Occupations for Women: A Book of Practical Suggestions for the Material Advancement, the Mental and Physical Development, and the Moral and Spiritual Uplift of Women, by Frances Elizabeth Willard

Published: Cooper Union, N.Y., The Success Co., 1897

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Contents:

Introduction,...5
Illustrations,...17
I. What Is Life For?...21
II. What Your Hand Finds To Do...25
III. This, One Thing I Do,...36
IV. The Spiritual Side,...31
V. Preserve Making and Pickling,...41
VI. The Way it Happened,...47
VII. Professional Menders,...55
VIII. Co-operating for a Home,...60
IX. Books and Reading,...67
X. Guides, Shoppers and Chaperons,...72
XI. A Chapter on Dressmaking,...78
XII. What Career,...84
XII. Occupations that Kill,...90
XIV. What Physical Culture Can Do,...95
XV. Women as Farmers,...102
XVI. Bee Culture, Poultry Culture and Silk Culture,...108
XVII. Caring for Pets,...114
XVIII. Lunch and Tea Rooms,...120

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XIX. From the Successful Woman's Standpoint,...126
XX. Telegraph and Telephone Girls,...132
XXI. Stenographer and Typewriter,...127
XXII. The Faithful Saleswoman,...142
XXIII. Women in Advertising,...149
XXIV. Women in Real Estate,...155
XXV. Women in Banking,...160
XXVI. Women in Insurance,...165
XXVII. A Chapter of Facts,...171
XXVIII. In Temperance Work,...175
XXIX The Day of Small Things,...185
XXX. Women in Medicine,...189
XXXI. Women in Politics,...196
XXXII. Woman in the Pulpit,...204
XXXIII. Piano and Organ Tuning,...209
XXXIV Public Singers,...215
XXXV. In Choir and Concert,...220
XXXVI. Pianists and Composers,...225
XXXVII. In Orchestra Work,...233
XXXVIII. Where Is My Place?...238
XXXIX. Women as Photographers,...242
XL. Women in Interior Decoration,...249
XLI. How a Girl May Work Her Way Through College,...257
XLII. Women as Teachers,...262
XLIII. College Presidents, Professors and Principals,...269

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XLIV. In the Lecture Field,...277
XLV. Newspaper Women,...283
XLVI. Editors, Magazine Writers and Paragraphers,...293
XLVII. In the Dramatic Profession,...300
XLVIII. Women as Dramatists,...305
XLVIX. What the Blind Can Do,...310
L. Women in Science,...317
LI. Women in Unusual Paths,...322
LII. Just What Women Are Doing,...333
LIII. Cooking School Teachers,...338
LIV. The Kindergarten Teachers,...345
LV. Women as Inventors,...349
LVI. Women as Business Managers,...355
LVIII. In Government Service,...359
LVIII. Architects, Civil Engineers and Designers,..366
LIX. Women at the Bar,...371
LX. Chances for Colored Girls,...377
LXI. Trained Nurses,...383
LXII. Women in Millinery,...390
LXIII. Manicuring and Hairdressing,...395
LXIV. Dentists and Pharmacists,...400
LXIV. Printing and Publishing,...405
LXV.. Bookkeepers and Cashiers,...411
LXVII. Up-to-date Rich Girls,...416
LXVIII. Women in Art,...423

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LXIX. My Brave Helper,...429
LXX. For Study at Home,...435
LXXI. Women's Exchanges,...439
LXXII. What We Owe to Pioneer Women,...443
LXXIII. In New Fields,...448
LXXIV. What Two Girls Did,...455
LXXV. An Old Girl's Talk to Girls,...463
LXXVI. Beauty and Dress,...467
LXXVII. Our Aims,...473
LXXVIII. Working Girls' Clubs,...480
LXXIX. Marriage as a Career,...485
LXXX. The Devastation of Loopholes,...490
LXXXI. A Closing Word,... 495

