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diff --git a/old/14798.txt b/old/14798.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16ddb0c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14798.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7496 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Making Both Ends Meet, by Sue Ainslie Clark +and Edith Wyatt + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Making Both Ends Meet + +Author: Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt + +Release Date: January 25, 2005 [eBook #14798] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKING BOTH ENDS MEET*** + + +E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously +made available by the Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 14798-h.htm or 14798-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/9/14798/14798-h/14798-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/9/14798/14798-h.zip) + + Images of the original pages are available through the + Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. See + http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/ + text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4282542 + + + + +MAKING BOTH ENDS MEET + +The Income and Outlay of New York Working Girls + +by + +SUE AINSLIE CLARK and EDITH WYATT + +New York +The Macmillan Company + +1911 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Photograph by Lewis Hine] + + + + TO + FLORENCE KELLEY + THIS BOOK + IS DEDICATED + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book is composed of the economic records of self-supporting women +living away from home in New York. Their chronicles were given to the +National Consumers' League simply as a testimony to truth; and it is +simply as a testimony to truth that these narratives are reprinted here. + +The League's inquiry was initiated because, three years ago in the study +of the establishment of a minimum wage, only very little information was +obtainable as to the relation between the income and the outlay of +self-supporting women workers. The inquiry was conducted for a year and a +half by Mrs. Sue Ainslie Clark, who obtained the workers' budgets as they +were available from young women interviewed in their rooms, boarding +places, and hotels, and at night schools and clubs. After Mrs. Clark had +collected and written these accounts, I supplemented them further in the +same manner; and rearranged them in a series of articles for Mr. S.S. +McClure. The budgets fell naturally into certain industrial divisions; +but, as will be seen from the nature of the inquiry, the records were not +exhaustive trade-studies of the several trades in which the workers were +engaged. They constituted rather an accurate kinetoscope view of the +yearly lives of chance passing workers in those trades. Wherever the +facts ascertained seemed to warrant it, however, they were so focussed as +to express definitely and clearly the wisdom of some industrial change. + +In two instances in the course of the serial publication of the budgets +such industrial changes were undertaken and are now in progress. The firm +of Macy & Co. in New York has inaugurated a monthly day of rest, with +pay, for all permanent women-employees who wish this privilege. The +change was made first in one department and then extended through a plan +supplied by the National Civic Federation to all the departments of the +store. + +The Manhattan Laundrymen's Association, the Brooklyn Laundrymen's +Association, and the Laundrymen's Association of New York State held a +conference with the Consumers' League after the publication of the +Laundry report, and asked to cooperate with the League in obtaining the +establishment of a ten-hour day in the trade, additional factory +inspection, and the placing of hotels and hospital laundries under the +jurisdiction of the Department of Labor. Largely through the efforts of +the Laundrymen's Association of New York State, a bill defining as a +factory any place where laundry work is done by mechanical power passed +both houses of the last legislature at Albany. A standard for a fair +house was discussed and agreed upon at the conference. It is the +intention of the League to publish within the year a white list of the +New York steam laundries conforming to this standard in wages, hours, and +sanitation. + +The New York of the workers is not the New York best known to the country +at large. The New York of Broadway, the New York of Fifth Avenue, of +Central Park, of Wall Street, of Tammany Hall,--these are by-words of +common reference; and when two years ago the daily press printed the news +of the strike of thirty thousand shirt-waist makers in the metropolis, +many persons realized, perhaps for the first time, the presence of a new +and different New York--the New York of the city's great working +population. The scene of these budgets is a corner of this New York. + +The authors of the book are many more than its writers whose names appear +upon the title-page. The second chapter is chiefly the word-of-mouth tale +of Natalya Perovskaya, one of the shirt-waist workers, a household tale +of