IN CONCLUSION
I have tried to set down in these pages the collective opinion of women,
as far as it has expressed itself through deeds. I have not succeeded if
any reader lays down the book with the impression that he has merely
been reading the story of the American club woman. I have not succeeded
at all if my readers imagine that I have been writing only about a
selected group of women. What I have meant to do is to show the
instinctive bent of the universal woman mind in all ages, reflected in
the actions of the freest group of women the world has ever seen.
I might have reanimated ages of stone and of bronze; might have shown
you women, through slow centuries, inventing the arts of spinning and
weaving, and pottery molding; learning to build, to till the earth, to
grind and to cook grains, to tan skins for clothing against the cold. No
one taught them these things. Out of their brains, as undeveloped and as
primitive as the brains of men, they would never have conceived so much
wisdom. The vague mind of the savage woman never sent her to the spider,
the nesting bird, and the burrowing squirrel to learn to weave and to
build and to store. When we find exactly what it was that taught
primitive woman how to lay the first stones of civilization, we have a
perfect philosophical understanding of all women.
I chose to interpret the woman mind through the modern American woman,
partly because she has learned the great lesson of organization, and has
thus been able to work more effectively, and to impress her will on the
community more strikingly than other women in other ages. What she has
done is apparent and easy to prove.
Also, I chose the American club woman because she represents, not an
unusually gifted type, but the average intelligent, well-educated,
energetic, wife-and-mother type of woman. The club woman is not radical,
or at least not consciously radical. She has not, like the progressive
German and Russian woman, theories of political regeneration or of
family reconstruction. What she desires, what ideals she has formed, I
think must fairly represent the desires and ideals of the great mass of
women of the twentieth century.
When we survey the activities the club women have engaged in, when we
discover why they chose exactly these activities, we have a perfect
philosophical understanding, not only of the modern woman mind, but of
the cave woman mind and all the woman mind in between.
The woman mind is the most unchangeable thing in the world. It has
turned on identically the same pivot since the present race began.
Perhaps before.
Turn back and count over the club women's achievements, the things they
have chosen to do, the things they want. Observe first of all that they
want very little for themselves. Even their political liberty they want
only because it will enable them to get other things--things needed,
directly or indirectly, by children. Most of the things are directly
needed,--playgrounds, school gardens, child-labor laws, juvenile courts,
kindergartens, pure food laws, and other visible tokens of child
concern. Many of the other things are indirectly needed by
children,--ten-hour working days, seats for shop girls, protection from
dangerous machinery, living wages, opportunities for safe and wholesome
pleasures, peace and arbitration, social purity, legal equality with
men, all objects which tend to conserve the future mothers of children.
These are the things women want.
In my introductory chapter I cited three extremely grave and significant
facts which confront modern civilization. The first was the fact of
women's growing economic freedom, their emancipation from domestic
slavery. I believe that women would not wish to be economically free if
their instinct gave them any warning that freedom for them meant danger
to their children. But no observer of social conditions can have failed
to observe the oceans of misery endured by women and children because of
their economic dependence on the fortunes of husbands and fathers.
Whatever may be the solution of poverty, whatever be the future status
of the family, it seems certain to me that some way will be devised
whereby motherhood will cease to be a privately supported profession. In
some way society will pay its own account. If producing citizens to the
State be the greatest service a woman citizen can perform, the State
will ultimately recognize the right of the woman citizen to protection
during her time of service. The first step towards solving the problem
is for women to learn to support themselves before the time comes for
them to serve the State. Through the educating process of productive
labor the woman mind may devise a means of protecting the future mothers
of the race.
The second fact, the growing prevalence of divorce, on the face of it
seems to menace the security of the home and of children. So deeply
overlain with prejudice, conventionalities, and theological traditions
is the average woman as well as the average man that it is difficult to
argue in favor of a temporary tolerance of divorce that a permanent high
standard of marriage may be established. But to my mind any state of
affairs, even a Reno state of affairs, looks more encouraging than the
old conditions under which innocent girls married to rakes and drunkards
were forbidden to escape their chains. It is not for the good of
children to be born of disease and misery and hatred. It is not for
their good to be brought up in an atmosphere of hopeless inharmony. What
is happening in this country is not a weakening of the marriage bond,
but a strengthening of it. For soon there will grow up in the American
man's mind a desire for a marriage which will be at least as equitable
as a business partnership; as fair to one party as to the other. He will
cease to regard marriage as a state of bondage for the wife and a state
of license for the husband. He will not venture to suggest to a bright
woman that cooking in his kitchen is a more honorable career than
teaching, or painting, or writing, or manufacturing. Marriage will not
mean extinction to any woman. It will mean to the well-to-do wife
freedom to do community service. It will mean to the industrial woman an
economic burden shared. When that time comes there will be no divorce
problem. There will be no longer a class of women who avoid the risk of
divorce by refusing to marry.
