The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-29
SOME WELL-TO-DO WOMEN WHO WORK Few Now Without Some Out side Employment SOME ARE TRIMMING HATS Some Sing, Paint or Even Try To
 Write-one Woman Studies
 Ibsen or Pose of Seri- ousness.
SOME ARE TRIMMING HATS
From the New York Times.


 From the New York Times.
 ''I have tried to think what l could do, said the woman al the concert, and 1 have found that l possess one talent. have voice and 1 want to make the most of that Nothing else relieves me of the ordinary daily round of society that I have known all my life. l may not have much of talent, as it is, but it Is all 1 have. l am going to cultivate that there fore until 1 make something out of it."
 Her friends knew that she spent two hours every day at tie piano, had three lessons week from her singing teacher in addition to protecting herself in the languages she thought would be necessary to- her in attempting to sing. Such se- rious devoton to her art was not nec- essary as the young woman in question happened to have sufficient income Her case is typical of the present desire of New York women to do something.
 T can run over my list of acquaint- | anees, a-woman said to d Sun reporter and find that a majority of them are ex- lielliSIy lHitIeSleu III Suille kl0u Ol WOIh. l know just ordinary New York women who do what the majority of New York women do and are not specially gifted | beyond the rest of their race. Yet l will tell you what their specialtes are. Not long ago they never thought of doing anything beyond enjoying the ordinary social pleasures of their class and thought they were doing their full duty when they looked after their homes and their chill dren.
 "One of them who speaks Italian well wondered what use she could make of that gift beyond reading for her own pleasures. She had a friend who had es- tablished a school in which Italian girls were taught sewing and other means of supporting themselves Everything about this club had been a success, but the women who founded 1t could never get hold of a secretary who was competent and able to speak Italian. Here seemed to be just the chance that this girl want ed, so she goes three times a week to the school and spends the greater part of a day there, apparently happier than she ever was. To do such as that re- quires more than ordinary intelligence. In order that she might not seem to be de- priving of the work some girl who need ed the money she makes the society pay her, and that amount she devides among the Italian girls who come there and seem to be really in poverty.
 T know two women who are just now moving heaven and earth to get orders for household decoration. Neither has the least need of money, and what each wants is to get out of the amateur class. They think that can be done only by get ting legitimate order from somebody to deeorate house. So they haunt the offices of their architect friends. It was a great feather in the cap of one of them when she succeeded in getting permission to decorate several rooms in hotel in which ,her husband was a stockholder. She makes a speciality of the French school, while the other devotes her tal- ents to the Italian renaissance. One of them had decorated her own house in the Italian style. but as there are few period she is longing for hotels and rich mems palaces to conquer.
 Both these women have husbands and children and do not neglect their duties toward them. That Is another phase of the desire of women to have something that they can do. They seem to be just as efficient with these other duties on their hands. They have even come 70 speak slightingly of women who think of nothing but society.
 'The hardest worked woman l know is painter who leaves beautiful homo early in the morning to spend half the day in her studio working on portraits She never sells any of them, as she has not yet reached the point at which they would be good enough, and her husband would not probably allow her to if she wanted to dispose of them in that way. Her ambition is not to make money but to develop a talent which artists have assured her that she possesses. Two years before she took her own studio she went as regularly to the league and to other classes as If she had been depend ent on her success for her daily bread. Another hard worker In my acquaintance and a rich girl at that, makes beautiful book bindings. She went abroad last summer to take a special course of ln- struction under a well known teacher In Paris and stayed all during July and Au- gust alone in the city to complete the course she wanted to take.'
 Good works are scarcely to be chased as a part of this new movement, but the missions in Chinatown, the various Girls F'riendlies as they are called, and similar orginazations occupy the time of many women who do not feel that they are gifted in artistic ways. Those who anxious to do something in the musical or literary field struggle at the piano or
  they hope will put them in the produc- tive class even if it does not make them famous. Perhaps the literary ambition has consumed more women than any oth- CT, but that passion is also too historic to be counted as a sign of the times This new inclination is, however, re- sponsible for the increase in the number of women who read or pretend to read serious works.
 q know of a girl who used to think of nothing but her husband her baby and her hunters" said the same woman who had been telling the Sun about the other women workers in society. Nowadays she still loves her husband and her ba- bes, but has given up the hunters for 1bsen. She has taken up Ibsen with the same enthusiasm that twenty years ago one discussed the plays of the dramatist The reason of that is the present tend ency for all women to be serious. The discussions over Ibsen were confined for merly to women who thought. Nowadays every woman has to pretend to think whether she does or not. and they are going in for serious reading and thinking after they get to a certain age
 Sometimes the efforts of women to get in among the workers when they have pathetic. The other day I met girl who had always been popular among her friends and and had passed the first days of her enjoyment of social life. She told me that she had just organized a hat sale which was to take place twice year according to her plans. l asked her what