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WHEN we see a boy the question instantly springs up, "What are you going to do?" but when we see a girl it is "What are you going to be?" The whole of life and destiny is bound by these two interrogations, and the mistake of the world has been that it did not put both queries to the boy and girl alike, for when we fail to look upon the boy as a son and the girl as a daughter of God, whose birthright involves the full development of each one's powers of brain, heart and hand, we do them an injustice that can only be forgiven on account of our ignorance, prejudice and hopeless conventionality of thought and action. Each one of us would like to be developed to the utmost in the power to think clearly, to feel nobly, and to act and react helpfully upon the world about us. Not one of us would be willing to have this development diminished because of possible or probable relations that the future might bring as the outcome of the marriage tie. Most of us have made the

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discovery that the man or woman who is the most of a person in and of himself and herself is the one who is of all others most likely to make a good companion, whether as a relative or an acquaintance, a friend or the permanent partner in that most sacred of all compacts out of which blossoms a human home. If, then, we each desire the best development as the only intelligent and adequate welcome that the human family can give us on our arrival within its circle, we shall, if we are ourselves "real folks," desire to help as many others as we can to this same drawing out of the capacities enfolded in them at birth, and I have always felt that the honest desire and effort put forth by any person to develop every other person is the true measure of his good will toward those about him.

There are plenty of people who desire their own development, and seek it as persistently as a well-aimed bullet seeks the target's centre, but are so utterly absorbed in this one purpose that they do not try to help others to attain success. In short they trample the Golden Rule under their feet, and dance about on it, never dreaming what a spectacle they present to the moral universe. Surely it is not unjust to say that any human being who would shut away any other from the best possibilities of that other as to education and opportunity is a monster, whether he knows it or not. He may not be guilty of sin; I don't suppose that a crocodile is guilty when it snaps off the head of a drowning sailor, but it gets in its work just as effectually as if it were, and people who by nature and practice make a business of keeping other people down, whether through law or custom, or personal power, are among the world's monstrosities, and "sometime, somewhere," they will find this out and "shame them of the part they played." The whole struggle of Christianity is to help every one who comes into the world to feel the only true welcome that a new comer finds adequate--the welcome of whole-hearted preparation, not only by the parents and in

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the home, but in the larger home of universal manhood and womanhood to give the little one that all-round development which makes up the completed human being, the son and the daughter of God, the brother and sister of humanity.

This little lay-sermon of mine is jotted down to introduce a book which, from cover to cover, is meant to encourage and help that half of the "Family" which in the past has not had one-half the chances to be and to become all that it might.

Some day such a book will be wholly and happily superfluous, for it will be taken as a matter of course that every human being shall do any and every good thing that he or she desires to do. But in this day, when an act of the legislature is required, even in our most enlightened States, before a woman can help to choose the officers who make and administer the laws to which she is subject, when the custody of her child rests with the husband, when she cannot practice law without a special enabling act of the legislature, when most occupations and professions have been closed to her until the present generation, this book, which shows what women have done and are doing for their own development, and what really Christian men and women are helping them to do, will come to ten thousand eager and capable girls with a sense of good cheer and earnest counsel that may enter as a large factor into the women's work of years to come.

To each new-comer the world is unknown, and her estimate of what can be accomplished in it, depends almost wholly on what she sees accomplished by those of her own guild. To my mind the highest merit of "Occupations for Women" is that it does not deal in theories, but shows how things can be done and helps inspire girls and young women to try to "go and do likewise." From the beginning my correspondence, which includes tens of thousands of letters each year, has revealed the painful fact that in a girl's

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thought the favorite method of travel is to fly rather than to climb. My young correspondents wish for salaried positions at once; they desire an outlook and an environment that it has taken me a lifetime to achieve, nor do they seem to think that it would be at all strange that such sugar plums as these should drop into their mouths as if from the hand of some kind-hearted godmother. I wish I knew how many times I have had letters containing the declaration "I should like to be your secretary;" "I should like a position in the Temple, in Chicago;" "I should like to be associated with Lady Henry Somerset." These have come to me from young women "far out upon the prairies," or up somewhere in the woods, or in a frontier village, or the overcrowded district of some city. My reply has invariably been to this effect:

