Existence on French soil, whether in Paris, the manufacturing towns, or the provinces, has come to mean something very different from the facts of a generation ago. Then, with wages hardly above "subsistence point," the thrifty Frenchwoman not only lived, but managed to put by a trifle each month. Wages have risen, but prices have at the same time advanced. Every article of daily need is at the highest point,—sugar, which the London workwoman buys at a penny a pound, being twelve cents a pound in Paris; and flour, milk, eggs, equally high. Fuel is so dear that shivering is the law for all save the wealthy; and rents are no less dear, with no "improved dwellings" system to give the most for the scant sum at disposal. Bread and coffee, chiefly chiccory, make one meal; bread alone is the staple of the others, with a bit of meat for Sunday. Hours are frightfully long, the disabilities of the French needleworker being in many points the same as those of her English sister. In short, even skilled labor has many disabilities, the saving fact being that unskilled is in far less proportion than across the Channel, the present system of education including many forms of industrial training.

Generations of freer life than that of England, and many traditions in her favor give certain advantages to the woman born on French soil. It is taken for granted that she will after marriage share her husband's work or continue her own, and her keen intelligence is relied upon to a degree unknown to other nations. Repeated wars, and the enrolment of all her men for fixed periods of service, have developed the capacity of women in business directions, and they fill every known occupation. The light-heartedness of her nation is in her favor, and she has learned thoroughly how to extract the most from every centime. There is none of the hopeless dowdiness and dejection that characterize the lower order of Englishwoman. Trim, tidy, and thrifty, the Frenchwoman faces poverty with a smiling courage that is part of her strength, this look changing often for the older ones into a patience which still holds courage.

Thus far there is no official report of the industries in which they are engaged, and figures must be drawn from unofficial sources. M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, the noted political economist, in his history of "The Labor of Women in the Nineteenth Century," computes the number of women at work in the manufactories of textile fabrics, cotton, woollen, linen, and silk, as nearly one million; and outside of this is the enormous number of lace-makers and general workers in all occupations. There are over a quarter of a million of these lace-workers, whose wages run from eighty and ninety centimes to two francs a day; and the rate of payment for Swiss lace-workers is the same.

During the Congres Feministe held in the autumn of 1892, Madame Vincent, an ardent champion of women wage-earners, presented statistics, chiefly from private sources, showing that out of 19,352,000 artisans in France, there are 4,415,000 women who receive in wages or dividends nearly $500,000,000 a year. Their wage is much less in proportion to the work they do than that of men, yet they draw thirty-five per cent of the entire sum spent in wages. In Paris alone, over 8,000 women are doing business on an independent footing; and of 3,858 suits judged in 1892 by the Workingman's Council, 1,674 concerned women. In spite of these numbers and the abuses known to exist, the Chamber of Deputies has refused practically to extend to women workers the law for the regulation of the conditions of work in workshops. The refusal is disguised under the form of adjournment of the matter, the reason assigned being that the grievances of women are by no means ripe enough for discussion. Women themselves are not at all of the same mind; and the result has already been a move toward definite organization of trades, and united action for all women engaged in them,—a step hitherto regarded as impossible. The first effect of this has been a protest from Paris shopgirls against the action of the Chamber of Deputies, and the formation of committees whose business will be to enlist the interest and co-operation of women throughout the entire country,—a slow process, but one that will mean both education and final release from some at least of the worst disabilities now weighting all women workers.

"La femme devenue ouvriere, n'est plus une femme," wrote Jules Simon in a burst of despair at the conditions of the Paris workwoman; and he repeated the word as his investigations extended to manufacturing France, and he found everywhere the home in many cases abolished, the creche taking its place till the child, vitally dependent upon a care that included love, gave up the struggle for existence, rendering its tiny quota to the long list of infant mortality. M. Leroy-Beaulieu had described years before the practical extinction of the family and the government interference[34] brought about by the discoveries made by the government inspecting committee, upon whom consternation seized as they found decadence of morals, enfeebled physique, and that the ordinary girl-worker at sixteen or seventeen could not sew a seam, or make a broth, or care for a child's needs or the simplest demands of a home. Appalled at these conditions, France set about the organization of industrial schools, and these have altered the whole face of affairs.