The third fact, the increasing popularity of woman suffrage, I disposed
of in the preceding chapter. Nothing that the women who vote have ever
done indicates, in the remotest degree, that they are not just as
mindful of children's interests at the polls as other women are in their
nurseries and kitchens.
On the contrary, wherever women have left their kitchens and nurseries,
whenever they have gone out into the world of action and of affairs,
they have increased their effectiveness as mothers. I do not mean by
this that the girl who enters a factory at fourteen and works there ten
hours a day until she marries increases her effectiveness as a mother.
Industrial slavery unfits a woman for motherhood as certainly as
intellectual and moral slavery unfits her.
Women who are free, who look on life through their own eyes, who think
their own thoughts, who live in the real world of striving, struggling,
suffering humanity, are the most effective mothers that ever lived. They
know how to care for their own children, and more than that, they know
how to care for the community's children.
The child at his mother's knee, spelling out the words of a psalm,
stands for the moral education of the race--or it used to. A group of
Chicago club women walking boldly into the city Bridewell and the Cook
County Jail and demanding that children of ten and twelve should no
longer be locked up with criminals; these same women, after the children
were segregated, establishing a school for them, and finally these same
women achieving a juvenile court, is the modern edition of the old
ideal.
Woman's place is in the home. This is a platitude which no woman will
ever dissent from, provided two words are dropped out of it. Woman's
place is Home. Her task is homemaking. Her talents, as a rule, are
mainly for homemaking. But Home is not contained within the four walls
of an individual home. Home is the community. The city full of people is
the Family. The public school is the real Nursery. And badly do the Home
and the Family and the Nursery need their mother.
I dream of a community where men and women divide the work of governing
and administering, each according to his special capacities and natural
abilities. The division of labor between them will be on natural and not
conventional lines. No one will be rewarded according to sex, but
according to work performed. The city will be like a great,
well-ordered, comfortable, sanitary household. Everything will be as
clean as in a good home. Every one, as in a family, will have enough to
eat, clothes to wear, and a good bed to sleep on. There will be no
slums, no sweat shops, no sad women and children toiling in tenement
rooms. There will be no babies dying because of an impure milk supply.
There will be no "lung blocks" poisoning human beings that landlords may
pile up sordid profits. No painted girls, with hunger gnawing at their
empty stomachs, will walk in the shadows. All the family will be taken
care of, taught to take care of themselves, protected in their daily
tasks, sheltered in their homes.
The evil things in society are simply the result of half the human race,
with only half the wisdom, and not even half the moral power contained
in the race, trying to rule the world alone. Men's government rests on
force, on violence. Everything evil, everything bad, everything selfish,
is a form of violence. Poverty itself is a form of violence.
Women will not tolerate violence. They loathe waste. They cannot bear to
see illness and suffering and starvation. Alone, they are no more
capable of coping with these evils than men are. But they have the very
resources that men lack. Working with men they could accomplish
miracles.
Note the inventiveness of women, most of which goes to waste because
they lack the wonderful constructive ability of men. Women invented
spinning. They could never have harnessed the lightning to their wheels.
Women established the first public playgrounds. Men extended the public
playgrounds across the country.
Women established the juvenile court. Men took it over and worked out a
new system of criminal jurisprudence for children. Women have cleaned up
a hundred cities. Men are rebuilding them. Slowly men and women are
learning to live and work together. Reluctantly men are coming to accept
women as their co-workers.
Woman's place is Home, and she must not be forbidden to dwell there. Who
would be so selfish, so blind, so reactionary, as to forbid her her
fullest freedom to do her work, must surrender opposition in the end.
For woman's work is race preservation, race improvement, and who opposes
her, or interferes with her, simply fights nature, and nature never
loses her battles.
