The German women have filled in the ranks made vacant by the men.
Nothing is too difficult for them to undertake and nothing is too hard
for them to do.
The poor German working women! No one in all the war has suffered like
these poor creatures. Their men have been taken from them, they are
paid only a few pfennigs a day by the government, and now they must
work, work like a man, work like a horse.
The German working woman is tremendously capable in manual labor.
She never seems to get tired and she can stand all day in the wet and
snow. But as a wife and mother she is becoming spoiled. She is bound
to become rough, and she takes the jostlings of the men she meets with
good grace, answering their flip remarks, joking with them and giving
them a physical blow when she thinks it necessary. Most of the women
seem to like this familiarity which working on the streets brings them,
and they find it much more exciting than doing housework at home.
All great reforms begin in a violent way, and maybe this is the
beginning of emancipation for the German woman, for she is beginning to
realize what she can do, and for the first time in the history of the
empire she is living an independent existence, dependent upon no man.
[Illustration: _A Window Cleaner._]
When the war first broke out, women were taken on as ticket punchers on
the overground and underground railways, and _Frau Kneiperin_, or "Mrs.
Ticket-puncher," sits all day long out in the open, punching tickets.
In summer this job is very pleasant, but in winter she gets very, very
cold even if she does wear a thick heavy overcoat and thick wooden
shoes over her other shoes. She can't wear gloves for she must take
each ticket in her hand in order to punch the stiff boards. She earns
three marks a day.
[Illustration: _A German Elevator "Boy."_]
After the women ticket punchers came the women door shutters, and _Frau
Türschliesserin_, or "Mrs. Door Shutter," is all day long on the
platforms of the stations, and she must see that every train door is
shut before the train starts. This is a lively job, and she must jump
from one door to the other. Most of these women wear bloomers, but some
of them wear men's trousers tucked in their high boots. They all wear
caps and badges.
_Frau Briefträgerin_ is the woman letter carrier. This is rather a nice
job, carrying only a little bag of letters. One fault with the work is
that she must deliver the letters to the top floor of every building
whether there is an elevator or not, but as no German building is more
than five stories high, it is not so bad. Most of the special delivery
"boys" are women. They wear a boy's suit and ride a bicycle.
More than half the street car conductors in Germany now are women. Most
of these women still cling to skirts, but they all wear a man's cap
and coat. They are quite expert at climbing on the back of the car and
fixing the trolley, and if necessary they can climb on the top of the
car. If the car gets stuck, they get out and push it, but the crowd is
generally ready to help them. They have their bag for tips, and they
expect their five pfennigs extra the same as a man.
When _Frau Führerin_, or "Mrs. Motorman," came, some of the German
people were scandalized and exclaimed: "Well, I will never ride on a
street car run by a woman. It wouldn't be safe." Now, no one thinks
anything about it, and the women have no more accidents than the men.
Some of these women are little bits of things, and one wonders that
they have the strength to stand it all day long. Most of them look as
if it were nerve-racking. They earn three and a half marks a day.
[Illustration: _Costume of a Street-Car Conductor._]
Women cab drivers are not very numerous, but every now and then one of
them whizzes around a corner looking for a fare. One Berlin cabby is
quite an old lady. The men cabbies are jealous of the women because
the women get the best tips. There are few women taxi drivers. One
young woman driver has a whole leather suit with tight breeches and
an aviator hat. Women also drive mail wagons, and women go around from
one store to another cleaning windows. _Frau Fensterputzerin_ or "Mrs.
Window Cleaner" carries a heavy ladder with her. This is no light task.
They have always had women street cleaners and switch tenders in
Munich, but now they have them in Berlin as well. They work in groups,
sweeping the dirt and hauling it away in wheelbarrows. Just before I
left Berlin I saw a woman posting bills on the round advertising posts.
She did not seem to be an expert at managing the paste, because she
flung it around so that it was dangerous to come near her. In the last
year they have had women track walkers, and they pace the railroad ties
to see if the tracks are safe. They dress in blue and carry small iron
canes.
[Illustration: _A Famous "Cabby" in Berlin._]
The excavation for the new underground railway under Friedrichstrasse
was dug out by women, and half the gangs that work on the railroad
tracks are women. They fasten bolts and saw the iron rails. All the
stores have women elevator runners, and most of the large department
stores have women checking umbrellas, packages, dogs, and--lighted
cigars! Most stores have women floor-walkers. Most of the delivery
wagons are run by women, and they carry the heaviest packages.
