Really, the sex seems to have taken possession of what Carlyle called the "fourth estate"—the literary profession, and they journey into unexplored regions of thought to give the omniverous modern reader something new to feed upon. The census of 1880 reports 445 women as authors and literary persons.
The newspaper itself, that great engine "whose ambassadors are in every quarter of the globe, whose couriers upon every road," has slowly swung round, and is at last headed in the right direction. Reporters for the daily press in Massachusetts no longer write in a spirit of flippancy or contempt, and there is not an editor in the State of any account who would permit a member of his staff to report a woman's meeting in any other spirit than that of courtesy. Teachers occupying high positions and presidents of colleges have given pronounced opinions in favor of the reform. Said President Hopkins of Williams College, in 1875:
I would at this point correct my teaching in "The Law of Love," to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil government that of man. I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question between the two.
The New England Women's Club, parent[1] of the modern clubs and associations for the advancement of women, has been one of the factors in the woman's rights movement. Its members have, in their work and in their lives, illustrated the doctrine of woman's equality with man. It was formed in February, 1868.[2]
There has never been, from time immemorial, much difference of opinion concerning woman's right to do a good share in the drudgery of the world. But in the remunerative employments, before 1850, she was but sparsely represented. In 1840, when
- ↑ In 1836 there was a small woman's club of Lowell factory operatives, officered and managed entirely by women. This may be a remote first cause of the origin of the New England Women's Club, since it bears the same relation to that flourishing institution, that the native crab does to the grafted tree. This was the first woman's club in the State, if not in the whole country.
- ↑ A few ladies met at the house of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt to consider a plan for organization. Its avowed object was "to supply the daily increasing need of a great central resting place, for the comfort and convenience of those who may wish to unite with us, and ultimately become a center for united and organized social thought and action." Its first president was Caroline M. Severance. On the executive board were the names of Julia Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, Lucy Goddard, Harriet M. Pitnam, Jane Alexander, Abby W. May, and many others who have since become well known. This club held its first meetings in private houses, but it has for several years occupied spacious club rooms on Park street in Boston. Julia Ward Howe is its president. The club has its own historian, and when this official gives the result of her researches to the public, there will be seen how many projects for the elevation of women and the improvement of social life have had their inception in the brains of those who assemble in the parlors of the New England Woman's Club. In 1874, it projected the movement by which women were first elected on the school committee of Boston, and also prepared the petition to be sent to the Massachusetts legislature of 1879, the result of which was the passage of the law allowing women to vote for school committees. In the Woman's Journal for 1883 will be found a sketch of this club.
