flannels in Rhode Island, writes: "I employ fifty-eight women in
spooling yarn and weaving, and pay from $3 to $5 a week. Our men are
paid $1 per day, because they are able to do more. Men run three looms;
girls, two. The organs that manufacture vitality in women are not
allowed, by lacing strings, to attain more than two thirds their natural
size. If nature could have her way with them, especially when young,
they would earn more in the weaving shop than men, because they are
naturally quicker and smarter. They are paid something while learning,
which requires three months. Good female workers have always been scarce
since I have been in the business--twenty years. We might employ more,
if we could get them. April, May, and June are the most busy seasons.
They work twelve hours. To shorten the time two hours would make one
sixth difference, which the work people would not be willing to lose. We
have more families than single help. Those who board pay from $1.75 to
$2.25 per week. The boarding houses have to be helped by us, to enable
them to take boarders at these prices." Mr. T., writing from Rhode
Island, mentions, in addition to the branches stated above as performed
by women, that of warping. He informs us, the work is not more unhealthy
than housework, but complains that his women are careless, in bad
weather, going to and from the mill. "Wages, when running full time,
average from $3.75 to $6 per week. Weavers are paid by the yard,
spoolers by the bunch, warpers by the web, and extra hands by the week.
Men's wages are from 75 cents to $1.25 per day, but men's board is from
50 to 75 cents per week more. The prospect for work in the future
depends upon the state of the country. Spring and summer are the best
seasons for work. From March 20th to October 20th, the hands work from
seven to seven; from October to March, until 8 P. M. Their wages are
according to the number of yards woven; so of course it is to their
interest, as well as our own, to run full time. We find male labor
scarcer than female. Most of our hands are Americans. Our mills are well
ventilated and well warmed. The company have a boarding house under
their own supervision, but the women are at liberty to board in private
families, and some do. The majority of young ladies in our employ are
farmers' daughters, not really compelled to work, but prefer to do it,
and in most instances use the means for obtaining an education.
Instrumental music is taught in a seminary near the mill, by a young
lady, who obtained her education with the means gained by working in
this mill. We have from one to three nights every week devoted to
literary societies, reading circles, &c., in all of which, the ladies
from this and neighboring mills take an active part. Some eight or ten
who worked at the mill during the summer are now attending school. Board
$2.25 for men; $1.75 for women." The proprietor of the Kenyon mills, R.
I., writes: "Probably one half the operatives in mills, in this part of
the world, are women. Weavers are paid by the yard, and earn from $3 to
$6 per week. Men are generally hired by the day. An intelligent woman
will be able to run her loom after two or three weeks' practice. It is
common to put learners on looms with experienced weavers for two or
three weeks. From 20th March to 20th September, my working time is from
sunrise to sunset, the remainder of the year, until eight o'clock in the
evening. My weavers prefer to work full time as they are paid by the
yard. There is generally a demand for good weavers in this part of the
country all the year. Weavers make most money in summer. Large mills are
being supplied with foreign help. Very few Americans are willing to work
with them. Women are employed in mills on all kinds of work which they
can do, and are preferred because they are more steady. Nearly all my
mill girls are daughters of farmers in the neighborhood, and have had a
fair common school education. Several of my weavers take newspapers or
other periodicals, and carry them into the mill to read, when they can
do so without interfering with their work. Some take sewing or knitting.
Board $1.75 for women; $2.25 for men. If we did not keep comfortable
boarding houses, our help would find employment in other places. Any
smart, good girls, who want work, need have no hesitation in coming to
Rhode Island to look for work in mills."
=190. Woollen Shawls.= The secretary of the Waterloo Woollen Shawl
Company writes: "Women are employed by us in weaving, carding, &c. The
work is not unhealthy. It is paid for mostly by the piece, and hands
earn from $2.50 to $3 per week. Most of them earn as much as males; and
some, more. They are employed twelve hours. Skill, industry, and good
character are necessary. The prospect of future employment is good.
There is no difference in the seasons for work. In weaving there is no
surplus. We employ two hundred and fifty women, because they do better
work than men. We employ but very few young girls, and they generally
work at home under the eyes of parents, and attend school at least four
months in the year."
