CHAPTER VII_Making Both Ends Meet: The income and outlay of New York working girls

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS APPLIED TO WOMEN'S WORK

Within the last thirty years a new method of conducting work, called

Scientific Management, has been established in various businesses in the

United States, including "machine shops and factories, steel work and

paper mills, cotton mills and shoe shops, in bleacheries and dye works,

in printing and bookbinding, in lithographing establishments, in the

manufacture of type-writers and optical instruments, in constructing and

engineering work--and to some extent--the manufacturing departments of

the Army and Navy."[43]

Three of the enterprises to a greater or less degree reorganized by this

new system in this country employ women workers. These establishments are

a New Jersey cotton mill, a bleachery in Delaware, and a cloth finishing

factory in New England. The reduction of costs for the owning firms

inaugurating Scientific Management has already received a wide publicity.

It is the object of this account to present as clear a chronicle as has

been obtainable of the effect the methods of Scientific Management have

had on the fortunes of the workers--more especially on the hours, the

wages, and the general health of the women workers in these houses who

have so far experienced its training.[44]

What, then, are the new principles of management which have been

inaugurated? What is Scientific Management? The expression may perhaps

best be defined to lay readers by a lay writer by means of an outline of

the growth of its working principles in this company--an outline traced

as far as possible in the words of the engineers creating the system,

whose courtesy in the matter is here gratefully acknowledged.

In 1881, Mr. Frederick W. Taylor, the widely reverenced author of "The

Art of Cutting Metals" and of "Shop Management," then a young man of 21,

closed, in grave discouragement, a long, hard, and victorious contest of

his conducted as gang boss of the machinists of the Midvale Steel

Company in Pennsylvania. In the course of the last three years, as he

narrates in his book "Academic and Industrial Efficiency":[45]--

By discharging workers, lowering the wages of the more stubborn

men who refused to make any improvement, lowering the

piece-work rate, and by other such methods, he (the writer)

succeeded in very materially increasing the output of the

machines, in some cases doubling the output, and had been

promoted from one gang boss-ship to another until he became the

foreman of the shop.... For any right-minded man, however, this

success is in no sense a recompense for the bitter relations

which he is forced to maintain with all those around him. Life

which is one continuous struggle with other men is hardly worth

living.... Soon after being made foreman, therefore, he decided

to make a determined effort in some way to change the system of

management so that the interests of the workmen and the

management should become the same instead of antagonistic....

He therefore obtained the permission from Mr. William Sellers,

the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to spend some money

in a careful scientific study of the time required to do

various kinds of work.

Lack of information on the part of both workers and the

management as to the quickest time in which a piece of work can

be done constitutes what has been the most formidable obstacle

in the path of all progress toward improved industrial

conditions.... Every wasteful operation, every mistake, every

useless move has to be paid for by somebody, and in the long

run both the employer and the employee have to bear a

proportionate share.... For each job there is the quickest time

in which it can be done by a first-class man; this time may be

called the "Standard Time," for the job.... Under all the

ordinary systems this quickest time is more or less completely

shrouded in mist.

Through a period of about twelve years the simplest operations in the

shop were now timed, observed, and studied by graduates from science

courses, different university men, engaged by Mr. Taylor, until a general

law had been discovered regarding the exertion of physical energy a

first-class worker could employ "and thrive under." It was found that the

worker's resistance of fatigue in lifting and carrying the load depended,

not on the amount of strength in terms of horse-power which he was

obliged to exert to elevate and sustain the load, but on the proportion

of his day spent in rest. For instance, a pig-iron handler, lifting and

carrying pigs weighing 92 pounds each, could lift and carry 47 tons of

iron in a day without undue fatigue if fifty-seven per cent of his

working hours were spent in rest, and forty-three per cent were spent in

work. If he lifted and put in place a number of pigs amounting to half

that tonnage, he might work without undue fatigue for a greater part of

the day. Under a certain far lighter load he could work without fatigue

all day long, with no rest whatever.

With accurate time-study as a basis, the "quickest time" for each job is

at all times in plain sight of both employers and workmen, and is reached

with accuracy, precision, and speed.[46]

OPERATION--WHEELBARROW EXCAVATION. Date, March 10, 189__

KEY:

A: Op.

B: Time

C: Av.

D: No. Shov.

E: Total time min.

F: Total picking min.

G: Total shoveling and wheeling min.

H: Times per barrow min.

I: No obs

J: Times per barrow min.

K: Time per pc. per shovel min.

L: No. shovels per barrow min.

M: Time wheeling 100 ft. min.

|A| B | C | D |A| B | C | D |A | B |C | D |A |B |C

--------------------+-+----+----+---+-+-----+-----+---+--+----+--+---+--+--+-

Construction |a|1.37|1.37|15 |a|1.12 |1.12 |12 |a'|1.86| |11 | | |

Men--Mike Flaherty |b|1.56|0.19| |b|1.39 |0.27 | |a'|1.81| |13 | | |

|c|1.82|0.26| |c|1.58 |0.19 | |a'|2.14| |16 | | |

requiring no pick |d|1.97|0.15| |d|1.70 |0.12 | |a'|1.98| |14 | | |

clay in bank |e|1.97|0.15| |e|1.92 |0.22 | | | | | | | |

wheelbarrow |f|2.36|0.09| |f|2.36 |0.09 | | | | | | | |

observation |a|1.24|1.24|13 |a|2.05 |0.13 |13 | | | | | | |

measured in cut |b|1.36|0.12| |b|1.38 |0.15 | | | | | | | |

measured in cut |c|1.59|0.23| |c|1.60 |0.22 | | | | | | | |

|d|1.83|0.24| |d|1.78 |0.18 | | | | | | | |

|e|2.08|0.25| |e|2.05 |0.27 | | | | | | | |

|f|2.23|0.25| |f|2.23 |0.18 | | | | | | | |

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Operations | E | F | G | H | Operations |I | J | K | L | M

------+-------------+---+---+---+----+-------------+--+-----+-----+----+-----

7 A.M.|Commenced | | | | | | | | | |

9.02 |43 loads |122| |122|2.84|a--Filling |4 |1.240|0.094|13.2|

|50 ft. | | | | | | | | | |

9.50 |Picking | 48| | | |b--Starting |4 |0.182| | |

11.39 |29 loads clay|109| | | |c--Wheeling |4 |0.225| | |0.450

|50 ft. | | | | | | | | | |

11.46 |Picking clay | 7|55 | |1.67|d--Dumping |4 |0.172| | |

12.01 |4 loads clay | 15| |124|3.76|e--Returning |4 |0.260| | |0.520

|distance of | | | | | ft. | | | | |

|50 ft. | | | | | | | | | |

| |301| | | |f--Dropping |4 |0.162| | |

| | | | | |g-- | |2.241| | |

| | | | | |h-- | | | | |

| | | | | |i-- | | | | |

| | | | | |j-- | | | | |

| | | | | |k-- | | | | |

| | | | | |l-- | | | | |

| | | | | |m-- | | | | |

| | | | | | clay |4 |1.948|0.144|3.5 |

------+-------------+---+---+---+----+-------------+--+-----+-----+----+----

NOTE.--Comparison of "Detail" with "Complete" operations shows

that about 27 per cent of the total time was taken in rest and

other necessary delays. About the same quantity loose as at the

start. Observer: JAMES MONROE.

