Content-Type: text/html
A Woman's Place:
Newspaper Advice Columns in the Wake of the Nineteenth Amendment
-Abstract-
The Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the vote, was just one manifestation of the social, political, legal, and economic changes that roiled the United States during the 1920s. Traditional roles filled by men and women were being questioned. In a world where such customary sources of support and information as kin and local community were weakening, newspaper advice columnists filled the void as objective, sophisticated authorities.
This study examines more than a decade of national advice columns in the wake of the Amendment, and finds them to be both a promoter of new ideas and a reflector of reality. The Amendment was a catalyst to change that people struggled with throughout that decade, as they do to this day.
A Woman's Place:
Newspaper Advice Columns in the Wake of the Nineteenth Amendment
By
Jacquelyn Lowman, M.A.
Mass Media Doctoral Student
College of Communication Arts and Sciences
Michigan State University
and
Lucinda D. Davenport, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Journalism
Michigan State University
[log in to unmask]
(517) 355-6574
Paper submitted to the Committee on the Status of Women, AEJMC National Convention, Phoenix, Ariz., 2000.
A Woman's Place:
Advice Columns in the Wake of the Nineteenth Amendment
Newspaper advice columns and the Nineteenth Amendment - what a combination! What should women do once they obtained the right to vote? Advice columns would tell them. What role were women to fill in the home once they could assert their rights for more options? Advice columns would tell them. And, what would be their legal, political, economic, and social positions within society? Advice columns would tell them.
The adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920, was a signal of transition for both women and men. On the one hand, critics of women's suffrage predicted that the Nineteenth Amendment would bring grievous consequences - broken marriages (or worse, no marriages) and broken homes; children would suffer. On the other hand, suffrage supporters contended that the ability of twenty-seven million women to vote would bring unprecedented benefits -- a more moral system of governing the country. Caught in the middle were women of all types who had their own expectations of women's roles. Some women wished to continue to live as they had before August 26th. Others felt that once they had the right to vote, their place in the home and in society would be equal to men's. In this changeover, what could society expect from women? What could they expect from themselves?[1]
Many women turned to advice columns for answers to their questions. Advice columnists were considered knowledgeable, worldly people. They were authorities to whom women turned for objective advice that they felt they could not get from such traditional sources of knowledge and support as family and friends.
Just as traditional customs, priorities, and certainties were being challenged in the home and local communities in 1920, great changes were happening in the United States nationally, as well: For the first time, more people lived in urban areas than rural.[2] The country had one foot in its agrarian past, but was stepping into an industrialized future. Government's role was changing, becoming more involved in people's private lives. People struggled to adjust to the changing society and economy, while maintaining core values and beliefs.[3] One locale, the Lansing area in Michigan, was a typical microcosm of the conflicting forces that the country as a whole was experiencing. It was positioned in the heart of rich agricultural land. Yet it was a cradle of industry, in particular, nascent auto manufacturers. It was the state capital, and was an educational center. So in the Lansing area, there existed an interplay of the forces that were roiling the country: blue collar and white collar, unschooled and educated, urban and rural, industrial and agricultural, public (governmental) and private.[4]
To gain insight into contemporary conceptions of appropriate female familial and societal roles after the Nineteenth Amendment, this study examined the coverage of and for women that appeared in the Lansing newspaper, the State Journal,[5] during the decade following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.[6] Throughout this period, the newspaper always had a page of general letters and editorials, and often contained a women's page as well. Since the editorial and feature columns provided the most consistent coverage of women, the study focused on them. All the columns that the study found were nationally syndicated - there were none local. So these columns do not specifically say what the local people thought. Rather, they provide insight into the ideas of national authorities that local editors thought would resonate with their readers. The columns are a window onto national issues, filtered through a process of local selection.[7]
Many of the columns from this period dealt with such timeless areas as how to attract members of the opposite sex, how to win and keep a spouse, how to prepare nutritious meals with little time and financial expenditures. Although these are of interest for their eternal character, the study chose to concentrate instead on those columns that dealt with women's and society's adjustments to women's continuing and evolving roles.[8]
Early Columns: Laying the Groundwork . . .
Well-known author Christine Frederick extolled the science of homemaking in books[9] and in a national daily column that appeared in the State Journal in 1920. Most of her columns dealt with such topics as planning menus for the week ahead, keeping cool by cooking with electricity, taking the drudgery out of doing laundry, and selecting aluminum cookware.[10] But occasionally Frederick abandoned traditional housewife concerns for more controversial subjects.
One column asked - and answered - the question "Should wives earn money?" She began by asserting that many people objected to wives working for pay, although they did not question their working for philanthropies, or even to their frittering away their time. Nor did they question poor women leaving their homes and children to scrub the homes of the rich. So it was not women's working, per se, with which they disagreed. It was only if they posed a challenge to traditional male domains by holding down a well-salaried position. Frederick said that she could better understand the objection if all wives had small children who needed their nurture and care; but that was only a small proportion of the total number of wives at any one time. She then noted that not all women were suited to domesticity. She continued:
Modern inventions have lightened the household burdens to such an extent that thousands of women actually find little to do, in caring for a small home, and overseeing the education of a child or two. It is natural for them, therefore, if they have ability and energy, to use all their talents, and seek financial compensation for them. Often mothers are eager to add to the family earnings in order to send children to college, or give them advantages. But even if they are not actuated by such unselfish motives, they surely have a right to work and be paid for honest labor, as a man is.