adventure repeated just as it was told to the present writer and to +her hostess' family and other visitors during a call on the East Side on +a warm summer evening. The sixth chapter is almost entirely the +contribution of Miss Carola Woerishofer, Miss Elizabeth Howard Westwood, +and Miss Mary Alden Hopkins, three young college-bred women from Bryn +Mawr, Smith, and Wellesley, respectively, who made an inquiry for the +National Consumers' League in the hospital, hotel, and commercial steam +laundries of New York. The fifth chapter is composed largely from a +chronicle of the New York cloak makers' strike written by Dr. Henry +Moskowitz, one of the most efficient leaders in attaining the final +settlement last fall between the employers and the seventy thousand +members of the Cloak Makers' Union. Mr. Frederick Winston Taylor gave the +definition of "Scientific Management" which prefaces the last chapter. It +is a pleasure to acknowledge help of several kinds received from Mrs. +Florence Kelley, Miss Perkins, and Miss Johnson of the Consumers' League; +from Miss Neumann, of the Woman's Trade-Union League; from Miss Pauline +and Josephine Goldmark, and Mr. Louis p. Brandeis; from Miss Willa +Siebert Cather of _McClure's Magazine_; and from Mr. S.S. McClure. + +To record rightly any little corner of contemporary history is a communal +rather than an individual piece of work. While no title so pompous as +that of a cathedral could possibly be applied except with great absurdity +to any magazine article, least of all to these quiet, journalistic +records, yet the writing of any sincere journalistic article is more +comparable, perhaps, to cathedral work than to any sort of craft in +expression. If the account is to have any genuine social value as a +narrative of contemporary truth, it will be evolved as the product of +numerous human intelligences and responsibilities. Especially is this +true of any synthesis of facts which must be derived, so to speak, from +many authors, from many authentic sources. + +Unstandardized conditions in women's work are so frequently mentioned in +the first six chapters that their connection with the last chapter will +be sufficiently clear. What is the way out of the unstandardized and +unsatisfactory conditions obtaining for multitudes of women workers? +Legislation is undoubtedly one way out. Trade organization is undoubtedly +one way out. But legislation is ineffectual unless it is strongly backed +by conscientious inspection and powerful enforcement. In the great +garment-trade strikes in New York, in spite of their victories, the trade +orders have gone in such numbers to other cities that neither the spirit +of the shirt-waist makers' strike nor the wisdom of the Cloak Makers' +Preferential Union Agreement have since availed to provide sufficient +employment for the workers. Further, neither legislation nor trade +organization are permanently valuable unless they are informed by justice +and understanding. In the same manner, unless it is informed by these +qualities, the new plan of management outlined in the last chapter is +incapable of any lasting and far-reaching industrial deliverance. But it +provides a way out, hitherto untried. With an account of this way as it +appears to-day our book ends, as a testimony to living facts can only +end, not with the hard-and-fast wall of dogma, but with an open door. + + EDITH WYATT. + + CHICAGO, March 19, 1911. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER I + THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK SALESWOMEN + + CHAPTER II + THE SHIRT-WAIST MAKERS' STRIKE + + CHAPTER III + THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS. + (UNSKILLED AND SEASONAL WORK) + + CHAPTER IV + THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS. + (MONOTONY AND FATIGUE IN SPEEDING) + + CHAPTER V + THE CLOAK MAKERS' STRIKE AND THE PREFERENTIAL UNION SHOP + + CHAPTER VI + WOMEN LAUNDRY WORKERS IN NEW YORK + + CHAPTER VII + SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS APPLIED TO WOMEN'S WORK + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK SALESWOMEN + +I + + +One of the most significant features of the common history of this +generation is the fact that nearly six million women are now gainfully +employed in this country. From time immemorial, women have, indeed, +worked, so that it is not quite as if an entire sex, living at ease at +home heretofore, had suddenly been thrown into an unwonted activity, as +many quoters of the census seem to believe. For the domestic labor in +which women have always engaged may be as severe and prolonged as +commercial labor. But not until recently have women been employed in +multitudes for wages, under many of the same conditions as men, +irrespective of the fact that their powers are different by nature from +those of men, and should, in reason, for themselves, for their children, +and for every one, indeed, be conserved by different industrial +regulations. + +What, then, are the fortunes of some of these multitudes of women +gainfully employed? What do they give in their work? What do they get +from it? Clearly ascertained information on those points