and other light work on bell clasps. They write: "The girls earn from $3
to $5 per week, ten hours a day. The labor of women is paid twenty-five
per cent. less than that of males, because they are not able to do as
heavy work. It requires about three months to learn the part of males or
females. Our branch of trade is not increasing. Spring and fall are the
most busy seasons, but the women are not thrown out of employment during
the year. They are superior in light work. Board, $2 per week." A
manufacturer in Attleboro' writes: "I employ from twelve to fifteen at
packing, at light press work, &c. They are paid from four to six cents
per hour. Women are not paid higher, because they are not worth more. I
pay men from seven to twenty-five cents per hour. The time of learning
depends on the ingenuity of the employed. They have steady work most of
the time. They are full-blooded Yankees--have a good deal of fun when
the boss is out, and work in a pleasant room. The labor is easy, and
they are satisfied with the remuneration. (Perhaps because they can do
no better!) A healthy climate, convenience to market and to places where
the raw material is made, are advantages. All New-England girls have the
advantages of a good education in the common branches." A manufacturer
in Middletown, Conn., replies: "Girls are employed by me, springing in
the tongues of buckles and packing them--also making paper boxes. They
earn from forty cents to $1 per day, being paid by the piece. Their
employment is not so heavy or laborious as that of males. It takes from
six months to one year to earn full wages. Women will probably always be
employed in these branches. Good box makers are always in demand. We
employ thirty--all Americans. The balance of my work is rather
objectionable for women, unless it be foreign or second-class girls.
Women are usually more neat than men. Either water or railroad
communication is desirable in seeking a locality. Board, about $2 per
week. There was never so great a demand for female help in this part of
the country as at the present time. They have started a shirt
manufactory about nine miles from here, and are in want of girls; but
the greatest trouble there is to find boarding places at reasonable
rates." The West Haven Co. report "the employment to be very healthy by
giving exercise to the limbs. The pay is from seventy-five cents to
$1.50 per day--average $1. Some learn the business in two days, some in
two weeks. The hands are paid from the first, and are seventeen in
number, all Americans. Women are superior in this branch, because they
are quicker with their fingers."
=219. Edge Tools.= The Humphreysville Edge Tool Manufacturing Co. inform
me they do not employ females. For polishing they hire strong, rough
boys, that they can get cheap, who stand while at work, and stoop over
the articles, which produces a strain on the back and compression of the
chest. Many find it so injurious they have to give it up, and the
majority of those who do keep at it do not last long. The majority of
the metal workers in Birmingham do their work at home. Each member of
the family has his particular part to perform. An English writer says:
"In various branches of the hardware manufacture, both in Birmingham and
Sheffield, women may be seen by hundreds in some places, comfortably
secluded from the male workers; in others, working side by side with
them at the same mechanical process. They are never given to
intoxication, and rarely, if ever, to strikes; and it may be very much
the absence of these propensities that has recommended them so largely
to the notice of the employer. In London the practice is gaining
ground."
=220. Electrical Machines.= From the office of Davis & Kidder's
magneto-electric machines we receive the following intelligence: "We
employ women in covering wire, spools, sewing velvet, papering boxes,
&c., &c. They earn from $12 to $24 per month, and are paid by the month.
Women are paid nearly one half as much as men--can form no reason why
women are not as well paid. It requires about three months for females
to learn; they are paid while learning. All it requires is energy. There
is no prospect at all for future employment in this branch. We employ
our hands through the year; do not deduct from their wages when absent
for a week. They work ten hours a day. We employ four, because the work
is light and better suited for them than males. All Americans. Those in
my employ are well educated. Board in respectable families, $2.50." C.
Brothers, of New York, employ two girls for the same kind of work. They
pay one $5 a week, ten hours a day--the small girl $3. They have had
them but six months, but expect to keep them all the year. Mr. C. thinks
the business is so limited that the prospect is poor for learners.
=221. Fire Arms.= From the Arms Manufacturing Co., Chicopee, Mass., we
receive the following information: "We employ women in burnishing plated
ware. The employment is not unhealthy. We pay generally by the piece.
