Chapter 1

GENERAL CONDITIONS AMONG WAGE-EARNING WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES.

The summary already made of the work of bureaus of labor and their bearing upon women wage-earners includes some points belonging under this head which it still seemed advisable to leave where they stand. The work of the Massachusetts Bureau gave the keynote, followed by all successors, and thus required full outlining; and it is from that, as well as successors, that general conditions are to be determined. A brief summary of such facts as each State has investigated and reported upon will be given, with the final showing of the latest and most general report,--that from the United States Bureau of Labor for 1889.

Beginning with New England and taking State by State in the usual geographical order, that of Maine for 1888 leads. Work here was done by a special commissioner appointed for the purpose, and the chief towns and cities in the State were visited. No occupation was excluded. The foreign element of the State is comparatively small. There is no city in which overcrowding and its results in the tenement-house system are to be found. Factories are numerous, and the bulk of Maine working-women are found in them; the canning industry employs hundreds, and all trades have their proportion of workers. For all of them conditions are better in many ways than at almost any other point in New England, many of them living at home and paying but a small proportion of their wages toward the family support.

A large proportion of the factories have boarding-houses attached, which are run by a contractor. A full inspection of these was made, and the report pronounces them to be better kept than the ordinary boarding-house, with liberal dietary and comfortable rooms. Many of the women owned their furniture, and had made "homes" out of the narrow quarters. These were the better-paid class of workers. Several of the factories have "Relief Associations," in which the employees pay a small sum weekly, which secures them a fixed sum during illness or disability. The conditions, as a whole, in factory are more nearly those of Massachusetts during the early days of the Lowell mills than can be found elsewhere.

Taking the State as a whole, though the average wage is nearly a dollar less a week than that of Massachusetts, its buying power is somewhat more, from the fact that rents are lower and the conditions of living simpler, though this is true only of remote towns.

Massachusetts follows; and here, as in Maine, there is general complaint that many of the girls live at home, pay little or no board, and thus can take a lower wage than the self-supporting worker. In the large stores employees are hired at the lowest possible figure; and many girls who are working for from four to five dollars per week state that it is impossible to pay for room and board with even tolerably decent clothing. Hundreds who want pin-money do work at a price impossible to the self-supporting worker, many married women coming under this head; and bitter complaint is made on this point. At the best the wage is at a minimum, and only the most rigid economy renders it possible for the earner to live on it. That there is not greater suffering reflects all honor on the army of hard-working women, pronounced by the commissioner to be as industrious, moral, and virtuous a class as the community owns.

"Homes" of every order have been established in Boston and in other large towns in the State; and as they give board at the lowest rate, they are filled with girls. They are rigid as to rules and regulations, and not in favor, as a rule, with the majority. A very slight relaxing of lines and more effort to make them cheerful would result in bringing many who now remain outside; but in any case they can reach but a small proportion.

In unskilled labor there is little difference among the workers. All alike are half starved, half clothed, overworked to a frightful degree; the report specifying numbers whose day's work runs from fourteen to sixteen hours, and with neither time to learn some better method of earning a living, nor hope enough to spur them on in any new path. This class is found chiefly among sewing-women on cheap clothing, bags, etc.; and there is no present means of reaching them or altering the conditions which surround them.

Connecticut factories are subject to the same general laws as those governing like work in Maine and Massachusetts. Over thirty thousand women and girls are engaged in factory work, and ten thousand children,--chiefly girls, women being twenty-five per cent of all employed in factories. Legislation has lessened or abolished altogether some of the worst features of this life, and there are special mills which have won the highest reputation for just dealing and care of every interest of their employees. But the same reasons that affect general conditions for all workers exist here also, and produce the same results, not only in factory labor, but in all other industries open to women. The fact that there are no large cities, and thus little overcrowding in tenements, and that there is home life for a large proportion of the workers, tells in their favor. Factory boarding-houses fairly well kept abound; but the average wage, $6.50, is a trifle lower than that of Massachusetts, and implies more difficulty in making ends meet. Many of the worst abuses in child labor arose in Connecticut, and the reports for both 1885 and 1886 state that for both women and children much remains to be done. Clothing here, as elsewhere, is synonymous with overwork and underpay, the wage being below subsistence point; and want of training is often found to be a portion of the reason for these conditions.

In Rhode Island, as in all the New England States, the majority of the factories are in excellent condition, the older ones alone being open to the objections justly made both by employees and the reports of the Labor Bureau. The wage falls below that of Connecticut, while the general conditions of living are practically the same, the statements made as to the first applying with equal force to the last. Manufactures are the chief employment, the largest number of women workers being found in these. Of all of them the commissioner reports: "They work harder and more hours than men, and receive much less pay."[39] The fact of no large cities, and thus no slums, is in the worker's favor; but limitations are in all other points sharp and continuous.

New York follows, and for the State at large the same remarks apply at every point. It is New York City in which focuses every evil that hedges about women workers, and in a degree not to be found at any other portion of the country. These will be dealt with in the proper place. The average wage, so far as the State is concerned, gives the same result as those already mentioned. Manufacturing gives large employment; and this is under as favorable conditions as in New England, though the average wage is nearly a dollar less than that of Massachusetts, while expenses are in some ways higher. The incessant tide of foreign labor tends steadily to lower the wage-rate, and the struggle for mere subsistence is the fact for most.

In New York City, while there is a large proportion of successful workers, there is an enormous mass of the lowest order. No other city offers so varied a range of employment, and there is none where so large a number are found earning a wage far below the "life limit."

The better-paying trades are filled with women who have had some form of training in school or home, or have passed from one occupation to another, till that for which they had most aptitude has been determined. That, however, to which all the more helpless turn at once, as the one thing about the doing of which there can be no doubt or difficulty, is the one most over-crowded, most underpaid, and with its scale of payments lessening year by year. The girl too ignorant to reckon figures, too dull-witted to learn by observation, takes refuge in sewing in one of its many forms as the one thing possible to all grades of intelligence; often the need of work for older women arises from the death or evil habits of the natural head of the family, and fortunes have sunk to so low an ebb that at times the only clothing left is on the back of the worker in the last stages of demoralization. Employment in a respectable place thus becomes impossible, and the sole method of securing work is through the middlemen or sweaters, who ask no questions and require no reference, but make as large a profit as can be wrung from the helplessness and bitter need of those with whom they reckon.

The difficulties to be faced by the woman whose only way of self-support is limited to the needle, whether in machine or handwork, are fourfold: first, her own incompetency must very often head the list, and prevent her from securing first-class work; second, middlemen or sweaters lower the price to starvation point; third, contract work done in prisons or reformatories brings about the same result; and fourth, she is underbid from still another quarter,--that of the countrywoman living at home, who takes the work at any price offered.

The Report of the New York Bureau of Labor for 1885 contains a mass of evidence so fearful in its character, and demonstrating conditions of life so tragic for the worker, and so shameful on the part of the employer, that general attention was for the time aroused. It is impossible here to make more than this general statement referring all readers to the report itself for full detail. Thousands herded together in tenement houses and received a daily wage of from twenty-five to sixty cents, the day's labor being often sixteen hours long. "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London" found its parallel here, nor has there been any diminution of the numbers involved, though at some points conditions have been improved. But the facts recorded in the report are practically the same to-day; and the income of many workers falls below two dollars a week, from which sum food, clothing, light, fuel, and rent are to be provided for. The sum and essence of every wrong and injustice that can hedge about the worker is found at this point, and remains a problem to every worker among the poor, the solving of which will mean the solution of the whole labor question.

New Jersey reports have from the beginning followed the phases of the labor movement with a keen intelligence and interest. They give general conditions as much the same as those of New York State. The wage-rate is but $5; and Newark especially, a city which is filled with manufacturing establishments of every order, reproduces some of the evil conditions of New York City, though in far less degree. Taking the State as a whole, legislation has done much to protect the worker, and other reforms are persistently urged by the bureau. They are needed. In the official report of conditions among the linen-thread spinners of Paterson we find: "In one branch of this industry women are compelled to stand on a stone floor in water the year round, most of the time barefoot, with a spray of water from a revolving cylinder flying constantly against the breast; and the coldest night in winter, as well as the warmest in summer, these poor creatures must go to their homes with water dripping from their underclothing along their path, because there could not be space or a few moments allowed them wherein to change their clothing."[40]

Thus much for the East; and we turn to the West, where some of the most practical and suggestive forms of investigation are now in full operation.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Third Annual Report of the Commissioner of Industrial Statistics of Rhode Island, 1889, p. 22.

[40] Report of the Bureau of Labor for the State of New Jersey, 1888.

X.

GENERAL CONDITIONS IN THE WESTERN STATES.

The reports from Kansas and Wisconsin give a wage but slightly above that of New Jersey, the weekly average being $5.27. Of the 50,000 women at work in 1889,--the number having now nearly doubled,--but 6,000 were engaged in manufacturing, the larger portion being in domestic service. Save in one or two of the larger towns and cities, there is no overcrowding, and few of the conditions that go with a denser population and sharper competition. Kansas gives large space to general conditions, and, while urging better pay, finds that her working-women are, as a whole, honest, self-respecting, moral members of the community. Factory workers are few in proportion to those in other occupations; and this is true of most of the Western States, where general industries are found rather than manufactures.

