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.
The “Woman’s World” will be devoted to the discussion of such questions as purport to the welfare, the social, political and intellectual position of women. It will contain news of interest and reports of woman’s work throughout the world. It will welcome communications from its readers and will hope to win many friends. Let those who are interested in the advancement of women speak their sentiments through the “Woman’s World.”
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There is a rapidly growing sentiment among women to endeavor to make themselves self-supporting. The example of lives made miserable by dependence is seen on every side and girls are profiting thereby. In New York City, within the lifetime of one observer, the number of employments open to women has increased from twenty-six to fifteen hundred. The benefits of this change can scarcely be estimated. Girls are no longer forced to marry to secure homes, and wives need no more bear the abuse of unkind husbands because of their own incapacity for self-support. Women are everywhere more intelligent and more respected. Society has been elevated and purified. Let the good work continue. Let every mother see that her daughter is prepared with a trade, profession, or work to enable her to meet any fate the future may have in store for her. How quickly wealth and influence may take wings and those accustomed to its luxuries compelled to face a cold world, is proven by every daily newspaper. But if the strong young hands were trained in some employment, and minds healthily active and independent, fond parents need not spend days and nights in anxiety lest their delicate daughters be thrown upon their own resources. Teach your daughter it is truer womanhood to make and hold a position where she can earn a livelihood than to be the pampered and petted belle of society. Teach her that she is refusing life’s grandest offering when she dawdles away her time with novel, dress and foolish pleasures. If she has talents, teach her to develop them; if she has none, teach her to make talent by energy. At all hazards teach her to be a woman and not a mere doll-baby.
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It is a mistaken idea that girls are to be cared for and supported in idleness. Your daughter may marry well, as the saying is; she may never know want, nor even have a desire ungratified; but quite as likely she may be obliged to walk in poverty all her life, she may be left a widow with children to support, or she may be left with a debt to pay. How is she to keep her family from starving, herself from wearing out, and her home bright and cheerful? You have taught her nothing. She may play the piano, sing sweetly, paint pictures and thus be called accomplished, but in none of these is she expert enough to earn a livelihood. She perhaps can sew, but she can make only starvation wages at that. What then? Ah, what indeed! Would it not be wiser, O, ye mothers, if you would insist that your daughters know one thing thoroughly, the knowledge of which would make them independent? Has your own helplessness made you miserable? Then do not let your daughter repeat your experience. Ah, but your foolish pride tells you people will think it strange that your daughter works for a living, your friends will talk about it and perhaps laugh over it. Perhaps some of them may, but more probably you will make converts to your plan, and your example prove a boon to many a girl. Try it.
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The Dakota legislature has lately had under consideration a bill granting to women of that territory the right of franchise. After passing both houses Gov. Pierce returned it with his veto. His reason for doing so was that so radical a step would retard the movement of making Dakota a state. No doubt it took him a good while to conjure up that excuse. It is not a little humiliating to an intelligent woman that the decision of a question which should give or take away the just right of all the women of a territory, should be entrusted to the caprice of one man.
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Recently 2500 weave-women employed in a carpet factory in Yonkers N.Y. made a strike. At three different times their wages wer cut down ten percent and in addition were docked for every conceivable reason. They were watched; if a weaver dropped a thread she was fined from one to five dollars. It is reported the fines alone amounted to $15,000 annually, while one-fiftieth of that sum would pay for all the damage. The employer refused to take back the strikers except upon a further decrease of wages to which they were forced to submit.
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The W.C.T.U. of New Orleans have a suite of rooms containing a restraunt, a bakery and a sale room. In the sale room are to be found all sorts of fancy articles and woman's handiwork. The proceeds of the establishment are devoted to the advancement of the temperance cause.
Notes About Women
Mary Hallock Foote is at Boise City I.T., at work on a new novel descriptive of Western life.
Six ladies were graduated last week at Iowa City from the Medical course in the State University.
Carlyle’s niece is said to be about to publish a life of her uncle controver[t]ing the blunders of the historian Froude.
It is said that the late wife of James Russell Lowell was the critic whom he most heeded in his literery work.
Out of twenty-six graduates at the Ohio dental college, the gold medal was conferred upon the only woman in the class, Miss Carrie Floyed.
Mrs. Ada Langworthy Collier, the rising novelist, of Dubuque, Iowa, is at present in Washington on business connected with her literary labors.
Yseult Dudley the would be assassin of O’Donovan Rossa, states that it is her intention, in case she is freed by the courts, to go the Soudan as a nurse for English soldiers.
A Miss Platt, of Edgewood, Iowa, took the second prize at the annual Oratorical contest, held Feb. 28th at the Upper Iowa University. There were thirteen contestants.
Mrs. Louisa Reed Stowell, the only lady instructor in the University of Michigan, and the author of several treatises on microscopical subjects, has just been elected a member of the Royal Microscopical Society of London being the third lady ever elected.
Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, the well known Iowa prohibitionist lecturer, is lobbying before the Ohio legislature in the interest of prohibition. She has petitions, said to have 100,000 signatures, asking that a prohibitory constitutional amendment be submitted to the people of Ohio.
It is said by those who profess to be posted that a highly moral change may be expected to come over the spirit of Washington society, under the influence of Miss Cleveland, the mistress of the White House. It is stated that her temperance views are very similar to those held by Mrs. Hayes, and that she is strenuously opposed to dancing.
A few years ago Mrs. Holt endeavored to secure the appointment of postmaster at Knoxville, Iowa. In relating her experience, Mrs. Holt says: “I had upon my petition a large number of the names of the very best, most popular and noted citizen of Knoxville and vicinity. Some of our men advised me to take it with other complimentary papers and to to the Hon. Kasson, and request him to use his influence for me at Washington. He readily acknowledged the strength of my petition, but, said he, ‘I can not ask the post office for you.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because you can not vote.’ This made me a woman suffragist.—Inter-Ocean.
Not many months ago a young lady walked into our sanctum and applied for work. Her father was dead. He had been a newspaper man in his lifetime and in his office she had acquired some knowledge of types. This girl but 16 years old, had started out against her mother’s wish to get work away from home and help support the family for the father had not left them rech. We admired the bearing, the confident tone and clear eyes of that girl. She procured work in a town between here and Cedar Rapids. Recently we received a paper with the name of this lady at the head as editress, her mother having purchased the paper her husband had formerly owned. In a recent issue of that paper is the following item:
“If any one was to tell you an editress not a thousand miles from Eagle Grove grasps the handle of a Washinton hand-press and pulls off her whole edition, without stopping, you wouldn’t believe that would you? Well it’s true.”
The fair and plucky young editress is Miss Kate Phrem, of the Eagle Grove Times. We point her out as an example of Iowa’s heroic women, and she deserved recognition at the hands of the craft and of the public. She is one of a thousand, a brave, handsome, energetic, honest and deserving little woman.—Iowa Falls Sentinel.
Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, March 19.
PDF version, courtesy of the Mason City Public Library
Neither the Catt Center nor Iowa State University is affiliated with any individual in the Archives or any political party. Inclusion in the Archives is not an endorsement by the center or the university.