has been meagre. + +About two years ago the National Consumers' League, through the +initiative of its Secretary, Mrs. Florence Kelley, started an inquiry on +the subject of the standard of living among self-supporting women workers +in many fields, away from home in New York. Among these workers were +saleswomen, waist-makers, hat makers, cloak finishers, textile workers in +silk, hosiery, and carpets, tobacco workers, machine tenders, packers of +candy, drugs, biscuits, and olives, laundry workers, hand embroiderers, +milliners, and dressmakers. + +The Consumers' League had printed for this purpose a series of questions +arranged in two parts. The first part covered the character of each +girl's work--the nature of her occupation, wages, hours, overtime work, +overtime compensation, fines, and idleness. The second part of the +questions dealt with the worker's expenses--her outlay for shelter, food, +clothing, rest and recreation, and her effort to maintain her strength +and energy. In this way the League's inquiry on income and outlay was so +arranged as to ascertain, not only the worker's gain and expense in +money, but, as far as possible, her gain and expense in health and +vitality. The inquiry was conducted for a year and a half by Mrs. Sue +Ainslie Clark.[1] + +The account of the income and outlay of self-supporting women away from +home in New York may be divided, for purposes of record, into the +chronicles of saleswomen, shirt-waist makers, women workers whose +industry involves tension, such as machine operatives, and women workers +whose industry involves a considerable outlay of muscular strength, such +as laundry workers. + +Among these the narrative of the trade fortunes of some New York +saleswomen is placed first. Mrs. Clark's inquiry concerning the income +and outlay of saleswomen has been supplemented by portions of the +records of another investigator for the League, Miss Marjorie Johnson, +who worked in one of the department stores during the Christmas rush of +1909-1910. + +Further informal reports made by the shop-girls in the early summer of +1910 proved that the income and expenditures of women workers in the +stores had remained practically unchanged since the winter of Mrs. +Clark's report. + +So that it would seem that the budgets, records of the investigator, and +statements given by the young women interviewed last June may be +reasonably regarded as the most truthful composite photograph obtainable +of the trade fortunes of the army of the New York department-store girls +to-day.[2] + +The limitations of such an inquiry are clear. The thousands of women +employed in the New York department stores are of many kinds. From the +point of view of describing personality and character, one might as +intelligently make an inquiry among wives, with the intent of +ascertaining typical wives. The trade and living conditions accurately +stated in the industrial records obtained have undoubtedly, however, +certain common features. + +Among the fifty saleswomen's histories collected at random in stores of +various grades, those that follow, with the statements modifying them, +seem to express most clearly and fairly, in the order followed, these +common features--low wages, casual employment, heavy required expense in +laundry and dress, semidependence, uneven promotion, lack of training, +absence of normal pleasure, long hours of standing, and an excess of +seasonal work. + +One of the first saleswomen who told the League her experience in her +work was Lucy Cleaver, a young American woman of twenty-five, who had +entered one of the New York department stores at the age of twenty, at a +salary of $4.50 a week. + + +II + +In the course of the five years of her employment her salary had been +raised one dollar. She stood for nine hours every day. If, in dull +moments of trade, when no customers were near, she made use of the seats +lawfully provided for employees, she was at once ordered by a +floor-walker to do something that required standing. + +During the week before Christmas, she worked standing over fourteen hours +every day, from eight to twelve-fifteen in the morning, one to six in +the afternoon, and half past six in the evening till half past eleven at +night. So painful to the feet becomes the act of standing for these long +periods that some of the girls forego eating at noon in order to give +themselves the temporary relief of a foot-bath. For this overtime the +store gave her $20, presented to her, not as payment, but as a Christmas +gift. + +The management also allowed a week's vacation with pay in the summer-time +and presented a gift of $10. + +After five years in this position she had a disagreement with the +floor-walker and was summarily dismissed. + +She then spent over a month in futile searching for employment, and +finally obtained a position as a stock girl in a Sixth Avenue suit store +at $4 a week, a sum less than the wage for which she had begun work five +years before. Within a few weeks, dullness of trade had caused her +dismissal. She was again facing indefinite unemployment. + +Her income for the year had been $281. She lived in a large, pleasant +home for girls, where she paid only $2.50 a week for board and a room +shared with her sister. Without the philanthropy of the home, she could +not have made both ends meet. It was fifteen minutes' walk from the +store, and by taking this walk twice a day she saved carfare and the +price of luncheon. She did her own washing, and as she could not spend +any further energy in sewing, she bought cheap ready-made clothes. This +she found a great expense. Cheap waists wear out very rapidly. In the +year she had bought 24 at 98 cents each. Here is her account, as nearly +as she had kept it and recalled it for a year: a coat, $10; 4 hats, $17; +2 pairs of shoes, $5; 24 waists at 98 cents, $23.52; 2 skirts, $4.98; +underwear, $2; board, $130; doctor, $2; total, $194.50. This leaves a +balance of $86.50. This money had paid for necessaries not +itemized,--stockings, heavy winter underwear, petticoats, carfare, +vacation expenses, every little gift she had made, and all recreation. + +She belonged to no benefit societies, and she had not been able to save +money in any way, even with the assistance given by the home. So much for +her financial income and outlay. + +After giving practically all her time and force to her work, she had not +received a return sufficient to conserve her health in the future, or +even to support her in the present without the help of philanthropy. She +was ill, anaemic, nervous, and broken in health. + +Before adding the next budget, two points in Lucy Cleaver's outlay +should, perhaps, be emphasized in the interest of common sense. The first +is the remarkable folly of purchasing 24 waists at 98 cents each. In an +estimate of the cost of clothing, made by one of the working girls' clubs +of St. George's last year,[3] the girls agreed that comfort and a +presentable appearance could be maintained, so far as expenditure for +waists was concerned, on $8.50 a year. This amount allowed for five +shirt-waists at $1.20 apiece, and one net waist at $2.50. + +In extenuation of Lucy Cleaver's weak judgment as a waist purchaser, and +the poor child's one absurd excess, it must, however, be said that the +habit of buying many articles of poor quality, instead of fewer articles +of better quality, is frequently a matter, not of choice, but of +necessity. The cheap, hand-to-mouth buying which proves paradoxically so +expensive in the end is no doubt often caused by the simple fact that +the purchaser has not, at the time the purchase is made, any more money +to offer. Whatever your wisdom, you cannot buy a waist for $1.20 if you +possess at the moment only 98 cents. The St. George's girls made their +accounts on a basis of an income of $8 a week. Lucy Cleaver never had an +income of more than $5.50 a week, and sometimes had less. The fact that +she spent nearly three times as much as they did on this one item of +expenditure, and yet never could have "one net waist at $2.50" for festal +occasions, is worthy of notice. + +The other point that should be emphasized is the fact that she did her +own washing. The more accurate statement would be that she did her own +laundry, including the processes, not only of rubbing the clothes clean, +but of boiling, starching, bluing, and ironing. This, after a day of +standing in other employment, is a vital strain more severe than may +perhaps be readily realized. Saleswomen and shop-girls have not the +powerful wrists and muscular waists of accustomed washerwomen, and are in +most instances no better fitted to perform laundry work than washerwomen +would be to make sales and invoice stock. But custom requires exactly the +same freshness in a saleswoman's shirt-waist, ties, and collars as in +those of women of the largest income. The amount the girls of the St. +George's Working Club found it absolutely necessary to spend in a year +for laundering clothes was almost half as much as the amount spent for +lodging and nearly two-thirds as much as the amount originally spent for +clothing. + +Where this large expense of laundry cannot be met financially by +saleswomen, it has to be met by sheer personal strength. One +department-store girl, who needed to be especially neat because her +position was in the shirt-waist department, told us that sometimes, after +a day's standing in the store, she worked over tubs and ironing-boards at +home till twelve at night. + +It is worth noting, as one cause of the numerous helpless shifts of the +younger salesgirls, that, living, as most of them do, in a +semidependence, on either relatives or charitable homes, it is almost +impossible for them to learn any domestic economy, or the value of money +for living purposes. It seems significant that quite the most practical +spender encountered among the saleswomen was a widow, Mrs. Green, whose +accounts will be given below, who was for years the manager of her own +household and resources, and not a wage-earner until fairly late in life. + +This helplessness of a semidependent and uneducated girl may be further +illustrated by the chronicle of Alice Anderson, a girl of seventeen, who +had been working in the department stores for three years and a half. + +She was at first