Working Women, Part 1

Women were employed in large numbers in Boston in 1905. Mas-sachusetts state census data from that year indicates that 41% of adult women were working, and in many categories of employment--some surprising, some not.

Nearly 40% of working women worked in "Domestic and Personal Service" (and that of course does not count all the women who were "not gainfully employed" as housewives!) It's important to note that this category includes not only household servants, but also nurses, midwives, waiters, launderers, office cleaners, and boarding house keepers--all common women's work of the era.

Another 28% worked in "Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits". Women formed the vast majority of sewing machine operators--making everything from men's shirts to ladies' dresses. They were also in the majority in the manufacture of clothing items (buttons, collars, cuffs, hosiery, lace, silk, and ladies' hats) and various household products (brooms and brushes, carpets, paper, paper boxes, books, candy, and canned meats and fruits.)


25% were employed in the "Trade and Transportation" category. This included women working throughout Boston's offices. Women constituted 89% of stenographers and typewriters, 71% of telephone and telegraph operators, 60% of bookkeepers and accountants, 20% of messengers and errand/office boys (!), 18% of clerks and copyists, and even 4% of "officials of banks and companies".


And 7% were employed in "Professional Service" jobs, which included such disparate professions as actress, clergy, doctor, journalist, lawyer, "literary or scientific person", musician, and teacher. Nearly 20% of Boston's doctors were women in 1905, as well as 80% of the city's teachers and professors.

Only a handful of women worked in the two remaining categories. 98 Boston women were engaged in "Agricultural Pursuits", mostly as farm laborers, and 310 women worked as apprentices, primarily in textiles.

Illustration Credits and References

Census data from Census of the the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1905. Volume 2: Occupations and Defective Social and Physical Conditions.

The photograph at the top of this post was taken in the stenographers' room at Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing in Detroit, a company that produced automobile engines and merged with Cadillac in 1905 (shortly after this picture was taken). Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The photograph of the nurse is a Chicago Daily News photograph from 1905. Credit: DN-0002636, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.

The two office photographs were taken at National Cash Register in Dayton, Ohio by American landscape photographer WIlliam Henry Jackson in 1902. The first is a scene in the Indicator Department and the second from the Typewriting Department.  Note the design of the workspaces, which featured lots of natural lighting and task lighting. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

NOTE:  NCR was founded in 1884, manufacturing the first mechanical cash registers. In 1906, they would introduce the first electric model. NCR still makes cash registers--among other things--only now they take the form of electronic point of sale systems, ATM machines, and check scanners!

"The Game": Harvard vs. Yale

One of the many Boston-area sports highlights that have survived from 1905 to the present day is the annual football game between Harvard and Yale. That year, "The Game" took place at the Harvard Stadium which was a spanking new facility--designed by the well-known architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, and just completed in 1903. (Today, a venerable ivy-covered horseshoe, it is the nation's oldest stadium, and a National Historic Landmark.) The photo above was taken on November 25, 1905, when 43,000 spectators jammed the stands. (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

During its first 25 years in the game, Yale had lost only 10 times. Harvard had smarted under this dominance, especially after losing to Yale 12-0 in the 1904 game. So in 1905, Harvard hired WIlliam R. Reid to coach the team, and to establish a plan and a process for improving Harvard football so that Harvard could have a good shot at beating Yale--not just in 1905 but every year thereafter.

Bill Reid had played for the Harvard team during his freshman and sophomore years, and had led Harvard to victory over Yale in 1898, scoring two touchdowns. And the last time Harvard had beaten Yale had been when Reid coached the team (uncompensated) during the 1901 season while he was studying for a master of arts degree at the college.

Not surprisingly, Harvard saw Reid as the key to consistent victories over Yale, and hired the California prep school teacher in the spring of 1905 for what the New York Times called a "princely salary"--he was paid more than any other professor and in fact his salary approached that of Harvard President Charles W. Eliot.

Reid set about on a mission, which included a couple of innovations he introduced to the game of football--the development of the hand-off and the idea of a playbook. Reid wrote in his 1905 diary that "next year and hereafter it would be a good scheme . . . after the offense is planned . . . to start off the season with such a book".

Unfortunately, the Harvard team lost to Yale in 1905 by a score of 6-0, its fourth shut-out loss in a row. Controversy erupted during the game when Harvard player Francis Burr was smashed in the face by Yale tackler Jack Quill.

1905 was a tough year in U.S. football--by the end of the season three college players had been killed due to the violence of the game (mass formations and gang tackling were commonplace), and scores more seriously injured. During October, US President Theodore Roosevelt (Harvard '80) had called together the coaches of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to help figure out a way to decrease the body count. "Brutality and foul play should receive the same summary punishment given to a man who cheats at cards," opined Roosevelt.

