Chapter 64

Mrs. Bland reports as a department juror in this department:

Our jury passed upon machinery for making drinks, refrigerators, refrigerating, Sunny Brook Distillery, ice-making plant, beer packers, and packages, etc., bottle washing and cleaning. Bake ovens, candy and chocolate machines also came within our jurisdiction. One special machine of French make was for making ice for families and on the farm; these were small machines and would make from 10 to 300 pounds, and were comparatively cheap and within the reach of many.

There was an interesting and unique exhibit from Germany showing canned stews and other edibles to be used in camp and on hunting and fishing trips. The can had an interlining of tin, and between the two walls of the can was unslacked lime; by making a hole in each end of the can and placing first one end and then the other in cold water for five minutes the stew was warmed and cooked.

Mrs. Bland conducts a large farm, and in a letter states that she was awarded a bronze medal at this exposition for her exhibit of timothy hay and Grimes golden apples.

Mrs. Bland also served on the jury of awards in the women's department of the Charleston Exposition, and it was her opinion that there is a great opening for women in house furnishings, designing wall paper, and photography.

Department J, Horticulture, Mr. Frederic W. Taylor, Chief; Mrs. Ida L. Turner, Fort Worth, Tex., Department Juror.

This department comprised 7 groups and 31 classes, the group headings being: Appliances and methods of pomology, viticulture, floriculture, and arboriculture; Appliances and methods of viticulture; Pomology; Trees, shrubs, ornamental plants and flowers; Plants of the conservatory; Seeds and plants for garden and nurseries; Arboriculture and fruit culture.

Mrs. Turner says:

In reply to your questions in regard to the work of the women jurors at the St. Louis Exposition, will say that I arrived very late at the exposition, after the jury had about finished their duties in the Department of Horticulture, in which I was to serve. For this reason my duties were limited, and I had little opportunity to examine and give an intelligent estimate of the part taken by women in this department.

Department K, Forestry, Mr. Tarleton H. Bean, Chief; Mrs. J.M. Glenn, Baltimore, Md., Department Juror.

This department comprised 3 groups and 14 classes, under the group headings: Appliances and processes used in forestry; Products of the cultivation of forests and of forest industries; Appliances for gathering wild crops and products obtained.

No report.

Department L, Mines and Metallurgy, Mr. J.A. Homes, Chief; Mrs. M.G. Scrutchin, Atlanta, Ga., Department Juror.

This department comprised 5 groups and 43 classes, under the group headings: Working of mines, ore beds, and stone quarries; Minerals and stones, and their utilization; Mine models, maps, photographs; Metallurgy; Literature of mining, metallurgy, etc.

Mrs. Scrutchin reports as follows:

In all our fairy stories, dwarfs and elves live below the earth and deal with mines and their dark belongings; the fairies live above. So none of us are surprised to find few women in this line of exhibitors. My work as a member of the department jury confined me to one room, and to an inspection of lists submitted by the group jurors. So I really had no opportunity for specific examination of the various groups and classes, except where some doubt was expressed as to the validity of an award, when I made it a point to examine that subject with more or less care. Many women placed specimens of clay and ore in their State collections. Several Georgia women, I know, did this--some, though owning and operating mines, and active in submitting specimens, took shelter under the husband's name. This fact also came under my own observation.

Nearly all these exhibits were in group 116, class 682. One collection of clays and pottery produced in the interest of artistic handicraft came from the Sophie Newcombe Memorial College for the higher education of girls, of New Orleans, La., and was in the same group, but class 690. Many like collections were seen in the Educational Building, but this is the only one given space in the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy.

The Woman's Club of Pipestone, Minn., showed specimens of pipestone and jasper belonging to group 116, class 682. In the whole list I find only two foreigners--one from Toronto, Canada, and the other from Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, both such near neighbors to our own country as hardly to seem foreign. The one making exhibition from Mexico, Esther Lopez, is associated with a man, Hernano, brother or husband, I presume. Group 118 devoted to metallurgy, had only one woman exhibitor, Mrs. Abbie Krebs, San Francisco, Cal., who submitted redwood tanks for an award.

I do not recall any award made to a woman in the Department of Mines and Metallurgy. Many mercantile houses and large corporations were competitors, and, as I said before, many women sent their specimens to their respective State exhibits, and so increased the chances of the State to an award.

The fine Alaskan exhibition in the Alaska Building was collated, I understand, by a woman. I did not see it and did not learn the woman's name, though I made an effort to do so.

