It is possible to exaggerate the extent _Women in Modern Industry

industrial revolution in taking women out of the home. We must remember

that domestic service, the traditional and long-standing occupation of

women, is always carried on away from the home of the worker, and does in

fact (as it usually involves residence) divide the worker from her family

far more completely than ordinary day work. The instances given in Chapter

I. also show that not only agriculture, but various other industries,

afforded employment to women, long before the industrial revolution, in

ways that must have involved "going out to work." To the working classes

it was nothing new to see women work, and, in point of fact, we do not

find even the employment of married women exciting much attention or

disapproval at the outset of the factory system. In the non-domestic

industries the question of the wife taking work for wages was probably

then, as mainly it still is, a poverty question. The irregular employment,

sickness or incapacity of the male bread-winner that result in earnings

insufficient for family maintenance, occurred probably with no less

frequency in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than now,

and these are causes that at all times drive married women to work, if

they can get work to do. The class that felt it most keenly as an evil and

a wrong, were the hand-loom weavers whose earnings were so depressed that

they could not maintain their families, and found at the same time that

the labour of their wives and daughters was more in demand than their own.

Where the industry had been carried on by the family working together,

and, for a time at least, had been sufficiently lucrative to afford a

comparatively high standard of comfort, the disintegration of this

particular type of organisation was, not unnaturally, resented as an

outrage on humanity. The iron regularity of the factory system, the

economic pressure that kept the workers toiling as long as the engines

could run, the fixation of hours, were cruel hardships to a class that had

formed its habits and traditions in the small self-contained workshop, and

made continuous employment a terrible strain on the married woman. As the

home centres round the woman, the problem for the working woman has been,

and is, one of enormous difficulty, involving considerable restatement of

her traditional codes and customs.

Whatever may have been the social misery and disorder brought about by the

industrial revolution, one striking result was an increase in the earning

power of women. Proof in detail of this statement will be given in

Chapter VI.; for the present it will suffice to point to the fact. The

machine, replacing muscular power and increasing the productivity of

industry, does undoubtedly aid the woman in quest of self-dependence. In

the era of the great industry she has become to an increasing extent an

independent wage-earner. Low as the standard of women's wages is, there is

ample proof that it is on the whole higher under the factory system than

under other methods, and as a general rule the larger and more highly

organised factory pays higher wages than the smaller, less well-equipped.

The cotton industry, which took the lead in introducing the factory

system, and is in England by far the most highly organised and efficiently

managed among trades in which women predominate, has shown a remarkable

rise of wages through the last century, and is now the only large industry

in which the average wage of women is comparatively high. Another point is

that factory dressmaking, which has developed in comparatively recent

years, already shows a higher average wage than the older-fashioned

dressmaking carried on in small establishments, and a much smaller

percentage of workers paid under 10s. a week. Monsieur Aftalion, in a

monograph comparing factory and home work in the French clothing trade,

finds wages markedly higher under the factory system. Yet another instance

is offered by Italy, where women's wages are miserably low, yet they are

noticeably higher in big factories than in small.

The development of the single young woman's position through the factory

system has been obscured by the abuses incidental to that system, which

were due more or less to historical causes outside industry. The absence

of any system of control over industrial and sanitary conditions

undoubtedly left many factories to become centres of disease, overwork and

moral corruption, and the victims of this misgovernment and neglect are a

reproach that can never be wiped out. On the other hand, later experience

has shown that decent conditions of work are easier to secure in factories

than in small work places, owing to greater publicity and facility for

inspection. The very fact of the size of the factory, its economic

importance, and its almost dramatic significance for social life, caused

attention to be drawn to, and wrath to be excited by, evil conditions in

the factory, which would have been little noticed in ordinary small work

places.

The initiation of the "great industry" resulted in a kind of searchlight

being turned on to the dark places of poverty. State interference had to

be undertaken, although in flat opposition to the dominant economics of

the day, and the better sort of masters were impelled by shame or worthier

motives to get rid of the stigma that clung to factory employment. Now the

girl-worker has profited by this movement in a quite remarkable degree.

Domestic service is no longer her only outlook, and the conditions of

domestic service have probably considerably improved in consequence. Her

employment is no longer bound up with personal dependence on her own

family, or personal servitude in her employer's.

The wage contract, though not, we may hope, the final or ideal stage in

the evolution of woman's economic position, is an advance from her servile

state in the mediaeval working class, or parasitic dependence on the

family. The transition thus endows her with greater freedom to dispose of

or deny herself in marriage, and is an important step towards higher

racial ideals and development. Grievously exploited as her employment has

been and still is, the evolution of the woman wage-earner, her gradual

achievement of economic individuality and independence, in however limited

a degree, is certainly one of the most interesting social facts of the

time. The remarkable intelligence and ability of Lancashire working people

was noticed by Mrs. Gaskell in _Mary Barton_, as long ago as 1848. And to

this day the Co-operative Movement and the Trade Union Movement flourish

among Lancashire women as they do not anywhere else. The Workers'

Educational Association draws many of its best students from these women

who toil their ten hours in the mill and use their brains for study in the

evening after work is over.

CHAPTER III.

STATISTICS OF THE LIFE AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

No very detailed or elaborate statistics will be here employed, the aim of

this chapter being merely to draw attention to certain broad facts or

relations disclosed by the Census and the Registrar-General's Report.

_The Surplus of Women._--It is a well-known fact that in this country

women exceed men in numbers. The surplus increased slightly but steadily

from 1851 to 1901, and remained almost stationary from 1901 to 1911. In

1901 and 1911 there were in every 1000 persons 484 males and 516 females.

The excess of females varies at different ages. The number of boys born

exceeds the number of girls in a proportion not far from 4 per cent,

sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. But boy infants run

greater risks at birth and appear to be altogether more susceptible to

adverse influences, for their death-rate is usually higher up to 3, 4 or 5

years old. The age-group 5 to 10 varies from time to time; in 1901-1910

the average mortality of girls was the higher: in 1912 the average

mortality of boys was very slightly higher. From 10 to 15 the female

death-rate is higher than the male.

The age-group 15 to 20 shows very curious variations in the relative

mortality of males and females. From 1894 onwards the males of that group

have had a higher mortality than the females, whereas previous to that

date the female mortality was the higher, in all years of which we have a

record save two--1876 and 1890. The Registrar-General can suggest no

explanation of this phenomenon.[19] It may be remarked, however, that

girls generally now obtain more opportunity for fresh air and physical

exercise than in former years, which may account for some of their

comparative improvement in this respect; also that in the industrial

districts a great improvement has taken place in the administration of the

Factory Act since the appointment of women inspectors and the general

raising of the standard after the Act of 1891, and girls may naturally be

supposed to have profited more by this improved administration than have

youths of the other sex, who are not included under the Act when over 18

years, and in many cases pass into industries unregulated by law.

The following table shows the death-rates per 1000 of male and female

persons in England and Wales, 1913, and the ratio of male per cent of

female mortality at age periods, as calculated by the Registrar-General.

DEATH-RATES AT AGES, 1913.

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

|Ages.| M. | F. |Ratio M. per|

| | | | 100 F. |

|-----|-------|-------|------------|

| 0-1| 120 | 96 | 125 |

| 0-5| 39·2 | 32·2 | 122 |

| 5- | 3·1 | 3·1 | 100 |

| 10- | 1·9 | 2·0 | 95 |

| 15- | 2·7 | 2·5 | 108 |

| 20- | 3·5 | 3·0 | 117 |

| 25- | 4·6 | 3·8 | 121 |

| 35- | 8·0 | 6·5 | 123 |

| 45- | 15·0 | 11·5 | 130 |

| 55- | 30·7 | 23·0 | 133 |

| 65- | 64·5 | 51·1 | 126 |

| 75- | 140·4 | 117·5 | 119 |

| 85- | 266·8 | 241·0 | 111 |

|-----|-------|-------|------------|

|Total| 14·7 | 12·8 | 115 |

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

As might be expected from these figures, the Census shows that males are

in excess of females in very early life, but are gradually overtaken, and

in later years especially men are considerably outnumbered by women. The

disproportion of women is mainly due to their lower death-rate, but also

in part to the fact that so many men go abroad for professional or

commercial avocations. Some of these are accompanied by wives or sisters,

but a large proportion go alone.

The disproportion of women is more marked in town districts than in rural

ones. This may be partly due to the lower infant death-rate in the

country, for a high rate of infant mortality on an average affects more

boys than girls. But no doubt the large demand for young women's labour in

factories and as domestic servants is another cause of the surplus of

women in towns. In rural districts there is a surplus of males over

females up to the age of 25. The disproportion of women does not show any

marked tendency to increase except among the elderly, the preponderance

becoming increasingly marked towards old age. It would overload this

chapter too much to give figures illustrating the changes in the last half

century; those who wish to make themselves acquainted with the matter can

refer to the very full and interesting tables given near the end of Vol.

VII. of the Census, 1911.

_Marriage._--The preponderance of young women, though not very

considerable in figures, is, however, in fact a more effective restriction

of marriage than might be expected, because women are by custom more

likely to marry young than men, and thus the numbers of marriageable young

women at any given date exceed the corresponding numbers of men in a

proportion higher than the actual surplus of young women in particular

age-groups.

The old-fashioned optimistic assumption that women will all get married

and be provided for by their husbands, cannot be maintained. It is

possible, however, to be needlessly pessimistic on this head, as in a

certain weekly journal which recently proclaimed that "two out of every

three women die old maids." If we are to regard marriage as an occupation

(an idea with which, on the whole, I disagree), it is still the most

important and extensively followed occupation for women. In 1911 over

6-1/2 millions of women in England and Wales were married, or rather more

than one-half the female population over 15; and considerably more than

one-half of our women get married some time or other. In middle life, say

from 35 to 55, three-fourths of all women are married. In early life a

large proportion are single; in later life a large proportion are widows.

Or we might put it in another way. From the age of 20 to 35, only two out

of every four women are married, nearly all the rest being still single,

and a very small proportion widowed; from 35 to 55, three in every four

women are married; over 55, less than two in every four are married, most

of the others having become widows. The proportion of women married has

increased since the previous Census, but has decreased slightly at all

ages under 45.

The following table displays the proportion married and widowed per cent

of the different age-groups.

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

|--------|--------|---------|---------|

| 15-20 | 99 | 1 | 0 |

| 20-25 | 76 | 24 | 0 |

| 25-35 | 36 | 62 | 1 |

| 35-45 | 20 | 75 | 5 |

| 45-55 | 16 | 71 | 13 |

| 55-65 | 13 | 59 | 28 |

| 65- | 12 | 31 | 57 |

| | | | |

|All ages| 39 | 51 | 10 |

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

If the figures were drawn in curves, it would be seen that the proportion

of single women falls rapidly from youth onwards, and is quite small in

old age; that the proportion married rises rapidly at first, remaining

high for 20 or 30 years, and falls again, forming a broad mound-shaped

curve; while the proportion widowed rises all the way to old age.

It will be seen that, even on the assumption that all wives are provided

for by their husbands, which is by no means universally true, a very

large proportion of women before 35 and after 55 are not thus provided

for, and that an unknown but not inconsiderable proportion never marry at

all. In the case of the educated middle class, as Miss Collet pointed out

in 1892, the surplus of women over men is considerably above the average,

and consequently the prospect of marriage is less in this than in the

working class. "Granted an equal number of males and females between the

ages of 18 and 30, we have not therefore in English society an equal

number of marriageable men and women. Wherever rather late marriage is the

rule with men--that is, wherever there is a high standard of comfort--the

disproportion is correspondingly great. In a district where boy and girl

marriages are very common, everybody can be married and be more or less

miserable ever after: but in the upper middle class equality in numbers at

certain ages implies a surplus of marriageable women over marriageable

men."[20]

In some quarters the adoption of professions, even of the teaching

profession, by women, is opposed on the ground that women are thereby

drawn away from marriage and home-making. It is difficult to understand

how such an objection can be seriously raised in face of the facts of

social life. The adoption of occupations by women may in a few cases

indicate a preference for independence and single blessedness; but it is

much more often due to economic necessity. It is perfectly plain that not

all women can be maintained by men, even if this were desirable. The women

who have evolved a theory of "economic independence" are few compared

with the many who have economic self-dependence forced upon them. Human

nature is far too strong to make it credible that any large number of

women will deliberately decline the prospect of husband, home and children

of their own for the sake of teaching little girls arithmetic or

inspecting insanitary conditions in slums. If a woman has to choose

between marrying a man she cares for and earning her own bread, I am

sentimental enough to believe that nearly all women would choose the

former. The choices of real life are seldom quite so simple. When a woman

has to choose between an uncongenial marriage and fairly well-paid work,

it is quite likely that nowadays she frequently chooses the latter. In

former days the choice might easily have been among the alternatives of

the uncongenial marriage, the charity, willing or unwilling, of friends

and relations, and sheer starvation, not to mention that even the bitter

relief of the uncongenial marriage, usually available in fiction, is not

always forthcoming in real life. The case grows clearer every year, that

women need training and opportunity to be able to support themselves,

though not all women will do so throughout life.