She concluded by reminding readers of how the war brought millions of women into gainful trades - some of which were in grueling heavy industries that they might have been glad to relinquish. But now that some women had had a taste of working for pay, they wished to continue - and should be encouraged to do so.[11]
This column raised several points. For many women, especially full-time homemakers, technology really did not mean less time spent in housework. In fact, it meant that she had no excuses for anything less than an immaculate house - there was a device to help with every imaginable household task. However, for those women who could get by with general tidying of rooms, technology meant that they could reorder some of their priorities: In increasing numbers, women would work a "double day" by continuing their housekeeping duties, as well as working outside the home.[12] Although technology made working outside the home more possible, was this an acceptable option to society? Frederick sought to make the argument that wives should be able to work outside the home for pay more palatable by framing it in terms of the loving mother and wife who wanted to do more for her family. Women had always worked when there was economic necessity. But now "necessity" was being redefined. Many families no longer wanted a mere subsistence survival - they aspired to a higher standard of living that additional income could provide.[13] However, even though there is the sense in this and other columns that women had access to occupations on a par with men, there was considerable sex segregation of work.[14]
Frederick contrasted the selflessness of motherhood in one column with the selfishness of the modern girl in another. In "The Mother Vote," appearing six days before Congress voted on the Nineteenth Amendment, Frederick identified herself as a suffragist who had urged women's suffrage in the belief that millions of women would be model citizens and reformers because they were mothers. She asserted that that is why corrupt politicians, fearful of this, fought suffrage. She predicted that soon women would all have the vote. Were they to become apathetic or to vote like their male contacts? She predicted that women would use their votes to preserve the good and to strive for the better. She particularly mentioned child labor, which she said the Supreme Court had permitted, but mothers would rise as one to end. She reminded readers of the reforms that women, even without the ballot, had helped to enact. She ended by urging women, when they did vote, to do so wisely, by studying every candidate, stance, and issue.[15]
Frederick's column on the mother vote was not prescient. The granting of suffrage did not lead women to act as more of a group, but, if anything, accentuated divisions and individualism. Women's communal support networks declined and did not reemerge until the 1970s. Also, by the time women won the vote, it was no longer so significant as a governing force: other methods of shaping policies were more influential.[16]
Frederick's column published on August 26, 1920, the day the Nineteenth Amendment was signed into law, is a criticism of "The Modern Girl." This criticism indicates the fissure that opened between an older generation of suffragists who worked as a collective for the furtherance of all women, and a younger generation of women who were perceived (by their elders and sometime also by themselves) to glorify in individualism and to put a premium on pleasure and experience.[17] She described in detail some of the working girl's extravagances in dress and food. Frederick ended with a vignette about a pretty young woman and her beau with whom she recently had spoken. The woman declared that when she ordered from a menu, she never looked at the price. When Frederick responded that this was unfair to her male companion, the woman retorted that if he did not like it, he could stop escorting her. Frederick concluded, "The adoring youth looked as if he would commit larceny to provide fancy food for her. It is such cruel disregard for prices that makes criminals."[18]
The two columns provide a revealing contrast between the perceived actions of mothers, who will extend their care to the whole world and purify it, and of young, single women, whose self-absorption corrupts and sullies even the once blameless.
No More Questions? No Need for Advice?
From 1921 through 1925, in the months surveyed, the State Journal did not deal, in advice columns, with the complexities and change of women's roles. There was a page called "Women's Features," that included a serialized novel, Thornton Burgess stories to read to children, recipes, and crossword puzzles. During this time, the society page was filled with information on various women's clubs and organizations that worked for civic improvement, progress in education, child welfare, and charitable causes.
Family Values Challenged?
By February 1926, columnist Cynthia Grey was ready to tackle a new and controversial concept - that the traditional family might not be best for everyone, and that that traditional institution and the relationships of its members might need to be reevaluated. She began her column "Marriage Not Essential to Modern Woman's Happiness," by recounting the fairy tale of the prince who sweeps the princess off to live happily ever after. She declared that although this fanciful idea had long been out of date, it was only recently that it had been challenged. Grey reflected quite a progressive attitude. She quoted actress Blanche Yerka on the subject:
The modern professional woman no more needs marriage to complete her happiness . . . .
If marriage were the ideal state of bliss and contentment that sugary novelists who write for sentimental girls describe it to be, then, of course, there would be no choice as to its desirability.
But marriage is rarely ideally happy, especially for a woman who has become accustomed to financial independence, and to pushing herself forward for the goal of fame and name.
A happy marriage usually depends on the effacement of the wife's ego. And it is difficult for the professional woman who has made money and a name for herself through the development of ego, to efface it at once.
Grey concluded with the story of her friend, Irene, a successful advertising copy writer who earned so much money that she took annual European vacations, dressed well, owned her own house and car, and feted her friends whenever and wherever she liked. But she listened to custom and advice, and married. Although she did not plan to leave her husband, she realized that it had been a mistake, and that if she were single again, she would be even happier than before. Grey averred she was not trying to undermine the marital institution; she just wanted women to "stop, look, and listen" before they acted.[19]
Grey's message that marriage was not essential to woman's happiness might have been more convincing if she had used examples that were more applicable to the probable lives of the majority of her readers. In Lansing, Michigan, for example, how many readers would have won fame and fortune as actresses, or have been able to finance annual trips to Europe by writing advertising copy? Was happiness (at least on a par with that of the marital state) possible for women who worked as office workers, as retail clerks, in factories, as domestic help, as teachers, and as agricultural labor - the sorts of occupations in which most women found themselves?[20]
Grey wrote a column dealing with the importance of the home atmosphere for the success of the "business girl."[21] She claimed that much had been written and said about the importance of the home in nurturing and renewing the businessman, while little had been recorded about the home's importance for the business girl. But Grey believed that the home was critical to business success for either gender. She said that although there were many reports of ungrateful daughters who mistreated their families, such daughters were few. She asserted that although most girls of the day worked for their livings, they had not really been accepted as part of the business world, because the experience was still new. She said that it would take at least a century before women were accepted as an integral part of the business world. Grey stated that many families expected their daughters who worked hard at their full-time jobs to also help with the housework, and to stay home from their work and nurse the sick - even if they were not the only ones who could do so. Their roles as wage earners were not valued. She recounted several arrangements that girls could use to "settle" their relationships with their families. They could live at home, not pay board, help out with the chores a bit, and buy some of the "extras" that the family would like. They might prefer a more businesslike arrangement, whereby they paid board, as would any stranger. She mentioned one other alternative:
On the other hand, brutal though it may seem, I have known of many cases where the only solution was for the girl to break away from the family unit and set up her own establishment.
This drastic move is generally made necessary by a family which unanimously makes the working daughter's and sister's first duty the home, and her office job only a stopover afterthought.
