Northern New York, and some in Ohio, Vermont, and West Massachusetts.
Making cheese is a chemical operation, and requires experience. It is
made in all civilized countries. I talked with an old gentleman who had
been in the cheese business nearly all his life. He said a farmer's wife
is the best help in cheese making. In making cheese, seven eighths of
the work is done by women. A man usually places the cheese in the press,
and removes it when it is dried sufficiently. The occupation is healthy.
Women are paid from $1.75 to $2 a week and their board. Some people
employ men, because they can go to work on the farm when not making
cheese. The business can be learned in from six weeks to two months.
When learning, girls give their work for instruction, but have their
board. Neatness, good health, judgment, and common education, are
desirable for a cheese maker. An individual must be able to reckon the
pounds, weigh the salt, and regulate the temperature of the milk and
curd by the thermometer. The first advice given by a lady who taught to
make cheese was, "Keep your vessels clean." The prospect of employment
in this branch of work is good, for it is difficult to obtain good
cheesemakers. The best seasons are from the 1st of March to the last of
November. The number of hours given by a girl to her work depends on the
contract made--generally eight hours--sometimes ten. In most places
cheesemakers have more leisure than house girls, but some employers
expect them to do housework when not employed about the cheese. Some
farmers hire girls who devote themselves exclusively to cheese making
during the season for it. Some have the afternoon after the cheese is
put in the press, and the jars, &c., are cleaned, until time to milk in
the evening. The morning milking is usually done before breakfast, and
the cheese made after breakfast. It requires until about two o'clock to
get through. When cheese is put in a press, nothing further is necessary
until it is ready to be removed. It remains in the press twenty-four
hours. Most farmers have their cheese made on Sunday morning as on other
days. The girls have Sunday afternoon or evening, according to contract.
Some farmers do not make their cheese on Sunday, but retain the milk
until Monday morning, and make it into butter. Women are best adapted to
the work, and employed mostly because they can be got cheaper. The
majority are Irish women. They are usually put on a footing by their
employers, and eat at the same table. So little spinning and weaving are
done now in the country, that the female members of farmers' families
generally do the milking, unless the farmers have grown too wealthy and
proud to have their wives and daughters so employed. Some dairymen make,
with the aid of their families, all the cheese they use and sell. Milk
should be drawn from a cow as rapidly as possible and while the cow is
eating. One milker should be employed for every ten cows. Milk is very
sensitive. Dairymen will make more by having the cream remain on the
milk than by taking the cream off for churning, at the rate butter sells
this winter (1861). Where the cream is used, an inexperienced hand would
find it more troublesome to make cheese. Twenty-three million pounds of
cheese were exported last year from the United States. American cheese
is, in England, taking the place of English cheese. A German
cheesemonger told me he makes the Limburg cheese--a preparation which
has been known about eight years in this country. He was putting up some
to send to New Orleans. It was very soft, and I thought the smell very
offensive. He gets American cheese of a Yankee girl, to whom he pays $80
a year. She uses the milk of sixty cows. She works at it but eight
months. During four months of the year but very little cheese is ever
made. The arrangements of some cheesemakers for preparing the article
are very complete.
=139. Coffee and Chocolate Packers.= B. S. & W., Philadelphia, employ
women in packing parcels of essence of coffee, spices, vermicelli, &c.
They make paper cases, pour the article in through a funnel and ram it
down, then label and pack the cases in boxes, which are nailed up ready
for delivery. One or two persons obtain a livelihood by cutting the
labels to paste on the boxes. They are paid fifteen cents a thousand for
this work, and are able to support themselves by it. The women are paid
by the piece, and earn from $2 to $6 per week. The work rooms are airy
and comfortable. Females were formerly more employed than at present to
put up coffee; but as coffee is now ground every day at most factories,
and as it is considered best when just ground, less is put up than
formerly. Messrs. L. & B., New York, employ girls to put the articles in
papers, pasting labels on and sealing them. They work by the piece, and
earn from $3 to $7 a week. The odor might be disagreeable to some, but
persons get accustomed to it, and it is quite as healthy as most work.