Some are paid about eighty cents per day. There is a prospect for steady
employment for the few we have, and for no more. They are in no season
entirely out of work. Ten hours a day are devoted to work when paid for
by the week. All Americans. Easy work and much sought after. Women are
inferior in point of strength, superior in cheapness." Sharp's Rifle Co.
write: "We employ from ten to thirty women in making cartridges and
inspecting primers. We pay about $1 each day, as the business requires
good skill and care, and is hazardous. It is generally piece work. Males
do the heaviest part of the work, and are paid $1.25 to $1.50 per day.
If an individual is skilful, it requires but a short time to learn.
Hands are paid while learning. Prospect good of future employment. We
have constant work for ten. They are usually employed nine hours. All
Americans. They appear very comfortable, and are quite tidy. No other
parts of our occupation are suitable for women. Women are superior in
forming and folding. $2.50 per week is the price of board."
=222. Knives and Forks.= The metals used for knives and forks are iron,
steel, and silver, according to use or expense. The dust that arises
from the grinding of steel knives, coats the lungs with stone. A German
manufacturer of small cutlery told me that in large establishments in
some European countries, women put the rivets in the handles of knives,
and polish the handles of ivory and pearl. In the grinding of penknives
and razors the inclination of the body forward is greater than in any
other branch; hence, while less injurious in regard to the amount of
dust than the fork and needle branches, they are fraught with greater
evil from the position of the body alone. Articles of cutlery are
glossed by holding them to a wooden wheel, on which is emery powder.
They are polished by holding them to a wheel covered with leather,
charged with crocus. Both of these processes are within the range of
woman's toil. In a cutlery establishment, I was told the work was too
hard for women. The polishing of their cutlery is done by machinery. The
Hardware Manufacturing Company, Berlin, Conn., write: "We employ one
hundred and forty men, making shelf hardware, and five or six girls to
pack it up. They get from fifty to seventy-five cents a day, work ten
hours, and all live at home. The work of papering up the goods is light,
and requires little skill. The other part of the work about our factory
is too severe for women." The Empire Knife Company, Conn., "employ four
girls in packing and sharpening. They are paid by the day (ten hours),
and earn from $3 to $4 per week. Women receive about the wages of men.
It requires from six months to one year to learn. Women are paid while
learning. The prospect of future employment is fair. The comparative
comfort and remuneration of the work are good. Comfortable board, $3 a
week." A company in Northfield, Conn., inform us: "It requires from
three to five years to learn the men's part of the work. Some of the
women work by the piece, and some by the day, receiving from $3 to $5
per week. The same price would be paid to men. The prospect of future
employment is good. They work throughout the year. Women are superior in
quickness. A locality should be fixed on where good water power may be
had."
=223. Needles.= Most of the needles used in Europe and America are
manufactured at Redditch, fourteen miles from Birmingham, where there
are about a dozen very large factories. The number manufactured in
Redditch amounts to about seventy million per week. The process is a
very long and painful one. The drilling is done by young women. The
constrained posture and rigid gaze of the women on the eyes of the
needles as they drill, is distressing. It requires a perfect steadiness
of hand. In addition to this, the small channel observed on each side of
the eye is made by women with a suitable file. The picking out of
defective needles, and laying perfect ones with the heads one way and
the points another, is performed by children. Dr. G. C. Holland writes:
"We candidly admit that the physical evils produced by needle grinding
exceed all that imagination has pictured." The needle grinders in
England are said to be ignorant and dissipated. One half can neither
read nor write. The dust which is evolved in the process of needle
grinding, contains a much larger amount of steel than is produced by any
other grinding. Mr. Aiken, inventor of the knitting machine, has the
machines and needles both manufactured. He says "he supposes he could
teach women to do most of the work on needles, if he would give the time
and trouble. He pays $1 per day to hands in the needle room." In the
manufacture of Bartlett's sewing-machine needles, but a few small girls
are employed, at from $1 to $1.50 per week, for smoothing the eye by
running an oiled thread through it. Formerly they employed girls to
perforate the eye, but it is now done by machinery. A manufacturer of
knitting needles writes us: "The winter season is the best for work, and
the Eastern States furnish the best localities for manufactories." A
maker of sewing-machine needles told me the tools are rather heavy,
files and a lathe being used. They pay a boy of fourteen years $3 a
week, and one of eighteen, $5.50. C. employs girls to envelop and label
needles. They earn from $3 to $4 a week, and do it at home. It takes a
long time to become expert. They are paid from the first, but not much.