The report from Colorado for 1889 includes in its own returns certain facts discovered on investigation in Ohio and Indiana, and matched by some of the same nature in Colorado. The methods of Eastern competition had been adopted, and Commissioner Rice reports:--

"In one of the large cities of Ohio the labor commissioners of that State discovered that shirts were being made for 36 cents a dozen; and that the rules of one establishment paying such wages employing a large number of females, required that the day's labor should commence and terminate with prayer and thanksgiving."

In Indiana matters appear even worse. By personal investigation, it was found that the following rates of wages were being paid in manufacturing establishments in Indianapolis: For making shirts, 30 to 60 cents a dozen; overalls, 40 to 60 cents a dozen pairs; pants, 50 cents to $1.25 per dozen pairs. "In our own State," writes the commissioner, "owing to Eastern competition on the starvation wage plan, are found women and girls working for mere subsistence, though the prices paid here are a shade higher. It is found that shirts are made at 80 cents a dozen, and summer dresses from 25 cents upward."

Prices are higher here than at almost any other portion of the United States, and thus the wage gives less return. In spite of the general impression that women fare well at this point, the report gives various details which seem to prove abuses of many orders. It made special investigation into the conditions of domestic service, that in hotels and large boarding-houses being found to be full of abuses, though conditions as a whole were favorable. In so new a State there are few manufacturing interests; and the factories investigated are many of them reported as showing an almost criminal disregard of the comfort and interests of the employees. Aside from this, the report indicates much the same general conditions as prevail in other States.

In Minnesota, with its average wage of $6 per week, there are few factories,--manufacturing being confined to clothing, boots and shoes, and a few other forms. Domestic service has the largest number of women employed, and stores and trades absorb the remainder. There is no overcrowding save here and there in the cities, as in St. Paul or Minneapolis, where girls often club together in rooming. While many of the workers are Scandinavian, many are native born; and for the latter there is often much thrift and a comfortable standard of living. The same complaints as to lowness of wage, resulting from much the same causes as those specified elsewhere, are heard; and in the clothing manufacture wages are kept at the lowest possible point As a whole, the returns indicate more comfort than in Colorado, but leave full room for betterment. The chapter on "Domestic Service" shows many strong reasons why girls prefer factory or general work to this; and as the views of heads of employment agencies are also given, unusual opportunity is afforded for forming just judgment in the matter.

Next on the list comes the report from California for 1887 and 1888. The resources of the bureau were so limited that it was impossible to obtain returns for the whole State, and the commissioner therefore limited his inquiry to a thorough investigation of the working-women of San Francisco, in number about twenty thousand. The State has but one cotton-mill, but there are silk, jute, woollen, corset, and shirt factories, with many minor industries. Home and general sanitary conditions were all investigated, the bureau following the general lines pursued by all.

Wages are considered at length; and Commissioner Tobin states that the rate paid to women in California "does not compare favorably with the rates paid to women in the Eastern States, as do the wages of men, for the reason that Chinese come more into competition with women than with men. This is especially the case among seamstresses, and in nearly all our factories ... in other lines of labor the wages paid to females in this State are generally higher than elsewhere."

Rent, food, and clothing cost more in California than in the Eastern States. The wage-tables show that the tendency is to limit a woman's wage to a dollar a day, even in the best paid trades, and as much below this as labor can be obtained.

In shirt-making, Commissioner Tobin states that she is worse off than in any of the Eastern States. Clothing of all orders pays as little as possible, the best workwomen often making not over $2.87 per week. Even at these starvation rates, girls prefer factory work to domestic service; and as this phase was also investigated, we have another chapter of most valuable and suggestive information. In spite of low wages and all the hardship resulting, working women and girls as a whole are found to be precisely what the reports state them to be,--hard-working, honest, and moral members of the community. General conditions are much the same as those of Colorado, the summary for all the States from which reports have come being that the average wage is insufficient to allow of much more than mere subsistence.

The labor reports for the State of Missouri for 1889 and 1890 do not deal directly with the question of women wage-earners; but indirectly much light is thrown by the investigation, in that for 1889, into the cost of living and the home conditions of many miners and workers in general trades; while that for 1890 covers a wider field, and gives, with general conditions for all workers, detailed information as to many frauds practised upon them. The commissioner, Lee Merriweather, is so identified with the interests of the worker, whether man or woman, that a formal report from him on women wage-earners would have had especial value.

Last on the list of State reports comes an admirable one from Michigan, prepared by Labor Commissioner Henry A. Robinson, issued in February, 1892, which devotes nearly two hundred pages to women wage-earners, and gives careful statistics of 137 different trades and 378 occupations. Personal visits were made to 13,436 women and girls living in the most important manufacturing towns and cities of the State; and the blanks, which were prepared in the light of the experience gained by the work of other bureaus, contained 129 questions, classified as follows: social, 28; industrial, 12; hours of labor, 14; economic, 54; sanitary, 21; and seven other questions as to dress, societies, church attendance, with remarks and suggestions by the women workers. The result is a very minute knowledge of general conditions, the series of tables given being admirably prepared. In those on the hours of labor it is found that domestic service exacts the greatest number of hours; one class returning fourteen hours as the rule. In this lies a hint of the increasing objection to domestic service,--longer hours and less freedom being the chief counts against it. The final summary gives the average wage for the State as $4.86; the highest weekly average for women workers employed as teachers or in public positions being $10.78.

The remarks and suggestions of the women themselves are extraordinarily helpful. Outside the cities organization among them is unknown; but it is found that those trades which are organized furnish the best paid and most intelligent class of girls, who conceived at once the benefits of a labor bureau, and answered fully and promptly. The hours of work in all industries ranged from nine to ten, and the wage paid was found to be a little more than fifty per cent less than that of men engaged in the same work. A large proportion supported relatives, and general conditions as to living were of much the same order of comfort and discomfort as those given in other reports. The fact that this report is the latest on this subject, and more minute in detail than has before been possible, makes it invaluable to the student of social conditions; and it is entertaining reading, even for the average reader.

We come now to the final report, in some ways a summary of all,--that of the United States Labor Department at Washington, and the work for 1889.

In the twenty-two cities investigated by the agents of this bureau, the average age at which girls began work was found to be 15 years and 4 months. Charleston, S.C., gives the highest average, it being there 18 years and 7 months, and Newark, N.J., the lowest,--14 years and 7 months. The average period in which all had been engaged in their present occupations is shown to be 4 years and 9 months; while of the total number interviewed, 9,540 were engaged in their first attempt to earn a living.

As against the opinion often expressed that foreign workers are in the majority, we find that of the whole number given, 14,120 were native born. Of the foreign born, Ireland is most largely represented, having 936; and Germany comes next, with 775. In the matter of parentage, 12,907 had foreign-born mothers. The number of single women included in the report is 15,387; 745 were married, and 2,038 widowed, from which it is evident that, as a rule, it is single women who are fighting the industrial fight alone. They are not only supporting themselves, but are giving their earnings largely to the support of others at home. More than half--8,754--do this; and 9,813, besides their occupation, help in the home housekeeping. Of the total number, 4,928 live at home, but only 701 of them receive aid or board from their families. The average number in these families is 5.25, and each contains 2.48 workers.

Concerning education, church attendance, home and shop conditions, 15,831 reported. Of these, 10,458 were educated in American public schools, and 5,375 in other schools; 5,854 attend Protestant churches; 7,769 the Catholic, and 367 the Hebrew. A very large percentage, comprehending 3,209, do not attend church at all.

In home conditions 12,120 report themselves as "comfortable," while 4,692 give home conditions as "poor." "Poor," to the ordinary observer, is to be interpreted as wretched, including overcrowding, and all the numberless evils of tenement-house life, which is the portion of many. A side light is thrown on personal characteristics of the workers, in the tables of earnings and lost time. Out of 12,822 who reported, 373 earn less than $100 a year, and this class has an average of 86.5 lost days for the year covered by the investigation. With the increase of earnings, the lost time decreases, the 2,147 who earn from $200 to $450 losing but 37.8; while 398, earning from $350 to $500 a year, lost but 18.3 days.

Deliberate cruelty and injustice on the part of the employer are encountered only now and then; but competition forces the working in as inexpensive a manner as possible, and thus often makes what must sum up as cruelty and injustice necessary to the continued existence of the employer as an industrial factor. Home conditions are seldom beyond tolerable, and very often intolerable. Inspection,--the efficiency of which has greatly increased,--the demand by the organized charities at all points for women inspectors, and the gradual growth of popular interest are bringing about a few improvements, and will bring more; but the mass everywhere are as stated. Ignorance and the vices that accompany ignorance--want of thoroughness, unpunctuality, thriftlessness, and improvidence--are all in the count against the lowest order of worker; but the better class, and indeed the large proportion of the lower, are living honest, self-respecting, infinitely dreary lives.

