Women and Careers
April 12, 1906
Summary
An article from “Success Magazine” excitedly shares the progress of women in the past half century, using the new medical colleges for women as a primary example.
Transcription
Women and Careers
The Change That Has Come in the Last Half Century
“Once it was difficult, almost impossible, for a girl of breeding to have a career,” said Juliet Wilbor Tompkins in Success Magazine. “Think of poor Jane Austen dripping her white sewing hastily over her writing when a guest came in that she might not be called ungenteel! And it was only fifty-seven years since Elizabeth Blackwell, applying for permission to win a medical diploma, was refused by a dozen colleges, one of which added to its refusal the interesting statement that :it would be unbecoming and immoral to see a woman instructed in the nature and laws of her organism.’ Now, in the United States alone, there are seven medical colleges for women besides the men’s colleges to which they are admitted, over 7,000 are practicing physicians and surgeons, and the theories for and against such things are being forgotten in the light of their actual work. The same opposition met every new venture. About fifty years ago an Englishman tried to introduce watchmaking among his countrywoman, a delicate and profitable trade in which hundreds of Swiss women were employed, but is initial lecture on the subject was mobbed and broken up by British prejudice, and, though three venturesome souls did try to follow his suggestion and learn the trade, persecution finally obliged them to give it up. Now there are over 4,000 watch and clock-makers in the Unites States, and a woman may learn any trade she pleases without opposition, almost without comment.”
The Change That Has Come in the Last Half Century
“Once it was difficult, almost impossible, for a girl of breeding to have a career,” said Juliet Wilbor Tompkins in Success Magazine. “Think of poor Jane Austen dripping her white sewing hastily over her writing when a guest came in that she might not be called ungenteel! And it was only fifty-seven years since Elizabeth Blackwell, applying for permission to win a medical diploma, was refused by a dozen colleges, one of which added to its refusal the interesting statement that :it would be unbecoming and immoral to see a woman instructed in the nature and laws of her organism.’ Now, in the United States alone, there are seven medical colleges for women besides the men’s colleges to which they are admitted, over 7,000 are practicing physicians and surgeons, and the theories for and against such things are being forgotten in the light of their actual work. The same opposition met every new venture. About fifty years ago an Englishman tried to introduce watchmaking among his countrywoman, a delicate and profitable trade in which hundreds of Swiss women were employed, but is initial lecture on the subject was mobbed and broken up by British prejudice, and, though three venturesome souls did try to follow his suggestion and learn the trade, persecution finally obliged them to give it up. Now there are over 4,000 watch and clock-makers in the Unites States, and a woman may learn any trade she pleases without opposition, almost without comment.”
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Lower Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Emma Roberts
Citation
“Women and Careers,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed April 24, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/425.