Page:Home labor saving devices (1917).djvu/19

 INTRODUCTION

State Normal School for Women, Harrisonburg, Va.

No phase of modern social development has received more attention in recent years than that of our rural population. Advances have been striking along all lines of country life. It would, however, be too much to say that the interests of women and their work in the home have received the attention properly due them. Frequently farmers of the highest type will equip their farms with the latest and best implements and machinery for their work and yet will fail to provide their homes with equipment equally as essential and desirable for the work of the women members of their households. Women's organizations and the agents of the Home Demonstration Work, together with other agencies, have done much to direct attention along this very important line and in many communities labor-saving devices of a most ingenious character have been developed.

What is good for one busy housewife is not too good for another, and it is a good rule to push a good thing along for the benefit of others. With this in view the author has gathered together numerous inventions of home-made devices of a labor-*saving and efficiency-increasing kind, and describes them in this little volume so that all to whom it may come may have the opportunity to make such contrivances, or modifications of them, for their own use. In doing this, the author has not merely had in her mind her own State, but has sought to recognize the viewpoints of women in as many other States as possible.

The author is peculiarly fitted for the task she has set herself. As Assistant State Agent for Home Demonstration Work in Virginia, under the direction of the United States Department of Agriculture, and as supervisor and community worker for a number of years in various rural districts before assuming the