=191. Shoddy.= At flock or shoddy manufactories, girls are employed to
separate rags of different qualities and colors, and to cut the seams
and buttons off. The rags are placed in machines and cut to pieces, then
put in other machines that grind them to flocks. From them satinet is
made. Women are paid so much one hundred pounds, and earn from $1.50 to
$3 per week. They are busy all the year. It is dirty work, and, I think,
unwholesome on account of the dust. Boys attend the machinery for
cutting and grinding, and are paid about the same wages as the girls,
and probably a little more. Girls could just as well attend the
machines. Modern improvements have made wool shoddy susceptible of
receiving a fine dye, and it is made into cloth for soldiers' and
sailors' uniforms, and for pilot coats; into blanketing, drugget, stair
and other carpeting, and into very beautiful table covers. A
manufacturer of wool shoddy in Massachusetts writes: "I employ Irish
women at $3 per week, of eleven hours a day in winter and twelve in
summer. Men receive $6 per week. Women cannot perform their labor. It
requires two weeks to learn. They receive small wages the first two or
three weeks. The business is probably permanent. The work is hard. Women
do best for picking and sorting stock and tending cards. They pay $1.50
a week for Irish fare."
=192. Yarn.= A manufacturer of stocking yarn, in Spring Valley, New
York, writes: "Girls are employed in twisting and reeling yarn. The
employment is not unhealthy. We pay some by the piece, and some by the
week; those by the week receive $2.50. The wages are the same for men
and women. To learn the whole business requires from three to five
years; that part done by girls, from one to two months. They are paid
while learning. The prospect of employment is as good as that of
business generally. Our girls work the year round; they work eleven
hours. To shorten the time would be a disadvantage to us, and a loss in
wages to the hands. Boys would do for us, but are not so easily
governed. The work is easy and comfortable." A yarn manufacturer in
Stoughton, Mass., writes me: "I pay $2 per week, and furnish board to
those that twist and card. The labor of the women is much cleaner and
easier than that of the men. Men receive from $1 to $1.75 per day, board
included. I charge them $2.50 per week--women $1.75. Much of the men's
labor requires strength, knowledge, and skill. It requires two or three
months to learn it well. Women work, on an average, eleven hours and a
half. I should like the ten-hour system, but cannot adopt it, unless
others do the same. The supply of hands is adequate to the demand.
Ladies have done some parts of our work, now performed by men, and have
received equal wages; but the labor being hard, and women's dress being
inconvenient, we have abandoned the plan."
* * * * *
=193. Silk Manufacture.= The duty on raw silk is so very great that it
will not do to import it into the United States for manufacture. We
suppose, if a duty in proportion to their value were levied on silk and
linen goods, we would no longer be so dependent on other nations for
these articles. Or if a reduction were made on the duty of the raw
material, capitalists would establish silk manufactures in the United
States. Individual failures here are attributed by some to ignorance and
want of experience; by others, to the nature of the climate. The support
afforded by our Government to the culture of silk has been very
fickle--to-day encouraged, to-morrow neglected. The experiments that
have been made prove the feasibility of growing the mulberry, and
raising the silkworm in this climate. The silk produced was of good
quality, and, but for imperfect implements and want of experience, might
have done well. The cheapness of labor in older countries affords an
advantage that we have not. Most of the raw silk manufactured in the
United States comes from China. The women there rear silkworms; they
also reel and weave the silk. Not many years back silk winding was done
by men in England. "In the silk factories in France, there are two
unwholesome processes entirely carried on by women: the first is the
drawing of the cocoons, when the hands must be kept constantly in
boiling water, and the odor of the putrefying insects constantly fills
the lungs; the second is carding the floss, the fine lint of which
affects the bronchial tubes. Six out of every eight women employed, die
in a few months. Healthy young girls from the mountains soon develop
tubercular consumption; and, to complete the dreadful tale, they are
kept upon the lowest wages, being paid only twenty cents, where a man
would earn sixty." "One silk manufacturer in Valencia, Spain, gives
employment to 170 women and young girls." In Lyons, France, many women
are employed in the silk manufacture, for particulars of which see
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, Feb. 15th, 1860. Silk weavers mostly work in
attics, where they can have the best light to distinguish shades of
colors, and where the silk, which moisture would damage, can be kept
perfectly dry. In Spitalfields, the silk manufacture is mostly carried
on by the workmen at their homes, their families assisting. Each child
has his own branch, and the wife hers. It is the same case in the making
of lace, artificial flowers, embroidery, straw braiding, &c. The
strength of silk is greater than that of cotton, flax, or wool.
Machinery is now employed for winding the silk off of cocoons, but
formerly it was done by hand. Mrs. O. told us her husband employs a few
girls to spool silk, which he dyes for a large dress trimming
manufactory next door. The girls earn from $2 to $3 a week. The pasting
of patterns of floss silk upon cards was done by men a few years ago in
England, but women, after great effort, have succeeded in gaining the
work, so much more suitable for them. "A lady in Jefferson county, Ia.,
has made herself a handsome silk dress from cocoons of her own raising."
