labels, edit papers, embroider, engrave, make mats, make pens, model,
paint, sew--indeed, do almost anything. Lameness is no excuse for
idleness. What do lame men do? None of them, that have any self-respect,
beg or sit idle because they are lame.
UNUSUAL EMPLOYMENTS.
=520. United States.= Last summer, a lady ascended alone in a balloon,
from Palace Garden, N. Y. She went up once in a balloon filled with hot
air. She received part of the profits derived from the admittance fees,
and the keeper of the garden the other portion, neither of which were
very large. Several women have gone up with their husbands. We take the
following items from the summary of the San Francisco _Alta California_,
of December 5th: "At the recent election, two women were elected to fill
office in Placer County--one as justice of the peace, and the other as
constable. Each received one vote in the precinct, and there was no
opposition." It is seldom that a lady's exertions are called forth as
were those of Mrs. Patton, wife of the captain of the ship _Neptune's
Car_. Yet, it goes to confirm what we have stated in some other place,
that any valuable information acquired will always come in use. We will
quote the extract as we saw it in a newspaper, copied from a San
Francisco letter: "Fifty days ago, Captain Patton was attacked with the
brain fever, and for the last twenty-five days has been blind. Previous
to his illness, he had put the first mate off duty on account of his
incompetency. After the captain's illness, the second mate took charge
of the ship, but he did not understand navigation. The first mate wrote
Mrs. Patton a letter, reminding her of the dangers of the coast, and of
the great responsibility she had assumed, and offered to take charge of
the ship; but she stood by the decision of her husband and declined the
offer. She worked up the reckoning every day, and brought the ship
safely into port. During all this time she acted as nurse to the
captain. She studied medicine to learn how to treat his case, and shaved
his head, and by competent care and watchfulness kept him alive. She
said that for fifty nights she had not undressed herself. Few women
could have done so much and done it so well. She was at once navigator,
nurse, and physician, and protector of the property intrusted to her
husband." The Geneva _Courier_ notices the appearance in that village
"of a strong-armed, strong-backed, and, of course, strong-minded woman,
in charge of a canal boat, of which she is owner and captain. She is of
German origin, and manages her craft with great ability." In New York, I
saw a woman driving a bread wagon, one rolling a wheelbarrow, and
another drawing a similar wagon filled with ashes. A few women are
employed in charcoal burning in New Jersey.
=521. England.= In looking over the census of Great Britain, for 1850,
we are surprised to find that in some of those occupations most suitable
for women, as physicians, music composers, teachers of mathematics,
macaroni packers, mask makers, honey dealers, lecturers, reporters, and
spice merchants, not one female is reported; while, in occupations
altogether unsuitable, many women are employed--in some, even hundreds.
No doubt many of these women, perhaps a majority, and in some
occupations it may be all, are the widows of men who have been engaged
in the business, and who employ others to do the work. In some of the
other occupations, the women probably do only the lighter work, under
the direction of the masters or competent foremen. Circumstances, as
regards occupation, certainly do much to influence the fate of every
one. But in no respect is there a greater need of reform, than in the
proper appreciation of employments by the sexes. Men have, in bygone
times, seized upon the lightest and most lucrative occupations, and by
custom still retain them. The most laborious and disagreeable work is
left for women, and what is still worse, they are paid only from one
third to one half as much as men, doing the same kind of work. Of the
occupations that strike us as odd for women, in the census of Great
Britain, are makers of agricultural implements, anchor smiths, barge
women, barge boat builders, bell hangers, bedstead makers, bill
stickers, blacksmiths, brass manufacturers, brick makers, bristle
manufacturers, builders, carpenters, case (packing) makers, chimney
sweepers, coke burners, commercial travellers, engine and machinery
makers, ferriers, goldbeaters, grindstone cutters, gun makers, hawkers,
hemp manufacturers, hinge makers, nail manufacturers, oil refiners,
paper hangers, parasol and umbrella stick manufacturers, peat cutters,
plasterers, potato merchants, railway-station attendants, razor makers,
ring-chain makers, rivet makers, rope makers, saddle-tree makers, sail
makers, scale makers, sawyers, scavengers, sextons, ship agents, ship
builders, small steel-ware manufacturers, snuff and tobacco
