All through our Civil War the slaves on the Southern plantations had an abiding faith that the terrible conflict would result in freedom for their race.  Just so through all the busy preparations of the Centennial, the women of the nation felt sure that the great national celebration could not pass without the concession of some new liberties to them.  Hence they pressed their claims at every point, at the Fourth of July celebration in the exposition buildings, and in the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions; hoping to get a plank in the platforms of both the great political parties.

The Woman’s Pavilion upon the centennial grounds was an afterthought, as theologians claim woman herself to have been.  The women of the country, after having contributed nearly one hundred thousand dollars to the centennial stock, found there had been no provision made for the separate exhibition of their work.  The centennial board, of which Mrs. Gillespie was president, then decided to raise funds for the erection of a separate building, to be known as the Woman’s Pavilion.  It covered an acre of ground, and was erected at an expense of thirty thousand dollars—­a small sum in comparison with the money which had been raised by women and expended on the other buildings, not to speak of the State and national appropriations, which the taxes levied on them had largely helped to swell.

The Pavilion was no true exhibit of woman’s art.  Few women are, as yet, owners of the business which their industry largely makes remunerative.  Cotton factories, in which thousands of women work, are owned by men.  The shoe business, in some branches of which women are doing more than half the work, is under the ownership of men.  Rich embroideries from India, rugs of downy softness from Turkey, the muslin of Decca, anciently known as “The Woven Wind,” the pottery and majolica ware of P. Pipsen’s widow, the cartridges and envelopes of Uncle Sam, Waltham watches, whose finest mechanical work is done by women, and ten thousand other industries found no place in the pavilion.  Said United States Commissioner Meeker of Colorado, “Woman’s work comprises three-fourths of the exposition; it is scattered through every building; take it away, and there would be no exposition.”

But this pavilion rendered one good service to woman in showing her capabilities as an engineer.  The boiler, which furnished the force for running its work, was under the charge of a young Canadian girl, Miss Allison, who, from childhood, had loved machinery, spending much time in the large saw and grist mills of her father, run by engines of two and three hundred horse-power, which she sometimes managed for amusement.  When her name was proposed for running the pavilion machinery, it caused much opposition.  It was said that the committee would, some day, find the pavilion blown to atoms; that the woman engineer would spend her time reading novels instead of watching the steam gauge; that the idea was impracticable and