women operatives in the factories of Massachusetts were 32,239, or
nineteen per cent of men operatives. In 1875 they were 83,207, or
twenty-six per cent; and the increase since that date has been in like
proportion. From the time of their first employment in mills the
increase has been on themselves over three hundred per cent. In
Massachusetts mills women and children are from two thirds to five
sixths of all employed, and the proportion in all the manufacturing
portions of New England is nearly the same.
In judging the factory system as a whole, it is necessary to glance at
the conditions of home work preceding it. These are given in full detail
in historical and economical treatises, notably in Lecky's "History of
the Eighteenth Century," and in Dr. Kay's "Moral and Physical Condition
of the Working Classes." A list of the more important authorities on the
subject will be found in the general bibliography at the end.
The conditions that prevailed in other countries were less strenuous
with us, but the same objections to the domestic system held good at
many points. In weaving, the looms occupied large part of the family
living space, and overcrowding and all its evils were inevitable.
Drunkenness was more common, as well as the stealing of materials by
dishonest workers. Time was lost in going for material and in returning
it, and only half as much was accomplished. Homes were uncared for and
often filthy, and the work was done in half-lighted, airless rooms.
These conditions are often reproduced in part even to-day in buildings
not adapted to their present use; but as a whole it is certain that the
homes of factory-workers are cleaner, that regulation has proved
beneficial, that light and air are furnished in better measure, and that
overcrowding has become impossible. This applies only to textile
manufactures, where machines must have room.
In an admirable chapter on the "Factory System," prepared by Colonel
Carroll D. Wright for the Tenth Census of the United States, he takes up
in detail the objections urged against it. These are as follows:--
A. The factory system necessitates the employment of women and
children to an injurious extent, and consequently its tendency is
to destroy family life and ties and domestic habits, and ultimately
the home.
B. Factory employments are injurious to health.
C. The factory system is productive of intemperance, unthrift, and
poverty.
D. It feeds prostitution, and swells the criminal list.
E. It tends to intellectual degeneracy.
Under "A" there is small defence to be made. The employment of married
women is fruitful of evil, and the proportion of these in Massachusetts
is 23.8 per cent. Wherever this per cent is high, infant mortality is
very great, being 23.5 per cent for Massachusetts and 19 per cent for
Connecticut and New Hampshire. The "Labor Bureau Reports" for New Jersey
treat the subject in detail, and are strongly opposed to the employment
of mothers of young children outside the home; and the conclusion is the
same at other points.
In the matter of general injury to health, under "B," it is stated that
many factories are far better ventilated and lighted than the homes of
the operatives. Ignorant employees cannot be impressed with the need of
care on these points, and the air in their homes is foul and productive
of disease. A cotton-mill is often better ventilated than a court-room
or a lecture-room. A well-built factory allows not less than six
hundred cubic feet of air space to a person, thirty to sixty cubic feet
a minute being required. Ranke, in his "Elements of Physiology," makes
it thirty-five a minute.
The homes of operatives have steadily improved in character; and
wherever there is an intelligent class of operatives, regulations are
obeyed, and sanitary conditions are fair and often perfect, while the
tendency is toward more and more care in every respect. Operatives'
homes are often better guarded against sanitary evils than those of
farmers or the ordinary laborer.
Under "C" it is shown conclusively that the factory has diminished
intemperance,--Reybaud's "History of the Factory Movement" giving full
statistics on this point, as well as in regard to the growth of banks
and benefit societies. The standard of living is higher here, but there
are countless evidences of thrift and a general rise in condition.
In the matter of prostitution, under "D," it is shown that but eight per
cent of this class come from the factory, twenty-nine per cent being
from domestic service. In Lynn, Mass., a town chosen for illustration
because of the large percentage of factory operatives, it was found
that but seven per cent of those arrested were from this class; and this
is true of all points where the foreign-born element is not largely in
the majority.