A manufacturer of silk goods in Paterson, N. J., writes: "We mostly
employ girls from twelve to eighteen. The work is not unhealthy. Average
pay is $3 per week. To learn, a girl must be about twelve years of age;
it takes about two months. Pay begins after two weeks. To learn, one
should be smart with her hands, and careful with the material. There is
a good prospect ahead for weavers. All seasons are good, except during a
panic. They work twelve hours. The time could not be shortened
conveniently. If other States worked less time, we could too. We employ
a hundred girls and twenty-five boys. Seventy-five per cent. are
American. Board, $1.75. Women could be employed more extensively in
weaving. Men are employed upon the spinners, women in winding, &c."
=194. Ribbons.= In England, formerly, a woman was not at all engaged in
ribbon weaving, as the men thought it an encroachment on their sphere of
labor; nor were they even allowed to wind silk preparatory to its use in
weaving. Manufacturers of ribbon in West Newton, Massachusetts, write:
"We employ from forty to eighty women, and prefer them to men in all
departments they are fitted for. They are paid by the week, and earn
from $2 to $6, according to the value of their work. It requires from
six months to a year to learn the business. Women are paid something
while learning. Good character and fair capacity are needed. Our women
work eleven hours. If the time was reduced to ten, the loss would be the
use of machinery. There is a surplus of hands in New York, by reason of
immigration. Women are inferior in mechanical skill, superior in
steadiness."
=195. Sewing Silk.= The first factory for spinning silk in this country
was established in Northampton, Massachusetts. There are 156 hands in
Massachusetts, engaged in the manufacture of sewing silk. Two other
factories have been established since then in Paterson, New Jersey; one
for the manufacture of the raw silk, and the other the manufacture of
sewing silks, fringes, gimps, and tassels. There is a manufactory in
Mansfield, Connecticut, and one in Newport, Kentucky. Most of the sewing
silk used in this country under the name of Italian silk is made by
American manufacturers. An agent for the manufacture of twist in
Paterson, New Jersey, told me their best hands do not earn over $3.50 a
week and work eleven hours. They try girls, that wish to learn, two
weeks, and if they find them fitted for the work, pay $1 a week. There
is no danger from the machinery as in cotton factories, nor has it the
unhealthy tendency of cotton, as there are no particles flying from the
material like the lint that flies from cotton. It does not require an
apt person long to learn. The girls stand all the time. They have to
watch the machinery, and tie the threads that break. The agent said, in
the Eastern States girls are paid better in silk factories, but they are
more competent workers. There some earn from sixty to eighty cents per
day. The work is neat and clean. Some manufacturers of sewing machine
silk and twist write me from Boston: "We employ fifty women winding and
twisting silk. They work eleven hours in winter and twelve in summer,
and earn from $3 to $6 per week. Some are paid by the piece and some by
the week. Men are paid from $1 to $2.50 a day. Integrity and activity
are wanted. The prospect for future employment is good. They work at all
seasons. One fourth are Americans. No parts of our occupation are
suitable for women but those in which they are engaged." A sewing silk
manufacturer in Paterson, N. J., writes: "Our women are engaged in
winding and doubling the raw silk and finishing, in skeins and on
spools, the dyed material. The work is generally considered healthy.
Many children, boys and girls, from ten years and upward, are
employed--say forty per cent. of the whole force of help; children at $1
per week--women at $3 and $4. They work sixty-nine hours to the week.
State rights prevent the shortening of the time. Each State makes its
own laws on the subject, and no unanimity exists. Males and females are
employed up to a certain age, say fifteen years, indiscriminately; girls
always preferred. The time of learning depends upon the quickness of the
hand; some learn in two or three days, some again can scarcely learn at
all. The rule of the trade is not to pay learners. It depends on
circumstances whether we pay. In brisk times we have about sixty
(including children)--women about forty--perhaps less. About half are
Americans. Crinoline is in the way to prevent women from performing
other parts of the labor. Women are cheaper. Men could not be got, and
could scarcely do the work, if they could. Yet no particular
qualifications are required. The prospect for an increase of this
manufacture depends upon congressmen and the tariff. The best seasons
are immediately after the New Year's and Fourth of July holidays." In
France, some girls are employed to wind the raw silk from cocoons, and
some spin it into skeins of silk. In Dublin, many women are employed in
the winding and picking of silk used in making poplin. Near Algiers is
an orphan asylum, from which a large number of girls have been
apprenticed to a gentleman who owns a silk winding mill in the vicinity.
