Woman of Yesterday and To-day

by Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

Woman of Yesterday
and To-day

By

 

Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

Author of "Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker,"
"Woman and Freedom," Etc.

 

 

The Co-Operative Press, 15 Spruce Street, New York

 

Woman of Yesterday
and To-day

By

 

Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

Author of "Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker,"
"Woman and Freedom," Etc.

 

 

The Co-Operative Press, 15 Spruce Street, New York

Woman of Yesterday and To-day

By Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

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YOUR GREAT GRANDMOTHER

YOUR Great Grandmother was a womanly woman, who did not mix in politics, did not go to shows, did not dance at the age of forty. Ignorant of the ways of the world she clung to your Great Grandfather for moral support and bodily protection. She seldom, if ever, asserted herself, or did anything against his will.

Born and raised within her father's homestead, she had no voice in its management, no choice of occupation, no reward for her daily labor. She earned the clothes she wore and the food she ate, but her clothes as well as her food, belonged to her father for whom she had to work and whose duty it was to clothe and feed her.

She had to marry in compliance with his will; was transferred from one homestead to another, not as legal part owner, only as a helpmate—she could not buy or sell the place she called home, nor give or take anything without her husband's consent. She and everything she possessed became the husband's property on the day of their marriage. Rising with the sun she milked, washed, cooked, brewed, spun, sewed, made soap and candles, cured beef and canned fruit long past sundown, all as a matter of wifely duty. She had no alternative. Illiterate, God-fearing and man-obeying, she had to submit to the fate of all married women of that period. Life out of wedlock was still worse.

Woman's opportunities for self-support were practically nil in those days. Marriage was really a girl's only hope. The thought of this was instilled into her from the cradle. At 21 and still unmarried a girl considered herself and was considered by others to be an old maid. To avoid such a disgrace, YOUR Great Grandmother married at 15, or 16 years of age. At 21 she was a sedate matron with growing children. A Grandmother at 35 she aged before her time, withered like a flower deprived of light.

 

THE TURN IN THE ROAD

YOU would have met the same fate, had not society made a turn in the road, The invention of machinery at the beginning of the last century changed its whole mode of existence and woman's life, too, had to change. The spinning jenny could produce ten times more yarn that anyone of your Great Aunts. It did not pay your Great Grandfather to compete with the machine, he sent his daughter to tend it instead.

She and many more daughters of American farmers went gladly, they rather liked the change. Fully 30,000 of them left home for the factory during the year 1814 when the first real factory was built on our shores.

YOU cannot begin to imagine what it meant to the girls of that period to get away from the lonely farm-house; to work for wages. You live in a state of comparative independence, if you do not earn your own living you are still free to do very much as you like. YOU can go where you want, have a number of interests all your own, spend your free time with whomever you please. Not so the girls of a century ago. To them the factory boarding houses with their few hours of evening recreation meant a new freedom heretofore undreamt of. Unfortunately, more girls wanted to go, or had to go, to work than there was work for them to do.

You must bear in mind that we did not make all the things in the beginning of the century that we are producing to-day. Railroads did not criss-cross the country, the telephone and telegraph had not been invented, we had no department stores and big offices for girls to work in. When girls did go out to work in those days they had only six trades that they could turn to—sewing, spinning, carding, domestic service, book-binding and weaving.

 

THE EARLY TRIALS

The machine worked faster than the demand on ready-made cloth warranted. And, while it worked with terrific speed, it required but few hands to man it. This left a surplus of idle women at home, who could not remain there since the work had been taken out of it. These women, unable to find work in the cotton and woolen mills, flocked to the sewing trades. They became tailors, seamstresses, boot and shoe workers, and umbrella sewers in such great numbers that the supply again exceeded the demand. Wages fell to a mere pittance—girls sewed pantaloons by hand at the rate of 4 cents a pair, and shirts at 7 cents a piece, underbidding one another at every step.

One could hardly blame them for it. On the one hand the changed conditions compelled them to leave home and seek work outside, on the other work was scarce. They had to live, and small wages were better than no wages. The early joy with which this change was met turned to regret. Not accustomed to the turmoil of the outside world, bending under the yoke of destitution, they would have gladly returned to the old mode of existence. But, the progress of evolution does not retrace its steps.