I have known many a family to have this attitude no matter what a girl paid, gave, or did in her home. I have known business girls with big jobs on their hands made almost nervous wrecks by families still living in the dark ages as far as their concepts of what a girl's working life really meant, were concerned.[22]
Here is an assertion that a woman's allegiance and duty to the business world might outweigh her commitment, at least in time, to her family. The women discussed were daughters and sisters, not wives and mothers. Still, the idea that women might have ties to the world of business and money that were as valid (or more so) than those to their families, was a step away from the idea that women's primary responsibilities were to family and home. Also, the idea that a family might not be able to count on unquestioned, selfless, and unremunerated care from all its female members posed a challenge to a once inviolate assumption underpinning United States' society.[23]
Grey asked whether wives could have, not just jobs, but careers. She raised the prospect that two-career couples might have to live apart in order for them to pursue their work. She contended that the assertion, "if two people really loved one another, they could not bear to be apart" was too simplistic. "After all, this 100 percent love of which our mothers speak was at least 90 percent love of job as well as man." Homemaking had been a full-time job that allowed a woman to express her creativity and individuality. But she maintained that now technology had changed that, and a woman longed for other outlets, which might require her to be absent from her husband for a time. But she maintained that physical manifestations of love were not its true measure.[24]
The examples in Cynthia Grey's story were distinctly middle to upper class. She talked about the possible necessity of maintaining two separate establishments for the working couple. This would doubtless have been impossible for many of her readers. She did not mention the complication of children - who was to care for them while the couple pursued their separate careers? The careers to which she referred were those of creative artists who needed to be alone to work. How much relevance would all this have had for a woman living in a cramped flat with a husband and children, struggling to make ends meet by supplementing her spouse's income with her work in a mill, as a waitress, or in a home industry? Grey asserted that one did not need to cook one's husband's dinner or do his laundry to be a good wife. Although this might not have had a significant impact on her mature readers' lives, it might have made them question the sorts of lives to which their daughters could aspire.
The Columnist as Surrogate Parent: High Hopes and Reality
By March 1927, the State Journal had several columnists writing on subjects dealing with and of interest to women. The column "The Woman's Day," by Allene Sumner, began to appear regularly in the women's section. The column often contained several short pieces, written in a conversational tone, with information on current personalities or pithy observations on the lives of women. Her columns continued to appear into 1929.[25]
The study first encountered two other columnists in 1927. Although they differed in gender, background, and column location, S. Parkes Cadman[26] and Dorothy Dix[27] were united in using an innovation in reader involvement: they printed and answered anonymous readers' letters containing questions that they considered typical. Some of these columns reflect transitions that the United States was undergoing during this time.
March 1927
Several of the columns from 1927 emphasized the importance and virtues of - and the inherent joy that should come from - traditional homemaking. Allene Sumner told the story of Blanche R. Green, a businesswoman who had earned $100,000 in 1926. But Sumner cautioned housewife readers not to envy Green: She was forced into her position by a sick husband and small children, and claimed that she would have been far happier "if fate had permitted her to carry on as wife and mother in an ordinary little home." This testimony "from one who knows both sides of the 'marriage or career' question should cheer our many depressed housewives who envy their business sisters."[28]
These may have been sincere sentiments. They expressed the conventions of the times and may have heartened some readers. However, others might be left with more questions than answers. Perhaps the sick husband and little children were the catalyst behind Green's entering the work force. But that does not explain the drive and ambition that she must have exhibited that enabled her to earn so much money. Would a woman of such abilities truly have been more content to be queen of her own small home?
Dorothy Dix compared the girl of yesterday with Miss 1927 and found that they were the same at heart. She asserted that the main business of girls, then and in the past, was getting married and having babies - it was just the methods employed to achieve these goals that had changed. Dix pronounced the modern girl "more efficient and keen, more straightforward and courageous than grandma. But she lacks her sweetness and unselfishness - Miss 1927 is not wise enough to know that only those women achieve happiness who give it out with both hands." Although she applauded the modern girl's ability to succeed at any job to which she put her hand, she was dismayed at what she perceived to be that generation's egotism and lack of empathy and tenderness. She concluded with observations on the times and what they exacted from inhabitants: "And so they stand, the girl of today and the girl of yesterday, each a product of her times and each meeting the need of her times."[29]
Dix saw benefits and drawbacks to each generation's methods. She did not claim either strategy superior, nor did she suggest trying to hold back change or being blinded by nostalgia. But she did point out that every gain was attended by consequent losses.
In response to a question on March 22, 1927, Dix opined that no woman should try to hold down two jobs - "the work of a woman" (homemaking) and "the work of a man" (work outside the home for pay). She told the questioner that she should continue working only until her husband could support her in a home to which she could devote all her time.[30] This advice ignores the reality of many contemporary women who either did not have a husband's support, or whose support was not adequate without their supplementing it. Although, as Dix said, the double demands might exact a fearful toll, many women had no choice.[31]
April 1928
By 1928, columnists were emphasizing the importance of education for women as well as men, that marriage was no longer a necessity for women, and that women could be equally as capable at business as men.[32] A fifteen-year-old girl wrote to S. Parkes Cadman, explaining that, while her father had educated his sons, he would not do so for his daughter, because he believed that women never used their education after marriage. The girl asked Cadman for his opinion, declaring that she was determined to gain an education. Cadman replied that such a father was two hundred years behind the times.
The twentieth century girl is entitled to all the education she can legitimately obtain. The assertion that she never makes use of it after marriage is sheer piffle. Why should any daughter be regarded as a candidate for the matrimonial market? Good life is the goal, not matrimony, and a trained, well informed mind is essential for the attainment of such life.[33]
Cadman gave the father a partial excuse by commenting on the mounting expense of education. However, he concluded by remarking that it was often a man's daughter, who by her education and industry, wound up supporting him in his old age.
Dorothy Dix continued the theme that, for "the business girl, like the college girl, _ matrimony is a luxury, not a necessity_." She began a column with a summary of a recent article in Harper's Magazine that had reported on a survey asking why some college women had never married. After listing some of their reasons, she finished the synopsis by stating that although about half regretted not marrying, the remainder were content with their independence and jobs. She continued that the college girl's reasons were precisely why business girls did not marry. She conceded that more college girls than business girls avoided marriage, but contended that this was because going to college made women put off making a marital decision until they were past "the age of indiscretion." Once women had learned some of the lessons of life, whether in college or in "the university of hard knocks," they began "to look at marriage with a wary eye and cold feet." Dix compared, without nostalgia, the options available to the woman of yesterday with those of her day:
In former times every woman was keen to marry because matrimony was the only respectable gainful occupation open to women. They had to marry to secure a home, a position in society, a means of support, and something interesting with which to fill their lives, but nowadays matrimony is a luxury and not a necessity_.
