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to the report issued by the Census Bureau in 1907, entitled "Women at Work," the census enumerators of 1900 found that nearly five million women and girls of the United States were engaged in what are known as gainful occupations, and were therefore either partly or wholly self-supporting. Three-fifths of these workers were found in six occupations, domestic service leading, with farm labor a close second because of the large number of colored women employed on Southern plantations; dressmaking, laundry work, teaching and actual farming followed in the order named. Seventh in point of numbers employed were the textile mill operatives. Saleswomen came tenth in numerical order, and office workers still further down the list.

At the time this census was taken, there were 23,485,559 women in the United States, of whom 20.6 per cent. were engaged in gainful occupations. Students of economics and sociology, who have gathered statistics regarding women wage-earners since that census was taken, an-