From my observation, I think the work of the women would have been better appreciated and the effect more pronounced had they been placed in a separate building. In this Department of Mines, for instance, every woman would have sent to the Woman's Building instead of to the State exhibit, and a greater number would have been on record as exhibitors.

The only two exhibitions, or expositions rather, at all approaching the one in St. Louis that I have attended were the Centennial at Philadelphia, in 1876, and the International Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, in 1895. At the first I do not recall any emphasis on what women had done, except in the lines in which she had always worked--art, needlework, and dairy products. In Atlanta, as at Chicago, there was a Woman's Building, and here were found her work in all lines, and many visitors enjoyed the exhibition.

The recognition of woman as evidenced by her appointment on the juries of the different departments, both group and department, was the most striking development of the recent great expositions.

The list submitted below contains the names of all women whose names appear in the official catalogue of exhibits in the Department of Mines and Metallurgy:

Sophie Newcombe Memorial College for the Higher Education of Girls, of New Orleans, La. Clays and pottery produced in the interest of artistic handicraft. Group 116, class 690. Mrs. Abbie Krebs, San Francisco, Cal. Redwood tanks. Group 118, class 702. Mrs. George Rupp, Bessemer, Mich. Collection of iron ores, needle, grape, kidney, and blackberry ore. Group 116, class 682. Woman's Club, Pipestone, Minn. Pipestone and jasper. Group 116, class 682. Mrs. Helen M. Schneider, Eureka, Nev. Collection of minerals. Group 116, class 682. Mrs. George W. Pritchard, White Oaks, N. Mex., Lincoln County. Ores. Group 116, class 682. Mrs. D.D. Menges, Allentown, Pa. Iron ores. Group 116, class 682. Mrs. C. Robinson, Spokane, S. Dak. Arsenopyrite ore. Group 116, class 682. Mrs. Haliburton, Bridgewood, Bridgewood Company, Ontario, Canada. Minerals. Group 116, class 682. Esther y Hernano Lopez, Taxco, province of Guerrero, Mexico. Silver ores. Group 116, class 682.

Department M, Fish and Game, Mr. Tarleton H. Bean, Chief; Mrs. Mary Stuart Armstrong, Chicago, Ill., Department Juror.

This department comprised 5 groups and 19 classes, the group headings being: Hunting equipment; Products of hunting; Fishing; equipment and products; Products of fisheries; Fish culture.

No report.

Department N, Anthropology, Dr. W.J. McGee, Chief; Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, Cambridge, Mass., Department Juror.

This department comprised 4 groups and 5 classes, under the group headings: Literature; Somatology; Ethnology; Ethnography.

Mrs. Nuttall reports, as group juror, this department.

(Report not on file.)

Department O, Social Economy, Dr. Howard J. Rogers, Chief; Miss Jane Addams, Chicago, Ill., Department Juror.

This department comprised 13 groups and 58 classes, the group headings being: Study and investigation of social and economic conditions; Economic resources and organization; State regulation of industry and labor; Organization of industrial workers; Methods of industrial remuneration; Cooperative institutions; Provident institutions; Housing of the working classes; The liquor question; General betterment movements; Charities and correction; Public health; Municipal improvement.

Miss Addams says in her report as department juror of the above:

The general advance in social betterment has been very marked in the eleven years intervening since the Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, and women have not only shared that advance, but have undoubtedly contributed more than their proportionate share, if tested by the proportionate value of their exhibits at Chicago and at St. Louis. This is also true if tested by the social economy exhibits made in Paris in 1900, where I was a juror in the department of social economy. No separate exhibit was there made of the work of women save that implied in the exhibition of women's philanthropic societies. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition their separate exhibits were not only larger, but more definite and coherent. The work of women was as much appreciated when placed by the side of men as if it had been installed by itself, and the results would have been no better if separately exhibited. Certainly nothing in the entire department at St. Louis was more successfully installed and attracted more favorable attention than the Twin City Museum, which occupied an entire building upon the Model street and was under the direction of Mrs. Condé Hamlin, of St. Paul, who had also planned it from the beginning and was made commissioner. It was certainly a notable achievement to have one such exhibit as that standing absolutely upon its merits and dealing with the civic and general social conditions as they are constantly developing in our large and growing cities. It had suggestions of activities along a dozen lines which make for amelioration of urban conditions as they bear hardest upon the people of the most crowded quarters. To quote from the report of another on this subject: "It is now a well-established fact that women most effectively supplement the best interests and the furthering of the highest aims of all government by their numberless charitable, reformatory, educational, and other beneficent institutions which she has had the courage and the ideality to establish for the alleviation of suffering, for the correction of many forms of social injustice and neglect, and these institutions exert a strong and steady influence for good, an influence which tends to decrease vice, to make useful citizens of the helpless or depraved, to elevate the standard of morality, and to increase the sum of human happiness."

