How Women May Earn a Living : New York Times Book Review

HOW WOMEN MAY EARN A LIVING. By Helen Churchill Candee. 12mo. Pp. ix-342. New York: The Macmillan Company. $1.

---

The day has surely come when women as well as men may put their shoulders to the wheel of fortune. To meet the demands of this new and large band of wage earners many avenues of labor have been opened in recent years. There are few professions now secure against the invasion of woman. She may be found in the courtroom and in the laboratory, in the shops and in the offices, in the fields as well as in the home. Miss Helen Churchill Candee, in this little volume, offers sound and judicious advice to women suddenly thrown upon their own resources. Some of the facts which she presents are obvious to the average mind, but they are, nevertheless, of a character which may bear much repetition.

In your choice of occupation select that which best suits you; then bend your talents in the direction you have chosen. Are you a practical housekeeper? Then there is the boarding house, and Miss Candee offers many suggestions as to how to make it the "ideal boarding house." Are you artistic, musical, gifted with dramatic talent? A long vista of opportunities opens before the woman of talent---opportunities to earn a lucrative livelihood at least, if not to win fame. There are the fields of the trained nurse, the literary profession, and the business career. Women are finding employment as advertising agents, insurance solicitors, lecturers, and in philanthropic fields.

Miss Candee offers good advice to the beginners who would take up any of these branches of labor. The volume is interesting, and may be read with profit by men and women alike. After all is said, the fact remains that the successful business woman must possess about the same qualities that are possessed by the successful business man; in the field of business there is no sex. Practical capacity is the keynote to success. The woman who would command a responsible position must possess that quality if she would be valuable to those whom she serves. She must also be neat, punctual, industrious, and painstaking.

The book is not written for the woman who seeks employment only as a stepping stone to bridge over the time from school days to matrimony, but rather as a guide and assistant to her who enters upon a career of labor, not for to-day or to-morrow, but for a long and indefinite future.