It is a popular belief, already referred to elsewhere, that the working-women form a large proportion of the numbers who fill houses of prostitution; and that "night-walkers" are made up chiefly from the same class. Nothing could be further from the truth,--the testimony of the fifteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor being in the same line as that of all in which investigation of the subject has been made, and all confirming the opinion given. The investigation of the Massachusetts Bureau in fourteen cities showed clearly that a very small proportion among working-women entered this life. The largest number, classed by occupations, came from the lowest order of worker, those employed in housework and hotels; and the next largest was found among seamstresses, employees of shirt-factories, and cloak-makers, all of these industries in which under pay is proverbial. The great majority, receiving not more than five dollars a week, earn it by seldom less than ten hours a day of hard labor, and not only live on the sum, but assist friends, contribute to general household expenses, dress so as to appear fairly well, and have learned every art of doing without. More than this, since the deepening interest in their lives, and the formation of working-girls' clubs and societies of many orders, they contribute from this scanty sum enough to rent meeting-rooms, pay for instruction in many classes, and provide a relief fund for sick and disabled members.

This is the summary of conditions as a whole, and we pass now to the specific evils and abuses in trades and general industries.

XI.

SPECIFIC EVILS AND ABUSES IN FACTORY LIFE AND IN GENERAL TRADES.

"Has civilization civilized?" is the involuntary question, as one by one the fearful conditions hedging about workers on either side of the sea become apparent. At once, in any specific investigation, we face abuses for which the system of production rather than the employer is often responsible, and for which science has as yet found either none or but a partial remedy. Alike in England and on the Continent work and torture become synonyms, and flesh and blood the cheapest of all nineteenth-century products. The best factory system swarms with problems yet unsolved; the worst, as it may be found in many a remote district of the Continent and even in England itself, is appalling in both daily fact and final result. It would seem at times as if the workshop meant only a form of preparation for the hospital, the workhouse, and the prison, since the workers therein become inoculated with trade diseases, mutilated by trade appliances, and corrupted by trade associates, till no healthy fibre, mental, moral, or physical, remains.

In the nail and chain making districts of England, Sundays are often abolished where these furnaces flame, and such rest as can be stolen comes on the cinder-heaps. But these workers are few compared with the myriads who must battle with the most insidious and most potent of enemies,--the dust of modern manufacture. There is dust of heckling flax, with an average of only fourteen years of work for the strongest; dust of emery powder, that has been known to destroy in a month; dust of pottery and sand and flint, so penetrating that the medical returns give cases of "stone" for new-born babes; dust of rags foul with dirt and breeding fever in the picker; dust of wools from diseased animals, striking down the sorter. Wood, coal, flour, each has its own, penetrating where it can never be dislodged; and a less tangible enemy lurks in poisonous paints for flowers or wall-paper, and in white lead, the foundation of other paints,--blotching the skin of children, and ending for many in blindness, paralysis, and hideous sores.

This is one form; and side by side with it comes another, dealt with here and there, but as a rule ignored,--vapors as deadly as dust; vapors of muriatic acid from pickling tins; of choking chlorine from bleaching-rooms; of gas and phosphorus, which even now, where strongest preventives are used, still pull away both teeth and jaws from many a worker in match-factories; while acids used in cleaning, bleaching-powders, and many an industry where women and children chiefly are employed, eat into hands and clothing, and make each hour a torture.

With the countless forms of machinery for stamping and rolling and cutting and sawing, there is yet, in spite of all the safeguards the law compels, the saying still heard in these shops: "It takes three fingers to make a stamper." Carelessness often; but where two must work together, as is necessary in tending many of these machines, the partner's inattention is often responsible, and mutilation comes through no fault of one's own. Add to all these the suffering of little children taught lace-making at four, sewing on buttons or picking threads far into the night, and driven through the long hours that they may add sixpence to the week's wage, and we have a hint of the grewsome catalogue of the human woe born of human need and human greed.

For the United States there is a steadily lessening proportion of these evils, and we shall deal chiefly with those found in existence by the respective bureaus of labor at the time when their investigations were made. Private and public investigation made before their organization had brought to light in Connecticut, and at many points in New England, gross abuses both in child labor and that of woman and girl workers. It is sufficient, however, for our purpose to refer the reader to the mention of these contained in the first report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, as well as to Dr. Richard T. Ely's "History of the Labor Movement in America," and to pass at once to the facts contained in the fifteenth report from Massachusetts.

The ventilation of factories and of workrooms in general is one of the first points considered. Naturally, facts of this order would be found in the testimony only of the more intelligent. Where factories are new and built expressly for their own purposes, ventilation is considered, and in many is excellent. But in smaller ones and in many industries the structures used were not intended for this purpose. Closely built buildings shut off both light and air, which must come wholly from above, thus preventing circulation, and producing an effect both depressing and wearing. The agents in a number of cases found employees packed "like sardines in a box;" thirty-five persons, for example, in a small attic without ventilation of any kind. Some were in very low-studded rooms, with no ventilation save from windows, causing bad draughts and much sickness, and others in basements where dampness was added to cold and bad air.

In many cases the nature of the trade compelled closed windows, and no provision was made for ventilation in any other way. In one case girls were working in "little pens all shelved over, without sufficient light or air, windows not being open, for fear of cooling wax thread used on sewing-machines."[41]

For a large proportion of the workrooms visited or reported upon was a condition ranging from dirty to filthy. In some where men and women were employed together in tailoring, the report reads: "Their shop is filthy and unfit to work in. There are no conveniences for women; and men and women use the same closets, wash-basins, and drinking-cups, etc."[42] In another a water-closet in the centre of the room filled it with a sickening stench; yet forty hands were at work here, and there are many cases in which the location of these closets and the neglect of proper disinfectants make not only workrooms but factories breeding-grounds of disease.

Lack of ventilation in almost all industries is the first evil, and one of the most insidious. Other points affecting health are found in the nature of certain of the trades and the conditions under which they must be carried on. Feather-sorters, fur-workers, cotton-sorters, all workers on any material that gives off dust, are subject to lung and bronchial troubles. In soap-factories the girls' hands are eaten by the caustic soda, and by the end of the day the fingers are often raw and bleeding. In making buttons, pins, and other manufactures of this nature, there is always liability of getting the fingers jammed or caught. For the first three times the wounds are dressed without charge. After that the person injured must pay expenses. In these and many other trades work must be so closely watched that it brings on weakness of the eyes, so that many girls are under treatment for this.

In bakeries the girls stand from ten to sixteen hours a day, and break down after a short time. Boots and shoes oblige being on the feet all day; and this is the case for saleswomen, cash-girls, and all factory-workers. In type-founderies the air is always filled with a fine dust produced by rubbing, and the girls employed have no color in their faces. In paper-box making constant standing brings on the same difficulties found among all workers who stand all day; and they complain also of the poison often resulting from the coloring matter used in making the boxes. In book-binderies, brush-manufactories, etc., the work soon breaks down the girls.

In the clothing-business, where the running of heavy sewing-machines is done by foot-power, there is a fruitful source of disease; and even where steam is used, the work is exhausting, and soon produces weakness and various difficulties.

In food preparations girls who clean and pack fish get blistered hands and fingers from the saltpetre employed by the fishermen. Others in "working-stalls" stand in cold water all day, and have the hands in cold water; and in laundries, confectionery establishments, etc., excessive heat and standing in steam make workers especially liable to throat and lung diseases, as well as those induced by continuous standing.

Straw goods produce a fine dust, and cause a constant hacking among the girls at work upon them; and the acids used in setting the colors often produce "acid sores" upon the ends of the fingers.

In match-factories, as already mentioned, even with the usual precautions, necrosis often attacks the worker, and the jaw is eaten away. Sores, ulcerations, and suffering of many orders are the portion of workers in chemicals. In many cases a little expenditure on the part of the employer would prevent this; but unless brought up by an inspector, no precautions are taken.

The question of seats for saleswomen comes up periodically, has been at some points legislated upon, and is in most stores ignored or evaded. "The girls look better,--more as if they were ready for work," is the word of one employer, who frankly admitted that he did not mean they should sit; and this is the opinion acted upon by most. Insufficient time for meals is a universal complaint; and nine times out of ten, the conveniences provided are insufficient for the numbers who must use them, and thus throw off offensive and dangerous effluvia.

It is one of the worst evils in shop life, not only for Massachusetts, but for the entire United States, that in all large stores, where fixed rules must necessarily be adopted, girls are forced to ask men for permission to go to closets, and often must run the gauntlet of men and boys. All physicians who treat this class testify to the fact that many become seriously diseased as the result of unwillingness to subject themselves to this ordeal.

One of the ablest factory-inspectors in this country, or indeed in any country, Mrs. Fanny B. Ames of Boston, reports this as one of the least regarded points in a large proportion of the factories and manufacturing establishments visited, but adds that it arises often from pure ignorance and carelessness, and is remedied as soon as attention is called to it.

Taking up the other New England reports in which reference to these evils is found, the testimony is the same. Law is often evaded or wholly set aside,--at times through carelessness, at others wilfully. The most exhaustive treatment of this subject in all its bearings is found in the report of the New Jersey Bureau of Labor for 1889, the larger portion of it being devoted to the fullest consideration of the hygiene of occupation, the diseases peculiar to special trades, and general sanitary condition and methods of working, not only in "dangerous, unhealthy, or noxious trades," but in all. Commissioner Bishop, from whose report quotations have already been made (p. 197), gives many instances of working under fearful conditions, absolutely destructive to health and often to morals; and the report may be regarded as one of the most authoritative words yet spoken in this direction.

