Part 35

=248. Watches.= A watch is said to consist of 992 pieces. We have seen it stated that two hundred persons are employed in the entire process of making a watch, and that, with the exception of the watch finishers (who put the parts together), not one of the workmen could perform any but his own specific part. In Switzerland, families, for generation after generation, devote themselves to making particular parts of watches. Women have proved their ability to execute the most delicate parts. Twenty thousand Swiss women earn a comfortable livelihood by watch making. They make the movements, but men mostly put them together. I think a few women work as finishers. We quote from the _Englishwoman's Review_: "Geneva has always refused to employ women, and has now totally lost the watch trade. None of the Geneva watches, so called, come from that part of Switzerland, but are manufactured elsewhere, and principally in the canton of Neufchatel, where women have been employed from the first." Mr. Bennett, of London, "states facts relative to the mental culture of both sexes, which is deemed requisite in Switzerland to prepare the intellect, the eye, and the hand for watch manufacture, and he refers to the salubrious dwellings of the operatives." A traveller states: "We see women at the head of some of the heaviest manufactories of Switzerland and France, particularly in the watch and jewelry line." In England, women have been until lately excluded from watch making by men, but some are now employed in one establishment in London and in several of the provincial towns. "There is a manufactory at Christchurch, England, where five hundred women are employed in making the interior chains for chronometers. They are preferred to men, on account of their being naturally more dexterous with their fingers, and therefore being found to require less training." From the November number of the _Knickerbocker_ we quote: "All imported watches are made by hand, the American watches being the only ones made by machinery in a single establishment by connected and uniform processes. The Waltham watches have fewer parts and are more easily kept in order than any others; and are warranted for ten years by the manufacturers. They have over one hundred artisans employed, more than half of whom are women." The manufactory occupies a space more than half an acre in extent. Hand labor is cheaper in Europe than this country, but American watches are cheaper, because made by machinery. Making the cases is a distinct branch from the interior work, and furnishes employment to some women. Cleaning watches would form a pretty and suitable employment for women. I was told of some Swiss women living in Camden, New Jersey, that make the inside work of watches very prettily and very accurately. A manufacturer of chronometers in Boston writes: "We employ women in cutting the teeth of watch and chronometer wheels, polishing, &c. They are generally employed by the week or year, and work nine or ten hours a day. Women might be employed in large establishments in merely cleaning or polishing the parts of watches repaired, without putting them together; and they might learn to do it in a short time, a few months perhaps. We pay our women for such work from $4 to $6 a week, according to their capacity. The qualifications needed are delicacy of touch, patience, and great carefulness. The employment will be very limited. Work is steady the year round. The principal objection to employing women is that they are very apt to marry just as they become skilful enough to be reliable; therefore, what does not require long apprenticeship or a great expense to learn, is most desirable for them. A good degree of intelligence is indispensable. The more, of course, the better." We would add to the requisites for a watchmaker, patience and ingenuity. The secretary of the American Watch Company at Waltham writes: "Women are employed at our factory. The employment is entirely healthy. We pay from $4 to $7 per week for intelligent girls, and women's average pay is $5. About half are paid by the piece. Men earn about double the wages of women, because, first, they do more difficult work, are more ingenious, more thoughtful and contriving, more reliant on themselves in matters of mechanics, are stronger, and therefore worth more, though not perhaps double, as an average; second, because it is the custom to pay women less than men for the same labor. Women and girls are paid from $2.50 to $4 per week during the first four months, while they are learning the particular part of our business we set them at. The requisites are a good common-school education, general intelligence, and quickness; light, small hands are best. The business is new to the country. We work every working day in the year, without detriment to the health of women, who seem to endure their labor as well as men. We work ten hours a day. There is little demand for labor in the watch-making business generally in this country, but we think women could be taught successfully the art of watch making, so as to be able at least to earn a living as watch repairers. We employ seventy-five women out of two hundred hands, and because there are many parts of our work they can do _equally_ well with men; but it is generally light and simple work, for which no high degree of mechanical skill is requisite. Nine tenths are American born. Our hands are all made perfectly comfortable in their labor. We employ female labor, where we can, as being cheaper; but we find women do not reach the posts where a high degree of skill is needed, as of course they do not those for which their strength is insufficient. They have abundant facilities for mental culture in the evenings. About half live with parents or relatives; the rest board, and pay from $2 to $3 a week, according to quality."