Department P, Physical Culture, J.E. Sullivan, Chief; Miss Clara Hellwig, Plainfield, N.J., Department Juror.

This department comprised 3 groups and 6 classes, the group headings being: Training of the child and adult-theory and practice; Games and sports for children and adults; Equipment for games and sports.

Unfortunately Miss Hellwig was abroad and did not receive notification in time to reach St. Louis for the jury work.

Superior Jury.

Mrs. Philip N. Moore, of St. Louis, Mo., was appointed to represent the board of lady managers on the superior jury, and in a general résumé of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Mrs. Moore says:

If the organization of a world's exposition begins years before its doors open, if public opinion changes in a decade, it may be well, before summing up the work of women at St. Louis, to look first at the record of achievement from Chicago in 1893 through Atlanta, Nashville, Omaha, Paris, and Buffalo, all of which led gradually to the high plane upon which we now stand.

Segregation of the sexes was the limited understanding of most of those in charge of former expositions. Not for a moment would I imply by this statement that there was a desire to give the work of women a lower grade than that of men; rather was it the mistaken idea of drawing attention to it, as something better and apart. By this very means there was often a serious and hurtful comparison, since many women with undoubted ability would not thus place their exhibits. It implied that in the special group, where exhibit was made, woman's mind differed from that of man's to the extent that there was also a difference in the result.

We owe sincere thanks to the progressive men in charge of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, that they listened with intelligent appreciation to the plea from women for equal representation, wherever their work was found worthy.

There is no mistaking the dignified effect of this edict, and only the best in various lines gained admission to the exhibit palaces.

In most exhibits the larger proportion was presented by men; and in similar proportion the awards were assigned. There was, however, no distinction made as to sex; and the members of the various juries, including women, paid as careful attention to the one exhibit as to the other, without reference to name, often the only indication of sex.

There were some art, educational, and economic exhibits, placed entirely by women, showing marvelous adaptability to the limitations of environment, and also skill in artistic and practical setting. Looking closely at the work in the several departments, my opinion is that, while woman has not gained greatly in inventive or constructive arts, she has gained breadth in the applied arts and has grown immeasurably in freedom of execution. This has been obtained partly by the contact with man's work, extending through many centuries in advance, and partly by the very fact that she must now stand only on her own merits.

Women from foreign lands entered into competition in the departments of art, education, and liberal arts to a very slight extent, with some investigation in science, but in all a very small proportion. This was natural, on account of the great distance, and may be applied equally to the number of exhibitors from across the water, whether men or women.

American women were found in nearly every field open to competition, though it was the apparently proud statement of the director of Mines and Metallurgy that there were no women on his juries, which meant, of course, no exhibit. (NOTE.--Mrs. M.G. Scrutchin was evidently appointed after this statement.)

The congresses were open to women, who appeared on the same programmes with men, were paid the compliment of as large audiences, were listened to with interest, and their opinions in discussions answered with freedom. This occurred also in the various associations, where men and women work side by side.

In the work of the superior jury, where for the first time the right of membership was given to a representative of women, the application of deliberation and judgment was made to the work of men and women alike. Courtesy and the hand of fellowship were extended to all. Exhibits were not specially investigated, unless appeals from former jury awards were sent in. In such case most careful and detailed investigation was made by the special boards, to which were assigned certain departments. There was no distinction of sex mentioned in the jury room; and the time has evidently arrived when no less will be expected from women--no more from men--than the quality of work merits.

FINAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF AWARDS.

The chairman of the committee of awards of the board of lady managers begs leave to present the story and the report of that committee to your honorable board.

We will not begin by saying "once upon a time," for this is no fairy story, but we will hark back to that time when we, as a board, were not, that we may refer to the vital words of the act of Congress of March 3, 1901, which act provided for the creation of a board of lady managers, gave the excuse for its existence, and named specifically one duty it would be called upon to perform, to wit: "To appoint one member of all committees authorized to award prizes for such exhibits as shall have been produced in whole or in part by female labor."

This phase of woman's work at the World's Fair formed the principal topic of talk at the informal conference held in New York, December 5, 1901, between the National Commission and the members of the board of lady managers that had been appointed up to that time.

