Woman's Journal

“ The Famous Women Series will have no worthier subject and no more illustrious biographer. Nor will the reader be disappointed,—for the narrative is deeply interesting and full of inspiration.”—Woman’s Journal. ”

“ The perusal of this journal has therefore afforded us genuine pleasure, and it has exhibited to our soul as well as to our sight, the character of a woman so singular and noble in her love, her activity and her aspiration that we separate from it with sincere admiration, but also with deep regret. ”

“ Because of the vitality of the paper through the barren pioneer days, through the days of ridicule and up into these times of great numbers, splendid prestige and backing for the whole movement, we have faith that our hopes are not in vain.
[Illustration: Mrs. David Hunt A Generous Supporter of the Woman's
Journal]
One proof of our faith is that we find working in the Woman's Journal office year after year is in some ways like living in a fairy story. ”

“ It would seem as if the task before these two dauntless women were almost endless, for every letter must be read and carefully noted, every newspaper clipping gleaned—and these alone would make volumes—old diaries perused, and the whole digested and woven into the fabric of facts which not only go to make the story of one woman, but the history of the great progressive movement of women during the past fifty years. ”

“ We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of our natures and find the starting point.
No man is capable of the task.
During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to publish their reminiscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand veils? ”

“ Almost every lady suggested that she might have decorated the staff of her journal an appreciable number of years, if that supposition had not been forbidden by the fact that the feminine element in journalism is of comparatively recent introduction. ”

“ I have enjoyed the hundreds of columns aimed at me by excited women through the press. They have all asked the same question: Why do you not write of the good things in women instead of always the bad? ”

“ We may question whether women have as yet had sufficient experience in the world of business to cope successfully with the material questions of a pivotal editorial position. Then, again, it is absolutely essential in the conduct of a magazine with a feminine or home appeal to have on the editorial staff women who are experts in their line; and the truth is that women will work infinitely better under the direction of a man than of a woman. ”

“ For a long time she had been intending to follow the instructions given in a ladies' magazine, wherein a young woman was depicted in many unusual attitudes, each of which was stated to be helpful to some part of the human frame and to the system generally. ”

“ The Woman's Page, which she conducts, and which has been one of the leading features of the paper, has been on as high a level as the work in any of the popular literary weeklies, and would of itself give her distinction in journalism. ”

“ Curtis, he immediately encountered another popular misconception of a woman's magazine--the conviction that if a man is the editor of a periodical with a distinctly feminine appeal, he must, as the term goes, "understand women." ”

“ How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?—My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. ”

“ No mere man could do this, for such assurance could only proceed from the opposite sex.
A perusal of the advertisement sheets which form the bulk of women’s newspapers and magazines makes for disillusionment and depression; and you would need but little excuse if, after a course of these appeals to feminine love of adornment, you rose from it with a settled conviction that Woman is a Work of Art, padded here, pinched in there, painted, dyed, and carefully made up in every particular. ”

“ I felt quite equal to writing six books a year if any one would publish them, besides studying life at first hand as persistently and deeply as the present state of society will permit in the case of a mere woman. For that reason I shall always be sorry I did not go on a newspaper for a year as a reporter, as there is no other way for a woman to see life in all its phases. ”

“ Why should a new magazine be entitled "Woman's Progress," as if the progress of woman were one thing, and the progress of man another? If we are two friendly sexes working hand in hand, how is it possible for either to progress alone? ”

“ He usually delegates the Sunday “specials” to some editor who, again, has little time to study the ever-changing women’s problems, particularly in these days, and he relies upon unintelligent advice, or he places his “woman’s page” in the hands of some woman with the comfortable assurance that, being a woman, she ought to know what interests her sex. ”

“ In discussing the question whether a woman should keep a diary it is understood that it is not a mere memorandum of events and engagements, such as both men and women of business and affairs necessarily keep, but the daily record which sets down feelings, emotions, and impressions, and criticises people and records opinions. But this is a question that applies to men as well as to women. ”

“ The poetry and novels of the century are theirs, and they have touched the keynote of reform in religion, politics and social life. They fill the editor's and professor's chair, plead at the bar of justice, walk the wards of the hospital, speak from the pulpit and the platform. Such is the type of womanhood that an enlightened public sentiment welcomes to-day, and such the triumph of the facts of life over the false theories of the past. ”

“ Since the essential qualifications just enumerated are not limited to men, women are quite as well fitted to write special feature and magazine articles as are their brothers in the craft. In fact, woman's quicker sympathies and readier emotional response to many phases of life give her a distinct advantage. Her insight into the lives of others, and her intuitive understanding of them, especially fit her to write good "human interest" articles. Both the delicacy of touch and the chatty, personal tone that characterize the work of many young women, are well suited to numerous topics. ”

“ To those young ladies who have the time and the wish to improve their complexion, much information can be given, and, indeed, it is the bounden duty of every woman to use all means within her power to make herself as beautiful as she can. ”

“ Many of these are written by women; their circulation, both through libraries and through sales, is much greater with women than with men; and in many of them the personal gossip is as transient as that which fills the evening papers. ”

