USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 24
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
ch
Wer
352
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
winds, and again by coasts of continents, travel east. south, west and north, until they make a complete circuit. There seems to be a prevailing east to west wind around the globe. This, formerly a current across the Atlantic, strikes the shores of America, is deflected, and finally recrosses the ocean in an opposite direction, reaching Europe, and has a slight climatic influence on that continent.
Ocean currents, per se, have the power of making land; again they can destroy land. The rushing of a tide through a narrow inlet forms a true ocean current, and is of great erosive power. A current will carry sediment and detritus from shore to deep sea. Coarse, heavy fragments torn from the land by waves and tides, and the finer sands wrested from the conti- nents by the erosive action of rivers and atmospheric agencies, are borne along by the sea, the one to be dropped near the coast, the other to be carried out to the deep sea. When a cur- rent thus loaded meets a body of calm water its motion is checked, and it drops its load. When such deposits are suffi- ciently large, they may become the nucleus for islands. Some- times such a current may become a vehicle for icebergs, which either run against and tear up littoral deposits, or they may drop over considerable area their own load of foreign rocks.
Wave action is erosive. Islands formed by such agency are high and rocky. Ocean currents are quieter in their action and land formed by them is low and muddy. The one marks the remains of an old coast line, like the shores of Norway and Sweden, the other shows the foundation of a new coast line, like the eastern sand islands of North Carolina. Geological influences of erosion may be great; by deposit, must be.
The velocity of currents varies, generally from twenty- four to forty miles a day, but the Gulf Stream has a velocity of
353
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
ninety, and the current in the channel of Madagascar flows eighty. The velocity of currents may vary with temperature, salinity, density or prevailing winds. Surface currents have been studied more definitely than deep sea currents; of move- ments at greater than from three hundred to four hundred fathoms, little, comparatively, is known. The surface drift of cold arctic and antarctic waters affect isothermal lines. Cold surface drift affects temperatures, even at the equator.
A few words about our own Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream has been described simply, if not truly, as a stream fifty miles wide, one thousand feet deep, flowing at the rate of ninety-six miles a day. The Gulf Stream has its origin in a strong equatorial current, crossing the Atlantic from east to west, formed by prevailing winds. Starting from the Gulf of Guiana, it reaches the new world, off the coast of Brazil. It skirts the northern coast of South America along the shores of Guiana and Venezuela, passes northwesterly along Central America, following closely the contour of Yucatan and Mexico. Entering the Gulf it passes between Yucatan and Cuba. In making its exit it passes between Cuba and Florida, and the current is henceforth known as the Gulf Stream, and is flowing southeast. The Bahama Islands check its course at this point, and it is deflected north and east along the coast of the United States, from which it is ever separated by a belt of cold water, which occupies three-eighths of the total breadth of one hun- dred and forty miles at Florida. This cold belt flows south from arctic regions, and dips under the outgoing current.
The Gulf Stream is quite superficial, not being more than one-third the depth of the channel at Florida. As it flows north it spreads out like a fan, and is perceptible off Charleston as having three warm bands aggregating one hunderd and sixty-
y· of
1
354
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
seven miles wide, with two cold bands intervening, of fifty-two miles in width. The most western band is the warmest and flows the fastest, while the eastern band is colder, moves slower and is finally undistinguishable from the open sea. The stream is directed east, after passing Sandy Hook. At Nantucket it has a velocity of about one mile an hour, though at points east of this, it has been detected with a velocity of six miles an hour, being accelerated by the narrowing influences of cold cur- rents from Labrador, and their flotillas of icebergs. The entire stream loses its identity by the time it reaches the thirtieth de- gree of west longitude; loses its temperature, its velocity and its remarkable blue color. At the last point at which it can be distinctly traced, it is flowing due east in a stream not more than fifty fathoms deep, and at a rate at which it would take one hundred days to reach Land's End. However, a small branch flows into the Bay of Biscay, being known as Rennell's current, skirts the coast of France, and strikes the British Islands, near Scilly Isles. But the proverbial mild climate of this "right little, tight little Island" is otherwise accounted for.