There are not over one hundred and fifty women so employed in the State
of New York, yet such packing is generally done by women. It is
customary to pay by the package. The girls change their dresses on
coming to the workroom of L. & B. They do not work with the men, but
with some boys who fill boxes with the same articles. L. & B.'s girls
have employment all the year. They never have any difficulty in getting
hands. I saw a man who makes up essence of coffee. A lady was assisting
him to put it in papers. At another factory I was told they pay by the
week, from $1.50 to $4, according to the industry, quickness, and
practice of the worker. It is not unhealthy work. They give employment
ten months of the year, but at present have little to do. It requires
but a few weeks to become expert. In some establishments girls stand or
sit, as they please, while at work; in others they are all required to
assume constantly whichever posture the foreman directs. At W. & Son's
two small girls are employed, who each receive $2.50 a week. There is
one factory in Cincinnati, one in St. Louis, and one in Chicago.
=140. Cracker Bakers.= At M.'s the young man said fancy crackers could
be made by women. In making soda, oyster, and some other crackers, the
dough is kneaded by machinery. In some establishments the dough is
rolled out and conveyed to the oven by machinery. In a cracker bakery I
was told the women might be employed in packing and selling crackers. It
would not require all the time of one woman to pack for a large bakery.
A cracker baker writes us: "We employ no women, and do not see that they
could work to advantage in our business." Women could do all the work
now done by men in this line, but I suppose considerable opposition
would be experienced, except by ladies who have sufficient capital to
carry on business for themselves.
=141. Fancy Confectionery.= Most confectioners sell, in addition to
their fancy candies, imported fruits; and a few keep cakes. Some also
keep fruits preserved in brandy or their own juice; and some keep in
addition pickles, oysters, sardines, &c. Some confectioners merely make
sweetmeats--some sell them, and some both make and sell. In cities,
confectioners usually furnish the refreshments for both public and
private entertainments. A manufacturer of confectioneries in New York
told me that in busy times he employs fifteen girls; but at that time
(January, 1861) only half as many, for they have no Southern orders--the
people in the South are doing without candies. The part done by girls
requires no special training. He pays girls for their labor from the
first. They pack, pick gums, envelop in fancy papers, fill boxes, &c. He
pays $3 a week for those that have some experience, and keeps them ten
hours a day. He gives the making and painting of fancy candies out to
those that have families, and who do it at home. W., of Philadelphia,
pays his girls, eight in number, $1.50 a week for the first two or three
weeks, then from $3 to $4. Making common candy is said to be too hard
for women. They assist in the finishing of fine candies, as rolling and
covering chocolate nuts. They put the fancy candies in French envelopes,
and cut the silvered or gilt paper that gives the finish. They can sit
or stand as they please while at work, but while enveloping mostly sit.
They work ten hours. It is rather a light business. M. employs fifty
women in putting up and packing candies. He pays them, from the time
they begin, $2 a week. They learn in two or three months. He pays then
from $4 to $5 a week. A lady told me she was paid in one establishment
$6 a month and board. A girl in a confectionery told me the prices
usually paid girls are $7 or $8 a month, with board and washing, and the
girl is expected to keep the accounts. A lady in another store said
summer is the poorest season for confectioneries, as people do not like
to eat candies, because it makes them thirsty; but in those
confectioneries where soda water and lager beer are kept, there is more
or less custom during the summer. They keep open till ten o'clock at
night, and all day Sunday. Sunday is their most profitable day. She
knows a girl that is paid $5 a month in the Bowery, with her board, or
$7 without. To be kind and obliging, and have the faculty of pleasing
the little folks, are the best qualifications for the business. Prices
paid depend on the responsibility of the employed. Some that keep the
books receive $5 a week without board, most others receive $1.50 or
$1.75 per week and board. Judgment must be used in the selection of a
stand. A lady who keeps a small confectionery and fruit store in
Williamsburg, says she does not make much on cakes and bread, only half
a cent on a loaf of bread. She says it is best not to trust any one for
pay--that children often come and say they want so and so, their mother
says she will pay on Saturday; but Saturday comes, and no pay; and if
they go for the money, the parents will say, "Come again," and put it
off from time to time, until they become discouraged, and give it up
altogether. M--s, French confectionery and chocolate cream
manufacturers, take learners at the proper season, which commences in
August. They employ some girls to paint fancy candies. H. says one must
commence at the very first step, and gradually advance--that to learn
the business requires a long time. He pays four girls $5 or $6 a month
each, and gives them their board, for selling confectioneries and
waiting in his saloon. At S----'s confectionery I was told that the