The suffering was temporary, the longing for the past due to complete ignorance of the future.

 

SEEKING REDRESS

This chaotic condition could not last long, a re-adjustment had to come. Unable to bear their hardships, too weak to combat the oppressors individually, the working women commenced to band together for mutual defense. A decade after they left the home in telling numbers they struck against low wages, long hours and the despotism of boss and foreman.

The first strike of women took place in 1825 among the cotton mill workers. Needless to say that the world was worse than thunderstruck by this occurrence. The inhabitants of the pious New England towns shut their windows and locked their doors against this unwomanly act, but their precaution was in vain—they could not shut out the sound of woman's new-born rebellion.

The instinct of self-preservation prompted woman's struggle upward, brought the "Woman Question" to life. Women had to assert themselves, since their interests were removed from the influence of the men in their families. The cotton mill workers of New England were not alone in their protest; their example was soon followed by the sewing women of New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The umbrella workers, book-binders and shoe makers took up the trail. The people were convinced that hereafter the female of the Yankee tribe would have to be viewed in a different light. The endless chain of strikes demanded concerted action. The congregation of large numbers of ignorant, half starved, suffering women had its effect. Organizations for the purpose of bettering the conditions of working women came to life. The matter was discussed in the daily press, town halls and from the pulpit. Everywhere people expressed the opinion that the women were entitled to a fair chance. Attempts were made to train them in a few semi-skilled trades, the free schools were opened to them. The nation took cognizance of them, the era of protective legislation appeared on the horizon.

 

MACHINE A GREAT ALLY

The invention of the sewing machine in the year 1836 proved a great ally of women. The avenues of their activity widened at once. The newly established factories for the making of ready-to-wear clothing, boots and shoes, umbrellas and rubber goods became their mecca. The subdivided labor did not require any skill and the employers gladly utilized the assistance of the women who were the cheaper paid workers at all times.

In the wake of the sewing machine came the invention of the telegraph and telephone. Two instruments seemingly created for woman's nimble fingers and quick perception. Here, like in the clothing trade, its promoters were aided by woman's low wages in the popularization of these means of communication.

Women were entering the various branches of human activity in ever greater numbers, Wherever the iron bands were adjusted to do the work of human hands women were taken in place of men, thus bringing upon themselves the resentment of the workingmen. The latter put numerous obstacles in the way of the women workers, frequently refusing point blank to work at their side.

But the incoming tide could not be stopped. A little over three decades, after the first exodus, there were fully 200,000 women in the labor market. True, their hardships were as great, or even greater than ever. Ill treated and underpaid, the women of the forties seemed to lack the spirit of the working women of an earlier period. This, perhaps, because the element of the women workers had changed considerably. From being purely American it shifted to a mixture of foreign women from western Europe, women possessing a lower standard of living, smaller requirements. By accepting a mere pittance for their work they drove the American women out of the cotton mills and sewing trades, compelled them to continue the struggle upward, to seek more complicated and better paid occupations.

 

SEEKING KNOWLEDGE

Robbed of their activity in the home, unable to find suitable work outside of it, the American girls of better situated families turned their attention to mind culture. They flocked to the newly opened free schools, attended the young ladies' seminaries, took private instruction and taught others in turn.

In 1821 woman's desire for culture became so evident that the States were compelled to take notice of it. New York endowed the Troy Seminary for girls, four years later Massachusetts opened the Boston High School for girls. Private institutions increased from day to day. Women studied music and art, bookkeeping and telegraphy. In 1848 a woman received a diploma from a medical college, another was ordained into the ministry. Philadelphia opened a college and school of design for women. The latter became clerks in retail stores, cashiers, stenographers and so forth. Slowly, but steadily they wedged their way into commerce and the professions.

The year 1848 can in many respects be considered a memorable one in the history of woman's progress. It was during that year that several state legislatures enacted the ten-hour law for women. In the same year the first woman's club was organized. in America, the first Woman Suffrage convention called.

All these events, whether taken separately or otherwise, were true signs of the times. The development of woman's mind, the broadening of her field of activity demanded a reorganization of her mode of living, a readjustment of her relations to society. Working with others she acquired the desire to play, think and rule jointly with them.