Here is an account of the effect the result of this time-study and these

tests in strength produced on the output and wage of a group of men at

the Bethlehem Steel Co., whose work Mr. Taylor reorganized after that of

the Midvale Steel Company:--

The opening of the Spanish War found some 80,000 tons of

pig-iron piled in small piles in an open field adjoining the

Bethlehem Steel Company's works. Prices for pig-iron had been

so low that it could not be sold at a profit, and was therefore

stored. With the opening of the Spanish War the price of the

pig-iron rose, and this large accumulation of iron was sold.

The ...steel company's ...pig-iron gang ...consisted of about

75 men ...good average pig-iron handlers, under an excellent

foreman ...A railroad switch was run out into the field, right

along the edge of the piles of pig-iron. An inclined plane was

placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up from

his pile a pig of iron weighing about 92 pounds, walked up the

inclined plank, and dropped it on the end of the car.

We found that this gang were loading on the average of about

12-1/2 tons per man per day in this manner. We were surprised

to find, after studying the matter, that a first-class pig-iron

handler ought to handle between 47 and 48 tons per day, instead

of 12-1/2 tons, which were being handled.

This task seemed so very large that we were obliged to go over

our work several times before we were sure we were absolutely

right.... The task which faced us as managers under the modern

scientific plan ...was ...to see that the 80,000 tons of

pig-iron were loaded on the cars at the rate of 47 tons per man

per day in place of 12-1/2 tons.... It was further our duty to

see that this work was done without bringing on a strike among

the men, without any quarrel with the men, and to see that the

men were happier and better contented with loading at the new

rate of 47 tons than they were when loading at the old rate of

12-1/2 tons.

The first step was the scientific selection of the workmen....

Under ...scientific management ...it is an inflexible rule to

talk to and deal with only one man at a time, since we are not

dealing with men in masses, but are trying to develop each

individual man to his highest state of efficiency and

prosperity. The 75 men in the gang were carefully watched and

studied for three or four days, at the end of which time we had

picked out four men who were believed to be physically able to

handle pig-iron at the rate of 47 tons per day. A careful study

was then made of each of these men.... Finally one man was

selected from among the four as the most likely man to start

with.

This man, who had been receiving $1.15 a day, agreed to follow for $1.85

a day the directions of the time-student, who had determined the

proportion and intervals of rest necessary for the regular accomplishment

of the task, without overstrain or undue fatigue. The worker started to

carry his accustomed load and at regular intervals was told by the

time-student, observing the proper period for rest and work with a watch:

"Now pick up a pig and walk. Now sit down and rest. Now, walk--now, rest,

etc."

[Illustration: Courtesy of _Industrial Engineering_

THE NEW METHOD OF PROVIDING THE BRICKLAYER WITH MATERIAL]

He walked when he was told to walk and rested when he was told

to rest, and at half past five in the afternoon had his 47-1/2

tons loaded on the car. And he practically never failed to work

at this pace and to do the task that was set him during the

three years that the writer was at Bethlehem.... Throughout

this time, he averaged a little more than $1.85 a day; whereas

he had never received more than $1.15 a day, which was the

ruling wage at that time in Bethlehem.... One man after another

was picked out and trained to handle pig-iron at the rate of

47-1/2 tons a day, until all of the pig-iron was handled at

this rate, and all of this gang were receiving sixty per cent

more wages than other men around them.

A very brilliant and extended investigation concerning the elimination of

waste of human energy and labor by motion-study has been made

independently of Mr. Taylor by Mr. Frank Gilbreth, whose discoveries in

the field have already cut down the effort of the labor of bricklaying

two-thirds. The two accompanying photographs show what Scientific

Management and motion-study did in one case to serve the worker by an

orderly and convenient arrangement of his material.

These extremely simple processes of bricklaying and carrying pig-iron

have been selected as instances of the procedure of Scientific

Management, because they reveal one of its most illuminating qualities.

Scientific Management makes an art of all work. It gives the most

primitive manual task its right dignity, and turns knowledge, science,

and the powers of direction from the position of tyrants of labor to that

of its servitors.

Scientific Management, then, besides eliminating waste in human energy,

or rather by way of eliminating this waste, eliminates waste in

equipment, waste in machine power, and evolves through an extended

planning department such better appliances, such an improved programme of

work and recording of individual work as has been only very imperfectly

indicated here.

For an instance of the elimination of waste in equipment the account of

the saving effected for one establishment by an efficient use of its

belting may be narrated. This was the work of Mr. Harrington Emerson,

widely known as a counselling engineer. In the '70's Mr. Emerson had

become interested in the subject of Efficiency Engineering by his study

of the successful conduct of the German Army during the Franco-Prussian

War; and he has since then reorganized numerous large enterprises in

accordance with the principles derived from his inquiry. Among these

establishments was a machine shop where the belting[47]

"had cost (for maintenance and renewals) at one of the main

shops about $12,000 a year--or $1000 a month--and it was so

poorly installed and supervised that there was an average of 12

breakdowns every working-day, each involving more or less

disorganization of the plant in its part or as a whole." The

workmen in charge of the belts now received directions as to

their charge from a general foreman, who received directions

from an efficiency engineer. This engineer had derived his

general information on the subject from a man who had made a

special study of belts for nine years. He laid down a few

general rules, requiring accurate records of breakdown, repair,

and installation, full authority and responsibility for the

special worker on belts, a better grade of work in installation

and better operation of the belts. Under this method "the

number of breakdowns declined from 12 each working-day to an

average of 2 a day, not one of them serious ...and due to

original defective installation, which it was impossible to

remedy without unjustifiable expense.... The cost of

maintaining belts fell from $1000 a month to $300 a month."

This elimination of waste of human power, and in connection with it the

elimination of waste of equipment and of machine power, have, then, in

the course of the last thirty years, been studied and applied in this

country in the way roughly outlined by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Gilbreth, Mr.

Gantt, Mr. Sanford Thompson, Mr. Barth, Mr. Cook, and Mr. Hathaway; and

in somewhat the same manner by Mr. Harrington Emerson, Mr. Edward

Emerson, Mr. W.J. Power, Mr. Arion, Mr. Playfair, and Mr. Chipman. These

engineers have developed methods which have made it possible for them to

reorganize the various businesses mentioned which have consulted them,

and to decrease their costs and increase their profits. It will be seen

at once that the procedure of Scientific Management in determining by

scientific analysis the rate of speed and the working conditions under

which machine power and human energy can be at once most productively and

continuously employed, is really new, and differs radically from former

business management, however ably systematized.

"But these," said Mr. Taylor, in speaking of the methods of Scientific

Management, "are incidents in the course of Scientific Management. Its

great underlying purpose is the achievement of prosperity for the workers

and for the employers." Mr. Taylor's definition of prosperity, given on

another occasion, is one of the finest the present writer has ever heard.

"By a man's prosperity, I mean his best use of his highest powers."

