printress

— It will interest some to know that the whole of the printing of the preceding pages (except the working off, which is a distinct trade) was executed by women.[…]The real difficulties were rather, how to make what had hitherto been a man’s employment not fatiguing to women; or a sedentary employment healthy to the young, or interesting; how to combine instruction in household work, or, again, religious instruction with learning a trade; how to train the young women at once as printresses and yet as future wives and mothers; out of what class of respectable young women or girls to select those who were to be thus taught, and at what age they would best begin.