small fine candies are made by steam. They are made in pans, which are
shaken back and forth over fires, the gas of which is very injurious,
and cannot be carried off by flues. Their girls make so much noise,
laughing and talking with the men, and waste so much time, that they are
required to work on the first floor, the same as the store. They are
paid from $1.50 to $2 a week. They are paid by the week, because they do
their work better than if paid by the quantity; besides, it is less
troublesome. They are paid for overwork (regular hours being ten), and
some earn as much in that way as by regular wages. The girls pick gums,
separate gum drops, put candy in boxes, &c. C. employs girls to paint,
put up candies, and attend store, and pays $1.50 and $2 a week. Most of
the painting is done by French and German men, who are paid from $10 to
$12 a week. It requires a long time to acquire taste and experience;
one, in fact, can be always improving. C. thinks girls are not likely to
find constant employment in the kind of work he gives to females. A
French confectioner told me he had employed a woman to make chocolate
cream, paying $3 a week for ten hours a day, and could employ her all
the year, as the demand for chocolate cream is very great. S. employed
one girl to sell candy, paying $5 a week. She was at the store at 7.30
A. M., and remained till 6 P. M. in winter and 8 P. M. in summer. She
did not keep the books, but washed the jars and case, and swept back of
the counter, and dusted several times a day. Talked with a girl who
stood in a confectionery store on Broadway. She knew a girl on Chatham
street who received $12 a month and her board. She herself received $9 a
month and her board, but not her washing. The proprietor told her she
must sew for his family, when not waiting on customers. It seems that it
is not an uncommon requisition. They have but few customers until about
11 o'clock, and he expected her to accomplish more sewing than a
sempstress who gives all her time to it. The young lady is in the store
by 7 o'clock in the morning, and remains until 11 o'clock at night. Any
one wishing to commence a confectionery can learn from the wholesale
dealer of whom she purchases how to regulate the prices of sweetmeats.
Mrs. W. wants a girl to wait in her saloon, will give $8 a month, with
her board and washing. She would be required to sew, when not waiting on
customers, and would have to wash the jars and cases, keep the counter
clean, and dust and arrange the articles in the window every morning.
She would have to be in the store at seven, and remain until twelve
(seventeen hours). In large confectioneries girls stand while picking
gums used in making gum drops. They are mostly made in summer. There is
now (December) a great demand for girls, as there always is about the
holidays. Those now at work are kept three hours over time--from seven
to ten--and paid extra. The chemicals used in making some
confectioneries are unhealthy, but women have nothing to do with that,
except in painting candy toys. A confectioner in Boston, who employs
four American girls in attending store and making goods, writes: "We
consider the occupation very healthy, never having had a case of
sickness with girls while working at this business. Some are paid $3 and
$4 per week, working ten hours a day; others by the quantity, averaging
$1 per day. Male labor is paid for, according to the knowledge of the
business, from $6 to $15. Girls could not do the work, and the work that
women do it would not pay to have done by male labor. It requires a long
time and a great deal of practice to learn the whole business, but that
part done by women is learned in a few weeks. They are paid something
while learning. Honesty, industry, and a good education are the most
desirable qualifications. Spring and fall are our most busy seasons. In
midwinter we do not have many at work. Retail stores require most help
in summer. New York requires most hands, especially women; but the
demands are now very small, the trouble at the South being the main
cause. They are not strong enough to do some parts of the work. The
large towns are best for our business." A lady in a fancy confectionery
on Broadway told me she receives $8 a month and her board, and is paid
by the month. She thinks many diseases are brought on women by having to
stand so much, as they do in confectioneries, bakeries, and dry-good
stores. Women that have stood in any kind of a store before, and have
business qualifications, are paid while learning. There is never any
difficulty about obtaining qualified hands. She finds the work very
laborious, and complained of having to be in the confectionery and
saloon from seven in the morning until twelve at night. In some saloons
the attendants are up until 1 o'clock (eighteen hours!), and are on
their feet most of the time. A confectioner in Concord, N. H., writes:
"We employ from five to ten girls (because we find it most profitable)
for helping make, rolling up, and packing lozenges and pipe candy. Also
for standing in the confectionery. The work is very healthy. We pay
about sixty-seven cents per day, and they work from six to ten hours. No
man employed, except one who takes charge. There is a prospect for
employment so long as children cry for lozenges. The girls are American,
and work at all seasons. They are as well paid, according to the cost of
living, as mechanics in this place. Women are superior to men in rolling
up and packing lozenges. They pay for board $1.75 per week."