And the Harvard Overseers agreed--threatening to abolish football at the school. Reid was named to head up a committee at Harvard which drafted 19 rules to improve the safety of the game. In December, a New York meeting of 68 football-playing colleges was convened, and the group determined to form a new rules committee. Early in January, 1906, the new rules committee was merged with the old rules committee, and Reid became secretary of the new group. In putting forth the Harvard-developed rules, Reid announced: "Either these 19 rules go through or there will be no more football at Harvard; and if Harvard throws out the game, many other colleges will follow Harvard's lead." Harvard had the clout to make that threat, the rules were adopted, and the Harvard Overseers agreed to let football continue.

Among the new rules drafted by Reid and adopted by the new committee were those changing the first-down yardage from 5 to 10 yards, creating a neutral zone at the line of scrimmage, and permitting the forward pass.  In addition, the participants voted to get together annually to consider football issues. Thus emerged the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the body which still governs collegiate sports today. (It was originally constituted as the International Athletic Association of the U.S., and would be renamed the NCAA in 1910.)

Reid retired from college coaching at the end of the 1906 season (with a 30-3-1 record, but two 6-0 losses to Yale). But he is credited as the man who saved Harvard football and helped invent the modern game, and in 1970 he was ushered into the Football Hall of Fame for his achievements. Bill Reid died at the age of 97 in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Illustration Credits and References

Photograph of the 1905 Harvard Yale game courtesy of The Library of Congress.

Photograph of the game program from 1905 courtesy of the Antique Athlete website.

Grinold, Jack. "Review of Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905: The Diary of Coach Bill Reid by Ronald A. Smith", The New England Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4, (Dec., 1994), pp. 679-682.

Powers, John. "Landmark Celebration After 100 Years: Harvard Stadium Still Standing the Test of Time." Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Nov 14, 2003. pg. E.1

Smith, Ronald A., "Harvard and Columbia and a Reconsideration of the 1905-06 Football Crisis", Journal of Sport History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Winter, 1981).

"Princely Salary to Coach: Harvard Will Give 'Bill' Reid $3,500 a Year for Football", New York Times, February 24, 1905.

Norumbega Park

Recently I visited an exhibit at the Newton MA History Museum entitled "Romance and Recreation by the River".

Norumbega was an incredible amusement park in Newton that opened in June, 1897, and it was a popular destination for Boston area families and young people in 1905. Each year from April to October more than a half million people visited the park.

According to the late Robert Pollock, a long-time resident of Newton who used to work on the midway at Norumbega:

The park featured various types of recreation: a merry-go-round, canoes, huge wooden swings, free band concerts, extensive picnic grounds, and the largest zoo in New England. In addition, the park had a superlative restaurant, a penny arcade, an electric fountain with brightly-colored spotlights playing over great geysers of water, and a vaudeville theatre. The 15-cent round trip fare from Lake Street included admission to the park, and the ride out Commonwealth Avenue on the open trolleys became very popular with people from throughout the greater Boston area. Electricity for Norumbega's lighting, fountain, and carousel was provided by the same 600 volts of direct current used to power the trolleys.

As happened with areas along train and trolley lines in other parts of the country at about the same time, the park had been built by the street railway company to attract more business to the trolley line, and it was extremely successful.

In a previous post, I wrote about the "problem" of kissing in canoes on the river at Norumbega, which came to a head during the summer of 1905. It was said that there were a million dollars worth of kisses every weekend on the river (based on the possibility of a $20 fine)! And the song Down by The Riverside, which garnered new lyrics in 1902, was inspired by the activities along the river. (I also remember a popular recording of this song from the 1950s. The original music and refrain were, of course, based on an old Negro spiritual.)[1]

The theatre at Norumbega had been open air until 1904, when a roof was added. Vaudeville acts were featured twice a day, six days a week, with religious and inspirational music on Sundays.

There was also a "Women's Cottage" at the park, offering cots, cribs, sofas, and changing tables to facilitate the ability of women to visit the park with their children.

The park suffered a slow decline through the 1930s and 1940s. Trolley service to the park ended in 1930. The ferris wheel was damaged by the famous 1938 hurricane, and never reopened. In 1941, all the animals (except the bears) were sold off. And in 1965-1966, three fires destroyed the Totem Pole Ballroom, the restaurant, and the boat house.

Interestingly enough, visiting this exhibit reminded me that my Newton college had held a dance at the Totem Pole that I attended--probably in the spring of 1965. I wasn't paying enough attention to local news to learn that Norumbega received its final death blow in November, 1965, during my senior year.