_Occupation._--If we have any doubt of the fact that there is still "a

deal of human nature" in girls and women, we have only to compare the

Census statistics of occupation and marriage. We have already seen that

the numbers married increase up to 45. As the number married increases the

number occupied rapidly falls off. The percentage of women and girls over

15 who are occupied was, in 1911, 35.5; an increase of 1.0 since 1901.

This does not, however, mean that only a little more than one-third of all

women enter upon a trade or occupation. In point of fact a very large

proportion are workers in early youth, as the following tables show. In

order to illustrate the relation of occupation to marriage, we place the

two sets of figures side by side.

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

| |Percentage|Percentage|

| | Occupied.| Married. |

|-----------------|----------|----------|

|Girls aged 10-13 | 1·0 | .. |

| " 13-14 | 11·3 | .. |

| " 14-15 | 38·7 | .. |

| " 15-16 | 57·6 | } |

| " 16-17 | 66·8 | } |

| " 17-18 | 71·9 | } 1·2 |

| " 18-19 | 74·3 | } |

| " 19-20 | 73·4 | } |

|Women aged 20-25 | 62·0 | 24·1 |

| " 25-35 | 33·8 | 63·2 |

| " 35-45 | 24·1 | 75·3 |

| " 45-55 | 23·1 | 70·9 |

| " 55-65 | 20·4 | 58·4 |

| " 65- | 11·5 | 31·3 |

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

The highest percentage of employment therefore occurs at the age of 18.

The next table shows the proportions of workers in age-groups.

WOMEN AND GIRL WORKERS OVER TEN YEARS OLD.

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

| | Number. |Per cent of Total.|

|-------|-----------|------------------|

| 10-15 | 182,493 | 3·8 |

| 15-20 | 1,156,851 | 23·9 |

| 20-25 | 1,037,321 | 21·5 |

| 25-35 | 1,057,275 | 21·9 |

| 35-45 | 604,769 | 12·5 |

| 45-55 | 422,464 | 8·7 |

| 55- | 369,561 | 7·7 |

| |-----------|------------------|

| | 4,830,734 | 100·0 |

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

Over 49 per cent of the total are under 25, and are therefore in ordinary

speech more commonly termed girl than women workers. The rise in the

proportion married compared with the drop in the proportion occupied as

age advances, indicates how strong the hold and attraction of the family

is upon women. Conditions in factories are undoubtedly improved; many a

girl of 20 or 22, perhaps earning 18s. a week, with her club, her classes,

her friends, and an occasional outing, has by no means a "bad time." On

the other hand, the life of the married woman in the working class is

often extremely hard, taking into account the large amount of work done by

them at home, cooking, cleaning, washing, mending and making of clothes,

in the North also baking of bread, tendance of children and of the sick,

over and above and all but simultaneously with the bringing of babies into

the world. Moreover, the working girl is not under illusions as to the

facts of life, as her better-off contemporary still is to some extent.

Taking all this into consideration, the Census results shown above form an

illuminating testimony to the strength of the fundamental human

instincts.

The distribution of women in occupations illustrates both the deeply

rooted conservatism of women and, at the same time, the modifying tendency

of modern industry. The largest groups of women's trades are still their

traditional activities of household work, the manufacture of stuffs, and

the making of stuffs into clothes. Two-thirds of the women occupied are

thus employed.

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

| | Number. | Per cent of |

| | |Total occupied.|

|----------------------------|---------|---------------|

|Domestic offices and service| | |

| (including laundry) |1,734,040| 35·9 |

|Textiles | 746,154| 15·5 |

|Dress | 755,964| 15·6 |

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

It is convenient to picture to oneself the female working population as

three great groups: the domestic group, the textile and clothing group,

and the other miscellaneous occupations, which also form about one-third

of the total. Now, while it is true that the two former groups, the

traditional or conservative occupations of women, are still the largest,

they are not, with the exception of textiles, increasing as fast as

population, whereas some of the newer occupations, the non-textile

industrial processes that have been transformed by machinery and brought

within the capacity of women, are, though much smaller in numbers,

increasing at a rapid rate. The following table shows the change from 1901

to 1911 in the most important industrial groups including women. It

should be read bearing in mind that the increase of the female population

over 10 in the same period is 12·6 per cent.

ENGLAND AND WALES, 1901-1911.

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

| | Numbers. | |

| Occupations of Women |-------------------|Percentage|

| and Girls. | 1901. | 1911. | Change. |

|-----------------------------|---------|---------|----------|

|Domestic offices and service |1,690,722|1,734,040| +2·6 |

|Textiles | 663,222| 746,154| +12·5 |

|Dress | 710,961| 755,964| +6·3 |

|Dressmakers | 340,582| 339,240| -0·4 |

|Tailoresses | 117,640| 127,115| +8·1 |

|Food, drink, and lodging | 299,518| 474,683| +58·5 |

|Paper, books, and stationery | 90,900| 121,309| +33·5 |

|Metals, machines, etc. | 63,016| 101,050| +60·4 |

| over 10 | .. | .. | +12·6 |

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

But even with the occupations I have dubbed "conservative," or

traditional, modern methods are transforming the nature of the work done

by women. The statistical changes in the so-called domestic group are an

interesting illustration of the changes we can see going on in the world

around us. Note especially the tendency towards a more developed social

life outside the home indicated by the large percentage increase in club

service, hotel and eating-house service; the tendency to supersede amateur

by expert nursing, shown in the large increase in hospital and

institutional service; and the slight but perceptible tendency for

household work to lose its domestic character. Not only do the charwomen

show an increase much larger than that of the group total, while the

domestic indoor servant has decreased, but a new sub-heading, "day

servants," has had to be introduced. The laundry is fast becoming a

regular factory industry, and shows a decrease in numbers, no doubt due to

the introduction of machinery and labour-saving appliances.

CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN CERTAIN DOMESTIC OCCUPATIONS.

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

| | | |

| | Numbers. | |

| | | |

| Occupation. |--------------------|Percentage|

| | 1901. | 1911. | |

| | | | |

|-------------------------------|---------|----------|----------|

|Hotel, eating-house, etc. | 45,711| 63,368 | +38·6 |

|Other domestic indoor servants}|1,285,072|1,271,990}| +0·8 |

|Day girls }| | 24,001}| |

|College, club, etc. | 1,680| 3,347 | +99·2 |

|Hospital, institution, etc. | 26,341| 41,639 | +58·1 |

|Caretakers | 13,314| 18,633 | +39·95 |

|Cooks, not domestic | 8,615| 13,538 | +57·1 |

|Charwomen | 111,841| 126,061 | +12·7 |

|Laundry | 196,141| 167,052 | -14·8 |

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

Textiles, which as a whole have increased exactly in proportion to

population, show a great variety in movement. The following shows the

movement in the numerically more important groups.

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

| | Numbers. | Percentage |

| |-------------------| Change. |

| | 1901. | 1911. | |

|----------------------|---------|---------|------------|

| Card-room operatives| 46,135 | 55,488 | +20·3 |

| Spinning | 34,553 | 55,448 | +60·5 |

| Winding, warping | 64,742 | 59,171 | -8·6 |

| Weaving | 175,158 | 190,922 | +9·0 |

| Spinning | 35,782 | 45,310 | +26·6 |

| Weaving | 67,067 | 67,499 | +0·6 |

|Hosiery | 34,481 | 41,431 | +20·2 |

|Lace | 23,807 | 25,822 | +8·5 |

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

In "Dress" the most noticeable feature is that in a decade of rapidly

increasing wealth and certainly of no diminution in the feminine tendency

to adornment and display, the numbers of dressmakers decreased by a few

hundreds. Tailoresses, on the other hand, increased considerably more than

the increase in the whole group, and "Dealers" also show a large increase.

The Census unfortunately throws very little light so far on the

development of the various factory industries for making clothes, and the

Factory Department statistics are now so considerably out of date as to be

of little value. In default of further information we may guess that a

very considerable economy of methods has been effected in the making of

women's clothes by the introduction of machinery and the factory system,

and that some of the large mass of customers of moderate incomes are

tending to desert the old-fashioned working dressmakers and buy ready-made

clothes, which have noticeably improved in style and quality in recent

years. But the older-fashioned methods probably hold the larger part of

the field, even now.

The increasing employment of women in metal trades is certainly a very

remarkable feature of the present Census, the numbers having jumped up

from 63,000 to 101,000 in ten years. The cycle and motor manufactures,

which employed less than 3000 women in 1901, employed not far short of

7000 in 1911. Nearly all the small groups and subdivisions of metal work

show an increase of female employment. For instance, women employed in

electrical apparatus-making increased from 2490 in 1901 to over 9000 in

1911.

The whole subject is one of great interest, as illustrating the progress

of the industrial revolution in the trades affected, but is impossible to

treat here at length.

_The Reaction of Status on Industry._--In spite of the increased range of

occupations open to women, it must be added that the position of woman is

a highly insecure one, and that she is considerably handicapped by the

reaction of status on occupation. We have seen that while most women work

for wages in early life, their work is usually not permanent, but is

abandoned on marriage, precisely at the time of life when the greatest

economic efficiency may be looked for. On the other hand, the superior

longevity of women and the greater risks to which men are exposed, leave

many women widows and unprovided for in middle or even early life. Some

women are unfortunate in marriage, the husband turning out idle,

incompetent, of feeble health or bad habits, and in such circumstances

women may need to return to their work after some years' cessation. But

factory industries and indeed nearly all women's occupations make a

greater demand for the young than for the middle-aged or old. Wages are

supposed to be based upon a single woman's requirements. Even if the

destitute widow or the deserted wife can succeed in obtaining fairly

well-paid work, there emerges the difficulty of looking after her home and

children simultaneously with doing work for wages.

The ordinary view of the subject is that a woman need not be paid as much

as a man, because her requirements are less, and she is likely to be

partially maintained by others. The question of wages will be discussed in

a later chapter, but it may here be pointed out that the facts revealed by

the Census show that the status of women is a very heavy handicap to their

economic position. Normally, women leave their occupation about the time

when they might otherwise expect to attain their greatest efficiency, and

those who return to work in later years are under the disadvantage of

having spent their best years in work which by no means helps their

professional or industrial efficiency, though it may be of the greatest

social usefulness. If a woman cannot expect to be paid more than the

commercial value of her work when she has children entirely dependent on

her, it seems inconsistent that she should be expected to take less than

the value of her work when she is partially maintained at home; surely the

wiser course would be to strive to raise the standard of remuneration so

as to benefit those who have the heavier obligations.

The same kind of thoughtless inconsistency is seen in dealing with the

problem of married women's work. Many observers of social life are struck

by the fact that it is sad and in some cases even disastrous for a woman

to go out to work and leave her infant children unprotected and untended.

The proposal is constantly forthcoming to prohibit married women's

employment. But many persons, even those who dislike the employment of

married women, think that when a woman is left a widow, the best thing is

to take her children away from her and get her into service.[21] In point

of fact, the young children of a widow need quite as much care and

attention as those who have a father living; and neither a married woman

nor a widow can give her children that care and attention if she is

without the means of subsistence.

The pressure on widows to seek employment, whatever their home ties, is

seen with tragic pathos even in the bald figures of the Census.

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

|--------------------|-------|--------|--------|------|

| and girls occupied| 54·5 | 10·26 | 30·1 | 32·5 |

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

Although widows in the very nature of the case are older on an average

than married women, although the whole tendency of modern industry is

towards the employment of the young, yet the percentage of widows occupied

is three times as great as the percentage of married who are occupied.

There are no short and easy paths to the solution of the difficulties of

woman, but those who uphold such measures as the prohibition of employment

to married women, are bound to consider, firstly, how the prohibition

should be applied in cases where the male head of the family is not

competent or sufficiently able-bodied to support it; secondly, whether

the children of widows can flourish on neglect any better than the

children who have a living father, and, if not, why it is more desirable

for the widow than for the married woman to go to work outside her home

and away from her children.

_Conclusion._--The following points summarise the results obtained from a

study of the statistics in regard to women, supplemented by facts of

common knowledge. Women outnumber men, especially in later life. Not all

women can marry. A large majority of girls and a small minority of adult

women work for wages. A large majority of women marry some time or other.

The majority of young women leave work when they marry. Some women depend

upon their own exertions throughout life, and some of them have

dependents. Some women, after being maintained for a period by their

husbands, are forced again to seek work for wages; and many of these have

dependents.

