Part 62

=489. Knitters.= The knitting done by machinery is not so soft, so warm, or so durable as that done by hand. It is almost impossible to obtain ladies' hand-knit hose in cities. Gentlemen's are sometimes made by the Shakers, and bring a very high price. We have no doubt but some old ladies might even now find it profitable to knit to order, or supply some store where their goods would be brought forward and disposed of to those who can appreciate the difference between machine and hand knitting. The Germans are famous knitters. "The peasant women of the Channel Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, &c., knit a great deal. They are seldom, if ever, without the materials for this occupation. On the way to and from market, and at other times, knitting forms their almost constant employment." A knitting machine has been invented in Seneca, N. Y., that is said to knit a perfect stocking in less than five minutes. Aiken's knitting machines are very popular. We have thought ladies would do well to try them, and devote themselves to making up hosiery. We doubt not but it would pay very well. The cloth is knit in a straight piece, and another lady cuts it into shape and sews into the articles wanted. A machine has been invented by Mr. Aiken, also, for toeing and heeling socks. A manufacturer of knit goods writes: "We employ about twenty hands, one half of whom are girls. Their wages are from $3 to $5 per week, except when working by the piece. Those who run the knitting machines are paid by the piece, and earn from 75 cents to $1 per day. Males receive from $1 to $1.75 per day. The work done by them is generally harder, and such as females could not well do. To effectually superintend the knitting business would require at least five years. The part performed by females can be learned in six months. They are paid while learning, from $2.75 to $3 per week. The business is overdone at present; although there is always a demand in our section of country for girls. They work regularly throughout the year, twelve hours in summer, ten in winter. It would be better for all parties to run their mills only ten hours per day, and thus tend to keep down the production, and so keep up the prices to a fair profit. Those tending sewing machines are generally married, or widows with children, and in general support their families. Their machines are repaired by a foreman, but with a little practice they can learn to do it themselves. In other branches generally pursued by girls, they earn sufficient to dress well, but seldom accumulate. A location is preferred in some thickly settled place, on account of getting sewing done by hand, as all the goods are finished off by hand. After working twelve hours a day, they will be necessarily rather too much fatigued to go through any mental processes otherwise than reading a novel. If all the mills of all descriptions would work ten hours only, and establish evening schools, and request all to attend, it would greatly elevate them in the social scale. But selfishness rules, and where one manufacturer would agree to this arrangement, two would not. Board, $1.50 per week, including washing." A hose manufacturer in Holderness writes: "We employ about sixty females in the mill. Work is given out to three hundred. Almost all are American. Their wages are from $3 to $6 per week. The wages in the knitting department are not much less for women than men. Women learn the knitting so as to earn good pay in three months. Women are paid $2 per week for the first four weeks; after that, by the piece. A learner should be steady and quick with her fingers. The employment is healthy, as the knitters sit only about half the time. We run all the year eleven hours a day. There is not female help enough. We are trying women where men have been employed. I think women are in some respects superior workers to men." Manufacturers of seamless hosiery, in Connecticut, write they "pay from $3 to $5 per week, eleven hours a day--that it requires from six to eight weeks