Chapter 57

Domestic science and household economics are new sciences developed under the active interest of college women in the last twenty-three years. Their real hold upon the public, however, and their enlarged avenue for bettering the home, the food, the health of the nation, and consequently its usefulness, happiness, and prosperity has come within the last eleven years.

In all lines of art, from the fine arts of painting and sculpture to the practical and useful work of design in its multifold forms, women's advance is almost phenomenal. In the sciences of astronomy, medicine, physics, and psychology she has been far from inactive during the last half decade. In teaching, in all its branches from kindergarten and primary work through all the grades of intrauniversity training to specialization in various lines, she has achieved her most striking success. In the future her usefulness will be more and more increased in this her beloved profession. The number of women teachers is rapidly increasing, while the number of men is decreasing, and more and more women's college graduates are employed in the various chairs of colleges and universities.

While the educational exhibits at St. Louis gave, in a general way, a complete presentation of women's part in the progress of the world, there was far less shown of the work of foreign women than was desired in order to make a really satisfactory and just comparative estimate of the relative advance of the women of our own country and those abroad. In fact, the exhibits of foreign women were too limited to allow of any comparison between the two.

Women's work in art, in school organization and management--exemplified in the control of the great women's colleges--her achievements in teaching, in research (historical and scientific), in medicine unmistakably show that she is able to do and is doing unusual and far more capable work than she has ever done previously. Her pronounced success in serious literature, as well as in lighter literature, would alone demonstrate this.

The work of women at this exposition differed from that of the past in having extended into many new lines, whereas in quality it is greatly superior to anything they have ever before accomplished. A few years ago the scientific and professional woman was the exception, to-day she is the rule. Either working alone or assisting some great man, woman is found everywhere. To cite instances, I refer to the able assistance Mrs. Hedrick, a Vassar alumna, gives to Professor Newcomb in his calculations on the moon; to the brilliant aid rendered by the wealthy and gifted young American girl of Leland Stanford and Johns Hopkins, Dr. Annie G. Lyle, to the famous Dr. Theodore Escherich, of Vienna University, in his important expert medical researches, which have resulted in the famous scarlet-fever serum, the discovery of Doctor Moser with the help of Doctor Lyle. As we have said, women's work has not only grown in extent, but in variety, in complexity, in greater thoroughness and ambition, and especially in the greater appreciation it receives from the world.

Woman's splendidly accomplished successes as seen at the World's Fair give impulse to her efforts in every line. Assured of sympathy, encouragement is imparted to other women to take up science, teaching, the professions. Formerly almost insurmountable obstacles were encountered by women. To-day the open door to triumph, according to her ability, along almost every line is hers. In primary education, in all university training, in economic arts, in all sanitary studies, in philanthropic work, and in much of the practical part of medicine the Louisiana Purchase Exposition showed women's efforts in a varied light of helpfulness and suggestion for the future.

The juxtaposition of man's and woman's work was suggestive to men, and at the same time will incite women to more and better endeavors along new lines. It will enable her to acquire more scientific ways and a better preparation for the business world. It will teach her a saving of energy and greater self-reliance.

The incalculable advantage of women's work for the first time having a place side by side with men's can not be overestimated. It enabled women to see at a glance their own weaknesses, and at the same time presented to the view of others their strong points in the most telling manner. The jury of higher education did not ask on examining an exhibit whether it was men's or women's work. Each exhibit was judged entirely on its individual merit as presented. And if the universities and great men's colleges (and in many cases these included women's work) received a higher grade of award than did the great women's colleges, it was because, in the opinion of the jury, the equipment of the former and the larger showing in the way of actual work and appliances entitled them to the award, rather than that it was the respective work of either men or women. But I may say, to show the absolutely unbiased mind of the jury, that women's work in many lines came in for even greater appreciation than did that of the men.

By no means would the results have been better if their work had been separately exhibited. A far greater importance was assumed by women's work in the placing of it side by side with men's work. Thus displayed, it received precisely equal attention and a more liberal study undoubtedly than it would have done if placed alone.

At Chicago and various other expositions it was relegated to a far less desirable position by itself. The very fact of its isolation in a building designated the Women's Building set it apart as a different and inferior effort and created a prejudice against it.