manufacturers, spade makers, spar cutters, spirit and wine merchants,
stone breakers, stone quarriers, stove, grate, and range makers, sugar
refiners, surgical-instrument makers, timber merchants, timber choppers
and benders, tin manufacturers, trunk makers, turners, turpentine
manufacturers, undertakers, vermin destroyers, well sinkers,
wheelwrights, white-metal manufacturers, wine manufacturers, wood
dealers, and zinc manufacturers. In the furniture trade of Great
Britain, 5,763 women are employed, while 7,479 are engaged in
conveyance. I would also add, that in Great Britain, women have been,
and still are, to some extent, employed in coal, copper, iron, lead,
manganese, salt, tin, and other mineral mines. Of those for men
extremely inappropriate, are reported three hundred and sixty-six dress
makers, and sixty-one embroiderers. "In the reign of George II. (says
Mrs. Childs), the minister of Clerkenwell was chosen by a majority of
women. The office of champion has frequently been held by a woman, and
was so at the coronation of George I. The office of grand chamberlain,
in 1822, was filled by two women; and that of clerk of the crown, in the
court of king's bench, has been granted to a female. The celebrated
Anne, Countess of Pembroke, held the hereditary office of sheriff of
Westmoreland, and exercised it in person, sitting on the bench of the
judges. In ancient councils, mention is made of deaconesses; and in an
edition of the New Testament printed in 1574, a woman is spoken of as
minister of a church." Miss Betsy Miller has for years commanded the
Scotch brig, Cleotus. Her father commanded a vessel plying between
England and France. After his wife died, the daughter frequently
accompanied him. On his death, being without a home on land, she took
command of the vessel, and remained in the capacity of captain several
years. An English correspondent of an American paper writes: "Walking,
lately, near some white-lead works, about the hour of closing, we
observed the sudden egress of about a hundred women from the
establishment, all Irish, and all decently clad and well conducted. On
inquiry, we found that they are employed continuously in the works,
piling the lead for oxidation, and in various other processes, not by
any means coming under the denomination of light labor." A few years
ago, a singular death occurred in England. It was that of a woman, who,
owing to harsh treatment from her parents when a child, left her home at
the age of eight, dressed in boy's clothes, got work as a boy, learned
the trade of a mason, and worked at it until about middle age, when the
business was changed for that of a beer house, in which occupation the
individual continued until her death, at the age of sixty. She always
dressed as a man. When quite young, she was very industrious and
hard-working. Many of the large houses and tall chimneys in Manchester
and Salford were built by her. "The 7,000 women returned in the census
under the head of miners, are, no doubt, for the most part, the dressers
of the ores in the Cornish and Welsh mines. The work is dirty, but not
too laborious; less laborious than the work which may perhaps be
included under the same head--the supplying porcelain clay from the same
regions of country. Travellers in Devonshire and Cornwall are familiar
with the ugly scenery of hillsides where turf is taken up, and the
series of clay pits is overflowing, and the plastered women are stirring
the mess, or sifting and straining, or drying or moulding the refined
clay. The mineral interest is, however, one of the smallest in the
schedule of female industry; and it is likely to contract, rather than
expand--except the labor of sorting the ores." In Great Britain, some
women work in alabaster, and some in alum mines. In what is called the
Black country, some women are employed on the pit banks, and some about
the furnace yards. A London paper says: "Melton and its neighborhood can
boast of three public characters, which, perhaps, no other can; namely,
two independent ladies, who have taken out game certificates, and who
enter the field, and can bring down the game equal to any sportsman, as
well as those indulging in fishing, hunting over the country with
hounds, &c. The third is a female blacksmith, a daughter of Mr. William
Hinman, who is such an adept at shoeing a horse or working at the anvil,
as to cause universal excitement. It was but the other day that she took
off the old shoes of a horse, pared the feet, and fitted the shoes at
the fire, and affixed them in the most scientific manner possible, and
in considerably less time than her father could, who is called one of
the quickest shoers in Melton." Some women are employed as kelp burners
in Great Britain; and some, as bathers, manage the bathing machines used
on the coast. In the census of Great Britain are reported some women as
hack proprietors.
