Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-22


~ lens in clothes and food Each
~ thinks her problem the worst to
The woman who is frantic in her ef-
forts to make the food budget encom-
pass the food supply waves away clothes
with wild gesture. She who must
make a small allowance encompass the
clothes supply feels she would like to
live in other times; she confidently be
lieves she is not able to cope with the
perplexities of today. Were they any
easier then? | doubt it.
This present series of dress discus
sions has touched the problems OF Vari-
Gus types of women. Ii has outlined
the problems of physical types as well
as social ones. 1t has attempted the
impossible, perhaps, for the subject is
too exhaustive, too complex, to be pack
ed into small boxes, like sardines, yet
somehow arrows shot into the air may
find mark somewhere.
Each woman knows her own prob
lem and il is not often that an outsider
can solve it, but when all is summed
up the difficulties of life are practically
shared by all women. We think the
struggle is individual and peculiar. 1t
is really the common fate.
One interesting thing has happened
concerning these problems of dress. 1t
is that men admit, at last, what women
have to achieve in the way of correct
costumery, and even the most indiffer-
ent women have had the stagnant
waters of their sartorial Indifference
stirred by the present fight for clothes
induced by the industrial crisis.
One must fight because nothing now
is easy. With whatever optimism we
can secure it does not relieve us of the
dominant truth that life is exceedingly
difficult after the war.
There is no tendency to decrease the
price of mere living. Even death was
not depresS US or give us cause for
serious anxiety, but they do not relieve
us from a continual struggle to sur
mount obstacles, nor do the essentials
of food and clothes become less essential
because they are difficult to procure
with the amount of money we are en-
titled to spend.
The woman who is Indifferent to this
stress of circumstance is a nomad, So
cially. Few of these exist.
OF all the types that have been under
discussion the woman who has the most
difficult problem to solve is she who
lives in small town, who has children
and small dress allowance.
She feels it is not wise to give up her
place in the social life in the town of
which she is part. She has no desire
to be a recluse nor homemade martyr
who is forever glurn and who continually
harps upon her lack of money to enjoy
life.
The postwar period has produced
this strain of bitterness in many. The
inability to meet prices has caused a
breakdown in the fiber of resistance. 1t
has shown itself in industrial classes by
rebellion, sometimes physical as well as
mental 1t has shown itself in open re-
volt in certain sections where live
foreigners with undisciplned emotions.
It is present in the hearts of most won-
en-. But it makes its deepest dent
where there is every necessity to keep
a smiling face to ones neighbors de-
spite the fact that the income which
once kept comfortable home is now
too small to provide the actual necessi-
ties.
America did not foresee this financial
state. 1t came as a thunderbolt after |
the storm had been beating on Europe !
over four years. The majority thought |
that with the end Of war the strain |
was over, economically speaking. 1t |
really began with peace.
1t is the fact that life has thrown a
surprise at us which causes women to
live in restless, feverish state.
Little has been laid by in the family
budget to meet the existing state of ex-
penSes- The women of this continent
willingly gave whatever they could to
promote the war and they joyfully met
the end of it with the belief that money
would at least be plentiful. OF that
there is no doubt. But it buys nothing
X /
The women of the civil war whose |
servants rolled wheelbarrows filed with |
Confederate notes to the milliners to buy |
one hat present an excellent cartoon of |
what happens today.
In the center of this struggle is the |
woman of social position in the small !
town whose needs are multiple. She |
will not go down and under. She must !
not appear shabby. She cannot insist |
upon wearing old clothes when they are |
entirely out of the picture, as she feels |
this is an injustice to the head of the |
family and to the children who surround |
her
In a huge city a woman can econo- |
mize. She can submerge for time
until her finances recuperate. She can |
remain out of the public eye during |
hours of the day or days of the month |
She can keep out of social contact with |
her set on slight excuses.
The woman in the small town has no
such chance of escape. Her life has the
privacy of a goldfish. Neighbors see
her through a glass screen and pellucid
water
A woman set in this social situation
must work hard to be success. She
has no heart to be a failure. She is