Woman's World Column - March 26, 1885

Carrie Chapman Catt (Carrie Lane at the time) retired from teaching after the end of the 1884 school year and married Leo Chapman, publisher and editor of the Mason City Republican newspaper, in February 1885. In the March 5 issue of The Republican, Catt’s name appeared in the masthead as co-editor of the paper with Chapman, and on March 19, the first installment of her new column, “Woman’s World,” was published. The Mason City Public Library has microfilm of every issue of The Republican from 1885 except one, and Catt’s column appears nearly weekly through early November. The Chapmans sold the newspaper in April 1886, and there are no extant copies of the paper from that year.

There is an important problem which is presented to the women of our land for solution. By whom or how, is the labor of our future homes to be performed? With the care of a house, preparation of meals, and watching over a family, to the ordinary woman help is a sheer necessity. House-work has grown into such disrepute among girls, that it has driven them into other lines of work, more “respectable”, if not more remunerative. The number, who are willing to become house servants, is constantly diminishing. So few are left in the field that even now a mistress is left wholly at the mercy of her servants. They domineer over her in a most humiliating manner, but she is compelled to submit or accept the only alternative of doing her own work. It is probable circumstances will force new fashions and customs into prevalence which will be in accordance with this state of affairs. However, it may do well to speculate as to the results.

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In the settlement of Amity, in Scott county, where all property is held in common, and profits are equally divided, a custom exists which may be of value in determining this question. In this town are several large kitchens and dining rooms. Here the whole community gathers at mealtime. The work is performed by a few women, who are detailed for a day at a time. This plan has several advantages. It leaves the homes free from smoke and smells of the kitchen; it gives to each woman several days in the week which she is at liberty to employ at other work; it is an economy of strength, time, utensils, materials, and fuel. While this plan is not feasible in all its details, it is quite likely cooperative dining rooms would be highly practicable. These would be the property of companies who would either hire the Amity plan or detailing it to the women of the organization. It could be so managed the expense of board would be no greater than the cost of living at home and would also leave the women of the family at liberty to seek employment for which they could receive pay, if they so desired. Moreover, it would be a welcomed reform which could so dispose of housework that mothers might have opportunity to devote more time to the training of the mental and moral natures of their children.

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The Pioneer Press is getting much comfort from a statement going the rounds of the press to the effect that some of the women of Washington Territory are much enraged because they are forced into jury service. In commenting upon this reported condition of things, the Pioneer Press remarks:

The glamour is taken out of women suffrage when the emancipated women find out that they are subjected to related duties that a woman to has to leave her household duties and babies and sit for hour after hour in the mephitic atmosphere of a courtroom.

It is rarely, if ever, a jury of men is empanelled without several of the number expressing disapprobation of their appointment in strong terms. Yet whoever heard of anyone suggesting that the right of suffrage should be removed from such men because they appeared unwilling to bear patiently their "related duties"? "What's sauce for the goode is sauce for the gander." That suffrage would bring with it duties which in some cases might be unpleasant, and even disagreeable, is certainly true; but results are now forced upon women which are much more obnoxious because she cannot vote. No one ventures to assert the ballot will bring a paradise to womankind. All is claimed for it is that it will make women independent, more patriotic and more intelligent.

Notes About Women

Mrs. L. S. Butler, of Northwood, has been elected a member of the school board of that town.

To live in this world brings with it a chain of cares, responsibilities, and duties from which there is no escape.—Tidd Bits.

Tho Womam’s Suffrage Association of New York has petitioned President Cleveland to remove Gov. Pierce, of Dakota.

Miss Laura Minkler, a graduate of the college for the blind at Vinton, is organizer of the W. C. T. U. in the Fourth Congressional District of Iowa. She is also a temperance lecturer.

Mrs. Hull, wife of Hon. J. A. T. Hull, ex-Secretary of State, assisted her husband in his office during the past six years and has made many friends by her suave manner as well as her efficient and statesmanlike services.

A woman's relief corps, auxiliary to James Brownell Post, G. A. R., Cedar Rapids, has been organized by Rev. Miss Girard, president of the relief corps at Clinton. Miss Girard gave an address upon the occasion, which is [illegible] of as appropriate, earnest and patriotic.

Susan B. Anthony is now 64 years old, and her face is no more wrinkled than when she was 50. Her hair has a few gray strands mixed with its black, and she combs is down over her ears in an artistic curve, and winds it up into a good-sized waterfall at the back.—Chicago Herald.

Miss Caldwell, who has given a magnificent donation to found a Roman Catholic university in the United States, is the first American to receive from the Pope the golden rose, which is presented each year to the individual who has rendered the most signal service to the church during that year.

Miss Grace Hebard, a graduate of the State University, class of 1882, a young lady 22 years old, is employed by the United States government survey in Montana to make maps. Her profession is that of a civil engineer, and so finely executed are her maps that at first view they cannot by distinguished from printed ones.

Of all female servants in Prussia and Alsace-Lorraine who have uninterruptedly remained in the same family for forty years the German express confers a golden cross, with an autograph diploma. Between the 1st of January, 1877, when the order was founded, and the end of December last, the distinction has been bestowed on no fewer than 1,027 persons.

The practical education of young women in gaining ground daily. For instance, the Young Woman Christian Association of New York has established classes in phonography, book-keeping, and telegraphy, which are crowded by those who have good general intelligence, but no such discipline as will enable them to put it into use. With the large increase of population, followed by great competition in industries and skill in special departments, the unpractical person is a useless and helpless member of society. When compelled to earn her own bread she finds herself confronted with a state of things against which she is as powerless to content as against any other irresistible force of nature.

Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, March 26.

PDF version, courtesy of the Mason City Public Library