Connecticut, writes: "From four to six women are employed by us, in the
construction of globes and other articles. Some are paid by the piece,
and some by the week, and earn from $3 to $5 per week, ten hours a day.
Women receive less than one half the wages of men. They do not perform
the same kind of labor. Women are employed at the lighter work,
requiring less strength, but an even amount of skill. The abundance of
the supply of labor prevents the increase of wages. Learners are paid,
and it requires but a few weeks to succeed. A nicety of eye and
readiness of hand are necessary for a worker. The prospect of employment
is good, but limited. The winter is best for the work, but hands are
occupied at all seasons. The employment is pleasant, and as well paid as
any in this vicinity. Women are employed in all parts of the work
suitable for them. The work is best adapted to the Eastern States. All
our employés are Americans, and live at home. Board here, $2 a week."
=485. Hobby Horse Finishers.= In summer time, Mr. ---- has children's
carriages trimmed by women. They are paid by the piece, and earn from $3
to $4 a week. At B.'s they are employed all the year. The horses and
carriages could be painted by women, and the manes, tails, saddles and
bridles could be put on by them. At C.'s, one lady is employed for
trimming children's carriages--$5 a week--ten hours a day. She sews by
machine. C.'s busy season for children's carriages, is from February to
November, and he employs his hands the rest of the time at hobby horses.
He says there is one factory in Columbus, two in Chicago. He thinks
there are good openings (1860) in Richmond and Petersburg, Va., for they
sell many there. He thinks wrong must succumb to right--that there is no
justice in withholding from women their proper compensation for labor,
and the time will come when the prejudice will be done away that now
exists on that subject.
=486. Horse Coverings.= I was told, at a store in Philadelphia, they pay
twenty-five cents a piece for ordinary blankets and linens, and a woman
can make from three to four a day. One, on which was considerable chain
stitching, the storekeeper paid $2 for making, and he thought a woman
could make one in a day. A saddle and harness maker, New York, told me
the prospect of getting such work is good. The wives of his workmen make
his blankets, and can earn from $1 to $1.50 a day, as he pays
thirty-seven cents a blanket. Another one told me his girls earn from $4
to $6 a week at such work; and another rated the payments still higher,
from $1.25 to $1.50 a day. At a large store on Broadway, I was told all
the work is given to one woman, who employs other women to help her. Her
workers can earn $4 a week, if industrious. They make horse linens and
blankets, and rosettes for head ornaments. Netting for horses is made by
hand, in a large establishment near New York. L. L. & Co. pay for the
coarsest blankets twenty cents apiece, and a woman can make two a day.
For some they pay as high as from $4 to $5. A very swift sewer could
make one such in little over two days--consequently her day's wages
would be $2. So the prices vary according to style. The chain stitch, so
much used for ornamenting, is done by hand, because in that way the
edges of the cloth can be more neatly and securely turned under. L. L. &
Co. employ ladies, who in their turn employ others. The coarse heavy
blankets are generally lined, and the work is mostly done by Irish
women. They are most busy on blankets from June to January, and on linen
from February 1st to May 1st. Linen covers are used on horses in
stables, as flies annoy horses much where they are standing quiet. Out
of doors, nets answer, because they are kept in motion by the horse.
When busy, L. & L. employ about one hundred girls. The business is
growing. The blankets are mostly used in the country. The manufacture of
them is confined principally to New York and Boston. Those in the cities
are different in style; indeed, each city has its own style. Many are
made in Chicago. The rosettes pay very well, but it requires a long time
to become expert. One lady they employ earns occasionally $50 a week.
Tassels are paid for by the piece, and girls can earn from $2 to $4.
Tassel making requires some time to learn perfectly. Cloth goods are
confined to seasons, and consequently occupations in which they are
involved are confined to seasons. Styles of trimming are apt to change.
A man who makes blankets for a large wholesale house, employs from one
hundred to two hundred women. They earn from $3 to $7 a week. The
stitching is done by machine, but the ornamental part by hand. Men do
all the cutting. He has paid as high as $100 for one pattern of blankets
and ornaments. There are no blankets made in the South or West, except
here and there a saddler's wife will make a few. In Williamsburg, I saw
a number of women in the basement of the employer's residence. They
looked sad, and the rooms were small, damp, and filthy. The employer
told me most of his stitching is done by machine. Anybody that can sew
tolerably well, and has strength, can do it. Women seldom, if ever, cut
them out; but I think they could. A manufacturer in Brooklyn writes: "We
employ women for making horse clothing, who are paid by the piece, and
earn from seventy-five cents to $1 per day. Spring and fall are the best
seasons for work. We have no difficulty in procuring hands."
=487. House Painters.= The tools of a painter cost but little. Women
might be employed in glazing, and in painting the inside work of houses.