Dear Younger Sister: You must begin as I began; you must work your way little by little; you must be tested by adversity; you must live on little, and dress not as you would, but as you honorably can. What we older women wish to see in you is, first of all, a deadly earnestness and an indomitable purpose to excel. We think that the very best way to make a woman of you is that you should begin just where you are to work for the Cause. Who are you, that you should pass over all the primary and intermediate grades of opportunity and honest hard work in the local white ribbon movement, and spring at once to a salaried position, and the environment that you desire? If you will investigate of the history and method of our society, and begin to carry out some of its lines of work in a practical way in the local union at your own home, the leaders in county, district or State will hear of you in the only way in which any human being has a right to be heard of, viz., by the results you have achieved. They will then be as eager to confide a larger work to your care as you are desirous that they should. There is no royal road to any real success. All that we can

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do is to think out plans and methods as the result of experience, and you must carry out these plans in a small way, letting your actual power of thought and action determine whether you ever carry them out in a large way or not.

A letter like this would have little meaning except for a young woman who had a gift of writing, speaking or organizing, for these three lines make up the triangle of our white ribbon work.

In the world of philanthropy one must first "Make proof of her ministry," but I do not believe there is another field so wide and beautiful for woman's work as the religious, reformatory and philanthropic fields now "white unto the harvest."

"Nothing makes life dreary but lack of motive." This book of ours aims to impart a definite purpose in life to those who are so unfortunate as not to have formed one already, and to help direct into congenial channels the capacities with which young women are endowed.

Having long been a teacher, it is my observation that boys and young men are no whit better fitted out for a good and helpful life than are their sisters; indeed, with the handicap of the drinking and tobacco habits and the temptation to an impure life, our young men start out at a positive disadvantage. It is of this that temperance women complain, and in the interest of the homes that are to be, we are trying to raise the standard of personal habits so that it shall be the same for our young men and women.

It is fortunate for those who read this book that upon its pages have been converged the ability and experience of two of the most capable women journalists who have been developed in our time, and that it has had the careful supervision of our American Samuel Smiles, Dr. 0. S. Marden, of Boston, author of "Pushing to the Front," "Rising in the World," etc., while the angle of vision supplied by an every-day worker for "Woman and

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Temperance," helps to round out the unique circle of authorship that has made this a many-sided volume and one that is certain, we think, to win the attention of working women because worthy to be regarded by them as a "guide, philosopher and friend." This much I feel free to say, because if the book is not "made up of every creature's best," it is made up of several creatures level best.

A paper called Success, edited by Dr. Orison Swett Marden, has been started in New York, and this book has already grown up out of it. I hope the paper may be taken by all who read "Occupations for Women," for I am confident that it will prove the best sort of a mental tonic, transforming many a visionary young woman into a whole-hearted worker, and transferring many an idle young woman from the passive into the active voice.

I am putting in this reference to Success without permission because I believe it will do good and strongly supplement the work of the book we have prepared. If, in the days when I was looking out with wonder on the world, a voice so steady had welcomed me to wider paths of opportunity its tones would have been the sweetest music to my listening ears; but we did not have such papers then. It was my mother who inspired me; it was she who said, "My child, make up your mind as to what you will take the most pains for, because that you will have. Do not expect everything, but do expect that the thing you take most pains for will be yours. Never forget that your mother always taught you it was best worth while to set a truthful and kindly character before you as the highest aim; along with that may come to you love, riches, fame, but they must be secondary if you would gain the only treasure that you can take with you from this world to the next. Never forget that the only indestructible material in destiny's fierce crucible is character; try for it; 'pray for it devoutly and then hammer away stoutly;' say to yourself over and over again as you toil onward,

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utter it early, repeat it often, 'Fail me not, Thou.'" And so I pass along the word given me a generation back by her whom I best loved. She has been gone for years, but wherever by voice or pen I have put forth a word of help or kindness, she has as truly spoken as if it were her word not mine. Let it be understood then that no woman living is more loyal than I am to that supreme occupation, the training by its mother of a little child for the life that now is and the life that is to come. There is no "Occupation for Women" that approaches in sacredness and value the vocation of motherhood. Some day the world will treat its mothers differently from what it ever has done or has yet learned to do; they will be the central figures of the highest circles of power, and to their holy vocation the most gifted and cultured women will be called while the ignorant and vicious will not be suffered to attain its solemn dignity. But in the transition of which we are victims in these days, there is nothing for it but that every true woman should firmly grasp in her steady hand an honorable bread-winning weapon with which she may hold her own in this world of relentless competition. We are helping to forge a link in the long chain of evolution; let us do our best to be gentle while we are strong, tender while we are brave.