Dix concluded with the observation that the 50 percent satisfaction ratio for single women was about the same as that for married women.[34]
May 1929
In 1929, Dorothy Dix continued to champion a woman's right not to marry and made some revealing observations on the misfortune of being a woman. Dix began the month with a column on how philosophy, common sense, and a good job could ensure that a woman attained "single blessedness." She pondered why so much had been written on how to be happy when married, and so little on how to be happy when single, and decided that it was because it was much harder when married. She urged unmarried women not to view their singleness as a sign that they were unattractive. "The term 'old maid' is only a gibe in the mouths of fools and dates them as being as prehistoric as the dodo." She claimed that "the girl bachelor and the man bachelor stand upon exactly the same social footing." Dix maintained that every woman would choose to be married if she could have the ideal mate - but asked how realistic that was. There were few perfect men, although each woman tended to imagine that she would be the one who would find one. Dix urged the unmarried woman to "espouse a career." She said that everything had changed from the time the only option available to women was to marry.
The unmarried woman's life can be just as full of ambitions and useful, constructive work as a man's. She can earn money as a man can. She is as socially and economically free as a man. Far more than any married woman is. And that is not a blessing to be sneezed at.[35]
Dix replied to a seventeen-year-old female correspondent who hated her gender so much that she had tried to kill herself twice, and meant "to make a go of it" the next time. Dix agreed that it was a man's world and that everything in it was harder for a woman. She faulted convention for putting so much emphasis on women's appearance, while placing much less stress on that of men. She concluded by affirming that, although contemporary women had disadvantages, they were much better off than during their grandmother's time. In that time, she claimed, women got no education and did not work outside the home. "But now every door of door of opportunity is open to you. You can follow any profession for which you have ability and if you can do as good work you can command as high salary as a man." She urged her correspondent to cheer up and to realize that with all its drawbacks, being a woman did entail "a lot of fun and pleasure" and was necessary for the survival of humanity.[36]
Dix indicated that unmarried women could have lives that were as useful and constructive as married women. However, she still was not promoting careers for married women. Further, her assertions that women were "as socially and economically free as a man"[37] and could "follow any profession . . . and . . . command as high salary as a man,"[38] were na‹ve and deceptive. Women were not then and are not now as socially and economically free as are men.[39] Dix was not the only one of her contemporaries who made such claims. But such declarations have long-term negative consequences: Declaring victory in a war that is not won, packing up the troops, and going home leaves no one left to fight further necessary battles. Without continued vigilance, even those gains that have been made can erode.[40] Dix erred in comparing the social and economic freedom of working women, not really with working men, but with other women - homemakers. Her assertion that working women were better off socially and economically than homemakers who were totally dependent upon their husbands may have been true in many cases. Yet framing the comparison in those terms placed women in an untenable position. Being better off than one dependent group does not mean that one is truly independent. But if one is being continually reminded how much better off one's gender is than in the past, especially when a leading proponent of this view is an influential member of that same gender, one appears ungrateful and greedy when one questions what actual gains have been made or tries to make further progress.
June 1930
In her June 1930 columns, Dorothy Dix continued to write that opportunities for women existed, but further noted that so did the disadvantages of being a woman. She persisted in voicing disapproval of mothers' working, but acknowledged that it was not only single women who might have to work - marriage was no longer a guaranteed exit from the ranks of outside employment. Dix used an unidentified male narrator to gloat over the advantages of being male:
Then opportunity knocks far oftener at a man's door than it does at a woman's. There are plenty of things that a man can do from which a woman is debarred just by reason of her sex. And there are other things which she might perhaps do, but from which she is shut off, for the present at any rate, by reason of the prejudice against women.
The speaker continues by noting that appearance does not matter for a man, as it does for a woman, that a man can choose his mate, and that he "can have cake and eat it, too," by having both a career and a home:
When a woman marries, she has to sacrifice one or the other. She has to be a wife and mother and give up the career, or keep the career and be a failure as a wife and mother, because being a wife and mother is no part-time job. Neither is making a _ career. And there is no arguing with nature, that has never devised any new way of having babies, or any synthetic mother that took the place of the real one.[41]
The speaker here might have been Dix, writing in the guise of another gender. By using the sentiments of a man, she was injecting something that she was not saying as Dorothy Dix only a year:[42] Women did not enjoy equal social and economic opportunities with men; they were still subject to many prejudices. Dix and this commentator shared the belief that motherhood was a full-time job, citing nature as irrefutable proof. But what they "proved" was that women bear children, not that they should not work as a consequence. Women who are mothers and who work do not deny their maternity. But they may question a definition of it that says that the only good mother is one who spends all her waking time with her children. The latter interpretation is not borne out by custom, either: The woman of centuries past who worked beside her husband in the fields or in his trade, while trying to maintain a work-intensive home and raise a large number of children, may have had less time to spend with her children than does the woman of today who works outside the home for wages.[43]
Dix wrote a column discussing a report from the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor that marriage "offers 'no economic security for women.'" The report further stated that in the cities, a large proportion of families depended upon the earnings of women, "and in many homes the entire income is earned by the wife and daughters." Dix pointed out that for some women marriage, far from being an escape from outside work, might actually make their situations worse, since in addition to continuing their wage-earning jobs, they now would have the additional burden of making a home. With a nod to the Depression, Dix conceded that some of the causes for women's outside employment might be beyond their control. But she also criticized the modern woman's taste for extras like radios, autos, movies, silk stockings, lingerie, Paris clothes. She concluded by reiterating her warning that women needed to look at work as a career, not simply a job, since they were apt to have to continue in it for most of their adult lives.[44]
Dix's disseminating this report provided some constructive information to her readers. But her equating the working women that the report describes with the self-absorbed, pleasure-seeking flapper, one of her frequent bogeymen, is unfair and too great a leap. The depredations wrought by the Depression were given a passing mention in half a line. The profligacy of the flapper wife received four paragraphs. She referred to days past as halcyon times when people were satisfied with less. But because there were fewer opportunities does not mean that people were satisfied with them. Dix sets up her argument as a dichotomy, contrasting the necessities of the past with the luxuries of the present. But as times change, so does the definition of "necessity."[45] Who is in a position to say that a mother who works so that her children can go to college, or so that they can have a better home or higher quality food and clothes is in any way inferior to Dix's "grandma" who stayed at home and, as she put it, "let George do it?"[46]
Dix returned to the subject of women choosing occupations for which they were "fitted" in another June 1930 column. In past columns, she had made references to the importance of having a good job. Here, she was more specific:
And always remember in choosing an occupation that women succeed best when they stick to womanly pursuits for which their sex has been training for uncounted generations, and which gives them the benefit of what Mr. Darwin called "inherited acquired characteristics." The chief contribution that women have made to the business office and which makes them invaluable as private secretaries is the housewifely ability to keep things in order and remember all the little details of a business transaction and be able to put their hands on a paper in the dark.[47]
In a time when work was heavily sex segregated, and when a secretary was seen as a surrogate wife (without the complications, generally, of sex), such sentiments were not unusual.[48] But one might have hoped for a broader range of possible occupations offered by a woman who, at the time of this writing, had been both a practicing journalist, as well as columnist, for more than thirty-five years.
