Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1909 — THE WOMAN OF TODAY. [ARTICLE]

THE WOMAN OF TODAY.

Thoughtless people go right along saying and writing things about women just as they did a couple of generations ago. The same old jokes come around and are dressed up a bit and reprinted, with the imaginary foibles and foolishness and weaknesses of women as the feature, with never a thought of the changes, time has wrought; never a realization of the fact that the ~women of today are far different from the women of past generations—that the place accorded women in the affairs of the world is altogether different from that that she occupied in days of old. The experience of Mrs. Scott Durand, of Chicago, is happily illustrative. She conceived the qotion of establishing a model dairy. Possibly she may ‘ not have had any very comprehensive idea of the kind of a game she was going against, and followed theory rather than practical ideas. She soon found herself “in the hole” to the extent of twenty thousand dollars. Right there is where the jokesmith would see his opportunity, and foolish people who have never learned anything about the difference between the now and the long ago as regards women, would have had her sit down and cry over the matter and then let the whole thing go to smash. But that is just what this typical woman of today did not do. She simply counted all that had gone before as so much spilt milk, not to be wept over. Then she donned a white cotton dress and a big white apron, and rolled up her sleeves, and she got right out into that dairy herself. She was her own manager and she didn’t need any assistant ornamental officers. She got rid Of all that sort of people, and she set in to learn the business and to do the work. Now she has about the most perfect model dairy in the country and runs it herself and is making big money. That is what the woman of today does.