Illustration Credits and References

[1] The lyrics of the popular song as I knew it in the 50s are shown below. Apparently there is some confusion about how much of these lyrics were part of the 1902 version:

I met my little bright-eyed doll

Down by the riverside (3x)

I met my little bright-eyed doll

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

I asked her for a little kiss

Down by the riverside (3x)

I asked her for a little kiss

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

She said "Have patience little man

I'm sure you'll understand

I hardly know your name"

I said "If I can have my way

Maybe some sweet day

My name and yours will be the same"

I wed that little bright-eyed doll

Down by the riverside (3x)

Well I wed that little bright-eyed doll

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

The color photos of sheet music and posters at the beginning of this post were taken at the Newton History Museum exhibit. The first illustration is from a 1905 poster. You can see cars running along the road which crosses the illustration left to right; trolleys are running down the median. The river runs to the left of the road that starts at the bottom and heads towards the top of the image. The boathouse is at the lower left.

The Diary: January 19, 1905

Cynthia was spending the Christmas holidays in her family home in Harwich.  Cynthia's father, a sea captain, had been quite ill; the previous week, on January 12, Cynthia had written in her diary that he had been sick "all night and day"; she'd had to get up and go out in a snowstorm before breakfast to fetch the doctor.

January 19 appears to have been a significant day in the Cynthia-Ben relationship:  she's noted "Remember" with asterisks at the top of the entry and she writes that she told Ben something, but the handwriting is illegible.  The rest of the entry reads:

Letter from Cora and Celia.  Papa is better now.  Annie came over.  Drove Maud to Chatham and came back to dance at Harwich Port.  Had a time putting up the horse.

Illustration Credits and References

This image of a 1903 John Bratton song, My Cosey Corner Girl, is courtesy of the Heftone website. On January 4, Cynthia's friend Maud had arrived at the house with papers and this piece of sheet music--presumably for them to practice and learn.

Cole Porter in Worcester

Contrary to popular opinion, Cole Porter didn't actually spring fully-formed from his Yale education, but spent the four years before that getting ready at Worcester Academy, a Massachusetts prep school.  He arrived on campus in the fall of 1905 from Indiana as a fourteen-year-old freshman, moving into the dorm room that his mother had thoughtfully arranged to have furnished with an upright piano and oriental rugs!

While he was small, and not athletically inclined, he was, by all accounts, a popular student, attracting friends at the Academy with his winning personality and his often comic and risque piano compositions and performances.  According to the Worcester Academy website, he graduated in 1909 second in his class, and was valedictorian, class historian, and author of the Class of 1909 Song, which, unfortunately has not survived.

Illustration Credits and References

Photograph courtesy of the Worcester Academy website.

The French Cable Station

On November 24, 1959, the French Cable Station in Orleans, Massachusetts closed after sending the following message: "Have a happy Thanksgiving. Station closed."

The cable from France to North Eastham, via Newfoundland, had been laid in 1879, and the station then moved to Orleans in 1891. In 1898, a 3,200 mile direct cable ("Le Direct") from France to Orleans was installed. So by 1905, when the photo shown in the above postcard was taken, the French Cable Station was already a fixture on the Cape Cod scene. It later transmitted the news that Lindbergh had landed in Paris in 1927, and that the Germans had taken Paris in 1940. Today it serves as The French Cable Station Museum.

An 1892 Boston Globe article describes the operation of the station:

A good cable operator can keep up a steady pace of 25 words a minute, although of course on occasion and by spurts this rate is often exceeded; yet an operator who can do his 25 a minute is a skilled hand.

The French cable, after plunging into the Atlantic from the Cape Cod shore, makes straight off to sea for the island of St. Pierre, where there is another station, where the messages are repeated to Brest, on the French coast. The fact of the repetition, however, causes no delay worth consideration. . . .

Supposing operators at both ends are sending messages at the rate of 25 words per minute, that is to say, 50 words a minute both ways, each cable would have an hourly capacity of 3000 words, or 30,000 words per hour for the entire 10 - 72,000 for the entire 24 [hours] of each.

When it is understood that all these cables are kept pretty busy night and day, it will be possible to appreciate in a measure what the telegraphic communication between the United States and Europe has grown to be.

Illustration Credits and References

This article from Cape Cod Today describes the history of the station.

Wash Day

Just found this photo on Shorpy: History in HD. According to "Shorpy", it's a Currier Photo taken in a laundry circa 1905, possibly in Boston.


The Shorpy site contains an interesting discussion about what's on the ceiling in the photo. I also notice that the woman to the right is standing on a raised wooden platform--probably because the wringing device she's operating (or the process of getting wet laundry out of the sink into the wringing area) generates spilled water on the floor--this might keep her from standing in water, or slipping. Or maybe it just makes her taller?