These figures would seem to indicate that girls go to work early, that as yet industry does not largely prevent marriage, and that marriage does in many or most cases stop women's industrial careers.
Inquiry as to what women are doing in the industrial world elicits important facts. It would seem that Olive Schreiner's "For the present we take all labor for our province" is very nearly a bare statement of attested fact. The Census report includes 509 closely classified occupations. Women are found in all but 43. Even allowing for the inaccuracy of such figures, and passing over the occupations which take in only an occasional woman, it is seen that "woman's sphere" can no longer be arbitrarily defined. The following facts and figures for women give us food for thought:
Farm laborers (working out) 337,522 Iron and steel industries 29,182 Chemical industries 15,577 Clay, glass, and stone industries 11,849 Electrical supply factories 11,041 Lumber and furniture industries 17,214 Steam railroad laborers 3,248
[Illustration: Photograph by C. Park Pressey The 1910 Census showed over three hundred and thirty thousand women employed as farm laborers. This number did not include wives or daughters of farm-owners]
The foregoing facts concern occupations which were once associated entirely with men. If we enter the ranks of more womanly work we shall find:
Dressmakers 447,760 Milliners 122,070 Sewers and sewing-machine operators 231,106 Telephone operators 88,262 Nurses 187,420 Clerks and saleswomen in stores 362,081 Stenographers and typists 263,315 Bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants 187,155 Cooks 333,436 Laundresses (not in laundries) 520,004 Teachers 478,027
These are of course merely a few among the four hundred and fifty kinds of work in which women are found. Any survey of women's work comes close to a general survey of industry. We shall find that in some occupations the proportion of men is much larger than that of women. In others women have made rapid strides. The accompanying diagram shows that in professional service, in domestic and personal service, and in clerical occupations women are found in largest numbers. In domestic and personal service the women outnumber the men more than two to one. In professional service there are four women to five men, a large proportion of the women being teachers. In the clerical occupations we have one woman to each two men, in manufacturing one woman to six men, in agriculture one woman to seven men, and in trade one to eight. The occupations for women have been changed somewhat by the new industrial conditions forced upon us by the war, but it is very probable that in a few years the industrial world will return to its normal status before the war for both men and women.