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
=1. Amanuenses.= Amanuenses are employed to write from dictation,
generally by authors. Prescott, who was nearly blind for several years,
employed one or more. Editors whose papers have an extensive
circulation, sometimes require the services of an amanuensis. Female
secretaries, or writers out of books, were not unusual in Rome.
"Origen," says Eusebius, "had not only young men, but young women to
transcribe his works, which they did with peculiar neatness." Some
persons in London (whose employment, perhaps, scarcely brings them under
this title, yet we know not where else to place them) make it a business
to write letters for beggars, for which they are paid a small sum by
each applicant. Amanuenses are usually employed by the week, month, or
year. Some education is of course necessary, and will doubtless
influence their pay. Experience increases their value still more; and
those who have to exercise their brains, are of course best paid. I have
been told by competent authority, that amanuenses are usually paid
according to agreement; that authors of distinction can afford to pay a
good price, and that the most common salary is $600.
=2. Astronomers.= Maria Cunitz is mentioned as an astronomer of the
seventeenth century in Germany. Miss Caroline Herschel discovered two
moons and several comets. Miss Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket, Mass.,
discovered a new planet, and received, in consequence, a medal from the
King of Denmark. She formerly observed for the Coast Survey, but was not
officially recognized. She computes for the _Nautical Almanac_. She
writes: "I know of no lady astronomers who are practical observers. Very
good works have been written on the subject by women. An observing room
is never warmed by a fire; and as a small part, at least, of the roof
must be opened to the air, the exposure is according to the weather, as
the observations must be made in clear evenings. I do not consider the
danger to the health great. I know of no way in which astronomical
observations can be made to pay women. They could, without doubt, make
better observers than men, with the same amount of practice. The same
delicacy of touch and of perception that makes them good at the needle,
would make them efficient in the delicate manipulations of the
micrometer. But I know of no man well paid as an observer only. There
are always volunteer candidates in this department of an observatory.
Women can make as good computations as men, and do their work more
neatly; but here, also, the field is occupied by men, although, I think,
never as volunteers without pay. I have no doubt many of the
computations professedly made by men, are really the work of women
employed as assistants. This has always been the case in the long and
tedious computations made for astronomical objects in the early efforts
of the science. My own observatory is wholly a private affair, and
supported entirely by my own means, which are my daily earnings as
computer to the _Nautical Almanac_.
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