Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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right to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed solely for
her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all. Many words cannot make this plainer.
The two sexes differ in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in
the amount of physical strength, in the capac ity for long-continued labor, particularly
when done standing, the influence of vigorous health u pon the future well-being of the
race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to main-
tain t he struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation and
upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon
her.
We have not referred in this discussi on to the denial of the elective franchise in the
State of Oregon, for while it may disclose a lack of political equality i n all things with
her brother, that is not of itself decisive. The reason runs deeper, and rests in the inher-
ent difference between the two sexes, and in the different functions in life which they
perform.
Source: 208 U.S. 421 (1908).
Excerpts from History of Women in Industry
in the United States (1910)
In 1908, Congress authorized an investigation into the conditions of working women in the
United States. This action led to the publication of a 19-volume study entitled Women and
Child Wage-Earners in the United States, which was completed in 1911. Reproduced below
are excerpts from Volume 9, entitled History of Women in Industry in the United States.
The history of women in industry in the United States is t he story of a great industrial
readjustment, which has not only carried woman’s work from the home to the factory,
but has changed its economic character from unpaid production for home consumption
to gainful employment in the manufacture of articles for sale. Women have always
worked, and their work has probably always been quite as important a factor in the total
economy of society as it is to-day. But during the nineteenth century a transformation
occurred in their economic position and in the character and cond itions of their work.
Their unpaid services have been transformed i nto pai d services, their w ork has been
removed from the home to the factory an d workshop, their range of possible employ-
ment has been increased and at the same time their monopoly of their traditional occu-
pations has been destroyed. The individuality of their work has been lost in a
standardized product.
The story of woman’s work in gainful employments is a story of constant changes or
shiftings of work and workshop, accompanied by long hours, low wages, unsanitary con-
ditions, overwork, an d the wan t on the p art of the woman of traini ng, skill, and vital
interest in her work. It is a story of monotonous machine labor, of division and subdivi-
sion of tasks until the woman, like the traditional tailor who is called the ninth part of a
516 Women’s Movement (1870s)
man, is merely a fraction, and that rarely as much even as a tenth part, of an artisan. It is a
story, moreover, of underbidding, of strike breaking, of the lowering of standards for
men breadwinners.
In certain industries and certain localities women’s unions have raised the standard of
wages. The opening of industrial schools and business colleges, too, though affecting
almost exclusively the occupations entered by the daughters of middle-class families
who have only recently begun to pass from home work to the industrial field, has at least
enabled these few gi rls to keep from further swelling the vast numbers of the unskilled.
The evil of long hours and in certain cases other conditions which lead to overstrain,
such as the constant standing of saleswomen, have been made the subject of legislation.
The decrease of strain due to shorter hours has, however, been in part nullified by
increased speed of machinery and other devices designed to obtain the greatest possible
amount of labor from each woman. Ne vertheless, the history of woman’s work in this
country shows that legislation has been the only force which has improved the working
conditions of any large number of women wage-earners. Aside from the little improve-
ment that has been effected in the lot of working women, the most surprising fact
brought out in this st udy is the long period of time through which large numbers of
women have w orked under conditions which have involved not only great hardships to
themselves but shocking waste to the community.
Changes in Occupations of Women
The transfer of women from nonwage-earning home work to gainful occupations is
evident to the most superficial observer, and it is well known that most of this transfer
has been effected since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1870 it was found that
14.7 per cent of the female population 16 years of age and over were breadwinners, and
by 1900 the percentage was 20.6 per cent. During the period for which statistics exist,
moreover, the movement toward the increased employment of women in gainful pur-
suits was clear and distinct in all sections of the country and was even more marked
among the native-born than among the foreign-born. It must be borne in mind, however,
that even in colonial days there were many women who worked for wages, especially at
spinning, weaving, the sewing trades, and domestic service. Many women, too, carried on
business on their own account in the textile and sewing trades and also in such industries
as the making of blackberry brandy. The wage labor of women is as old as the country
itself and has merely increased in importance. The amount, however, of unremunerated
home work performed by women must still be considerably larger than the amount of
gainful labor, for even in 1900 only about one-fifth of the women 16 years of age and over
were breadwinners.