The Factory Inspection Law for the State of New York, in detail much the same as that of Massachusetts, is sufficiently full and explicit to secure to all workers better conditions than any as yet attained save in isolated cases. There is, however, constant violation of its most vital points; and this must remain true for all States, until the number of inspectors is made in some degree adequate to the demand. At present they are not only seriously overworked, but find it impossible to cover the required ground. The law which stands at present as the demand to be made by all factory-workers and all interested in intelligent legislation, will be found in the Appendix.

Destructive to health and morals as are often the factories and workshops in which women must work, they play far less part in their lives than the homes afforded by the great cities, where the poor herd in quarters,--at their best only tolerable shelters, at their worst unfit for man or beast. It is the tenement-house question that in these words presents itself for consideration, and that makes part of the general problem. Taking New York as illustrative of some of the worst forms of over-crowding, though Boston and Chicago are not far behind, we turn to the work of one of the closest and most competent of observers, Dr. Annie S. Daniel, for many years physician in charge of out-practice for the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The report of this practice for 1891 includes a series of facts bearing vitally on every phase of woman's labor. Known as an expert in these directions, her testimony was called for in the examination of 1893 into the sweating-system of New York, made by a congressional committee and now on record in a report to be had on application to the New York Congressmen at Washington.[43] For years she has watched the effects of child-labor, taking hundreds of measurements of special cases, and studying the effects of the life mothers and children alike were compelled to live. "The medical problems," she writes, "which present themselves to the physician are so closely connected with the social problems that it is impossible to study one alone. The people are sick because of insufficient food and clothing and unsanitary surroundings, and these conditions exist because the people are poor. They are often poor _because they have no work_." At another point, commenting on drinking among the poor, she writes: "Drinking among the women is increasing. In the majority of cases we have studied, it has been the effect of poverty, not the cause."

In the region between Houston Street and Canal Street, known now to be the most thickly populated portion of the inhabited globe, every house is a factory; that is, some form of manufacture is going on in every room. The average family of five adds to itself from two to ten more, often a sewing-machine to each person; and from six or seven in the morning till far into the night work goes on,--usually the manufacture of clothing. Here contagious diseases pass from one to another. Here babies are born and babies die, the work never pausing save for death and hardly for that. In one of these homes Dr. Daniel found a family of five making cigars, the mother included. "Two of the children were ill of diphtheria. Both parents attended to these children; they would syringe the nose of each child, and without washing their hands return to their cigars. We have repeatedly observed the same thing when the work was manufacturing clothing and undergarments to be bought as well by the rich as by the poor. Hand-sewed shoes, made for a fashionable Broadway shoe-store, were sewed at home by a man in whose family were three children sick with scarlet-fever. And such instances are common. Only death or lack of work closes tenement-house manufactories ... When we consider that stopping this work means no food and no roof over their heads, the fact that the disease may be carried by their work cannot be expected to impress the people."

Farther on in the report, she adds: "The people can neither be moral nor healthy until they have decent homes." Yet the present wage-rate makes decent homes impossible; and though Brooklyn and Boston have a few model tenement-houses, New York has none, the experiment of making over in part a few old ones hardly counting save in intention. Into these homes respectable, ambitious, hard-working girls and women are compelled to go. That they live decent lives speaks worlds for the intrinsic goodness and purity of nature which in the midst of conditions intolerable to every sense still preserves these characteristics. That they must live in such surroundings is one of the deepest disgraces of civilization.

As to wages, concerning which there seems to be a general opinion that steady rise has gone on, we find Dr. Daniel giving the rates for many years. She writes:--

"Wages have steadily decreased. Among the women who earned the whole or part of the income, finishing pantaloons was the most common occupation. For this work, in 1881, they received ten to fifteen cents a pair; for the same work in 1891, three to five, at the most ten cents a pair. The women doing this work claim that wages are reduced because of the influx of Italian women, but few Italian women do the poor quality of trousers. While we are glad to note some excellent sanitary changes in the tenement-house construction, the people we believe to be just as poor, just as overcrowded and wretched to-day, as in 1881 and 1853, the only difference being that there are a greater number of people who are poor now."

These statements apply in great part to unskilled labor; but there is always in these houses a large proportion of skilled labor disabled by sickness or other causes and out of work for the time being. The wage at best for skilled labor is given by the Labor Commissioner as $5.29. Let any one study the possibilities of this sum per week, and the wonder will arise, not why living is not easier, but how it goes on at all.

Specific evils speak for themselves, and are gradually being eliminated. They are before the eyes, and the least experienced student may gauge their bearing and judge their effects. But wider-reaching than any or all the worst abuses of the worst trades is the wrong done to the child and to family life as a whole, by the continuous labor of married women in factories, or at any occupation which demands, for ten hours or more a day, unremitting toil. At all points where scientific observation has been made the expert lifts up a warning voice. It is the future of the race that is in question. Child labor, while not entering directly into our present examination, is, as has already been said, inextricably bound up with the question of woman's work and wages. The two must be studied together; and for our own country there are already admirable monographs on this subject,[44] two authoritative ones coming from the American Economic Association, and one hardly less so from a close and keen observer whose scientific training gives her equal right to form conclusions.[45]

A dispassionate observer, Mr. W. Stanley Jevons, whose conclusions are founded on long investigation and deduction, years ago wrote words which he has at various times emphasized and repeated, and which sum up the evils to which the infancy of the children of overworked mothers is subject, as well as the consequences to the State in which they are born, and which faces the results of the system which produces them. He writes as follows:--

"We can help evolution by the aid of its own highest and latest product,--science. When all the teaching of medical and social science lead us to look upon the absence of the mother from the home as the cause of the gravest possible evils, can we be warranted in standing passively by, allowing this evil to work itself out to the bitter end, by the process of natural selection? Something might perhaps be said in favor of the present apathetic mode of viewing this question, if natural selection were really securing the survival of the fittest, so that only the weakly babes were killed off, and the strong ones well brought up. But it is much to be feared that no infants ever really recover from the test of virtual starvation to which they are so ruthlessly exposed. The vital powers are irreparably crippled, and the infant grows up a stunted, miserable specimen of humanity, the prey to every physical and moral evil."[46]

It is hardly necessary to go on specifying special violations of sanitary law or special illustrative cases. The Report of the New York Bureau of Labor for 1885 is a magazine of such cases,--a summary of all the horrors that the worst conditions can include. Aside from the revolting pictures of the life lived from day to day by the workers themselves, it gives in detail case after case of rapacity and over-reaching on the part of the employers; and parallel ones may be found in every labor report which has touched upon the subject.

In New York a "Working Woman's Protective Union," formed more than twenty-five years ago, has done unceasing work in settling disputed claims and collecting wages unjustly withheld. No case is entered on their books which has not been examined by their lawyer, and thus only well grounded complaints find record; but with even these precautions the records show nearly fifty thousand adjudicated since they began work. Many cities have special committees, in the organized charities, who seek to cover the same ground, but who find it impossible to do all that is required. From East and West alike, complaints are practically the same. It is not only women in trades, but those in domestic service, who are recorded as suffering every form of oppression and injustice. Colorado and California, Kansas and Wisconsin, speak the same word. With varying industries wrongs vary, but the general summary is the same.

The system of fines, while on general principles often just, has been used by unscrupulous employers to such a degree as to bring the week's wages down a third or even half. It is impossible to give illustrative instances in detail; but all who deal with girls, in clubs and elsewhere, report that the system requires modification.

On the side of the employers, and as bearing also on the evils which are most marked among women workers, we may quote from the Government Report, "Working Women in Large Cities":--

"Actual ill-treatment by employers seems to be infrequent.... Foreigners are often found to be more considerate of their help than native-born men, and the kindest proprietor in the world is a Jew of the better class. In some shops week-workers are locked out for the half-day if late, or docked for every minute of time lost, an extra fine being often added. Piece workers have great freedom as to hours, and employers complain much of tardiness and absenteeism. The mere existence of health and labor laws insures privileges formerly unheard of; half-holidays in summer, vacation with pay, and shorter hours are becoming every year more frequent, better workshops are constructed, and more comfortable accommodations are being furnished."

This is most certainly true, but more light shows the shadows even more clearly; and the fact remains that every force must be brought to bear, to remedy the evils depicted in the reports of the bureaus quoted here.

The general conditions of working-women in New York retail stores were reported upon, in 1890, by a committee from the Working-Woman's Society, at 27 Clinton Place, New York. The report was read at a mass meeting held at Chickering Hall, May 6, 1890; and its statements represent general conditions in all the large cities of the United States. It is impossible to give more than the principal points of the report; but readers can obtain it on application to the Secretary of the Association.[47] These are as follows:--

Hours are often excessive, and employees are not paid for over-time. Many stores give no half-holiday, and keep open on Saturdays till ten and eleven o'clock in the evening, and at the holiday season do this for three or four weeks nightly.

Sanitary conditions are usually bad, and include bad ventilation, unsanitary arrangements, and indifference to the considerations of decency. Toilet arrangements in many stores are horrible, and closets for male and female are often side by side, with only slight partition between. One hand-basin and towel serve for all. Often water for drink can be obtained only from the attic.

