Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 225 The greatest ladies of the land take the lead in all the charities, following the example of the royal family. The Queen and the Infantas take the chair at weekly meetings of the boards of hos- pitals, asylums, and colleges, and watch in person the work of these institutions, visiting the poor, and attending to the administration of these institutions. All the ladies who have formed the commission in Madrid and the provinces are daily working for education and charity. Her Royal Highness the Infanta Isabel presides also at many of these meetings, and is at the head of “ El Patronato,” that has branches in all Spain for the care and education of small children. In industry women take a very important place. In Catalonia they work in the factories side by side with their fathers and husbands. In Valencia they control the fan and silk industry, and in the tobacco factories all the work is done by many thousands of girls in every large city. As a rule one can not say that women work in the fields in Spain. They do it in the north, where the land is very much divided; and in the other districts of Spain only during the harvest. Unfortunately, the earnings of women are not in accordance with their work, and are very much, behind those of men; but, as has been said, a national commission for social reforms has been acting in Spain for some time, and the first law presented by it to the courts was for the protection of the work of women and children. To-day the State recognizes woman, giving her the education of the children in a great many public schools, and admitting her to the telegraph and the telephone work. It is not possible, in the short time and the short space devoted to this paper, to give an exact idea of the character of the Spanish woman; but, apart from the exhibit in the Woman’s Building— where her education and accomplishments can be studied, and where it is proved, that she takes an active part in the national life- it is a good illustration of her enterprise to note what a slight examination of the catalogue shows, that there are 664 women exhibitors, nearly one-fourth of the total number of the Spanish exhibitors, and that women take part in all branches of work and thought. The Duchess of Veragua. 15