employed as a check girl in a Fourteenth Street store, +at a wage of $2.62-1/2 a week; that is to say, she was paid $5.25 twice a +month. Her working day was nine and a half hours long through most of the +year. But during two weeks before Christmas it was lengthened to from +twelve to thirteen and a half hours, without any extra payment in any +form. She was promoted to the position of saleswoman, but her wages still +remained $2.62-1/2 a week. She lived with her grandmother of eighty, +working occasionally as a seamstress, and to her Alice gave all her +earnings for three years. + +It was then considered better that she should go to live with an aunt, to +whom she paid the nominal board of $1.15 a week. As her home was in West +Hoboken, she spent two and a half hours every day on the journey in the +cars and on the ferry. During the weeks of overtime Alice could not reach +home until nearly half past eleven o'clock; and she would be obliged to +rise while it was still dark, at six o'clock, after five hours and a half +of sleep, in order to be at her counter punctually at eight. By walking +from the store to the ferry she saved 30 cents a week. Still, fares cost +her $1.26 a week. This $1.26 a week carfare (which was still not enough +to convey her the whole distance from her aunt's to the store) and the +$1.15 a week for board (which still did not really pay the aunt for her +niece's food and lodging) consumed all her earnings except 20 cents a +week. + +Alice was eager to become more genuinely self-dependent. She left the +establishment of her first employment and entered another store on +Fourteenth Street, as cash girl, at $4 a week. The hours in the second +store were very long, from eight to twelve in the morning and from a +quarter to one till a quarter past six in the afternoon on all days +except Saturday, when the closing hour was half past nine. + +After she had $4 a week instead of $2.62-1/2, Alice abandoned her daily +trip to West Hoboken and came to live in New York. + +Here she paid 6 cents a night in a dormitory of a charitably supported +home for girls. She ate no breakfast. Her luncheon consisted of coffee +and rolls for 10 cents. Her dinner at night was a repetition of coffee +and rolls for 10 cents. As she had no convenient place for doing her own +laundry, she paid 21 cents a week to have it done. Her regular weekly +expenditure was as follows: lodging, 42 cents; board, $1.40; washing, 21 +cents; clothing and all other expenses, $1.97; total, $4. + +Of course, living in this manner was quite beyond her strength. She was +pale, ill, and making the severest inroads upon her present and future +health. Her experience illustrates the narrow prospect of promotion in +some of the department stores. + + +III + +It is significant in this point to compare the annals of this growing +girl with those of a saleswoman of thirty-five, Grace Carr, who had been +at work for twelve years. In her first employment in a knitting mill she +had remained for five years, and had been promoted rapidly to a weekly +wage of $12. The hours, however, were very long, from ten to thirteen +hours a day. The lint in the air she breathed so filled her lungs that +she was unable, in her short daily leisure, to counteract its effect. At +the end of five years, as she was coughing and raising particles of lint, +she was obliged to rest for a year. + +Not strong enough to undertake factory work again, she obtained a +position in the shoe department in one of the large stores, where she was +not "speeded up," and her daily working time of nine hours was less +severe than that of the knitting mill. In summer she had a Saturday +half-holiday. There was a system of fines for lateness; but on the rare +occasions of her own tardiness it had not been enforced. The company was +also generous in grafting five-o'clock passes, which permitted a girl to +leave at five in the afternoon, with no deduction from her wage for the +free hour. She had been with this establishment for six years, earning $6 +a week; and she had given up hope of advancing. + +Miss Carr said that her work in the shoe department was exhausting, +because of the stooping, the frequent sitting down and rising, and the +effort of pulling shoes on and off. In the summer preceding the fall when +she told of her experience in the store, she had, in reaching for a box +of shoes, strained her heart in some way, so that she lost consciousness +immediately, and was ill for seven weeks. She failed to recuperate as +rapidly as she should have done, because she was so completely +devitalized by overwork. + +The firm was very good to her at this time, sending a doctor daily until +she was in condition to go to the country. It then paid her expenses for +two weeks in a country home of the Young Women's Christian Association, +and during the three remaining weeks of her stay paid her full wage. Miss +Carr praised this company's general care of the employees. A doctor and +nurse were available without charge if a girl were ill in the store. A +social secretary was employed. + +Miss Carr lived in a furnished room with two other women, each paying a +dollar a week