It may be asked, after the efficiency of workers has been increased by

scientific study, what provision is made by scientific study for their

increased compensation. While Mr. Taylor was at the Bethlehem Steel

Company, Mr. Henry L. Gantt, then engaged with him in reorganizing the

Bethlehem Steel Works, first applied the Bonus and Task system of

compensation, which may be described loosely as a premium paid if a

certain predetermined amount be accomplished in a certain time. Its

general principles are these:[48]--

1. "A scientific investigation in detail of each piece of work and the

determination of the best method and the shortest time in which the work

can be done."

2. "A teacher capable of teaching the best methods and shortest time."

3. "Reward for both teacher and pupil, when the latter is

successful."[49]

About five years ago Mr. Gantt was consulted concerning the application

of Scientific Management in a New England Cloth Finishing house. The

installation of the new system here began on the eve of a strike which

the workers lost. The history of this strike and its causes is not a part

of this account. Only these facts concerning it bear upon the present

subject. The strike started among the men folders, then folding 155

pieces of cloth a day for $10 a week on week wages, and asking for ten

per cent increase of wage without increase of output. The women folders'

wage on lighter work was $7.50. As will be seen, this request was met by

Scientific Management. The wage was increased far beyond ten per cent.

The output was increased, both by improved mechanical methods, and by a

standard of more expert work, to from 447 to 887 pieces a day. The

engineers of Scientific Management had not on either one side or the

other any part whatever in the strike. But undoubtedly one of its

contributing causes was a distrust aroused by the rumor that a new system

of work was to be inaugurated.

The Cloth Finishing establishment bleaches, starches, and calenders

dimities, muslins, percales, and shirtings, and folds and wraps them for

shipping. The factory has good light and good air and an excellent

situation in open, lightly rolling country. About two hundred young

women, Americans, Scotch, English, and French-Canadians are now employed

here on the bonus and task system, most of them whom I saw living with

their families in very attractive houses in pleasant villages near. One

or two were on the gloomy, muddy little streets of a French-Canadian mill

town. These girls, too, were in well-built houses and not living in

crowded conditions. But all their surroundings were dingy and

disagreeable. At the Cloth Finishing factory and both the other

establishments, every opportunity for the fullest inquiry among workers

as to the result of the system for them was offered by the owning

companies. Difficulties in the industry for the workers were frequently

pointed out by managers; and the addresses and names of the less

well-paid workers and those in the harder positions were supplied as

freely as information about the more fortunate effects of the system.

Both this firm and that of the cotton mill are anxious to obtain

first-class work through first-class working conditions as rapidly as

trade conditions will allow.

The first process at which women are employed is that of keeping cloth

running evenly through a tentering machine. The machine holds on tenter

hooks--the hooks of the metaphorical reference--the damp cloth brought

from the process of bleaching, and rolls it through evenly into a drier,

where it slips off. There are two kinds of tentering machines. At one

kind two girls sit, each watching an edge of the cloth and keeping it

straight on the tenter hooks, so it will feed evenly. The newer machines

run in such a manner that one girl who may either stand or sit can watch

both edges. Because of the nearness of the drying closet, the air would

be hot and dry here but that outside air is driven in constantly by fans

through pipes with vents opening close to the workers.

The tentering machines used to run slowly. This slowness enhanced the

natural monotony and wearisomeness of the work. The girls used to receive

wages of $6 a week, and to rest three-quarters of an hour in the morning

and three-quarters of an hour in the afternoon, with the same period for

dinner at noon in the middle of a ten-and-one-half hour day. After

Scientific Management was introduced, the girls sat at the machine only

an hour and twenty minutes at a time. They then had a twenty-minute rest,

and these intervals of work and rest were continued throughout the day by

an arrangement of spelling with "spare hands." The machines were run at a

more rapid rate than before. The girl's task was set at watching 32,000

yards in a day; and if she achieved the bonus, as she did without any

difficulty, she could earn $9 a week. The output of the tentering

machines was increased about sixty per cent.

The girls at the tentering machines praised the bonus system eagerly.

They said they could not bear to return to the former method of work;

that now the work was easier and more interesting than before, and the

payment and the hours were better. One of the "spare hands" showed me, as

a memento of a new era at tenter-hooking machines, the written slip of

paper the efficiency engineer had given to her, explaining to her how to

arrange the intervals of rest, and to start the "rest" with a different

girl on each Saturday--a five-hour day--so that the same girls would not

have three intervals of rest every Saturday.

But in another part of the factory the girls at the tentering machines

had wished to lump their rest intervals and to take them altogether in

fifty-minute periods in the middle of the morning and of the afternoon.

Here the "spare hands" intervals at the machines fell awkwardly, and they

were obliged to work for an unduly long time. The girls became exhausted

with the monotony in these longer stretches of work; and further wearied

themselves by embroidering and sewing on fancy work in the long rest

periods. Here the girls were much less contented than in the other

departments.[50]

After the cloth is dry and passed through calendering machines where men

are employed, it is run into yard lengths by a yarding machine or

"hooker." At the yarding machines the girls stand under the frame holding

the wooden arms that measure off the cloth back and forth. The workers

here used to earn $7.50 a week. They watch the machine, mark defects in

some kinds of cloth, by inserting slips of paper, stop the machine when

the material runs out, and lift the pile of measured cloth to a table

where it is taken up by the cutters and folders and inspectors.

After the bonus system was introduced at the machines where the heavier

material is measured, the yarding machines were all elevated to small

platforms, so that the pile when finished would be on a level with an

adjacent table, and the worker need not lift and carry the heavy weight

of cloth to the table, but could slide the work. The machine was run more

rapidly. The task was increased to about 35,000 yards, or from about 155

pieces to about 610. The wage with the bonus was now about $10 on full

time, and the hours were lessened 45 minutes, as at the tentering

machines.

The worker stops the yarding machine by throwing her weight on her right

foot, on a pedal to the right. The girls interviewed said they did not

feel this as a strain, as there was a knack in doing it easily. On

consulting a neighborhood physician it was found that within the last ten

years, however, several women, both at the yarding and tentering

machines, had strained themselves, probably by the tread at the yarding

machine and by the slightly twisted seated position the older tentering

machines necessitated. The number of these cases traceable to any one

process of work had not increased under the new system. The whole number

of these cases in the factory had, on the other hand, either decreased

under the new system, or else had not come under this doctor's care. He

believed, however, that there was a reduction of the cases, and that this

reduction was attributable to the better general health achieved by

shorter hours, better ventilation, and better working conditions and

appliances.

[Illustration: Courtesy of _Industrial Engineering_

THE USUAL METHOD OF PROVIDING THE BRICKLAYER WITH MATERIAL]

The increased task at the yarding machine seems to have increased the

danger of accidents. A knife extends from the side of the machine; and

when the girl's attention is concentrated on her work, she sometimes puts

her fingers too near the blade, and cuts them, though no instance was

known here of the loss of a finger or of serious injury.