Last comes the question of intellectual degeneracy, under "E." On this
point it is hardly fair to make comparison of the present worker with
the Lowell girl of the first period of factory labor, since she came
from an educated class, and was distinctively American. Taking workers
as a whole, a vast advance shows itself. Regularity and fixed rule have
often been the first education in this direction; and the life, even
with all its drawbacks, has the right to be regarded as an educational
force, and the first step in this direction for a large proportion of
the workers in it. There are points where the arraignment of Alfred, in
his "History of the Factory Movement," is still true.[16] He speaks of
it as a "system which jested with civilization, laughed at humanity, and
made a mockery of every law of physical and moral health and of the
principles of natural and social order." The "Report of the New York
Bureau of Labor for 1885" shows that the charge might still be
righteously brought; and Mr. Bishop gives the same testimony in his
reports for New Jersey. Evil is still part of the system, and well-nigh
inseparable from the methods of production and the conditions of
competition; but that there are evils is recognized at all points, and
thus their continuance will not and cannot be perpetuated.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Alfred's History of the Factory Movement, vol. i. p. 27.
IV.
RISE AND GROWTH OF TRADES UP TO THE PRESENT TIME.
Defeat and discouragement attend well-nigh every step of the attempt to
reach any conclusions regarding women workers in the early years of the
century. It is true that 1832 witnessed an attempt at an investigation
into their status, but the results were of slight value, actual figures
being almost unattainable. The census of 1840 gave more, and that of
1850 showed still larger gain. In that of 1840 the number of women and
children in the silk industry was taken; but while the same is true of
the later one, there is apparently no record of them in any printed
form. The New York State Census for the years 1845 and 1855 gave some
space to the work of women and children, but there is nothing of marked
value till another decade had passed.
It is to the United States Census for 1860 that we must look for the
first really definite statements as to the occupations of women and
children. Scattered returns of an earlier date had shown that the
percentage of those employed in factories was a steadily increasing one,
but in what ratio was considered as unimportant. In fact, statistics of
any order had small place, nor was their need seriously felt, save here
and there, in the mind of the student.
To comprehend the blankness of this period in all matters relating to
social and economic questions, it is necessary to recall the fact that
no such needs as those of the mother country pressed upon us. To those
who looked below the surface and watched the growing tide of emigration,
it was plain that they were, in no distant day, to arise; but for the
most part, even for those compelled to severest toil, it was taken for
granted that full support was a certainty, and that the men or women who
did not earn a comfortable living could blame no one but themselves.
There were other reasons why any enumeration of women workers seemed not
only superfluous but undesirable. For the better order, prejudice was
still strong enough against all who deviated from custom or tradition to
make each new candidate for a living shrink from any publicity that
could be avoided. Society frowned upon the woman who dared to strike out
in new paths, and thus made them even more thorny than necessity had
already done.
It is impossible for the present, with its full freedom of opportunity,
to realize, or credit even, the difficulties of the past, or even of a
period hardly more than a generation ago. It was of this time that Dr.
Emily Blackwell, one of the pioneers in higher work for women, wrote:--
"Women were hindered at every turn by endless restraint in endless
minor detail of habit, custom, tradition, etc.... Most women who
have been engaged in any new departure would testify that the
difficulties of the undertaking lay far more in these artificial
hindrances and burdens than in their own health, or in the nature
of the work itself."
It was this shrinking from publicity, among all save the most ordinary
workers, by this time largely foreign, that made one difficulty in the
way of census enumerators. By 1860 it had become plain that an enormous
increase in their numbers was taking place, and that no just idea of
this increase could be formed so long as industrial statistics were made
up with no distinction as to sex. The spread of the factory system and
the constant invention of new machinery had long ago removed from homes
the few branches of the work that could be carried on within them.
Processes had divided and subdivided. The mill-worker knew no longer
every phase of the work implied in the production of her web, but became
more and more a part of the machine itself. This was especially true of
all textile industries,--cotton or woollen, with their many
ramifications,--and becomes more so with each year of progress.
