the ships, railroads, highways, waggons, horses, and men by which this distribution is effected.
Place of the Historical Housewife in Political Economy.
Such is a rough classification of the great army of workers by whom mankind are clothed, fed, and sheltered. From what we have just seen to have been the former occupations of women, it is evident that production, of the second of these types,—namely, manufacturing,—once constituted the true feminine sphere, for throughout past centuries woman assumed and adequately fulfilled the task of preparing the food and clothing of the race out of the raw materials that man laid at her feet. It is true that this domestic manufacture was carried on in the privacy of her own home, and in a rude and simple way; but that does not alter the value of the performance. Human knowledge and human needs go hand in hand. Our ancestors knew nothing better, and wanted nothing better, than what their wives and daughters could do for them. In their day, therefore, women must have created nearly half the wealth and supplies of the world, because they did one half of its necessary work. Hence every woman in her own house was self-supporting, that is, earned her own living there by virtue of her indispensable labour; not only so, she contributed with her husband to the support of their children, and, if she chose to extend her enterprise, was able, like the virtuous woman of King Solomon, to exchange the fruit of her hands for fields and vineyards, and so help to make her family rich.
The Feminine Producers of To-day.
Now the women who do all the cooking, washing, and sewing of their families, the wives of small farmers, mechanics, and labourers, as well as those who hire out their time, servants, mill-hands, shop-girls, seamstresses, etc., are still