=522. France.= A Paris correspondent of the New York _Times_ writes: "My
washerwoman is a man. He lives in the Rue Blanc, and any one may see him
up to his elbows in soap suds, or ironing frills on bosoms. His wife is
a wood sawyer." It is not unusual, in the public gardens of Germany, and
on the broad sidewalks of the Boulevards in Paris, for men and women to
hire a chair for a sou to a passer by who wishes to rest. In France,
some women are engaged in cutting and drying seaweeds, and some in
making wooden shoes. "In the department of Somme, France, women alone
have the right to go into the fields and gather stones to repair the
roads. In the cantons where peat is dug, the privilege of loading and
unloading the boats which carry it is given them. At Cistal, in
Provence, women alone have been authorized to sell the water which was
brought from a fountain some distance from the city. No man could be a
carrier of water. In other parts, to women is given the transport of
trunks, valises, clothes bags, and effects for the use of travellers on
packets. These resources are momentary. Accorded by one mayor, they can
be withdrawn by another." "In Paris, women cry the rate of exchange,
after Bourse hours." They also "undertake the moving of furniture, agree
with you as to price, and you find them quite as responsible as men."
The author of "Parisian Sights and French Principles" mentions a number
of female employments rather novel to Americans: "I will say nothing of
their laboring in the field, their driving huge carts through the
streets of Paris, and other rude labors which soon rub out of them all
feminine softness; but confine myself to the more agreeable duties which
they have here usurped from men. Indeed, a man is but a secondary being
in the scale of French civilization. The 'dames à comptoir' are as
essential to the success of a Parisian _café_ as the cook himself. More
hats are donned at their shrines than before the most brilliant belles
of the metropolis. My boot maker, or the head of the establishment, is a
woman; my porter is of the same sex, older in years and worse in looks;
my butcher, milkman, and the old-clothes man, newsboy, and rag gatherer
beneath my window, ditto. They are waiters at the baths, doorkeepers at
the theatres, ticket sellers, fiddlers, chair letters of the churches;
they figure in every revolution, and have a tongue and arms in every
fight; in short, they are at the bottom and top of everything in
France." In the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, is Lieutenant Madame
Brulow, who entered in 1799, and has been there ever since. Her father,
brothers, and husband were soldiers, and were all killed in battle; at
the age of twenty she was a widow and a mother. She joined the French
army at Corsica, where she behaved very bravely; but was disabled for
service by the bursting of a bomb while in the discharge of her duties
as sergeant. She is a woman of chaste manners and correct principles.
She dresses in the uniform of the Invalides. Louis XVIII. conferred on
her the rank of second lieutenant, and by the present Napoleon she was
made a member of the society of the Legion of Honor. A female soldier,
whose history is similar to Madame Brulow's, died near Paris, a short
time since, at the age of eighty-seven. She was a dragoon, and served in
Italy, Germany, and Spain, in all the campaigns of the French, from 1793
to 1812. When Bonaparte was first consul, he expressed a wish to see
her, and she was kindly received by him at St. Cloud. She received many
wounds in battle, and had four horses killed under her. We find the
following article, taken from Galignani's _Messenger_: "In consequence
of the success obtained by Madame Isabella in breaking horses for the
Russian army, the French Minister of War authorized her to proceed,
officially, before a commission of generals and superior officers of
cavalry, to a practical demonstration of the method, on a certain number
of young cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so
perfectly broken in, that the Minister no longer hesitated to enter into
an arrangement with Madame Isabella to introduce her system into all the
imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of Saumur."