The temperature of Stream at Florida in winter-seventy- seven degrees, at Nova Scotia, sixty-two degrees. In summer, at Florida, the temperature is eighty-three degrees, at Nova Scotia, seventy-eight degrees. The climatic influence of this stream on certain parts of Europe must be less than is usually believed, since the greater portion of the stream is no longer recogniz- able east of the thirtieth meridian, while no portion of Europe extends west of the tenth.
The Gulf Stream is but a rivulet, as compared with the whole body of ocean. The warm climate of Europe is directly traceable to the superficial drift of the entire surface of the equatorial ocean. Much has been said about the possible effect
355
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
on the climate of Europe, if we were to join the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a channel through the Isthmus, diverting the Gulf Stream to the Pacific instead of crossing the Atlantic. It might not have the slightest effect, considering the size of ocean compared to any artificial channels man could make, and ad- mitting the doctrine of general oceanic circulation. This theory propounded by Prof. Lenz of St. Petersburg, in 1845. was for- gotten, and resurrected by Dr. Carpenter and Prof. Myville Thomson in 1868. This theory proves the existence of vertical currents, sustained by the opposition of temperature, which is quite independent and distinct from the horizontal currents pro- duced by prevailing winds.
THE FINANCIAL SIDE OF A WOMAN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE
Paper Read Before Sorosis by Dr. Lillian G. Towslee, November 2, 1893
The practice of medicine is a good profession, but a poor trade. The late Dr. F. J. Weed said there are two classes of physicians-those who have so much to do that they are tired out continually, and the others who have not enough and are consequently worried with the wherewithal to sustain the inner man-the former overworked, the latter underworked.
When a physician considers his work as a trade, then he has degraded his noble calling. Be systematic in your work. A physician can be methodical if he so plans. A sick person pre- fers a doctor to be regular in his visits.
Woman met with great opposition when she first entered the medical career. Every obstacle was placed in her path, for men did not want her in the profession. At first it was hard to take up the study of medicine, but after patience and per-
e
ne ly the ect
356
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
severance, woman has gained the day, and has found a place for herself, so there is no longer a cry against women physicians. A detriment to her in the past was the vast number of mid- wives, but no intelligent woman will risk her life with such a person at this day and age of the world.
Prepare yourself to be able to cope with the best. The lengthened course of study the best medical colleges have adopted, will help to weed out the unqualified. It is skill that is required in the medical profession. A teacher is born, not made; so may it be said of a good physician.
Select a good location, a place where you expect to remain, and always be at your office during the appointed hours. Wherever a physician locates she should remain at least two years, for in less time she will be unable to know whether she will succeed. The financial side of a woman physician's life does not differ from a man's. She must make the same necessary preparation. Her office should be well equipped with all neces- sary medical appliances. Some comforts are necessary, for where is there a woman who does not possess the instincts for a home? After she has completed her round of calls and office work, there is no place like home. She should be able to make a night call as speedily as a man-and I believe she can every time. A woman physician requires the same necessities of life as any other woman. Her fees being the same as her brother physician, there is no reason why she should not be able to meet all her expenses with ease.
The doctor's bill in many families is the last to be paid, especially in years like 1893, when nearly every person goes to the World's Fair, and leaves the poor doctor's bill behind. As soon as money is the first and only consideration, then the pro- fession becomes degraded. A woman physician must possess
357
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
tact, energy and skill, if she is to make a success of the pro- fession. Women have not been in the medical profession a half century. There are thousands of successful women physicians in our land today. There are hundreds whose yearly income is from two to five thousand dollars and a number in our large cities, Philadelphia and New York, whose income annually amounts from ten to fifteen thousand. This would prove that women are required in the profession, and we are glad to say that our number is increasing every year.
