the spinning-wheel was used as well. From the middle of the eighteenth
century up till today has been the period of the application of steam
to spinning machinery.

The profound symbolism expressed by the little chart goes beyond the
interesting fact in the history of applied physics and mechanics which
it tells, on to the tremendous changes which it sums up. The textile
industries were primarily women's work, and with the mechanical
changes in this group of primitive industries were inextricably bound
up changes far more momentous in the social environment and the
individual development of the worker.

Yet, if a profoundly impressive story, it is also a simple and plain
one. It is so easy to understand because we have the help of history
to interpret it to us, a help that fails us completely when, instead
of being able to look from a distance and see events in their due
proportions and in their right order, we are driven to extract as best
we can a meaning from occurrences that happen and conditions that lie
before our very eyes. That we cannot see the wood for the trees was
never more painfully true than when we first try to tell a clear story
amid the clatter and din of our industrial life. Past history is
of little assistance in interpreting the social and industrial
development, in which we ourselves are atoms. Much information is to
be obtained, though piecemeal and with difficulty, but especially
as relates to women, it has not yet been classified and ordered and
placed ready to hand.

The industrial group activities of women are the inevitable, though
belated result of the entry of women into the modern industrial
system, and are called forth by the new demands which life is making