CHAPTER IV.

WOMEN IN TRADE UNIONS.

_Early Efforts at Organisation._--It is probably not worth while to spend

a great deal of time in the endeavour to decide what part women played in

the earlier developments of trade unionism, very little information being

so far obtainable. It seems, however, not unlikely that some of the loose

organisations of frame-work knitters, woollen weavers, etc., that existed

in the eighteenth century and later, may have included women members, as

the Manchester Small-Ware Weavers certainly did in 1756, and Professor

Chapman tells us that women were among the members of the Manchester

Spinners' Society of 1795. At Leicester there appears to have been an

informal organisation of hand-spinners, called "the sisterhood," who in

1788 stirred up their male friends and acquaintances to riot as a

demonstration against the newly introduced machines.[22] We find some

women organised in the unions that sprang up after the repeal of the

Anti-Combination Act in 1824. The West Riding Fancy Union was open to

women as well as men, and although the General Association of Weavers in

Scotland expressly excluded female apprentices from membership it added

the proviso, "except those belonging to the weaver's own family."

In December the Lancashire Cotton Spinners called a conference at Ramsey,

Isle of Man, to consider the question of a national organisation. The

immediate motive of the conference was the failure of a disastrous six

months' strike at Hyde, near Manchester, which convinced the leaders that

no local unions could succeed against a combination of employers. At the

Ramsey Conference, after nearly a week's discussion, it was agreed to

establish a "Grand General Union of the United Kingdom," which was to be

subject to an annual delegates' meeting and three national committees. The

Union was to include all male spinners and piecers, the women and girls

being urged to form separate organisations. The General Union lasted less

than two years.[23]

A few years later, in 1833, an attempt which met with limited success was

made by Glasgow spinners to procure the same rates of pay for women as for

men, in spite of the masters' protest that the former did not turn out so

much or so good a quality of work as the latter. No doubt the men's action

was taken chiefly in their own interests. Many of the male operatives

objected altogether to the employment of women as spinners and for a time

hindered it in Glasgow, though shortly after the great strike of 1837 as

many women were spinning there as men. In Manchester women were spinning

in 1838, and, indeed, had done so from early times. One regrets to note

that they acted as strike-breakers (along with five out of thirty-three

male spinners) in a mill belonging to Mr. Houldsworth, as the latter

reported in evidence to the Committee on Combinations of Workmen. A

representative of the Spinners' Association, Glasgow, J. M'Nish, gave some

rather interesting evidence before the same Committee. He said it was not

the object of the association that the employment of women should cease,

although they were "not fond of seeing women at such a severe employment,"

but it was their object to prevent the women from being "paid at an under

rate of wages, if possible." Although the women spinners were not members

of the association, they were in the habit of appealing to it for advice

in the complicated business of reckoning up their rates of pay, and the

association had occasionally advised them to strike for an advance.[24]

Some years later women were to be found among the members of the Spinners'

Unions in Lancashire. Objections were raised to their employment on the

grounds of health and decency, as the spinning-rooms were excessively hot

and work had to be done in the lightest possible attire. Probably the

strongest objection was the danger to wages and to the customary standard

of life through women's employment. The feeling was that women would not

resist the encroachment of the masters, that their customary wage was low,

and that many of them were partially supported at home, consequently that

when men and women were employed together on the same kind of work, the

wages of men must fall. The hand-loom weavers of Glasgow would not admit

adult women to their society, though many were in fact working; and the

warpers discouraged women warpers. In 1833, however, the Glasgow women

power-loom weavers are said to have had a union under the direction of

the male operatives.[25]

The great outburst of unionism in 1833-34 fostered by Owen, the formation

of a "Grand National Consolidated Trades Union" did not leave the women

untouched. A delegates' meeting was held in February 1834 at which it was

resolved that the new body should take the form of a federation of

separate trade lodges, usually of members of one trade, but with provision

for "miscellaneous lodges," in places where the numbers were small, and

even for "female miscellaneous lodges." Within a few weeks or months this

union obtained an extraordinary growth and expansion. About half a million

members must have joined, including tens of thousands of farm labourers

and women, and members of the most diverse and heterogeneous classes of

industry. Among the women members we hear of lodges for tailoresses,

milliners and miscellaneous workers. Some women gardeners and others were

prominent in riots at Oldham. At Derby women and children joined with the

men in refusing to abandon the union and were locked out by their

employers. The Grand National endeavoured to find means to support them

and find employment, but the struggle, though protracted for months, ended

in the complete triumph of the employers. The Grand National did not long

survive.

In some of the strikes and disturbances that took place in the following

years there is clear evidence that women took part, but very little can be

ascertained as to their inclusion in unions beyond the bare fact that the

Cotton Power-Loom Weavers' Union, as is generally stated, has always had

women members. In cotton weaving the skill of women is almost equal to

men's, in some cases even superior; and as the power-loom came more and

more into use, women were more and more employed, as we have seen. The men

had thus in their industry an object lesson of the desirability of

association and combination in the interests of both sexes. A Weavers'

Union of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1840 on the occasion of

the Stockport strike. But the establishment of unions on a sound basis was

a little later, about the middle of the century.

_Cotton Weavers._--Numerous strikes occurred in Lancashire about the

middle of the nineteenth century, and several unions of cotton weavers

formed in those years are still in existence. The first sound organisation

of power-loom weavers was established at Blackburn in 1854, but the

Padiham Society and the Radcliffe Society can trace their existence back

to 1850. The organisation of cotton weavers thenceforward proceeded

rapidly. The Chorley weavers date from 1855, the Accrington Society from

1856, Darwen and Ramsbottom from 1857, Preston, 1858, Great Harwood and

Oldham and District, 1859. The East Lancashire Amalgamated Society was

also formed in 1859, and was afterwards known as the North-East Lancashire

Amalgamated Society.

For many years, however, contributions were too small to admit of forming

an adequate reserve, and before 1878 the unions were not really effective.

A number of local strikes about that date led the Union officials to

perceive that higher contributions were necessary for concerted action,

and cases of victimising of officials brought home the need for larger

Unions with officials who could be placed beyond the risk of

victimisation. The new demands made upon the workers no doubt caused some

dismay. Some members were lost at first, but most of these returned after

a few months. In course of time the weavers have built up an organisation

which as far as women are concerned is without parallel in this country.

The Weavers' Amalgamation was formed in 1884. It includes 38 districts in

Lancashire and Yorkshire, and one or two in Derbyshire, with nearly

200,000 members, the majority being women. In one or two districts

political forces have favoured the growth of rival Unions outside the

Amalgamation, and these also include a large proportion of women. This

division in the weavers' camp is greatly to be regretted, but the rival

societies do not appear so far to have done any great harm to the great

Amalgamation, whose lead they usually follow, save in political matters,

and from whose influence they, of course, indirectly benefit considerably,

though they pay no contributions to its funds.

Piece rates in textile trades are extremely complicated. The lists and

exceptions are indeed so technical in their nature that many of the

operatives themselves do not understand them, and it is quite possible

that some employers do not fully grasp the working of the lists.

The weaving operation begins when the warp, or the longitudinal threads of

the piece to be woven, has been fixed in position on the loom. The threads

used for the warp are what in spinning are called "twist." These long

threads, or "ends" as they are sometimes called, when placed on the loom

pass through the openings of the "reed," a sheet of metal cut like a comb

into spaces of the width required for the special coarseness or fineness

of the material to be woven. The twist also passes through loops known as

"healds." Thus the first element to be taken into account is the thickness

of the threads of the warp, the number of threads going to make up an inch

of width, and the total width of the piece to be woven. The work of the

loom is to throw across the warp the cross threads or "weft." These

threads are carried in the shuttle which flies to and fro and passes over

and under the warp threads alternately, or at such angles and intervals as

are provided for by the arrangement of the warp in the "healds" and

"reed." The weft or cross threads are termed "picks." Thus the second

element in determining the price is the fineness and closeness of the

weft. The fineness is determined by the number of counts of the yarn. The

closeness may be determined by counting the number of threads or picks in

a given length actually woven, or by a calculation based upon the

mechanical action of the machine. In many cases the number of picks can be

easily settled by counting, but in almost every instance the most exact

method is by calculation, based upon the sizes and divisions of the wheels

and of the "beam" in the loom. The "beam" is the bar or pole round which

the cloth is rolled in process of weaving. The third element is the total

length woven, and a fourth is the nature and quality of the material used.

This latter is an especially important element in price. The smaller the

openings in the "reed" through which the threads pass, the finer and

closer the crossing of the weft, the greater in number and more delicate

are the threads to be watched by the weaver, and the greater is the

liability to breakage of threads. Closer attention and greater dexterity

are needed in the weaving of fine than of coarse materials, but on the

other hand the weaving of the coarser yarns may mean harder physical

labour though not requiring so much skill. The harder work is paid for at

an increased rate, though less wages may be earned by the operative.

The weavers' work is to fetch the cops of weft (unless they have tenters

or assistants to do the fetching and carrying), keep the shuttles full,

and repair broken threads. The standard upon which the uniform list is

based is calculated on the capacity of an ordinary loom, forty-five inches

in the reed space, weaving according to certain particulars given in the

list, which are somewhat too technical to set down here. The standard

conditions are in practice varied in every conceivable way, and exceptions

of every kind have to be provided for by making additions and deductions

per cent. There are also subsidiary lists for special kinds and qualities,

and local lists for special characters of goods made in certain districts.

To find the price of weaving the various allowances have to be deducted or

added one by one. A minute fraction of a penny per yard may make a

perceptible difference in a weaver's earnings.

These lists are a comparatively modern development, and date from the time

of the labour troubles mentioned above. In 1853 the Blackburn Society

prepared a list of uniform prices for weavers as a basis for a permanent

agreement. This list was based upon prices previously paid at the various

mills in the town, on an average of a month's earnings. The Blackburn list

was in operation till 1892, and was the most important of all the lists

regulating weavers' wages. It was then, with many others, replaced by the

uniform list, which is now generally recognised throughout Lancashire,

but rates for some subsidiary processes are still regulated by local

lists.

The complication of these lists has necessitated a high degree of

specialised skill in the secretaries, who must possess practical and

intimate experience of the work and a competent knowledge of arithmetic

for elaborate calculations. Subjects of complaint and suspected

miscalculations can be referred to the secretary, who immediately inquires

into the matter. If he considers the complaint justified or the

calculations incorrect, he visits the mill and puts the case before the

employer. The matter can very likely be settled amicably, as in point of

fact these matters often are, but if dispute occurs, it is referred first

to the local association, and may be settled by negotiation. In case of

failure there is a machinery needless to detail here by which meetings of

employer and employed can be arranged through successively higher grades

of representative authority, until in the last resort, if all attempts at

settlement fail, a strike is called. The impressive feature about all this

negotiation from our present point of view is that the whole strength of

the Union, the brains and time and care of the secretary, can be invoked

for the protection of the woman, the youthful or childish worker, as much

as for the adult skilled worker at a craft.

Cases of wrongful withholding of earnings, as for instance unfair fines,

can be taken into the County Courts. In at least one district the

secretary has successfully asserted the right to visit the mill and

inspect cloth, when the employer claims deductions. The cotton weavers'

secretaries have in fact to play a part not unlike that of the solicitor

in other social grades. They have to look after their clients' interests,

protect them from fraud and injury, and advise them in cases of doubt as

to their legal rights and position.

A fertile source of trouble is in bad cotton. Most of us have probably

laughed over the story of the pious weaver in the cotton famine who prayed

for supplies of raw material, "but, O Lord, not Surats!" The matter is far

from amusing to the workers themselves. Every breakage of a thread means

that their wages are stopped by so much, and defective material means that

they have to work harder and with more harass and interruption, and

accomplish less in the time. If inferior material is persistently

supplied, the cotton-workers consider themselves entitled to an increase

of 5 per cent or 7-1/2 per cent on earnings, and it is the secretaries'

duty to get it for them.

It is perhaps worth while to note the peculiar sense given in Lancashire

speech to the expression "bad work." In Lancashire "bad work" means bad

cotton, and is actually so used in the terms of an agreement between

employer and employed as a subject for compensation to the worker.

Constant anxious care is needed to safeguard the payment of wages. A

Weavers' Local Association advises their members that "whenever the earned

wages of a female or young person is being detained for being absent or

leaving work, except to the amount of damage their employer has sustained

in consequence, such a young person should at once lay their case before

the Committee."[26] Even at the present time it is not unknown for a girl

to be fined to the amount of a whole week's earnings, but, as my informant

added, such a case is now rare. As a rule the Trade Union Secretary will

be appealed to, will take the steps necessary, and the fine will be

returned or considerably reduced.

Any one who is used to considering the case of the girl and women worker

in the unorganised trades of London or other great towns, any one who has

read in the Women Factory Inspectors' Reports of the difficulty of

enforcing the Truck Act and of the special proneness of the woman worker

to be oppressed and cheated out of what is morally or even legally her

due, will appreciate at once the extraordinary difference between her

position and that of the cotton weaver who is backed up by her

Association, and has an expert adviser to appeal to.

The position of women (and of course of other members also) has been

greatly improved since the early days of power-loom weaving by the greater

financial strength and security of the Unions. The history of the Burnley

weavers is instructive on this point. The Union dates from about 1870, and

started with a few hundred members on penny contributions. Numbers,

however, increased, in spite of some troubles and persecution from

individuals of the employing class. In 1878, Lancashire, as we have seen,

was involved in a great industrial struggle. The Burnley Society, on its

penny contributions, was unable adequately to sustain its members through

the crisis, and only survived the crisis after a very severe strain. It

was decided to adopt a sliding scale of payments and higher contributions,

with the result that a good reserve was established, and benefits were

granted on a higher scale. Considerable sums are paid not only in this,

but in other Unions for breakdown or stoppage of work from various causes,

such as fire, accident, or failure of trade, stoppage of machinery for

repairs, dissolution of partnership, etc. The weavers give benefit to

members losing work through scarcity of cotton, or waiting for wefts or

warps. Whether it is altogether wise from the tactical point of view for

trade associations to devote so much of their funds to provident purposes

of this nature is not a question I propose to discuss; the relevant point

is the economic security given to the worker. The following shows the

contributions graded according to benefit, and the benefit accruing either

for strikes brought on by the Society's action, or for stoppage of work at

the mill.

CHORLEY WEAVERS.

Weekly Payments. Benefits.

1d. per week (Tenters). 1/6 per week.

3d. " 7/6 "

4d. " 11/ "

5d. " 13/6 "

6d. " 16/ "

The Weavers' Unions do not, as a rule, pay sick or maternity benefit save

under the Insurance Act. On the other hand, funeral benefit appears to be

the invariable custom, and disablement through accident also entitles

members to benefit. A penny per member per week is paid to the

Amalgamation towards a Central Strike Fund, the remainder of the

contributions being in the hands of the local branch.

* * * * *

The unusual strength of this Union, combining men and women in a single

organisation, seems to be due in the first place to the increasing local

concentration of the industry. In towns where many large mills are placed

near together the ease and rapidity with which a secretary can call a

meeting is surprising. In the second place, it must be remembered that

the organisation of women has been of great importance to the men, the

women forming the majority of the workers. It has been worth the men's

while to consider the women, and so far at least as the economic position

is concerned, they have done it with considerable effectiveness. The

organisation is utterly dependent on the membership and solidarity of

women, and it has successfully safeguarded their economic interests, but

it has been built up mainly by the initiative and under the control of a

minority of men.

As a general rule, in spite of the exceptional success of the Weavers'

Unions in retaining the continued membership of women, the fact remains

that it is still unusual for women to be actively interested in the work

of organisation. As a general rule the women rarely attend meetings unless

they have a special grievance to be removed, and they seldom nominate one

of themselves for the Committee. There are places where no woman has ever

been nominated at all. This is a subject of regret and surprise, not only

to the secretaries, but to those women here and there who are themselves

keenly interested. These would fain see women representatives on the

Committee, and some proportion of women acting as secretaries and

collectors. Such women feel strongly that "we need the two points of

view," and it is disheartening and incomprehensible to them to find that

they cannot get their women friends to turn up at meetings and support the

nomination of a woman. There appears to be little ground for the

supposition that men would object to share their Committee labours with

women, and even if they did, it is obvious that in an industry where women

predominate, the latter could have no difficulty in packing the Committee

with their own representatives. In all these weavers' Unions the women

have precisely the same rights and privileges as men. All positions are

open to women, and women command a majority of votes. It is not the men's

fault that the management so often is mainly left in their hands.

If we enquire as to the reasons for this apathy among women-workers, a

great many can be given. One is the danger of victimisation, which may

fall very hardly on collectors and Committee members. Another is the

fatigue of the long day in the mill, the natural desire for a little

amusement, or the amount of house-work to be done. Lancashire women are

"house-proud" to an extraordinary degree, and cannot be satisfied without

a high standard of comfort in such matters as cleanliness, food, and

furniture. All this means work, and though the high wages current in the

cotton towns might seem to make it possible to pay for household help,

such help is not very easy to come by. Domestic service has hitherto been

demanded only by a limited class in the community, because very few

outside that class could afford to pay for it. A highly paid industry like

the cotton trade makes servants scarce, and anything like a general demand

for domestic help on a broad democratic scale could not possibly be

satisfied as things are now. Even help in washing is not easily had. So

the Lancashire woman or girl contrives to work her ten hours in the mill,

and come back to a second day's work in the evening, with such assistance

as may be given by the older members of the family. Lancashire is really

suffering from the service question in an acute form, so acute that it is

taken for granted it cannot be answered. A surprising part of the matter

is that a class of women so intelligent, so industrious, and

comparatively so well-paid, should not ere this have made a concerted

demand for better labour-saving devices in their houses.

But after all the domestic difficulty does not explain the whole problem

of woman's apathy and indifference in Trade Unions. Supposing the meeting

occurs only once a quarter, as in some places, house-work cannot be an

insuperable obstacle to attendance at such rare intervals. One weaver told

me she had been "bread-winner, nurse, and cleaner" at home, and yet had

found time to attend meetings. Probably the real explanation of the

attitude of women generally towards the Union is to be found in their

education and outlook. Lloyd Jones, in his life of Robert Owen, explained

the failure of the early co-operative societies by the fact that at that

time the working-class had no habit of association. The old forms had

gone; the new had been legally suppressed. Under the changed conditions of

modern life the working-class has had to evolve a new set of social habits

and a new code of social duty. The habit of association has developed more

slowly among women than among men, because to some extent it does

undeniably come in conflict with the traditional moralities of women. To a

great many women the idea of home duty means duty within the home; they

are only beginning to find out by slow degrees that their home is largely

dependent for its very existence on outside impersonal forces about which

it is incumbent on the home-maker to know something, even if she has to go

outside to get knowledge. The Weavers' Secretary, even in Lancashire,

still finds that "females are a deal more arduous to organise than males";

he supposes, because "they've been brought up to be different." They cost

more in collecting expenses, and the propensity of girls to get married,

to leave work or change their occupation is a constant source of anxiety.

"They are always on the move," and perpetual watchfulness is needed to

enrol the young ones as they enter the mill. Tact and diplomacy are

expended in inducing the women-workers to keep an eye on the younger

members, to bring them in as early in their industrial careers as

possible. Even such homely arguments as "it saves your money from stamps,"

are not disdained in the effort to persuade the women to use their own

personal influence to keep the flame alive. Small commissions are given to

a member of a Union who brings in a new member. But without commissions

women do a good deal of recruiting in the mills. The Lancashire cotton

Unions do not run themselves; their efficiency is very largely the result

of constant watchfulness and patient effort on the part of the officials,

backed up by the pluck, tenacity, and high standard of comfort of the

Lancashire woman herself.

A strong feeling, however, is now arising that there is a need for

organisation of women within the Union, to induce them to come out more,

to take more pains to understand the civic machinery of life which so

largely controls their work, their livelihood, and the possibilities of

health and strength both for themselves and their children. There is

always a splendid remnant in Lancashire who feel themselves to be

citizens; but a more general movement seems now to be beginning. This

movement is partly due to economic changes in the distribution of the

industry. Some mills nowadays employ scarcely any men. Such are mills or

sheds for ring-winding, cop-winding, reeling and beaming, occupations

exclusively appropriated to women. In such mills there will be a man

employed as overlooker, and a mechanic to repair or look after the

machines, and there is or should be a man or strong lad to carry the

"skips," But the industry itself is here carried on by women, and in such

cases women often develop powers hitherto latent for undertaking the

Committee work and management of the Union. The same thing happens in

districts where the demand for male labour in other occupations is

sufficiently urgent to draw men away from weaving altogether.

At Wigan the Committee is wholly staffed by women. At Stockport all but

the president, secretary, and one member are women. At Oldham about half

the Committee are women. In the largest centres of the industry things are

moving more slowly. In one very large and important Union the first woman

representative has recently been elected to the Committee. At Blackburn

two places on the Committee are now appropriated to the winders and

warpers, who are all women; this has the effect of reserving two places

exclusively for women. Here also the practice obtains of appointing a

worker in each mill as a representative of the Union, to keep the

secretary in touch with what is going on, and about twenty women, chosen

chiefly from the winders, now fill the post of mill representative. The

Insurance Act also has had the indirect effect of bringing in a certain

number of women as sick visitors or pay stewards. Women are thus gradually

being drawn forward, with results that indicate that custom is to blame

for their previous isolation, rather than any inherent incapacity or

unwillingness on their part.

There is a good deal that men might do to meet the women half-way. The

secretary may regretfully remark that the women members make no use of the

handsome institute and comfortable rooms that are at the disposal of all

members of a Union, but the women complain privately that there is no room

appropriated to their use. This is felt as a difficulty by women, while it

is unnoticed and unconsidered by men. However heartily one may agree that

men and women would be better for the opportunities of social intercourse

such as an institute provides, however much one may wish to see women

making use of its amenities yet, as a beginning, perhaps always, it would

obviously be advisable to set apart for them a sitting-room of their own.

Women would like to go in to look at the papers and so on, but are

deterred by the idea that they are not expected, or not wanted, or that

their appearance may cause surprise in the minds of their male colleagues.

"They did stare a bit, but they weren't a bit disagreeable," one woman

weaver remarked after having valiantly entered her own institute and read

her own magazines. Pioneers may do these doughty deeds; the average young

woman, even in Lancashire, is singularly shy in some ways, however much

the reverse she may appear in others. There is no doubt that social life

in England suffers from the unwholesome segregation of women from the

affairs of the community. They are too much cut off from the interests of

men, most of which ought rather to be the interests of human beings. The

beginnings of better things are now being made, but comradeship and

consideration on both sides are needed.

A movement for shorter hours is going on in the Cotton Operatives' Unions,

and has been sympathetically regarded for many years by the Women Factory

Inspectors, who realise the intensity of the work in cotton factories as

few outsiders can do. The actual operations of joining threads, removing

cops, replacing shuttles and so forth are not in themselves very

laborious. The strain occurs in the long hours the women are at work, most

of them having to stand all the time, and the close attention that has to

be given. Every broken thread means _pro tanto_ a stoppage of wages, and

eyes and fingers have to be constantly on the alert to see and do

instantly what is necessary. All this time, in most cases, the women are

on their feet; all this time, in many cases, breathing an unnaturally

heated air, sickened by the disagreeable smell of the oil and size, the

ceaseless din of machinery in their ears, dust and fluff continually ready

to invade the system. In recent years the increased speed has enormously

increased the strain of work. It would seem that here is a clear case for

shorter hours by law, but strange to say in practice some women are found

to be rather nervous about such a measure. I know one highly intelligent

girl who fears that shorter hours may mean increased speed, and thinks

that that would be "more than flesh and blood could bear." Others fear a

loss in earnings. These fears, however, are not shared by all, and after

considerable discussion with different persons, I incline to hope that

they are not justified. It is, of course, true that in the cotton trade

conditions are very different from those in certain trades where shorter

hours have resulted in an actual increase of output. The machinery is of

enormous value, and is already speeded up to such an extent that no great

increase of output on the present machines seems possible or thinkable. On

the other hand, there might quite possibly be a very much smaller deficit

on shorter hours than the uninitiated would expect. One result would

probably be a greater regularity of output through the day. Girls will own

that they literally cannot keep going all the time, that they are forced

to relax at intervals, and they add; "if we had shorter hours we should be

able to work right through." There are masters who think the early morning

hours' work is hardly worth the trouble. The Trade Union secretaries with

many years' knowledge and experience of the working of the Factory Acts

behind them, do not fear any permanent reduction of wages. A forty-eight

hours' week, or an eight hours' day would quite likely result in

diminished earnings for the first few weeks or months. But given time to

work itself out, it would regularise production and tend to smooth out

alternatives of "glut" and slack time. A second probable result would be

some increase in piece rates, and the workers would in no wise be worse

off. No doubt this change will meet with considerable resistance, but

judging by past history, it will probably not cause any permanent injury

to the interests of either labour or capital.

_Winders._--Winding is the process of running the yarn off the spinner's

cop on to a "winder's bobbin." There are two processes, "cop-winding" and

"ring-winding," the latter being a comparatively new process. The winders,

though included usually in the same unions with weavers, are far less

strongly organised. Neither process has as yet a uniform list, but the

cop-winders have lists which cover large areas. The ring-winders are still

less protected, and as a result they are underpaid.

Increasing discontent among the winders at Blackburn lately caused a

demand for direct representation on the Committee. The position is

curious, there being a woman winder and a warper now serving on the

Committee while the weavers, a larger and better paid body of women, are

represented only by men. Winding is said to be harder and worse paid than

weaving, and "driving" has been introduced in recent years. "If there is

one operative who earns the money she receives it is the winder."[27]

Nevertheless, there are some women who cannot stand the strain of weaving,

and take to winding. Further enquiry into this apparent inconsistency

elicited the fact that winding, although hard and monotonous work with its

continual removing cops and joining threads, is in some ways a less

continuous, unremitting strain than weaving.[28] Winders do not often work

on Saturday morning, and they may occasionally have short intervals of

rest. They also have the chance of promotion to be a warper, a post which

admits of much more sitting down than either of the other two, and is

consequently coveted.

The defective organisation of the winders appears to be due to the absence

of men among the ranks. The close community of interests which produced

the exceptional success of the Weavers' Union has been lacking, and the

winders appear to have been overlooked. Faults in quality or mistakes made

in the spinning-room are often credited to the winder, beamer or reeler.

It is, however, constantly pointed out in the reports of the Amalgamation

that they have the remedy in their own hands, and should organise more

strongly to get the advantages enjoyed by the weavers. The recent

awakening at Blackburn, indicated above, is a most hopeful sign. At

Stockport also, the secretary is making a special effort to organise the

winders, and at Padiham it has recently been proposed to give them special

representation on the Committee as at Blackburn.

_Card-room Operatives._--Unions of card- and blowing-room operatives began

to accept women members about 1870, or a little later. Women are now

organised in the same Union with men, and form about 90 per cent of the

workers. The work forms part of the process of preparing cotton for

spinning, and is heavy and dangerous in character. The conditions under

which, and the purposes for which, benefit is granted resemble those of

the weavers' Unions. The organisation of card-room operatives was greatly

improved from 1885 to 1890 or 1894, and may be now considered to have

reached a condition of comparative permanence and stability. The usual

complaint is, however, made that women are apathetic and take little

interest in Union affairs. This state of things is keenly regretted by the

secretary, who would gladly see women members on the Committee. The

difficulties in effective organisation of industries with so large a

proportion of young and irresponsible workers are seen in a recent report

of a card-room operatives' society. "Ring-room doffers are about the most

difficult class we have to deal with in the matter of keeping them

organised, and we can only assume, as most of them are young persons, that

it is mostly their parents who are to blame for this apparent

carelessness. So we appeal to the parents of this class of operative to

take a keener interest in the welfare of those for whom they are

responsible, and would remind them that the writer of this article well

remembers the time when this class of operative was looked upon as well

paid at 5s. 2d. per week, while at the present time the lowest wage paid

to our knowledge is 9s. 3d., an advance of 4s. 1d. per week. Surely the

few coppers required could easily be spared from this advance, and the

benefits returnable are as good an investment as it is possible to find."

Card-room operatives have usually been regarded as socially somewhat

inferior to the weavers, the work being more arduous and done in more

dangerous conditions and the women usually of a rougher class. It seems,

however, probable that this condition is changing. Card-room work is

becoming more popular as comparatively good wages come at an earlier age

than in weaving. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of

effective organisation to this class of workers. In its absence the large

proportion of women can be taken advantage of to lower conditions of work

all round. Closer co-operation with Unions of other classes of workers

might be very useful, especially on the question of speeding up. The

card-room operatives are speeded and "rushed," working under high

pressure, and at the same time the winder, beamer and warper complain of

bad cotton, and the weaver strikes on account of the same grievance.

Surely the remedy is obvious.

Ring-spinners are often included in the same Union with card-room

operatives, and quite recently a special effort has been made to improve

the organisation of ring-room workers. A "universal list" was obtained in

1912.[29]

_Other Workers._--Outside the cotton operatives there are a comparatively

small number of women organised with men in Unions of varying strength and

effectiveness. As regards linen and jute there is a Union at Dundee which

includes over 5000 women, but appears to have made little progress in

numbers in quite recent years. The secretary states that the majority of

women in the jute trade have very little conception of what Trade Unionism

really means, but that the same applies also to many of the men. He

considers that the women's outlook has become broadened within recent

years. There are some women now serving on the Committee, and the women

generally are reported to take a "fair amount of interest" in the work of

the society. The other Unions belonging to this industry are scattered

over Ireland and Scotland.

Wool and worsted is backward in organisation, both for men and women. The

Union at Huddersfield includes 4000 women, but a correspondent writes that

the General Union, which has branches in all the important textile centres

of the West Riding, in actual strength is scarcely one in ten of its

possible membership. The apathy of the women, in the Huddersfield district

at all events, cannot be due to poverty, for the subscriptions are low

while the women's average wage is high. Nor is it due to the temporary

nature of women's work, for in this district many continue work after

marriage. The Yorkshire women are said by one correspondent to take little

interest in public affairs in any way; by another, "not as much as they

should, but more than they used to do. It's a big work organising and

keeping women in. Marriage, flightiness, lack of vision, lack of help and

encouragement from fathers and brothers all tend to make it hard. The

lower the wages, the harder the task of making them into Unionists." The

difficulty of organising them is great, and outside Huddersfield they are

extremely badly paid--so badly, indeed, that in our correspondent's

opinion the trade needs to be scheduled under the Trade Boards Act. At

Bradford considerable efforts have been made from time to time to get the

women into the Union, but these have failed; and even during the last

boom, due to the flourishing state of trade and to the Insurance Act, very

little progress has been made.

The Clothing Unions are making rapid progress, including nearly 10,000

women in 1912, and the Trade Boards will assist the movement. In Leeds

there has been some natural indignation at the low minimum fixed, which

has impelled to organisation. The Unions follow the Lancashire pattern in

organising women along with men. The standard rate for women in the

Amalgamated Society of Clothiers operatives at Leeds is 4d. an hour, which

is held to be achieved if the piece rates yield as much to 70 per cent of

any section or grade of work. In the Boot and Shoe Unions a considerable

percentage increase was registered for 1910 to 1912, and the numbers

reached 8720 in the latter year.

Printing offers some of the most difficult problems connected with the

organisation of women.[30] Men in these trades have undeniably offered

serious obstacles to the inclusion of women. In 1886 a Conference of

Typographical Societies of the United Kingdom and of the Continent, held

in London, being "of the opinion that women are not physically capable of

performing the duties of a compositor," resolved to recommend their

admission to societies upon the same conditions as journeymen, to be paid

strictly the same rate. This resolution was adopted by the London Society

of Compositors, and it became practically impossible for a woman to join

the society, as women could not keep up to the standard and efficiency of

men. One woman joined in 1892, but subsequently left. The women were

practically excluded from the Compositors' Union by the fixing of equal

rates of pay. This was not so much discrimination against women because

they were women, as a demonstration against the black-leg competition of

the unskilled against the skilled. It is stated that women compositors are

regarded as so inferior to men that only among employers in a small way of

business, working with small capital, where low wages constitute an

advantage sufficient to counter-poise the lack of technical skill, can

they find employment. In 1894 a militant Union of women was organised, and

struck for increased wages and improved conditions, the women going out to

show their sympathy with the men, who had been locked out. In recognition

of the women's sympathy the men gave some help and support to this Union,

which, however, after increasing to 350 began to decline. It was

subsequently recognised as a branch of the Printers, Stationers, and

Warehousemen.

In the cigar trade, as in printing, it has to be owned that women came in

"not for doing more, but for asking less." Their labour was at first

employed chiefly for the less skilled branches, a small number only being

employed in skilled work; but in both divisions they worked for a lower

rate than men. It was not until 1887 that a Union for women was

established. They still, unfortunately, continued to undersell men, until

at last the men, who at first were hostile to their female competitors,

saw that it was hopeless to try and keep them out, and that for their own

sakes amalgamation was the wiser course. The adjustment of the wage-scale

was a problem of some delicacy. To raise the scale of women's wages to the

same as men's would probably have meant driving the women from the trade;

to leave them on the lower scale would mean that women would contrive to

undersell men. It was finally decided to take the highest existing rates

of pay for women as the basis of the women's Union rates. After the

Amalgamation had been achieved, women's wages rose 25 per cent, and the

recognised policy of the Union was to make advantageous terms with each

employer opening a new factory. Women are not, on the whole, such valuable

workers as are men; they are slower, and often do not remain very long in

the trade.[31] Lower rates of pay, as long as they are not permitted to

fall indefinitely, are a distinct advantage to women in getting and

keeping employment. The numbers in Unions in food and tobacco were only

2000 in 1910, and have since fallen slightly.

There are also a good many small Unions of women only, some of which are

affiliated to the Women's Trade Union League. The numbers of women

organised in the trades especially their own, such as dressmaking, the

needle trades, and domestic work, are disappointingly small. It has to be

remembered, however, that such occupations as these are still for the most

part carried on either in the employers' or the workers' homes. The

factory system has begun to make some way in dressmaking, but not to a

considerable extent. It is not surprising that the workers in these

industries are behind the factory workers in learning the lesson of

combination for mutual help and protection.

Unions in the lower grade industries, which till lately have been

unorganised, will be treated in a later section.

_The Women's Trade Union League._--The Society now known as the Women's

Trade Union League was founded mainly by the efforts of a remarkable woman

named Emma Smith, afterwards Mrs. Paterson (1848-1886). She was the

daughter of a schoolmaster and became the wife of a cabinet-maker. Her

life from the age of eighteen was devoted to endeavours on behalf of the

working class and especially of women. Being a woman of natural ability

and remarkable concentration of purpose, she succeeded in starting pioneer

work of a difficult and unusual kind. She was secretary for five years to

the Workmen's Club and Institute Union, and afterwards secretary to the

Women's Suffrage Association. She was the first woman admitted to the

Trade Union Congress, and attended its meetings from 1875 until 1886, with

the exception only of one year, in which her husband's last illness

prevented her attendance. Although the name of the League has been

altered, and its policy considerably widened and in some measure modified,

it is pleasant to note that it still keeps up a continuity of tradition

with Mrs. Paterson's Protective and Provident League. Her portrait, as

foundress, hangs upon the office wall, and the annual Reports are numbered

continuously from the start in 1875.

Sick benefit was the main feature of the propaganda initiated by the

League in its early years. The first society formed was for women employed

in the printing trade. The need of a provident fund had been badly felt

by these women during a trade depression three years previously, and there

was no provision for the admission of women as members of the men's

societies, even if women's wages had been (as they were not) sufficient to

pay the necessary subscription to the men's society. Mr. King, Secretary

of the London Consolidated Society of Bookbinders, however, promised to

support and assist the efforts to organise women in this trade. The appeal

for a separate organisation of women met with a ready response. Some

hundreds of women employed in folding, sewing, and other branches of the

bookbinding trade, attended the first meeting, held in August 1875; a

provisional committee was formed, and in October the society was formally

established with a subscription of 2d. per week, and an entrance fee of

1s. Its history, however, was uneventful. It refused to join with men in

making demands upon the employers, and its representatives at Trade Union

Congresses and elsewhere were imbued with Mrs. Paterson's prejudice

against the Factory Act, and resisted legal restrictions upon labour.

Employers have been known to urge the formation of "a good women's Union,"

on the ground that the fair-minded employer was detrimentally affected by

the "gross inequalities of price" that existed. The backwardness and

narrow views of the Women's Union were resented by the men, and in the

time of the eight hours agitation, 1891-1894, would not take part, and

there was considerable ill-feeling between the two sections. This society

was mainly a benefit club, and the same remark holds good of other early

societies established by the Women's Protective and Provident League,

which included societies for dressmakers, hat-makers, upholsterers, and

shirt- and collar-makers. The foundress, although a woman of unusual

energy and initiative, whose efforts for the uplifting of women-workers

should not be forgotten, was in some degree hampered by the narrow

individualism characteristic of what may be designated as the Right Wing

of the Women's Rights Movement. She was an opponent of factory legislation

for grown women, and did not lead the Unions under her control to attempt

any concerted measures for improving the conditions of their work. The

first Report of the League indicates her attitude in the remarks which she

reports (evidently with sympathy) from a Conference held in April 1875:

"It was agreed" (viz. at this Conference) "that any further reduction of

hours, if accompanied by a reduction of wages, _as it probably would be if

brought about by legislation_, would be objectionable." (Italics added.)

In the same Report (pp. 14-15) the writer, doubtless Mrs. Paterson

herself, sums up the advantages to be obtained for women through union.

The League is to be a "centre of combined efforts" to "improve the

industrial and social position of ... women"; it is "to acquire

information which will enable friends of the working classes to give a

more precise direction than at present to their offers of sympathy and

help. _Without interfering with the natural course of trade_, the

Societies will furnish machinery for regulating the supply of labour...."

(Italics added.) "The object of the League is to promote an _entente

cordiale_ between the labourer, the employer, and the consumer; and

revision of the contract between the labourer and employer is only

recommended in those cases in which its terms appear unreasonable and

unjust to the dispassionate third party, who pays the final price for the

manufactured goods and is certainly not interested in adding artificially

to their cost." No direct action for raising wages is suggested.

Delegates from three Women's Societies--shirt-makers, bookbinders, and

upholsterers--were admitted to the 8th Annual Trade Union Congress, held

at Glasgow, October 1875.[32] At the meeting of the T.U. Council in 1879,

five women representing Unions were not only present but took an active

part in the proceedings, successfully moving a resolution for additional

factory inspectors, and for the appointment as such of women as well as

men.

In 1877, the Amalgamated Society of Tailors having been asked by one of

its branches to resist the increasing employment of women in that trade,

resolved instead that the work of women should be recognised, and the

women organised and properly paid. The League was asked to co-operate in

forming a Union, and a Tailoresses' Union was subsequently formed. At

Brighton a Union of Laundresses was formed. Various other societies were

formed in these early years, many of which are now defunct.

Mrs. Paterson died in 1886, at the sadly early age of thirty-eight. During

the years following, the policy of the League was enlarged and developed

in a very considerable degree. Miss Clementina Black was secretary for a

few years, and her second Report (1888) contains interesting remarks on

the position of women: "All inquiry tends to show more and more that

disorganised labour is absolutely helpless; good wages, lessened hours,

better general conditions, and, on the whole, better workmanship prevail

in the trades that are most completely organised. It also tends to show

the injury done to men and women alike by the payment to women of

unfairly low wages.... Even in employments in which the work can be done

by women at least as well as by men, the wages of women are greatly

inferior to those of men. And in those branches in which superior

efficiency is shown by the male workers, the inferiority of the wages of

the female employees is altogether out of proportion to the difference in

the character of the work done by the two sexes. From this cause--the

payment of unfairly low wages to women simply because they are

women--arises a desire on the part of grasping employers to reduce the

wage-standard by engaging women in preference to men, while in many cases

the conditions of female employment are onerous and oppressive to an

extent which involves the greatest danger to health."

In 1889 the representation of the Society of Women Bookbinders at the

Trade Union Congress, held at Dundee, moved a resolution in favour of the

appointment of women factory inspectors, which was adopted. In the same

year, at the International Workers' Congress, held in Paris, the

representative of the London Women's Trade Council, Miss Edith Simcox,

moved the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted by the

representatives of all nationalities: "That the Workmen's Party in all

countries should pledge itself to promote the formation of trade

organisations among the workers of both sexes."

The policy of the League in regard to legislation was broadened. The

protection of women through the instrumentality of the Factory Act was no

longer resisted, but was recognised as a powerful force for good, to be

aided in its administration and developed whenever possible. The League

also indicated by the adoption of the title "Trade Union League," and by

gradually dropping the former style, "Protective and Provident," that it

was inaugurating a more active policy. As a matter of tactics the League

officials when appealed to for help in labour difficulties among

women-workers, always endeavour _first_ to get the matter settled by

negotiation; but direct action is now by no means excluded from their

programme, and strikes have been called in recent years, sometimes with

considerable success.

The W.T.U.L. is not a Union: it has no strike fund and pays no benefits.

It is an organisation to promote, foster, and develop the formation of

Unions among women. Any Union of women, or Union in which women members

are enrolled, can be affiliated to the W.T.U.L. All secretaries of

affiliated London Unions are _ex-officio_ members of the League Committee,

on which also are a certain number of members elected at the Annual

Meeting. The W.T.U.L. also enjoys the services of an Advisory Committee of

leading Trade Unionists, who are present at the Annual Meeting.

The officials of the League are a Chairman, a Secretary, two Official

Organisers, and an Honorary Treasurer. The League acts as the agent of

women Trade Unionists in making representations to Government authorities

or Parliamentary Committees in regard to the legislation required. Abuses

or grievances in particular industries are brought forward in the House of

Commons by members who are in touch with the League. Complaints of

breaches of the Factory and Workshop Acts can be sent to the League, and

are investigated by its officials and forwarded to the proper department.

A legal advice department also forms part of the League's functions, and

deals with such matters as the assessment of compensation, disputes with

Insurance Companies, deductions from wages, non-payment of wages, wrongful

dismissal, claims for wages in lieu of notice, and such cases. A few

instances, culled from recent Reports, will give an idea of the range and

complexity of these cases.

A worker in a sweet-factory was injured by the strap of the motor falling

on her head, and suffered from shock and chorea. The employers were

foreign, and it was with special difficulty that they were got to admit

that the accident had even happened. Being threatened with proceedings,

the matter was referred to their Insurance Company, who eventually paid

the full wages during incapacity.

In the slack season seven dressmakers' hands, some of whom had been three

years in employment, were dismissed without notice. The League's adviser

applied for a week's wage in lieu of notice for each worker. After some

correspondence the money owing was handed over. This last case is a sample

of many similar ones, and points to the urgent need of organisation in the

dressmaking trade.

A syrup boiler in a jam-factory slipped on the boards which, owing to

imperfect drainage, were slippery with syrup, and fractured her left arm.

Compensation was paid at the rate of 5s. 6d. a week.

The League has always been singularly successful in attracting the

sympathy, interest, and service of able and gifted helpers, both men and

women. It has been also happy in securing active co-operation with many

Trade Unions, and also with societies such as the British Section of the

International Association for Labour Legislation, and the Anti-Sweating

League, with both of which it is closely connected in work and sympathy.

No less than 170 societies--societies, that is to say, constituted wholly

or partly of women members--are now affiliated to the League. The most

recent activities of the League have been a campaign of instruction and

organisation to explain the provisions of the Insurance Act, and a special

effort of propaganda and organisation among the workers in some of the

low-grade and ill-paid industries now coming under the Trade Boards Act.

A comparison of the list of affiliated societies now appended to the

League's Report with the societies first enrolled shows not only, as would

be expected, a considerable widening of the field, but also a change in

character. Whereas the societies first formed were of women only, and in

London, nearly all the societies at present enrolled are mixed, and most

of them are not London societies at all. The great textile societies, the

weavers, winders, beamers, twisters, and drawers, card-room operatives,

and so forth, form the great majority of organised women; and in these,

women are organised either together with, or in close connection with,

men. Some of the largest are many years older than the League, but have

affiliated in comparatively recent years. There are also a vast number of

Unions of miscellaneous trades--tobacco, food, tailoring, etc.; and even

societies mainly masculine are affiliated, such as the London Dock and

General Workers' Union (including sixty women in 1910). Many Trade Unions

consisting wholly of men make donations to the League as a recognition of

the importance of its work in organising women.

In Manchester there are two societies to promote the organisation of

women-workers, which are doing excellent educational work in fostering the

habit or tradition of association among workers in miscellaneous trades,

many of which are totally unorganised and grievously underpaid. If we

compare these Manchester societies with the policy of the Women's Trade

Union League in London, a certain difference of outlook is perceptible.

The Manchester societies prefer organising women by and for themselves;

the Women's Trade Union League is in touch with the larger Labour Movement

and favours joint organisation wherever possible.

_The Movement among Unorganised Workers._--The "New Unionism for Women,"

if we may so term it, first attracted public attention in July 1888, when

a few scattered paragraphs found their way even into the dignified columns

of the _Times_. There was a strike among the match-girls in the East End.

Meetings were held, and next came the inevitable letters from the

employers, representing the admirable condition of their factory, the

desire of terrorised workers to return to work, the responsibility of

"agitators" for the strike. Then a small Committee of Inquiry was started,

its headquarters being at Toynbee Hall, and this Committee reported that

it found the girls' complaints to be largely justified. The piece rates

had been cut down on the introduction of machinery more than in proportion

to the saving of labour per unit produced. Vexatious charges for brushes

and excessive fines were imposed without reckoning or explanation. The

wages ranged upwards from 4s.--4s. to 6s. predominantly--and never

exceeded 13s.

Such were the charges, among others which were considered to be

substantiated by the investigations of the four social workers, who showed

their impartiality by the careful letter in which they reproduced the

explanations and defence of the employers. The Toynbee Hall Committee in

its third letter characterised the relation of employer and employed in

this factory to be deplorable, and the wages paid as so small as to be

insufficient to maintain a decent existence.

On the 16th, the _Times_ had a small paragraph describing the strike as

being "the result of the class-war which the body of Socialists have

brought into action." Subsequently the London Trades Council took up the

match-girls' cause, distributed strike pay to the amount of £150 among 650

boys, girls, and women, and formed a Committee of the girls to co-operate

with the London Trades Council. The employers agreed to receive a

deputation.

On Wednesday 18th July, the strike was declared to be at an end, after the

meeting of the first deputation from the L.T.C. and the match-girls'

representatives with the directors. The directors agreed to abolish fines

and the deductions complained of, to recognise an organised Trade Union

among the employees in order that grievances might be represented straight

to the heads instead of through the foreman, and to reinstate the workers

concerned in the strike. The extraordinary success of this strike appears

to have been due to the unusual steadiness and unity of the girls

themselves, to the able and tactful generalship of Mrs. Besant, and

largely also, of course, to the support of the London Trades Council.

As a result of this strike a Match-makers' Union was formed, and seems to

have lasted until 1903; but it subsequently disappears from the Women's

Trade Union League Reports, and is known no more.

About the time of the great Dock Strike, 1889, a concerted effort to

organise East End women-workers was made by Miss Clementina Black, Mrs.

Amie Hicks, and Miss Clara James. Mrs. Hicks had been in the habit of

meeting some of the women rope-makers in connexion with the parochial work

of St. Augustine's Church, and had observed that many of them had bandaged

hands and were suffering from injuries resulting from machinery accidents.

Inquiries made by her brought to light the fact that the women's wages

were only about 8s. to 10s. Disputes were frequent in the trade. Mrs.

Hicks determined to open her campaign of organisation with the

rope-makers, although she was warned that she would find them a rough,

wild and even desperate class of women. Nothing daunted, she called on

several, and invited them to a meeting. The supposed viragos said they

were afraid, and Mrs. Hicks advised them to come all together. A room was

hired, and about 90 to 100 women walked there in a body, a proceeding

which greatly alarmed the inhabitants, some of whom fled into their houses

and barred the doors. The meeting, however was successful. Nearly all the

women signed their names as members of a Union, and Mrs. Hicks became

their secretary, a post which she retained for ten years. It is recorded

that not one of the original members was lost to the Union otherwise than

by death, and that not one of them ever "said a rough word" to their

secretary.

Mrs. Hicks and Miss James, after making urgent representations, were

admitted to give evidence before the Labour Commission, which apparently

had not originally contemplated hearing women witnesses at all. Mrs. Hicks

was able to show that the conditions of the work were most unhealthy, the

air being full of dust, and no appliance provided to lay it. In some works

even elementary sanitary requirements were not provided. Cases were known

of the women being locked in the factory, and in at least one instance a

fire occurred which was fatal to the unfortunate women locked in. In spite

of these shocking conditions, however, many women refused to join the

Union for fear of victimisation and dismissal. As Mrs. Hicks put it, the

condition of the women was so bad in East London that an employer had only

to say he wanted some work done, fix his own rate of pay, and he would

always find women glad to take it.

Miss Clara James also gave evidence in regard to the Confectioners' Trade

Union. The Union was very weak in numbers, the women being afraid to join,

several, including the witness, having been dismissed for joining a Union.

In one factory six girls who had acted as collectors for the Union were

dismissed one after another, although the Union had never acted

offensively or used threats to the employer. In this trade the workers

were subjected to very bad sanitary conditions, rotting fruit, syrup,

etc., being left a week or more in proximity to the workrooms. Wages were

stated at from 7s. to 9s., 12s. being the highest and very unusual, but

even these low rates were subject to deductions and fines, and workers

might be dismissed without notice. In both these trades it will be evident

at once that the great need for women workers was to combine and stand

together, but owing to their poverty and dread of dismissal this was

precisely what it was most difficult for them to do. The frequent disputes

mentioned by both witnesses are, however, a sign that the traditional

docility of the woman-worker was even then beginning to give place to a

more militant spirit.

In other industries there have been many signs of activity in more recent

years. In October 1906 the ammunition workers at Edmonton struck against

a reduction of wages, and the matter being referred to arbitration, was

compromised in a manner fairly favourable to the workers, and other

concessions were subsequently secured. A Union was formed as a branch of

the National Federation of Women Workers, and this Union is still in

active existence. Members are entitled to strike pay and also have a sick

benefit fund in addition to the Insurance Act benefit, and a thrift

section. The secretary is a convinced believer in the value of

organisation to women, and thinks that women are beginning to appreciate

it themselves far more than formerly.