Greater responsibilities called forth a feeling of self-assertion. The necessity to rely on self for support awakened woman's power of reasoning, the realization of her true relation to society.

 

DEMANDING RIGHTS

Fulfilling life's duties on a par with man, woman commenced to demand equal rights with him. The Suffrage Convention called at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on June 19th, 1848, was a natural sequel to woman's general advance. In the case of woman, history repeated itself. All through the advance of civilization people demanded and obtained political liberties as soon as they became a telling factor in the economic life of the country.

No sooner did the "Woman Question," woman's struggle upward, take root, than a number of women organized to demand greater civil and legal recognition and political rights for their sex. Their movement found many supporters in every part of the country. Old beliefs and traditions had to give way to new ideas. Since the development of industrialism narrowed the gulf between man's and woman's sphere, since women were granted a wider field of action they required greater civil and legal rights.

In line with this growing belief one State after another amended the Common Law granting married women the right to own property in their name, to collect their personally earned wages, to keep an inheritance, or will one to others, equal guardianship over the children and so forth.

The agitation for political rights failed, at least temporarily. It was inevitable that this should be so, in spite of all the sacrifices made and wonderful impetus given to it by its early champions. The time was not ripe for it. The majority of women were still behind the walls of their homes, their husbands remaining the sole intermediary between their women and the outside world. Failure stared the workers for suffrage in the face from the start, the declaration of Civil War caused the abandonment of all efforts in that direction for a time.

The leading Suffragists were also leading abolitionists. At the critical moment they gave their undivided attention to the black man's cause.

WOMEN AND WAR

The Suffragists were not alone in their work and devotion to their country. Women on both sides of the camp paid a toll to the bloody monster. This, of course, was not a new occurrence. Women always paid the highest price for all wars. Not only in excessive labor and privation, but in actual bloodshed, in the loss of life and limb.

During the Civil War women gave freely the flesh of their flesh, the blood of their blood by sending their sons to the front, while they, at home, were separated from kith and kin, and starved or froze to death. From the day the first shot was fired on Fort Sumpter to the hour when peace was declared they bravely manned all the industries, and branches of commerce, and education deserted by the men called to the battlefield. They produced, sold and bought the world’s goods, taught the young and nursed the wounded and feeble. With one stroke of the sword they were turned from a mere appendage of men to self-supporting beings, often supporting the other weaker members of their families. When peace was proclaimed there was fully a million of such women in this country.

Their presence was a great surprise to the hundreds of thousands of men returning from the battlefield. Instead of finding their plows and workbenches waiting for them, they found them used by a new army of workers. An army of women so vastly different from the creatures they left behind when they went at their country's call.

This, then, was the outcome of the Civil War; not so intended, to be sure, but such was the result. Fought: primarily to free the black man, it proved a great step to freedom for the struggling white woman.

GRANTING RIGHTS

The first half of the nineteenth century was a great iconoclast. It tore our conception of woman's sphere from its age-long mooring place, shattered all former traditions, trampled on custom and convention, creating chaos and dissatisfaction where peace and submission formerly reigned. The second half of the century has on the other hand given women the wonderful impetus which prompted them to rebuild on the ruins of the past. With the growth of industrialism, in the midst of general expansion, women took their place alongside of the men, exceeding them in some branches, holding their own in others, everywhere doing their best and convincing society that it must make room for them in the outside world, must, sooner or later, grant them the right of way.

The colleges opened their doors to women and, of course, the professions, sciences and arts had to accept them as legitimate participants. Before long commerce made the discovery that women were necessary to its success. Organized labor now claimed them for its own. The most hostile mixed trades invited their women co-workers to join the union, urged them to form separate locals, if they so wished.

Woman's place in society was advancing at the rate of a year in an hour. In view of this the Legislators of their own accord granted to women legal recognition and greater political rights. First came the granting of school suffrage and a voice and vote in the management of educational institutions. This was followed by the granting to women municipal suffrage in some States and tax suffrage in others, while one of the far western States, Wyoming, braved the prejudice of the world and gave its women full suffrage alike with men.

The decade 1890–1900 witnessed the enfranchisement of women in three more States: Colorado, Utah and Idaho.