Cotton and woollen manufactures, with the constantly increasing
subdivisions of all the processes involved, counted their thousands upon
thousands of women workers. Another industry had been one of the first
opened to women, much of its work being done at home. Shoemaking, with
all its processes of binding and finishing, had its origin for this
country in Massachusetts, to the ingenuity and enterprise of whose
mechanics is due the fact that the United States has attained the
highest perfection in this branch. Lynn, Mass., as far back as 1750, had
become famous for its women's shoes, the making of which was carried on
in the families of the manufacturers. At first no especial skill was
shown; but in 1750 a Welsh shoemaker, named John Adam Dagyr, settled
there and acquired great fame for himself and the town for his superior
workmanship. In 1788 the exports of women's shoes from Lynn were one
hundred thousand pairs, while in 1795 over three hundred thousand pairs
were sent out, and by 1870 the number had reached eleven million.
Beginning with the employment of a few dozen women, twenty other towns
took up the same industry, and furnish their quota of the general
return. The Massachusetts Bureau of Labor gives, in its report for 1873,
the number of women employed as 11,193, with some six hundred female
children. Maine and New Hampshire followed, and both have a small
proportion of women workers engaged in the industry, while it has
gradually extended, New England always retaining the lead, till New
York, Philadelphia, and many Western and Southern towns rank high in
the list of producers.
As in every other trade, processes have divided and subdivided.
Sewing-machines did away with the tedious binding by hand, which had its
compensations, however, in the fact that it was done at home. There is
only incidental record of the numbers employed in this industry till the
later census returns; but the percentage outside of Massachusetts
remained a very small one, as even in Maine the total number given in
the Report of the Bureau of Labor for 1887 is but 533, an almost
inappreciable per cent of the population. The returns of the census of
1880 give the total number of women in this employment as 21,000, the
proportion still remaining largest for New England.
Straw-braiding was another of the early trades, and the first straw
bonnet braided in the United States was made by Miss Betsey Metcalf, of
Providence, R.I., in 1789. For many years straw-plaiting was done at
home; but the quality of our material was always inferior to that grown
abroad, our climate making it much more brittle and difficult to
handle. The wage at first was from two to three dollars a week; but as
factories were established where imported braid was made up, the sum
sometimes reached five dollars. The census of 1860 gave the total number
of women employed as 1,430. According to the census of 1870, nine States
had taken up this industry, Massachusetts employing the largest number,
and Vermont the least, the total number being 12,594; while in 1880 the
number had risen to 19,998.
Up to the time of the Civil War, aside from factory employments, the
trades open to women were limited, and the majority of their occupations
were still carried on at home, or with but few in numbers, as in
dressmaking-establishments, millinery, and the like. With the new
conditions brought about at this time, and the vast number of women
thrown upon their own resources, came the flocking into trades for which
there had been no training, and which had been considered as the
exclusive property of men. A surplus of untrained workers at once
appeared, and this and general financial depression brought the wage to
its lowest terms; but when this had in part ended, the trades still
remained open. At the close of the war some hundred were regarded as
practicable. Ten years later the number had more than doubled, and
to-day we find over four hundred occupations; while, as new inventions
arise, the number of possibilities in this direction steadily increases.
The many considerations involved in these facts will be met later on.
General conditions of trades as a whole are given in the census returns,
though even there hardly more than approximately, little work of much
real value being accomplished till the formation of the labor bureaus,
with which we are soon to deal. Every allowance, however, is to be made
for the Census Bureau, which found itself almost incapable of overcoming
many of the lions in the way. The tone of the remarks on this point in
that for 1860 is almost plaintive, nor is it less so in the next; but
methods have clarified, and the work is far more authoritative than for
long seemed possible.
Innumerable difficulties hedged about the enumerators for 1860. Rooted
objection to answering the questions in detail was not one of the least.
Unfamiliarity with the newer phases of the work was another, and thus
it happened that the volume when issued was full of discrepancies. The
tables of occupations, for example, characterized but a little over two
thousand persons as connected with woollen and worsted manufacture;
while the tables of manufactures showed that considerably more than
forty thousand persons were engaged, upon the average, in these branches
of manufacturing industry.
