a thousand huge buildings
steam-driven looms, guided by a few hundred thousands of hands (often
those of men), produce the clothings of half the world; and we dare no
longer say, proudly, as of old, that we and we alone clothe our peoples.

Our hoes and our grindstones passed from us long ago, when the ploughman
and the miller took our place; but for a time we kept fast possession of
the kneading-trough and the brewing-vat. Today, steam often shapes our
bread, and the loaves are set down at our very door--it may be by a
man-driven motor-car! The history of our household drinks we know no
longer; we merely see them set before us at our tables. Day by day
machine-prepared and factory-produced viands take a larger and larger
place in the dietary of rich and poor, till the working man's wife
places before her household little that is of her own preparation; while
among the wealthier classes, so far has domestic change gone that men
are not unfrequently found labouring in our houses and kitchens, and
even standing behind our chairs ready to do all but actually place the
morsels of food between our feminine lips. The army of rosy milkmaids
has passed away for ever, to give place to the cream-separator and the,
largely, male-and-machinery manipulated butter pat. In every direction
the ancient saw, that it was exclusively the woman's sphere to prepare
the viands for her household, has become, in proportion as civilisation
has perfected itself, an antiquated lie.

Even the minor domestic operations are tending to pass out of the circle
of woman's labour. In modern cities our carpets are beaten, our windows
cleaned, our floors polished, by machinery, or extra domestic, and often
male labour. Change has gone much farther than to the mere taking
from us of the preparation of the materials from which the clothing is
formed. Already the domestic sewing-machine, which has supplanted almost
entirely the ancient needle, begins to become antiquated, and a thousand
machines driven in factories by central engines are supplying not only
the husband and son, but the woman herself, with almost every article of
clothing from vest to jacket; while among the wealthy classes, the
male dress-designer with his hundred male-milliners and dressmakers
is helping finally to explode the ancient myth, that it is woman's
exclusive sphere, and a part of her domestic toil, to cut and shape the
garments she or her household wear.

Year by year, day by day