Their ingenuity and taste might be successfully exercised in
embellishing walls and ornamenting doors. The style for doors, called
graining, would be particularly appropriate. The business could be best
carried on by men and women in partnership, as the outdoor work is most
suitable for men. An apprenticeship should be served of two or three
years. The work would pay well. Most of it is done in spring. A woman
would need to make some change in her style of dress. The Bloomer would
probably be best--at any rate, hoops should be laid aside. The vocation
presents a very good opening to women, who could best engage in it, at
first, in towns and villages.
=488. Japanners.= Japanning is one of the few arts that had its origin
in a heathen country. It is now practised in all civilized countries.
Many metal articles are japanned--as tea trays, candlesticks, &c. Wood
is also japanned. In a late report of one of the schools of design in
England, we observed on the list of female students the names of two
japanners. Care, and ability to stand, are all that are required for
success, to those doing the plain painting; but some taste is required
for ornamental japanning. There is a good prospect for employment, as
the tin trade has been increasing rapidly in the last two years, and is
likely to, as our country grows older, and depends less on other
countries for a supply. California has created quite a demand in the
last few years, and it is supplied mostly from New York. M., in New
York, told us he and his partner employ some women to japan. They pay
from $3 to $4 a week. They have one woman to do the ornamental work,
painting flowers and gilding. To ornamental painters they pay from $10
to $15 a week. They had a man to whom they often paid $15 a week. Most
of the men that have been employed in ornamental japanning have gone to
painting clocks, which pays better. They sometimes find it difficult to
get hands--so if some women could take it up, they would be likely to
find employment. The painters design as they paint, not using a pattern.
Japanning of the heavy kind could not be done by women. The pieces are
too heavy to lift. B., an ornamental japanner, used to employ women to
put on the pearl scraps, but now employs boys, because he can get them
cheaper and take them as apprentices. He can send them on errands and
make use of them in that way. He pays an apprentice $1.50 a week for one
year, then increases at the rate of fifty cents a week the next year,
and so on. B. thinks no women are employed at it. Women are employed at
such work in Paris. Japanning, he thinks, is not unhealthy, although the
ovens into which japanners must pass are often heated to 260°. The
spirits of tar used in japanning renders it healthy, and consumptives go
frequently into japanning furnaces, feeling that they are benefited by
it. At a firm of japanners, the boy told me they employ an artist to
come and paint for them. They once had a lady that painted landscapes
and flowers on piano boards in oils. They were not baked in a furnace
afterward, but the oil permitted to dry, as with a painting on canvas.
S. used to employ women in making pearl piecework, but it is not much
used now. For painting clocks, not more than six cents a piece is paid
for many. Men are so rapid that they can make money, but women could not
earn more than $2.50 a week. Some men earn $25 a week, and formerly even
$35, at painting the finer clocks; but there are now so many in the
business that wages have fallen, though the business is increasing. At a
tin manufactory in Williamsburg, I saw two girls employed in tying up
goods, and seven girls employed in putting the first coat of paint on
tin ware--grounding, it is called. They are paid from $1.25 up. One
woman they have earns $6 a week. She is an English woman, and has been
at the business nearly all her life. She is quick and skilful. A boy who
paints flowers on tin ware, after the first coat is put on by the girls,
gets $1 a day for his work. Japanning is done in England by women. Many
women are employed through the country, in the Eastern States, in making
tin canisters, &c., and some in japanning; but japanners carry their
work into ovens, which he thought would be too hard for women. Yet he
thinks doing so is not unhealthy. If the employment is unhealthy, it
arises from the evaporation of the turpentine in the paint. The
unhealthiness of the common painter's business arises from the
turpentine, in evaporating, carrying off with it white lead, but no
white lead is employed on the tin ware. Girls are paid by the week. Men,
for graining, a style resembling the graining of wood, and in fact being
the same except on a different material, received $2.50 per day. Male
labor is twice or three times as high in their establishment. Why women
are not better paid the man could not answer, but, like many other men
with whom I have talked, thought it unjust they were not paid at the
same rate as men. Their girls are employed all the year. They work ten
hours a day. They were mostly Americans, and miserably dressed. The work
soils their clothes greatly. They wore old skirts over their dresses to
work in. I think some men and boys work in the same room with them. The
fine work could be well done by them, if they would take time to learn
it efficiently, for it requires taste, ingenuity, and delicacy of touch.
At an ornamental japanner's, I was told it requires three or four years
to learn the business well. A good workman earns from $12 to $18 a week.
It is piecework.