Numbers of children under age are employed for excessive hours, and at work far beyond their strength, an investigation having shown that over one hundred thousand children under the legal age of fourteen were at work in factories, workshops, and stores.

Service for a number of years often meets with no consideration, but is regarded as a reason for dismissal. It is the rule in some stores to keep no one over five years, lest they come to feel that they have some claim on the firm; and when a saleswoman is dismissed from one house, she finds it almost impossible to obtain employment in another.

The wages are reduced by excessive fines, employers placing a value upon time lost that is not given to services rendered. The fines run from five to thirty cents for a few minutes' tardiness. In some stores the fines are divided at the end of the year between the timekeeper and the superintendent, and there is thus every temptation to injustice.

The report concludes:--

"We find that, through low wages, long hours, unwholesome sanitary conditions, and the discouraging effect of excessive fines, not only is the physical condition injured, but the tendency is to injure the moral well-being. It is simply impossible for a woman to live without assistance on the low salary a saleswoman earns, without depriving herself of real necessities."

These were the conditions which, in 1889, led to the formation of the little society which, though limited in numbers, has done admirable and efficient work, its latest effort being to secure from the Assembly at Albany a bill making inspection of stores and shops as obligatory as that of factories.

It was through the concerted effort of its members that the Factory Inspection Act became a law, though not without violent opposition. The bill originated in the Working-Woman's Society, was drawn up there, sent to Albany by its delegates, and passed without the aid of money.

There are eleven thousand factories in New York State, and only one inspector to investigate their condition; while in England, scarce larger in territory, forty-one inspectors are appointed by the Government.

The Andrus bill, adding to the power of factory inspectors, raising the working age of children to fourteen years, and prohibiting night work for girls under twenty-one and boys under eighteen, was sent with the Factory Bill to the Central Labor Union, and the women were largely instrumental in obtaining the passage of the measure.

Why such determined opposition still meets every attempt to bring about the same inspection for mercantile establishments cannot be determined; but thus far, though admitted to be necessary, the act has at each reading been laid upon the table. Another effort will be made in the coming winter of 1893-94.

In spite, however, of much agitation of all phases of woman's work, it is only some wrong as startling as that involved in the sweating-system that seems able to arouse more than a temporary interest. One of the most able and experienced women inspectors of the United States Bureau of Labor, Miss de Grafenried, has lately written:--

"It is an open question whether woman's pay is not falling, cost and standards of living considered. Could partly supported labor and children be eliminated, shop employees would get higher rates. Still there are other economic anomalies that affect women's wages. 'Wholesalers' and manufacturers shut up their factories and 'give out' everything--umbrellas, coats, hair-wigs, and shrouds--to be made,--they know not in what den, or wrung they care not from what misery ... Again, wages are depressed by over-stimulating piece-work; and its unscrupulous use by proprietors who hesitate to confess to paying women only $3 or $4 a week, yet who scale prices so that only experts can earn that sum. Many employers cut rates as soon as, by desperate exertions, operatives clear $5 a week. Then, underbidding from the unemployed is a fruitful source of low wages. Massachusetts has 20 per cent of her workers unemployed."

These conditions, while varying as to numbers, are practically the same for the work of women in all parts of the United States, and are matters of increasing perplexity and sorrow to every searcher into these problems. At its best, woman's work in industries is intermittent, since it is only textile work that continues the year round; dress and cloak making, shoe and umbrella making, fur-sewing and millinery, have specific seasons, in the intervals between which the worker waits and starves, or, if too desperate, goes upon the streets, driven there by the wretched competitive system, the evils of which increase in direct ratio to the longing for speedy wealth. In short, matters are at that point where only radical change of methods can better the situation, even the most conservative observer, relying most thoroughly upon evolution, feeling something more than evolution must work if justice is to have place in the present social scheme.

It is at this point that some consideration of domestic service naturally presents itself. Though regarded often as no part of the labor question, there can be no other head under which to range it, since the last census gives over a million persons engaged in this occupation, the lowest rough estimate of wages being $160,000,000 and the support included forming a sum at least as large. It is through the hands of the domestic servant that a large part of the finished products of other forms of labor must pass, and the economic aspects of the question grow in importance with every year of the changing conditions of American life. In no other occupation is a just consideration of the points involved so difficult a task, since the mistress who faces the incompetence, insubordination, and all the other trials involved in the relation, suffers too keenly from the sense of individual wrong to treat the matter in the large. Till it is so treated, however, understanding for both sides is impossible, and to bring about such understanding is the first necessity for all.

From the employer's standpoint the advantages to be stated are as follows: First and most obvious is the fact that wages are not only relatively but absolutely high; for aside from the actual cash there are also board, lodging, fuel, light, and laundry, all of which the worker in trades must provide for herself. There is no capital required, as for type-writer, sewing-machine, or any appliances for work, nor is the girl forced to expend anything in preparation, since under the present system housekeepers take her untrained fresh from Castle Garden, and willingly give the needed instruction, at the same time paying the same wage as that given to competent service. Professor Lucy Salmon, of Vassar, who has devoted much time to this subject, reports that, on examination of testimony from three thousand employees, it is found that on a wage of $3.25 a week it is possible to save annually nearly $150 "in an occupation involving no outlay, no investment of capital, and few or no personal expenses." The wages received are relatively higher than those of other occupations; for in Professor Salmon's comparison of wages received by three thousand country and the same number of city employees it was found that of six thousand teachers in the public schools the average salary actually paid is less than that paid to the average cook in a large city.

The second advantage lies in the healthfulness of the work, which includes not only regularity but variety; the third, that a home, at least in all externals, is insured; the fourth, that a training which makes the worker more fit for married life is certain; and a fifth, that the work is congenial and easy for those whose tastes lie in this direction.

These are the facts that are constantly urged upon the army of under-paid, half-starving needlewomen in our great cities, and no less upon another army of girls in shops and factories, who are implored to consider the advantages of domestic service and to give up their unnecessary battle with the limitations hedging in every other form of labor. Astonishment that the girls prefer the factory and shop is unending, nor is it regarded as possible that substantial reason may and must exist for such choice. As a means of arriving at some solution of the problem, some six hundred employees of every order were interviewed, under circumstances which made their replies perfectly free and full; and the results tallied exactly with others obtained by an inquiry in the Philadelphia Working-Woman's Guild, a society then representing seventy-two distinct occupations.

A report of this inquiry was made by Mrs. Eliza S. Turner, the President of the Guild, and is given as the most suggestive view of the whole subject yet secured. She writes as follows:--

"Why do not intelligent, refined girls more frequently choose house service as a support?" The replies here given are as nearly as possible _verbatim_:

1. Loss of freedom. This is as dear to women as to men, although we don't get so much of it. The day of a saleswoman or a factory hand may be long, but when it is done she is her own mistress; but in service, except when she is actually out of the house, she has no hour, no minute, when her soul is her own.

2. Hurts to self-respect. One thing that makes housework unpleasant--chamber-work, for instance, and waiting on table--is that it is a kind of personal service, one human being waiting on another. The very thing you would do without a thought in your own home for your own family seems menial when it is demanded by a stranger.

3. The very words, "service" and "servant," are hateful. It is all well enough to talk about service being divine, but that is not the way the world looks at it.

4. Say that a young woman well brought up undertakes to do chamber-work; she is obliged to associate with the other girls, no matter how uncongenial they may be, what may be their language or personal habits or table manners. If she tries to keep to herself, the rest think she is taking airs, and combine to make her life unbearable.

5. Or say she takes a place for general housework; to be alone in the midst of others is crushing,--quite different from being alone in one's own lodgings.

6. I suppose a soldier doesn't mind being ordered around by his captain; but in a family the mistress and maid are so mixed up that it is much harder to keep the lines from tangling. It takes a very superior person, on both sides, to do it.

7. I knew an educated woman--a lady--who tried it as a sort of upper housemaid. The work was easy, the pay good, and she never had a harsh word; but they just seemed unconscious of her existence. She said the gentlemen of the house, father and son, would come in and stand before her to have her take their umbrellas or help them off with their coats, and sometimes without speaking to her or even looking at her. There was something so humiliating about it that she couldn't stand it, but went back to slop shop sewing.

8. Many mistresses have no standard of the amount of work a girl ought to do. They know nothing about housework themselves. If a girl is deliberate and saves herself, they call her slow; if she is ambitious, and gets her work done early, and they see her sitting down in working-hours, they conclude that she is not earning her wages, and hunt up some extra job for her. No matter if you can't find anything undone, if she is found sitting about she _must_ be lazy.

9. Some employers think that after the more violent work is done, it is only a rest for the girl to look after the child awhile. They don't seem to realize that if the mother finds it such a relief to get rid of her own child for an hour or so, it is likely to be still less interesting to take care of somebody else's child.

10. Many people think the position of a child's nurse is very light work indeed,--mostly just sitting around; so they don't hesitate to give her the care of one or two children all day, not even arranging for her to get her meals without the oversight of them; and then most likely put the baby to sleep with her at night. Any one minute of such a day may not be heavy, but to have it for twenty-four hours is enough to wear out the strongest human being ever made.

