tions of women. There were a number of women printers in the eighteenth century, working both as compositors and at the press, and some women even published newspapers. This employment of women in a trade that was regarded as man's work may be accounted for by the fact that printing, like shoemaking, harness making and other trades, was done in a small shop, usually adjoining the home. There was no large, heavy machinery, requiring the erection of special buildings, nor was there any division and organization of labor, necessitating the employment of many workers. The printer of a newspaper was generally also the publisher, editor and owner, and if his financial circumstances did not warrant the employment of paid helpers, he taught the members of his family the art of type-setting and printing. In this way many wives and daughters became skilled compositors and printers, and some even capable editors, and when their male bread-winner died they were able to continue his business.
But all the above-mentioned gainful occupations were of minor importance. For the most part remunerative work resorted to by women during the colonial period was such that could be performed in their own homes and in connection with their other household tasks. Thus many women, skilled in gardening, raised garden seeds or vegetables and fruit for sale. Others made preserves and wine and sold them to their neighbors, or exchanged them at the village store for commodities they could not make; for much trading in those days was done by barter, particularly in the rural communities. But the greatest number of women were employed in the making of wearing apparel, from the spinning of the yarn to the sewing of the finished article. Edith Abbott, in her valuable book, "Women in Industry," enumerates spinning, weaving, the knitting of stockings and mittens, the manufacture of men's shirts and pants, etc., among the early, remunerative employments of women. Women turned to the same kinds of work for the purpose of gain, that they were accustomed to perform for the maintenance of their own homesteads. In most instances, therefore, the remunerative work of women did not differ from their work as housekeepers. Whether a woman spun and wove her own household linens, or whether she spun and wove articles for sale,
14