to learn--that their hands have access to libraries; and board is for men $3, for women $2." At Cohoes, N. Y., is a manufactory of shirts, drawers, &c. I have a letter from the company saying: "We employ two hundred and fifty women, and pay from 40 cents to $1 per day. Some are paid by the piece, and some by the week. Men receive from 75 cents to $2.50 per day, of twelve hours. The reason why they obtain better wages is that they do work which women cannot do. (Query: Do not the women perform work that men cannot do?) Men are continually learning. Women can learn to perform certain work in a few days. The best qualifications are soundness of mind and body, activity, steadiness, quick perception, and a desire to make money. The business is increasing yearly. Occasionally, in the winter, the mills stop for a month. There is at present (October, 1860) a surplus of labor. Board, $1.75 to $2." At L.'s knitting factory, in Brooklyn, the foreman told me there are six machines in operation, each of which cost between $5,000 and $6,000. The articles made by them are softer than any knitting done by machine I have seen; but it may be owing to the quality of the wool: I cannot say. Those working at machines stand, the others sit. The machine operators receive from $1.50 to $3.50: those in the finishing room are paid by the piece, and earn from $2 to $5. A foreman superintends the work and puts the machinery in order. A woman of good abilities can learn in three months, if the factory is in a position to put her forward. From May to December is the best time for work. Double price is paid the hands for night work in busy times. They prefer American girls, because they are neater. A manufacturer of factory supplies, in Massachusetts, writes: "We employ thirty women in knitting loom harnesses. The work is not more unhealthy than any employment that requires one to sit all the time. They are paid by the piece. The employment is sure so long as cotton manufacturing is good. The work is equally good all seasons. Board, $1.62 to $2.25 per week." The secretary of the Waterbury Knitting Company writes: "We employ one hundred hands, at from 50 cents to $1 per day, working twelve hours in summer, ten in winter. Women are paid as well or better than men of the same age; working by the piece, they are paid the same. The women are not thrown out of work at any season. Women are inferior in mechanical genius. We are obliged to keep a man to every fifteen women to overlook them. A woman will run a knitting machine for seven years, and never be able to straighten a needle, or knit the cloth slack or tight. A boy or man will learn to oversee a whole room in half that time. Women cannot be made to think or act for themselves in the least thing, or in any case to rely on their own judgment. This is equally true of the stupid Irish, German, and English, and of the more acute Yankee. Women are superior perhaps in good looks." S., of Enfield, N. H., has his daughter write: "I use three of Aikens's knitting machines, and other machinery for making yarn. The wool is first made into yarn and then knit into webbing, and marked for heeling and toeing. It is then divided into dozens, and distributed around the country to be heeled and toed, in which branch we employ usually five hundred American women. We pay $1 a dozen for heeling and toeing; for tending the machine, $2 per week, of eleven hours a day. Women are paid less, because they are not usually as strong as men, and therefore cannot do the same work, or, if the same kind, not so great an amount in a limited time. Men can be employed by paying them what they require, and as they are considered, or rather seem to consider themselves the 'lords of creation,' they demand higher wages than women. In four weeks the females can perform their part without trouble. Learners receive their board. The prospect is good for the same number employed as at present. The summer season is the best for work. If at any time there is a want of work, it is in January and February."