Generations of abuses had made, up to the time of the investigation, the history of the working-class in France. One of their best-known scientific observers, the statistician Villerme, examined in person, and as one of the government inspecting committee reported on the condition of dwellings in Lille, Amiens, and other manufacturing towns of France. The weavers and spinners of Lille lived in caves, of which thirty-six hundred were found occupied by families,—father, mother, and children as soon as old enough, employed in the mills, and returning at night to these dens, where filth and darkness periodically did their work of decimation, and where infant mortality had reached the maximum. Horrified at the discoveries made, three thousand of these dwellings were at once destroyed. But for unknown and quite inscrutable reasons six hundred were allowed to remain and receive double the original number of tenants.[35] Years passed before the last cave was filled up, the children born in them providing an enormous percentage for prison and galleys. At Douai, Rouen, Roubaix, and many other points, such hideous filth marked the homes of the working-class that Villerme reported: "The walls are covered with a thousand layers of ordure." The women, exhausted and depleted by a day's labor of from twelve to fourteen hours, had no time to think of cleanliness. In fact, its meaning had never been taught; and though industrial schools increase, hours are now shortened, and inspection is active, it remains true that almost the same conditions perpetuate themselves at many points,—the descriptions given by the great realist, Zola, of women and children in the mines, and the hideousness of their home life, being very literal and unexaggerated fact.

As to conditions of the work itself, many trades and occupations require for their proper carrying on methods and surroundings absolutely destructive to health. In all preparation of hemp and oakum dust is excessive; far beyond that of the cotton-mill, which itself breeds consumption. In the spinning of flax great heat and water are both necessities. "Nothing is more wretched," writes Jules Simon, "than a linen-spinner's surroundings. Water covers the brick floor. The odor of the linen and a temperature often exceeding twenty-five Reaumur fill the workroom with an intolerable stench. The majority of the workwomen, obliged to put off most of their garments, are huddled together in this pestilential atmosphere, imprisoned in the machines, pressed one against the other, their bodies streaming with sweat, their feet bare to the ankle; and when a day, nominally of twelve hours but really of thirteen and a half, is over, they quit the workroom for home, the rags they wear barely protecting them from cold and damp."

Details of the same order abound in the work of the political economist M. Leroy-Beaulieu,[36] who seeks at all points to give the most favorable impression possible. In each and every case the great authorities appear to be of one mind as to the disastrous effects upon the children born to these mothers. That the creche is now practically a part of every factory makes little or no difference.

"The creche," writes Jules Simon, "abolishes maternity in all save its pains. The working mother is defrauded of her own means of growth, bound up in the training of the child; and the child loses its right to be loved and guarded by love." In short, for all continental countries, as well as for England and our women, the question of child labor and the destiny of the child are inextricably bound up in that of the working mother, and are vital factors in working out the problem of woman as a wage-earner. What proportion of wage-earning women recruit the ranks of prostitution, is a question often asked. In Paris, which is in one sense the focus of French labor, its many opportunities drawing to it a large contingent from the provinces, it is popularly supposed that the ranks of the sewing-women give large proportion to houses of prostitution. This opinion is the prevailing one for all large cities, whether in Europe or America, yet is disproved on all sides. For Paris Parent-Duchalet states that in the statistics given by the prefecture of police, in a table including forty-one categories, women with no occupation had first rank as prostitutes, domestic service giving the second, and sewing-women the smallest proportion. This is the more surprising when one considers that their wage is often below the point of subsistence, and that temptation of every order waits upon them. At the best the wage falls far below that of men, even when both engage in the same work. The present movement toward organization is the first step toward a general bettering of all trades and their wage; and for fullest details of this, and work in connection with the admirable Bourse du Travail, one of its most important features of working life to-day in Paris, the reader must turn to the reports themselves, beginning with the first one, issued in 1887-88.[37] The same facts may be said to form the story of labor in Belgium, in Switzerland, in Italy, and at all points where women or children are at work, whether in factory or mine or workshop. For Belgium the situation is summed up in a very important and minute report of the government inquiry commission into the labor of women and children,—the first made in 1867 and followed by one in 1874, the latest having been made in 1891.[38]

A comprehensive law, promulgated Nov. 2, 1892, and regulating the labor of women and children in factories and mines, was amended in May, 1893, by the addition of very specific regulations as to all employments affecting health and morals. The Presidential decree consists of two parts,—the first dealing with the employment of women and children in connection with machinery when in motion, or in which the dangerous parts are not fully protected, in glass-blowing and in carrying weights. The second part of the decree consists of three tables, of which A enumerates certain industries, chiefly the manufacture of acids, dyes, chemicals, etc., also manures and glass, crystal, and metal polishing, in which female and child labor are prohibited; B those in which children under eighteen must not work, chiefly the manufacture of explosives; and C, a large variety of other industries in which female and child labor is only allowed conditionally. The great majority of these are industries involving special risk through the disengagement of dust-particles or vapors; while a few are ranked as dangerous, owing to risk of fire and the contraction of special diseases, etc.

