The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-01-04
MEN DO woMEN's WORK.
A Phase of the Labor Problem Not
Generally Recognized.
philadelphia North American.)

Generally Recognized.
philadelphia North AmericanO
With ali of the talk about women in
vading mans domain, who ever hears the
other side of the story, about how men
have taken unto themselves the preroga-
uYes Of wOmans sphere?
And yet IT is on this side of the house
where really began the movement that
has made women new and revolution
lied domestic life.
number Of years ago, before ever
women began TO think that they could DO
mems work, men boldly laid hands on
feminine occupations. They erected great
buildings and started the whir of machin-
cry. and the knitting and the weaving
which women had already done at home
the men announced that they would do
themselves in their great factories. They
did 1t, and the women found several oc-
equations gone at one fell swoop.
Next men said, since we so successfully
make the cloth, why should we not fash
ion the garments as well at our estab-
lishments? And they decided that they
could make garments and make money.
And they did.
Ready-made clothing was put on the
counters of the great stores. Women
whose livelihood depended on doing plain
sewing found their needles idle, for they
couldn't compete with machinery in the
making of shirts, muslin. underwear and
such things.
Encouraged by the readiness with which
their wares were accepted, men said, I'VE
nave so successfully made minor gar
ments, why should we not venture fur
Their? Let US try wOmen's gowns and
women's coats and women's hats" They
did as they proposed, and they pros
pered.
In this same way the evolution was
quietly being worked in the kitchen.
Women used to make all the tallow dips
and the soap that the household used.
One day along came man who said,
Let me give YOU light" and in a short
time he had substituted kerosene for tai
low dips, and gas for kerosene, and cleo
tricity for gas, and of course there WASH [
any more need for a woman to spend
her time making tallOw dips.
Another man said, Let me make the
soap, for in my large factory can make
it much faster than you can ever hope
To here at home"
Later it was found that a man could
make bread. At first women demurred
that it wasn't as good as theirs, but by
and by they got used to it and forgot
the difference, and even let men bake
their cookies and their pies and their
cakes. Then. too, within the past ten
years the art on which a housewife used
so to pride herself, picking and preserv-
ing, has been appropriated by men and
the grOcer'S shelves are lined with canned
TO be done in a private house is often
given into the hands of a man. In the
families of the wealthy the only desirable
cook is a man and a butler superintendS
the dining room and waits on the door
And not only at the sewing machine
and al the cook stove, but at the wash
tub men have crowded their way until
they made place for themselves. They
opened laundries and they took the
weekly wash out of the house.
VOL en- all the work that they had done
for long ages, what could be expected?
The women didn't whine and fret and
pOut bout the men getting out of their
proper sphere. but all the same they, the
women. couldn't sit idle. For generations
they had toiled so increasingly that the
habit Of labor was strongly fixed on them.
They must have something to do, and
the man movement which had usurped
all OF their time-hOnOred prerOgatfVeS
compelled them to seek il outside of the
home. They went to the factories and
asked to be allowed to assist in some of
the occupations that used to be wholly
theirs. And men let them because the
women, in their eager desire to find some
g-anything-to do. would work cheap.
But they always tried to keep these WO-
men in subordinate positions, while they
themselves stood guard at the head Of
the business.
There wasn't work for all the women in
the factories, so some of them tried to
get other work to do, and since men had
monopolized all of the occupations the
women who got anything had to take it
from the men. First they reasoned that
they were naturally the guardians of
children, and they decided that they could
teach school as well as men could. When
the idea finally prevailed they established
themselves in the school rooms.
Next they went into the stores as
clerks Then the typewriter was invented,
and that was new and hadn't been ap-
prOpriated by men. and so they got hold
OF it about as quickly as h did. The
typewriter let them into the business Of
flee, and by and by from stenograp pliers
they got to be accountants and cashiers.
and they now hold important positions
in business houses.
Meanwhile the colleges had been giving
women a chance at an education, for men
said women have so much more leisure
now than they had formerly that we
might as well let them employ their time
in study. 1t would at least keep them
out of mischief. But with learning came
the desire to apply it. and professional
men awoke with alarm to find crop of
women doctors and women lawyers and
women ministers and women writers all
about chem.
The it was that a great cry OF alarm
went up. All along the line before men
had been protesting that they were being
pushed to the wall but manual labOrers
hadn't been able TO make their cry of
distress heard in the hall of the mighty
When professional men. too, lifted u9
their voices there was such a chorus for
help as made the world halt and turn its
attention to the situation.