The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman Who Toils
by Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

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Title: The Woman Who Toils
Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls

Author: Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

Release Date: March 1, 2005 [EBook #15218]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Alicia Williams and the PG Online
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[Illustration: MRS. JOHN VAN VORST AS "ESTHER KELLY" Wearing the
costume of the pickle factory]

[Illustration: MISS MARIE VAN VORST AS "BELL BALLARD" At work in a shoe
factory]

* * * * *

THE WOMAN WHO TOILS

_Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls_

BY

MRS. JOHN VAN VORST

and

MARIE VAN VORST

_ILLUSTRATED_

NEW YORK:

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1903

* * * * *

DEDICATION

To Mark Twain

In loving tribute to his genius, and to his human sympathy, which in
Pathos and Seriousness, as well as in Mirth and Humour, have made him
kin with the whole world:--

this book is inscribed by

BESSIE and MARIE VAN VORST.

* * * * *

PREFATORY LETTER FROM THEODORE ROOSEVELT

_Written after reading Chapter III. when published serially_

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, October 18, 1902.

_My Dear Mrs. Van Vorst_:

_I must write you a line to say how much I have appreciated
your article, "The Woman Who Toils." But to me there is a most
melancholy side to it, when you touch upon what is
fundamentally infinitely more important than any other
question in this country--that is, the question of race
suicide, complete or partial_.

_An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to be
"independent"--that is, to live one's life purely according to
one's own desires--are in no sense substitutes for the
fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong, racial
qualities without which there can be no strong race