Bessie Van Vorst

Bessie Van Vorst (née McGinnis; September 2, 1873 – May 19, 1928), also known as Mrs. John Van Vorst, was an American author and journalist. She is best known as a co-author of the magazine series and the book The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Ladies as Factory Girls (1903) with a preface by US President Theodore Roosevelt, an influential example of social investigation. Her study of women and child labor in the mills of Alabama and New Hampshire helped stir reform sentiment.

Bessie Van Vorst
Born
Bessie McGinnis

September 2, 1873
New York City, U.S.
DiedMay 19, 1928(1928-05-19) (aged 54)
Paris, France
Other namesMrs. John Van Vorst
Occupationjournalist, writer
Known forwomen and children's labor studies
Notable work
The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls

Early life and family

Bessie McGinnis was born in 1873 in New York City.[1] She was educated in New York private schools.[2] In 1898 she started working for the New York Evening Post.[1] In 1899 she married John Van Vorst.[3] The marriage lasted only twelve hours – it was the groom's last wish to marry the bride before his death.[4] His father Judge Hopper Cornelius Van Vorst was a president of the Holland Society and served on the United States Circuit Court.[5] Upon her husband's death she moved to Paris with her sister-in-law Marie Van Vorst, and the two co-authored the novel Bagsby's Daughter, published in 1901.[1]

Undercover investigations
Van Vorst as "Esther Kelly" wearing the costume of the pickle factory

In 1901 Bessie and Marie Van Vorst began an undercover investigation into women and child factory laborers by finding jobs in factories under aliases.[6][7] Bessie worked in a plant in Perry, New York, a knitting mill near Buffalo, and a Pittsburgh pickle factory, among other places, using the name "Esther Kelly".[8] Marie Van Vorst found employment in a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts, and a cotton mill in Columbia, South Carolina, under the alias "Bell Ballard".[8][9] The Van Vorsts began writing a column detailing their experiences in Everybody's Magazine.[10]

Their writings attracted the attention of the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who was interested in demographic issues.[11] He wrote a letter to Bessie Van Vorst in 1902.[12] Roosevelt's primary concern in his letter was race suicide that he believed was more important than any other issue in the country.[11]

When the publisher saw the letter he asked Van Vorst to compile her magazine work on laboring women into a book and use the president's note for the preface.[11] In 1903 Roosevelt's preface appeared in Van Vorsts' book The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Ladies as Factory Girls – a book form of the magazine series.[9] One part of the letter in particular caused a sensation among Americans who were not used to seeing any president address such issues as demography and birth control:

If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy; the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard and is brought to ruin by the fault of others. But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people.[12]

Roosevelt's outcry struck a chord with many Americans.[6] His criticism of voluntary childlessness was accepted by many citizens at that time and helped change the way families were depicted in mass media emphasizing the children.[13] The idea of race suicide would become a favorite Roosevelt hobby horse on his lecture tours, in which he persuaded white women to have babies.[14]

In their book the Van Vorsts portrayed the troublesome working and living conditions they had observed, and their consequences for women and girls. Bessie appealed for a more compassionate attitude towards these employees.[8] Van Vorst also noted that factory women enjoyed the independence afforded them by paid labor and therefore delayed marrying.[15] "I never saw a baby nor heard of a baby while I was in town", Van Vorst wrote after nearly three weeks spent in Perry.[11] She also discussed sociability and the discipline of factory work as a dangerous alternative to family unity.[16]

The book, with the same title and title page but containing only Bessie's contributions, was reprinted in 1974.[17]

Some contemporary authors criticize Bessie and Marie Van Vorst for having a condescending attitude toward the working class, and indeed they themselves described working-class women as "degrading to look upon and odorous to approach".[18]

Sociologist Carolin Auer, in a 2000 essay on "social reportage", criticizes Bessie and Marie Van Vorst for the simulated reality they create. Auer claims that the women's undercover investigation is nothing but a simulation of the reality as the researchers remain untrammeled by the economic, educational, and emotional ties which bind female factory workers. She notes that equating a life among the Other with the life of the Other is erroneous. Therefore, the Van Vorsts’ efforts result in "false representations" as they produce a fragmentary and flawed account of the worker's world, as well as represent a report of what is actually a fake world. Auer calls their narrative constructed when describing encounters, situations and events.[19]

Later work

In 1908 Van Vorst wrote the book The Cry of the Children, in which she described child labor in wool and cotton mills in New Hampshire and Alabama.[1] She conducted her study through visits to the Dwight Manufacturing Company in Alabama City, the Massachusetts Cotton Mill in Lindale, Georgia, and the Merrimack Manufacturing Company in Huntsville. Everywhere she traveled she saw children of twelve years and younger working as doffers or sweepers, earning between twenty and fifty cents for a twelve-hour workday and often working night shifts.[5] Her book was illustrated by drawings by Guernsey Moore, a well-known illustrator who was responsible for Saturday Evening Post covers.[20] Van Vorst's study of child labor in the mills of Alabama and New Hampshire helped stir reform sentiment.[8]

Move to Paris

Van Vorst settled in Paris among the expatriate American community. In 1914 she married Hugues Robert Charles Henri Le Roux, a writer and editor of Le Matin.[5][21] Van Vorst continued writing on social issues as a correspondent for US and French publications,[1][22] including Harper's Magazine,[23] Revue des deux Mondes, and Journal des débats.[3]