The girls stand all day at the yarding machine and at most of the

succeeding processes of preparation. These are various arrangements of

inspecting, counting yards, folding in "book folds," of doubled-over

material, or "long folds" of the full width, ticketing and stamping,

tying selvages together with silk thread, or tying them to wrapping paper

by means of a little instrument called a knot-tier--this process is

called knotting--tying with ribbons, pasting on strips of silver tissue

ribbon, further ticketing and stamping, and running the sets of tickets

indicating the several yards in each piece through an adding machine,

which then produces on a stamped card the total number of yards in each

consignment, before it is finally rushed away for shipment.

The process of inspection is different for different qualities of

material. Before the material is bleached, the number of yards and the

character of treatment for each piece are specified on stamped orders

issued from the planning room and sent with the cloth through the

processes of production. It may as well be said here, that several girls

have been promoted from manual work to work in this planning room, where

they stamp orders, on a bonus at different rates, giving them a wage of

about $10 a week in full time on office hours of 8 hours a day.[51]

The inspector receiving the bales from the yarding machines now counts

off the number of yards and cuts the bale in accordance with these

directions. Some material she inspects yard by yard for imperfections and

dirt. After marking the yards on the cut piece, she sends it on to the

folder if it is clean, and if it is spotted, to girls who wash out the

spots and press the cloth.[52] On other material, imperfections are

marked by the girl at the yarding machine, by the insertion of slips of

paper. As the inspector has less to do on these pieces, she not only

counts and cuts, but folds them.

Before the introduction of the bonus system, one girl used to fold,

inspect, and ticket. She used also to carry her material from a table

near the yarding machine. Boys now bring the material except where at the

yarding machines for heavier stuffs it is pushed along the table. The

hours, as for almost all of the bonus workers, have been shortened by 45

minutes. The wages which were $7.50 a week are now between $10 and $11 on

full time. Almost all the workers here said they greatly preferred the

bonus system and would greatly dislike to return to other work.

But in dealing with the heavier materials the work was tiring, and more

tiring under the new system than before, as the number of pieces lifted

had been increased. It was said while there was every intention of

fairness on the part of the management in arranging the work; it was

sometimes not evenly distributed in slack times, the same girls being

laid off repeatedly and the same girls chosen to work repeatedly instead

of in alternation.

In the further processes of folding, some of the work and the lifting to

the piles of the sheer, book-folded stuff is light, but requires great

deftness; other parts of the work and the lifting to the piles are

heavier.[53] The wage before the bonus was introduced was $7.50 a week,

and with the bonus rose to $11 a week, in full time. As with the

inspectors, the work was now brought to the folders, and the hours were

shortened by 45 minutes. Here there was great variation in the account of

the system.

One of the folders on light work, a wonderfully skilful young woman, who

had folded 155 pieces a day before, and now folded 887, could run far

beyond her task without exhaustion and earn as much as $15 a week. She

and some of the expert workers paused in the middle of the morning for 10

or 15 minutes' rest and ate some fruit or other light refreshment, and

sometimes took another such rest in the afternoon.

Another strong worker, employed on heavy material, though she liked the

bonus system, and said "it couldn't be better," had remained at work at

about the same wages as before, because she was a little ahead of the

others before and earned $8 a week; and now, as there was hardly more

than enough of her kind of work to occupy her for more than four days a

week, she still earned about $8.

One folder was made very nervous by a constant fear that she would not

earn her bonus. She always did complete the necessary amount; but when

the system was first introduced, she had been sleepless night after

night. Though this sleeplessness had passed away, she still took a nerve

tonic to brace her through her work; and this was the case with another

folder. The mothers of both these girls urged them to return to week

work. But this was of poor quality--odds and ends--and the girls disliked

it, and persisted in the new system.

In tying ribbons around the bolts of material, the girls sit at work.

Their wages had been $1 a day for tying ribbons around 600 pieces; and

now, on a bonus for 1200 pieces, is at times for quick workers, as high

as $11. But the ribbon tying was not steady work. It is applied to only

some of the material, and the task and bonus here are intermittent. The

girls who knot, or run silk threads through the selvages, paste on tinsel

ribbon, and wrap are younger than the other workers. Their wages before

had been from $5.80 to $6 a week. Now they are in some cases over $8; in

others about $7; in others about $6. The work reaches them in better

condition than before. They said it was more interesting, and the chief

difficulty was in lifting occasionally a greater number of heavy pieces

in piling. Seats were provided for these workers except for those at

tinselling; and if they found they were able to complete the task easily,

they sat at the work. At the heavier work, the girl at yarding, the

folder, knotter, and ticketer, all worked tandem, and if the girl at

yarding loses her bonus, all the girls lose the bonus.

In the last process of stamping tickets and ticketing, the girls work

without one superfluous motion, with a deftness very attractive to see;

and both here and at book folding justify the claim made by Scientific

Management that speed is a function of quality. The wages here had been

$6 before, and were now in full time from $9 to $10. As the task before

had been combined with various other processes, it was, as in other

cases, impossible to determine how much the work of each worker had been

increased. The present task was that of ticketing 39 bundles of 5 pieces

each hourly, with different rates for different amounts of tickets, and

was not considered at all a strain. But at the ticketing connected with

the adding machines the work was not differentiated so carefully. More of

the heavy work came to these ticketers, and the lifting was sometimes too

exhausting. But the work was better than in former times, and the wages

of from $9 to $10 were thought just, if a higher rate had been added for

the heavier work here.

III

All this work described at the tenter hooking, the yarding, the folding,

inspection, and ticketing, was of a different character from that

carried on under the bonus and task system in a large room where sheets

and pillowcases were manufactured. This work afforded the only instance

of an application of Scientific Management to the processes involved in

the great needle trades and was, on that account, of special interest.

The white cloth is brought on trucks to the girls, who tear it into

lengths, in accordance with written orders received with each

consignment. They snip the cloth with scissors, place the cut against the

edge of an upright knife, set at a convenient height on a bench, and pull

the two sides of the cloth so that the knife tears through evenly to the

end; then they stamp the material, fold it over, and place it on a truck

to be carried to the machine sewer. The weekly wages before the bonus was

introduced had been $5.98 and were now with the bonus $6.75, though

workers sometimes tore more than the 1190 sheets required by the task and

made from $7 to $7.50 by a week's work. The quick workers occasionally

stopped for 10 or 12 minutes in the morning and ate a light lunch. The

task was severe for the muscles of the hand and forearm, and apt to cause

swollen fingers and strained wrists, though the girls bound their wrists

to prevent this. All the work was done standing. The loosened starch

flying here was annoying, both to the tearers and the girls at the

sewing-machines.

Since the time of the inquiry, all the girls engaged in tearing have been

relieved and transferred to other positions, and the work of tearing has

been done by men.

Here the sheets are turned back and hemmed by workers who sew tandem, one

girl finishing the broader hem and the other the narrower one, their task

being 620 sheets a day. The girls at the machines formerly earned $7.50,

and now earn with the machine set at the higher rate of speed from $8 to

$11. They stop for 10 minutes in the morning, and clean the machines and

clear away the litter around them. The sewing and stooping are

monotonous, and the work on bonus here is apt to cause nervousness,

because of uncertainty occasioned by frequent breakages in the

machines.[54]

There is a room at one side of the department, where the girls were to

rest when they had completed their tasks. But the present foreman, not

understanding the system, comes to the rest room and hurries them out

again, even after the 620 sheets are finished.[55] One of the girls in

the department, an Italian girl, who used to run far beyond the task at

the machine, had fallen ill under the strain of the work, or at least

left the factory looking extremely ill and saying that she had broken

down and could not remain. Another unfortunate result of the speed at the

sewing-machines is that the girls are more apt than before to run the

needles through their fingers.

