The Woman Who Toils Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls

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Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Forex Trading Online for a living Book 1. Gain Greater Clarity, Harmony and less Stress. Launch Like a Rocket: Legal Terminology And Phrases: Editorial Reviews About the Author An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to be ""independent"" that is, to live one's life purely according to one's own desires are in no sense substitutes for the fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong, racial qualities without which there can be no strong races the qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of scorn of what is mean, base and selfish, of eager desire to work or fight or suffer as the case may be provided the end to be gained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, tnere avoidance of toil and worry.

I do not know whether I most pity or most despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the acquirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard and is brought to ruin by the fault of others.

But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people.

Of course no one quality makes u good citizen, and no one quality will save a nation. But there are certain great qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual brilliancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and coldness and ease-loving laziness among compara- tively poor people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury in the rich.

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If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future.

There is no physical trouble among us Americans. The trouble with the situation you set forth is one of character, and therefore we can conquer it if we only will. Product details File Size: May 17, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 4 reviews.

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Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. I am always interested in this kind of journalism, where a reporter goes undercover to let us see what it is like to work in a particular area or among a particular group.

Almost all of this kind of reportage that I have read has been modern. That these accounts there are two separate ones, written by sisters-in-law, with each covering more than one place of work were published in amazes me.

There is nothing the slightest bit old-fashioned about the writing, or about the approach to the subject. I am profoundly moved to think that women and children worked under the conditions described, and can see how this book played its part in leading to important reforms in factories and mills in the US.

The plight of the children in the Southern mills particularly disturbed me, especially when considering that this is still the type of life led by so many in the third world today. For me this book was a life-changer. To read it was to be there with the reporter, sharing the boarding houses and workplaces of the poorest of the poor. One aspect is heartening, although it can be credited more to modern technology than to enlightenment on the part of the employers. This is that there is so much legislation nowadays to prevent the bad conditions described, and that there are far more leisure hours now for factory workers in which to enjoy what anyone else enjoys - movies, television, sports, and coffee shops.

One other thing that I found particularly interesting was the independent attitude of the young American city girls at this time in history. I can quite see how the culture of youth has spread outwards since then, fuelled by this independence of mind.

I would recommend this book to anyone, not just those interested in social issues. The content may not be enjoyable in itself, but what it tells us about the resilience of human nature, especially that of women, is certainly an eye-opener. First published in , the first half of this book is the personal account of a society woman, Mrs. John van Vorst, who took jobs as a "mill hand" in various factories: She depicts life inside the factories, the women who work there, and the conditions under which they live.

She rails for fair wages for women, pointing out that the highest paid women in one factory made less than the lowest paid men.

The Woman Who Toils by Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst - Free Ebook

The first part of the book is a real page turner. Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls Any journey into the world, any research in literature, any study Of society, demonstrates the existence' of two distinct classes designated as the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortu nate, the upper and the lower, the educated and the uneducated - and a further variety Of opposing epithets. Few Of us who belong to the former cate gory have come into more than brief contact with the labourers who, in the factories or elsewhere, gain from day to day a livelihood frequently insufficient for their needs.

Yet all of us are troubled by thcir struggle, all of us recognize the misery of their surroundings, the paucity of their moral and esthetic inspiration, their lack of opportunity for physical development.

The woman who toils : being the experiences of two gentlewomen as factory girls

All of us have a longing, pronounced or latent, ' to help them, to alleviate their distress, to better their condition in some, in every way. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books.

Find more at www. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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