Belgium, French in feeling and in methods, has known some of the worst abuses discoverable on continental soil, thousands of women and children in her mines having toiled from twelve to sixteen hours a day, with often no Sunday rest, for a wage at bare subsistence point. In "Germinal," Zola, who spent months observing every phase of their life, has given a picture, unsurpassed in any literature, of the misery and degradation of the worker. An investigation in 1874, and indignation at some of the conditions then discovered, brought about modifications of the law. That of the general congress of 1891 accomplished much more; but work must still be done before any very marked advance becomes discernible.

Passing to Germany, a good two-thirds of the women are at work in field or shop or home, the proportion of women in agriculture being larger than in any other country of Europe. Her schools furnish better training than those of any other nation. In all these points Prussia leads, though till recently legislation has been in behalf of child-workers, and women have been practically ignored. But factory regulations are minute and extended; and the questions involved in the labor of women, and its bearing on health, longevity, etc., are now coming under consideration. In Silesia, as early as 1868, women were excluded from the salt-mines; and the Labor Congress of 1889 brought about many changes of the laws on this point for Belgium and Germany. In Italy, in which country industrial education is now receiving much attention, the labor of women, continuous, severe, and underpaid, as it is known to be, finds small mention, save among special students of social questions. Russia has practically no data from which judgment can be formed. In short, it is only in English-speaking countries that really efficient action as to the labor of women has taken place; while even for them the work has but begun, and new and more radical forms will be necessary for any real progress toward final betterment. Toward such end the labor bureaus of our own country are working diligently; and it is with them that we have next to do, the investigations already made and incorporated in their reports being full of suggestion for future workers.

The census of 1882 gave for Germany, in a population of 45,222,113 persons, 23,071,364 women, of whom 1,109,530 were widows, and 5,467,730 unmarried, a large proportion of both these classes being self-supporting. An immense number of these were agricultural laborers. In Prussia in 1867 the census gave the number of women agricultural laborers as 1,054,213. Woman's wage for a day's labor, always twelve and often fourteen hours, is from twenty to twenty-five cents, about a third of that received by men doing the same work. Brassey, the great railroad contractor, found throughout Germany that her wage was always a third and often a quarter less than that of men.

For united Germany the description given by Villerme in 1836 is still true for many points. "The misery in which the cotton spinners and weavers of the upper Rhine live," he writes, "is so profound that it produces the saddest results. In the families of manufacturers, drapers, merchants, etc., half the children born attain their nineteenth year, this same half ceasing to exist before the age of two years in the families of weavers and workers at cotton-spinning."

As to numbers employed in trades and industries, it is difficult to secure them with exactness. The census of 1871 reported three tenths of the population as agricultural, the males employed in agriculture being 2,338,174, and the females 4,426,573. Household service had 840,000 women on its rolls. In 1875 the cotton-mills employed in weaving and spinning 95,934 women; the woollen manufacture, nearly 193,000; linen, hemp, and jute, 190,000. The labor of women and children was hardly recognized, and statistics had to be disentangled as best they might be from general tables of occupations. Through the persistent efforts of the Centre in the German Reichstag, a gradual betterment of the working-classes has been brought about, and thus indirectly that of women and children,—the first combined and determined effort being made in 1889, when three bills were brought up for discussion. The first made the working-day not to exceed eleven hours; the second demanded the suspension of industrial labor on Sunday, save in exceptional cases, when five hours' labor was to be allowed; the third concerned the labor of women and children, and with some modifications is practically the law to-day. Night and Sunday labor in mines, smelting-works, rolling-mills, and dockyards is entirely forbidden, nor can married women work more than ten hours a day. The Federal Council has the right also to forbid the employment of women and children in all factories and establishments where health and morals are exposed to exceptional dangers.

At the period at which the investigations which brought about the agitation of the question were made, the number of child laborers had increased in two years from 155,000 to 192,000, children hardly more than babies being in the factories. At present the law forbids the employment of any child under twelve, and not less than three hours' schooling daily is compulsory. Abuses exist at all points, women workers in mines faring, even with shortened day, in very evil case,—the wage at or below subsistence point and the general conditions of the most hopeless order. Constant agitation goes on in the Reichstag, and organization among the women themselves will in time bring about needed reforms; but as a whole the German woman is in many points less considered than the women of any other civilized nation.