The business is limited. They could have it done for less in England,
but prefer to put labels on for parties in this country, who want to be
considered manufacturers. G. & B. employ some girls to label and paper
needles they import. They pay two cents and a half for putting the
labels on forty papers. The labelling is done in the latter part of
winter and early spring.
=224. Pens= (STEEL AND QUILL). A thousand million steel pens are said to
be produced annually at Birmingham, England. We are indebted to some
writer in an English paper for a description of the part taken by women
in the manufacture of Gillott's pen in Birmingham. The number of women
employed in his factory is four hundred. "If not altogether manufactured
by woman, she has had, by far, more to do in its manufacture than men.
He may have forged and rolled the metal, but she cut it from the sheet,
gave it its semi-cylindrical form, stamped it, ground it on a wheel to
make it flexible, split it, helped to polish it, and finally packed it
in a box, or sewed it upon a card in readiness for the market. And
whoever wishes to see her thus employed, may find her seated in an airy
and comfortable chamber, with two hundred or three hundred companions
similarly engaged--all healthy and merry, and singing at their work,
while pens in all stages are clicking and glittering through their
fingers at the rate of something like one hundred gross a day, each." An
attempt has been made to manufacture steel pens in this country, but, I
think, as yet without success. The makers of the Washington medallion
pen had some girls to come from England to work for them, but found they
could not keep up the factory, because of the prices they had to pay for
labor. The duty on steel pens is thirty per cent., yet they can be
imported for less than it would cost to make them here. Some one writes
to the editor of the _Englishwoman's Journal_ as follows: "Madam, I have
been told that quill pens made by hand are far superior to those made by
machinery, and are therefore used in some of the principal offices of
London. Besides which, very many persons are unable to write except with
quill pens; rejecting the best and most expensive ones made of any kind
of metal. Might not the making of them be a suitable occupation for some
young women, who, from lameness or other infirmities, might be unable to
follow a more active life?" In New York, some quills are made into pens
by machinery, but women, we believe, are not employed.
=225. Philosophical Apparatus.= K., in Brooklyn, told me that in the old
country it is customary to spend seven years learning to make
philosophical apparatus, but in this country boys do not like to be
apprenticed so long. The business is not fast enough for Americans. It
requires close and constant application. The burnishing is quite hard
work. The occupation has a tendency to render one intellectual and
scientific. Most young men leave it to become physicians and preachers.
Dr. McG., of China, is one of the number. The work is mostly done by
lathe, but the polishing by hand. I think women could do it, if they
were brought up to it. Instruments are made in Europe, and imported for
less than they could be made in the United States. Business is now very
slack. K. used to have several apprentices, that he boarded and paid $1
a week during the first year. The next year he increased their wages to
$1 a week more, the next year another $1, &c. In small establishments an
instrument is carried through all its processes by the same workman. The
business is done in the United States on so small a scale as not to
afford a sufficient subdivision to furnish any part suitable for women.
P. does not know of any women being employed in this country in this
trade. He thinks there is much of it they could do, and in process of
time it will be done in the United States. In France and England, there
are many women who learn with their fathers and husbands, and work with
them. Many women are employed in making small compasses, that require a
nice adjustment and care in pasting, but a separate room would be
necessary, and that he has not. A manufacturer of nautical instruments
writes me, he does not know of women being employed in any part of his
business in any portion of the world. The brass on philosophical
instruments is polished by hand, but a manufacturer told me he would not
have even the polishing done by inexperienced hands, as they are very
particular with the finishing off of their work.