11. I knew a school-teacher who thought more active occupation would better suit her health; she took a place as child's nurse. She loved children, and found no objection to the work; but soon the employer concluded to put her in a _bonne's_ cap and apron. My friend would have worn and liked a nurse's uniform, but she objected to a family livery. On this question they parted; and her employer hired an uncouth, ignorant woman to be her child's companion and to give it its first impressions.

12. In most houses, however elegant, the girls have no home privacy; they must sleep, not only in the same room, but most frequently in the same bed; it is rarely thought necessary to make that room pleasant or even warm for them to dress by or to sit in to do their own sewing. The little tastes and notions of each member of the family, down to the youngest, are provided for; but a "girl" is not supposed to have any. She is just a "girl," as a gridiron is a gridiron, an article bought for the convenience of the family. If she suits, use her till she is worn out and then throw her away.

13. To go into house service, even from the most wretched slop or factory work, is to lose caste in our own world; it may be a very narrow world, but it is all to us. A saleswoman or cashier or teacher is ashamed to associate with servants.

14. The very words, "No followers," would keep us out of such occupation. No self-respecting young woman is going to put herself in a position where she is not allowed to entertain her friends, both male and female; nor where, if allowed, the only place thought fit for them is the kitchen.

Now, the above is not theory, but testimony, taken by the present writer from the lips of intelligent working-girls, many of whom would be better off at housework than at their present occupations, except for the objections. And from a consideration thereof results this query: Given a certain number of young women of a class superior to the imported, willing to take service under the following conditions, how many housekeepers would agree to the conditions?--

1. The heaviest work, as washing, carrying coal, scrubbing pavements, and the like, to be provided for, if this be asked, with consequent deduction in wages.

2. In families, where practicable, certain hours of absolute freedom while in the house, especially with the child's nurse.

3. Such a way of speaking, both to and of your house help, as testifies to the world that you really do consider housework as respectable as other occupations.

4. A well-warmed, well-furnished room, with separate beds when desired; and the use of a decent place and appointments at meals.

5. The privilege of seeing friends, whether male or female; of a better part of the house than the kitchen in which to receive them; and security from espionage during their visits,--this accompanied by proper restrictions as to evening hours, and under the condition that the work is not neglected.

6. No livery, if objected to.

Turning from this informal examination of the subject to the few labor reports which have taken up the matter, it becomes plain that domestic service is in many points more undesirable than any other occupation open to women. The Labor Commissioner of Minnesota reports, while stating all the advantages of the domestic servant over the general worker, that "only a fifth of those who employ them are fit to deal with any worker, injustice and oppression characterizing their methods." Figures and detailed statements bear him out in this conclusion. The Colorado Commissioner gives even more details, and comes to the same conclusion; and though other reports do not take up the subject in detail, their indications are the same.

The first general and rational presentation of the subject in all its bearings, both for employed and employer, has lately been made during the Woman's Congress at Chicago, May, 1893, in which the Domestic Science section discussed every phase of wrongs and remedies.[48] The latter sum up in the formation of bureaus of employment in every large city, fixed rates, and full preparatory training. A keen observer of social facts has stated: The intelligence offices of New York alone receive from servants yearly over three million dollars, and are notoriously inefficient. This, or even half of it, would provide a great centre with training-schools, lodgings for all who needed them, and a system by which fixed rates were made according to the grade of efficiency of the worker. Till household service comes under the laws determining value, as well as hours and all other points involved in the wage for a working-day, it will remain in the disorganized and hopeless state which at present baffles the housekeeper, and deters self-respecting women and girls from undertaking it. To bring about some such organization as that suggested will most quickly accomplish this; and there seems already hope that the time is not distant when every city will have its agency corresponding to the great Bourse du Travail in Paris, but even more comprehensive in scope. Co-operation within certain limited degrees, so that private home life will not be infringed upon, must necessarily make part of such a scheme, and has already been tried with success at various points in the West; but details can hardly be given here. It is sufficient to add that with such new basis for this form of occupation the "servant question" will cease to be a terror, and the most natural occupation for women will have countless recruits from ranks now closed against it.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] Fifteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, p. 68.

[42] Ibid.

[43] House of Representatives Report No. 2309: Report of the Committee on Manufactures on the Sweating-System, House of Representatives, January, 1893.

[44] Child Labor. By William F. Willoughby, A.B. Child Labor. By Miss Clare de Grafenried, Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. v. no. 2.

[45] Our Toiling Children. By Florence Kelley, W.C.T.U. Publishing Association, Chicago.

[46] Married Women in Factories. By W. Stanley Jevons, Contemporary Review, vol. xli. pp. 37-53.

[47] Miss Alice Woodbridge, Secretary of the Working-Woman's Society, 27 Clinton Place, New York.

[48] The association then formed, and from which much is hoped, made the following summary of its objects:--

"The objects of this Association shall be: 1. To awaken the public mind to the importance of establishing a Bureau of Information where there can be an exchange of wants and needs between employer and employed in every department of home and social life. 2. To promote among members of the Association a more scientific knowledge of the economic value of various foods and fuels; a more intelligent understanding of correct plumbing and drainage in our homes, as well as need for pure water and good light in a sanitarily built house. 3. To secure skilled labor in every department of women's work in our homes,--not only to demand better trained cooks and waitresses, but to consider the importance of meeting the increasing demand for those competent to do plain sewing and mending."

XII.

REMEDIES AND SUGGESTIONS.

The student of social problems who faces the misery of the lowest order of worker, and the sharp privation endured by many even of the better class, is apt, in the first fever of amazement and indignation, to feel that some instant force must be brought to bear, and justice secured, though the heavens fall. It is this sense of the struggle of humanity out of which have been born Utopias of every order, from the "Republic" of Plato to the dream in "Looking Backward." Not one of these can be spared; and that they exist and find a following larger and larger, is the surest evidence of the soul at the bottom of each. But for those who take the question as a whole, who see how slow has been the process of evolution, and how impossible it is to hasten one step of the unfolding that humankind is still to know, it is the ethical side that comes uppermost, and that first demands consideration.

Taking the mass of the lowest order of workers at all points, the first aim of any effort intended for their benefit is to disentangle the individual from the mass. It is not charity that is to do this. "Homes" of every variety open their doors; but in all of them still lurks the suspicion of charity; and even when this has no active formulation in the worker's mind, there is still the underlying sense of the essential injustice of withholding with one hand just pay, and with the other proffering a substitute, in a charity which is to reflect credit on the giver and demand gratitude from the receiver. Here and there this is recognized, and within a short time has been emphasized by a woman whose name is associated with the work of organized charities throughout the country,--Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. It is doubtful if there is any woman in the country better fitted, by long experience and almost matchless common-sense, to speak authoritatively. She writes:--

"So far from assuming that the well-to-do portion of society have discharged all their obligations to men and God by supporting charitable institutions, I regard just this expenditure as one of the prime causes of the suffering and crime that exist in our midst.... I am inclined, in general, to look upon what is called charity as the insult added to the injury done to the mass of the people, by insufficient payment for work."

Just pay, then, heads the list of remedies. The difficulty of fixing this is necessarily enormous, nor can it come at once; since education for not only the employer but the public as a whole is demanded. To bring this about is a slow process. It is a transition period in which we live. Material conditions born of phenomenal material progress have deadened the sense as to what constitutes real progress; and the working-woman of to-day contends not only with visible but invisible obstacles, the nature of which we are but just beginning to discern. Twenty years ago M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu wrote of women wage-earners:--

"From the economic point of view, woman, who has next to no material force, and whose arms are advantageously replaced by the least machine, can have useful place and obtain a fair remuneration only by the development of the best qualities of her intelligence. It is the inexorable law of our civilization,--the principle and formula even of social progress,--that mechanical engines are to perform every operation of human labor which does not proceed directly from the mind. The hand of man is each day deprived of a portion of its original task; but this general gain is a loss for the particular, and for the classes whose only instrument of labor is a pair of feeble arms."

Take the fact here stated, and add to it all that is implied in modern competitive conditions, and we see the true nature of the task that awaits us. To do away with this competition would not accomplish the end desired. To guide it and bring it into intelligent lines is part of the general education. Profit-sharing is an indispensable portion of the justice to be done; and this, too, implies education for both sides, and would go far toward lessening burdens. We cannot abolish the factory, but hours can be shortened; the labor of married women with young children forbidden, as well as that of children below a fixed age. Industrial education will prevent the possibility of another generation owning so many incompetent and untrained workers, and technical schools in general are already raising the standard and helping to secure the same end.

Our present methods mean waste in every direction, and trusts and syndicates have already demonstrated how much may be saved to the producer if intelligent combination can be brought about. Competition can never wholly be set aside, since within reasonable limits it is the spur of invention and a part of evolution itself. But if wise co-operation be once adopted, the enormous friction and waste of present methods ceases,--the waste of human life as well as of material.

One cheering token of progress is the increased discussion as to methods of training and the necessity of organization among women themselves. Ten years ago only a voice here and there suggested the need of either. In 1885, at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Miss Sarah Harland, lecturer on Mathematics at Newnham College, insisted that educated gentlewomen must have larger opportunity for paying work. The three qualifications in all work she stated to be: (1) Organization on a large scale; (2) Permanency; (3) Giving returns that will enable the salaries paid to compete with those of teachers.

