Natural Divisions of Co-operative Housekeeping.
Our households contain three departments at least in which co-operation is possible and desirable,—the Kitchen, the Laundry, and the Sewing-room. Our greatest trouble being, that we try to do too many different kinds of things, and our next greatest, the inefficiency, insubordination, and fickleness of our servants, the ruling idea of co-operative housekeeping—the aim and end, indeed, of the whole movement—should be, The Division and Organization of Feminine Labour, as men have everywhere divided and organized, and, in consequence, control theirs.
Corresponding Divisions of the Organizing Committee.
To this end the organizing committee must recommend the association to consolidate its twenty-five or fifty kitchens and laundries into one central establishment, and all its sewing interests into another. The committee will then divide itself into three smaller bodies, corresponding to the three departments of co-operative housekeeping, and assign each of its members to that one wherein her special taste and skill would most naturally place her. The duties of these minor committees will now be to gain, from all possible sources, the information necessary for the organization of each division of their several departments, and to prepare their reports accordingly.
The Laundry.
It is evident that the Laundry Committee will have the easiest task of the three, since all it will have to do will be to copy just what it has before it in the establishments of that kind which already exist for individual profit.
Working Plan of the Sewing-Room.
As for the Co-operative Sewing-room, so many women