INDEX
Aberdeen, Countess of,
Addams, Jane,
Alabama,
Aladyn, Alexis,
Albert Hall, London,
Albion House of Refuge, N.Y.,
Aldrich, Mrs. Richard,
Allegheny, Pa.,
Allgemeinen Deutschen Frauenbund,
American, Sadie,
American Federation of Labor
American women and common law
Arbitration,
Argentine,
Arizona,
Arkansas
Arthur, Mrs. Clara B.,
Association of Collegiate Alumnae,
Association of Working Girls' Clubs,
Augsberg, Anita,
Australia,
Austria
Balliett, Thomas M.,
Barnum, Gertrude
Barrett, Mrs. Kate Waller,
Bedford Reformatory, N.Y.,
Belmont, Mrs. O.H.P.,
Berlin,
Birmingham, Ala.,
Blackstone
Blackwell's Island,
Blatch, Harriot Stanton,
Bluhm, Agnes,
Boston, Mass
Boston Central Labor Union,
Boswell, Helen V.,
Brandeis, Louis D.
Brewer, Justice,
Brooklyn, N.Y.,
Bullowa, Emilie,
California
Carlisle, Pa.,
Carnegie, Andrew,
Casey, Josephine,
Catt, Mrs. Carrie Chapman,
Cauer, Minna,
Chicago
Child, Lydia Maria,
Church, the Christian, its relation to social problems,
Civic Club of Allegheny County
Civic Club of Philadelphia,
Cleveland, O.
Cliff Dwellers' remains,
Cobden Sanderson, Mrs.,
Code Napoleon
Cole, Elsie
College Settlements Association,
Colony Club,
Colorado,
Colorado State Federation of Clubs,
Columbia University,
Columbus, Ohio,
Common law,
Coney Island
Conine, Mrs. Martha A.B.,
Consumers' League of N.Y.,
Consumers' Leagues
Conventions of women's clubs,
Corpus Juris,
Cotton mills, women and girls in
Council of Women
Cranford, N.J.,
Cutting, Fulton,
Dallas, Tex.,
Dance halls,
Daughters of the American Revolution,
Daughters of the Confederacy,
Davis, Mrs. Jefferson,
Decker, Mrs. Sarah Platt,
Delaware,
Denver, Colo.,
Department stores,
Detroit,
Devine, Edward T.,
Dewey, Mrs. Melvil,
Dineen, Governor,
District of Columbia,
Divorce
Dock, Lavinia,
Domestic service,
_Domestic Service_, Professor
Salmon's,
Donnelly, Annie,
Dreier, Mary,
Dutcher, Elizabeth,
Eight-hour day,
Ely Bates Settlement,
Employment agencies,
England
Equality League of Self-Supporting Women,
Europe,
European women,
Evans, Mrs. Glendower,
Factories,
Fall River, Mass.
Festivals, play,
Feudalism
Filene system,
Finland
Florida
Flowerton, Maud,
Folks, Homer,
France,
Franks, Salian
French Code,
Gad, Elizabeth,
General Federation of Women's Clubs,
Georgia
Gerberding, Mrs. Elizabeth,
German Woman Suffrage Association,
Germany,
Gillespie, Mabel,
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, her _Women and Economics_,
"Girls' Bill,"
Girls' Friendly Association,
Golden, John,
Goldmark, Josephine,
Goldmark, Pauline,
Gompers, Samuel
Grannis, Mrs. Elizabeth,
Greece,
Greece, Queen of,
Greeley, Helen Hoy,
Greenbaum, Sadie,
Grenfell, Mrs. Helen,
Gulick, Luther H.,
Harper, Ida Husted,
Harrisburg, Pa.,
Hearn,
Henry, Alice,
Holland,
Housekeepers' Alliance,
Hughes, Governor,
Hundred Years' War,
Iceland,
Idaho,
Illinois,
Inheritance,
Intermunicipal Committee on Household Research,
International Council of Women,
International Woman Suffrage Alliance
Iowa,
Israels, Mrs. Charles M.