The medical is one of the most lucrative professions a woman may enter, providing she possesses the essential quali- ties for the work. There is much work done by every physician for which there is no compensation, namely, "dead beat" patron- age, and a large amount of charity work with which every phy- sician comes in contact. If a physician does not possess any business ability, she will not prosper as to her finances. For one should know how to invest money as well as to be able to earn it. She should possess business qualifications, good judgment, tact, skill, energy and above all, good common sense.
A PLEA FOR WOMEN IN THE BUSINESS WORLD Paper Read by Mrs. H. L. Tobien, at Meeting of Sorosis, February 1, 1894
In taking up this subject, which has been presented to us in so many different ways, and with so many side-lights thrown upon it, two important factors suggest themselves to my mind: the actual condition of things as they exist, whether successful or otherwise, and the causes leading to these conditions.
With reference to the first factor, it would seem almost ridiculous that a body of women, occupying the position we have taken with regard to ourselves, should for a moment question
358
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
the fitness of woman for any purpose that she may bend her strength toward.
I think the world is agreed on that point. There was a time, still in the memory of some, when there was no such agreement; when her horoscope was so limited that what it em- braced could be told off upon the fingers. Some of us still re- member a time when it was not thought wise to extend a wom- an's education very much beyond a little reading, writing and spelling, for the reason that she would have no uses for any- thing beyond, and, if she had, could not master any branches more complicated.
That she could become a mathematician or a Greek scholar was a question that did not admit even of consideration. Today the question is not considered; it has considered itself. The barriers are down. The wise sages of the past did not let them down carefully and invite the gentler sex to walk over and browse in the green pastures beyond; they did not even let them down at all. Women surged upon them and broke them down; entered in and possessed themselves of the land; took rank at a bound with intellectual giants, and have never had thrown back at them the charge of mediocrity.
It is needless to go any farther in this direction. The nine- teenth century will soon lie like a map behind you with all its meaning for the future.
But there is another factor bearing largely on this subject, which is the purpose of my paper today. It has to do with those keener faculties of the mind which are considered essential in order to skillfully conduct, and successfully carry on, a thriving business.
If there is no question as to women being able to accomplish all they undertake along intellectual lines, why is there a gen-
359
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
eral doubt as to whether they as a class have the essential quali- fications for that hand to hand and brain to brain struggle with life, that will insure the respectful consideration of their acknowledged superiors?
I am convinced from all that has gone before, that this depends very largely, as Mr. Henry James would put it, upon "the point of view."
Without a single exception, I believe, whenever we think or talk of the success or capabilities of a woman in the business world, the mind instantly reverts to the success and capabilities of a man in the business world. Here, then, comes the test, the pivotal point on which the entire problem rests. How does she bear comparison? The question is often asked by men sneeringly, by women hesitatingly. What is the reason?
In order to ask the question fairly we must understand what men consider the essential requisites to success from a business standpoint. From the multi-millioned Gould and Van- derbilt down to the smallest tradesman, the answer is the same. He is the most successful who puts the deepest lining into his own pocket. His rule of measurement is the crafty, strategic, far-eyed and ofttimes unscrupulous business giant. Ways and means are not always looked into. The question is not often asked "on 'chance" or in the Exchange, whether a man can honestly earn $1,000,000 in a lifetime. If he gets it, he is a success. In every avenue of labor the same law applies. The measure of success is the worldly wealth obtained.
In the tremendous push for precedence, men have little time to think of one who has been pushed to the wall or crippled, that they might reach the top. They look upon the uprising of one and the downfall of another as simply the survival of the fittest, and hurry on, using the fallen ones as lessons for
h n-
360
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
their own advancement, with that comfortable subversion of an old rule into the easier one, "Do others or they will do you."
How many of the world's famous business men would be willing to have a brilliant calcium light thrown upon the in- tricate windings of the methods they have used for success? How many who do not rank as giants in stocks and bonds could stand the blazing light of day upon their movements?