The difficulties encountered by the early champions of the suffrage cause disappeared; people were accepting the event as a matter of course. This may, perhaps, be explained by the fact that during the decade in question women made another stride forward, their numbers in the bread-winning occupations increasing faster than the numbers of men. During that period the number of women workers rose to nearly 5,000,000, according to the census of 1900.

Suffrage met with great opposition only so long as it was not an absolute necessity; so long as women did not come in direct contact with the outside world. Political liberation was always the result of economic advance. The pressure from below brought to bear upon society by the ever growing host had its effect.

 

THE NEW CENTURY

The new century was greeted by a woman as vastly different from the Great Grandmother of a century ago as the hand loom and spinning wheel differ from the steam engine and electric motor.

In one century woman passed through five hundred years of progress. She grew to full womanhood, struck out for herself and entered all but seven branches of the world's occupations, became the buyer of the world's retail goods, constituted three-fourths of all the retail sellers, four-fifths of its educators, everywhere bearing the world's burdens, sharing in its responsibilities. The transfer of the making of the food products from the home to factory left a large void in woman's life, increased the necessity of specialization and woman's seeking self-support. The first decade of the new century witnessed the doubling of the number of women breadwinners, the latest census recording over 8,000,000. Within this last decade six more States granted woman suffrage—Washington, Arizona, California, Oregon, Kansas and Illinois—making a total of 10 States in which 3,500,000 women exercised the right of voice and vote in the government of the land. Since then Montana and Nevada have followed suit. The awakening of the Social Conscience in women is in great evidence there. The individual mother did not grow less motherly because of this, but the motherly feeling in women has broadened out, became more human, embracing the children of the Nation.

 

YOU

YOU, who have come to womanhood during the second decade, have advanced still more. The experience gained by your grandmother and mother came you in good stead, moulded YOU into an independent being possessing all the faculties essential to the human race.

YOUR childhood days differed but little from those of your brother. YOU and he both had the freedom of play together in: the street or park. You used the same toys, resorted to the same games. You went together to Kindergarten, where they taught you both how to sew, build toy boats, construct houses from blocks and make bread out of clay; sex was not differentiated at all. This same attitude was taken at school. You sat on the same bench and competed for the same honors. You moved on together from school to High School, from there to College or work.

Here came an abrupt change. After being brought up according to the new conception, prepared for a vocation in life on the same lines with your brother, YOU are given to understand that YOU are, after all, only a woman, that a woman is a different creature, the weaker sex, in spite of the fact that you may excel your brother as an athlete. You have to follow in the narrow path of prescribed convention and code of morality, while he has the freedom of the world. Upon entering on your vocation in life you find yourself hampered by the impediments of sex, your chances of advance are curtailed. When you both became of age he was given a voice and vote in the government and administration of the land, while you were denied this right.

YOU are dissatisfied, it is only natural that you should be so. The world cannot expect you to bow to eighteenth century laws, after it brought YOU up according to twentieth century methods. YOUR wings have grown, YOU must be given a chance to use them. It is little short of a crime to shackle you to the customs of the past. The Nation needs your assistance fully as much as YOU need the right to exercise your influence on its government. YOU need the suffrage in order to use your vote to change conditions, to put an end to all bloody wars, to the enslavement of one being by another, to the system of profit and greed, to make life worth living.

YOU dare not close your eyes to the serious questions of life, pass your days as if in a trance. You are doing an injustice to your intellect by this inactivity. Whether you recognize it or not, YOU want to be independent, YOU are longing for a purse of your own. YOU insist upon having your say in matters which concern your future welfare. Neither father nor husband can make you bow to their will.

YOUR future is before you, for you to make or mar. The world can be yours if YOU make an effort to make it worth while having. YOU, the woman of to-day, are the bulwark of our National strength; it is within your power to become the equal and comrade of man. "She who would be free must herself strike the blow."

 

Woman and Freedom

By

Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

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Price 5 Cents per copy

 

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Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co.,

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

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Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker

By

Theresa Serber Malkiel

 

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Paper, 25 Cents; Cloth, $1.00

 

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For Sale by

Socialist Literature Co., 15 Spruce St., New York