nounce that on January 1, 1909, the number of women employed on wages or any form of regular pay in the United States had leaped to six millions. At the present rate of increase, when the next census is taken, the number of women workers will have increased out of all proportion to the increase in population.
In other words, the feminine conquest of the industrial world in America is practically complete, and woman's financial independence is practically assured. She has invaded and now occupies firmly all but nine of the 303 fields of wage-earning listed by the United States Census Bureau. Furthermore, her education and interests all tend toward the evacuation of domestic service and farm labor in favor of the various trades and professions, or a distinctly mercantile or commercial career.
Question girls graduating from district village or city schools, and you cannot fail to mark this tendency. Department editors of women's magazines are deluged with letters from country girls all over the United States, begging for information as to gainful operations in manufacturing or business centers.
In a mid-West city, I studied the bent heads of girls in an upper grade grammar class, taking their final examinations.
"How many of these girls will enter the high school?" I asked.