Italy,
Janes, Elizabeth,
Jefferson Market Court,
Jordan, Gertrude,
Kansas
Kellor, Frances,
Kennard, Beulah,
Kirby, John, Jr.,
Kusserow, Anna
Lafferty, Mrs. Alma,
Laidlaw, Mrs. James Lees,
Lake City, Minn.,
Laughlin, Gail,
Laundries,
Law, American
Legal Aid Society of N.Y. City,
Legal disabilities of women
Leipzig,
Lemlich, Clara,
Libraries,
Los Angeles, Cal.,
Louisiana
Lowell, Mrs. Josephine Shaw,
Luxemburg,
MacLean, Annie Marian,
Maloney, Elizabeth,
Marot, Helen
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics
McEwans, the,
Men, their attitude toward women
Mercantile Employers' Bill
Merchants' Association of N.Y.,
Mercy, Anna,
Meredith, Ellis
Milholland, Inez,
Mills,
Mills, Enos,
Miner, Maude E.,
Miner, Stella,
Missouri,
Mitchell, John,
Montana,
Moore, Mrs. Philip N.,
Morgan, Anne
Mott, Lucretia,
Muller, Curt
Napoleon,
Napoleon Code
Nathan, Mrs. Frederick
National Civic Federation,
National Congress of Mothers,
National Manufacturers' Association
National Society of Collegiate Alumnae,
National Woman Suffrage Association
Nebraska
Nestor, Agnes,
Nevada,
New England,
New Haven, Conn.
New Jersey,
New Mexico,
New York,
New York, N.Y.,
New York Telephone Co.,
New Zealand,
Night Court. See _Jefferson Market Court_
Night work of women,
North Carolina
North Dakota,
Ohio,
Oklahoma,
Orange, House of,
Oregon,
Oregon case,
Oregon Standard,_Out of Work_, Miss Kellor's
Palisades of the Hudson,
Panama Canal,
Pankhurst, Mrs.,
Paris,
Peace
Pennsylvania,
Persia,
Philadelphia,
Pike, Violet,
Pittsburg,
Playgrounds,
Playgrounds Association of America
Portland, Ore.,
Portugal
Potter, Virginia,
Probation Association of N.Y.,
Property Law, Married Women's,
Public Service League of Denver, Colo.
Puritans
_Resurrection_, Tolstoy's,
Revere Beach,
Rheinhard Commission,
Rhode Island
"Rights of Man,"
Ritchie Paper Box Manufactory,
Robins, Mrs. Raymond,
Robinson, Mrs. Helen Ring,
Rochester, N.Y., Industrial School,
Roxbury, Mass., carpet mill strike,
Russia,
Sage, Mrs. Russell,
St. Louis, Mo.
Salic Law,
Salmon, Prof. Lucy Maynard
Salt Lake City,
San Francisco,
Schoenfeld, Julia,
Scranton, Pa.,
Seneca Falls convention,
Servant problem. See _Domestic Service_
Shaw, Dr. Anna,
Shirt-waist makers' strike,
Smith, "Gypsy,"
Snowden, Mrs. Philip,
Social evil,
Social purity
Socialist party
South Africa,
South Carolina,
South Chicago,
South Dakota,
Spain
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
Stover, Charles B.,
Succession to throne by women,
Sweat shop, the
Switzerland
Teacher's Federation of Chicago
Ten-hour day,
Tennessee
Texas,
Tillman case,
Turkey,
Tuthill, Judge R.S.,
Twentieth Century Club of Detroit,
United States Government
United States Industrial Commission,
United Textile Workers
Utah
Vassar College,
Victoria, Queen,
Virginia,
Voters' League for Equal Suffrage,
Wage earning, women in,
Washington (state),
Waverley House,
White, Mrs. Lovell,
"White Slave" traffic
Whitman, Charles S.,
Wilhelmina, Queen,
Windeguth, Dora
Winthrop, Mrs. Egerton,
_Woman and Economics_, Gilman's,
Woman suffrage,
Woman Suffrage Party
Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
Woman's Municipal League of N.Y.,
Women, their ideals,
in Europe,
in America,
in industry,
their fight against the social evil,
in domestic service,
collective opinion of,
Women's Civic Club of San Francisco,
Women's Club, of Lake City, Minn.,
of Dallas, Tex.,
of San Francisco,
of Pittsburg
of Detroit,
of Philadelphia,
of Harrisburg, Pa.,
of Birmingham, Ala.,
of Carlisle, Pa.,
of Cranford, N.J.,
Women's Clubs
Women's Educational and Industrial Union of BostonWomen's League of Justice,
Women's Political Equality Union,
Women's Property Act,
Women's Trade Union League
Working Women's Society
Wyoming,
Yonkers, N.Y.,
Young Women's Christian Association
End of Project Gutenberg's What eight million women want, by Rheta Childe Dorr