THE
EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN:
A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work.

BY
VIRGINIA PENNY.

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY WALKER, WISE, & COMPANY,
245 WASHINGTON STREET.
1863.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by
VIRGINIA PENNY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

TO
WORTHY AND INDUSTRIOUS WOMEN
IN THE UNITED STATES,
STRIVING TO EARN A LIVELIHOOD,
This Book
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

It is very easy to obtain book after book on "The Sphere of Woman," "The Mission of Woman," and "The Influence of Woman." But to a practical mind it must be evident that good advice is not sufficient. That is very well, provided the reader is supplied with the comforts of life. But plans need to be devised, pursuits require to be opened, by which women can earn a respectable livelihood. It is the great want of the day. It is in order to meet that want that this work has been prepared. The few employments that have been open to women are more than full. To withdraw a number from the few markets of female labor already crowded to excess, by directing them to avenues where they are wanted, would thereby benefit both parties.

At no time in our country's history have so many women been thrown upon their own exertions. A million of men are on the battle field, and thousands of women, formerly dependent on them, have lost or may lose their only support. Some of the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of soldiers, may take the vacancies created in business by their absence—others must seek new channels of labor.

An exact estimate of woman as she has been, and now is, furnishes a problem difficult to solve. Biographies and histories merely furnish a clue to what she has been. Prejudice has exaggerated these portraitures. Woman as she now is, save in fiction and society, is scarcely known. The future position of woman is a matter of conjecture only. No mathematical nicety can be brought to bear upon the subject, for it is one not capable of data. More particularly is it difficult to define what her future condition in a business capacity will be. Man will have much to do with it, but woman more. I know of no work giving a true history of woman's condition in a business capacity. Socially, morally, mentally, and religiously, she is written about; but not as a working, every-day reality, in any other capacity than that pertaining to home life. It has been to me a matter of surprise that some one has not presented the subject in a practical way, that would serve as an index to the opening of new occupations, and present the feasibility of women engaging in many from which they are now debarred. It is strange there is no book on the subject, in any language, for it is a world-wide subject. Its roots are in the very basis of society—its ramifications as numerous as the nations of the earth—yes, as the individual members of the human family. The welfare of every man, woman, and child is involved in the subject. For who is entirely free from female influence—who is devoid of interest in the sex—who exists free from relationship, or any connection with woman? There is no man that is not involved in what affects woman, and the reverse is also true. It should therefore be a subject of paramount interest to all. Particularly does the subject