=249. Watch Case and Jewelry Polishers.= Quite a number of women are employed in polishing watch cases, and a few in polishing jewelry. It requires some time to learn to do the finest work, and some can never learn. The polishing of good gold is done by hand and the lathe--common jewelry, by the lathe alone. A good polisher can earn $1 a day of ten hours' work. C. & Co. employ girls, because they do not have to pay them so high, and they do it as well. B. & H., who have a factory in Jersey City, employ a number of lady polishers. The rouge renders it dirty work, but not unhealthy. Very good hands can earn $7 or $8 a week. They employ four sisters, French girls, who have bought a farm for their parents. They have generally paid $23 a week to the four sisters. The prospect for learners is good. They generally pay by the week, and have their hands work ten hours a day. They take learners, and pay something from the first. It requires two years' practice to become very good polishers. They prefer to make an agreement with the learner to retain her some time, as the material is costly, and considerable is wasted by a learner. In good times they have work steadily all the year. Polishers can either sit or stand while at work. Burnishing and polishing are different. Burnishing is done with steel, polishing with buffs. Plated ware is burnished, silver and gold are polished. S. thinks several girls might, in busy times, find employment in polishing jewelry. He often advertises for workers, but receives few answers. It requires two or three years to learn, and four or five to become perfect workers. In Germany and France, girls have polished jewelry for many years. In the Southern and Western U. States, there are no manufactories of any extent. They have not the machinery for such work. What little is made and repaired is done in the jeweller's shop, or above his store. F. & P. employ small girls about thirteen years old to polish, paying $1.50 per week, while learning. It requires about a year for young girls to become expert. We were told women are the best polishers of jewelry. A maker of gold buttons, who has employed girls to polish, paid $2 a week to small girls, and $3 to older and more experienced hands. The girls are also employed in putting them up. Care is needed in polishing, that the work be evenly done. A watch-case polisher told me a woman cannot earn more than $2 or $3 a week at polishing. (It may be all he pays.) Mrs. C. is teaching a girl to polish watch cases. She boards her, and pays her $30 the first year, and furnishes her with a certain number of dresses. A good polisher may earn from $6 to $8 a week. She told me a lady in Philadelphia, that she taught, is making $27 a week. C. has most of his polishing done by a lady. He pays boys he takes as apprentices, $2.25 a week, from the first. He says a good lady polisher can earn $1 a day. He pays his men from $10 to $15 a week, because they do more, and do it better than women. In good seasons there is so much polishing to do that experienced hands are very much hurried. The work is not confined to seasons. It does not require long to learn to polish. Such work is mostly done in New York, but considerable is done in the small towns around. At S.'s we saw a girl polishing, who told us she received $1 a day. She says there a girl spends six months learning. For three months she receives nothing, after that $3 a week. At B.'s, the lathes are moved by steam, but have treadles also, that the work may not cease when the engine or machinery is out of order. Less and less watch work is done by hand in the United States every year, owing no doubt to the large number imported and the increased use of machinery. The work in the business has fallen to European rates. A good polisher has been earning $6 or $7 a week, but very few can do so now, and the prospect of employment is poor for a learner. Some years ago he employed a lady at $15 a week, for fitting movements to the case. The sister of a watch-case maker and importer, in Brooklyn, told me that she worked at the business some years ago, and received seventy-five cents apiece for polishing watch cases--now but fifty cents is paid. The lady often polished four cases in a day of ten hours, and so earned $3. In the European countries, some years back, a man was paid $1 for making a watch case; in the United States, $5. Prices have fallen greatly in the United States for this kind of work, because the duty on imported goods is so low. She says the work is not very clean, because the oil and rouge get on your clothes and person. Everybody should wear working clothes, if their labor is such as to soil them. The motion of the foot in moving the lathe tries the back greatly. When the polishing is done by steam, it is not so. As men and women are paid by the piece, women receive as good wages. A smart person can learn to polish in a few days, but to learn it thoroughly would require three months. Women are paid in this country while learning, but in Europe they are not. In prosperous times, work is good all the year. In summer, work is done for the North; in winter, for the South. A locality in or near a large city is preferable. Prices vary in different establishments. Usually, where the best quality of work is done, the best prices are paid the work people--where cheaper work is done, lower wages are paid. The usual price paid to girls as polishers, when they are employed by the week, is $6--a better remuneration for mechanical labor than most women receive.