=142. Fish Women.= In the United States, where every one has a right to
fish in the rivers and lakes, there is a fair opening for those in this
line of business. But it is only in the spring and fall that fish are
much eaten. They are not considered healthy in the warm weather of
summer. A pound of fish is said to be in nutritive power equal to eight
pounds of potatoes. In the United States, according to the census report
of 1850, there were engaged in fisheries 20,704 males and 429 females.
The fishwomen of Philadelphia have long engaged in the selling of shad,
and are to be seen in great numbers on the streets of the city, and even
when not seen are likely to be heard crying fish. At one time they had a
large market devoted exclusively to the sale of fish, but it became a
nuisance, and the city authorities had it torn down; yet the women,
possessed of strong local association, were not to be so routed. They
are still seen sitting before their tables of fish in the neighborhood
of where the market stood. Much money has been realized by the
fishwomen, some of whom are said to own property of considerable value.
What a lesson to patient industry! "From the time of Louis XIV. to the
present, fish have been sold in Paris exclusively by women. They are now
remarkable for the urbanity of their language and propriety of their
conduct, having risen high in the scale of respectability during the
last half century." "On the coasts of the department of Somme there are
certain fish, the shrimps and 'vers marius,' which are exclusively
reserved to the young girls and widows." On the coast of Great Britain
thousands of women are employed in the herring, cod, mackerel, lobster,
turbot, and pilchard fisheries. Women and children rub salt on the fish
to be cured, with the hand. When cured, women pile them in stacks from
four to five feet high, and as wide. Women are paid, at Newlyn, for this
labor, 3_d._ an hour, and every sixth hour receive a glass of brandy and
a piece of bread. Many are also employed in obtaining oysters and
canning them; and on the return of whaling vessels, numbers of women
assist in preparing the cargoes for market. In New York, fish are mostly
sold by men, who drive about in a little wagon containing fish, and blow
a horn, crying out now and then the kind of fish they have for sale.
=143. Macaroni.= Macaroni is moulded and dried. Girls then pick out the
whole sticks, and put them in boxes. The broken pieces are all thrown
together in a barrel, then ground and moulded over. It is very easy
work, and requires no learning. They are paid from $2 to $3.50 a week,
working ten hours a day. The girls I saw, stood while at work.
=144. Maple Sugar.= The cheapness of sugar made from sugar cane has
almost annihilated the existence of maple sugar, except as a sweetmeat.
The peculiar flavor of maple molasses and sugar makes them much loved by
some people. The trees are tapped early in the spring, when the sap
first rises. After sufficient water is collected, it is put on and
boiled until of the consistence required. It is slow work and pays
poorly, but can be performed by women capable of the heavy labor
involved in carrying, lifting kettles, and stirring.
=145. Market Women.= Mrs. Childs says, in her "History of Women," "On
the seacoast of Borneo fleets of boats may be seen laden with provisions
brought to market by women, who are screened from the sun by huge bamboo
hats. In Egyptian cities, the country girls, closely veiled, are
frequently employed in selling melons, pomegranates, eggs, poultry, &c."
