Conclusion

In 1892, Frances Low, a self-sustaining female journalist, co-founded the Writer's Club at Hastings House on the Strand to provide a social and working space for women writers. ¹ In 1904, she published Press Work for Women, a guidebook aimed at advising young women on the best ways of making a career in the press. For a guidebook, it is surprisingly grim. Low emphasized that the professional world of late-Victorian journalism had no room for high-minded women writers. ‘Any cultivated woman determined to do only the finer kind of journalistic work’ had best ‘choose some other mode of bread-winning’; any woman looking to ‘make a fair income’ from journalism had to accept ‘from the start that she must supply the commonplace needs of a commonplace reading public’. ² Moreover, she noted that the field was not as lucrative as it was commonly assumed to be. ‘The majority of competent journalists’ made no more ‘than £100 to £150 [...] a year’, partly because the large number of ‘well-to-do’ women who wrote for ‘vanity’ rather than from ‘necessity’ accepted low pay and drove down remuneration rates for ‘the legitimate woman journalist’, who lived on presswork. ³ For women who nevertheless wished to pursue journalism, Low offered a wealth of practical advice, including tips on how to hone their writing styles, proofread, and how best to tailor their work to the specific requirements of various newspapers and periodicals.