Women's work was far more varied at St. Louis and more representative of different nations. The so-called strictly feminine, viz, art and needlework, pottery, decoration, libraries of books by women authors, attractive parlors, displaying women's taste, which largely filled the charming women's buildings at Chicago, at Atlanta, at the Tennessee Centennial, at Omaha, and at Buffalo, were unquestionably showy and striking displays. In St. Louis, on the contrary, women's exhibits mingled with men's work in the serious and practical enterprises of the day and appealed to the same audiences. Woman appeared as she really is, the fellow-student, the fellow-citizen, and partner of man in the affairs of life.

Manufacturers were not asked to state the percentage of woman's work which entered into the manufacture of their special exhibit, nor did I have any way of forming any estimate on this point; neither were they shown in any manner that would indicate in any way or enable the investigator to distinguish what part had been performed by women.

Considering all kinds of work involved in the exhibits of the Department of Education, whether installed by women alone or in conjunction with men, the taste, completeness, ingenuity of the same, the clerical work during the duration of the fair--in other words, the whole connection of woman with carrying out the administration of the Department of Education--it may be considered that 50 per cent of the work was performed by women. The German section was entirely under the supervision of men, as were most, if not all, of the foreign exhibits. But women were everywhere else omnipresent in charge of the Educational Department.

In the awards to higher education I would say that upward of 20 per cent went to women exhibitors. (For percentages and other suggestions I am indebted to Dr. J.J. Conway, St. Louis University, also a member of jury of higher education.)

We point with pride to the discovery of radium by Madame Currie, of Paris, as both a new, useful, and distinctive work of woman. Columns might be written on this invention alone. The work of Madame Currie was certainly original. Miss Annie E. Sullivan's new methods of teaching the deaf-blind, as in the case of Helen Keller, gives her the honor not only of prominence as an educator of defectives, but also of inventing a very new and valuable method of instruction. The methods of teaching defectives are the wonder of educators, and will probably be effective of marvelous results in the near future. The highest praise must also be bestowed upon the work of Mrs. Shaw and Miss Fisher, of Boston, and of Mrs. Putnam and Mary McCullough, as the promoters of kindergarten work. Kindergarten work is self-eloquent.

Credit is due woman for her conception of the idea of traveling libraries, which have so effectively brought cheer and recreation, and even reform, to many restricted lives. The libraries of the Colonial Dames and everything along the line of reading circles, literary clubs, etc., have had their inception in the brains of women. Traveling libraries have been a boon to many a small town. Though it is impossible to digress in woman's work in the industries, the Newcomb Pottery, made at the Sophia Newcomb College, Louisiana, should be mentioned, all of which is done by women educated at that school of design.

I commend the ample and reliable literature on all these subjects, as a better source of information on the merits of these inventions that can be shown in this brief report. But most of women's work in the educational section, the school work, art work, etc., was an improvement along already existing lines. But along household and economic lines women, during the last ten years, have done original thinking and much investigation. And the studies in sanitary chemistry, the attainments as a scholar and scientist of Mrs. Ellen C. Richards, Vassar, 1870, stand out conspicuously, having won for her the respect of the world.

The question of the value of the product or process, as measured by its usefulness or beneficent influence on mankind, is so vast that a flood of answers sweep over one, embracing the whole field of women's usefulness and the whole realm of education. The usefulness of the discovery of radium has scarcely been estimated as yet, nor has the beneficent influence of teaching defectives, and of many of the household inventions been fully enjoyed up to this time. The question involves much of the scientific success of the future along both physical, mental, moral, and educational lines, and, judging by the past, we feel assured that many brilliant achievements will owe their origin and accomplishment to women.

There was naturally nothing lacking in the merits of the installation of any exhibit presented by women, nor in the taste manifested in the placing of the same. The women's college booths were always effectively arranged and sometimes made up for the lack of range of exhibit by unusual artistic grouping and tasteful placing of the displays.

Several times I have referred to the progress in art displayed by woman at St. Louis. This was evidenced not only in the magnificent specimens of her brush and chisel in the Fine Arts Museum in both the home and foreign art schools, but in the prolific efforts of her skill in outside exposition sculpture, where woman's work, side by side with man's, was pointed to with exultation as one of the greatest triumphs of the twentieth century exposition. We all recall how many of the most notable pieces of statuary crowning the various great palaces were the work of divinely endowed women. Such was the superb "Victory," surmounting Festival Hall, the conception of Mrs. Evylyn B. Longman, while the spirit of "Missouri," which winged its flight from the summit of the great Missouri Building, was executed by Miss Carrie Wood, of St. Louis. To Miss Grace Lincoln Temple, the beautiful decorations of the interior of the United States Government Building were due. The two "Victory" statues on the Grand Basin and the Daniel Boone statue were executed by Miss Enid Yandell, by birth a Kentuckian, but now of New York. The statues of James Monroe, James Madison, George Rogers Clark, on Art Hill, were, respectively, done by Julia M. Bracken, Chicago; Janet Scudder, Terre Haute, and Elsie Ward, Denver. The reclining figures over the central door of the Liberal Arts Building were by Edith B. Stephens, of New York, and the east and north spandrels of the Machinery Building were done by Melva Beatrice Wilson, New York.

