PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE.

HE object of the publication of this book is to present an account of some of the

1 most important assemblages of women the world has ever known. As a part of the Columbian Exposition, the greatest event of its kind in history, there was a daily gathering of women, who, in a great building devoted to their uses, expressed their ideas regarding the social, business and political affairs of humankind and all that pertains to making a greater future for the human race. This book reproduces the ideas advanced by these women, who represented the civilized world. It is the record of most earnest and potential and practical assemblages of women. What is in these pages indicates what women are to-day. The book contains the addresses made by those representing the more active women of two continents. It is a book every thoughtful woman and every thoughtful man should possess, and must, from its very quality and the circumstances of its production, be part of the important data of future histories. No publishers’ preface will aid it much. It is a book which will retain its place because it commands a status as describing an important part of one of the most important events in history. It may be that it was even the most striking part, since among the greatest problems of the times is aggressively prominent that of the relations of men and women in the work of the world and in the division of its profits and its honors.