The girls work twelve hours a day.
* * * * *
=196. Lace Makers.= Large numbers of women are employed in lace making
in Belgium, France, Ireland, and England. A normal lace school was
established in Dublin in 1847. Lace makers are very closely confined,
and in busy times many spend from twelve to twenty hours at their work.
Lace making requires care, quickness, and dexterity. Rev. Mr. Hanson
mentions the fact that, in Liverpool, there are three Roman Catholic
institutions aided by the Privy Council for the industrial training of
girls: one, attended by forty pupils, is a laundry; another is a lace
school, attended by one hundred and sixty-six; the third, attended by
twenty-six, trains domestic servants. Lace making is so injurious to the
eyes that, at forty, very few can carry it on without spectacles. In
England the process of winding is conducted by young women, while boys
are mostly employed as lace threaders. Their condition is a wretched
one. Women are mostly employed as lace runners or embroiderers. Mending,
drawing, pearling, and joining are mostly done by young children. An
interesting account of the business is given in Charlotte Elizabeth's
story of the "Lace Runners": "It is proved by unquestionable evidence,
that in lace making it is customary for children to work at the age of
four or five and six years; and instances are found in which a child,
only _two_ years old, was set to work by the side of its mother." The
present condition of most of the laboring classes in England is far more
depressing and exhausting than the slavery that exists among the colored
population of the United States. "The powers of production of a machine
for making laces are to hand labor nearly as 30,000 to 5." C. says he
and his wife are the only makers of hand lace in the United States, and
he has been nine years in the business here. He says, making the figures
is most difficult; and he showed me one figure he asked but twenty-eight
cents for, that he stated it would require a day and a half to make. I
wish I had offered to buy it. He employs a number of girls to put the
figures on some kind of a foundation for collars, sleeves, and capes.
They also transfer, mend lace, and do other such work. He says, making
figures does not pay as well as the other parts, and it would not pay
for the salt you use on your potatoes. He does not have lace made,
except now and then a figure that cannot be obtained, to fill out a
piece that is being transferred or altered, and for which the lady is
willing to pay a good price. He says laces are made so much cheaper in
the old country, that when imported, paying even a duty of twenty or
twenty-five per cent., they are sold as cheap as those he makes. He says
he pays his girls nearly twice as much as they are paid in Europe. His
report I thought contradictory, and supposed he feared competition. I
was told by an English woman, who had been accustomed to making lace
from six years of age until the last ten, that it takes seven or eight
years to learn lace making in all its parts. She says there are
twenty-one processes gone through with in making every kind but pillow
lace, in which there are but five processes. When she was a child, none
but common laces were made in France, and the making of their finest
laces they learned from the English, who went over to France.
=197. Lace Menders.= I called on M. W., a lace mender. "In New York, she
has received from one store, Mme. G.'s, from $20 to $25 a week for work.
She thinks in a few years very little work will be ordered from the
stores; it will be done by those who make a business of it. The stores
derive a handsome profit. She did a piece for one store for $3, that she
knows the lady paid $5 for having done; and another piece at $3, that
the lady paid $10 for--the storekeeper having such profits for nothing
but merely sending it to the lace transferrer. She makes a comfortable
living, but works at night as well as through the day. It has injured
her eyes and made her nervous. She has had two little girls learning to
mend, alter, and transfer lace; one received her board and clothing for
her work for three years. One girl, that spent two years with her, is
now obtaining a livelihood by her work. She thinks if a bright, steady
girl of thirteen should spend two years at it, and then have friends to
start her in business, she would be well able to support herself. Lace
mending is a separate branch from lace making. In England, if a person
can obtain the names of one or two wealthy families, it will at once
establish them in business. In doing up lace, little girls can put the
pins in the edges to keep it in place until dried. C. and Mme. G., she
says, pay her as her customers would, but she prefers establishing
herself, and does not so well like store work. Her customers recommend
her to their friends, and so she will gradually become known. Lace
mending is a nice, clean, respectable business, and can be done at
home."