I do not wish to imply that business men are dishonest. as the world goes. The old adage, "In love as in war, every ad- vantage is fair," is carried well into the business man's spec- ulations, with a simple substitution of terms; and while he would scorn to look upon himself as anything but an honest man, he would not always be willing that even his wife should know just how he had secured the means that give her affluence. Long years of questionable methods in business ventures have stamped as right and fair results which, to the uninitiated, would seem little short of highway robbery.
Do you ask what has all this to do with business women or their possibilities as such? I have meant that it should be the entering wedge to the solution of a problem that has many difficulties connected with it.
Why do men laugh at earnest women for wishing to enter the arena of competition? Not because they are dull or slow to comprehend the ins and outs of business; not because they have proven themselves unworthy of trust in high and respons- ible places. No one ever heard of a woman embezzler, of one short in her accounts, of one suddenly called away to some re- mote and inaccessible country for the purpose of escaping the penalty of crookedness. Neither is it because they are un- methodical or careless as to word and time. Such faults, if ex- isting, are easily eliminated. We must look elsewhere for the
361
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
reason. Men know well that a woman would never resort to methods that are common to them in their business life. That eternal sense of right that seems to be hers divinely, will never allow her to barter her own soul by making stepping stones of other souls in order to fill her purse with ill-gotten gains.
Men do not want women to jostle them too closely in the business world. Just as they do not want them in politics, they would rather not have them too familiar with the unwritten rules that govern their actions.
What chances, then, have women in the competitive race for wealth and fame, standing on their own merits? On the assumption that they would find nothing in their contact with business men and business principles that would shock their understanding of the Golden Rule, how would they bear com- parison with men in conducting the various industries of life? Is it surprising, in view of the position taken, that we must answer, very poorly? As well might we have said, when 4.000,- 000 of slaves were set adrift in our country as free men, that they were expected to take their place among the world's work- ers and at once prove their fitness for the privilege. Tremb- ling they looked out upon a world that had been to them only the boundary line of a plantation. Beyond these lines they must go and begin a struggle for bread, against almost insur- mountable difficulties. Unlettered, undisciplined, unused to self- reliance, it is little wonder that it takes a long time for them to prove their raison d'etre on God's free earth.
How, then, shall we expect women, whose boundary lines have been the four walls of home, whose environments have kept them so distinctly apart from even a cursory knowledge of business, to win renown at once? No man can expect to win a race who is left a mile behind at the starting. In the intel-
e
362
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
lectual race woman cleared the broad hiatus at a bound. But in this struggle the odds are fearfully against her. She not only has the work of the past to undo before she can even begin, but by her influence she must create a revolution in existing methods.
Not in the limited horoscope of our time, perhaps, can it be determined in her case whether there shall be a survival of the fittest. But if, as the years go by, she takes the place that God has all along intended for her, is it not probable that the business world will be largely influenced by her, and that the Golden Rule will then have a broader interpretation and a wider significance ?
THE ANNUAL BANQUET AMERICAN WOMEN IN LITERATURE, PHILAN- THROPY AND TRADE
Paper Read at Sorosis Banquet, April 30, 1894, by Lydia Hoyt Farmer "A lady with a lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood !"
In these lines Longfellow evinced his prophetic foresight. This is woman's century, and the last score of years of this nineteenth century have written woman's history in shining letters of never fading lustre. Womanhood has received the radiant crown of mental emancipation and her spiritual wings have been unbound, so she may soar at will through science amid the starry spaces, or wield the powerful pen, or crush the shackles of evil by philanthropic efforts, or place her deli- cate finger on the mighty machinery of trade which keeps the world's pulse throbbing with commercial life.
