occu-
pying like positions. A case in point
will be of interest. A merchant doing
large business in southern city adver
tised in the New York papers for an ex-
pert stenographer. He had many an
swers. Finally one suited him-so
short, well worded, businesslike. offering
ter was signed willie -" He re-
piled at once, offering salary of 81, 200
per year and urging the applicant to
come without delay. In few days he
was surprised to have delicate bright
faced girl of about 20 years of age walk
into his Office and announce herself as
Willie --, ready for business. He
could not refuse her because the ques-
tion of sex had never entered into the
contract, and she was proved expert,
but he did reduce her salary from the
very outset, saying 'tof course he could
not pay a girl what man was worth. y
| Women printers are becoming general
in. the southern newspaper and job
printing offices. and they work also in
the binding stitching and folding de-
partments. They do also the lighter
work in engraving and Photographic es-
Establishments. Nearly all of the orna-
mental water color and china painting
and crayon drawing is done by women,
and they even teach dancing and phys
! ical culture classes. At all of the large
expositions they are employed as booth
keepers and card distributors. They
work in the cotton, glass, box, paper,
match, shoe, ready made clothing, pa
| tent medicine and all other factories
Some Of the large factories provide COM
Portable quarters for them.
/ When one considers the newspaper
work in the south, it is there that wom-
en- are seen at their best. They write on
every subject, from leader to descrip-
! tion of a german, from sledge hammer
book review to an article on lace. Some
of the very best articles on the indus
trial development in the south in the
"write ups" Of the new mineral towns
are by women. They interview mill
owners and furnace bosses, railway
kings and enthusiastic boomers and
write of brown hematite ores, y
manganese, 'coal, = timber, :"
'siron," "open heart STEEL "fertili
zers' and phosphate deposits with
freedom and familiarity truly masculine.
They succeed we'll as book agents. they
are not unduly persistent, and when
their bearing is dignified and refined and
the book they offer attractive it is hard
| to refuse them.
Girls are very rarely seen as waitress
es in southern hotels and never in res
taurants or beer gardens On the whole
the working class at the south among
women and girls is remarkably repu
table one. They are we'll behaved and
modest, and command the respect of
their employers and Of all with whom
they come in contact
! MEL R. CoLoUITT.
Attic wit.