In 1907 Miss Macarthur succeeded in reorganising the Cradley Heath

chain-makers, whose Union, always feeble, had all but flickered out. The

making of small chains is an industry largely carried on by women in homes

or tiny workshops, and although the district does an enormous trade in the

world market, this had not prevented the local industry becoming almost a

proverb for sweating. The reorganisation of the Union, however, was

effected in the nick of time. The society was affiliated to the National

Federation of Women Workers, an association which has been formed in

co-operation with the W.T.U.L., to bring together the women in those

industries where no organisation already exists for them to join.

In 1909 the Trade Boards Act was passed, and the making of small chains

was one of the group of sweated trades first included under the Act. The

organisation which had already been started was now of great service in

facilitating the administration of the Act, the Women's Union being able

to choose the persons who should represent it on the Board. Subsequently

when the Board of Trade called a meeting to elect workers'

representatives, the candidates chosen by the Union were voted for by the

women with practical unanimity, and as the work of the Board progressed it

was possible at each stage to consult the workers and obtain their

approval for the action taken by their representatives in their name. In

the absence of effective organisation this would have been much more

difficult.

The history of the first determination of the chain-makers' Board forms

one of the most singular passages in industrial history. The Board,

constituted half of employers and half of employed, having got to work,

found itself compelled to fix a minimum wage which amounted to an increase

in many cases of 100 per cent, or even more. The previous wages had been

about 5s. or 6s., and the minimum wages per week, after allowing for

necessary outlay on forge and fuel, was fixed at 11s. 3d. Poor enough, we

may say. But so great an improvement was this to the workers themselves

that their comment is said to have been: "It is too good to be true." The

change did not take effect without considerable difficulties. The Trade

Boards Act provides that three months' notice of the prices fixed by the

Board shall be given, during which period complaints and objections may be

made either by workers or employers. At Cradley this waiting period was

abused by some of the employers to a considerable extent. Many of them

began to make chains for stock, and trade being dull at the time they were

able to accumulate heavy reserves. Thus the workers were faced with the

probability of a period of unemployment and starvation, in addition to

which a number of employers issued agreements which they asked the women

to sign, contracting out of the minimum wage for a further period of six

months. This was not contrary to the letter of the law, but was terribly

bitter to the poor workers, whose hopes, so near fulfilment, seemed likely

again to be long postponed. They came out on strike, and were supported by

the National Federation of Women Workers, in conjunction with the Trade

Union League and the Anti-Sweating League. A meeting was arranged between

the workers' representatives and the Manufacturers' Association, at which

the latter body undertook to recommend its members to pay the minimum rate

so long as the workers continued financial support to those women who

refused to work for less than the rates. This practically of course

amounted to a request from the employers that the workers' Trade Union

should protect them against non-associated employees. It has been remarked

that this agreement is probably unique in the annals of Trade Unionism.

After long consideration the workers agreed. An appeal for support was

made to the public, and met with so good a response that the women were

able to fight to a finish and returned to work victorious. Every employer

in the district finally signed the white list, and more recently the Board

has been able to improve upon its first award. The organisation has so far

been maintained. Thus a real improvement has been achieved in the

conditions of one of the most interesting, even picturesque of our

industries, though unfortunately also one of the most downtrodden and

oppressed.

No one who has ever visited Cradley can forget it. The impression produced

is ineffaceable. So much grime and dirt set in the midst of beautiful

moors and hills--so much human skill and industry left neglected, despised

and underpaid. The small chains are made by women who work in tiny sheds,

sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three others. Each is equipped with

a bellows on the left of the forge, worked by the left hand, a forge,

anvil, hammer, pincers, and one or two other tools. The chains are forged

link by link by sheer manual skill; there is no mechanical aid whatever,

and we understand that machines for chain-making have been tried, but have

never yet been successful. The operation is extremely ingenious and

dextrous, and where the women keep to the lighter kind of chains there

would be little objection to the work, if done for reasonable hours and

good pay. It is carried on under shelter, almost in the open air, and is

by no means as drearily monotonous as many kinds of factory work. On the

other hand, in practice the women are often liable to do work too heavy

for them, and the children are said to run serious risks of injury by

fire.

At the time of the present writer's visit, now about ten years ago, these

poor women were paid on an average about 5s. 6d. a week, and were working

long hours to get their necessary food. Most have achieved considerable

increases under the combined influence of organisation and the Trade

Board, and probably 11s. or 12s. is now about the average, while some are

getting half as much again. When the strike was over there was a

substantial remainder left over from the money subscribed to help the

strikers. The chain-makers did not divide the money among themselves, but

built a workers' Institute. Surely the dawn of such a spirit as this in

the minds of these hard-pressed people is something for England to be

proud of.

In August 1911 came a great uprising of underpaid workers, and among them

the women. The events of that month are still fresh in our memories;

perhaps their full significance will only be seen when the history of

these crowded years comes to be written. The tropical heat and sunshine of

that summer seemed to evoke new hopes and new desires in a class of

workers usually only too well described as "cheap and docile." The strike

of transport workers set going a movement which caught even the women. In

Bermondsey almost every factory employing women was emptied. Fifteen

thousand women came out spontaneously, and the National Federation of

Women Workers had the busiest fortnight known in its whole history of

seven years.

Among the industries thus unwontedly disturbed were the jam-making,

confectionery, capsule-making, tin box-making, cocoa-making, and some

others. In some of the factories the lives led by these girls are almost

indescribable. Many of them work ten and a half hours a day, pushed and

urged to utmost speed, carrying caldrons of boiling jam on slippery

floors, standing five hours at a time, and all this often for about 8s. a

week, out of which at least 6s. would be necessary for board and lodging

and fares. Most of them regarded the conditions of their lives as in the

main perfectly inevitable, came out on strike to ask only 6d. or 1s. more

wages and a quarter of an hour for tea, and could not formulate any more

ambitious demands. An appeal for public support was issued, and met with a

satisfactory response. The strike in several instances had an even

surprisingly good result. In one factory wages were raised from 11s. to

13s.; in others there was 1s. rise all round; in others of 2s. or 2s. 6d.,

even in some cases of 4s. In one case a graduated scale with a fixed

minimum of 4s. 7d. for beginners at fourteen years old, increasing up to

12s. 4d. at eighteen, was arranged. One may hope that the moral effect of

such an uprising is not wholly lost, even if the resulting organisations

are not stable; the employer has had his reminder, as a satirical observer

said in August 1911, "of the importance of labour as a factor in

production."

* * * * *

Many women were enrolled in new branches of the National Federation of

Women Workers. Not all of these branches survive, but there was some

revival of Unionism in the winter, 1913-14, and many of the workers who

struck in 1911 will be included under the new Trade Boards.

Perhaps even more remarkable was the prolonged strike of the hollow-ware

workers in 1912. Hollow-ware, it may not be superfluous to remark, is the

making and enamelling of tin vessels of various kinds. This was once a

trade in which British makers held the continental markets almost without

rivalry; it was then chiefly confined to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and

Bilston. But small masters moved out into the country in search of cheaper

labour, and settled themselves at Lye and Cradley, outside the area

protected by the men's Unions. In 1906 the Unions endeavoured to improve

conditions for the underpaid workers, and drew up a piece-work list of

minimum rates applicable to all the centres of the trade. But they had not

strength to fight for the list, and wages went down and down. As one

consequence, the quality of the work had deteriorated, shoddy goods were

sent abroad, and foreign competitors improved upon them.[33] This in turn

was used as an excuse for further driving down wages. The hollow-ware

trade, like chain manufacture, employs women as well as men. In 1912 many

of these women were working for a penny an hour, tinkering and soldering

buckets, kettles, pots and pans from early morning until night; at the

week-end taking home 6s. for their living.

It should also be remembered that some processes, especially the making of

bright frying-pans, entail serious risk of lead-poisoning. Galvanised

buckets are dipped in baths of acid, and the fumes are almost blinding,

and stop the breath of an unaccustomed visitor. The work done by women is

hard enough. But they did not take much notice of the hardness or of the

risk of industrial disease. Their preoccupation was a more serious one:

how to get their bread. Wages were rarely more than 7s. a week, and in

1912 a considerate and attentive visitor found their minds concentrated on

the great possibility of raising this to--12s.? 14s.? 15s.? What the

hollow-ware workers of Lye and Cradley had set their minds on was merely

10s. a week, and to attain this comparative affluence they were ready to

come out weeks and weeks on end. As a result of conferences between

representatives of the National Federation of Women Workers and twenty of

the principal employers, during the summer 1912, it was decided to demand

a minimum wage of 10s. for a fifty-four-hour week. Not, of course, that

the officials considered this a fair or adequate wage, but because they

hoped it would give the women a starting-point from which they could

advance in the future, and because, wretched as it seemed, it did in fact

represent a considerable increase for some of the women.

The best employers yielded at once, but several refused to adopt the terms

proposed. In October 840 men handed in their notices for a 10 per cent

increase of wages and a fifty-four-hour week. Twelve firms conceded these

terms at once, leaving 600 men still on strike against thirty-three firms.

As a result many women-workers were asked to do men's work, and it seemed

not unlikely that the men might be thus defeated. The National Federation

of Women Workers decided to call out the women to demand a 10s. minimum,

and at the same time support the men in their demands. All the women

called out received strike benefit. There was, however, another body of

women and girls, whose work stopped automatically because of the strike,

and these were not entitled to any strike pay. A public appeal was

therefore issued by the _Daily Citizen_ and also by the Women's Trade

Union League, and the response evoked was sufficient to tide the workers

over the crisis. The struggle ended with complete victory for the workers,

and as an indirect but most important result, the trade was scheduled for

inclusion in the Revisional Order under the Trade Boards Act.

In the North also the last two or three years have witnessed increased

activity in the organisation of underpaid trades. In the flax industry the

strike of a few general labourers employed in a certain mill resulted in

the locking out of 650 women flax-workers. Although the preparing and

spinning of flax is a skilled industry, the highest wage paid in the mill

to spinners was 11s. including bonus, reelers occasionally rising to 13s.,

and the common earnings of the other workers were from 7s. 6d. to 9s.

Several small strikes had taken place, but the women being unorganised

and without funds were repeatedly compelled to return to work on the old

terms. By the efforts of the Women's Trade Union Council of Manchester a

Union was now formed, and a demand made for an increase of 2s. all round.

With the help of public sympathy and financial support the women were able

to stand out, and after a lock-out of nearly three weeks a settlement was

arrived at under which the women got an increase of 1s. all round and the

bonus was rearranged more favourably for the workers. The whole of the

women involved in this dispute joined the Union.

A dispute in another flax mill was much more prolonged, and lasted for

over sixteen weeks. It was eventually arranged by the intervention of the

Board of Trade, and some concessions were obtained by the workers. In both

these disputes the men and women stood together. There is perhaps no

feature so hopeful in this "new unionism" of women, as the fact that women

are beginning to refuse to be used as the instruments for undercutting

rates and injuring the position of men.

Many other such efforts might be recorded did space permit. Many of them

do not unfortunately lead to stable forms of association. The difficulties

are enormous, the danger of victimisation by the employers is great, and

in the case of unskilled workers their places, as they know so well, are

easily filled from outside. A correspondent writes to me that "fear is the

root cause of lack of organisation." The odds against them are so great,

the hindrances to organisation and solidarity so tremendous, that the

instances recorded in which these low-grade workers do find heart to stand

together, putting sex jealousy and sex rivalry behind them, disregarding

their immediate needs for the larger hope, are all the more significant.

Several of the labourers' Unions now admit women, notably the Gas-Workers'

and General Labourers' Union and the Workers' Union.

_The National Federation of Women Workers._--The most important Union for

women among the ill-defined, less skilled classes of workers is the

National Federation of Women Workers, which owes its existence mainly to

the initiative and fostering care of the Women's Trade Union League. The

form of organisation preferred by the Women's Trade Union League in the

twentieth century is that men and women should wherever possible organise

together. This is the case with the firmly-established Lancashire weavers

and card-room operatives and with the progressive Shop Assistants' Union.

In the numerous trades, however, in which no Union for women exists, a new

effort and a new rallying centre have been found necessary. The National

Federation of Women Workers was formed in 1906 for the purpose of

organising women in miscellaneous trades not already organised. It has

made considerable progress in its few years of existence, and has a number

of branches in provincial and suburban places. The National Federation is

affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and to the General Federation of

Trade Unions, and insured in this last for strike pay at the rate of 5s.

per week per member. The branches are organised in different trades, have

local committees and local autonomy to a certain extent. Each branch

retains control of one-sixth of the member's entrance fee and

contribution, together with any voluntary contributions that may be raised

for its own purposes. The remainder of the funds go to a Central

Management Fund from which all strike and lock-out money is provided, and

a Central Provident Fund. Branches may not strike without the permission

of the Executive Council.