=523. Other Countries.= Professor Ingraham, in his "Pillar of Fire,"
describing the Hebrews at work in Egypt, says: "The men that carried
brick to the smoothly swept ground where they were to be dried,
delivered them to women, who, many hundreds in number, placed them side
by side on the earth in rows--a lighter task than that of the men. The
borders of this busy plain, where it touched the fields of stubble
wheat, were thronged with women and children gathering straw for the men
who mixed the clay." "The Egyptian ladies," says the same writer,
"employed much of their time with the needle, and either with their own
hands, or by the agency of their maidens, they embroidered, wove, spun,
and did needlework." Herodotus says: "It was expected of the virgins
consecrated to the service of the Egyptian temples to gather flowers for
the altars, to feed the sacred birds, and daily to fill the vases with
pure, fresh water from the Nile." During the middle ages, "women
preached in public, supported controversies, published and defended
theses, filled the chairs of philosophy and law, harangued the popes in
Latin, wrote Greek, and read Hebrew. Nuns wrote poetry, women of rank
became divines, and young girls publicly exhorted Christian princes to
take up arms for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre." "In the Greek
island of Hinnin, the inhabitants gain a livelihood by obtaining sponges
for the Turkish baths; and no girl is allowed to marry till she has
proved her dexterity by bringing up from the sea a certain quantity of
this marketable article." The wife of the Burmese governor was observed,
by some Englishmen, to superintend the building of her husband's ship.
"In many of the South Sea islands, women assist in the construction of
the buildings appropriated to common use. Sometimes a woman of
distinction may be seen carrying a heavy stone for the foundation of a
building, while a stout attendant carries the light feathered staff to
denote her rank." "In Genoa there are marriage brokers, who have
pocketbooks filled with the names of marriageable girls of different
classes, with an account of their fortunes, personal attractions, &c.
When they succeed in arranging connections, they have two or three per
cent. commission on the portion. The contract is often drawn up before
the parties have seen each other. If a man dislikes the appearance or
manners of his future partner, he may break off the match, on condition
of paying the brokerage and other expenses." In the "Art Student in
Munich," we find this passage: "You know, in Germany, your neighbor's
dresses by meeting the laundresses bearing them home through the streets
upon tall poles, like gay pennons." "In Munich, a servant girl will be
sent around with a number of advertisements and a paste pot, and pastes
up the advertisements at the corners of the streets throughout the
city." "At Homburg, Germany, four, six, or eight girls, according to the
season, dip the water from the spring, by taking three tumblers by the
handles in each hand, and filling them without stopping, and supplying
those in waiting, so fast that there is no crowd and no jostling and
impatience." Mrs. Nicolson says: "Many a poor widow have I seen in
Ireland, with some little son or daughter, spreading manure, by
moonlight, over her scanty patch of ground; or, before the rising of the
sun, going out, with her wisp about her forehead and basket to her back,
to gather her turf or potatoes." "In the elevated, cold, dry regions of
Thibet, the goats are furnished with a fine down or hair-like wool under
the coarse, common outer wool. The long hairs are picked out, the
remainder washed out in nice water, and then handspun by women." "In
some African tribes, it is common for the women to unite with the men in
hunting the lion and the leopard." During the reign of Anne of Austria,
the French women often appeared at the head of political factions,
wearing scarfs that designated the party to which they belonged. Swords
and harps, violins and cuirasses, were seen together in the same saloon.
There was a regiment created under the name of mademoiselle. "During the
late war, Polish women assisted the men in erecting fortifications, and
one of the outworks was called the 'lunette of the women,' because it
was built entirely by their hands. The Countess Plater raised and
equipped a regiment of five or six hundred Lithuanians at her own
expense; and she was uniformly at their head, encouraging them by her
brave example in every battle. The women proposed to form three
companies of their own sex, to share the fatigues and perils of the
army; but their countrymen, wishing to employ their energies in a manner
less dangerous, distributed them among the hospitals to attend the
wounded." "In the army of the King of Siam, one corps particularly
attracts the attention of strangers, which is a battalion of the king's
guard, composed of women. This battalion consists of four hundred women,
chosen from among the handsomest and most robust girls in the country.
They receive excellent pay, and their discipline is perfect. They are
admitted to serve at the age of thirteen, and are placed in the army of
reserve at twenty-five. From that period they no longer serve about the
king's person, but are employed to guard the royal palaces and crown
lands."
MINOR EMPLOYMENTS.
=524. United States.= A little boy told me he used to catch butterflies,
and sell them in New York at a penny apiece for canary birds. Sometimes
he would get one hundred a day; and at other times, not as many a week.