=490. Lace Bleachers.= Mrs. L. spent five years learning the business in Paris. A girl that spent two years learning with her, is now doing well in the business in St. Louis. She prefers to take learners a week on trial. She charges from $1 to $1.50 a pair for curtains. The French are the most successful in that line. She often has thirty or more pair from a hotel and other large houses. One can make a good living at it. L. says the work is unhealthy, particularly while the vapor of the chemicals is warm. The curtains are not wrung out, but the water pressed out with the hands. The dirt, of course, is first washed out. It requires strength to handle the goods. Curtains are put on frames to dry, and women, he says, are not strong enough. It requires strength to get the extra starch out, as it is done by squeezing. It is surprising how many objections, as regards health and physical strength required, can be presented by selfish men, who do not wish women to engage in their occupations. None but those who have had occasion to test the matter would believe it possible that the majority of men are so selfish and unjust in this respect. Another man told me he does all the washing and drying himself, because he is responsible for the goods, and is not willing to trust them to strangers. He charges $1 a pair, except for a very large size. Different kinds of laces require different methods of washing and ironing.

=491. Lacquerers.= Lacquering is warm work, and in summer is done in rooms the temperature of which is over 200°. M. thought women could be employed in burnishing, lacquering, polishing, and bronzing. Girls were at one time employed in lacquering gas fixtures on William street, New York; but they were dismissed, because they did not prove steady and efficient workers. The process previous to lacquering, called dipping, is dirty work. It requires but a short time to learn to lacquer. F. told me that in France women do all the fine lacquering, and they do it much better than men can. They take it home with them to do; and the same plan could be followed in this country, and probably will be before long. The finest lacquering, such as ormolu clocks, &c., is done with gold dust. The varnish must be put on evenly. It requires care and delicacy of touch. Most of the gas fixtures sold as brass are merely zinc gilded, and then lacquered--the bronzed part the same metal, bronzed. Zinc can be bought at six cents a pound--brass is thirty cents a pound. Mathematical instruments, daguerreotype cases, and gas fixtures are lacquered. A man earns from $8 to $10 a week, working ten hours a day. Lacquering, I was told, is not unhealthy, and a person can sit two or three feet from the fire while at work. A firm in New York, manufacturing gas fixtures, wrote to us as follows: "Lacquering is a suitable occupation for women; but we do not employ them, because men are considered more reliable as to regularity of hours, and are more easily managed. Women can be made equally good lacquerers with the men; but when employed by us, some years since, we found, with few exceptions, that they produced inferior work, owing, as we think, to want of application. Women are employed in similar establishments to ours in England and, we learn, in Boston. The employment is not unhealthy. They are paid by the week in England. It requires from three to five years to learn the business. Steady application and a good eye for colors will make a good lacquerer."

=492. Life Preservers.= R. employs two women to stitch his life preservers with a sewing machine, and pays the usual price of operatives. None are made South or West. (Would not New Orleans offer an opening?)

=493. Lucifer Matches.= This is a business that has been largely entered into in New York. The making and selling of matches have furnished employment for hundreds and thousands of boys and girls in all our large cities. The making of matches is a dangerous employment. Its unhealthy tendency (owing to the use of sulphur), and the long period of twelve, and even fourteen hours' confinement, no doubt serve to account for the sad and woe-begone faces of the poor little operators. At a match factory where I stopped, girls are paid three cents a gross for cutting matches and filling boxes. Some can do as many as forty gross a day; but very few can. It is best for girls to commence early in life, and most do so. Some girls earn as much as $5 to $6 per week, if we may believe the proprietor's statement. Girls are paid for filling the frames in which they are to be dipped, sixty-two cents 100 frames, each frame containing 1,500 double, or 3,000 single matches. The factory is open from seven in the morning to ten at night. The business for women and girls is not crowded. Most learners become discouraged and leave it, because it is so long before they can become expert enough to earn fair wages. It is not as healthy, he says, as some occupations. I should think not, judging from his sallow face, and the pale, spiritless faces of all I have seen in the match factories. He buys bundles of sticks, ready to cut for matches, of those who make it a business to prepare them. They are cut by hand. He pays twenty-five cents a bunch, and a man can cut a bunch in five minutes. They never stop work, except in December and January. A brisk hand can earn from $5 to $7 a week. They make from twenty to forty different kinds of matches, to suit all climates. At the store of this manufacturer, the bookkeeper told me that, if a person has a tooth extracted, the phosphorus will be absorbed by the jaw bone and cause it to decay, if the individual works in the factory before the gum is entirely well. A lady told me she knows a girl that earns $6 a week in a match factory. In H.'s factory, I saw small girls and boys putting matches in the frames to be dipped. They are paid sixty cents 100 frames, containing 1,500 double matches. They can seldom fill more than 85 frames a day. They commence work at 6½ in winter, and work until 8; in summer, they commence at 6, and work until 7½. They are not obliged to work all the time, as they are paid by the piece; but with the exception of an hour at noon, which all have the privilege of taking, they no doubt work the full time. They were poor, dirty-looking children. In the room where the boxes were filled, large girls worked. Most match makers are Germans and Irish. A manufacturer told me that he now employs boys only--that girls he found so wild he could not manage them. He says some of his girls used to earn $5 a week. He thinks none but strong, healthy persons should work at the business, as the fumes of sulphur are injurious. A manufacturer in Vermont writes: "Women are employed to pack matches. They are paid by the thousand, and their wages amount to fifty cents per day, of ten hours, after they get accustomed to it. Women's work in this department is lighter than men's--so will not yield as good wages. A learner will gain the trade in about six months. An increase of this business is not flattering. No difference in the seasons for work. Women are more nimble in the use of their fingers, and consequently succeed better in this kind of work."