All the newspapers in Berlin are sold by women, and they wheel the
papers around in baby carriages. Around the different freight stations
one can see women loading hay and straw into the cars. They wield
the pitchfork with as much ease as a man and with far more grace.
Many of the "brakemen" on the trains are women, and some of the train
conductors are women. Most of the gas-meter readers are women, and
other women help to repair telephone wires, and still others help to
instal telephones.
There are a few _Frau Schornsteinfegerin_, or "Mrs. Chimney Sweep,"
but the job of being a chimneysweep doesn't appeal to most women. These
women wear trousers and a tight-fitting cap. They mount the house tops
and they make the soot fly, and the cement rattles down the chimney.
They carry long ropes with which they pull their brushes up and down.
[Illustration: _Cleaning the Streets in Berlin._]
_Frau Klempnermeisterin_, or "Mrs. Master Tinner," repairs the roofs.
Of course she wears trousers to make climbing easier. Most of the women
who have these odd jobs are those whose husbands had the same before
the war. Many other women work in the parks cutting the grass and
watering the flowers. In the market places women put rubber heels on
your shoes while you wait.
Most of the milk wagons are run by girls, and women help to deliver
coal. They have no coal chutes in Germany, and the coal is carried from
the wagon into the house. This is really terrible work for a woman. A
few women work on ash wagons, others are "ice men," and others build
houses.
Nearly all the munition workers in Germany are women, and they are
paid very high for this work. Most of them get from $40 to $50 a month,
wages before unknown for working women. The strength of some of these
women is almost beyond belief. Dr. Gertrude Baumer, the famous German
woman writer and settlement worker, told me that shells made in one
factory weighed eighty pounds each and that every day the women working
lifted thirty-six of these shells. Women are also employed in polishing
the shells.
The women workers in munition factories are very closely watched, and
if the work does not agree with them they are taken away and are given
other employment. The sanitary conditions of these factories are very
good, and they are almost fire-proof, and they have no horrible fire
disasters. Indeed they have very few fires in Germany.
They have in Berlin what is known as the _Nationaler Frauendienst_,
or the "National Women's Service," and it is an organization to help
the poor women of Germany during the war. Dr. Gertrude Baumer is the
president of this organization, and she is also one of the strongest
advocates for the one year army service for German women.
[Illustration: _A Berlin Street-Car Conductor._]
This society finds employment for women and gives out work for women
who have little children and cannot leave home. Women who sew at
home make bags for sand defenses, and they make helmet covers of gray
cloth. These covers keep the enemy from seeing the shining metal of
the helmet. If a woman is sick and cannot work the society takes care
of her until she is better and able to work again. They also have food
tickets which they give to the poor.
[Illustration: _Reading the Gas Meter._]
[Illustration: _A Chauffeur._]
Pension schedules are being made up by different societies, and it
is not yet certain which one the government will adopt; at present
every woman whose husband is in the war is given a certain amount
for herself and children. For women who are now widows the pension
is according to the rank of the husband. For instance, the widow of
a common soldier gets 300 marks a year. If she has one child she get
568 marks and so on, increasing according to the number of children,
for four children she gets 1072 marks. The widow of a non-commissioned
officer, a corporal or a sergeant, gets a little more, and the widow of
a lieutenant gets over twice as much as a common soldier's widow. The
widow of a major-general gets 3246 marks a year. When she has children,
she gets very little more, for when a man has risen to the rank of
major-general the chances are that he is old and that his children are
grown up and able to take care of themselves.
[Illustration: _Digging the Tunnel for the New Underground Railway in
Berlin._]
These schedules are also controlled by the number of years a man
has served in the army, and they are trying to pass a new bill which
requires that pensions shall be controlled by the salary the man had
before the war. If the dead man had worked himself up into a good
position of 1000 marks a month, his family should have more than the
family of a man who could only make 300 marks a month.
The schedule as it now stands for wounded men is that a private who has
lost his leg gets 1,368 marks a year; a lieutenant gets 4851 marks a
year; and a general 10,332 marks a year.
[Illustration: _Caring for the Trees._]
They have in Germany a "votes for women" organization of 600,000
members, but it will be years and years before it ever comes to
anything, for German women are very slow in acting and thinking for
themselves.