In the southern countries of Europe it is common to see women riding to
market on donkeys, laden with marketing. We learn from "London Labor and
London Poor," that there are 2,000 persons employed in the sale of
greenstuff in the streets of London, as water-cresses, chickweed,
groundsel, turf, and plantain. The cresses are eaten by people; the
other articles are sold for birds. We may divide market women into two
classes--those that raise or have raised the products they sell, and
those that buy to sell again. The articles of the first are generally
genuine and of fair price. Vegetables, poultry, eggs, and butter, with
fruit, both green and dried, are carried to market, and there the market
women, placing them on stalls or retaining them in their wagons, wait
for purchasers. This class mostly supply the markets of towns and
villages. Their articles are usually fresh and wholesome. There are
thirteen markets in New York city where everything is obtained at the
second or third remove from the producer. It is estimated that there are
1,300 huckster women attending the New York markets. The members of some
families are engaged in the sale of different articles: one will sell
eggs; another, vegetables; another, poultry, &c. It is said that better
meat and vegetables are brought to Philadelphia than to New York
markets. In New York there is a larger population requiring articles of
a cheap kind. We think market women, considering their habits and modes
of living, probably do as well in a pecuniary way as any other class of
women. Their wants are few, their habits simple, and their
occupation--though an exposed one--healthy. The variety of seeing new
faces, and chatting with those similarly employed, yield more comfort
and content than most women's work. They take in but a few pennies at a
time, yet have their regular customers, and, in prosperous seasons, many
besides. I will give an extract from my diary of a visit made to several
of the New York markets: "I saw some women selling fruit; some,
vegetables; and some, tripe and sausage. I judge, from the appearance of
most dealers, it is not unhealthy. Most of the women were far advanced
in life, particularly those who sold vegetables. They all complain that
they do not sell so much since the commencement of the hard times. How
is it? Do people buy less, and so eat less? or is less wasted in their
kitchens? or are some unable to buy meat and vegetables at all? Here I
would state the remark of a druggist: that, as times are hard, people do
not indulge in so much rich food, nor in a surplus of it; consequently
there is less sickness, and so little medicine sold that the druggists
are discouraged. This druggist has since sold out, and moved to the
country. Most of the market women looked to be Irish. One strong Irish
woman told me that American women cannot bear the exposure in cold
weather, and rent their stalls through the winter to men. They make
their appearance in March with the flowers and early fruit. Butter is
sold exclusively by men in Washington market, New York, and is more
profitable than anything else. There is considerable difference in the
class of custom in the different markets in New York; but the poor are
usually more in number than the rich--so the markets frequented by them
may receive as great a profit as where a smaller number of better
customers attend. Some women regulate their sales to have a percentage,
but many sell for what they can get, without regard to the amount of
profit. I find those selling vegetables, buy of farmers who come early,
and leave a supply for each seller in case she is not there. Any
vegetables they may have left are locked up in boxes, or barrels, or
covered over and left on the bench. The gates of the market house are
closed and locked up at one o'clock every day except Saturday, with the
exception of Washington and Fulton markets, which are open all day, and
the first mentioned all night. Watchmen are about the markets at all
hours of the day and night, and in some markets an extra fee is paid by
the sellers to secure attention to their stalls. At two o'clock in the
morning, Washington market is fully lighted, and the farmers begin to
arrive to sell to grocers. The grocers usually buy from four to five in
summer, and from four to six in winter. Boarding-house keepers mostly
buy from seven to nine o'clock. Families buy during any of these hours,
or later. All the markets are open by half past three. Fulton market is
rather warmer than the others because of the stoves and ranges used for
making coffee, cooking oysters, &c. Ladies do not come to market so much
in winter as in spring and summer. I think the vocation of market
selling must be very healthy, when the venders are comfortably clad, and
have stoves, as many of them do. Market women live to a great age.
Vegetables injured by frost or long keeping are sold at a lower price.
As a general thing, less is sold in market during January and February,
than any other months. In spring time the market presents the most
inviting appearance, for the stalls are then freshly painted, and
flowers and fruit exhibited to advantage on them. Mrs. B. told me that a
woman who sold flowers in Fulton market had made a fortune at it. Some
of these sellers let other women have flowers and fruit to take over the
city to sell, and reap a profit in that way. One old lady told me she
always made 12½ cents profit on her goods, they being pocket-knives,
combs, &c. The stalls are sold or rented. One woman told me she paid 12½
cents a day for her stall; another, 9 cents; and this must be paid for
even on days when they are absent from market. Another woman told me
that she got a permit for the use of a stall in Washington market when
it was first built, and not long since she sold it for $1,500, and the
owner pays a tax of $2 a week besides. She paid $200 for the stall at
which she stood in Fulton market, and pays a rent of 75 cents a week.
She makes a living by selling smoked salt fish. The processes through
which produce must pass from the producer to reach the consumer, might
be avoided by permitting farmers to remain longer in the city, and
furnishing them with a place for their teams and produce; but now they
must all leave by ten o'clock, and can scarcely feel that they have a
place to put anything down while they are in the city. In England are
women who shell peas and beans at so much a quart. I have seen books,
spectacles, canes, pocket-books, caps, shoes, hose, china, and even old
clothes for sale on the streets, and around or in the market-houses of
Philadelphia and New York.