Though Italy is pre-eminently an agricultural country, and men, women, and children are alike employed in agricultural pursuits, there has been no trustworthy record of numbers engaged. In manufacturing there are more statistics, but interest in the woman's share in labor is of recent date. In the silk manufacture, in which Italy ranks second only to China, and far beyond all other competitors, 81,165 women and 25,373 children were employed in 1877, chiefly in unwinding cocoons, the number at present having increased nearly ten per cent. In the cotton industry there were employed, at the time of the same census, 2,696 women and 2,520 children; and a proportionate increase in numbers has taken place. In the flax and hemp industries nearly seventy thousand workers used hand-looms at home, the larger proportion of these being women. In the factories it was found that 2,565 women and 1,227 children were at work as spinners, and 3,394 women and 1,020 children as weavers. Women are steadily employed in the manufacture of straw hats and bonnets, in jute in many forms, in cigar and cigarette making, and in many other industries, cheap clothing leading. Of the thirty millions and more of population, not quite half are women; and of these nearly half are wage-earners, the majority in unrecorded forms of labor,—chiefly household service or the care of their own homes, with some petty industry adding its mite to the yearly income. But industrial training has but begun for Italy. The wage is pitiably low, the conditions of living hard and full of privation; nor can these facts alter till better education and organization have been brought about. The latest Italian census is not yet published; but proofs of tables of the comparative wage for twenty years in some of the principal industries have been sent me through the courtesy of Signor Luigi Bodio, the minister of agriculture, commerce, and general statistics. From these tables it is found that the daily wage of women cotton-spinners has risen from sixty centimes, in 1871, to one franc twenty-six centimes in 1891, this being the equivalent of one lire twenty-six centissimi. The wage for weaving has risen from eighty centimes, in 1871, to one franc twenty-six centimes in 1891. Spoolers in 1871 received eighty-eight centimes as against one franc thirty centimes in 1891. In hemp-spinning the wage has fallen from ninety to eighty centimes, but has risen from ninety-eight centimes to one franc thirty centimes for twisting; the wage in the cases cited being a little more than a third that of men. In paper-making experienced workers now receive one franc fifty-two centimes as against sixty-six centimes in 1871; and in making of stearine candles one franc as against seventy-eight centimes in 1871. Running through the tables of every industry, the average is about the same,—the wage for women, even when doing the same work, hardly more than a third that for men, and the amount for either at bare subsistence point.

In Russia the woman's wage is but a fifth that of men, with working conditions, save at a few points where the work of Professor Janzhul and his confreres has told, at the very worst,—the day being from twelve to sixteen hours long even in the best-managed factories, while in the village industries, which, owing to the peculiar conditions of Russian life, make up the larger proportion of her industries, it is for many workers almost unending, the merest respite being given for sleep. As yet but few authentic figures as to the numbers employed are given, though on the first investigation into domestic industries made a few years since it was found that over 890,000 were engaged in them, and also at the same time in agriculture. Manufacturing in Russia concentrates about Moscow and St. Petersburg, which represent more than two fifths of the whole production of the empire. The requirements of nine tenths of the Russian people are met by domestic manufacture in the villages, and home-weaving for the market employs over two hundred thousand workers, other textiles, leather, etc., being dealt with in the same way.

In the other northern countries of Europe,—Norway, Sweden, and Denmark,—manufactures are at a minimum, fisheries and agriculture being the chief industries. Women are employed in both; and in the few factories there is a small proportion of women and children, working at a wage much less than that given to men. Sweden has a most admirable system of industrial education; and Norway and Denmark, though far less in population, have adopted the same methods. But the limitations of all wage-earning women are felt here in the same manner as elsewhere, the summary for all countries being much the same. The Northern workwoman has the advantage of training and of as keen a sense of economy as the Frenchwoman; but her wage is most usually at or below subsistence point, and her difficulties are those of the worker in general,—long hours, insufficient pay, and fierce competition.

As to the present laws concerning the length of the working-day, a general abstract is found in a return issued in reply to an address from the House of Commons, an abstract of which was given in "St. James' Gazette":—

"In France the hours of adult labor are regulated by a series of decrees, of which the earliest, promulgated September, 1848, enacts that the workingman's day in manufactories and mills shall not exceed twelve hours of 'effective' or actual labor. A decree issued in May, 1851, made exceptions, so that more hours might be worked in certain trades. In 1885 a circular was issued stating that the limit of twelve hours per diem was not to be imposed where hand-power was employed, but was to be confined to manufactories and mills in which the motive power was machinery. No workshops were to come under the clauses of the act that did not employ more than twenty hands in any one shed. The report says: 'It is likewise to be borne in mind that there is in France no compulsory observance of Sunday, and no day of habitual rest.'