The folding in this department is also exhausting, and the management is

trying to find a better system of conducting this process than that now

employed. The folders here stoop and pick up the sheets and fold them

lengthwise and crosswise. The task is 1200 a day; and the wage with the

bonus comes to between $6 and $7 a week. But after the bonus is earned,

payment is, for some reason, not suitably provided on work beyond the

task. One worker said she used to fold one or two pieces above the amount

without any objection, but lately she had folded as many as 200 beyond,

without payment.

From the folders the sheets are carried away to a mangle, where they are

folded over again by young girls. The work is light, but the payment of

$5.80 to $6 for 770 pieces an hour is low. The mangle is well guarded. By

an excellent arrangement here, the material is piled on a small elevator,

so that the girl at the mangle does not have to stoop or lift, but

easily adjusts the elevator, so that she can feed the mangle from the

pile at her convenience. The girl at a mangle can earn from $7 to $8 and

is not tired in any way by her work.

The final stamping and wrapping in paper and tying with cord are done at

a rate of 25 pieces an hour, for a wage coming to $6 a week, by young

girls; and the situation is otherwise about the same as with the other

wrappers.

Except at the mangle, the operation of the sheet and pillow-case factory

was unsatisfactory to the management, who had begun to study the

department for reorganization just before the time of the inquiry.

Competition had so depressed the price of the manufacture of sheets that

the commission men, for whom these processes described were executed,

paid 25 cents a dozen sheets for the work. This does not, of course,

include the initial cost of the material. It means, however, that all of

the following kinds of machine tending and manual labor on a sheet were

to be done for 2-1/2 cents:--

Tearing; (men workers)

Hemming; (women workers)

Folding; (women workers)

Mangling; (women workers)

Book-folding; (women workers)

Wrapping; (women workers)

Ticketing; (women workers)

The management lost in its payment for labor here, and yet felt the work

was too hard for its workers, and should be changed. Alterations in the

rest periods are now being introduced. For the girls the system of

operation at the time of the inquiry in the sheet and pillow-case

factory, except on the mangle, was undoubtedly more exhausting than the

old method, though their wages had been increased and their hours

shortened.

In general in the Cloth Finishing establishment Scientific Management had

increased wages.

It had shortened hours.

In regard to health and fatigue, outside the sheet factory, when the

general vague impression that the new system was more exhausting than the

other was sifted down, the grist of fact remaining was small, and

consisted of the instances mentioned. About forty young women told me

their experience of the work. Sometimes their mothers and their fathers

talked with me about it. Every one whose health had suffered under the

new task had been exhausted by some old difficulty which had remained

unremedied. This point will be considered in relation to the industry of

the other women workers in the other houses after the accounts of their

experience of Scientific Management.

There are over 600 workers in the New Jersey cotton mill. Of these 188

are women. One hundred and ten of the women workers are at present

engaged under the bonus and task system, though the management expects to

employ eventually under this system all of its workers, and is in this

establishment markedly in sympathy with Scientific Management. The mill

is a large, well-lighted brick structure, with fields around it, and

another factory on one side, on the outskirts of a factory town. The

establishment is composed of a larger and newer well-ventilated building,

with washed air blown through the work-rooms; and an older building,

where the part of the work is carried on which necessitates both heat and

dampness to prevent the threads from breaking.

The cotton, which is of extremely fine quality, comes into the picker

building in great bales from our Southern sea-coast and from Egypt. It is

fed into the first of a series of cleaners, from the last of which it

issues in a long, flat sheet, to go through the processes of carding,

combing, drawing, and making into roving. The carding product consists of

a very delicate web, which, after being run through a trumpet and between

rollers, forms a "sliver" of the size of two of one's fingers, from which

it issues in a long strand. This strand or sliver Is threaded into a

machine with other ends of slivers and rolled out again in one stronger

strand; and this doubling and drawing process is innumerably repeated,

till the final roving is fed into a machine that gives it a twist once in

an inch and winds it on a bobbin. There are three kinds or stages of

twisting and winding roving on these machines, and at the last, the

"speeders," women are employed.

Up to this point all the workers have been men. These speeders are in the

carding rooms, which are large and high, filled with great belts geared

from above, and machines placed in long lanes, where the operatives stand

and walk at their work. Humidifying pipes pass along the room, with spray

issuing from their vents. The lint fibres are constantly brushed and

wiped up by the workers, but there is still considerable lint in the air.

The heat, the whir of the machines, the heaviness of the atmosphere, and

the lint are at first overpowering to a visitor. While many of the girls

say that they grow accustomed to these conditions, others cannot work

under them, and go away after a few days' or sometimes a few hours'

trial.[56]

The speeders stand at one end of a long row of 160 bobbins and watch for

a break in the parallel lines of 160 threads, and twist the two ends

together when this occurs. The greater number of the speeders used to

earn $6 a week. But two or three women, on piece-work, earned about $9

and did nearly twice as much as the other workers. The speeders had

helpers who used to assist them to thread the back of the machine and to

remove and place the bobbins in front. The change or "doff" occupied

about 20 minutes. It generally occurred five times in the day of the

better worker and thus consumed an hour and forty minutes of her working

time. The hours in the cotton mill are ten and a half a day with five and

a half on Saturday,--58 hours a week.

In order to ascertain the proper task for the speeders, a time-study was

made of the work of one of the abler workers, who may be called Mrs.

MacDermott, a strong and skilful Scotch woman, who had been employed at

speeding in the mill for 14 years. Mrs. MacDermott was employed to teach

the other speeders how to accomplish the same amount in the same time.

The girls now thread the back of the machines with her help. Mrs.

MacDermott, the speeder tender herself, and the doff boys, all working

together, remove the bobbins and fill the frame, thus accomplishing the

change in 7 minutes instead of 20 minutes. The girls are paid, while

learning better methods from Mrs. MacDermott, at their old rate of a

dollar a day. If they accomplish the task allotted, they receive a dollar

a week more flat-rate, a bonus equivalent to a few cents a pound on each

pound received by the management; and this brings the wage to $1.65 a

day, or between $8 and $10 a week. The work tires the girls no more than

it did before. They receive about thirty per cent more wages, and the

management receives from the speeders nearly twice as great an output as

before. Mrs. MacDermott's wage as a teacher has been raised to $12.

From the speeders, the doff boys send the roving--called fine roving in

the mill, because the other rovings in preceding operations are

coarser--upstairs in the older building to the spinners. Spinning is a

more difficult task than speeding. Two rovings are here twisted together

by the machines. The spinners have 104 bobbins on one side of a frame,

and watch for breakage, and change the bobbins on three frames, or six

"sides." Spinners formerly worked at piece-work rates and by watching

eight sides, and frequently doing the work very imperfectly, would earn

about $9. After a time-study was taken, the task was set at six sides,

and doffs as called for by a schedule. With the bonus the girls' weekly

wage comes to about $10. In the spinning department there is a school for

spinners. The heads receive a dollar for every graduate who learns to

achieve the task and bonus.