=250. Watch Chains.= In Birmingham, several hundred women are employed in making chains, and we suppose fifty or more in this country. The gold wire is prepared and drawn out by men, as it requires too much strength for women. All the work after that is performed by women. The wire is cut into pieces of the right length, then bent into the proper form by means of a die worked by a hand press; each link is then soldered together by means of a jet of gas, a blowpipe, and a tiny piece of solder, when it is finished by polishing. D. & S., Philadelphia, employ three girls in soldering. The wages of the girls vary from $3.50 to $8 a week. They work ten hours a day. It is not an unhealthy business, D. and S. think, and can be learned in two months. M. F. & Co., New York, employ girls in soldering and polishing chains. Those that solder earn from $3 to $8 a week. Some of the girls are paid by the week, and some by the inch. It can be pretty well learned in three months. After two or three weeks they are able to earn about $2 a week. To those girls who instruct learners they give the profits of the learners. Polishing is not clean work, but the women can generally earn more at it. They earn from $3 to $9 a week. They work ten hours a day, when paid by the week, in summer; but in winter, not so long. The building is never lighted. The women have a separate apartment to work in, and change their clothes on entering and leaving the work room; and the polishers tie up their heads, to prevent their hair being covered with rouge. The girls wear the same clothes every day while at work, that they may not carry away any gold. The proprietors sell their waste scraps for $8,000 a year. They require boys to spend five years learning the business, taking them at the age of 16, and retaining them until 21. Men that learn a trade expect to follow it until death. M. thinks women will not spend long learning a trade, for nearly all women look forward to something else than working all their lives at a trade. The heat and fumes of gas used in chain making are said to render the occupation unhealthy, but an extensive manufacturer assured me that the fumes are not inhaled, as the flame is blown from the worker, and that it is not more unhealthy than any other sedentary occupation. I would have thought the minuteness of the particles composing some chains would be trying on the eyes, but the girls said not. The chain makers sit while at work. In summer they cannot sit near an open window, lest any of the gold be blown away. Chain making looked to be very nice, delicate work, requiring care, judgment, and some skill. The Europeans have not got to using steam in any part of the process, and are astonished at the superiority of the American chains. There are no manufactories West or South. I was told at Tiffany's, the making of some kinds of chains can be learned in two or three years, while other kinds require five years. S., at Tiffany's, told me he was the first person that introduced women into the manufacture of jewelry in New York. The hands at chain making receive $1.50 a week at first--as they become more skilful, they receive more. The average payment is $5 a week. They have one woman who has been at the business six years, and earns $8 a week. Another manufacturer told me chain making is not unhealthy. It requires a year to learn to do polishing well, and during that time a learner can earn only from $1.75 to $2 a week. While polishing at a lathe, workers stand. Men do most polishing now. They do it by machinery propelled by steam, and one man can accomplish as much in a day as a woman by a treadle lathe can do in two weeks. Manufacturers in Providence write me, "their girls, from six to fifteen in number, work at home, and are paid by the piece. They earn $1 a day of ten hours on an average. They do not employ men in that department of the business. It requires men five years to learn the business--females to solder, thirty days. Good eyesight is necessary. The business will probably increase with growth of country and increase of wealth. Spring and fall are the most busy seasons. They are all American." Some manufacturer in New York writes: "The work is not more unhealthy than any other so sedentary. It is generally paid for by the piece, the workers earning from $2 to $8 per week. The men average from $10 to $12. Men spend seven years learning--girls, one. Quickness of motion, perseverance, and attention are desirable qualities. The prospect for work in future is moderate. The busy seasons are spring and fall. In July, August, January, and February, the women are employed. We have from thirty to forty females, because the work is light."

=251. Watch Jewels.= I called on a Swiss lady who sets jewels in watches. She supports her family by it, but complains of a scarcity of work, because watchmakers can import their jewels at four shillings a dozen from Switzerland, and set them themselves.

MISCELLANEOUS WORK.

=252. Indian Goods.= Any one that has ever visited Niagara, knows something of the immense quantity of Indian goods offered for sale. Moccasins and reticules (made of buckskin, and ornamented with beads), pincushions, baskets, &c. (made of birch-wood, and ornamented with figures and flowers of party-colored porcupine quills), can be had. Fans of feathers and a thousand little fancy articles may be bought in a dozen different shapes at Niagara. The Indians make most of them, but quite a number are made by fairer hands. The duty on goods purchased in Her Majesty's realm, and brought into the States, is ten per cent. So, if a person is careful of his purse, or disposed to encourage home manufactures, he had as well purchase on the American side. On most of the steamboats and cars of the Western waters, while in port or at the depot, genuine Indian women may be seen, with (we suppose) genuine Indian articles for sale.

=253. Inkstands.= Manufacturers of inkstands in Connecticut write: "We employ from twelve to fifteen American women in painting, varnishing, and bronzing inkstands, and pay from fifty to sixty cents per day of ten hours. Females do not perform the same kind of labor that the males do. The wages of women are less, because there is a surplus in consequence of there being so little diversity in female employment. The occupation is learned in from one to two years. That part done by females may be learned in one month. They are paid while learning. Some mechanical ingenuity is required. The business will depend on general commercial prosperity. Summer and fall are the most busy seasons. No cessation of employment during the year. The other parts of the work are too laborious for women. Our location is preferable, as we have water power and are convenient to market. Board, $1.75 per week."

=254. Lithoconia=, or artificial stone, is being used as a substitute for terra cotta, papier-maché, &c. It is composed of mineral substances, and is insoluble in water. It is used for making photograph frames, busts, and statuary, and for architectural purposes. It is made in Roxbury, Mass. The proprietor and inventor writes: "I employ fourteen women in manufacturing and finishing lithoconia photograph frames. Their wages average $5 a week, ten hours a day. Some are paid by the piece, and some by the day. Men earn from $1 to $2 per day. Women learn in from one to four weeks. Cultivation of the eye and finger, and great neatness are desirable in a learner. Girls accustomed to drawing or fine needle work answer well. The prospect of more work is good. My women work the year round. Women, I think, are more reliable than men; that is, if told to do a work in a certain way, they will do it. Men are more apt to experiment in a new business. Women might be employed in gilding the frames. We have twelve men in New York doing that for us now. My girls pay from $1.75 to $2 per week for board. I hear no complaint of their houses; but, judging from my Scotch experience, the accommodations in Scotland are far superior in an intellectual point of view; but so far as pies and doughnuts go, American boarding houses have the advantage."

=255. Marble Workers.= The rough parts of marble working are wet, dirty, and laborious, but not the finishing. Constant standing on the feet, and having the hands wet much of the time, would not do for very delicate females. A marble worker writes: "Sawing marble is heavy and wet work, and performed in the night as well as the day. I do not see that women could be employed at it to any advantage." Theodore Parker mentioned seeing a woman, in a marble yard in Paris, sawing marble. I have been told that in Italy whole families engage in chiselling the beautiful marble ornaments brought to this country. As a stone cutter, Charlotte Rebecca Schild, of Hanau, worked in Paris. Miss McD. told me that she got situations for two girls with a marble cutter in Hollidaysburg to do the fine part of marble chiselling.

=256. Mineral Door Knobs.= Manufacturers of mineral door knobs write: "We have women to make mineral door knobs, and to pack locks. They are paid by the piece, and average $5 per week. They work from nine to ten hours a day. It requires six months to learn. The prospect for further employment is small. Seasons make no difference in the work. We find men better adapted to the work. Our business affords little or no opportunity for the employment of women to advantage. We have about two hundred women in busy seasons. When men and women are employed in the same department, they talk too much."

=257. Paper Cutters.= We read in "Women Artists" of a Dutch lady, "Joanna Koertin Block, who produced from paper very beautiful cuttings. All that the engraver accomplishes with the burin, she was able to do with the scissors. Country scenes, marine views, animals, flowers, with portraits of perfect resemblance, she executed in a marvellous manner." "Mrs. Dards opened a new exhibition with flower paintings in the richest colors. They were exact imitations of nature, done with fish bones."

=258. Papier-Maché Finishers.= Papier-maché is made of paper ground into a pulp, and bleached if necessary. It is moulded into various forms. It has been cast into figures of life size. It is made into mouldings for the ornamental parts of bronzes. It is lighter, more lasting, and less brittle than plaster. It can be colored or gilt. Another article of the same name is made by gluing and pressing together, very powerfully, sheets of prepared paper until they acquire the thickness of pasteboard. They must be shaped while moist into the articles desired. When dry, they will be very hard and firm. They must be covered with japan, or other varnish, and may be beautifully painted with flowers, birds, landscapes, &c. Workboxes, portfolios, waiters, miniature cases, clock faces, and many other beautiful articles may be made of it. The varnishing, painting, and inlaying is done by women in the factories of England. Papier-maché manufacturers in Boston write: "We employ women in pressing and painting. The work is healthy. We pay $4 per week of ten hours a day. Men and women do not perform the same kind of work. We pay learners $2.50 the first month, $3 the second, $3.50 the third, and $4 afterward. The prospect of future employment is good. We find women have not a mechanical eye. Board, $2 per week."