Woman’s World Column – May 7, 1885 | Archives of Women's Political Communication

In 1885, Catt (Carrie Lane) resigned from her position as superintendent of schools in Mason City, Iowa, and married Leo Chapman, editor of the Mason City Republican, a weekly newspaper. She became co-editor of the newspaper and started the column “Woman's World,” which she wrote would be “devoted to the discussion of such questions as purport to the welfare, the social, political and intellectual position of women.”

Years ago, political economists established the principles of capital and labor; they settled the laws upon which wages should be given and taken. To them the workingman was an element in their science of which they could easily dispose. But now a new factor has arisen and presented itself before the political economist demanding a revision of their principles. It is the workingwoman. Every year increases the number of occupations in which women engage. Every year adds to the number of women wage-earners. It is no longer popular for girls to be dependent upon fathers for support when by their own strong hands, or well-trained minds, they can live independently of them. Single women prefer the comforts obtained from a salary to a scanty existence, the charity of relatives. Any woman, who desires to earn an independent livlihood finds an innumerable number of means open to them. Public opinion has developed wonderfully within the past quarter of a century. Women are today filling positions creditably, who had they expressed a desire to perform such work, twenty five years ago, would have been hooted at in the streets. This change has not come without effort. Women have battled against prejudice, ridicule and opposition but have won the victory bravely. There are few people now, who are not willing to grant that it is the province of a woman to earn her own living. Yet there is one principle more for which they must content—equal pay for equal work. This was a factor in political science before women entered for consideration, but it is not now. Women are classed with, and compete with women, men with men. It is only in those exceptional positions found in the higher planes of work, where women compete with men, that wages are comparatively as high. Even in those positions where woman’s fitness has been proven without doubt, and her capability admitted by all, her wages are singularly inadequate. How will the economist account for this? He can not say the great number of women workers has so increased the supply in proportion to the demand that wages have been diminished, for such is not the case. Men have not suffered from the entrance of women into the field of labor. Their wages have not been lowered. It can only be said that the under pay of women is the result of prejudice, the remains of her thralldom through past centuries. The “labor question” so long a perplexed problem, is not yet settled, nor can it be until every trade and every profession opens its doors to women with the invitation “equal pay for equal work.” Time will efface prejudice and there is no doubt that the women of another generation will have no need to complain than they cannot find congenial work because of their sex.

The proportion of women who engage in occupations outside of the household is smaller in the United States than in any other country; but in no country is proportionate number engaged in superior industrial occupations equal to that in this country. Of the 2,647,000 in occupations, 595,000—most of them colored women in the South—are engaged in agricultures.—Women’s Journal.

According to the Superintendent of city schools in Burlington, Iowa, the most competent and successful assistant in the High School, a lady, is paid$800 a year while two gentlemen assistants, her inferiors in ability, receive $1100 and $1200 per year. He is not able to give any explanation of such difference in salary.

Factory owners engage women as operatives because they can be obtained much cheaper than men and do as much work. Officers employing bookkeepers and copyists say they prefer women for these positions, because they do their work more conscientiously and can be had at a lower price. Large printing establishments pay a considerably less sum per thousand to women than to men. Women cooks for the same work receive about half the wages demanded by male cooks. Female farm laborers work for $3 per week while gentlemen performing no more work are paid from $10 to $20 per week. In those counties in Iowa where the rate is not governed by a board, lady teachers are paid from $20 to $30 per month, gentlemen from $40 to $50 and so on ad infinitum.

The majority of the working women of foreign countries receive for various kinds of work, form 10 to 35cts. per day. The wages of men performing the same work are considerably higher.

Much of the labor performed by the working women of Germany is utterly unsuited to their sex. They split wood; carry stone, water and earth on their heads, thresh with the flail all day; act as bricklayers and sweep the streets. The wife of a mechanic may attend to her household duties all day besides working in the shop or on the farm. In most large German towns intoxicating drink is sold in about every fifth house. There are numerous charitable societies, the most popular being one called “Krippen” where little children are cared for while their mothers work in the field or elsewhere.—Women’s Work.

The banking firm of Rothschild in London employs women exclusively as coupon counters, and says that they are far more reliable and intelligent than male employees.

Boston has 40,000 women wage-earners, while it is estimated from facts gathered by the tenement and factor Inspectors that there are 40,000 girls and women in Chicago who perform various kinds of labor formerly belonging to man’s province.—Inter-Ocean.

Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, May 7.

PDF version, courtesy of Mason City Public Library