View source for Week 15 Questions/Comments

One of the things that stood out to me during these readings was in "The Office Clerk" when the office manager was listing all of the reasons women were superior towards men for these positions. Among these reasons were that they almost always present for the work day and not making up silly excuses for an absence and the precision that they conducted their work in. I found it surprising that this man had such high praise for women. Could he have been saying this to the interviewer (Clara Lanza) to appease the female crowd who would be reading her article? Or did he really feel this way towards his female workers? Did the fact that companies could get away with paying women less than men factor into this appreciation for women clerks? - Elizabeth Frank

I found the article "Objections to Domestic Service" in that Lucy Salmon polled servants and their employers and from that managed to come up with a list of disadvantages. These disadvantages were an effort to dissuade young, American born women from entering this type of service. Such "industrial disadvantages" include "lack of all opportunity for promotion," "lack of organization in the service," "irregularity in working hours," "competition with the foreign born and the negro element," and "the interference with work often by those less skilled than the workers themselves." I can understand Salmon's reasoning for wanting to keep women from working as domestic servants. However, I'm slightly confused when she comments on how with the professions of seamstresses, clerks, trained nurses, and teachers can lead to promotions in the working environment. So in that sense, Salmon is urging women to pursue jobs other than domestic servitude. But is she at all encouraging them to return to the home? -- Vanessa Smiley

I think, in response to Vanessa's question, that Lucy Salmon felt that she was encouraging women to return to the home.  Where else would they be if not in the work place? They would be at home with their housework and their families.  By expressing the disadvantages of the working world she was able to show women what they would be missing from their home if they joined the workforce, without listing all the things to be done at home and the need to be at home. For some that would probably encourage them to work.  Also I think that Lucy Salmon was well aware that the majority of women in the workforce were working because they had to to support their families and they would return to the home if it was possible. --Mary P.

I liked the interview contained in Lucy Maynard Salmon’s piece called "Objections to Domestic Service". I thought it was interesting that the girl answering the question “Why do girls dislike domestic service?” says that factory workers are smarter, make better wives, and have cleaner homes while domestic workers that get married become careless and lazy with their housework even though that was their job before marriage and they should probably know how to do it well. I don’t think she really has any proof of this, it’s more about reassuring herself and everyone else that she is in fact a good candidate for marriage. She probably saw marriage as a way out of factory work.-- Jennifer Feldhaus

In Julia Ward Howe's writing under "The Joys of Activism," whether this is intended as propaganda or not, it certainly could be and nicely done. I love how she describes the moment she realized that women could and should do better than where they were. "During the first two thirds of my life I looked to the masculine ideal of character as the only true one... In an unexpected hour a new light came to me... The new domain now made clear to me was that of true womanhood - woman no longer in her ancillary relation to her opposite, man, but in her direct relation to the divine plan and purpose, as a free agent, fully sharing with man every human right and every human responsibility." She's certainly encouraging any that read this that she 'saw the light' you could say and the reader can have these realizations too. -- Vanessa Smiley

I found "Working Women Debate Woman Suffrage" very interesting, especially the entries from "Americus". The person writing these seemed to be extremely bitter towards men. She states that "we won't stay at home any more and cook and wash dishes either; we've done it long enough; let 'him' do it a little while."(Woloch 366) It just seems like she's extremely bitter that women do so much work with raising children and keeping the house clean, but men appear to go out have a good time with their friends and thats it. -Elizabeth frank

When reading "We Are All Bound up Together," I found it telling when Frances Ellen Harper related her story of life after losing her husband.  She was left with four children and no money.  Someone even took her to court over a bed.  She then discusses how if she had been a man, she would have been remarried by now and would not be facing economic hardship. --E. Hufford

Isabel Eaton really exemplifies the challenge black men and women faced in finding jobs.  There was no guarentee that they would get a job and often times they settled for domestic service.  Even if they were educated, "white help" was always preferred.  Many people gave up trying to find work outside of the domestic service branch because of this ideology.  Black men and women were also refused domestic jobs because of the color of their skin in many cases. --E. Hufford

I found Leonora Barry's piece on the Knights of Labor to be very interesting.  I thought that it showed many of the characteristics mentioned by some of the other readings, the fact that she was a widow with three children for example.  She seemed however, to be a very strong woman, one who embrassed her work and her position as master workman.  What I found really interesting was that she and others went around educating the children in the factories and such and pushing for the children who are working to be educated in an effort to erase the social and economic situation that causes the circumstances that drive mothers into the workplace. --Mary P.

I also thought the "Office Clerk" by Clara Lanza was an interesting document.  I thought it was particularly intersting how it said that women never complained about things like "...the temperature of the building [being] too hot or too cold or that the light is not properly adjusted."  Women might not have complained about things like the temperature or light, because they were happy to be able to have a job period that was outside of the home.  Men however, could complain about those things and easily get a new job if their current job didn't suit them.  ~K. Stinson~

What really struck me about "A Sweatshop Girl's Story" was how Sadie Frowne felt about injuries sustained on the job in factories.  From the way she was talking, she made it seem like these injuries were no big deal.  If you hurt your finger, you just wrap it with a bit of cotton, if the injury is worse than that, you may have to have that finger amputated, but, you just accept it and go on with your life.  Maybe injuries like that were so common in those factories, that it truely was no big deal.  ~K. Stinson~