The returns gave the number of women employed in various branches of
manufacture as two hundred and eighty-five thousand, but stated that the
figures were approximate merely, it being impossible to secure full
returns. It was found that three and a half per cent of the population
of Massachusetts were in the factories, and nearly the same proportion
in Connecticut and Rhode Island; but details were of the most meagre
description, and conclusions based upon them were likely to err at every
point. Its value was chiefly educative, since the failure it represents
pointed to a change in methods, and more preparation than had at any
time been considered necessary in the officials who had the matter in
charge.
The census for 1870 reaped the benefits of the new determination; yet
even of this General Walker was forced to write: "This census concludes
that from one to two hundred thousand workers are not accounted for,
from the difficulty experienced in getting proper returns. The nice
distinctions of foreign statisticians are impossible." And he adds:--
"Whoever will consider the almost utter want of apprenticeship in
this country, the facility with which pursuits are taken up and
abandoned, and the variety and, indeed, seeming incongruity of the
numerous industrial offices that are frequently united in one
person, will appreciate the force of this argument.... The
organization of domestic service in the United States is so crude
that no distinction whatever can be successfully maintained. A
census of occupations in which the attempt should be made to reach
anything like European completeness in this matter would result in
the return of tens of thousands of 'housekeepers' and hundreds of
thousands of 'cooks,' who were simply 'maids of all work,' being
the single servants of the families in which they are
employed."[17]
This census gives the total number of women workers, so far as it could
be determined, as 1,836,288. Of these, 191,000 were from ten to fifteen
years of age; 1,594,783, from sixteen to fifty-nine; and 50,404, sixty
years and over, the larger proportion of the latter division being given
as engaged in agricultural employments.
In the first period of age, females pursuing gainful occupations are to
males as one to three; in the second, one to six; and in the third, one
to twelve. The actual increase over the numbers given in the census for
1860 is 1,551,288. The reasons for this almost incredible variation have
already been suggested; and their operation became even stronger in the
interval between that of 1870 and 1880. By this time methods were far
more skilful and returns more minute, and thus the figures are to be
accepted with more confidence than was possible with the earlier ones.
The factory system, extending into almost every trade, brought about
more and more differentiation of occupations, some two hundred of which
were by 1880 open to women.
Comparing the rates of increase during the period between 1860 and 1870,
women wage-earners had increased 19 per cent, the increase for men
being but 6/97. Among the women, 6.7 per cent were engaged in
agriculture, 33.4 in personal service, 7.3 in trade and transportation,
and 16.5 in manufactures. In 1880 women engaged in gainful occupations
formed 5.28 of the total population, and 14.68 of females over ten years
of age. The present rate is not yet[18] determined; but while figures
will not be accessible for some months to come, it is stated definitely
that the increase will indicate nearer ten than five per cent.
The total number employed is given for this census as 2,647,157. The
occupations are divided into four classes: first, agriculture; second,
professional and personal services; third, trade and transportation;
fourth, manufactures, mechanical and mining industries. In agriculture,
594,510 women were at work; in professional and personal services, this
including domestic service, 1,361,295; trade and transportation, this
including shop-girls, etc., had 59,364; while 631,988 were engaged in
the last division of manufacturing, etc. Of girls from ten to fifteen
years of age, agriculture had 135,862; professional and personal
services, 107,830; trade, 2,547; and manufacturing, etc., 46,930. From
sixteen to fifty-nine years of age there were in agriculture 435,920; in
professional and personal services, 1,215,189; trade and transportation,
54,849; and manufacturing, etc., 577,157. From sixty years and upward
the four classes were divided as follows: Agriculture, 22,728;
professional, etc., 38,276; trade, etc., 1,968; and manufacturing, etc.,
7,901.
Even for this record numbers must be added, since many women work at
home and make no return of the trade they have chosen, while many others
are held by pride from admitting that they work at all. But the addition
of a hundred thousand for the entire country would undoubtedly cover
this discrepancy in full; nor are these numbers too large, though it is
impossible to more than approximate them.