=489. Knitters.= The knitting done by machinery is not so soft, so warm,
or so durable as that done by hand. It is almost impossible to obtain
ladies' hand-knit hose in cities. Gentlemen's are sometimes made by the
Shakers, and bring a very high price. We have no doubt but some old
ladies might even now find it profitable to knit to order, or supply
some store where their goods would be brought forward and disposed of to
those who can appreciate the difference between machine and hand
knitting. The Germans are famous knitters. "The peasant women of the
Channel Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, &c., knit a great deal. They are
seldom, if ever, without the materials for this occupation. On the way
to and from market, and at other times, knitting forms their almost
constant employment." A knitting machine has been invented in Seneca, N.
Y., that is said to knit a perfect stocking in less than five minutes.
Aiken's knitting machines are very popular. We have thought ladies would
do well to try them, and devote themselves to making up hosiery. We
doubt not but it would pay very well. The cloth is knit in a straight
piece, and another lady cuts it into shape and sews into the articles
wanted. A machine has been invented by Mr. Aiken, also, for toeing and
heeling socks. A manufacturer of knit goods writes: "We employ about
twenty hands, one half of whom are girls. Their wages are from $3 to $5
per week, except when working by the piece. Those who run the knitting
machines are paid by the piece, and earn from 75 cents to $1 per day.
Males receive from $1 to $1.75 per day. The work done by them is
generally harder, and such as females could not well do. To effectually
superintend the knitting business would require at least five years. The
part performed by females can be learned in six months. They are paid
while learning, from $2.75 to $3 per week. The business is overdone at
present; although there is always a demand in our section of country for
girls. They work regularly throughout the year, twelve hours in summer,
ten in winter. It would be better for all parties to run their mills
only ten hours per day, and thus tend to keep down the production, and
so keep up the prices to a fair profit. Those tending sewing machines
are generally married, or widows with children, and in general support
their families. Their machines are repaired by a foreman, but with a
little practice they can learn to do it themselves. In other branches
generally pursued by girls, they earn sufficient to dress well, but
seldom accumulate. A location is preferred in some thickly settled
place, on account of getting sewing done by hand, as all the goods are
finished off by hand. After working twelve hours a day, they will be
necessarily rather too much fatigued to go through any mental processes
otherwise than reading a novel. If all the mills of all descriptions
would work ten hours only, and establish evening schools, and request
all to attend, it would greatly elevate them in the social scale. But
selfishness rules, and where one manufacturer would agree to this
arrangement, two would not. Board, $1.50 per week, including washing." A
hose manufacturer in Holderness writes: "We employ about sixty females
in the mill. Work is given out to three hundred. Almost all are
American. Their wages are from $3 to $6 per week. The wages in the
knitting department are not much less for women than men. Women learn
the knitting so as to earn good pay in three months. Women are paid $2
per week for the first four weeks; after that, by the piece. A learner
should be steady and quick with her fingers. The employment is healthy,
as the knitters sit only about half the time. We run all the year eleven
hours a day. There is not female help enough. We are trying women where
men have been employed. I think women are in some respects superior
workers to men." Manufacturers of seamless hosiery, in Connecticut,
write they "pay from $3 to $5 per week, eleven hours a day--that it
requires from six to eight weeks to learn--that their hands have access
to libraries; and board is for men $3, for women $2." At Cohoes, N. Y.,
is a manufactory of shirts, drawers, &c. I have a letter from the
company saying: "We employ two hundred and fifty women, and pay from 40
cents to $1 per day. Some are paid by the piece, and some by the week.
Men receive from 75 cents to $2.50 per day, of twelve hours. The reason
why they obtain better wages is that they do work which women cannot do.
(Query: Do not the women perform work that men cannot do?) Men are
continually learning. Women can learn to perform certain work in a few
days. The best qualifications are soundness of mind and body, activity,
steadiness, quick perception, and a desire to make money. The business
is increasing yearly. Occasionally, in the winter, the mills stop for a
month. There is at present (October, 1860) a surplus of labor. Board,
$1.75 to $2." At L.'s knitting factory, in Brooklyn, the foreman told me
there are six machines in operation, each of which cost between $5,000
and $6,000. The articles made by them are softer than any knitting done
by machine I have seen; but it may be owing to the quality of the wool:
I cannot say. Those working at machines stand, the others sit. The
machine operators receive from $1.50 to $3.50: those in the finishing
room are paid by the piece, and earn from $2 to $5. A foreman
superintends the work and puts the machinery in order. A woman of good
abilities can learn in three months, if the factory is in a position to
put her forward. From May to December is the best time for work. Double
price is paid the hands for night work in busy times. They prefer
American girls, because they are neater. A manufacturer of factory
supplies, in Massachusetts, writes: "We employ thirty women in knitting
loom harnesses. The work is not more unhealthy than any employment that
requires one to sit all the time. They are paid by the piece. The
employment is sure so long as cotton manufacturing is good. The work is
equally good all seasons. Board, $1.62 to $2.25 per week." The secretary
of the Waterbury Knitting Company writes: "We employ one hundred hands,
at from 50 cents to $1 per day, working twelve hours in summer, ten in
winter. Women are paid as well or better than men of the same age;
working by the piece, they are paid the same. The women are not thrown
out of work at any season. Women are inferior in mechanical genius. We
are obliged to keep a man to every fifteen women to overlook them. A
woman will run a knitting machine for seven years, and never be able to
straighten a needle, or knit the cloth slack or tight. A boy or man will
learn to oversee a whole room in half that time. Women cannot be made to
think or act for themselves in the least thing, or in any case to rely
on their own judgment. This is equally true of the stupid Irish, German,
and English, and of the more acute Yankee. Women are superior perhaps in
good looks." S., of Enfield, N. H., has his daughter write: "I use three
of Aikens's knitting machines, and other machinery for making yarn. The
wool is first made into yarn and then knit into webbing, and marked for
heeling and toeing. It is then divided into dozens, and distributed
around the country to be heeled and toed, in which branch we employ
usually five hundred American women. We pay $1 a dozen for heeling and
toeing; for tending the machine, $2 per week, of eleven hours a day.