July 1931
Two Dorothy Dix columns from 1931 touched upon aspects of a period in which both genders were trying to define their roles. Dix began one column with a detailed description of how homes had never known such discord as in that day: husbands and wives could not get along, and children disrespected their parents. She mused that this was strange, since it was a time of unparalleled material prosperity (she made no mention of the impact that the current Depression might have); what was causing the disharmony?
I think it is because we are passing through a transition stage in which husbands and wives and parents and children belong to different worlds.
Husbands and wives quarrel because women are looking at life from the new point of view, while men are still looking at it from the old standpoint. A man marries a girl who has gone from the schoolroom to the business college, and from the business college into a shop or an office where she has held down a good job and earned a good salary, and he is terribly disappointed in her because she doesn't know how to cook and isn't domestic and because she wants to go on with the work in which she is an expert and for which she has fitted herself by years of study and work.
The man expected to treat his wife as his grandfather did his wife - making all decisions for her and "doling out the nickels and dimes on which to run the house."
And the woman who is just as intelligent and well educated as the man, and perhaps earned as big a salary as he did, won't stand for being treated as her grandmother was, and so they fight it out and wreck their home_.
Dix concluded that the solution to this dilemma was for husbands to join the times - "to hurry up and catch up with the procession."[49]
Here, the message was that change could not be reversed or retarded - trying to do so only created further stress. One must adapt or be left behind, bitterly unhappy.
Just two weeks later, Dix used a different approach to discuss the woman's traditional gender role of homemaker. She began by saying that men were forever lamenting that women no longer were domestic minded. She agreed that this was largely true. She also declared that this boded ill for the nation, since the home was its foundation, and there could be no "stable and prosperous home" without a woman in it, working with utter devotion because she thought that it was the highest calling. She derided part-time homemakers who also held down jobs and "whose children roam the streets." She declared that women's homemaking was the most valuable contribution that they could make to the world. But if they did not choose to do so, it was largely men's fault.
_They have never even tried to make housekeeping as a job attractive to women. They haven't even dignified it by ranking it as a trade or a profession, although a man's health and prosperity depend upon how skillful his wife is as a cook and manager and buyer.
Worse still, men do not appreciate the work their wives do in the home_.
Another thing that gives housework a black eye with women is that it carries with it no pay envelope_.
So if men want women to return to their ancient and honorable occupation of home-making, it is up to them to make it attractive.[50]
Summary and Conclusions
Women's advice columns opened the door for women to think about opportunities for themselves and their daughters. These columns expressed the country's mood.
When Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26, 1920, many women readers shared Frederick's excitement, hoping that the ability to vote on issues that directly affected economic and social well-being would give them an opportunity to have a greater voice and to create positive change in society. Grey's columns in the mid-1920s challenged readers to think revolutionary ideas about women and work, daring them to think of themselves as individuals, distinct from parents or husband. They could be successful, glamorous professionals! Yet within the next few years, columnists dampened the thrill. Some, such as Dix, gave contradictory advice in consecutive years: She championed a woman's right to work (at least until she married) and to remain single, but then lamented that it was indeed a man's world. By 1931, readers could feel that with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, things had changed, but not much.
After the Nineteenth Amendment, more women worked, but job possibilities were limited: They had no parity with men. Women were still perceived as sustainers and nurturers; even if they ventured into the world of men, they must adhere to that role. By the end of this study, 1931, the Nineteenth Amendment had not fulfilled its potential. It was just the beginning of changes, changes that are ongoing today.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, Paula. "The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780-1920." The American Historical Review 89:3 (June 1984): 620-47.
Bennion, Sherilyn Cox. "Early Western Publications Expose Women's Suffrage Cries." Matrix (Summer 1979).
Brines, Julie. "Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home." American Journal of Sociology 100:3 (November 1994): 652-88.
Cadman, S. Parkes. "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman." Lansing State Journal. 22 March 1927, 4.
________. "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman." Lansing State Journal. 2 April 1928, 4.
________. "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman." Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, June 1930, July 1931, passim.
Clinton, William J. Remarks by the President in Statement on Equal Pay. Washington: Office of the Press Secretary, 2000. Available online: http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/1/24/11.text.1.
Cooper, Anne Messerly. "Suffrage as News: Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment." American Journalism1, no. 1 (Summer 1983), 75-91.
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. "Two Washes in the Morning and a Bridge Party at Night: The American Housewife between the Wars." In Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940. Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28. Edited and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
________. "Less Work for Mother?" American Heritage 38:6 (September/October 1987): 68-76.
Davenport, Lucinda D. "Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment in Rural Iowa." Paper Presented to the History Division of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 1989.
Davidson, Cathy N. and Linda Wagner-Martin, eds. The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. S.v. "Advice Books," by Nicole Tonkovich.
________. The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. S.v. "Dix, Dorothy," by Carol Reuss.
Degler, Carl N. At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Dix, Dorothy. "The Girl of Yesterday vs. Miss 1927." Lansing State Journal. 14 March 1927, 10.
