One of the most significant features of the common history of this generation is the fact that nearly six million women are now gainfully employed in this country. From time immemorial, women
have, indeed, worked, so that it is not quite as if an entire sex, living at ease at home heretofore, had suddenly been thrown into an unwonted activity, as many quoters of the census seem to
believe. For the domestic labor in which women have always engaged may be as severe and prolonged as commercial labor. But not until recently have women been employed in multitudes for wages,
under many of the same conditions as men, irrespective of the fact that their powers are different by nature from those of men, and should, in reason, for themselves, for their children, and
for every one, indeed, be conserved by different industrial regulations.What, then, are the fortunes of some of these multitudes of women gainfully employed? What do they give in their work?
What do they get from it? Clearly ascertained information on those points has been meagre.