“ The newspapers and periodicals of to-day are crowded with advice to women, and while much of it is found in magazines for women, written and edited by men, it is also true that a goodly quantity of it comes from feminine writers ”

“ The Morning Post, after giving the names of the guests present, added that the wide range of feminine activity, shown in the lives and work of those ladies present, proved that into the last four decades women had compressed the work of four centuries. That the interests, work, and present place in the social scheme of women were entirely on a level with that of men, this being the strongest testimony of the enormous advance in civilisation made by all the English-speaking peoples in the past forty years. ”

“ But how are you, the woman who desires to be a journalist, to ascertain whether you have that genuine predisposition, those natural gifts which will renew your strength and take away the bitterness of disappointments? You may come some way towards deciding the point by answering these three questions:--
Are you seriously addicted to reading newspapers and periodicals? Does the thought regularly occur to you, apropos of fact or incident personally observed: "Here is 'copy' for a paper"? Have you the reputation among your friends of being a good letter-writer? ”

“ Who can say what passes in the mind of a woman? When she opens the book of her own heart, and turns to the last page first to see how the thing comes out, is she not puzzled sometimes to find all the print running backward? ”

“ It took many centuries of hammering before the portals of business and industry and art were thrown wide open to women. Now that that has happened it is her duty and pride to conduct herself in such a way that there can be no regrets and vain longings for the return of the woman of yesterday. ”

“ Several apparently praiseworthy or harmless movements that have attracted the fickle enthusiasm of women during this same period have really been byways of this movement of emancipation. Thus, we have had the almost wholly admirable enthusiasm for the Hospital Nurse’s career; the (already much-abused) profession of Lady Journalist; the Woman 3 Doctor ”

“ The stories of which it is composed have been mainly written with the end of creating for woman, in the various life-trials through which she has to pass, sympathy and true consideration, as well in her own sex as in ours. ”

“ For our encouragement in laboring for the elevation of woman, it is well ever and anon to review the advancing steps. Each year we hail with pleasure new accessions to our faith. Strong words of cheer have come to us on every breeze. Brave men and true, from the higher walks of literature and art, from the bar, the bench, the pulpit, and legislative halls, are ready now to help woman wherever she claims to stand. The Press, too, has changed its tone. Instead of ridicule, we now have grave debate. ”

“ If this new evaluation of woman’s work in civilization seems to err on the side of woman, we shall be satisfied if it helps to bring about a re-evaluation which shall include women not in an incidental way but as people of flesh and blood and brain—feeling, seeing, judging and directing, equally with men, all the great social forces which mold character and determine general comfort, well-being and happiness. ”

“ Can we, however, immerse ourselves continually during our day to day detailed work in discussions on woman's capacity in order to prove with evidence and examples that she is capable, like man, of taking up any career and fulfilling any duty? ”

“ Wise men, physicians, and sensible women, made their appeals, year after year; physiologists lectured on the subject; the press commented, until it seemed as if there were a serious demand for some decided steps, in the direction of a rational costume for women. ”

“ The world is full of books about women,—most often alluded to in such books as “Woman.” The vast majority of these books have been written by men, and until quite lately the few women who wrote about women confined themselves to repeating the precepts laid down by men. ”

“ It is often said of those who lead in this attempt at the readaption of woman’s relation to life, that they are “New Women”; and they are at times spoken of as though they were a something portentous and unheard-of in the order of human life. ”

“ Considering the difficulties to be surmounted, due to the advance preparation of material, and considering that, at the best, most of its advance information, even by the highest authorities, could only be in the nature of surmise, the comprehensive manner in which The Ladies' Home Journal covered every activity of women during the Great War, will always remain one of the magazine's most note-worthy achievements. ”

“ The female portion of American society has occupied so little of our attention, that I fear the omission will be considered by the ladies here as the most material and least excusable fault; for, as a drama without female beauty and devotion to it, is hard to manage with interest, so a traveller's journal which shall contain no pleasing observations upon the lovely half of our species must expect their unqualified disapprobation. ”

“ Disdainful of all artificial adjuncts of mystery, to all appearance a woman like other women, packing her little sick-baskets, balancing the coal-club accounts, teaching in her Sunday-school, the centre of religion, of charity, and of tittle-tattle, woman in orders fronts calmly the inquirer, a being fearfully and wonderfully English, unknowable and unknown. ”

“ Women said, "Here is one to whom we can tell our misery, one who will listen to our story of pain, one whom we can fully trust." And so the letters began to arrive from every quarter. Now hundreds of these letters are received every day. More than a hundred thousand were written in a single year. Everyone is opened by a woman, read by a woman, sacredly regarded as written strictly in confidence by one woman to another. Men do not see these letters. ”

“ And yet the exhibition was pathetic, for it had the suggestive vulgarity of a woman in man's clothes. The imitation is always a dreary failure.
THE MISTRESS. Such women are the rare exceptions. I am ready to defend my sex; but I won't attempt to defend both sexes in one.
THE FIRE-TENDER. I have great hope that women will bring into the newspaper an elevating influence; the common and sweet life of society is much better fitted to entertain and instruct us than the exceptional and extravagant. ”