=226. Saws.= A saw maker says, in England women are employed in
lacquering the handles and polishing the blades of saws. An Englishman,
who did a very extensive business in New York, employed girls in the
same way, but he failed in business, and none have been employed since.
W. pays boys for such work $2.50 a week. Another informant writes me
that in England women are employed in the saw manufactories.
=227. Scissors.= In France, women are employed in the manufacture of
cutlery. The blades of scissors are polished by women on lathes supplied
with emery powder and oil, and subsequently on lathes supplied with
crocus.
=228. Spectacles.= S. says there are women in England and France who
make spectacle frames for them. He employs a woman to grind the glasses
of spectacles. She can earn $15 a week, and has earned $23 a week by
taking work home with her to do at night. On Nassau street, I saw a
French lady who grinds glasses for spectacles on a lathe. She works from
nine to five o'clock, and earns about $9 a week. There is not the danger
some might apprehend of glass flying into the eyes while at work. Yet it
requires great care and skill. I called at a manufactory of
silver-plated spectacles and saw the whole process. Several parts are
done by women. One was shaping the frames for the eyes, another setting
them up, another preparing them to solder, another soldering, and three
others were scouring. The soldering must be uncomfortable in warm
weather. The employment, I suppose, is not more unhealthy than any other
of a mechanical nature. One girl told me she earned seventy-five cents
per day. They are paid by the quantity. She said the rest could earn as
much, if they were industrious. One considerably older, at another
branch, said she could earn $4 a week. It would not require more than a
few weeks, I think, to learn any branch pursued by women--to learn all
the parts performed by women, would require six months or more, even for
an apt and skilful pupil. A spectacle maker, J., said a smart person
could learn to make silver spectacles in a year, but it would require
something longer to learn to make gold ones, as gold is a more difficult
metal to melt and work than silver. An apprentice is not paid the first
year, because of the metal he wastes. To learn it, one should at first
look on and see how the work is done. A manufacturer of spectacles
writes: "Women might make and repair spectacles. The heavier parts of
the business require foot lathes to be worked, where skirts would be out
of place, but the most could be done by hand in making spectacles." (We
have seen several women at foot lathes, polishing watch cases--so the
use of foot lathes need not be an objection with women.) A spectacle
importer writes: "We use a great many spectacle glasses, and in their
manufacture in England females are generally employed. In France and
Germany the women do the same kind of work." P., in Meriden, Conn.,
writes: "We employ women in making spectacles. The work is not more
unhealthy than any other labor in shops. Most are paid by the
piece--those who work by the week usually receive $4, and work ten hours
a day. They receive about three fourths the price of male labor, because
they perform the lighter work. They earn their board in one week--get
good wages in eight. They usually do about the same amount of work
through the year. We employ about fifty, because they are more active on
light work, and can be had for less wages. Most are Americans. Girls
prefer this to housework, and make better wages. The nearer New York,
the lower are freights; the farther from New York, the more permanent
our help. Good sense and religious principle prevail among them. Those
who board pay $2.25 per week." A manufacturer in Brooklyn, of fine gilt,
silver, plated, and German silver spectacles, writes: "The employment is
healthy. Young girls earn $2 per week, older ones from $3 to $6. They
are generally paid by the piece. Girls and boys earn about the same
wages, but those who have spent years to acquire the trade are entitled
to better prices. A smart girl or boy will learn in the course of six
months to do a specific part. Wages are usually paid from the time they
commence. A fair share of common sense and willingness to labor are the
principal requisites. As long as people grow old, and need spectacles,
they will be manufactured. Our work continues about the same through the
season. They work ten hours a day. In burnishing, the demand is pretty
good. We employ ten women, because they can do the parts of work
required better than boys or men. Half are American. We find women
rather more ready and apt than men. It is advantageous to be in or near
the great markets. Board, $2." I was told by an English maker of
spectacle frames, that most spectacles are made in France and Germany.