________. "Mabel." Lansing State Journal. 22 March 1927, 12.
________. "The Business Girl, Like the College Girl, Has Become 'Choosy' About Men - Nowadays Matrimony Is a Luxury, Not a Necessity - And There Is by No Means the Scramble for Husbands That There Used to Be." Lansing State Journal. 6 April 1928, 16.
________. "The Old Maid of Today Has as Good a Chance for Happiness as the Much-Envied Bachelor - All She Needs Is Philosophy, Common Sense and a Good Job to Attain Single Blessedness." Lansing State Journal. 1 May 1929, 10.
________. "No One Can Blame a Woman for Wishing She Had Been Born a Man, Agrees Dorothy Dix, Since Everything Is Harder for Her Just Because She Is a Woman - But the Best Thing to Do Is to Be a Good Sport About It." Lansing State Journal. 24 May 1929, 28.
________. "No Longer Can Girls Look upon Their Jobs as a Bridge of Sighs That Reaches from the Schoolroom to the Altar, for Government Statistics Prove That Marriage No Longer Provides Economic Security." Lansing State Journal. 2 June 1930, 8.
________. "When You Choose a Job, Girls, Choose One for Which You Are Fitted and in Which You Expect to Stay for a Lifetime - Then, Whether You Marry or Not, You Will Always Have a Livelihood." Lansing State Journal. 27 June 1930, 14.
________. "Why Shouldn't a Man Be Proud Simply Because He's a Man, When All the Advantages and Perquisites of Society, Business and Marriage Fall to His Lot by Right of Birth?" Lansing State Journal. 30 June 1930, 14.
________. "Is It Because Men Are Old-Fashioned in Their Treatment of Emancipated Wives, and Because Children Are Too Modern for Either Parent, That There Are Fewer Peaceful and Happy Homes?" Lansing State Journal. 13 July 1931, 8.
________. "How Can Women Get a Thrill out of Housework When Men Despise It, Yet Take It for Granted and When They Begrudge an Extra Nickel or a Word of Appreciation as Pay for It?" Lansing State Journal. 27 July 1931, 8.
________. "Dorothy Dix's Letter Box." Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, June 1930, July 1931, passim.
Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Singapore: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997.
Folbre, Nancy. "The Unproductive Housewife: Her Evolution in Nineteenth-Century Economic Thought." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16:31 (1991): 463-84.
Folbre, Nancy and Marjorie Abel. "Women's Work and Women's Households: Gender Bias in the U.S. Census." Social Research 56:3 (Autumn 1989): 545-69.
Frederick, Christine. "Catering for the Home." Lansing State Journal. 5 August 1920, 5.
________. "Cool Cooking - Electricity." Lansing State Journal. 9 August 1920, 5.
________. "Wisdom of Washday." Lansing State Journal. 16 August 1920, 5.
________. "Should Wives Earn Money?" Lansing State Journal. 18 August 1920, 5.
________. "The Mother Vote." Lansing State Journal. 20 August 1920, 5.
________. "The Modern Girl." Lansing State Journal. 26 August 1920, 5.
________. "Selection of Aluminum Ware." Lansing State Journal. 31 August 1920, 5.
Freedman, Estelle B. "The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s." In Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940. Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28. Edited and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Grey, Cynthia. "Marriage Not Essential to Modern Woman's Happiness." Lansing State Journal. 9 February 1926, 12.
________. "Home Atmosphere of Paramount Importance to the Business Girl." Lansing State Journal. 10 February 1926, 7.
________. "More Discussion on the Old Question: May Wife Have a Career?" Lansing State Journal. 18 February 1926, 16.
Hamlin, Fred. S. Parkes Cadman, Pioneer Radio Minister. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1930.
Jensen, Joan M. and Lois Scharf. "Introduction." In Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940. Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28. Edited and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Kerber, Linda K. "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History." Journal of American History 75:1 (1988): 9-39.
Kessler, Lauren. "The Idea of Women Suffragists and the Portland Oregonian." Journalism Quarterly 57 (Winter 1980), 597-605.
Manassah, Sallie M., David Thomas, and James F. Wallington. Lansing: Capital, Campus, and Cars. With a foreword by Governor James Blanchard. East Lansing, Michigan: Contemporary Image Adv., Ltd., 1986.
McGovern, James R. "The American Woman's Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals." Journal of American History 55 (2): 315-33.
Milkman, Ruth. "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis: Some Lessons from the Great Depression." In A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women. Edited and with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Smith, Linda Lavier. "Coverage or Cover Up: A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment." Paper presented to the Committee on the Status of Women of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 1984.
Stricker, Frank. "Cookbooks and Law Books: The Hidden History of Career Women in Twentieth Century America." Journal of Social History 10:1 (1976): 1-19.
Sumner, Allene. "Rich, But - !" Lansing State Journal. 10 March 1927, 14.
________. "Woman's Day." Lansing State Journal. 20 April, 1928, 23.
________. "The Woman's Day." Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, passim.
Tilly, Louise A. "Women, Work, and Citizenship." International Labor and Working-Class History 52 (Fall 1997): 1-26.
U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, vol. 3. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. 1. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931.
Vanek, Joann. "Time Spent in Housework." In A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women. Edited and with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Wandersee, Winifred D. "The Economics of Middle-Income Family Life: Working Women During the Great Depression." In Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940. Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28. Edited and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
[1] Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 328-61; Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Singapore: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997), 152-56, 164-73; Paula Baker, "The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780-1920," The American Historical Review 89:3 (June 1984): 642-47; Louise A. Tilly, "Women, Work, and Citizenship," International Labor and Working-Class History 52 (Fall 1997): 1-4, 16-22.
[2] U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931), 8.
[3] Baker, "The Domestication of Politics," 645-46; Evans, Born for Liberty, 173, 175-96, 204-10.
[4] Sallie M. Manassah, David Thomas, and James F. Wallington, Lansing: Capital, Campus, and Cars, with a foreword by Governor James Blanchard (East Lansing, Michigan: Contemporary Image Adv., Ltd., 1986), 44-56, 128-39.
[5] There was another newspaper, the Lansing Capital News, published in Lansing from 1921-1932 (it was later absorbed by the Lansing State Journal). It was not used in the study because its issues, only available on microfilm, were too faint to be read.