Suggestive as these figures are, they are still more so when we come to
their apportionment to States. They become then a history of the
progress of trades, and women's share in them; and a glance enables one
to determine the proportion employed in each. In the table which
follows, industries are condensed under a general head, no mention
being made of the many subdivisions, each ranking as a trade, but going
to make up the business as a whole. It is the result of statistics taken
in fifty of the principal cities, and includes only those industries in
which women have the largest share.[19]
===================================================================
| Total |Per Cent |Per Cent |
| Number. |of Males.| of |Children.
| | |Females. |
---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
Book-binding | 10,612 | 4,831 | 4,553 | 616
Carpet-weaving | 20,371 | 4,960 | 4,207 | 833
Men's Clothing | 160,813 | 4,801 | 5,037 | 159
Women's Clothing | 25,192 | 1,030 | 8,833 | 137
Cotton Goods | 185,472 | 3,457 | 4,914 | 1,629
Men's Furnishing Goods | 11,174 | 1,140 | 8,560 | 300
Hosiery and Knitting | 28,885 | 2,602 | 6,130 | 1,268
Millinery and Lace | 25,687 | 1,120 | 8,637 | 243
Shirts | 6,555 | 1,481 | 8,000 | 513
Silk and Silk Goods | 31,337 | 2,992 | 5,232 | 1,776
Straw Goods | 10,948 | 2,991 | 6,850 | 154
Tobacco | 32,756 | 4,544 | 3,290 | 2,166
Umbrellas and Canes | 3,608 | 4,169 | 5,152 | 679
Woollen Goods | 86,504 | 54,544 | 3,395 | 1,174
Worsted Goods | 18,800 | 5,431 | 5,038 | 1,540
===================================================================
In obtaining these averages, it was found necessary to equalize the
returns of Pittsburg and Philadelphia, the former having but 4.55 per
cent of women workers, while Philadelphia had 31. This resulted from the
fact that the industries of Philadelphia are the manufacturing of
textiles and other goods, which employ women chiefly; while Pittsburg
has principally iron and steel mills. New York was found to have 31 per
cent of women workers; Lowell, Mass., had 47.42, and Manchester, N.H.,
53; Pittsburg and Wilmington, Del., having the lowest percentage.
The gain of women in trades over the census of 1870 was sixty-four per
cent, the total percentage of women workers for the whole country being
forty-nine. The ten years just ended show a still larger percentage; and
many of the trades which a decade since still hesitated to admit women,
are now open, those regarded as most peculiarly the province of men
having received many feminine recruits. These isolated or scattered
instances hardly belong here, and are mentioned simply as indications of
the general trend. Wise or unwise, experiment is the order of the day,
its principal service in many cases being to test untried powers, and
break down barriers, built up often by mere tradition, and not again to
rise till women themselves decide when and where.
Taking States in their alphabetical order, the census of 1880 gives the
number of working-women for each as follows:[20]--
Alabama, 124,056.
Arizona, 471.
Arkansas, 30,616.
California, 28,200.
Colorado, 4,779.
Connecticut, 48,670.
Dakota, 2,851.
Delaware, 7,928.
District of Columbia, 19,658.
Florida, 17,781.
Georgia, 152,322.
Idaho, 291.
Illinois, 106,101.
Indiana, 51,422.
Iowa, 44,845.
Kansas, 54,422.
Louisiana, 95,052.
Maine, 33,528.
Massachusetts, 174,183.
Michigan, 55,013.
Minnesota, 25,077.
Mississippi, 110,416.
Missouri, 62,943.
Montana, 507.
Nebraska, 10,455.
Nevada, 403.
New Hampshire, 30,128.
New Jersey, 66,776.
New Mexico, 2,262.
New York, 360,381.
North Carolina, 86,976.
Ohio, 112,639.
Oregon, 2,779.
Pennsylvania, 216,980.
Rhode Island, 29,859.
South Carolina, 120,087.
Tennessee, 56,408.
Texas, 58,943.
Utah, 2,877.
Vermont, 16,167.
Washington Territory, 1,060.
West Virginia, 11,508.
Wisconsin, 46,395.
Wyoming, 464.
FOOTNOTES: