The Woman Who Toils Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls

by Mrs. John Van Vorst

This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Mrs. John (Bessie) Van Vorst, nee McGinnis (1873-1928) was an American author and social reformer. She lived for a time in France with her sister-in-law Marie Van Vorst (1867-1936) and they collaborated on several works including Bagby's Daughter (1901) and The Woman Who Toils (1903). Bessie also wrote: The Issues of Life (1904), Letters to Women in Love (1906), The Cry of the Children (1908), To the Homeward-Bound Americans (1919) and A Girl from China (Soumay Tcheng) (1926).

Reviews

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sitting in my yoga class today, I realize that the young women participating in the class with me (the not so young person there) are the same as those women described working in various jobs to pay rent or buy pretty clothes. Except we are all having a yoga class together because 100 years later we have access to birth control, household appliances, and education, and yet are still prone as victims to ill health, financial dependence, and the threat of a downward spiral into poverty. The chances are much slimmer for the last item, of course, and what irritated me most about this book was the moralistic attitude about how to fix people’s fickleness, slavery for consumerism as if that was what led to such labor as described in the book. And there I was with others in expensive yoga outfits made in factories in Asia, doing yoga, a Western idea grown of vague notions and associations of Asia. Doubtless the author would have been somewhat horrified to see such righteous idleness and selfishness; and the then president might have written a letter to chastise the female sex for a failure of community spirit (a la women should be tending children, gardens, reforming bad behavior of animals, devoting services for the care and development of others). So what exactly was the vision behind the reform? That people would be more ____. (The answer is Christian). It cannot be argued that the usefulness of the author’s earnest intentions of reform for the betterment of women, children and families, was unimportant. It was vital, and we have reaped the benefits but let’s continue to battle the poor attitudes that still would like to treat women as second class citizens even in the field of Christianity. Let's aim for worldwide.

[Trina Draper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting as a historical document

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to buy this because I have a neighbor who always describes herself as toiling around the house, and I love that.
This book is about different toil - real, grinding factory work. Written in a Nellie Bly expose manner, two society women dress down
and apply for jobs in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Lyn, MA. It ain't great literature, but you come away with a vivid picture of
how hard life was for women at the turn of the last century.

[Beth Manger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been interested in women millworkers since taking a Women's Studies class at UW in the 1980s. This insider view gives the reader a picture of quasi-slavery. The children workers' plight was especially difficult to stomach.