Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-04-12
LECTURES ON WOMAN
AND Her LIFE TODAY
CONDITIONS IN THE PRESENT
AND PAST COMPARED
Pressure of Economic Situation Forces
the Sex Again Into activities from
Which Civilization Ex-
cluded Her

| Edward Adams Cantrell lectured al
| Mammoth hall yesterday afternoon 70
a crowded house on woman ana
Modern Life" He said, in part:
"In one way civilization has not
done much for womanhood. Women
shared the activities of primitive llfe'
thereby developing their physical or
ganisms and faculties equally with
men. To womanhood we are indebted
for many of the things that lifted man
above animal existence. Her hands
fashioned the first pottery, an fnven-
tion that helped to close one age and
inaugurate another. To her we are
indebted for the first steps in agricul-
ture. Her hands did the first weaving
and kept alive the fires that started
the race in it's conquest of material
things.
"Civilization brought the slave and
the development of property and prop
erty ideas. The woman was excluded.
She became property and thenceforth
developed as sort of sex appendage
for the qualification of her owner, the
man.
with this seclusion came limita-
ton, for life is the response of self to
material things, to the objects of the
material world. Enclosed within four
walls the woman had little to respond
to; few interests in the great external
world.
"This condition is now being revo-
lutionized. The necessities of the
present age are pushing woman into
the struggle, into the world of exter-
nalities. Whether we like it or not,
the new woman has come; the new
woman with the new age.
personally l believe the change is
for good. 1t means that again the
woman will stand, on the same level
with man, sharing the same activities,
with the same horizon and the same
destinies.
Four Courses Open
"There are four things that a wo-
man can do today. She can marry the
man she loves, who may, II successful
help her in the solution of her prob
lens. She can go into business, but
it is little wonder that such a career
is distastefbf when one considers that
more than 80 per cent of our men in
business are financial failures. If
man, with his acquaintance with the
world and his energy, goes down in the
modern competitive struggle, how
much can we expect woman, with her
sensibilities and the world traditions
against her, to accomplish?
cit is not strange that many take
the alternative of marrying some man
that he can give.
'Ass fourth and last resort many
are driven to the awful traffic of the
body in the mart of the street. No
better time could be found than this
for emphasizing this fact-that few
women enter these walks of life of
their own free will. They are driven
by economic necessities and are no
more blamable than the woman who
sells herself for life, for food and shell
ter, or than the man who prostitutes
his talents from the same necessity.
II have more respect for the poor
girl who, driven by hunger sells her
self, than have for the man with
eyes to the great new world of new
knowledge and stands for the old
falsehoods, shams and hypocrisies sim
ply because by so doing he can more
easily make his bread and BUTTER