Along with the decrease in the importance of unremunerated home labor and the
increase in the importance of wage labor has gone a cons iderable amount of shifting of
occupations. Under the old domestic syst em the work of the woman was to spin, to
do a large part of the weaving, to sew, to knit; in general, to make most of the clothi ng
worn by the family, to embroider tapestry in the days and regions where there was time
for art, to cook, to brew ale and wine, to clean, and to perform the other duties of the
Women’s Movement (1870s) 517
domestic servant. These things women have always done. But machines have now come
in to aid in all these industries—machines which in some cases have brought in their train
men operatives and in other cases have enormously increased the productive power of
the individual and have made it n ecessary for many women, who under the old regime,
like Priscilla, would have calmly sat by the window spinning, to hunt other work. One
kind of spinning is now done by men only. Men tailors make every year thousands of
women’s suits. Men dressmakers and even milliners are common. ...
Before the introduction of spinning machinery and the sewing machine the supply of
female labor appears never to have been excessive. But the spinning jenny threw out of
employment thousands of “spinsters,” who were obliged to resort to sewing as the only
other occupation to which they were in any way trained. This accounts for the terrible
pressure in the clothing trades during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Later
on, before any readjustment of women’s work had been effe cted, the sewing machine
was introduced, which enormously increased the pressure of competition among
women workers. Shortly after the substitution of machinery for the spinning wheel the
women of certain localities in Massachusetts found an outlet in binding shoes—an oppor-
tunity opened to them by the division of labor and by the development of the ready-
made trade. But when the sewing machine was introduced this field, at least for a time,
was again contracted. Under this pressure, combined with the rapid development of
wholesale industry and division of labor, women have been pressed into other industries,
almost invariably in the first instance into the least skilled and most poorly paid occupa-
tions. This has gone on until there is now scarcely an industry which does not employ
women. Thus wo man’s sphere has ex panded, and its f ormer b oundaries can now b e
determined only by observing the degree of popular condemnation w hich follows their
employment in particular industries.
Attitude of the Public Toward the Employment of Women
The attitude of the public toward the employment of women has, indeed, made their
progress into gainful occupations slow and difficult, and has greatly aggravated the adjust-
ment pains which the industrial revolution has forced upon woman as compared with
those of man, whose traditional sphere is bounded only by the humanly possible. This
attitude has, moreover, been an important factor in determining the woman’s choice of
occupations. ...
Causes of the Entrance of Women into Industry
Machinery, combined with division of labor and the substitution of water, steam, and
electric power for human muscles, has certainly made it possible to employ the unskilled
labor of women in occupations formerly carried on wholly by men. Machinery, however,
has as yet affected only slightly the broad lines of division between woman’s work and
man’s work. And especially upon its first introduction the sex of the employees is rarely
at once changed to any considerable extent. Thus when spinning machinery was first
introduced women and children were employed to operate it. Later women became
the power-loom weavers. The sewing machine, too, has always b een operated largely
518 Women’s Movement (1870s)
by women. On the other ha nd, most of the m achin ery of the iron and s teel industry is
operated by men. ...
Division of labor, indeed, which has always accompanied and frequently preceded
machinery, is probably even more responsible t han the latter for the introduction of
women into new occupations. The most striking single tendency in manufacturing indus-
tries has been toward the division and the subdivision of processes, thereby making pos-
sible the use of woman’s work, as well as of unskilled man’s work, in larger proportion to
that of skilled operatives. A more recent tendency toward the combination of several
machines into one has even been checked, in some cases, because a competent machinist
would have to be hired. Unless the advantage of the complicated mechanism is very
great, in many industries simpler machinery, which can be easily run by women, is
preferred.
As a result, both of machinery and of division of labor, the actual occupations of
wom en, within industries, do not differ so widely as do the occupation s of men within
the same i ndustries. It frequentl y happens , indeed, t hat the work of a w oman in o ne
industr y is almost precisely the same as that of another w oman in an entirely diff erent
industry.
