That "the ages call and heroes come" has risen to the dignity of an apothegm; but if "inventions" were substituted for "heroes" in the saying it would be at least as true and perhaps of more practical value and meaning. It does not appear that the typewriter has ever been mentioned as one of the determining factors of our present feminine status, but that it deserves such credit does not admit of a doubt. That invention, whose use is now so nearly universal that it is difficult to remember that it has been with us but a scant twenty years, came at the psychological moment in the history of American womanhood. It opened, as nothing else, an avenue for the direction of feminine effort in the struggle for existence; and it displayed its possibilities just at the period when the supply of women workers began far to exceed the demand. There were still recognized limitations to female effort, far straiter than those now laid down, if indeed any limitations, other than those drawn by physical conditions can be said now to exist. As formerly in educational circles, so now in those of affairs there was overcrowding among the women who sought work; and just in time to relieve the stress there was opened a new field of labor, peculiarly adapted to the feminine nature and need, in the manipulation of the novel instrument of record. Quickly was the field seized and cultivated by the eager women; and it not only was itself rich in harvest, but it led into new and hitherto uncultivated fields of effort, and from the time of the acceptance of the typewriter as a necessity of business, the position of women in the world of affairs was assured and established. Before the nineteenth century had passed the eighth mile-stone of its existence the foundation of Feminine Reconstruction had been laid in enduring material, and each succeeding lustrum saw the edifice arise in fairer and more definite proportions. So accustomed to the new status of women did we soon become that we failed to recognize how radical was the change which had taken place in the general conception of the sphere of womanhood. The very fact that there was no definite and determined movement looking to the desired end made for success. The woman worker did not come with demand for equality of recognition, with parades and conventions and speeches; she simply entered upon the field which she desired to possess, and made it her own by right. Therefore that right was instantaneously recognized, and there was tacit acceptance, which is the most significant and enduring of all.