Woman's World Column - June 18, 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.

One of the greatest insults paid to modern womanhood, although probably its authors are innocent enough of any wrong intention, are the numerous columns, in newspapers, “devoted to women,” as the head-lines announce and which contain all sorts of slush and nonsense. They are composed of quibs upon ridiculous subjects that ordinary people would not consider worth reading. Poodle dogs, hair-pins, ice-cream eaters and “mashes” are specimens of the subjects treated. No true woman can read the headings and then peruse the matter without a feeling of honest indignation. And if any woman, however weak-minded, could read them with enjoyment, she is so rare an individual as not often to be seen within the pale of common society. Strange as it may seem, some of the largest and most influential newspapers are among the class which publish these columns. If it is necessary to publish such stuff at all, it should at least be placed under a proper head and not cast a stigma upon all womankind by the insinuation that it is mainly intended for her reading. Whatever may be the cause for the appearance of these columns in newspapers, it is certain they do much harm, by leading the thoughtless reader unconsciously to a belief that women are only interested in such reading and the natural conclusion to such a belief, that they, as a class, are foolish and nonsensical.

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The Alpha is a paper published in Washington, with the motto: “It is the Divine right of every child to be well born.”

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Geo. Chaney in a recent lecture said: “Let woman make our laws awhile, and do you think every street corner would be an open gate to hell, and that education would give no change to intuition, or that our laws would be made in the interest of the strong against the weak, as though the sentiment of love and pity were an outcast in every chamber of legislation? Some cry out against the suffrage of woman for fear she would send a bishop to the White House or a preacher to Congress. Would they be worse than ward politicians, scheming demagogues who now control our legislation, imposing burdens upon the people too grievous to be borne, while they never lift a finger to help bear them? If we would save ourselves from the city of ruins in which we are living to-day we must stop scorning and taunting woman and kneel at her feet asking her to be our savior.”

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Rev. G.S. Weaver says:

“I believe the time has fully come when woman should be a woman, and not a mere gaudy appendage to man; when her soul should wake up from its long lethargy and put on the habiliments of usefulness and wisdom; when she should live to a grander purpose than she has done, and should make power felt more sensibly in the morality and religion, business and work, of the world. I am not a disregarder of the beauties and proprieties of dress. On the contrary, I admire appropriate dress. It speaks out the man or woman. But I would have everybody feel that the man makes the dress. Almost anything looks well on a noble woman. The plainest dress becomes agreeable when worn by a person of grand person and good life. Noble womanhood is always beautiful. The richest dress is always worn on the soul. The adornments that will not perish and that all men most admire, shine through this life. It is wicked to waste it in frivolity. The soul is a beautiful, precious, undying thing. If every young woman would think of her soul when she looks in the glass, would hear the cry of her naked mind when she dallies away her precious hours at her toilet, would listen to the sad moaning on her hollow heart, as it wails through her idle, useless life, something would be done for the elevation of womanhood. You may not see the mental or moral nakedness of the mass of our young women as I do; you may not hear the pleading voice of more worthy lives, as I do; but I trust you do see your need of higher purposes in life, and more active usefulness. I trust you do see that you have souls to dress and heart to adorn and that you will attend to this, your highest duty.”

Notes About Women

Some Japanese ladies of the highest rank, in Tokio, have organized them selves into a benevolent society and held a bazaar recently from which they realized $5,000 for a charity hospital.

Princess Louise is the president of a society recently organized in England “to improve the methods of education among the higher classes.”

Mrs. Harriron, a daughter of Charles Kingsley, is said to be the author of “Mrs. Lorimer: A Sketch;” “Col. Enderby’s wife,” etc. She writes under the pseudonym of Lucas Malet.

Mrs. Flora Grace, of Warrenburg, Mo., has invented a thermometer to mark the temperature of the oven during baking. It has been on exhibition in the Woman’s Department at New Orleans.

Miss Lillian C. Smith is one of the most successful rifle shooters in California. Her aim is unfailing, and she fires from right or left shoulder. Her aim is equally sure when the sights are obscured by a card placed on the muzzle. She shoots backward with deadly precision.

Bessie Bauman, a daughter of Geo. M. Bauman, of the Fort Scott (Kansas) railroad, was put in charge of an engine by her father recently, when it was necessary to to send a train from Fort Scott to the Ninescah bridge with materials, and no engineer was at hand. She was only a school girl, but she handled the throttle and guided the iron speed as well as the best man on the road.

Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, June 18.

PDF version, courtesy of Mason City Public Library