The committee of awards was one of the last of the standing committees to be appointed, but was the first committee appointed by Mrs. Daniel Manning after her election to the presidency of the board of lady managers in December, 1903, and was as follows: Mrs. Frederick Hanger, chairman, Little Rock, Ark.; Mrs. Richard W. Knott, Louisville, Ky.; Miss Lavinia H. Egan, Shreveport, La.; Mrs. Fannie Lowry Porter, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Helen Boice-Hunsicker, Hoboken, N.J.

From the organization of the board its influence had been sought and besought by women wishing positions connected with the exposition work. The appointing of the committee of awards acted like a wireless-telegraphy message throughout the country and brought applications from "would be" jurors or recommendations from friends of "would be" jurors until the files of the board room were filled to the limit, and the colored postman of the free-delivery postal service in the southern home of the chairman thought he had relapsed into a "previous condition of servitude."

The rules regulating the system of awards, enacted by the Exposition Company, stated that the nomination for jurors must be in the hands of the director of exhibits thirty days before the opening of the exposition, for the approval of the Exposition Company and the National Commission.

The division of exhibits had issued a list of all exhibits that could be entered at the exposition, dividing them into 144 groups.

As woman's work is never done, and as she has worked her way into almost every industrial avenue, to find out the "woman" in the work of exhibits required more light than the act of Congress or the rules of the Exposition Company gave on the subject.

The chairman of the committee of awards made a special journey to St. Louis, a month after the committee was appointed, and in company with Miss Egan, a member of the committee, waited upon the director of exhibits and asked that the World's Fair light, for femininity, might be thrown on the 144 groups of exhibits, that woman's work, "in whole or in part," might have a juror appointed by the board of lady managers to judge of its merits.

The director of exhibits, with much genial graciousness, threw up his official hands and said he was helpless, that not until the exhibits were placed could the groups that would admit of women jurors be determined, and that there would be women jurors appointed by the Exposition Company as well as by the board of lady managers. He suggested that we look carefully through the 144 groups and use our "judgment" as to which groups would call for women jurors.

We asked the advisability of conferring with the heads of the different departments, and were told that the information must come through the director of exhibits. We were told to remember that the list of women jurors must be limited to keep down the expense of the jury work.

From this time until the 25th of July the board waited for the classified list.

By correspondence among the members of the committee of awards, by meeting of the same, and by suggestions from the entire board, a long list of names of women eminent for intellectual, artistic, material, and practical achievements was obtained from which to choose women jurors. It seemed impossible for the committee to make a report to present to the board for acceptance until information in regard to the classified list had been obtained.

Partial tentative reports were read at the March meeting, to report progress and secure suggestions.

At a meeting of the board held April 29 a list of 83 names for women jurors and their alternates was submitted by the committee and accepted by the board. A motion carried to the effect that power to act was left with the committee, as the classified list had not been received from the Exposition Company and the committee's use of "judgment" might be tempered with the blue pencil of the Exposition Company.

The confirmation of names for jurors was made very comprehensive, as the board at that time did not expect to meet until after the jurors had served.

The president of the board was untiring in her efforts in behalf of the jury work of the board. The chairman of the committee was called to St. Louis twice on the special work of the jury list, and the members of the board and committee by consultation with members of the National Commission, officials of the Exposition Company, and heads of departments, held out for what they considered the full rights of the nominating power of the board, with the hope of bringing American womanhood in touch, as near as possible, with the work of the exposition.

The following communications indicate the progress made:

ST. Louis, _July 22, 1904._

DEAR SIR: In regard to the appointment of women jurors the board of lady managers begs leave to state that names of women jurors for 83 groups have been approved by the board. We have been informed that the classified list of groups is in your hands, and we would be glad to receive it at the earliest possible date.

Very respectfully, M. MARGARETTA MANNING, _President._

Hon. DAVID R. FRANCIS, _President Louisiana Purchase Exposition,_ _Exposition Grounds, St. Louis, Mo._

St. Louis, _July 25, 1904._

MADAM PRESIDENT: The Exposition Company, through the executive committee, has approved the accompanying report of the director of exhibits, and hereby certifies to the board of lady managers the number of groups in which the exhibits have been produced in whole or in part by female labor.

This is in response to your letter addressed to the president under date of July 22, and this day submitted to the executive committee.

The groups so certified are as follows:

_Education_.--Group 1, Elementary education. Group 2, Secondary education. Group 3, Higher education. Group 4, Special education in fine arts. Group 7, Education of defectives.