Van Vorst died on May 19, 1928, in Paris.[1]

Selected publications
  • 1901 – Bagsby's daughter[24]
  • 1903 – The woman who toils: being the experiences of two gentlewomen as factory girls[18]
  • 1903 – L'ouvrière aux États-Unis[25]
  • 1904 – The issues of life: a novel of the American woman of today[26]
  • 1907 – Magda, queen of Sheba, from the ancient royal Abyssinian manuscript, "The glory of the kings" — translator[27]
  • 1908 – The cry of the children; a study of child-labor[28]
  • 1918 – Popular history of France[29]
  • 1918 – On the field of honor (Au champ d'honneur)[30]
  • 1918 – A popular history of the war from 1914 to 1918[31]
  • 1919 – A popular geography of France, industries, principal cities[32]
  • 1919 – To the homeward-bound Americans[33]
  • 1926 – A girl from China (Soumay Tcheng) — translator[34]

References
  1. "Van Vorst, Bessie (1873–1928)". Jane Addams Digital Edition. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  2. "Bessie Van Vorst To Wed". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. November 17, 1914. p. 4. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  3. "Bessie Van Vorst (1873–1928)". data.bnf.fr. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  4. "Married as he was dying". The Baltimore Sun. March 1, 1899. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
  5. Rosenberg, Chaim M. (July 17, 2013). Child Labor in America: A History. McFarland. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-7864-7349-6.
  6. MacNamara, Trent (October 11, 2018). Birth Control and American Modernity: A History of Popular Ideas. Cambridge University Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-316-51958-5.
  7. Pittenger, Mark (August 13, 2012). Class Unknown: Undercover Investigations of American Work and Poverty from the Progressive Era to the Present. NYU Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8147-6740-5.
  8. James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S.; College, Radcliffe (1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 515. ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5.
  9. Adams, Katherine H. (2001). A Group of Their Own: College Writing Courses and American Women Writers 1880-1940. SUNY Press. p. 166. ISBN 9780791449356.
  10. Everybody's Magazine. Ridgeway Company. 1902. p. 413.
  11. MacNamara, Trent (October 11, 2018). Birth Control and American Modernity: A History of Popular Ideas. Cambridge University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-316-51958-5.
  12. "TR Center – Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Bessie Van Vorst". www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  13. Lovett, Laura L. (2007). Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890–1938. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-0472-5.
  14. Bailey, Thomas; Joslin, Katherine (April 3, 2018). Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life. University Press of New England. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-5126-0259-3.
  15. Patterson, Martha H. (2008). The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894–1930. Rutgers University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-8135-4296-6.
  16. Jones, Gavin (October 12, 2009). American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in U.S. Literature, 1840–1945. Princeton University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-4008-3191-3.
  17. Kraus, Elisabeth; Auer, Carolin (2000). Simulacrum America: The USA and the Popular Media. Camden House. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-57113-187-4.
  18. Van Vorst, John; Van Vorst, Marie (1903). The woman who toils: being the experiences of two gentlewomen as factory girls. New York: Doubleday, Page. OCLC 786286489.
  19. Auer, Carolin (2000). "'A Transcript from Real Life': The Simulated Reality of the Social Reportage". In Kraus, Elisabeth; Auer, Carolin (eds.). Simulacrum America: The USA and the Popular Media. Camden House. pp. 169–80. ISBN 978-1-57113-187-4.
  20. Finnegan, Cara A. (May 30, 2015). Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression. University of Illinois Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-252-09731-7.
  21. "Bessie Van Vorst Marries". The New York Times. November 27, 1914. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  22. "Americans stake cash against death; that, says Bessie Van Vorst, explains the founding of institutes where investigators can work". The New York Times. January 12, 1913. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
  23. Van Vorst, Mrs. John (Bessie) (1903). "The Woman of the People". Harper's: 871–75.
  24. Van Vorst, John; Van Vorst, Marie; Carleton, Clifford; Harper & Brothers (1901). Bagsby's daughter. New York; London: Harper & Bros. OCLC 669323522.
  25. Van Vorst, John; Van Vorst, Marie; Doumic, Jacques (1903). L'ouvrière aux États-Unis (in French). Paris: F. Juven. OCLC 3099881.
  26. Van Vorst, John; Doubleday, Page & Company (1904). The issues of life: a novel of the American woman of today. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. OCLC 2150048.
  27. Le Roux, Hugues; Van Vorst, John (1907). Magda, queen of Sheba, from the ancient royal Abyssinian manuscript, "The glory of the kings";. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. OCLC 3368823.
  28. Van Vorst, John (1908). The cry of the children; a study of child-labor. New York: Moffat, Yard and Co. OCLC 1626306.
  29. Van Vorst, John (1918). A popular history of France. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. OCLC 2546577.
  30. Le Roux, Hugues; Van Vorst, John (1918). On the field of honor (Au champ d'honneur). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. OCLC 3610319.
  31. Van Vorst, John (1918). A popular history of the war from 1914 to 1918. Paris: Librairie Larousse. OCLC 3977835.
  32. Van Vorst, Bessie (1919). A Popular geography of France, industries, principal cities, by B. Van Vorst... Paris: Larousse.
  33. Van Vorst, John (1919). To the homeward-bound Americans. Paris: Imp. Lang, Blanchong & cie. OCLC 9048650.
  34. Van Vorst, John (1926). A girl from China (Soumay Tcheng). New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. OCLC 844214.
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