Men and women are paid in England 37½ cents a dozen for grinding the
best quality of glasses. The makers of frames should know how to make
figures, to put them on the frames. Women would be most likely to find
employment as grinders of glasses in New York, and no doubt a small
number could get work of that kind. Gold and silver frames are polished
on a lathe with leather and rouge. Common frames are burnished with
agate and steel. It is done more quickly, and is cheaper than polishing.
Most spectacle frames of a common quality are made in the country,
because it can be done by water power, and more cheaply.
=229. Surgical Instruments.= T., manufacturer, told me that some steel
surgical instruments are burnished by hand. He thinks there is not
enough in that line of business to do, to justify women in learning. He
said the polishing of surgical instruments could be done by women. It
requires judgment and experience, but is simple, requiring the worker
merely to hold the instrument on lathes and turn every few seconds; but
burnishing requires more strength. I was told that perhaps women are
employed in polishing silver surgical instruments.
=230. Telescopes.= G., an optician, says much of the light work in
making telescopes might be done by women. They could French-polish the
wooden frames, lacquer the brass work, and grind the glasses, if
properly instructed. He thinks making microscopes is more suitable for
them.
=231. Thermometers.= The construction of the thermometer is quite
simple. Women, if taught, could put the parts together, and mark the
scales. I have been told that some girls are employed in Rochester, New
York, in marking the scales. The same remarks will apply to the
barometer.
* * * * *
=232. Copper and Zinc Manufacture.= So far as we can learn, no women are
employed in copper and zinc mines, or in the making of copperas.
Twenty-five women are employed in packing copper powder flasks, by the
Waterbury Manufacturing Company, and making percussion caps. One fourth
of them are American. They earn from $3 to $4 per week, and the work is
reported not unhealthy. The women are paid about one half as much as
men. It does not require long to learn, and learners are paid something
during their apprenticeship. Ten hours are devoted to work. All seasons
are alike. The agent says the women do better for light work than men,
but require more watching.
=233. Tin Manufacture.= A youth, that was working in a tin shop for a
widow, whose husband had been a tinner, told me that a female relative
of his, who lived about one hundred years ago in Ireland, could do all
the various parts of work as well as a man. She learned the trade
regularly. Women are paid nearly as well as men for such labor in the
old countries, but cannot work so fast. He says, even now in Europe a
few women learn the trade of a tinner. It requires four years to learn
it thoroughly in all its branches, because there is such a variety. One
or two branches may be learned perfectly in a short time; so may several
be learned indifferently in the same period; just as a violinist may
know how to play a few tunes very well, but cannot play any others; or
may know how to play a great many indifferently, but none perfectly. In
England, where women are employed in tin shops to solder, they receive
for this work their board and thirty-seven cents a day.
=234. Lanterns.= I visited a large tin establishment in Brooklyn, and
saw the girls at work; some soldering the corners of the lanterns, some
assorting the pieces, some putting glass in the sides, some fastening
conductors' lamps in the framework, with plaster of Paris, and some
enveloping them to send away. There is nothing unhealthy in the work.
The smoke of the charcoal stoves used in soldering is carried off by
pipes. Girls putting glass in the tin frames, sometimes get their
fingers cut. The girls all wear aprons. The plaster of Paris part of the
work is very dirty. The girls earn from $2.50 to $4.50. They are all
employed at first in papering, as it is termed--that is, putting the
articles in papers ready to be packed; and receive, for a few weeks,
$2.50 a week, then more, according to ability and industry. Some are
paid by the week and some by the piece; they work ten hours. Girls
prefer mechanical labor to domestic service, because they have the
evenings to themselves. It requires but a few weeks for a girl of
ordinary abilities to learn the part she is to perform. The proprietor
said he could have a hundred times as many girls as he has, if he had
employment for them. But few American women will work in factories with
men. Most women are neater with their work than men. At a lantern
manufactory in New York, I was told they employ eight or ten girls to
cement the metal parts on the glass, to varnish, to wash and wipe and
paper them. They are paid $3.50 a week.
=235. Britannia Ware.= Some Britannia is burnished by hand, and some by
lathe. Women occasionally do the first kind.
* * * * *