Women would succeed well as engravers and chasers of gold and
silver, as etchers and stamp makers, herbarium makers, landscape
gardeners, lithographers, map makers, modellers, music engravers,
painters, picture restorers, piano tuners, painters of plates for
books, steel engravers, sculptors, telegraphic operators, wax
workers, book-keepers, book merchants, china merchants, keepers of
fancy stores, grocers, junk dealers, music sellers, sellers of
artists' materials, sellers of seeds, roots and herbs, small wares,
toys, in variety shops, as bird raisers, and bird and animal
preservers, fruit venders, dealers in pets, restaurant keepers,
thread makers, glove makers, makers of shawls, yarn, ribbons, sewing
silk, lace menders, makers of files, guns, hinges, nails, screws,
skates, shovels, wire, candle-sticks, hooks and eyes, lamps, pens,
rings, scales, buckles, needles, saws, scissors, spectacles,
surgical instruments, telescopes, thermometers, lanterns, thimbles,
gold and silver leaf, pencils, inkstands, paper cutters, porcelain
goods, beads, harnesses, pocket-books, trunks, whips, combs, piano
cases. They succeed well as pearl workers, tortoise-shell workers.
They succeed in manufacturing shoes of all kinds, and gutta-percha
goods. They succeed as hair workers, as artists, as merchants of all
kinds of goods. They succeed in manufacturing artificial flowers,
belts, bonnet ruches, dress trimmings, embroidery, feathers,
hoopskirts, parasols and umbrellas, and so on, and so on, to the
extent of several hundred occupations, with a large number of which
they have nothing whatever to do, and from which they are kept by
persistent, blind, stupid prejudice; the apology, explanation, or
whatever you may choose to call it, generally being, either that the
work is too dirty, too hard, requires too much patience, or, much
more frequently, that it requires too much skill.
With all these occupations open to them, it is hard to believe that
New England girls will consent to starve, or for lack of bread, will
wander off into bye and forbidden paths.