Even the more unusual occupations are well represented. There are 261 wholesale merchants, 1,271 officials in banks, 1,932 stock raisers, 378 butchers, and 193 blacksmiths. There are 200 women to mix cocktails or serve gin-fizzes behind the bar. If they sell after hours or to minors, there are 879 policemen and detectives to watch them.
The traveling public depends for its safety and its accidents principally upon men. But women already claim 2 motor-men, 13 conductors, 4 station-agents, 2 pilots, 1 lighthouse keeper, 127 engineers, and 153 boatmen among their number.
Almost every paper one picks up tells of women's successes in some line of work. A dozen women in Chicago, and probably three times as many in New York, are making ten thousand dollars a year or more, either as salaries or profits from business.
The property owned by actresses and singers must pay a handsome sum in taxes. It is said that Hetty Green, the shrewdest business woman in the world, can stand in City Hall Square, New York, and see five million dollars' worth of her own property; and every one knows she owes her millions to her own cleverness, not to either husband or father.
A Woman's Building has been a feature of many of our great national expositions. They have been filled with the products of women's labor; but so far the structures, though designed by women, have been erected by men. This can be remedied at any time it is necessary.
There are women builders of every sort: 167 are masons, 545 carpenters, 45 plasterers, 126 plumbers, 1,750 painters and glaziers, and 241 paper-hangers. It is true the roofing would be a long job, for only two feminine roofers and slaters are to be found in the whole country. But the 1,775 tin-workers might help out. If a steel frame were called for, 3,370 iron and steel workers would stand ready; and the eight steam-boiler makers would put in the heating and power plant.
Not only have women conquered all the established callings, but they have invented some of their own. Professional shoppers were never heard of in the old days, though since the idea was started some men have adopted the business. The welfare secretary, who is "guide, philosopher, and friend" to the girls in factories or department stores, has recently come into existence. Then there is the shopping adviser, who pilots the uncertain Mrs. Newbride over one store or through many, helping her to furnish the new home harmoniously, fashionably, and for a given sum.