Some women are seen on the streets of our large cities, selling baskets,
brushes, sponges, and wash leather--and many with baskets containing
tape, cord, pins, &c. Some women buy waste paper to sell to grocers,
butchers, fishmongers, and such others as would use it for wrapping. A
few resort to levees and warehouses to seek the scraps of waste cotton
that are lost by the removal of bales. Some collect ashes, separate the
cinders, wash and sell them; while some collect wood scattered about
lumber yards, and catch that drifting in rivers.
=525. England.= Some children on the streets of London are employed in
the sale of fly-papers. Some sell paper cuttings to ornament ceilings.
Sand is sold on the streets for scouring and for birds--also gravel for
birds. Some women, in London, go around and buy the skins of rabbits and
hares to sell again, and some keep little shops where they buy kitchen
stuff, grease, and dripping. In England, women are hired to pick
currants and gooseberries, put up fruit, weed gardens, bind grain, pick
hops, and sometimes even to cut hay and dig potatoes. On the streets of
London, some women sell conundrums and playbills, which are pinned to a
large screen, and a number sell stationery. In old countries nothing is
lost. Use is found for every article, even when no longer of value for
its original purpose. For instance, old tin kettles and coal scuttles,
we learn from Mr. Babbage, are cut up for the bottoms and bands of
trunks, and by manufacturing chemists in preparing a black dye used by
calico printers. In some cities of the old countries, every variety of
second-hand miscellaneous articles are sold in shops, from a Jew's harp
to a bedstead. In London, Mayhew says: "Among the mudlarks may be seen
many old women, and it is indeed pitiable to behold them, especially
during the winter, bent nearly double with age and infirmity, paddling
and groping among the wet mud for small pieces of coal, chips of wood,
copper nails that drop out of the sheathing of vessels, or any sort of
refuse washed up by the tide. These women always have with them an old
basket, or an old tin kettle, in which they put whatever they may chance
to find. It usually takes them the whole tide to fill the receptacle,
but, when filled, it is as much as the feeble old creatures are able to
carry home." Little girls, too, eagerly press into the mud as the tide
recedes, to secure what trifles they can, by which to gain bread.
=526. France.= In France, many women are employed in vineyards to pick
grapes, tie up the vines, &c. L. told me he had seen women in France
employed in preparing a kind of fuel made of clay mixed in water, cast
in moulds, and dried. Females are employed by some of the merchants in
Paris to carry goods home for purchasers. One of the most flourishing of
the minor street trades of Paris is that in fried potatoes, invented
some twenty-five years ago by a man that made his fortune at the
business. A few years back might have been seen in the grounds of the
Tuileries an old woman with a long stick, drawing off the surface of the
water the feathers that loosened and fell from the swans that floated on
the ponds. That old woman sold the feathers to buy bread.
=527. Occupations in which no Women are employed.= I have received
information from persons saying women are never engaged in their
branches of business, which are the following: Architectural
Ornamentation, Bonedust, Buckets, Carriage painting, Copperas ("hard and
unsuitable"), Currying, Drug Mills ("only fit for able-bodied men"),
Edge Tools ("not adapted to the sex"), Emery Paper, Flour Mills,
Glazier's Diamonds, Gunpowder ("dangerous"), India Rubber Belting,
Magnesia, Melodeons, Mercantile Agencies, Metallic Furniture, Oil, Oil
Cloth, Organ building, Paint Mills, Pattern making (of wood), Pearlash
("unsuitable"), Philosophical Instruments (except Globes), Pine
Furniture, Pork packing, Reed making, Rivets, Roll covering, Seed
crushing ("requires able bodied men"), Sellers of License, Ship
Crackers, Shot and Lead ("dangerous and unhealthy"), Shovels, Slate,
Spools, Starch ("too hard"), Steel-letter cutting, Stone quarrying,
Street-lamp lighting, Sulphur ("unhealthy"), Superphosphate of Lime
("requires too much muscular strength"), Surveyors' and Engineers'
Instruments, Tanning, Tinfoil, Trowels, Vinegar, Wholesale Fruit
dealing, Wire drawing, Wool combing, and Zinc manufacture.