The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's WorkPenny, Virginia
General
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work
Penny, Virginia
Women -- Employment
constitution, and industrious habits, are the best qualifications. Women
that want such work can find plenty of it; but outdoor work is too hard
for American women." Another florist writes: "In Europe, where women are
sometimes employed in fruit or vegetable gardens, their wages are
usually about half a man's. Women (chiefly Germans) are employed in this
country by farmers to pick fruit, vegetables, &c., by the quantity. At
light work, done by contract, women, I believe, can make as much as men.
Several years would be necessary to learn the business; some branches of
it might be learned in a few weeks. The requisite most needed for women
to work in green houses, is a change of fashion. Their dress unfits them
altogether for moving about in crowded plant houses. Were their dress
similar to the men's, I see no reason why they would not be equally
useful in other departments as well as this. If that should ever happen,
they would, in my opinion, be worth as much as men; for the work is
mostly light, and ladies, having a natural taste for flowers, would soon
learn it. If you have gone through green houses, you cannot but know the
difficulty of doing so without breaking everything. Men, at this kind of
work, are not fully employed in winter." A lady florist writes: "I
sometimes think my nervous excitability is to some extent caused by an
excess of electricity, derived from the earth or flowers with which I
work."
=126. Flower Girls.= Flowers are the mementoes of an earthly paradise.
They are said to be "the alphabet of angels, whereby they write
mysterious things"--the mysteries of God's love and goodness. Earth
would be a wilderness without them. Girls sell flowers most profitably
at opera houses, theatres, and other places of amusement. They buy of
those who devote themselves to the raising of flowers, and arrange them
into bouquets. A number dispose of flowers on Broadway; and, summer
before last, I observed a French woman at the Atlantic ferry selling
bouquets to people waiting for the boat. A florist told me he disposes
of flowers to girls who make up bouquets and sell them. One of them pays
$500 rent for her room. It yields a handsome profit when a person has a
good stand. He would like a stand at the opera house, but a great many
others are looking forward to it. Some pay for the privilege, others
obtain it by being known to the managers. I was told by a man who
supplies bouquets that he pays to florists from $8 to $10 a day for
flowers, and then makes up his own bouquets. I have been told that at
some hotels in Germany, girls pass around the table at dinner, and give
bouquets. Such recipients as feel disposed, pay a small sum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account