With all my heart I commend to you the motto that my mother gave me "Womanliness first--afterward what you will."

Frances Williard
Chicago, Thanksgiving Day, 1897.

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Pages 13-16 [Table of Contents - moved to front of the book]

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Illustrations [not included in WebRoots online edition]

What My Hand Finds to Do,...27
Preserving and Pickling,...43
Mrs. Ida Moore Lachmund,...48
The "Robert Dodds" with Raft in Tow,...49
Miss Catherine Humes Jones,...52
A Pleasant Home,...63
Guides, Shoppers and Chaperons,...75
Physical Culture,...97
At Work in the Garden,...103
Miss Sarah A. Taft,...105
Caring for Pets,...115
Lunch and Tea Room,...121
Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jennie June),...127
The Faithful Saleswoman,...145
Miss M. B. Caffin,...152
Miss Grace J. Alexander,...161

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Lady Henry Somerset,...177
An Errand of Mercy,...184
Operating Room in Women's Hospital,...191
Mary A. Livermore,...197
Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane,...207
Piano Tuning,..211
Gertrude Franklin,...221
Nannie Hands-Kronberg,...223
Martha Dana Shepard,...227
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach,...229
Margaret R. Lang,...230
Fadette Orchestra,...232
Mrs. Caroline B. Nichols,...235
View in Franklin Park Boston,...245
Professor Maria Mitchell,...272
Alice Freeman Palmer,...274
"Homelike Appearance Inside the Observatory,"...275
Lena Louise Kleppisch,...279
Mercedes Leigh,...280
Alice Parker Lesser,...281
Mrs. Sallie Joy White,...285
Estelle M. H. Merrill,...287
Adeline E. Knapp,...288
Catharine Cole,...289
Helen M. Winslow,...292
Margaret E. Sangster,... 295

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Miss Alice Stone Blackwell,...297
Miss Katherine E. Conway,...299
Olga Nethersole,...301
Mrs. Julia Marlowe Taber,...303
Mrs. Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland,...308
Willie Elizabeth Robin,...313
Helen Kellar,...314
Edith Thomas,...315
Mrs. May French-Sheldon,...328
Palanquin in which Mrs. French-Sheldon Traveled in Africa,...329
Marie Robinson Wright,...330
A Model School Kitchen,...339
A Girls' Cooking School,...341
Public Cooking School,...343
Mrs. Van Leer Kirkman,...354
Miss Helen A. Whittier,...356
Mrs. A. Emmagene Paul,...360
Miss Harriet P. Dickerman,...364
Woman's Building, Nashville Exposition,...367
Mrs. Myra Bradwell,...373
Miss Lutie A. Lytle,...379
Miss Lilian Lewis,...381
"A Ministering Angel Thou,"...385
The Trained Nurse,...387
Mr. and Mrs. George H. Krafts,...391
Madame Juliette Pinault,...395

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Mrs. Cora Dow Goode,...403
Women Operating Typesetting Machines,...407
Miss A. Florence Grant,...408
A Sea View,...422
Miss Anna Adams Gordon,...430
"A Fine Needlewoman Finds a Ready Market at the Exchanges,"...441
Susan B. Anthony,...445
Julia Ward Howe,...446
Woman's Veterinary Hospital Ward,...451
Lida A. Churchill,...456
"We will Sing Every Song in the Book,"...459
Deeds of Kindness,...465
Miss Cornelia T. Crosby,...475
Up and Doing in the Early Morning,...482
The Sunshine of a Happy Home,...487