Anadarko daily democrat. [volume] (Anadarko, Oklahoma) 1908-191?, 1909-09-25
Men Stay at Home While the Wife
Supports the Family.
Peculiar Changes In Industrial condi-
tions Have Been Brought In Mo-
hawk Valley - Husbands Do
Practically All Housework.

Fort Plain, N. Y.-Although ambi-
tious and progressive, the Mohawk val.
ley Is In q way reverting to certain
customs In vogue when Indians roamed
its forests and fished its streams. Then
the squaw remained at the settlement
and did the real work; now the wife
in hundreds of instances labors IN
store or factory while the husband at
tends TO practically all the household
duties--cooking. washing. etc.
This change has been brought about
through the shifting Of industrial con
ditions In the Mohawk valley. Foun'
dries and other manufactures of the
men-employing sort have gone to the
coal and iron centers or to the west
and middle west In order to be nearer
their customers, and have been sue
ceeded by industries in which women
can earn better wages than men.
In one little village in central New
York there are several expert workers
IN iron and steel who are full-hedged
housekeepers, while their wives do
work in knitting mills and earn from
$1.60 to SO a day. The wife instead OF
having the family follow the foundry,
has adapted herself TO the new condl
tions and gone into a mill, while the
head of the house remains at home
over the tubs.
This does not by any mean1 indicate
the full extent TO which woman is TAX
ing mems place in central New York;
neither does 1t cover the unusual voca.
tons to which she is resorting. She
is prominent and successful as
grower of ginseng: she Is frequently
successful as hop grower; she is lre-
quently a general farmer, and In one
instance, a mother and several daugh-
ters have long handled a big farm
without any male help whatever, the
husband and father having died years
ago.
This woman and her daughters have
erected n barn and other buildings for
the farm; they build and repair all
their fences, do trenching for drainage,
have dug and walled wells, do their
own plowing, and. in fact, do all the
work incidental TO well conducted
dairy farm in New York state. Recent
iy one OF the daughters hiked hurried
ly from the Adamless hearth and took
unto herself husband, and great was
the Indignation Of the mother and sis
ters thereat
The Mohawk valley has several
woman lawyers and doctors, and one
member of the latter profession lves
in q rural community and her prac-
tice is 40 big that she Keeps four
horses and has q man for driver. Sprng,
summer, fall and winter. in all sorts
OF weather no matter what the con.
dition of the roads may be. she drives
by day and night to the homes Of pa.
tents.
Only those who have spent winters
IN the Mohawk valley can fully realize
what such work means--mercury away
below zero; bowling. face.cutting
winds, fierce storms of rain, snow and
sleet: mud hub deep or snow In the
highways To a depth hears breaking for
man (Or woman) and beast. and nights
OF inky blackness.
Another woman has long been the
superintendent OF one OF the largest
knitting mills in the Mohawk valley.
and In the world as well and another,
this Is very young woman has for
several years had full charge OF a
AlrAvboard manufacturing plant Her