Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 73

2. Woman’s Work for the Lowly, as Illustrated in the Work of the American Missionary Association among the Freedmen (Boston: South Boston Inquirer Press, 1873). (16 p.)

Essay concerning the role of women in the work place. “The question which, just now, is exciting a good deal of inquiry and debate, and which is likely to excite more in the future, is ‘Women’s sphere and work.’ She feels, to a degree, the degradation of enforced idleness, and asks for work, as she has a right to, in all proper ways and places.” After reviewing the service of women as nurses during the Civil War, the author argues that missionary work among freedmen in the South offers the best opportunity for women to pursue a meaningful career. “The laborers in the foreign [missionary] field, and in other parts of our own country, must be, for the most part, men. But, singularly enough, in the South, where the work and want are greatest, women must be largely the worker. Her ready sympathy and quick hand, to meet want in every form, to carry relief of every kind of appeal, are, specially, requisite among a people needing everything, and needing it all at once.”