Glancing at the portrait painting of Cecelia Beaux, the work of Mary MacMonnies, of Margaret Fuller, of Mrs. Kenyon Cox, and of Kate Carr, of Tennessee; of Virginia Demont-Breton, of France: of Lady Tadema and Henrietta Rae, of Great Britain, we feel, as well as see, the exalted place woman's genius has given her in the art world of to-day. While in science we point with gratification not only to Madame Currie, but to the astronomical work of Miss Whitney, of Vassar; of Miss Agnes Clerke, of Cambridge, England, and of Dorothea Klumpke, born in San Francisco, but connected with the Paris Observatory and one of the foremost astronomers of France. In archaeological works Miss Elizabeth Stokes, of Alexandra College, Dublin; in research work, Miss Skeel, of Westfield College, London; and in mathematics, Sophia Kowalevski, of Stockholm, and Charlotte Angus Scott, born in England and professor at Bryn Mawr, stand out preeminent--adding even greater luster to the woman's page of science, on which in the past the names of Caroline Herschel, Mary Summerville, and Maria Mitchell were written in illumined letters.

In medical works, especially in the United States, and more particularly in the profession of surgery, women have scored for themselves many glorious successes, though it is not possible here to enter into an amplification of the subject.

In conclusion, I would say that the Louisiana Purchase Exposition markedly showed the setting aside by women of former traditions and her expansion into a new life, where, though by no means giving up the ornamental and social, she has yet demonstrated her rights to be recognized in the broader and more useful fields of discovery, investigation, and invention in art, science, and industry. She is everywhere the rival of man, everywhere entering with enthusiasm his chosen paths, excepting perhaps in naval and military operations, and as nurse and ministering doctor she is even there.

As the World's Fair at St. Louis was a stupendous triumph of modern times in manufactures, in economic and liberal arts, in electricity, in history, in science, in architecture, in agriculture and forestry, in landscape gardening, in machinery, in archaeology, in education, in fine arts--in fact, along every line of practical work as well as in the sciences and arts--so woman's progress in every department was such as to gleam forth from even the superb and marvelous splendor everywhere reflected as worthy of her highest ambition and as suggestive of untold and signal possibilities for the future.

GROUP 4, MRS. E.H. THAYER, OF DENVER, COLO., JUROR.

Under the group heading "Special Education in Fine Arts," the two classes into which it was divided represented: (Institutions for teaching drawing, painting, and music. Art schools and institutes. Schools and departments of music; conservatories of music. Methods of instruction, results obtained. Legislation, organization, general statistics.)

Mrs. Thayer writes as follows:

As a juror of this group I was associated with five jurors, all men, holding positions as professors of schools of art, and they agreed with me that the fine art work of the woman was equal to the men students and in some schools of art it was far superior; this was especially so in the study of the nude from the academies of art in New York and Philadelphia.

The only school of art in which we found the work of woman inferior to men was in Austria, excepting in the making of lace and embroidery; but the studies in figure painting was inferior to the same work done by woman in American schools. Yet the art students' work from Austria, as a whole, was so fine we gave that country the grand prize.

I was particularly pleased with the wall-paper designs made by women students in a school of design in New York City. They were most original and artistic. This school made a display of several hundred designs, and we were told they were all sold for large prices during the exposition to manufacturers of wall paper.

The New York Night School of Art showed some remarkably good work by girls who were employed during the day. The professor in charge told us that the girls were so eager for instruction in art that they would be waiting for the doors to open and would work longer hours and make greater progress than the men.

GROUP 7, MISS HOPE FAIRFAX LOUGHBOROUGH, OF LITTLE ROCK, ARK., JUROR.