The National Federation of Women Workers has an Insurance Section in which

about 22,000 women were enrolled in 1913. At the time of writing a special

effort is being made for the organisation of women in those industries to

which the Trade Boards Act has recently been extended.

_Women's Unions in America._--In America women are fewer in numbers in the

Trade Union movement, but they have occupied a more prominent place in it

there than in our own country. The American labour movement may roughly be

dated from the year 1825. In that year the tailoresses of New York formed

a Union and went on strike, and from that time to the present women

wage-earners have constantly formed Unions and agitated for better pay and

conditions of work.

The first women to enter factory employment were native Americans, largely

New England girls, the daughters of farmers, girls who would naturally be

more independent and have a higher standard of comfort than the factory

hand in old countries. Several important strikes occurred among the

cotton-mill girls at Dover, New Hampshire, in 1828 and again in 1834, and

also at Lowell in 1834 and 1836. It does not appear that these strikes

resulted in any stable combinations.

Subsequently, between 1840 and 1860, a number of labour reform

associations were organised, chiefly among textile mill girls, but

including also representatives of various clothing trades. These societies

organised a number of successful strikes, increased wages, shortened the

working day, and also carried on a successful agitation for protective

legislation. The leader of the Lowell Union, Sarah Bagley, had worked for

ten years in New England cotton mills. She was the most prominent woman

labour leader of the period, and in 1845 became president of the Lowell

Female Labour Reform Association, which succeeded in obtaining thousands

of operatives' signatures to a petition for the ten hours' day.

The Female Industrial Association was organised in New York, 1845, a Union

not confined to any one trade but including representatives from

tailoresses, sempstresses, crimpers, book-folders and stitchers, etc.

Between 1860 and 1880 local branches were formed and temporary advantages

gained here and there by women cigar-makers, tailoresses and sempstresses,

umbrella sewers, cap-makers, textile workers, laundresses and others.

Women cigar-makers especially, who were at first brought into the trade in

large numbers as strike breakers, after a struggle were organised either

as members of men's Unions or in societies of their own, and once

organised "were as faithful to the principles of unionism as men." The

Umbrella Sewers' Union of New York gave Mrs. Paterson, then visiting

America, the idea of starting the movement for women's Unions in London.

The women shoemakers formed a national Union of their own, called the

Daughters of St. Crispin.

In this period there was little organisation among the women of the

textile mills, and the native American girls were to some extent ousted by

immigrants having a lower standard of life. There were, however, a number

of ill-organised strikes which for the most part failed.

In the war time the tailoresses and sempstresses, already suffering the

double pressure of long hours and low wages, had their condition

aggravated by the competition of the wives and widows of soldiers, who,

left alone and thrown into distress, were obliged to swell the market for

sewing work as the nearest field for unskilled workers. Efforts, however,

were made to form Trade Unions among the sewing women; many of these were

short-lived and unsuccessful. The growing tendency among men to realise

the importance of organising women is seen in a resolution passed by a

meeting of tailors in June 1865:

RESOLVED that each and every member will make every effort necessary

to induce the female operatives of the trade to join this association,

inasmuch as thereby the best protection is secured for workers as well

as for the female operatives.

In 1869 the International Typographical Union admitted women to equal

membership, after years of opposition, to the entrance of women into the

printing trade.

In 1873 and onwards Trade Unionism among women, as among workers

generally, suffered from the trade depression of those years. During this

period, however, a number of eight-hour leagues were formed, both of men

and women members, who found in the short-time idea a significant and

vital measure of reform. The Boston League (1869) was the first to admit

women. In this and other similar societies they served as officers and on

committees.

A remarkable organisation of female weavers was formed in Fall River in

January 1875. The Male Weavers' Union had voted to accept a reduction of

10 per cent; but the women called a meeting of their own, excluding all

men excepting reporters, and voted to strike against the reduction. The

male weavers, encouraged by their action, decided to join the movement.

Three thousand two hundred and fifteen strikers, male and female, were

supported by the Unions, and the strike was successful. Work was resumed

late in March.

From 1880 the organisation of women again progressed in the labour

movement of the Knights of Labour. For the first time in American Labour

history women found themselves encouraged to line up with men on equal

terms in a large general organisation. They could also form their own

Unions in alliance with the Knights of Labour, and almost every

considerable branch of women's industry was represented in these

organisations, the most prominent being the Daughters of St. Crispin

(shoe-workers). The first women's assembly under the Knights of Labour was

held in September 1881. From its first institution this association had

realised the necessity of including women. The preamble to this

constitution, adopted by the first national convention of the Knights of

Labour in January 1878, included on this subject two significant

provisions. One called for the prohibition of the employment of children

in workshops, mines and factories before attaining their fourteenth year.

The other gave as one of the principal objects of the order: "To secure

for both sexes equal pay for equal work." And the founder of the Order, at

the second national convention in 1879, asked for the formulation of an

emphatic utterance on the subject of equal pay for equal work. "Perfected

machinery," he said, "persistently seeks cheap labour and is supplied

mainly by women and children. Adult male labour is thus crowded out of

employ, and swells the ranks of the unemployed, or at least the

underpaid." The women not only demanded better wages but appealed for

protective legislation.

The numbers increased steadily till May 1886, when twenty-seven local

branches, entirely composed of women, were added in a month. But a decline

set in, and in the next following six years, the whole strength of female

Unionism under the Knights of Labour disappeared. It had probably never

exceeded 50,000.[34]

The policy of labour organisations generally has, however, considerably

developed in regard to the affiliation and membership of women. The

General Federation of Trade Unions, which formerly had been indifferent or

hostile to women-workers, had come to recognise even in the 'eighties that

women occupied a permanent place in industry, and that it was both

necessary and desirable that they should be organised. The position was

summarised in an article in the _Detroit Free Press_.[35]

_An Equal Chance._

Woman is now fairly established in the labour-market as the rival of

man. Whether this is the normal condition of things is a point doubted

by some political economists; but whether it be so or not, it is

likely to remain the order of things practically for generations to

come. This being so it must be accepted, and every fair-minded person

must wish her to have an equal chance in the competition. A woman

supporting her mother and little brothers and sisters is a very

common spectacle; and the fact that Professor Somebody regards her as

abnormal does not make her bread and butter any cheaper. She is

entitled to at least as much sympathy as the man who supports a wife

and children. For his charge, it must always be remembered, is

voluntary--he took it on himself. She could not help her

responsibilities; he assumed his of his own accord. It is therefore

quite just that she should have an equal chance.

In more recent years the growth of industry and the increasing use of

mechanical power has constantly tended towards larger utilisation of

women's labour. The American Federation's declared policy is to unite the

labouring classes irrespective of colour, sex, nationality, or creed.

Unionism among working women has been promoted, women delegates have been

appointed to serve at the Convention, and local Unions of women have been

directly affiliated. Many national Unions, of course, are not directly

concerned with female labour, and a small number entirely forbid the

admission of women. Of these are the barbers, watch-case engravers, and

switchmen.

Moulders do not admit women, and penalise members who give instruction to

female workers in any branch. Core-making, for instance, employs some

women, and the Union seeks to restrict or minimise it. The operative

potters, upholsterers, and paper-makers admit women in certain branches

but not in others. The upholsterers admit them only as seamstresses. But

in all trades making these restrictions the number of women employed is

small, and the effect of the restrictions is probably insignificant. Other

Unions encourage the organisation of women-workers. In some of these men

predominate, as in the printers, cigar-makers, boot- and shoe-makers, and

women compete only in the lighter and less-skilled branches. In others

women predominate, as among the garment workers, textile workers, laundry,

glove, hat and cap workers. Some Unions make special concessions to women,

_e.g._ a smaller registration and dues, in order to induce them to join.

The motive for these concessions is clear, as the proportion of women to

men in these industries is much higher than the same proportion in the

Union.

In San Francisco the steam laundry workers have been organised with

considerable success. Down to 1900 the condition of these women was

extremely bad. "Living in" was the prevailing custom. The food and

accommodation were wretched in the extreme, the hours inhumanly long,

sometimes from 6 A.M. to midnight, wages eight to ten dollars a month for

workers living in, ten to twenty-five for other workers. An agitation was

started to give publicity to these facts, and an ordinance was passed to

prohibit work in laundries on Sundays or after 7 P.M. The ordinance was

not observed, however, and the girls formed a committee and complained to

the press. It was proposed to form a Union. Three hundred men employed in

the industry applied for a charter to the Laundry Workers' International

Union. The men did not wish to include girls as members, but the

International would not give the charter if women were excluded. On the

other hand, the women were timid and afraid of victimisation. One girl

with more courage or more initiative than the others, however, was chosen

to be organiser, and carried on her work secretly for about sixteen weeks

with extraordinary energy and effectiveness. Suddenly it came out that a

majority of employees in every laundry had joined the Union. They had

refrained from declaring themselves until they had a large and

influential membership, and then came out with a formal demand for shorter

hours, higher wages, and a change of system. Public sympathy was aroused,

and by April 1901 the conditions in the San Francisco laundries were

revolutionised. Boarding was abolished, wages were increased, hours

shortened to ten daily, with nine holidays a year. In more recent years

these capable organisers have succeeded in obtaining the eight hours day

by successive reductions of the working time.

In the same city an interesting case is recorded in which the girls in a

cracker (or biscuit) factory struck against over-pressure. The packers,

who had to receive and pack the crackers automatically fed into the bins

by machinery, found the work speeded up to such a degree that they could

not cope with it. Their complaints were received with apparent respect and

attention, but after a short interval the same speeding-up occurred again.

With some difficulty, many of the girls being Italian and speaking little

English, a Union was formed and affiliated to the Labour Council, whose

representative then approached the employers. The matter was settled by

arranging to have extra hands so as to meet the extra work occasioned by

speeding, and an arrangement was also made to allow each girl ten minutes'

interval for rest both in the morning and afternoon spell.

The Industrial Workers of the World, a Labour Society with a revolutionary

programme, has a large membership of unskilled workers, in textile and

other industries. It doubtless includes many women, for women took part in

a conflict with the city government of Spokane, Washington, over the

question of free speech, the city having attempted to prevent street

meetings. The workers were successful, but not without a severe struggle,

in the course of which 500 men and women went to jail, many of whom

adopted the hunger-strike.

In the great strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912, a

remarkably spontaneous effort was made by the Polish women-weavers at the

Everett mill. The hours of work had been reduced by legislation from 56 to

54 per week, and the employees demanded that the same money should be paid

to them as before the change. In the Everett mill about 80 per cent of the

weavers were Poles. In one of the weave-rooms the Polish weavers, almost

all women, stopped their looms after receiving their money on January 11,

and tried to persuade the workers in some other sections of the mill to

come out with them.[36] The story of this strike shows that women are

fully capable of feeling the wave of class-consciousness that brings about

the development of what is called "New Unionism"; but probably the

difficulty of their taking a serious part in control and management is

even greater than in craft Unions. Information is, however, very scanty as

to the relation of women to the I.W.W., which in its literature is quite

as prone as the more aristocratic craft Union to ignore the part taken by

women in organisation.

In 1908, when the Bureau of Labour made its enquiry into the conditions of

women wage-earners in the U.S.A., the number of Unions containing ten or

more female members was 546, and the number of female members was only

63,989, estimated at only 2 per cent of the total membership of the

Unions.

The largest group of women Unionists are those engaged in the making of or

working at men's garments; these number over 17,000. The textile workers

came next with 6000; the boot and shoe workers, hat and cap workers, and

tobacco workers form three groups of over 5000 each.

This census, however, was taken at a most unfavourable moment, when many

Unions were suffering from the trade depression of the previous autumn and

winter. It is also true that the numbers in actual membership are not a

complete measure of the numbers under the direct influence and guidance of

the Unions. It has been found that the numbers of women ready to come out

on strike and enrol themselves in Unions or enforce a particular demand at

a particular moment are considerably in excess of the number normally

enlisted.

At the same time there is little use in denying that, speaking generally,

the results attained by women's organisations, after eighty or ninety

years of effort, are disappointing. Women's Unions in America have been

markedly ephemeral in character, usually organised in time of strikes, and

frequently disappearing after the settlement of the conflict that brought

them into being.

A great obstacle to the organisation of women is no doubt the temporary

character of their employment. The mass of women-workers are young, the

great majority being under twenty-five. The difficulty of organising a

body of young, heedless, and impatient persons is evident, especially in

the case of girls and women who do not usually consider themselves

permanently in industry. In the words of the Commissioner:

It is possible to exaggerate the extent of the change made by the