Other historical forces have brought about c hanges in the occupations of women.
Often, especially in the printing trades and in cigar making, women have been introduced
as strike breakers. On th e other hand trade unions have in s ome places been strong
enough to prevent the introduction of women in industries to which they were well
adapted. Usually, however, this has been only for a short period.
The scarcity of labor supply in particular places or at parti cular ti mes has often been
responsible for the use of women’s work. Thus during the early years of the Republic the
employment of women in manufacturing industries was doubtless greatly accelerated by
the scarcity and high price of other labor. This, too, was doubtless largely responsible for
the fact that, in the early years of the cotton industry, a larger proportion of women was
employed in the cotton mills of Massachusetts and New Hampshire than in those of Rhode
Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. One of the remedies frequently suggested in the thir-
ties and forties for the evils under which working women suffered was that “the excess of
spinsters” should be transported to the places where “there is a deficiency of women.”
The Civil War was another force which not onl y drove into gainful occupat ions a
large number of women, but compelled many changes in their em ployments. In 1869 it
was estimated that there were 25,000 worki ng women in Boston who had been forced
by the war to earn their living. The war, too, caused a large number of cotton factories
to shut down, and thousands of women thus thrown out of emp loyment were obliged
to seek other occupations.
Similar to war in its influence, and in some ways more direful, has been the influence
of industrial depressions. The industrial d epression which began in 1837, for example,
temporarily destroyed the newly-arisen wholesale clothing manufacture, and caused
untold hardships to the tailoresses and seamstresses of New York and Philadelphia.
These women turned, naturally, to any occupat ion in which it was possible for them to
engage. Industrial depressions, too, like war, have taken away from thousands of women
Women’s Movement (1870s) 519
the support of the men upon whom they were dependent and have forced them to
snatch at any occupation which promised them a pittance.
Expansion of Woman’s Sphere
As a result of these factors and forces and in many cases of others less general in their
operation, wom an’s sphere of employment has been greatly expanded during the past
hundred years. ...
When, however, the occupations in which women are engaged are considere d with
reference to the relative number of women employed in each, at different periods, it is
evident that the vast majority of working women have remained within the limits of their
traditional field. ...[I]n every census year considerably more than half of all the women
employed in manufacturing industries have been in the first two groups, textile and cloth-
ing industries. These industries ...have as household industries been theirs from time
imme morial . But wom en have been driven, by the industrial forces already in part ana-
lyzed, into many occu pations formerly con sidered as belonging exclusively to m an’s
sphere. ...
Home and Factory Work
...Home workers have become sweat-shop workers and sweat-shop workers are
gradually becoming factory workers. So long ago as now to be almost forgotten a sim-
ilar transformation took place in the textile industries. Indeed, this is the general ten-
dency of the employment of both men and women in manufacturing industries.
Independent domestic production has practi cally become a thing of the past. But the
history of woman’s work shows that their wage labor under the domestic system
has often bee n under wo rse conditi ons than their wage labor under the factory sys-
tem. The hours of home workers have been longer, their wages lower, and the sani-
tary condi tions surrounding t hem mo re un whole some than has genera lly been the
case with factory workers. The movement away from home work can hardly, then,
be regretted.
General Conditions of Life and Labor
The conditions under which the working women of this country have toiled have long
made them the object of commiseration. Mathew Carey devoted a large part of the last
years of his life, from 1828 to 1839, to agitation in their behalf. Again and again he pointed
out in newspaper articles, pamphlets, and speeches that the wages of working women in
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston were utterly insufficient for their support;
that their food and lodging were miserably poor and unwholesome; and that the hours
they were obliged to work were almost beyond human endurance. ...
In 1845 an investigation of “female labor” in New York, used as the basis of a series of
articles in the New York Tribune, developed “a most deplorable degree of servitude, pri-
vation, and misery among this helpless and dependent class of people,” including
“hundreds and thousands” of shoe binders, type rubbers, artificial-flower makers,
520 Women’s Movement (1870s)
matchbox makers, straw braiders, etc., who “drudge away, heartbroken in want, disease
and wretchedness.”
Again in 1869 the working women of Boston, in a petition to the Massachusetts legis-
lature ...asserted that they were insufficiently paid, scantily clothed, poorly fed, and
badly lodged, that their physical health, if not already undermined by long hours and
bad conditions of work, was rapidly becomi ng so, and that their moral nat ures were
being undermined by lack of proper society and by their inability to attend church on
account of the wa nt of proper cl othing and the necess ity, b eing constant ly oc cupied
throughout the week, “to br ing up the arrears of our household duties by wo rking on
the Lord’s Day.”
Wages and Unemployment
The low wages pa id to women and the inequality of men’s and women’s wages have
always been the chief causes of complaint. ...
The average wages paid to women in New York in 1863, taking all the trades
together, were said to have been about $2 a week and in many instances only 20 cents
a day, while the hours ranged from 11 to 16 a day. The price of board, whi ch before
the war had been about $1.50 a week, had been raised by 1864 to from $2.50 to $3.
During the war period, indeed, ...the wages of women increased less, on the
whole, than the wages of men, while their cost of living increased out of all proportion
to their wage s. This fact was recognized, at least, by the labor papers of that period.
“While the wages of workingmen have been increased more than 100 per cent,” said
the Daily Evening Voice, in commenting upon the report for 1864 of the New York
Working Women’s Protection Union, “and complaint is still made that this is not suf-
ficient to cover the increased cost of food and fuel, the average rate of wages for
female labor has not been raised more than 20 per cent since the war was inaugu-
rated; and yet the poor widow is obliged to pay as much for a loaf of bread or a pail
of coal as the woman who has a husband or a stalwart son to assist her. In many
trades the rate of wages has been lowered during the year, until it has become a mere
pittance, while in other occupations the prices paid to females are generally insufficient
to maintain them comfortably.” ...
History teaches that working women have suffered fully as much and perhaps more
than workingmen from unemployment. Especially is this true in the sewing trades,
nearly all of which are seasonal in character. Domestic servants, who have always been
in great demand, have long had employment agencies to aid them in their search for
work, but little aid has been given the women engaged in manufacturing industries,
except by wholly or partially charit able societies, which have given them work, often
at starvation prices. ...
In the sewing trades, since the early part of the nineteenth century, the proportion
of workers who have been without steady employment has always been large. Pi ece-
work and a fluctuating demand for labor, combine d with a constant oversupply, have
been largely responsible. Even in other trades, however, women, partly because of
their lack of training and skill, have continually suffered from unemployment. In 1890,
Women’s Movement (1870s) 521
according to the census figures, 12.7 per cent, and in 1900, 23.3 per cent of all the
females engaged in gainful occupations were unemployed during some portion of the
census year. ...
That working women should receive the same pay as men for the same work has long
been the desire of trade-unionists. Though not expressly stated, it was implied in the res-
olution of the National Trades’ Union in 1835, which complained that “the extreme low
prices given for female labor, afford scarcely sufficient to satisfy the necessary wants of
life, and create a destructive competition with the male laborer.” ...A generation later
the Nationa l Labor Union, moreover, repeatedly passed resolutions expressing sympa-
thy for the “sewing women and daughters of toil,” urging them to unite in trade-
unions, and demanding for them “equal pay for equal work.” ...
Again in 1868 the president of the National Labor Union, in his opening address to the
congress, referred to “the extent to which female labor is introduced into many trades”
as “a serious question,” and stated that “the effect of introducing female labor is to
undermine prices, that character of labor being usually employed, unjustly to the women,
at a lower rate than is paid for male labor on the same kind of work.” ...
Scope and Sources of the Report
In this report on the history of women in industry, wage-earning occupations alone
are considered. The unremunerated home work of women, which has probably dove-
tailed in with their wage labor in such a way that at all periods approximately the same
proportion of the work of the world has been done by them, is necessarily neglected.
Wome n engaged i n professions, in inde pendent business , and in agriculture, too, are
considered only in their relation to the wage-earning women in industry. ...