Women are paid less, because they are not usually as strong as men, and
therefore cannot do the same work, or, if the same kind, not so great an
amount in a limited time. Men can be employed by paying them what they
require, and as they are considered, or rather seem to consider
themselves the 'lords of creation,' they demand higher wages than women.
In four weeks the females can perform their part without trouble.
Learners receive their board. The prospect is good for the same number
employed as at present. The summer season is the best for work. If at
any time there is a want of work, it is in January and February."
=490. Lace Bleachers.= Mrs. L. spent five years learning the business in
Paris. A girl that spent two years learning with her, is now doing well
in the business in St. Louis. She prefers to take learners a week on
trial. She charges from $1 to $1.50 a pair for curtains. The French are
the most successful in that line. She often has thirty or more pair from
a hotel and other large houses. One can make a good living at it. L.
says the work is unhealthy, particularly while the vapor of the
chemicals is warm. The curtains are not wrung out, but the water pressed
out with the hands. The dirt, of course, is first washed out. It
requires strength to handle the goods. Curtains are put on frames to
dry, and women, he says, are not strong enough. It requires strength to
get the extra starch out, as it is done by squeezing. It is surprising
how many objections, as regards health and physical strength required,
can be presented by selfish men, who do not wish women to engage in
their occupations. None but those who have had occasion to test the
matter would believe it possible that the majority of men are so selfish
and unjust in this respect. Another man told me he does all the washing
and drying himself, because he is responsible for the goods, and is not
willing to trust them to strangers. He charges $1 a pair, except for a
very large size. Different kinds of laces require different methods of
washing and ironing.
=491. Lacquerers.= Lacquering is warm work, and in summer is done in
rooms the temperature of which is over 200°. M. thought women could be
employed in burnishing, lacquering, polishing, and bronzing. Girls were
at one time employed in lacquering gas fixtures on William street, New
York; but they were dismissed, because they did not prove steady and
efficient workers. The process previous to lacquering, called dipping,
is dirty work. It requires but a short time to learn to lacquer. F. told
me that in France women do all the fine lacquering, and they do it much
better than men can. They take it home with them to do; and the same
plan could be followed in this country, and probably will be before
long. The finest lacquering, such as ormolu clocks, &c., is done with
gold dust. The varnish must be put on evenly. It requires care and
delicacy of touch. Most of the gas fixtures sold as brass are merely
zinc gilded, and then lacquered--the bronzed part the same metal,
bronzed. Zinc can be bought at six cents a pound--brass is thirty cents
a pound. Mathematical instruments, daguerreotype cases, and gas fixtures
are lacquered. A man earns from $8 to $10 a week, working ten hours a
day. Lacquering, I was told, is not unhealthy, and a person can sit two
or three feet from the fire while at work. A firm in New York,
manufacturing gas fixtures, wrote to us as follows: "Lacquering is a
suitable occupation for women; but we do not employ them, because men
are considered more reliable as to regularity of hours, and are more
easily managed. Women can be made equally good lacquerers with the men;
but when employed by us, some years since, we found, with few
exceptions, that they produced inferior work, owing, as we think, to
want of application. Women are employed in similar establishments to
ours in England and, we learn, in Boston. The employment is not
unhealthy. They are paid by the week in England. It requires from three
to five years to learn the business. Steady application and a good eye
for colors will make a good lacquerer."
=492. Life Preservers.= R. employs two women to stitch his life
preservers with a sewing machine, and pays the usual price of
operatives. None are made South or West. (Would not New Orleans offer an
opening?)