363
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
American women have gained a prominence in literature which places them in the front ranks of living writers. A well known syndicate manager says of women as literary workers: "It is an indisputable fact that the best literary work to-day is being done by woman, and the most conclusive evidence of this lies in the fact that of the fifteen most successful books published within the past two years, eleven were written by women." The same manager says: "I have found literary women just, fair, always courteous and obliging. I have found their work more evenly meritorious than that of men, while the most successful articles which I have printed in newspapers and magazines came from the pens of women." Statistics received from the editors of the Century, Harper's, Scribner's, Forum, Ladies' Home Journal, and New England Magazine, show that nearly two thousand women have contributed articles to those journals. Among women essayists, who are constant contributors to the leading magazines, many wield a strong pen, depicting social themes with telling force.
Many of our women novelists sketch the salon or the high- way with graceful picturesqueness, and some there are whose spiritual insight places them in the front ranks of fiction artists.
Mr. R. H. Stoddard says regarding the women poets of America : "There is more force and more originality-in other words, more genius-in the living female poets of America than in all their predecessors, from Mistress Anne Bradstreet down. At any rate, there is a wider range of thought in their verse, and infinitely more art. And Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman thus comments upon American women in literature:
"Our daughters of song outnumber those in England, and some of them, like some of their brethren, have thin voices; but it is just as true that much genuine poetry is composed by
364
The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
others, and that, while we have none whose notes equal those of at least one Englishwoman, in average merit they are not behind their fair rivals. Their lyrics, sonnets, ballads, are feminine and spontaneous, and often highly artistic. To be sure, our aspirants of either sex are attempting few works of invention; where all are sonneteering, it is not strange that women should hold their own, yet their advance in discipline and range is apparent also in novels and other prose work; they know more than of old, their thought is deeper, their feel- ing more healthy. The morale of their verse is always elevat- ing; in other respects it fluently adapts itself to the conven- tions of the day. These poets mostly sing for expression's sake, and therefore without affectation. They often excel the sterner sex in perception of the finer details of life and nature. The critic would be a renegade, who, after paying his tribute to feminine genius in England, should not recognize with satis- faction what has been achieved by his own countrywomen. They have their shortcomings, not the least of which in some of them is that even perfection which is in itself a fault; but a general advance is just as evident in their poetry as in the prose fiction for which they are now held in honor throughout the English- speaking world."
Woman has always been the leader in philanthropic and Christian enterprises. The doors of benevolent effort have always opened at her approach. Miss Frances E. Willard, who leads the vast army of philanthropic women in America, thus sums up the accomplished results of American women in phil- anthropy: "Consider the fact that more than eighty-two per cent. of all our public school teachers are women; that over two hundred colleges have now over four thousand women students; that industrial schools for girls are being founded in
365
Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
almost every state. Pass in review the philanthropies of women -involving not fewer than sixty societies of national scope and value, with their hundreds of state and tens of thousands of local auxiliaries both North and South, and the countless local boards organized to help the defective, dependent and delinquent classes in town and city. Study the 'College Settlements,' or colonies of college women who establish themselves in the poorer parts of the great cities, and work on the plan of Toynbee Hall, London; think of the women's protective agencies, women's san- itary associations and exchanges, industrial schools and societies for physical culture, all of which are but clusters on the heavy laden boughs of the Christian civilization on which woman raises up, and with her lifts towards heaven the world.
"Contemplate the women's foreign and home mission so- cieties. They circulate about 125,000 copies of missionary pa- pers, besides millions of pages of leaflets. They hold at least a half-million missionary meetings every year, presided over by women, the addresses and papers read by the sisterhood, that, forty years ago, would no sooner have thought of doing such a work than they would of taking a journey to the moon. They raise and distribute about two millions of money. Marshal in blessed array the King's Daughters, 200,000 strong, with their hallowed motto, 'In His Name'; and the Society of Christian Endeavor, with its immense contingent of women; and the Women's Temperance Publishing Association of Chicago, with its annual issue of 125,000 pages. Women have erected in Chi- cago a temple costing $1,100,000, not for show and not for glory, but to afford by its rentals the wherewithal to carry on their work of philanthropy and reform throughout the nation. The air of these last days is electric with delightful tidings. Women have the ballot now on school questions in twenty-two
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.