"The reports of the French inspectors of labor appear to show that the Act of 1848 is very loosely interpreted. It is even doubtful whether the section limiting the actual working-day to twelve hours was intended to include or exclude hours of rest. Practically the legal time is made to exclude rest. This makes the working-day so much the longer. Thus one of the French inspectors states that the hours of attendance in factories under the Act of 1848 are from five in the morning until seven in the evening, or a total of fourteen hours, out of which there are twelve hours of 'effective labor.' But the same authority also states that 'effective' time often extends to thirteen and fourteen hours in many weaving-establishments. Finally, we are told that, as a rule, it may be taken that Frenchmen employed in factories are present in the shops at least fourteen hours out of every twenty four.

"Among the countries having no laws affecting the hours of adult labor, Germany is conspicuous. Employers, however, cannot force their servants to work on Sundays and feast-days. Employment of youthful or female labor in certain kinds of factories, which is attended with special danger to health or morals, is forbidden, or made conditional on certain regulations, by which night labor for female work-people is especially forbidden. In Germany, as in other countries also, women may not be employed in factories for a certain time after childbirth. In Hesse-Darmstadt the medium duration of labor is from ten to twelve hours,—the cases in which the latter time is exceeded being, however, more frequent than those in which the former is not exceeded. The normal work-day throughout Saxony in all the principal branches of industry is from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M., with half an hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, and half an hour for supper. In the manufacturing industry there are departures from these hours, the period of work in spinning and weaving mills not infrequently being twelve hours.

"In Austria the law provides that the duration of work for factory hands shall not exceed eleven hours out of the twenty-four, 'exclusive' of the periods of rest. These are not to be less in the aggregate than an hour and a half. The rule can be modified by the minister of commerce, in conjunction with the minister of the interior, allowing longer hours. The hours have been so extended to twelve hours in certain industries, such as spinning-mills, and even to thirteen in silk manufactories. Sunday rest is enforced. In Hungary there is no limit laid down by law, but the hours are not generally longer than in Austria.

"Concerning the actual hours of adult labor in Belgium, some difficulty is said to be experienced in getting at the facts. The evidence given before a Belgian royal commission showed that railway guards are sometimes on duty for fifteen and even nineteen and a half hours at a stretch; and the Brussels tram-way-drivers are at work from fifteen to seventeen hours daily, with a rest of only an hour and a half at noon. Brick-makers work during the summer months sixteen hours a day. In the sugar refineries the average hours are from twelve to thirteen for men and from nine to ten for women. The cabinetmakers, both at Ghent and Brussels, assert that they have often to work seventeen hours a day.

"In Switzerland the law provides that a normal working-day shall not exceed eleven hours, reduced on Saturdays and public holidays to ten. Power is reserved for prolonging the working-day in certain circumstances. Except in cases of absolute necessity Sunday labor is prohibited, and in establishments where uninterrupted labor is required, each working hand must have one free Sunday out of two. Women cannot under any circumstances be employed in night or Sunday labor. Italy has not legislated for adults, but has made regulations for child labor. Sweden is in the same position. Spain and Portugal have done nothing. The general rule in the latter country, applying to old and young, is to work from sunrise to sunset, an hour and a half being allowed for meals. In the Netherlands a law was recently promulgated to prevent excessive and dangerous work by grown-up women and young persons. In Turkey the working-day lasts from sunrise to sunset, with certain intervals for repose and refreshment. In Russia, where there are no laws affecting the hours of adult labor, the normal working-day in industrial establishments averages twelve hours, though it is often extended to fourteen and even sixteen."

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Histoire des Classes Ouvriers en France depuis 1789 jusqu'a nos Jours, par E. Levasseur.

[32] L'Ouvriere, par Jules Simon.

[33] Prisoners of Poverty, p. 118.

[34] Le Travail des Femmes au XIX. Siecle, par Paul Leroy-Beaulieu.

[35] L'Ouvriere, p. 158.

[36] Le Travail des Femmes aux XIX. Siecle.

[37] Annuaire de la Bourse du Travail. Volumes from 1887 to 1892 inclusive.

[38] Rapport sur l'Enquete faite au nom de l'Academie Royale de Medecine de Belgique, par la commission chargee d'etudier la question de l'emploi des femmes dans les travaux souterrain des mines, Bruxelles, 1868.

Documents nouveaux relatifs au travail des femmes et des enfants, dans les manufactures, les mines, etc, etc. Bruxelles, 1874.



CHAPTER IX.

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.