She regarded dressmaking as the trade which could most readily organize and meet the other conditions specified, and millinery as the trade which would come next. Until such organization and its results have gradually altered present conditions, it will be true for all workers, on both sides of the sea, that not health alone but life itself are continuously endangered by the facts hedging about all labor. Dr. Stevens, the head of St. Luke's Insane Asylum in London, in a paper read before the Social Science Association, said:--

"It may be stated with great confidence that a prolific cause for the rapid and extensive increase of insanity in this country is to be found in the unceasing toil and anxiety to which the working-classes are subjected, this cause developing the disease in the existing generation, or, what is quite as frequently the case, transmitting to the offspring idiocy, insanity, or some imperfectly developed sensorium or nervous system. The agitated, overworked, and harassed parent is not in a condition to transmit a healthy brain to his child."[49]

Accepted as true in 1857, the words are not less so to-day, when cheap labor swarms, and the unemployed number their millions.

How best to combine and to what ends, is the lesson taught in every form of the new movement for organization among women. To learn how to work together and what power lies in combination, has been the lesson of all clubs. Among men it has counted as one of the chief educating forces, but for women every circumstance has fostered the distrust of each other which belongs to all undeveloped natures. For the lowest order of worker even, the "Working-Woman's Journal," published in London and the organ of the Working-Woman's Protective Union, has for the last year recorded, from month to month, the gradual progress of the idea of combination, and the new hope it has brought to all who have gone into trades unions.

With us there has been equal need and equal ignorance of all that such combinations have to give. They mean arbitration rather than strikes, and the compelling of ignorant and unjust employers to consider the situation from other points of view than their own. They compel also the same attitude from men in the same trades, who often are as strong opponents of a better chance for their associates among women workers in the same branches, as the most prejudiced employer.

Six points are urged by the Working-Woman's Society of New York, all in the lines indicated here. Its purposes and aims, as given in the prospectus, are as follows:--

1. To encourage women in the various trades to protect their mutual interests by organization.

2. To use all possible means to enforce the existing laws relating to the protection of women and children in factories and shops, investigating all reported violations of such laws; also to promote, by all suitable means, further legislation in this direction.

3. To work for the abolition of tenement-house manufacture, especially in the cigar and clothing trades.

4. To investigate all reported cases of cruel treatment on the part of employers and their managers to their women and children employees, in withholding money due, in imposing fines, or in docking wages without sufficient reason.

5. To found a labor bureau for the purpose of facilitating the exchanging of labor between city and country, thus relieving the over-crowded occupations now filled by women.

6. To publish a journal in the interests of working-women.

7. To secure equal pay for both sexes for equal work.

These points are the same as those made by the few clubs which have taken up the question of woman's work and wages; but thus far only this society has formulated them definitely. Working-girls' clubs, friendly societies, and guilds are giving to the worker new thoughts and new purposes. The Convention of Working-Girls' Clubs held in New York in April, 1890, showed the wide-reaching influence they had attained, and the new ideals opening before the worker. It showed also with equal force the roused sense of responsibility toward them, and the eager interest and desire for their betterment in all ways. Where they themselves touched upon their needs, there were direct statements in the same line as many already quoted, which called for better pay, better conditions, shorter hours, and fewer fines.

Following the points given above came another presentation, the result of still further and long-continued investigation; and as the methods of the search and its results are practicable for all towns and cities where women are at work, the statement prepared for the Society is given in full:--

"We would call your attention to the condition of the women and children in the large retail houses in this city,--conditions which tend to injure both physically and morally, not only these women and children, but working-women in general. The general idea is that saleswomen are employed from eight A.M. to six P.M., but they are really engaged in the majority of stores for such a time as the firm requires them; which means in the Grand Street stores, until ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock on Saturday night _all the year round_, the Saturday half-holiday not being observed in summer; and in the majority of houses that stock must be arranged after six P.M., the time varying, according to season, from fifteen minutes to five hours, _and this without supper or extra pay_; thus compelling women and children to go long distances late at night, and rendering them liable to insult and immoral influences.

"Excessive fines are imposed in many stores,--fines varying from ten to thirty cents for ten minutes' tardiness in the morning or lunch hour, and for all mistakes. Cases are known of girls who have been fined a full week's pay at the end of the week. In one store the fines amounted to $3,000 in a year, and the sum was divided between the superintendent and timekeeper; and the superintendent was heard to charge the timekeeper with not being strict enough in his duties.

"Bad sanitary conditions, bad ventilation and toilet arrangements are common, and the sanitary laws are not observed. Children under age are employed at work far beyond their strength, often far into the night. The average wages do not exceed $4.50; and in one of our largest stores the average wage is $2.40, in another $2.90. The tendency in all stores is to secure the cheapest help; for this reason school-girls just graduated are much sought for, as they, having homes, can afford to work for less. But a large proportion of the saleswomen either pay board or help support a family; and how can this be done on $4.50 per week? The cheapest board in dark stuffy attics or tenement houses is $3.00, fuel and washing extra; and no woman can pay doctor's bills and maintain a respectable appearance on what remains. How then does she live? There are two ways of answering: The story of a woman who worked in one of our large houses is one way. This woman earned $3.00 per week; she paid $1.50 for her room; her breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee; she had no lunch; she had but one meal a day. Many saleswomen must be in this condition. The other answer is that given by more than one employer, who when saleswomen complain of the low wages offered, reply: 'Oh, well, get yourself a gentleman friend; _most of our girls have them_.' Not long since a member of our society received a letter from a salesman in a certain house which read thus: 'In the name of God cannot something be done for the saleswomen? I am a salesman in----, and I have walked in disguise at night upon certain streets to be accosted by girls in my own department,--girls whose salaries are so low it was impossible to live upon them." A painter told us that in working in the houses of ill-repute in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, he was astonished at the number of women whom he recognized as saleswomen in different stores who frequented these houses. But what are they to do? They are women without trade or profession, thrown upon their own resources, obliged to make a good appearance, and unable to do so and yet have sufficient food. We must all concede that virtue and honor in woman are natural, and very few women resort to such ways unless forced to do so; certainly not, when they yet have sufficient pride to wish to maintain the appearance of respectability. If men's wages fall below a certain limit, they become tramps, thieves, and robbers; but woman's wages _have no limit_, since she can always work for less than she can subsist upon, the _paths of shame being open to her_. And the beggarly pittance for which one class of women work becomes the standard of wages for all women, and throws them out upon the world, there to find a sure market. But we do not wish to insinuate, in stating these facts, that the majority of saleswomen resort to evil ways; on the contrary, they are the exception who do so. We know the majority of women prefer to suffer, and do suffer, rather than do so. But can we allow a few to fall? We of the Working-Women's Society believe that we are so far our sisters' keepers that we are responsible for their position.

"We believe that the payment and condition of those who work (through their employers) for us is our affair, and we have no right to remain in an ignorance that involves or may involve their misery. We believe we have no right, having obtained such knowledge, to refrain from seeking to remedy it, and urging all to assist us to do so.

"In this belief we call your attention to the proposed 'Consumers' League,' the members of which shall pledge themselves to deal at those stores where just conditions exist.

"We have gotten together a number of facts which we shall be glad to present to you with our estimate of a fair house, or one which under existing conditions is eligible to admission to a white list."

Preceding this appeal and the public meetings which ensued, came, in 1890, the formation of the Consumers' League, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell its President. Quiet and inconspicuous as its work has been, the best retail mercantile houses in New York have accepted its prospectus as just, and stand now upon the "White List," which numbers all merchants who seek to deal justly and fairly with their employees. "What constitutes a Fair House" expresses all the needs and formulates the most vital demands of the working-woman; and the results already accomplished speak for themselves. As a guide to other workers, it is given here in full:--

STANDARD OF A FAIR HOUSE.

+Wages.+

A fair house is one in which equal pay is given for work of equal value, irrespective of sex. In the departments where women only are employed, in which the minimum wages are six dollars per week for experienced adult workers, and fall in few instances below eight dollars.

In which wages are paid by the week.

In which fines, if imposed, are paid into a fund for the benefit of the employees.

In which the minimum wages of cash-girls are two dollars per week, with the same conditions regarding weekly payments and fines.

+Hours.+

A fair house is one in which the hours from eight A.M. to six P.M. (with three quarters of an hour for lunch) constitute the working-day, and a general half-holiday is given on one day of each week during at least two summer months.

In which a vacation of not less than one week is given with pay during the summer season.

In which all over-time is compensated for.

+Physical Conditions.+

A fair house is one in which work, lunch, and retiring rooms are apart from each other, and conform in all respects to the present sanitary laws.

In which the present law regarding the providing of seats for saleswomen is observed, and the use of seats permitted.

+Other Conditions.+

A fair house is one in which humane and considerate behavior toward employees is the rule.

In which fidelity and length of service meet with the consideration which is their due.

In which no children under fourteen years of age are employed.

+Membership.+

The condition of membership shall be the approval by signature of the object of the Consumers' League; and all persons shall be eligible for membership excepting such as are engaged in the retail business in this city, either as employer or employee.

The members shall not be bound never to buy at other shops.

The names of the members of the Consumers' League shall not be made public.