* * * * *
=198. Hair Cloth Manufacture.= "There is some competition in the sale of
foreign and domestic hair cloth. The American is of a better quality,
and on that ground only are manufacturers able to compete with
foreigners, the duty on hair cloth being low. When the hair has been
separated from the short hair used for curling, it goes into the more
delicate fingers of the hair drawers, who sort it into lengths, each
length corresponding to the width of the cloth to be woven. We have
seldom seen any mechanical operation requiring more dexterity or
constant attention than this. The girls engaged in this work make from
$3 to $3.50, and sometimes $4 a week. The weaving is done by hand looms,
each worked by two girls--one to handle the hook (answering the purpose
of a shuttle), and the other to serve the hair. The prices paid for
weaving vary from twenty to thirty-two cents per yard. The average,
including plain and figured cloth, is twenty-four cents. A fair average
day's work is four or five yards. But this requires two hands, you must
remember; so that perhaps a fair estimate of the wages of hair cloth
weavers would be from fifty to sixty-two and a half cents per day. The
labor is severe, and we should think it impossible, without injury to
the health, for young women to work at it more than two thirds of the
time." At a hair-cloth manufactory in New York, I was told they employ
one hundred girls. The proprietor says they have work all the year. He
never knew a woman at the business that could not find employment. The
first month they do not receive anything for their work, but after that
can earn from $3 to $5 per week. It is paid for by the yard. The more
practice a worker has, the better she succeeds. I think it must be dirty
work. Another manufacturer told me it does not require long to learn to
weave hair cloth, but some time to do it well. He pays $5 per week, but
their time is not limited to ten hours. The girls, I saw, were pale and
filthy. He thinks the business is likely to extend, and, consequently,
the prospect of employment to women in that field of labor is good. He
keeps his girls all the year. The Providence Hair Cloth Co. write:
"Women are employed in weaving our hair cloth. Every hair has to be put
in separately by the fingers of the girl. The only disadvantage to the
health of the girl is the close application in sitting so long. We pay
our girls thirteen cents per yard for weaving. It requires about two
weeks or one month before a girl becomes sufficiently accustomed to the
work to weave on full speed. We pay them while learning. No
qualifications needed, only general neatness and upright moral
character. All seasons are alike. We work only ten hours. Thirty girls
have each one loom with which to work; one girl mends the cloth, and
three shave and trim the same--making thirty-four in all. One half are
American. Women are in all respects superior to men in weaving--same as
in cotton looms."
METAL MANUFACTURES.
=199. Iron.= "The great heat to be endured and the severe muscular power
required, preclude women from the manufacture of iron goods. They are
not directly employed, and to a small extent indirectly. We think when
women have to perform what is unquestionably man's work, it lowers the
standard of female character instead of elevating, and nothing is more
disagreeable than to be constantly employed at labor uncongenial to
one's nature." From the United States census we learn that in 1850 there
were engaged in the manufacture of pig iron 20,298 males, 150 females;
in the manufacture of casting iron, 23,541 males, 48 females; in the
manufacture of wrought iron, 16,110 males, 138 females. We do not know
exactly how these women were employed. The work in rolling mills is very
severe and the heat intense. The men have their limbs cased in tin
sheaths above their knees. The vast capital required to develop the
mineral resources of a country, and the comparative newness of our
country, have hitherto prevented more than a partial development of its
resources. Many women are employed in dressing and sorting ore in Great
Britain.
=200. Files.= The notches in files are made by a chisel acted on by a
hammer held in the hand. The edge thrown up in making the notch assists
the workman in putting the chisel in the right place, and keeping it
there while he cuts the next notch. "It is peculiar that hitherto no
machine has been constituted, capable of producing files which rival
those cut by the human hand." From a manufacturer in Massachusetts, we
learn that "he employs from four to six girls in cutting fine work
files, cleaning, and wrapping up, &c. They are largely employed in
England. The work is considered healthy. They receive from $3 to $4.50
per week of ten hours a day. Men and women are paid equal wages for the
same kind of work. It requires from six months to two years to learn.
The prospect for a small number in each factory is good. There is work
every day in the year. It is quite a new business in this country. Women
are neater and more particular with their work than men. They could do
some other parts that are suitable for them, but they would soil their
hands too much." A file manufacturer writes me: "Women are paid by the
piece in cutlery--in other departments by the day; when by the piece,
they receive as much as men; when by the day, one half. It would require
three or four years to learn. Most women cannot cut any but small files
as well as men, as they have not sufficient muscular power in the hands
and fingers. Women are taught in Sheffield, England, by their fathers
and brothers, and have what they earn. Good eyesight and stout nerves
are the requisites for a learner. No prospect of employment in our
business at present. The best localities for manufactures are where
files are wanted, in New England and the middle States."
=201. Guns.= One manufacturer writes: "I hardly know whether the work
could be done by women. It is difficult to learn and hard to practise."
A gunsmith told me, guns could be polished by women. They are polished
by hand. A manufacturer of guns writes: "I have no women employed in my
factory. It is not common for them to work at this business in America,
although many of them are employed by gun makers in foreign countries."