Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1885 — The Woman Who Works at Home. [ARTICLE]

The Woman Who Works at Home.

I notice, says a Chicago.Jady, that in all of this talk about what is designated as women’s labor the every-day routine work of the housekeeper is ignored. There is no reference to the work of the women whose lives are passed in homemaking and home-keeping. They are not considered as active workers. They are regarded as a negative, non-produc-tive class. Yet the profession of the housekeeper is regarded as the most natural and proper avocation of women. There is no other trade so complex. None more difficult. Add to this the cares of motherhood, and what else can a woman engage in which will so completely absorb every energy of which she is capable? To be a good housewife and mother is by no means the occupation of an idler. Perhaps my notions are obsolete; but I think the woman who creates a comfortable home and raises children worthy manhood and womanhood is the noblest work of God, and is quite as much of a producer as the woman who writes a book, invents some machine, or follows a profession.—Chicago News.