=494. Mat Makers.= Door mats are made of sea grass, corn husks, worsted, manilla, hemp, and cocoa-nut fibre. At the largest manufactory in the United States, I saw the process of making several kinds. No girls or women were employed. The superintendent told us it was too heavy work for women. In one establishment in Philadelphia, girls are employed as tenders, which is merely picking the substance to be woven--jute, hemp, or wool--into bunches of the right thickness, and handing to the weaver. Some of their mat weavers earn $14 a week--boys, from $1.50 to $3. Mats are sometimes made by women of osier, rushes, and straw.

=495. Manufacturers of Musical Instruments.= The manufacture of different musical instruments is engaged in as so many distinct branches of business. Musical instruments are usually classed as follows: 1. Wind instruments, of wood or metal. 2. Stringed instruments. 3. Keyed instruments. 4. Instruments of percussion. 5. Automatic instruments. 6. Miscellaneous articles in connection with musical instruments. On wind instruments made of wood and ornamented with metals, as flutes, clarionets, &c., women might be employed to polish the metal. Those that are all metal, as horns, trumpets, &c., are polished in making, and could not well be divided into a separate branch of work. Of stringed instruments, the ornamental part, as painting, inlaying of pearl, &c., would be very pretty work for women of taste. The smaller strings could be covered by women. Of keyed instruments, some of the smaller and finer work would be very suitable for women. In instruments of percussion, the drum and tambourine are probably the only instruments presenting a field for woman's work. Of automatic instruments, mechanical organs are the only ones, I think, at which women do work. I cannot learn that women are employed in making musical boxes, which are imported from Switzerland, Germany, and France. Women are employed to some extent, in other countries, in the manufacture of musical instruments. Z. thinks the reason women are not employed in the manufacture of musical instruments in this country is, that they do not understand the business.--1. _Wind Instruments._ Women might polish the metal on flutes, and even paint the woodwork. I was told by a manufacturer in New York, whose factory is in Connecticut, that he once employed women in that way, but they did not succeed, because they did not try.--2. _Stringed Instruments._ I called on L., engaged in the manufacture of harps. There are but two harp manufacturers in the United States. Ladies might do the gilding and ornamental painting on harps. Sizing is put on, and then gold leaf laid on, and smoothed down with a small brush. The varnishing could be very well done by women. The same kind of work is executed on guitar frames, of which a number are made in the United States. The painting is done as on enamelled furniture. L. employs an Englishman to do the gilding and ornamental painting. The other manufacturer, B., thinks there is no part of the work in making harps that could be done by a lady. The ornamental part is done by the varnisher, and varnishing requires much strength. It requires a regular apprenticeship, and some artistic taste. So few harps are made in this country, that it would not pay a woman to learn. He was evidently opposed to women having anything to do with the business.--3. _Keyed Instruments. Accordions._ In making accordions women could put on the keys and kid, and do so in Germany. Accordions are nearly all imported, because they can be made more cheaply in Europe than in this country. L., Philadelphia, says he is in partnership with his brother in Germany, who has musical instruments made there, and employs a number of women and girls.--_Melodeons._ C., New York, manufacturer, says he does not know of any women being employed in the making of melodeons; but much of the work, I am sure, could be done by women. Cutting the keys, polishing, gluing them on the board, and fastening the hammers on, are done by hand, and the work is as suitable for women as men. Men receive for such work, $2 a day. Women properly trained, and with a good ear for music could also tune the instruments. Men who do so, earn about $3 a day. A manufacturer of melodeons writes: "We do not employ women, but think larger firms might."--_Organs._ I was told by a manufacturer that in Germany some women assist their husbands in making the action, but there is lighter work and more of it in piano actions. J., another organ builder, told me that in England, in some organ factories, women are employed to gild the pipes. In making the organs turned by a crank, used in some churches in England, women, he said, are employed in putting the pins in the cylinders. They are made on the same principle as the music box. J. seldom makes more than one of these organs in a year, and I think he is the only one in the United States that does make them. Mrs. Dall says "there are women, who strain silk in fluting, across the old-fashioned workbag, or parlor organ front."