Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-08-02


Women are to be taken into account
as important factors in the labor mar
kets of the world. Wherever there is
an important commercial industry, let
its nature be what it may, women are
employed in it's production, it's buying
and its selling. Women bind shoes,
stitch gloves, make corsets, stand be-
side the loom day after day, in
cotton mills, wooden mills, silk mills
and paper mills; women make ar
tiicial flowers and feathers, paper
boxes and safety pins. Women are
employed in tobacco factories, candy
factories, soap and perfume factories,
and, in reality, very few things that we
der the shaping hand or the finishing
touch OF a woman.
The labors of wage-earning women
are confined to no locality. Thousands
of women work in shops and factories
in Bombay and Calcutta, just as they
do in New England and the south and
the middle west. Everywhere around
the globe women work hard and long,
support families and take their share
In the worlds work. Although there
are labor unions of women, they ap-
peal to get on as a rule with fewer
strikes and less friction than their
brother-workmen.
In some localities at morning and
evening, the streets are filled with
long PROFESSIONS of women, young and
old, going to and from their places of
daily toll. In the great department
stores saleswomen outnumber sales
men. They are equally as gifted in
selling goods as their fellow clerks of
the other sex. Notwithstanding the dis
abilities of the feminine organization,
they lose little time and make no fuss
about the h%ardships incidental to
| standing behind a counter.
Women set type, read proof, go
about as reporters to gather news, and
sell newspapers on the street. In
q very few cases, women occupy i'm
portant editorial positions, and in a
great number of cases they fulfil every
possible requirement as sub-editors
or managers of fashion departments,
Women are prison inspectors and ma
irons at police stations. The trained
nurse is a familiar figure. An army OF
stenographers and typewriters finds its
way into the great thoroughfares and
brightens business Offices by its cheer
full presence every day. 1t may al
most be said that woman's opportunity
to earn money is limited only by her
ambition, her skill, her industry and
her needs.
Young girls, it would seem, might
find an appropriate avenue for wage.
earning in domestic service, but this
field OF labor is still left to our foreign
population. At one time the Irish mo.
nopolized it, and they were followed by
Germans, Danes, N~orwegians anG
Swedes. At the moment the competi.
ton has veered from these toward the
increasing number Of colored women
who accept the kitchen as their sphere
and the constantly augmented immi.
grafton from Russia and Poland
Women of Slavonic origin, for the
most part ignorant and totally IN
trained, are becoming a recognizable
feature in the labor market as it af.
fects our homes.
1t used to be said that women crowd.
ed men out of the ranks. This neet
not much be feared. There still re.
mains plenty of work that women are
not likely to undertake in very large
numbers. The great railway system
throughout the country employs mer
as engineers, firemen, brakemen, por
tiers and conductors; the motormen OF
the electric cars and the more or les!
civil conductors and guards are men
Although house decoration enlists man,
women, particularly in lines wher'
brains are required, yet the actua
building, the work that taxes muscle!
and back, legs and arms, is done BY
men.
O|CCaSIOudlly d WoAiah hhanelei ZIG
ates a ripple of establishment by he
audacity, pluck and success. But tn
great financiers of the modern world
the great railway kings, and the man
ayers generally of big affairs, are men
Broadly speaking, women bring to tn
labor market patience, deXterity, quick
ness ard perseverance; they have al