Bessie Van Vorst
Bessie Van Vorst (née McGinnis; September 2, 1873 – May 19, 1928), also known as Mrs. John Van Vorst, was an American author and journalist. She is best known as a co-author of the magazine series and the book "The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Ladies as Factory Girls" (1903) with a preface by US President Theodore Roosevelt, an influential example of social investigation. Her study of women and child labor in the mills of Alabama and New Hampshire helped stir reform sentiment. Early life and family. Bessie McGinnis was born in 1873 in  New York City. She was educated in New York private schools. In 1898 she started working for the "New York Evening Post." In 1899 she married John Van Vorst. The marriage lasted only twelve hours – it was the groom's last wish to marry the bride before his death. His father Judge Hopper Cornelius Van Vorst was a president of the Holland Society and served on the United States Circuit Court. Upon her husband's death she moved to Paris with her sister-in-law Marie Van Vorst, and the two co-authored the novel "Bagsby's Daughter," published in  1901. Undercover investigations. In 1901 Bessie and Marie Van Vorst began an undercover investigation into women and child factory laborers by finding jobs in factories under aliases. Bessie worked in a plant in Perry, New York, a knitting mill near Buffalo, and a Pittsburgh pickle factory, among other places, using the name "Esther Kelly". Marie Van Vorst found employment in a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts, and a cotton mill in Columbia, South Carolina, under the alias "Bell Ballard". The Van Vorsts began writing a column detailing their experiences in "Everybody's Magazine." Their writings attracted the attention of the  President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who was interested in demographic issues. He wrote a letter to Bessie Van Vorst in 1902. Roosevelt's primary concern in his letter was race suicide that he believed was more important than any other issue in the country. When the publisher saw the letter he asked Van Vorst to compile her magazine work on laboring women into a book and use the president's note for the preface. In 1903 Roosevelt's preface appeared in Van Vorsts' book "The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Ladies as Factory Girls" – a  book form of the magazine series. One part of the letter in particular caused a sensation among Americans who were not used to seeing any president address such issues as demography and birth control: Roosevelt's outcry struck a chord with many Americans. His criticism of voluntary childlessness was accepted by many citizens at that time and helped change the way families were depicted in mass media emphasizing the children. The idea of race suicide would become a favorite Roosevelt topic on his lecture tours, in which he urged white women to have babies. In their book the Van Vorsts  portrayed the troublesome working and living conditions they had observed, and their consequences for women and girls. Bessie appealed for a more compassionate attitude towards these employees. Van Vorst also noted that factory women enjoyed the independence afforded them by paid labor and therefore delayed marrying. "I never saw a baby nor heard of a baby while I was in town", Van Vorst wrote after nearly three weeks spent in Perry. She also discussed sociability and the discipline of factory work as a dangerous alternative to family unity. The book, with the same title and title page but containing only  Bessie's contributions, was reprinted in 1974. Some contemporary authors criticize Bessie and Marie Van Vorst for having a condescending attitude toward the working class, and indeed they themselves described working-class women as "degrading to look upon and odorous to approach". Sociologist Carolin Auer, in a 2000 essay on "social reportage", criticizes Bessie and Marie Van Vorst for the simulated reality they create. Auer claims that the women's undercover investigation is nothing but a simulation of the reality as the researchers remain untrammeled by the economic, educational, and emotional ties which bind female factory workers. She notes that  equating a life among the Other with the life of the Other is erroneous. Therefore, the Van Vorsts’ efforts result in "false representations" as they produce a fragmentary and flawed account of the worker's world, as well as represent a report of what is actually a fake world. Auer calls their narrative constructed when describing encounters, situations and events. Later work. In 1908 Van Vorst wrote the book "The Cry of the Children", in which she described child labor in wool and cotton mills in New Hampshire and Alabama. She conducted her study through visits to the Dwight Manufacturing  Company in Alabama City, the Massachusetts Cotton Mill in Lindale, Georgia, and the Merrimack Manufacturing Company in Huntsville. Everywhere she traveled she saw children of twelve years and younger working as doffers or sweepers, earning between twenty and fifty cents for a twelve-hour workday and often working night shifts. Her book was illustrated by drawings by Guernsey Moore, a well-known illustrator who was responsible for "Saturday Evening Post" covers. Van Vorst's study of child labor in the mills of Alabama and New Hampshire helped stir reform sentiment. Move to Paris. Van Vorst settled in Paris among the  expatriate American community. In 1914 she married Hugues Robert Charles Henri Le Roux, a writer and editor of "Le Matin". Van Vorst continued writing on social issues as a correspondent for US and French publications, including "Harper's Magazine", "Revue des deux Mondes", and "Journal des débats". Van Vorst died on May 19, 1928, in Paris.