Later, one of the ablest workers in this field, Mrs. Florence Kelley, formulated a basis for every society of working-women, as follows:

I. To bring out of the chaos of competition the order of co-operation.

II. To organize all wages-earning women.

III. To disseminate the literature of labor and co-operation.

IV. To institute a label which shall enable the purchaser to discriminate in favor of goods produced under healthful conditions.

V. 1. Abolition of child labor to the age of sixteen.

2. Compulsory education to the age of sixteen.

3. Prohibition of employment of minors more than eight hours daily.

4. Prohibition of employment of minors at dangerous occupations.

5. Appointment of women inspectors, one for every thousand women and children employed.

6. Healthful conditions of work for women and children.

The foregoing to be obtained by legislation.

The following to be obtained by organization:--

1. Equal pay for equal work with men.

2. A minimal rate which will enable the least paid to live upon her earnings.

A little later, the statement which follows, became necessary:--

"Certain abuses exist in the dry-goods houses affecting the well-being of the saleswomen and children employed, which we believe can be remedied. In fact, in different stores some of them have been remedied, which gives us courage to bring these matters to your attention.

"We find the hours are often excessive, and that these women and children are not paid for over-time.

"We find that in many houses the saleswomen work under unwholesome conditions; these comprise bad ventilation, unsanitary toilet arrangements, and an indifference to considerations of decency.

"The wages, which are low, we find are often reduced by excessive fines; that employers place a value on time lost that they fail to give for service rendered.

"We find that numbers of children under age are employed for excessive hours, and at work far beyond their strength.

"We find that long and faithful service does not meet with the consideration that is its due; on the contrary, having served a certain number of years is a reason for dismissal.

"Because of the foregoing low wages, the discouraging result of excessive fines, long hours, and unwholesome sanitary conditions, not only the physical system is injured, but--the result we most deplore, and of which we have incontrovertible proof--the tendency _is to injure the moral well-being_.

"We believe that to call attention to these evils is to go far toward remedying them, and that the power to do this lies largely in the hands of the purchasing classes.

"We think that 'the payment and condition of those who work--through their employers--for us, is our affair, and that we have no right to remain in ignorance of the conditions that involve or may involve their misery.'"

Two points still remain untouched, both of them vital elements in the just working of the social scheme,--profit-sharing, and a board of conciliation and arbitration for the adjustment of all difficulties between employer and employed.

For every detail bearing upon the education bound up in even the attempt at profit-sharing, as well as for the actual and successful results in this direction, the reader is referred to an excellent little monograph on the subject, "Sharing the Profits," by Miss Mary Whiton Calkins, A.M., and for very full and elaborate treatment of the question, to the invaluable volume by N.P. Gilman, "Profit-Sharing between Employer and Employed." In all cases where the experiment has had fair trial, it has resulted in a marked increase of interest in the work itself; an actual lessening of the cost of production, and of general wear and tear, because of this increased interest; and a far more friendly feeling between employer and employed. It is certain that justice requires immediate attention to every phase of this question, and that its adoption is the first step in the right direction.

For the second point, we have as yet in this country only an occasional attempt at arbitration, yet its need becomes more and more apparent with every fresh difficulty in the field of labor. A little volume by Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, at the time of writing,[50] going through the press, who has given much time to a study of the question, contains the latest results of English and French legislation, and of special action in this direction. Any history of the movement as a whole, hardly has place in these pages. It is sufficient to say that the system had practically no consideration till 1850, when the first Board of Arbitration was formed in England, owing its existence to the determined efforts of two men. Mr. Rupert Kettle, lawyer and judge, approached it from the legal side; Mr. Murdella, a manufacturer, and himself sprung from the working-classes, went straight "to the practical and moral end implied by the word 'conciliation,' ... both routes of this noble emulation converging, each affording strength to the common conclusions."

The Nottingham lace manufacture, in which numbers of women and children as well as men are employed, has, for thirty years and more, been governed by a Board of Arbitration, the result being an end of strikes and all difficulties of like nature. If no more were accomplished than the bringing about a better understanding between employer and employed, it would mean much, since mutual suspicion and distrust rule for both. Organization among women, and the sense of mutual dependence given by it, lead naturally to the formation of a board able to judge dispassionately and disinterestedly of the questions naturally arising, many of which, however, are at once dissipated on the adoption of the system of profit-sharing.

The practical steps already taken sum up in the forms just given; and there remains only the question constantly asked as to the final effect upon wages of woman's entrance into public life, this question usually shaping itself under three heads:--

1. Why are they in the field?

2. How does their work compare in efficiency with that of men?

3. What is likely to be the final effect on wage of their entrance into active life?

The first phase has already had full answer in the general survey of trades and their rise and growth. As to the second, personal observation, long continued and minute, added to the very full knowledge to be obtained from the reports of the various State bureaus of labor, goes to prove beyond question that, given the same grade of intelligence, the work of women is fully equal to that of men. Descending in the scale to untrained labor in all its forms, the woman is at times of less value than the man. The Knights of Labor, however, settled definitely that this was seldom the case, and in their constitution demanded equal pay for equal work. For both sexes machinery is more and more superseding the labor of each; and as women and children are quite capable of running much of it, this fact, of course, brings the general wage to their standard. This, added to various physiological and social reasons, makes woman often a less dependable worker than man, and tends to keep wages at a minimum.

As to the final effect on wages, I regard the whole aspect of things as purely transitional, and must answer from personal conviction in the matter.

The entire movement appears to me a part of the natural evolution from barbaric law and restriction, and a necessary demonstration of the spiritual equality of the sexes. I regard it also as the nurse and developer of many small virtues in which women are especially deficient,--punctuality, unvarying quality of work, a sense of business honor and of personal fidelity, each to all and all to each. But I cannot feel that it is a permanent state, or that when the essential has been accomplished women will have the same need or the same desire that now rules. I believe that wages must necessarily fluctuate and tend to the mere point of subsistence when either child labor or the lowest grade of woman's labor exists, and that the only way out of the complications we face is in an alteration of ideals. Statistics and general reports show the demoralization of family life where such work goes on, and the fact that in the long run the workman loses rather than gains where his family share his labor.

The lowering of wage may be considered, then, as in one sense remedial, and the present state of things as in part the mere action of inevitable and inescapable law. But it is impossible to make this plain in present limits. Having passed through every stage of feeling,--sick pity, burning indignation, and tempestuous desire for instant action,--I have come at last to regard all as our education in justice and a demand for training in such wise as shall render unskilled labor more and more impossible. So long as it exists, however, I see no outlook but the fluctuating and uncertain wage, the natural result of the existence of the lowest order of workers.

For them as for us it is the development of the individual from the mass that is the chief end of any real civilization. No Utopias of any past or present can bring this at once.

"Each man to himself and each woman to herself, such is the word of the past and the present, and the true word of immortality."

"No one can acquire for another, not one; No one can grow for another, not one."

Despair might easily be the outcome of a first glance at these conditions; but the stir at all points is assurance of a better day to come.

Legislation can do much. The appointment of women inspectors, lately brought about for New York, is imperative at all points, since women will tell women the evils they would never mention to men. Law can also demand decent sanitary conditions, and affix a penalty for every violation. Beyond this, and the awakening of the public conscience as to what is owed the honest worker, little can be said. Enlightenment, a better chance at every point for the struggling mass,--that is the work for each and all of them, and for those who would aid the constant demand, and labor for justice in its largest sense and its most rigorous application. With justice on both sides, abuses die of pure inanition. The tenement-house system, every evil that hedges about special trades, every wrong born of cupidity and ignorance, and all base features of trade at its worst, end once for all, and we see the end and aim of the social life, whether for employer or employed.

A generation ago Mazzini wrote:--

"The human soul, not the body, should be the starting-point of all our efforts, since the body without the soul is only a carcass, whilst the soul, wherever it is found free and holy, is sure to mould for itself such a body as its wants and vocation require."

It is this soul-moulding that is given chiefly into the hands of women. It is through them that the higher ideal of life, its purpose and its demands, is to be made known. No present scheme of general philanthropy can touch this need. It is growth in the human soul itself that will mean justice from the employer to each and every worker, and from the worker in equal measure to the employer; and this justice can be implanted in the child as certainly as many another virtue, into the knowledge and love of which we grow but slowly.

Never has deeper interest followed every movement for the understanding and bettering of conditions. Never was there stronger ground for hope that, in spite of the worst abuses existing, man's will is to join hands at last with natural evolution toward higher forms. Faith and hope alike find their assurance in the increasing sense of the solidarity of human kind, and the spirit of brotherhood more and more discernible, which, as it grows, must end all oppression, conscious and unconscious. The old days of darkness are dying. Man knows at last that--

"Laying hands on another, To coin his labor and sweat, He goes in pawn to his victim For eternal years in debt;"

and in knowing it, the first step is taken in the new life wherein all are brothers; and the law of love, slowly as it may work, ends forever the long conflict between employer and employed.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1857, p. 554.

[50] July, 1893.

APPENDIX.

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FACTORY INSPECTION LAW.

PASSED MAY 18, 1886; AMENDED MAY 25, 1887; AMENDED JUNE 15, 1889; AMENDED MAY 21, 1890; AMENDED MAY 18, 1892.

* * * * *