Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1914 — WHAT WOMEN WANT [ARTICLE]

WHAT WOMEN WANT

Home Life In Rural Communities Must Be Improved. That the need of rural communities is not confined to. problems of marketing and production alone’ is amply shown from the following article from the Altoona Pennsylvania Times. In those counties which have been organized on the County Unit plan, the next step after securing a County Agent is certainly that of securing a woman home visitor. “In the effort at improving farm conditions, which the agricultural department is making in many ways, a new departure is chronicled. Heretofore, aside from the police work of pure food Inspection, agricultural quarantines and the like, the effort has been chiefly toward promoting the sclence of production, on the farm, and the promotion of knowledge of shipping and selling. So we are having consideration of better markets, betters shipping facilities, the extension of rural credits and so on. But now Secretary Houston calls attention to that long-talked-of subject the position of women on the farms. One sentence of his statement is this; On many farms where there is always money enough to buy the latest agricultural appliances there is seldom a surplus to provide the woman in her productive work with power machinery that will lighten her physical labor, mrunning water that will relieve her of the burden of carrying from the pump all water that is used in the household. The insanity of farmers wives from loneliness and hard work has been one phase of the crying need for better social conditions in the country. The department sent circulars to 55,000 farmers’ wives. The response was large and pathetic. The overwork df farm women and the fear of the effect of it on their children was the burden of many replies. Many asked the department to prove to the men that the women’s work is worth something in dollars and cents. Others said that their own lot is hopeless and asked only that better schools, cheaper books, more lectures, libraries and museums be provided for their children. More comfort, more conveniences, : more company are crying needs in the life of the farmers’ wives. Bathrooms are worth more than automobiles, running water more than some other things.