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
bank clerks in this city are no better off now than they were twenty
years ago, though they have lived poorly and economized all the time.
So, in some respects, the store clerk or salesman has the advantage. One
reason why young men prefer becoming bank clerks to mercantile clerks
is, that they have more time for themselves. Say, they commence by seven
o'clock in a store, and nine at bank; they get through by two or three
o'clock in bank, and they have to work until night in a store.'
=6. Brokers.= This is a business in which very few, if any, women engage
without the aid of the other sex. We are not aware that any women are
stock brokers, exchange brokers, or insurance brokers. We suppose women
could not very well conduct the business without having to mix
promiscuously with men on the street, and stop and talk with them in the
most public places; and the delicacy of woman would forbid that. But the
wife, the sister, or daughter of a broker might perhaps conduct the
indoor business of the house, or keep the books at least. In Paris,
where women are extensively employed in various departments of business,
it would, perhaps, be more practicable for a woman to carry on the
business than in this country. There are respects in which women of
well-disciplined minds would be well suited for the vocation: they are
their observance of order and method, and their close attention to
details.
=7. Colonizationists.= This is a business that would never have entered
our minds for women to engage in, had it not been for the course pursued
by Caroline Chisholm. Says the author of "Women and Work:" "Ask the
emigrants who went out to Australia year after year, under the careful
and wise system of Caroline Chisholm's colonization, how women can
organize, and what professions they should fill. I think they would
answer: As organizers of colonies, promoters of emigration, secretaries
to colonies, &c." Many a husband and wife may thank her for the comforts
of home life. Some years ago, Mrs. Farnum proposed taking from New York
a shipload of women to California. The matter was laughed at and passed
by; but if we may believe the reports that came from California of
miners wanting wives, perhaps it would not have been a bad plan to have
taken out a supply (in case they could have been had). In the early
history of Virginia, women were brought over from England as wives for
the men. "A society exists in England for the promotion of female
emigration to Australia. Under the auspices of this society, about
eleven hundred women, mostly distressed needlewomen, of respectable
character, have been sent to Australia, where they find employment, and,
we presume, the most of them, husbands."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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