Green Mountain Freeman

Ladies Department.

From the Voice of Industry.

A Word to Philanthropists.

We come before you, kind readers, at this time, to speak of our hopes, our prospects, our determinations and our wishes. Our hopes are bright, and our prospects cheering. Our determinations are, to persevere in the good work now commenced, until every mountain of evil and oppression shall be brought low—every valley of privation and want be filled with justice and equality. Our wishes are, that every well wisher to human improvement, and the elevation of our race, as a mass, should lend a helping hand in this our holy enterprise. The Female Labor Reform Association, consisting, for the most part, of operatives now actively engaged in the mills, have purchased of Mr. John Scism, of Fitchburg, the printing press and fixtures belonging thereto, on which the "Voice of Industry" is and ever has been printed. They have made their first payment, which was one hundred dollars: the next will become due in three months, in six, nine and twelve months the remainder. They will be grateful for the smallest donations, from individuals disposed to aid in this, their novel enterprise. We feel that if there is a place in the wide universe where true liberty and freedom should be enjoyed—where the press should be untrammelled—and where woman should take her proper place and standing in society, as a rational intelligent being—a fit companion and friend of man, not a slave—it is in the United States of America! Cultivation alone, is what our necessities demand: and cultivation it is, which will give to woman that true dignity and moral worth which nature, reason and christianity proclaim to be her high exalted privilege, her sublime destiny! Too long has she been considered an inferior being, merely capacitated to bask in the sunshine of fashion and prosperity—contributing to the happiness of those around her, by offices of kindness and labors of love. Her mind and intellect suffered to dwindle, through lack of cultivation and improvement—her sphere of action, being exclusively domestic, she rarely presumed to think or act independently or clearly, on any subject. Those days, thank heaven, have passed and a new era in the life of woman, has dawned upon her hitherto prescribed and limited sphere of action. Men are beginning to realize that woman is blessed with an intellect, which if rightly trained and expanded, will be productive of incalculable blessing and real advantage to the world, as well as the pure, ever active affections, which flow forth, shedding life and joy almost like heaven's, around the sacred altar of domestic love. They are no longer willing to commit the destinies of the young and rising generation into the hands of the uninformed and inefficient, knowing that it is in childhood, correct principles and love of knowledge, must be implanted in the soul. This has been styled an age of improvement, and why should the advantages which accrue therefrom, be confined to the lords of Creation alone? Why should not woman seek to improve, elevate and raise higher her standard of moral and intellectual worth, in order to keep pace with the age in which she lives? We surely can see no impropriety in such aspirations and exertions. And until we are convinced that it is un feminine and out of place to labor and toil for the best good of all our race, we shall devote the time which heaven may allot us here, to this great—this all important work; and we would most earnestly and cordially invite all who take any interest in the progress of our race—in the cause of "Labor Reform," or the elevation of the mass from ignorant servitude, and blind devotion to the god of this world, to high table-lands of promise where universal brother and sisterhood shall encircle, in its charitable arms, all the families of the earth—to lend us their aid—if not in a pecuniary point, let us have an encouraging word, or an approving look even, to cheer us on our way! Philanthropists, have we spoken in vain?

H. J. S.

Lowell, March 2, 1846.