Woman Who Toils, The.
[Labor]. van Vorst, Mrs. John [Bessie] and Marie van Vorst. The Woman Who Toils. Being the experiences of two gentlewomen as factory girls. Illustrated. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1903.
8vo.; frontispiece illustration and other illustrations throughout printed on coated paper; contemporary ownership signature on front endpaper; dark red cloth, stamped in gilt; t.e.g.
First edition; includes serial appearances from Everybody’s Magazine published in 1902, reworked for this publication with additional original text, and 18 black and white illustrations of female factory and mill workers, and urban tenement houses in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Lynn, Massachusetts. With a prefatory letter by Theodore Roosevelt, which was written after the third serial installment was published. Roosevelt upholds the virtues of toil and struggle, claiming that people who grow accustomed to a life without obstacles are likely to lead lives marred by “decadence and corruption.” While insisting that he has “appreciated” the series of articles, TR notes that America “has cause to be alarmed” if “women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother.” The novel chronicles the adventures of two society women working in disguise under false names in various mills and factories across the United States.
In an introductory note, Bessie van Vorst states the goal of the project is to live among working women and thus “become a mouthpiece for the woman labourer” and “put into words her cry for help.” In “clear, unequivocal prose,” Marie and Bessie, the wife of her brother John, describe “the difficult working conditions and mean living” of the women workers, calling for “a more humane attitude towards women in general and particularly the young” (NAW III, p. 515). Marie and Bessie van Vorst collaborated on several other works, some also focusing on working class issues. The Woman Who Toils, a “landmark in social investigation and reportage,” (ibid.) was the most widely circulated of their joint publications, due largely in part to Roosevelt’s preface.
Dedicated to Mark Twain:
In loving tribute to his genius, and
To his human sympathy, which in
Pathos and Seriousness, as well as
In Mirth and Humour, have made
Him kin with the whole world.
(#5488)
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