The State Journal's masthead did not bear circulation figures at this time. A promotion for the Woman's Section, on June 18, 1930, claimed a daily average circulation of over 44,000. However, an announcement in the July 9, 1931 issue gave the daily circulation, per the Audit Bureau of Circulations, as 42,514. The latter figure, from the heart of the Depression, might well have been higher in previous years.
[6] No studies could be found that examined newspaper coverage (or advice columns) concerning women's roles in the wake of the Nineteenth Amendment. A few studies examined coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment specifically. See, for example, Lucinda D. Davenport, "Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment in Rural Iowa," Paper presented to the History Division of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 1989; Anne Messerly Cooper, "Suffrage as News: Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment," American Journalism1, no. 1 (Summer 1983), 75-91; Linda Lavier Smith, "Coverage or Cover Up: A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment," Paper presented to the Committee on the Status of women, AJEMC, 1984. And a few studies examined coverage of women's suffrage generally. See for example, Sherilyn Cox Bennion, "Early Western Publications Expose Women's Suffrage Cries," Matrix (Summer 1979); Lauren Kessler, "The Idea of Women Suffragists and the Portland Oregonian," Journalism Quarterly 57 (Winter 1980), 597-605.
[7] These columns were directed at an audience that enjoyed some prosperity: those who were comfortably working-class, middle-class, or upper-class. People would have to have a certain income to buy a paper. They would also need to be literate, need to have the leisure to read, and need to have enough lack of reserve that they would not be affronted by having people's relational problems aired in a public forum. The topics were often decidedly middle-class: My husband says that I must quit my job if I want to keep house for us. The women described in these columns were often those for whom work was a matter of choice. These columns were not for women who were heads of households or who were so poor that they must work. Neither were they for those who were so exhausted or overworked that they had no time to read, nor for those who had to leave school early to help support the family, and so did not read or write well. The women's work in these columns is mainly white collar, service occupations (office work, retail clerking). This is not the world of factories, domestic service, scrubbing floors, taking in sewing, doing piecework at home. Chronicling the most vulnerable elements in a society is always problematic. However, although these columns are certainly an imperfect reflection of contemporary society, there is indication that in this time of change, many people were looking for guidance in dealing with unprecedented modern demands. The columns spoke to these needs. U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, vol. 3 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922), 499; Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, 8, 522; Manassah, Thomas, and Wallington, Lansing, 44-56; Degler, At Odds, 29-30; James R. McGovern, "The American Woman's Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals," Journal of American History 55 (2): 320.
[8] The study wished to examine coverage of and for women across a range of months and years. Thus, it derived a sample beginning with August 1920 (the month and year that the Nineteenth Amendment became law), then advanced thirteen months at a time (e.g., September 1921), until each of the twelve calendar months had been studied. The study examined all columns giving women advice from August 1920, September 1921, October 1922, November 1923, December 1924, January 1925, February 1926, March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, June 1930, and July 1931. During this time, the State Journal was an evening paper published six days a week - there was no Sunday paper.
[9] Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin, eds., The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), s.v. "Advice Books," by Nicole Tonkovich.
[10] Christine Frederick, "Catering for the Home," Lansing State Journal. 5 August 1920, 5; idem, "Cool Cooking - Electricity," Lansing State Journal. 9 August 1920, 5; idem, "Wisdom of Washday," Lansing State Journal. 16 August 1920, 5; idem, "Selection of Aluminum Ware," Lansing State Journal. 31 August 1920, 5.
[11] Christine Frederick, "Should Wives Earn Money?" Lansing State Journal. 18 August 1920, 5.
[12] Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "Less Work for Mother?" American Heritage 38:6 (September/October 1987): 68-76; Julie Brines, "Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home," American Journal of Sociology 100:3 (November 1994): 652-55, 682-84; Joann Vanek, "Time Spent in Housework," in A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women, eds. and with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 499-506; Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "Two Washes in the Morning and a Bridge Party at Night: The American Housewife between the Wars," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28, eds. and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983), 177-93.
[13] Winifred D. Wandersee, "The Economics of Middle-Income Family Life: Working Women During the Great Depression," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28, eds. and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983), 45-56; Joan M. Jensen and Lois Scharf, "Introduction," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28, eds. and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983), 8.
[14] Degler, At Odds, 395-417; Evans, Born for Liberty, 182-85, 202; Ruth Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis: Some Lessons from the Great Depression," in A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women, eds. and with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 511-28; Frank Stricker, "Cookbooks and Law Books: The Hidden History of Career Women in Twentieth Century America," Journal of Social History 10:1 (1976): 1-3, 10-13; Jensen and Scharf, "Introduction," Decades of Discontent, 8.
[15] Christine Frederick, "The Mother Vote," Lansing State Journal. 20 August 1920, 5.
[16] Degler, At Odds, 328, 354, 436-50; Evans, Born for Liberty, 172-73, 186-96; Baker, "The Domestication of Politics," 644-46; Tilly, "Women, Work, and Citizenship," 1, 18-22.
[17] Evans, Born for Liberty, 175-77, 182-85
[18] Christine Frederick, "The Modern Girl," Lansing State Journal. 26 August 1920, 5.
[19] Cynthia Grey, "Marriage Not Essential to Modern Woman's Happiness," Lansing State Journal. 9 February 1926, 12.
[20] Degler, At Odds, 395-417; Evans, Born for Liberty, 182-85, 202; Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis," 511-28; Stricker, "Cookbooks and Law Books,"1-3, 10-13; Jensen and Scharf, "Introduction," Decades of Discontent, 8.
[21] A convention used by all the columnists throughout the period studied was referring to women engaged in work outside the home (frequently described as office work or retail sales) as "business girls." Men in comparable work were designated as "businessmen." The use of "girl" could reflect the assumption, even if subconscious, that older women would be married and out of the labor pool. It could indicate eternal youth; on the other hand, it could ascribe immaturity. In keeping with the columnists' style, when this study paraphrases a column, it uses the terms "business girl" and "girl."
[22] Cynthia Grey, "Home Atmosphere of Paramount Importance to the Business Girl," Lansing State Journal. 10 February 1926, 7.
