The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-06
WORK AND WAGES OF
 AMERICAN WOMEN One Woman in Every Five Among Us Is a Bread Winner. HALF MILLION FARMERS Other Women Are Daring Strange Enter prises.
HALF MILLION FARMERS


 a nation that boasts of it's pampered women, considering nothing too pre- cious to be lavished upon them, this is rather a surprising showing. On the other hand, the independence and the peculiar training of American women drive them very often to take up wage-earning pursuits when such action would not occur to an English woman in similar circumstances.
 The figures of the government re- port are interesting and suggestive. As might be expected, by far the largest number of women wage-earners are those in domestic service. There are more than a million of these, although as every family in America knows, there ought to be at least a million more to meet the demand Almost all the serving class are immigrants, daughters of immigrants, or negroes. No freeborn American will descend to cook or sweep or dust or wash for an- other if she can get any other kind of a job, and such is the magnitude and diversity of enterprises in this country and the disposition to give the gentle sex her way that she usually can.
 There are almost half million farm laborers among the women of hte United States, and yet we so sell dom see anything of that sort that we are astonished and reused to indigna- tion by the sight of women working in the fields abroad. Most of the wom- en reported under this class were of the Negro race. Next in number are the dressmakers, 338,144 of them, hard as they are to find, and supple mented by rapidly-increasing mum Der of men tailors devoted to the art of making womens clothes Of teach CTS and laundresses there is almost an equal number. Although American women are perhaps more original and more daring in entering the fields of remunerative labor than the women of any other country, yet the five leading those of domes- tic service, dressmaker, laundress, housekeeper and seamstress-are the ones that may be termed distinctivly
 
 formerly done almost exclusively by women in their own homes as part of the duties of mothers and wives. Now, although these occupations have been differentiated to considerable extent they are still for the most part, in the hands of women. Much has been said, especially by some Englishmen, about the effect of the preponderance of women teachers in our public schools, and it's influence in tending to make boys effeminate, The census shows the predominance of women in the teaching profession to be on the increase
 Lately in New York women teach CTS have made an all but effective as- sault upon the salary system, demand ing for themselves the same pay as men teachers receive for the same work. The bill was passed by the Legislature, but vetoed by the may or. The women teachers showed themselves skillful lobbyists during the agitation, but were disciplined by the Board of Education for neglect ing their teaching duties in order to push their political rights In 1880 the. percentage of female teachers was 6zS; in 1890, 70.S; and in 1900, 79.4. In the group of textile mill operatives the two sexes are almost equally represented. About the only things that women were not reported to be engaged in. were the military and naval services and the fire de- partments of the cities. Two women | woe ror,~..t~,l rs t-> -e, ''-i.or, ,,,,I VA gently woman claimed that she had, in disguise, of course, acted as a street car conductor in New York city for several weeks. Five women were reported employed as pilots, ten as | Saggagemen, thirty-one as brakemen, SVN -I, 4iS CuituuGlvfs, 4o. ,'-it,~ eta Nh- gineers and liremen, twenB-siX as switchmen, yardmen and fagmen, for ty-three as carriage and hack drivers six as ship carpenters, two as roofers and skaters, 1855 as blacksmiths, sos as machinists, eight as boilermalIers thirty-one as charcoal, coke and lime burners, and eleven as well borers There are 125 occupations employ ing over 1000 women each, and thir- ty-three employing over 5000
 College bred women are frequently discovering new fields of labor or in- venting new schemes of activity. The remarkable interest in sociology has opened up many new kinds of work most of them well paid for, if not in money, by increased social importance or augmented influence in municipal philanthropic and charitable affairs Many women also take scientific and technical courses in academic institu- tions that were planned especially fo1 men. There are now women engineers civil mining and electrical, womer architects, women contractors, womeI geologlstS, women biologists, and wo. men engaged in most kinds of worl which unite commercial enterprise with scientific information.
 Between the last census and the one taken twenty years before, the number of women at work more than doubled There was very noticeable increase in the employment of married women Whereas one married woman in twen. ty-two was at work in 1890, in 1900 ont MORE
 in eighteen was engaged in gainful oc. cupation. The census report state! that the number of divorced womer returned by the reports is probably de ficient, because the fact of divorce is not always admitted. It is significant however, that of the number reported as divorced, more than one-haf were 1 supporting themselves wholly op 1T