The character and conditions of woman’s work within recent years have been fully
described in reports, books, magazines, and newspapers which can be easily obtained,
but the history of the formative period of woman’s work has long been buried away in
rare old books and papers, many of them until recently unknown even to close stu-
dents of the labor question. The history of the wage labor of women during and
shortly after this formative period, moreover, is not only comparatively unknown,
but furnishes the only possible basis for any historical interpretation of women in
industry.
Source: Helen L. Sumner, Senate Report—History of Women in Industry in the United Stat es
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), 7–51.
Excerpts from Emma Goldman’s The Traffic
in Women and Marriage and Love (1910)
Russian-born Emma Goldman (1869–1940) came to the United States when she was a teen-
ager. Throughout her life, she supported causes incompatible with American society, such as
anarchism, free love, birth control, communism, feminism, lesbianism, and the working class.
522 Women’s Movement (1870s)
She was passionately committed to liberty as a first principle because she saw individual liberty
as indispensa ble for human growth and development—two values she b elieved were being
undermined by contemporary society. While other feminists generally sought to reform society,
she sought to recreate it; where most sought to work within the law, she advocated moving out-
side of the law. Reproduced here are excerpts from two works she published in 1910. In The
Traffic in Women, Goldman focuses on the exploitation of the prostitute, which she links to
the degradation of all women. In Marriage and Love, she argues that the institution of marriage
is but an economic arrangement and, in some respects, a form of prostitution.
A. The Traffic in Women
Our reformers have suddenly made a great discovery—the white slave traffic. The
papers are full of these “unheard-of c onditions,” and lawmakers are already planning a
new set of laws to check the horror.
It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from a great social
wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency, gambling, saloons, etc. And what is
the resul t of such crusades? Gambling is increasing, saloons are doing a lively business
through back entrances, prostitution is at its height, and the system of pimps and cadets
is but aggravated. ...
What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white women, but yellow
and black women as well. Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that
fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution.
With Mrs. Warren these girls feel, “Why waste your life working for a few shillings a
week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?”
Naturally our reformers say nothing about this cause. They know it well enough, but
it doesn’t pay to say anything about it. It is much more profitable to play the Pharisee, to
pretend an outraged morality, than to go to the bottom of things. ...
Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. It
is therefore almost inevitable that she sh ould pay for her right to exist, to keep a posi-
tion in whatever line, with sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether
she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. Whether our
reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible
for prostitution.
Just at present our good people are shocked by the disclosures that in New York City
alone, one out of every ten women works in a factory, that the average wage received by
women is six dollars per week for forty-eight to sixty hours of work, and that the major-
ity of female wage workers face many months of idleness which leaves the average wage
about $280 a year. In view of these economic horrors, is it to be wondered at that pros-
titution and the white slave trade have become such dominant factors? ...
Dr. Alfred Blaschko, in Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century, is even more emphatic in
characterising economic conditions as one of the most vital factors of prostitution.
“Although prostitution has existed in all ages, it was left to the nineteenth century to
develop it into a gigantic social institution. The development of industry with vast masses
of people in the competitive market, the growth and congestion of large cities, the
Women’s Movement (1870s) 523
insecurity and uncertainty of employment, has given prostitution an impetus never
dreamed of at any period in human history.” ...
The most amusing side of the question now before the public is the indignation of our
“good, respectable peo ple,” especially the various Christian gentlemen, who are alway s
to be found in the front ranks of every crusade. Is it that they are absolutely i gnorant
of the history of religion, and especially of the Christian religion? Or is it that they hope
to blind the present generation to the part played in the past by the Church in relation to
prostitution? Whatever their reason, they should be the last to cry out against the unfor-
tunate victims of today, since it is known to every intelligent student that prostitution is
of religious origin, maintained, and fo stered for many centuries, not as a shame but as a
virtue, hailed as such by the Gods themselves. ...
It would be one-sided and extremely superficial to maintain that the economic factor
is the only cause of prostitution. There are others no less important and vital. That, too,
our reformers know, but dare discuss even less than the institution that saps the very life
out of both men and women. I refer to the sex question, the very mention of which
causes most people moral spasms.