[23] Linda K. Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History," Journal of American History 75:1 (1988): 9-39; Degler, At Odds, passim; Cowan, "The American Housewife between the Wars," 193; Nancy Folbre and Marjorie Abel, "Women's Work and Women's Households: Gender Bias in the U.S. Census," Social Research 56:3 (Autumn 1989): 545-66; Nancy Folbre, "The Unproductive Housewife: Her Evolution in Nineteenth-Century Economic Thought," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16:31 (1991): 463-83. The concept of "separate spheres" was a dynamic one that was adapted to the times. However, many construed it as demarcating woman's sphere as the home, the private, and things moral, while man's was business, the public, and things secular.
[24] Cynthia Grey, "More Discussion on the Old Question: May Wife Have a Career?" Lansing State Journal. 18 February 1926, 16.
[25] Allene Sumner, "The Woman's Day," Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, passim.
[26] Throughout the period surveyed, S.
Parkes Cadman (1864-1936), a radio minister based in England, adhered to this format. His daily column appeared on the editorial page. His international following sent him questions, not only on religious matters, but also on a myriad of social, political, intellectual, and cultural matters. Fred Hamlin, S. Parkes Cadman, Pioneer Radio Minister (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1930), passim; S. Parkes Cadman, "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman," Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, June 1930, July 1931, passim.
[27] Dorothy Dix, the pen name of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (1861-1951), became a journalist in 1894 when her husband's illness compelled her to support them both. She started writing an advice column in 1895, which became syndicated, and continued until her death in 1951. Dix's columns, which sometimes employed a straight editorial format rather than the question-and-answer style, dealt with aspects of human relations. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin, eds., The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), s.v. "Dix, Dorothy," by Carol Reuss; Dorothy Dix, "Dorothy Dix's Letter Box," Lansing State Journal. March 1927, April 1928, May 1929, June 1930, July 1931, passim.
[28] Allene Sumner, "Rich, But - !" Lansing State Journal. 10 March 1927, 14.
[29] Dorothy Dix, "The Girl of Yesterday vs. Miss 1927," Lansing State Journal. 14 March 1927, 10.
[30] Dorothy Dix, "Mabel," Lansing State Journal. 22 March 1927, 12.
[31] Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis," 510-528; Degler, At Odds, 395-417; Wandersee, "Working Women During the Great Depression," 45-56.
[32] Allene Sumner, "Woman's Day," Lansing State Journal. 20 April, 1928, 23.
[33] S. Parkes Cadman, "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman," Lansing State Journal. 2 April 1928, 4. This was a remarkably progressive position for a man who, only the year before, wrote of the inherent sexual inequality between the genders in S. Parkes Cadman, "Everyday Questions Answered by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman," Lansing State Journal. 22 March 1927, 4.
[34] Dorothy Dix, "The Business Girl, Like the College Girl, Has Become 'Choosy' About Men - Nowadays Matrimony Is a Luxury, Not a Necessity - And There Is by No Means the Scramble for Husbands That There Used to Be," Lansing State Journal. 6 April 1928, 16.
[35] Dorothy Dix, "The Old Maid of Today Has as Good a Chance for Happiness as the Much-Envied Bachelor - All She Needs Is Philosophy, Common Sense and a Good Job to Attain Single Blessedness," Lansing State Journal. 1 May 1929, 10.
[36] Dorothy Dix, "No One Can Blame a Woman for Wishing She Had Been Born a Man, Agrees Dorothy Dix, Since Everything Is Harder for Her Just Because She Is a Woman - But the Best Thing to Do Is to Be a Good Sport About It," Lansing State Journal. 24 May 1929, 28.
[37] Dix, "Single Blessedness," p. 10.
[38] Dix, "No One Can Blame," p.28.
[39] Although the deception may have been unintentional, the message was nonetheless misleading. Degler, At Odds, 395-417; Evans, Born for Liberty, 182-85, 202; Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis, 511-28; Stricker, "Cookbooks and Law Books, 1-3, 10-13; Jensen and Scharf, "Introduction," Decades of Discontent, 8; William J. Clinton, Remarks by the President in Statement on Equal Pay (Washington: Office of the Press Secretary, 2000), Available online: http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/1/24/11.text.1.
[40] Estelle B. Freedman, "The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 28, eds. and with an introduction by Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983), 21-37; Tilley, "Women, Work, and Citizenship," 18; Baker, "The Domestication of Politics," 643-46; Degler, At Odds, 328-30; Evans, Born for Liberty, 172-73; 175; 192-96; Jensen and Scharf, "Introduction," Decades of Discontent, 13-14.
[41] Dorothy Dix, "Why Shouldn't a Man Be Proud Simply Because He's a Man, When All the Advantages and Perquisites of Society, Business and Marriage Fall to His Lot by Right of Birth?" Lansing State Journal. 30 June 1930, 14.
[42] Dix, "No One Can Blame a Woman for Wishing She Had Been Born a Man," 24 May 1929, 28.
[43] Degler, At Odds, 363-67.
[44] Dorothy Dix, "No Longer Can Girls Look upon Their Jobs as a Bridge of Sighs That Reaches from the Schoolroom to the Altar, for Government Statistics Prove That Marriage No Longer Provides Economic Security," Lansing State Journal. 2 June 1930, 8.
[45] Wandersee, "Working Women During the Great Depression," 45-56.
[46] Dix, "Marriage No Longer Provides Economic Security," p. 8.
[47] Dorothy Dix, "When You Choose a Job, Girls, Choose One for Which You Are Fitted and in Which You Expect to Stay for a Lifetime - Then, Whether You Marry or Not, You Will Always Have a Livelihood," Lansing State Journal. 27 June 1930, 14.
[48] Degler, At Odds, 395-417; Evans, Born for Liberty, 182-85, 202; Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis, 511-28; Stricker, "Cookbooks and Law Books, 1-3, 10-13; Jensen and Scharf, "Introduction," Decades of Discontent, 8.
[49] Dorothy Dix, "Is It Because Men Are Old-Fashioned in Their Treatment of Emancipated Wives, and Because Children Are Too Modern for Either Parent, That There Are Fewer Peaceful and Happy Homes?" Lansing State Journal. 13 July 1931, 8.
[50] Dorothy Dix, "How Can Women Get a Thrill out of Housework When Men Despise It, Yet Take It for Granted and When They Begrudge an Extra Nickel or a Word of Appreciation as Pay for It?" Lansing State Journal. 27 July 1931, 8.