What can a woman do? (Women in America: from colonial times to the 20th century)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...than this service of love and labor--the token of hospitality--the badge of ladyhood? Some one has curtly said that it is not passion or ill-temper that drive men to commit murder or suicide; it is heavy, sour bread, which perverts the whole current of being, and transforms human beings into demons. Every woman has a mission to learn to make good bread, if she would consider the happiness of her family. The newspapers are fond of disseminating such stories as the following, at the expense of the girls who will not make bread: "A fashionable young lady of this city visited a cooking school the other afternoon, when her attention was equally divided between a new dress, worn by an acquaintance, and the directions for making cake. Upon returning home she undertook to write down the recipe for cake-making for her mother,5, who found that it read as follows: "Take two pounds of flour, three rows of plaiting down the front, the whites of two eggs, cut bias; a pint of milk, ruffle around the neck, half a pound of currants, seren yards of bead trimming, grated lemon peel, with Spanish lace fichu. Stir well." Her mother said she thought these new-fangled ideas on cooking ought to be frowned down., "No, indeed, I'm not going to learn how to make bread," said an Eastern belle, "girls who know how to make bread generally marry men who can not afford to buy flour to make it with, and they have to work in a millinery shop to help pay the board bill. I'll stick to my fancy work." It is related of the Hon. Philetus Sawyer, a Wisconsin senator, that he was so well pleased with a dinner prepared entirely for him by his two daughters, that he gave to each of them a check for twenty-five thousand dollars, a present quite...