Under the group heading "Education of defectives," the three classes into which it was divided represented: Institutions for the blind, publications for the blind; institutions for the deaf and dumb; institutions for the feeble-minded. (Management, methods, courses of study; results. Special appliances for instruction. Legislation, organization, statistics. Buildings; plans and models.)

Miss Loughborough presents the following report:

The jury of group 7 in the Department of Education had under its inspection the work of the blind, the deaf, and the feeble-minded. In view of the fact that the exhibits were sent by institutes and special schools, and were the result of the cooperation of men and women teachers who selected the work of both boys and girls to represent the school as a whole, it was difficult to estimate with accuracy the proportional amount of women's work. As nearly as it can be estimated, however, two-fifths of the exhibits shown in the three classes of which this group was composed were the work of women. With the exception of a few special prizes the awards were given to institutions and not to individuals, but about 21 per cent of these were given for women's work. The work of the boys and girls in the shops was generally shown distinctly, but were not awarded separately, the whole idea being to show, not what the boys or girls, the teachers or principals were doing individually, but what results were being obtained in the institutions from the best-known methods for special education, both in class and industrial work, and particularly to show by means of the model school--or living exhibit--some of the class methods in operation.

The living exhibits were the most striking in classes 19 and 20. They consisted of entire classes which were brought, one at a time, from different State institutions. Each class remained at the fair some weeks, were provided with accommodations on the grounds, and had its recitations every day in a temporary schoolroom in the Educational Building. This class room was always surrounded by a crowd of eager lookers on, who watched with the utmost attention the methods of instruction--so little known to the public in general--by which the deaf and blind make such wonderful progress. The work of instruction in the living exhibits, although almost entirely planned by men, was executed by women.

The awards for the living exhibits were given the institutions from which the classes came, with one exception. This exception was Lottie Sullivan, a deaf and blind girl from the Colorado institution, who was awarded a gold medal for her aptitude and the progress she had made. The jury thought at first that her teacher, too, deserved special recognition for the results obtained, but as it was found that the teacher in charge of Lottie Sullivan at the fair had had her but a short time, and that there was no one person responsible for her progress, it was decided to make no award.

Of the special schools, not State institutions, which exhibited, those conducted by women showed work on a par with that done in the schools conducted by men, and received as liberal rewards.

Particularly creditable was the work done in the schools for the feeble-minded.

In group 7 the exhibits were divided into three classes, 19, 20, and 21, the work respectively of the blind, the deaf, and the feeble-minded. In class 19 women showed basket work, raffia work, modeling in clay, hammock weaving, crocheting, embroidery, printing by means of Braille writing machines, and class work; in class 20, sewing, embroidery, crocheting, painting, drawing, modeling, and class work, and in class 21, basket making, sewing, embroidery, crocheting, and class work.

There was but one foreign woman who made an exhibit. This was Mademoiselle Mulot, a French woman, who had invented a writing machine for blind children. She had brought a little blind French boy with her, who was not installed as an exhibit, but whom she brought before the jury to show the working of her machine. This machine consisted of a small frame blocked off into squares, in which the child was taught to write the letters of the English alphabet. Mademoiselle Mulot's claim for award was that with the machine generally in use it was necessary to teach the child a language of dots and dashes which was not legible by people in general. Although ingenious, Mademoiselle Mulot's machine was not considered striking or new enough to warrant an award.

There was no display within the jurisdiction of group 7 which would seem to indicate any great advancement in the work of women since the Chicago Exposition, though the methods of instruction--many of them through the painstaking application of women--have undergone marked improvement. The work of women as shown by the exhibits in the education of defectives at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, placed on equal terms of comparison with that of men, was very creditable. There was nothing particularly helpful or suggestive in the school work being shown on equal terms of comparison with that of men, for in this field women have always kept well abreast of men, and their work has been appreciated equally with that of men.

Department B, art, Prof. Halsey C. Ives, chief, comprised six groups and eighteen classes, the board of lady managers being represented in four of the groups.

GROUP 9. MISS MARY SOLARI, MEMPHIS, TENN., JUROR.

Under the group heading "Paintings and Drawings," the two classes into which it was divided represented. Paintings on canvas, wood, metal, enamel, porcelain, faïence, and on various preparations, by all direct methods, in oil, wax, tempera, and other media; mural paintings; fresco painting on walls; drawings and cartoons in water color, pastel, chalk, charcoal, pencil, and other media, on any material; miniatures on ivory.

Miss Solari reports as follows:

WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF ART AT THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION.