The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United
States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes; and yet
reports on the general question will not read very differently from
those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as
making shirts at seventy-five cents a dozen, and overalls at fifty
cents. These women have two Protective Unions of their own, not
connected with the Workingmen's Union; and most of them have, naturally
enough, sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing,
apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a
decrease of wages, proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since
the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public
departments, North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather
than of choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field-labor
and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions,
women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to
send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been
recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two
thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a
cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire,
last summer, I was shown open-air graperies, wholly managed by women, in
several different localities; and was very happy to be told that my own
influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England,
field-labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known
as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against
the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British
Association, last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman
engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid
three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than
domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned, in this
country, as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the
great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two
or three hundred. I have seen it stated, that, during the last four
years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not
know the basis of this calculation; but, judging from my local
statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct.
To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the eight-hour
movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of
women, in 1866:--
BOSTON.--Glass Company, wages from $4.00 to $8.00 a week.
Domestics, from $1.50 to $3.00 per week. Seamstresses, $1.00 a day.
Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day.
BROOKLINE.--Washerwomen, $1.00 a day.
CHARLESTOWN and NEW BEDFORD are ashamed to name the wages, but
humbly confess that they are very low.
CHICOPEE pays women 90 per cent the wages of men.
CONCORD pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour.
FAIRHAVEN gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men.
HADLEY pays three-fourths; to domestics, one-third; seamstresses,
one-quarter to one-third.
HOLYOKE, in its paper-mills, offers one-third to one-half.
LANCASTER pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day.
LEE pays in the paper-mills one-half the wages of men.
LOWELL.--The Manufacturing Company averages 90 cents a day. The
Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day.
NEWTON pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour.
NORTH BECKET pays to women one-third the wages of men.
NORTHAMPTON pays $5.00 a week.
SALISBURY, for sewing hats, $1.00 a day.
SOUTH READING, on rattan and shoe work, $5.00 to $10.00 a week.
SOUTH YARMOUTH, half the wages of men, or less.
TAUNTON, one-third to two-thirds the wages of men.
WALPOLE pays two-thirds the wages of men.
WAREHAM pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to
seamstresses, 50 cents to $1.00.
WILMINGTON pays two-thirds the wages of men.
WINCHESTER pays dressmakers $1.00 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an
hour.
WOBURN keeps its women to work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them
two-thirds the wages of men.
On the better side of the question, FALL RIVER testifies that
women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.
LAWRENCE, from the Pacific Mills, that the women are _liberally_
paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pay
from $1.00 to $2.00 a day.
STONEHAM gives them $1.50 per week.
WALTHAM reports the wages of the watch-factory as very
_remunerative_. In 1860, I reported this factory as paying from
$2.50 to $4.00 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a
general statement.
BOSTON has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is
expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7.00 a week. In
the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed; but I
cannot ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low.
I know individuals who earn here $6.00 a week; but that must be
_above_ the average.
The best-looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are
those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under
the charge of Mr. J.H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills
in Northampton, owned by Mr. S.L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and
privileges appertaining to these mills make them the best examples I
know; and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women.
We are always referred to political economy, when we speak of the low
wages of women; but a little investigation will show that other causes
co-operate with those, which can be but gradually reached, to determine
their rates.
1. The wilfulness of women themselves, which, when I see them in
positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and
indignation.
2. The unfair competition, proceeding from the voluntary labor, in
mechanical ways, of women well to do.
For the first, we cannot greatly blame the women whom employers choose
for their _good looks_, for expecting to earn their wages through them,
rather than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their conduct is
not the less shameful on that account; but I seem to see that only time
and death and ruin will educate them.
For the second, we must strive to develop a public sentiment, which,
while it continues to hold labor honorable, will stamp with ignominy any
women who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the workwomen of
great cities. There are thousands of wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who
just as much drive other women to sin and death as if they led them with
their own hands to the houses in which they are ultimately compelled to
take refuge. Still further, it has come to be known to me, that in
Boston, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women, who do not even
do their own sewing, have the control of the finer kinds of fancy work,
dealing with the stores which sell such work, under various disguises. I
cannot prove these words, but they will strike conviction to the hearts
of the women themselves, and I wish them to have some significance for
men; for, if these women had the pocket-money which their taste and
position require, they would never dream of such competition. One thing
these men should know, that such women are generally known to their
employers, and their domestic relations are judged accordingly.
The recent investigations into factory labor in England concern rather
the condition than the wages of the women. At _flower-making_, 11,000
girls are employed from fourteen to eighteen hours daily. In _hardware_
shops and factories, they work, from six years of age, fourteen hours
daily. In _glass_ factories, 5,000 women are employed, from nine years
of age and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In _tobacco_ factories, 7,000
women are employed, under conditions of great physical suffering. As
_knitters_, from six years old, they work fourteen hours daily for 1s.
3d. a week!
This terrible state of things is partly owing to competition with the
labor of French machinery. A great deal of ignorant prejudice against
machines is one of its results. In Sheffield, _files_ are still made by
_hand_; while here, in America, we make _watches_ by _machinery_! The
disposition of the whole community, both here and in Great Britain,
towards this labor question, is kindly. It has become a momentous social
problem. During the fifteen years that my attention has been riveted to
this subject, I have seen a great change in public feeling.
I have received the Sixth Annual Report of the Society for the
Employment of Women, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury is President, and
Mr. Gladstone a Vice-President. This society has trained some
hair-dressers, clerks, glass-engravers, book-keepers, and telegraph
operators; but its greatest service consists in the constant issue of
tracts, to influence developing public opinion. Such an association
should be started in New York.
I should have been glad to inaugurate in Boston, during the last six
years, several important industrial movements. The war checked the
enthusiasm I had succeeded in rousing; and I have not been able to pause
in my special work of collecting and observing facts to stimulate it
afresh, or to solicit personally the necessary means. How easy it would
be for a few wealthy women to test these experiments!
I would first establish a mending-school; and, having taught women how
to darn and patch in a proper manner, I would scatter them through the
country, to open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a city, in
which a place exists to which a housekeeper could send a week's wash,
sure that it would be returned with every button-hole, button, hem,
gusset, and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops should take on
apprentices, who should be sent to the house to do every sort of
repairing with a needle.
I would open another school to train women to every kind of trivial
service, now clumsily or inadequately performed by men. If, for
instance, you now send to an upholsterer to have an old window-blind or
blind-fixture repaired, his apprentice will replace the entire thing at
a proportionate cost, leaving the old screw-holes to gape at the gazer.
I would train women to wash, repair, and replace in part, and to carry
in their pockets little vials of white or red lead to fill the gaping
holes. Full employment could be found for such apprentices.
At Milwaukee, in October, 1866, I found a young woman well established
as a hair-dresser. She belonged to a superior class of society, and
encountered great opposition in carrying out her plan. "People would
treat her much better," said a resident clergyman to me, in detailing
her struggles, "if she were the willing mistress of a rich man." She had
no taste for teaching, but I found in her a cultivated and pleasant
companion. Since the war began, a good many women have been employed as
clerks in the public offices at Washington. There is now some talk of
their removal. If this should occur, it would be in consequence of unfit
appointments, and the habits and annoyances which demoralized women have
imposed upon the departments. The proper place to begin removals is
obviously with the corrupt men, who have pensioned their mistresses out
of the public coffers.
In Chicago, I found Fanny Paine, a girl of thirteen, acting as paymaster
to the Eagle Works Manufacturing Company. She will, in one year, pay out
a quarter of a million of dollars. She keeps the time-sheets, pay-roll,
and account-book of each of the four hundred men employed. She receives
about five thousand dollars a week from the bank, and makes the proper
balances with the cashier, after paying her men. She knows every man,
earns six hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum, and is represented
as perfectly robust. It gave me no pleasure to find so young a girl in a
position so exposed. I would have her uncommon faculties mature in
quiet. The "London Athenæum" lately said, "A phenomenon worthy of
consideration is the increasing number of female players on stringed
instruments in France. At the examination of the conservatory this year,
Mademoiselle Boulay gained a first, Mademoiselle Castellan a second
prize. The violoncello has its professional students among the gentler
sex. Madame Viardot is about to turn her experience to account, by
editing a classical selection of music."
A very dear friend of mine,--Charlotte Hill, of West Gouldsborough, in
Maine,--born a farmer's daughter, too deaf to teach, and too delicate to
sew, had an intense love for music. She taught herself the violin. She
then made a profession for herself by offering to play it at rustic
parties; and one year, in the pursuit of this profession, she travelled
more than eight hundred miles, and laid by three hundred dollars. This
money was not spent on jewelry, but on the best books that our best
publishers could furnish. It takes a genius to do a thing like
that,--trust in one's self, and a far deeper trust in God; but there are
multitudes of women whom suggestion and sympathy would lead into such
thriving ways.
I have heard recently of a young girl in Shirley, who supports herself
and her father by gunning. She not only sends game to market, but
prepares the breasts of birds for ornamental purposes. She has bought
her own house by her profits.
When I was at Florence, Mass., in the summer of 1865, I drove over to
the famous button-factory at Easthampton. This great industry was
founded by a woman; and, as I had often heard mythical stories about it,
I wished to get at the facts. I found Samuel Williston, a very good
specimen of a fine old English gentleman. He is a man between sixty and
seventy, with hair and beard as white as snow. I found him in a blue
coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and white pants, and very
willing to tell his wife's story, if it would "encourage other women."
"My wife's father," he went on to say, "was a Mr. Graves. He was a poor
man, with a large family of children. His wife and daughters used to go
over to Northampton to get knitting from the stores. One day, all the
knitting had been given out; and Mrs. Graves showed her disappointment
so plainly that the shopman asked her to take some buttons to cover. In
those days, all our buttons came from England, where they were made by
hand; but our tailor had got out, and wanted some for coats and vests in
a hurry. Mrs. Graves made about a gross, all her daughters helping, and
did it so well that the work was continued. Then my wife took it up. She
got some of the work from her mother. That was in 1825-26,--forty years
ago. I had invested in merino sheep. I had ninety ewes and a large farm;
but I was a young man, and found it hard to get along. It looked as
though this business would help. My wife wanted to control the work. She
hired girls to help her, and took all the orders that came. J.D. Whitney
and Hayden & Whitney sold all she could make. When she had had the
business a year, I went to Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, New
York,--in short, I went _all round_,--with samples. I got my orders at
first hand, and from that the business began.
"When we heard that machine-made buttons had been introduced into
England, we sent over to buy the right to make them, and Mr. Hayden
introduced them here.
"Every man must have his small beginnings," added Mr. Williston, with an
embarrassed blush; "but, when a man has such a wife as mine, he is
lucky."
It is said that nearly a million of dollars is invested in this button
business at Easthampton. The Willistons are Congregational Christians;
and the "Round Table" stated lately, that the wealth thus accumulated,
besides being of great local value in developing the resources of the
State, had established one seminary, built three churches, and assisted
colleges and schools without number.
It is very rare that the labor of women becomes consolidated into
capital; but there is no reason why it should not. The mother of James
Freeman Clarke, whose name I use here in compliance with her own
expressed desire, was a wonderful illustration of what common sense and
determination will accomplish. The petted darling of a wealthy family,
Madame Clarke found herself summoned, by her husband's illness and early
death, to retrieve, almost unaided, the fortunes of six children. The
first money which she could lay aside, at the head of a boarding-house,
lifted the mortgage from a small property which she knew she was to
inherit, and which she felt sure would increase in value. For this
property she ultimately received her own price, being, to the great
amazement of applicants, her own "man of business" in all negotiations.
The small sum it yielded she put out at interest in new States, where
money was scarce, and multiplied it tenfold before she died, not by
careless speculation, but by investing it wisely in the heart of the
great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, by buying what she saw with her
own eyes to be valuable. "I want women to know how to manage their own
concerns as I did," she would say. "It only takes a little common sense.
Women ought not to give up their property to men, or even ask their
advice about it. The best men will prop up their shaky plans with a
woman's money; but women should watch men, see where shrewd men put
their money, and do as they _do_, not as they _say_."
I am sorry that the purpose of this volume does not permit me to show
how this noble woman used the money she made for the profit, the
religious advancement, and the bodily comfort of those who seemed to
need its aid.
One other woman, whose name I am not permitted to mention, deserves to
be spoken of in this connection. She was an orphan, and began life as a
factory girl with twelve cents and a half. Her father had never dreamed
of any need to educate a daughter. She took a sister into the factory
with her; and, while one worked, the other went to school,--my friend
opening a dressmaker's shop, at times, to speed the process. While in
the mills, she secured, by a wise firmness, many privileges for the
girls. She married, and, after the death of an only child, sought to
make herself happy, by being of use; and opened, for the girls whose
wages had been reduced, a Protective Union shoe-store, taking all that
one man and eight apprentices could make daily. At last, she borrowed a
hundred dollars, and went to Lynn,--the first woman that ever bought
goods there. She soon controlled the prices of the trade, opened a
second store, and finally bought out the Union.
Part of her store she devoted to fancy goods, and, for seven years and a
half, did all the buying in Boston. She then went to Philadelphia,
leaving the stores in her husband's charge, and took her degree at
Pennsylvania College. After this, she lectured on Physiology throughout
New England, being often profitably employed by the corporations to
lecture to the girls. By this time, she owned her horse and carriage,
her house, and twenty thousand dollars, beside having a good practice in
a country town. Circumstances then carried her to California, where, in
three years and a half, she made thirteen thousand dollars, partly by
her profession, and partly by buying up Government vouchers, in which
the men at the Navy Yard were paid. She gave gold, and received
greenbacks. Before she left the State, one of its most eminent
physicians came to her to know by what secret she cured patients whom he
had given up. She showed him the errors of his own practice; and, when
she returned to New England, left, with perfect faith, her patients in
his hands.
If this woman were not still living, I should wish to record the details
of her life; but they suggest so much, that I have not thought it right
to suppress them altogether.
Mr. Thayer and two ladies have lately attempted, in Boston, at No. 28,
Ash Street, a small experiment in the way of a lodging-house for girls.
This was first suggested to the ladies, by the misfortunes of a young
woman who came under their notice. They tried to hire a house, but found
it cheaper to buy; Mr. Thayer being responsible for half the expense,
and each of the ladies for one-quarter. The house was furnished at the
cost of friends. It has gas and water in nearly every room, and shelters
29 girls. They pay for light, rent, lodging, and fire, repairs and
service, $1.50 per week, and $1.25. There are two single beds in most of
the rooms. The matron keeps an exact account of her expenditure; and
each week the stores are weighed by one of the ladies, the waste being
charged, as well as the marketing, to the girls.
The board, so managed, costs each girl $1.75 a week. Some of the girls
wash for themselves in the evening, and a woman is hired for the house
once a week. They take care of their own rooms. The matron employs a
cook. There are only two rules,--that every girl shall be in at 10 P.M.,
and that a week's notice shall be given when any inmate desires to
leave. No supervision is exercised except of the stores and the matron's
accounts. The house was opened Dec. 15, 1866, and is a success according
to its plan.
Grateful as I am to see this attempt made, I cannot feel that this plan
should be followed for the future. Girls do not wish to receive charity,
nor can any experiment be thoroughly successful, which does not pay, in
the long-run, a fair percentage on the cost of house and furniture. Now,
$4.00 a week is, in my estimation, only the fair cost price of the style
of board and living which these girls receive; and it could not be kept
at that under average management.
I do not know the cost of the house, but it would certainly rent for
$600. The taxes upon it would be, at least, $120.
Now, let us suppose that 30 girls occupy it, each paying the highest
rent, of $1.50 per week, which is $45 a month. In 13 months, they would
pay $585;--a sum less than the rent alone; the house and water taxes,
light, lodging, fire, repairs, and service, being thrown in gratis. I am
sure my estimate of the rent and taxes is beneath the real value of
both; and it is evident, that no efforts to benefit this class, on a
large scale, will succeed, unless made to pay better: companies will
undertake only profitable work. I want to see girls unite to furnish
themselves, in a still more modest way, with what they need; and I wish
to see a system of cooking-houses established, which shall simplify the
whole matter.
In New York, a Working-women's Home is about to be established, the plan
of which was long since submitted to the public. A building has been
purchased on Elizabeth Street, which will afford accommodations for four
hundred persons. For this, $100,000 has been paid, and $25,000 more will
be expended in fitting it up. Half the amount has already been raised;
and the managers are making strong efforts to collect the remainder. Of
its objects, the "Evening Post" says,--
"In this Home will be found clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome
food, and facilities for education and self-improvement. Girls
exposed to the temptations of a city life will be surrounded by
both moral and Christian influences.
"The institution is intended to benefit a class of women who now
find it impossible, with their slender means, to procure
comfortable homes, and are forced to live where moral purity, as
well as health, is endangered.
"It is well known that families and boarding-house keepers almost
always object to female boarders, and that many thousands of
sewing-women find it difficult to obtain quarters. Artificial
flower-makers, book-folders, hoop-skirt manufacturers, packers of
confectionery, &c., are compelled, if deprived of parental shelter,
to accept such homes and accommodations as their very limited
resources will command.
"It is not intended to make this a charitable institution; but the
prices will be made so moderate as to be within the means of those
who are to be benefited by it, while, at the same time, the
establishment will be self-sustaining."