It is a conceded fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity, and yet she is
kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex. Everything dealing with
that subject is suppressed, and persons who attempt to bring light into this terrible dark-
ness are persecuted and thrown into prison. Yet it is nevertheless true that so long as a
girl is not to know how to take care of herself, not to know the function of the most
important part of her life, we need not be surprised if she becomes an easy prey to pros-
titution, or to any form of a relationship which degrades her to the position of an object
for mere sex gratification.
It is due to this ignorance that the entire life and nature of the girl is thwarted and
crippled. We have long ago taken it as a self-evident fact that the boy may follow the call
of the wild; that is to say, that the boy may, as soon as his sex nature asserts itself, satisfy
that nature; but our moralists are scandalized at the very thought that the nature of a girl
should assert itself. To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that
the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. That this is no mere
stateme nt is p roved by the fact that marriage for moneta ry co nsiderations is perfectly
legitimate, sanctified by law and public opinion, while any other union is condemned
and repudiated. Yet a prostitute, if properly defined, means nothing else than “any per-
son for whom sexual relationships are subordinated to gain.”
“Those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise of the sexual act
and make of this a profession.” ...
Of course, marriag e is the goal of every girl, but as thousands of girls cannot marry,
our stupid social customs condem n them either to a life of celibacy or prostitution.
Human nature asserts itself regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why
nature should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality. ...
Girls, mere children, work in crowded, over-heated rooms ten to twelve hours daily
at a machine, which tends to keep them in a constant over-excited sex state. Many of
these girls have no home or comforts of any kind; therefore the street or some place
524 Women’s Movement (1870s)
of cheap amusement is the only means of forgetting their d aily routine. This naturally
brings them into close proximity with the other sex. It is hard to say which of the two
factors brings the girl’s over-sexed condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natu-
ral thing that a climax should result. That is the first step toward prostitution. Nor is the
girl to be held responsible for it. On the contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the
fault of our lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the making; espe-
cially is it the criminal fault of our moralists, who condemn a girl for all eternity, because
she has gone from the “path of virtue”; that is, because her first sex experience has taken
place without the sanction of the Church.
The girl feels herself a complete outcast, with the doors of home and society closed in
her face. Her entire training and tradition is such that the girl herself feels depraved and
fallen, and therefore has no ground to stand upon, or any hold that will lift her up, instead
of dragging her down. Thus society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts
to get rid of. T he meanest, most depraved and decrepit man still consi ders himself too
good to take as his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even though
he might thereby save her from a life of horror. Nor can she turn to her own sister for
help. In her stu pidity the l atter deems hers elf too pure a nd chaste, n ot realizing that
her own position is in many respects even more deplorable than her sister’s of the
street.
“The wife who married for money, c ompared with the prostitute,” says Havelock
Ellis, “is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more in return in labor and care, and
is absolutely bound to her master. The prostitute never signs away the right over her
own person, she retains her f reedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled
to submit to man’s embrace.” ...
Moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one-half of the human race for the sake of some
miserable institution which they can not outgrow. As a matter of fact, prostitution is no
more a safeguard for the purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against pros-
titution. Fully fifty per cent of married men are patrons of brothels. It is through this vir-
tuous element that the married women—nay, even the children-are infected with
venereal diseases. Yet s ociety has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no
law is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim. She is not o nly
preyed upon by those who use her, bu t she is also absolutely at the mercy of every
policeman and miserable detective on the beat, the officials at the station house, the
authorities in every prison.
In a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of a “house,” are
to be found the following figures: “The authorities com pelled me to pay every mont h
fines between $14.70 to $29.70, the girls would pay from $5.70 to $9.70 to the police.”
Considering that the writer did her business in a small city, that the amounts she gives do
not include extra bribes and fines, one can readil y see the tremendous revenue the
police department derives from the blood money of its victims, whom it will not even
protect. Woe to those who refuse to pay their toll; they would be rounded up like cattle,
“if only to mak e a favora ble im pression upon the good citize ns of the city, or if the
powers needed extra money on the side. For the warped mind who believes that a fallen
Women’s Movement (1870s) 525