The yarn is carried from the spinners to the spoolers, and wound from

bobbins to spools for convenience in handling. The work of the spool

tenders seemed to the present writer to be the severest work for women in

this cotton mill. The bobbins run out very rapidly, and require constant

change. The girls watch the thread for breakages just as at the other

machines. In replacing the bobbins and fastening the broken threads with

a knot tier, the girls have to stoop down almost to the floor. Before the

time-study was taken, the girls were watching 75 bobbins, hurrying up and

down the sides, bending up and down perpetually at this work. Some of the

spool tenders had $6 a week on piece-work; others, more experienced

workers, were able to earn $10.50 at piece-work, although the work was

frequently unsatisfactory and had loose ends. A little Italian girl, who

may be called Lucia, an extremely rapid worker, used to run wildly from

one end of the frame to the other, and in the summer-time fainted several

times at her work from exhaustion. A time-study was taken from the work

of a very deft young Polish girl, and from Lucia. The other spoolers were

taught to work with the same rapidity, and were soon able to earn with

the bonus and the work done beyond the task a sum which brought their

wage up to nearly $12 a week.

This lasted for about two months. But the work was so improperly done and

the spools were so full of loose and untied ends, etc., that the number

of spindles to be tended was reduced from 75 to 50, and the machines were

run at a lower rate of speed. The task was changed accordingly so that

the worker's wage, simply with the bonus, was as it had been before. But

she was unable to overrun the task as far as she had, formerly. By the

workers' constant attention, the work now improved in quality, but the

limit of quantity, was, of course, lower. The wages with the bonus

dropped back to a smaller excess, or $1.47 a day. This was, of course,

disheartening, though Lucia said it was better, she was so much less

tired by the work than she had been before. But the work is still

undoubtedly very wearying and difficult. The spoolers still give

incessant attention to their work, still do their best, and yet make by

close application far less than they had grown accustomed to expect

whether justly or unjustly.[57] The task is now 12 doffs a day--each doff

requiring a change of 208 bobbins. So that in changing bobbins alone the

girls have to stoop down over 2000 times a day, without counting all the

stooping for knot tying, which the forewoman said would about equal the

labor of bending and working at bobbin changing. She had talked with the

management about having the frames raised, so as to eliminate this

exhausting process of stooping to work for the spoolers. This change had

been made in two machines and will doubtless be extended.[58]

At the further twisting and plying of the cotton, the processes

succeeding the spooling, men are employed. From these the yarn goes to

the winding room in the newer building, where better air and temperature

are possible than in the carding and spinning rooms. The winding room is

large and light. At one side stand the warps, very tall and interesting

to see, with their lines of delicate filament and high tiers of bobbins.

In the winding room girls are engaged at machines which wind the yarn

from spools back to bobbins for filling in the looms and also for the

warp.

In winding the filling bobbins the girls watch the thread from eighteen

bobbins, and replace and stop bobbins by pressing on foot pedals. The

worker had made from $7 to $7.50 a week before a time-study was taken and

the task increased. She can now make from $8 to $10.50 a week. The work

is lightened for her by the fact that whereas she formerly placed the

bobbins on the warp, doffers now do this for her. But the increased

stamping of the pedals made necessary by the larger task is very tiring.

There are no women on bonus in the weave room, where the warp and the

filling are now carried. After the woven product comes from the weaving

room--an extremely heavy, strong stuff of the highest grade, used for

filter cloth and automobile tires--it is hung in a large finishing room

in the newer building over a glass screen lighted with sixteen electric

lights which shine through the texture of the material and reveal its

slightest defect. After it has been rolled over the screen, it is sent to

girls who remedy these defects by needlework.

It is again run over the lighted screen by the inspectors and returned to

the girls if there are still defects. Before the bonus system was

applied, the girls had made $5.04 a week, and finished about 5 rolls a

day. After the system was applied, they made from $7 to $8 and did

sometimes 10 and sometimes 12 rolls a day. But, in spite of the greatest

care on Mr. Gantt's part in standardizing the quality in this department,

here, as with the spool tenders, requirement as to quality had recently

caused a temporary drop in wages. This change in requirement was

occasioned, not as at the spool tending by the negligence of the workers,

but by the somewhat unreasonable caprice of a customer. Knots in the

texture, formerly sewed down as they were, are now cut and fastened

differently. To learn this process meant just as hard work for the girls,

and put them back temporarily to their old day rate,[59] though they were

recently becoming sufficiently quick in the new process to earn the bonus

as well as before.

By and large, the wages of the women workers in the cotton mill had been

increased by Scientific Management.

Their hours had not been affected. These were in all instances 10-1/2 a

day and 5-1/2 on Saturday. There was no overtime. But on five nights in

the week, women preparing yarn for the following day worked at speeding

and spinning from six at night until six in the morning, with half an

hour for lunch at midnight. This arrangement had always been the custom

of the mill. The girls go home at six for breakfast, sleep until about

half past four, rise, dress, and have supper, and go to work in the mill

again at six. The night workers I visited had worked at night in other

mills in New England before they worked in New Jersey. Their sole idea of

work, indeed, was night work; and if it were closed in one mill, they

sought it in another. One of the youngest girls, a clever little

Hungarian of 17, who had been only 3 years in this country and could

barely speak English, knew America simply as a land of night work and of

Sundays, and had spent her whole life here like a little mole. The

present owner, the superintendent, and the head of the planning

department all seriously disliked night work for women, and said they

were anxious to dispense with it. But they had not been able to arrange

their output so as to make this change, though they intended to

inaugurate it as rapidly as possible.

Concerning the health and conservation of the strength of the women

workers in the mill under Scientific Management, the task of the speeders

and of the women at cloth inspection tired the girls no more than it had

before. In the spool tending and the winding, as the two most exhausting

operations in each process, the stooping and the stamping of the pedals,

had been increased by the heightened task, the exhaustion of the workers

was heightened. But the work of the excitable little spool tender

mentioned was finally so arranged as to leave her in better health than

in the days when she was employed on piece-work, and the management was

now endeavoring to eliminate the stooping at the bobbins. At spinning

almost all the spinners found the work easier than before, probably

because Scientific Management demands that machine supervision and

assistance shall be the best possible. It must be remembered that the

adjustment of conditions in the mill here is comparatively new. Almost

all the girls said: "They don't drive you at the mill. They make it as

easy for you as they can." It was of special value to observe the

operation of Scientific Management in an establishment where all the

industrial conditions are difficult for women. As in the white goods

sewing for the Cloth Finishing establishment, these industrial conditions

are unfortunately controlled to a great extent by competition and by

custom for both the employer and the employees. The best omen for the

conservation of the health of the women workers under Scientific

Management in the cotton mill was the entire equity and candor shown by

the management in facing situations unfavorable for the women workers'

health and their sincere intention of the best practicable readjustments.

The application of Scientific Management to women's work in the Delaware

Bleachery was very limited, extending only to about 12 girls, all

employed in folding and wrapping cloth.[60] The factory, on the outskirts

of a charming old city in Delaware, is an enormous, picturesque cement

pile, reaching like a bastion along the Brandywine River, with its

windows overlooking the wooded bank of the stream.

The girls stand in a large room, before tables piled with great bolts of

material, and stamp tickets and style cards, fasten them to the roll,

fold over the raw edges of the material in a lap, tie two pieces of

ribbon around the bolt, wrap it in paper, stamp and attach other tickets,

and tie it up with cord to be shipped. Here, after a time-study was made

of the quicker girls in all the operations, different tasks were set for

different weights of material; and if the task was accomplished, a bonus

was paid, amounting, roughly speaking, to a quarter of the worker's

hourly wage. The arrangement of the different processes was so different

for each worker, after and before the system was installed, that none of

the girls could compare the different amounts of work she completed at

the different times. But the whole output, partly through a better

routing of the work to the tables, and by paying the boys who brought it

a bonus of 5 cents for each worker who made her bonus, was increased from

twenty-five to fifty per cent.

The girls' hours were decreased from 10-1/4 a day with frequent overtime

up to nine at night to 9-1/4 a day with no overtime, the Saturday

half-holiday remaining unchanged. Here is a list of the changes in the

week wages. The work at the time of the inquiry was slack. Sometimes

there were only a few hours in the day of wrapping of a kind on which the

task and bonus was applied. Besides, these workers were in the midst of

an establishment managed by another system. The bonus was given on the

basis of the former wage. And this remained lower in the case of workers

employed fewer years by the firm, though sometimes their task was the

same as that of workers employed longer. Where the girls wrapped both the

heavier and the lighter materials, the allotment of these was in the

hands of a sub-foreman, who, instead of being in the new position of a

teacher rewarded for helping each worker to make her bonus, was in the

old position of a distributor of favors. The slackness of the work had

led the management, in a good-willed attempt to provide as well as

possible for the employees, to place several girls from other departments

under this sub-foreman. One of these less strong and experienced girls,

at the time of the inquiry, was receiving such an amount of heavy work

that she could wrap only enough of the task to enable her to earn from $3

to $5 a week. The firm's policy was paternalistic, and while in many ways

it had a genuine kindness, it was not in general sympathy with Scientific

Management, though the superintendent is a thorough and consistent

supporter of the new system. But he had not been able, single handed, to

achieve all the necessary adjustments, in spite of the decided increase

of output the new methods had already obtained for the company.

| PER WEEK | FORMERLY

----------------------------------------+-------------+---------

Folding and ticketing on light material | $5 to 6 | $4.84

Folding and ticketing on light material | 5 to 6 | 4.84

Wrapping light material | 6 to 7 | 4.56

Wrapping light material | 7 to 8 | 4.84

Wrapping light and heavy material | 6 to 6.50 | 4.56

Wrapping light and heavy material | |

combined with napkin tying | 6 to 7 | 4.84

Folding and ticketing both light and | |

heavy material | 5 to 6 | 4.84

Folding and ticketing both light and | |

heavy material (unaccustomed to the | 4.59 | 4.56

work) | (once 6.69) |

Folding and ticketing both light and | |

heavy material (unaccustomed to the | |

work) | 5 | 4.56

Folding and ticketing both light and | |

heavy material (unaccustomed to the | |

work) | 3 to 5 | 7

|(in another department)

----------------------------------------+-------------+---------

Even considering slackness, these increases per week for first-rate speed

and work, though in many cases the work was light, cannot but seem small.

All the girls lived in attractive houses and pleasant places. All but one

were with their families. The city has an open market. People of all

grades of income go to market properly with market-baskets, choose food

of excellent quality, and have fresh vegetables through the winter. The

ladies of the house, the girls' mothers, preserve fruit from June

strawberries to autumn apple-butter, and exhibit it proudly in row after

row of glass jars. But the girls' wages could not pay for such living

conditions. The girl who was boarding, and whose wages were sometimes $5

a week, could not always pay her board bill and had almost nothing left

for other expenses.[61]

In regard to health and fatigue the main difficulty here, as at the Cloth

Finishing factory, was in the lifting of heavier pieces of cloth. Two of

the girls had suffered, since the introduction of the bonus and task, by

straining themselves in this way. One of them was at home ill for a week,

and is now quite well again. The other girl was away for two months, and

though she is now at work, had not fully regained her health. The company

had at once obtained employment less straining for the first of these

girls, and the second said that the firm had always been fair with her in

arranging the work. It was said that it had been Mr. Gantt's intention to

have the heavier lifting done by men and boys, instead of combining it

with the larger tasks the girls now accomplished under the new system.

But the department had never fully carried out its intention, and

unfortunately since Mr. Gantt's departure rather more of the heavy

material had been ordered from the house than before.

The general good will of the firm, the picturesque factory site, the

pleasant work-rooms, and the attractive living conditions of the Delaware

workers gave them an extraordinary opportunity to pursue their labor

healthfully. But because of its incomplete adoption, Scientific

Management, though it had shortened hours, and in most cases had raised

wages, had proven of less potential value to the workers than to those in

the more difficult industrial situation obtaining in the cotton mill.

In general, then, Scientific Management for women workers in this country

may be said as far as it has been applied to have increased wages, to

have shortened hours, and to have resulted fortunately for the health of

women workers in some instances and unfortunately in others.

Wherever a process presented a difficulty which remained unremedied, if

the task were multiplied, the difficulty, of course, was multiplied. No

matter how greatly the weight of a wagon is lightened, if there is a hole

in the road of its passage, and the road is now to be travelled sixty

times a day, instead of twenty times, as before, the physical difficulty

from this hole is not only trebled, but while it may be endured with

patience twenty times, is not only a muscular, but a nervous strain at

the sixtieth. This was the situation in regard to all unrelieved heavy

lifting wherever cloth was manipulated, the situation in regard to the

stooping for the spool tenders, the stamping at the winding machine, and

the stooping and breakages at the sewing-machine. But these points,

instead of being ignored by the management, were seriously regarded by

the employers as inimical to their own best interests in combination with

those of their employees, and in all the establishments were in process

of adjustment.

In the present writer's judgment this adjustment would have been

inaugurated earlier in several processes and would have been more rapid

and effective for both the employer's interest and that of the women

workers if the women workers' difficulties had been fairly and clearly

specified through trade organization. Such an organization would also be

of value in preventing danger of injury for workers whose attention under

Scientific Management should be concentrated on their tasks, and of value

in supporting the tendency of Scientific Management to pay work

absolutely according to the amount accomplished by the worker, and not

under a certain specified rate for this amount.

Scientific Management as applied to women's work in this country is, of

course, very recent. This synthesis of its short history is collected

from the statements made by about eighty of the women workers, by Mr.

Gantt, and by the owner, superintendent, and head of the planning

department of the cotton mill, by the superintendent and one of the

owners of the Cloth Finishing factory, and the superintendent and one of

the owners of the Bleachery. The account should be supplemented by

several general observations.

The first is that it is difficult to determine where the health of a

worker has been strained by industry and where by other causes. Quite

outside any of the narratives mentioned were those of two young women

employed under Scientific Management whose health was hopelessly broken.

Both of these poor girls were subject to wrong and oppressive

maltreatment at home. Indeed, from oppression at home, one of the girls

had repeatedly found refuge and protection in the consideration shown to

her by the establishment where she worked. It was not she who blamed the

new way of management for her breakdown, but people whose impression of

her situation was vague and lacked knowledge.

The whole tendency of Scientific Management toward truth about industry,

toward justice, toward a clear personal record of work, established

without fear or favor, had inspired something really new and

revolutionary in the minds of both the managers and the women workers

where the system had been inaugurated. Nearly all of them wished to tell

and to obtain, as far as they could, the actual truth about the

experiment everywhere. Almost no one wished to "make out a case." This

expressed sense of candor and coöperation on both sides seemed to the

present writer more stirring and vital than the gains in wages and hours,

far more serious even than the occasional strain on health which the

imperfect installation of Scientific Management had sometimes caused.

These strains on women's health in industry in America--stooping and

monotony in all the needle trades, jumping on pedals in machine tending,

dampness and heat in cotton production, the standing without pause for

many hours a day throughout the month, the lifting of heavy weights in

packing and in distribution--all these industrial strains for women

constitute grave public questions affecting the good fortune of the whole

nation and not to be answered in four years, nor by one firm. It is

undoubtedly the tendency of Scientific Management to relieve all these

strains.

No one can see even in part the complications of contemporary factory

work, the hundred operations of human hands and muscles required for

placing a single yard of cotton cloth on the market, the thousand threads

spinning and twisting, the thousand shuttles flying, the manifold folding

and refolding and wrapping and tying, the innumerable girls working,

standing, walking by these whirring wheels and twisting threads and high

piled folding tables, without feeling strongly that ours is indeed an

industrial civilization, and that the conditions of industry not only

completely control the lives of uncounted multitudes, but affect in some

measure every life in this country to-day.

No finer dream was ever dreamed than that the industry by which the

nation lives should be so managed as to secure for the men and women

engaged in it their real prosperity, their best use of their highest

powers. By and large, the great task of common daily work our country

does to-day is surely not so managed, either by intent or by result,

either for the workers or for the most "successful" owners of dividends.

How far Scientific Management will go toward realizing its magnificent

dream in the future will be determined by the greatness of spirit and the

executive genius with which its principles are sustained by all the

people interested in its inauguration, the employers, the workers, and

the engineers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: Brief on behalf of Traffic Committee of Commercial

Organizations of Atlantic Seaboard, p. 70. Louis D. Brandeis.]

[Footnote 44: Fourteen years ago Scientific Management was applied to

women's work in a Rolling Machine Company in Massachusetts. Here the

women's hours were reduced from 10-1/2 day to 8-1/2; their wages were

increased about 100 per cent; and their output about 300 per cent. All

the women had two days' rest a month with pay. The work consisted in

inspecting ball-bearings for bicycles. Their department of the business,

however, closed twelve years ago. Accurate facts other than those listed

concerning the workers' experience as to hours, wages, and general health

under Scientific Management are at this date too few to be valuable.]

[Footnote 45: "Academic and Industrial Efficiency," by F.W. Taylor and

Morris Llewellyn Cook.]

[Footnote 46: The specialistic and detailed care necessary for practical

and exact time-study may be indicated by the reproduction below of a

method of record used by Mr. Sanford E. Thompson in timing wheelbarrow

excavations. (Explanation. The letters _a_, _b_, _c_, etc., indicate

elementary units of the operation: "Filling barrow" = (_a_); "starting" =

(_b_); "wheeling full" = (_c_), etc.)]

[Footnote 47: "Efficiency." Harrington Emerson.]

[Footnote 48: "Work, Wages and Profits," pp. 110 to 111. H.L. Gantt.]

[Footnote 49: While the bonus system as a means of compensation has been

used very often in connection with the Scientific Management, it must

not, however, be supposed that this method of compensation is alone and

in itself Scientific Management. In fact, as employed without Scientific

Management, it is to be regarded with some apprehension.]

[Footnote 50: The work in this department was, besides, rather slack at

the time of year when I visited the factory, and wages for some of these

workers were $6 a week, as low as they had been before the bonus was

introduced.]

[Footnote 51: The girl who directs them and issues the orders receives a

bonus for every stamper earning a bonus and earns on full time from $12

to $15.]

[Footnote 52: These girls are not employed under the bonus and task

system. But it is interesting to observe that they may either sit or

stand to iron, as they prefer.]

[Footnote 53: The men folders at the heaviest work here now receive with

the bonus from $14 to $17 a week.]

[Footnote 54: A worker does not lose her regular wage if she is stopped

by a breakage. Her time-card is altered. And she has credit on a time

basis for the period while the machine is not running. A breakage in the

first machine of a tandem pair stops both sewers. But a breakage in the

second means that work piles up for the second sewer, and unless she

makes it up, she will prevent her companion from earning a bonus, though

not a time wage.]

[Footnote 55: The management, on learning of this, said the practice

would be stopped at once.]

[Footnote 56: "The cotton as it grows in the field becomes more or less

filled with blown dust.... Lint is given off in all processes up to and

including spinning.... The only practical way to keep down the dust in

all of these operations is by frequent sweeping and mopping the floor and

wiping off the machinery." Report on Condition of Women and Child

Wage-earners in the United States. Vol. I, p. 365.

"What degree of moisture is safely permissible from the standpoint of the

operatives' health is an unsettled question.... When the operative after

a day's work in a humid and relaxing atmosphere goes into one relatively

drier, the assault on the delicate membrane of the air-passages is sharp.

The effect of these changes is greatly to lower the vital resistance and

make the worker especially susceptible to pulmonary, bronchial, or

catarrhal affections. It is very possible that the dust and lint present

in the mill have been credited with effects which are due in part to

these atmospheric conditions." Report on Condition of Women and Child

Wage-earners in the United States. Vol. I, p. 362.]

[Footnote 57: Besides, work had lately been slack, and this had further

decreased the wages.]

[Footnote 58: Since visiting the New Jersey cotton mill, the present

writer has seen spool tenders at work at a machine requiring no stooping,

and provided with a board below the bobbins, placed at such a height,

that the worker can relieve her position while standing by resting her

weight against the board, above one knee and then above the other.]

[Footnote 59: At the same time work was slack so that week wages had

dropped to $3 and $4.]

[Footnote 60: One of the girls issues batches of tickets. Another girl

unfolds one end of certain of the packages, and inserts a ticket and

stamps an outside label, to accord with the invoice system of some of the

purchasers. These girls had received before $5.40 and $4.84 a week,

respectively, and now receive, the one $5.73, and the other between $5

and $6.]

[Footnote 61: All the firms have rest rooms for the girls. The Delaware

firm and the New Jersey cotton mill have pleasant lunch-rooms, where an

excellent lunch is provided at cost.]

* * * * *

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