rent. She cared nothing for her fellow-lodgers; her only +reason for spending her time with them in such close quarters was her +need of living cheaply. She cooked her breakfast and supper in the +crowded room, at an expense of $1.95 a week. She said that her "hearty" +meal was a noon dinner, for which she paid in a restaurant 15 cents a +day. + +After her experience in the summer, she realized that she should assure +herself of income in case of illness. She joined a benefit society, to +which she paid 50 cents a month. This promised a weekly benefit of $4 a +week for thirteen weeks, and $200 at death. She paid also 10 cents a week +for insurance in another company. + +The room was within walking distance of the store, so that she spent +nothing for carfare. The services and social life of a church were her +chief happiness. Besides her contributions to its support, she had spent +only $1 a year on "good times." She did her own washing. + +Her outlay in health in these years had been extreme. She was very worn, +thin, and wrinkled with hard work, severe economies, and anxiety, +although she was still in what should have been the prime of life. + +Her weekly budget was: lodging, $1; board, $1.95; luncheons, $1.05; +insurance, 21 cents; clothing, contributions to church, occasional +carfare, and other expenses, $1.79; total, $6. + +Miss Carr said that her firm was generous in many of its policies, but +she felt it profoundly discouraging not to advance to a wage that would +permit decent living. + +In connection with Miss Carr's budget the benefit system of New York +stores should be mentioned. In many of the large department stores, +monthly dues, varying with the wage of the employee, are deducted from +the pay of each, although in many cases she does not know what the return +for the dues is to be. These dues assure to her, while she remains in the +store's employ, a weekly benefit in case of illness, and a death benefit. +But if she leaves the store, or is discharged, the management retains the +amount she has been forced to pay to it, and gives no return whatever in +case of her subsequent sickness or death. While she is in the store's +employ, the sick benefit varies from one-half the girl's wage to a +regular payment of $5 a week for from five to thirteen weeks, according +to the particular rules in each store. The employee must be ill five days +or a week in order to draw it. Otherwise she is docked for absence. + +The Mutual Benefit Fund of the New York Association of Working Girls' +Societies has in this respect a better policy than the stores. Members of +the clubs pay 55 cents a month for a benefit of $5 for six weeks in any +one year, and 20 cents a month for a benefit of $3. Cessation of +membership in a club does not terminate connection with the benefit fund, +unless the reason for leaving is unsatisfactory to the board. Women not +members of clubs may, under certain conditions, join the benefit fund as +associate members, and pay 50 cents a month for a benefit of $5 a week, +30 cents for a benefit of $3 a week, or 80 cents for a benefit of $8 a +week. These amounts are severally payable for six weeks in any one year. + +A number of the stores have trained nurses and doctors in their employ, +to whom the girls may go if they are ill. Several of the stores have +recreation rooms; several have summer homes; several have employees' +restaurants, where a really nourishing meal can be obtained for 15 cents. + +Miss Carr, struggling against overwhelming odds, lived within $6 without +charitable aid. With her experience may be compared those of two other +older saleswomen, who were wholly self-supporting. + +Mrs. Green, a shrewd-appearing woman of thirty-five, had been +wage-earning only two years. She began work in Philadelphia in a +commission house as a saleswoman and corset fitter. Here she was able to +save from her salary. She also saved very carefully the wardrobe she had +before she entered business. With these reserves, she came to New York to +work in department stores for the purpose of gaining experience in +salesmanship and a more thorough knowledge of corsets. She expected to be +able to command a high salary as soon as she had thus increased her +competence. She went at first to a new and attractive Sixth Avenue +store, where, working eight hours and a quarter a day, she earned $10 a +week. Laid off at the end of five months, she was idle a month before +finding employment at another Sixth Avenue store. + +In applying here she told the employer that she would not work for less +than $12 a week. He offered her $9, and a commission on all sales beyond +$400 a week. She refused, and the firm finally gave her what she asked. + +It proved that her choice was wise, for she found that in her very +busiest week, when she was exhausted from the day's rush, her sales never +reached $400 a week, so that she would have received no income at all +from the proffered commission. + +She had a small room alone in an attractive hotel for working girls. For +this and breakfasts and dinners she paid $5.10 a week. Luncheons cost, in +addition, about $1.50 a week. She paid 50 cents a week for washing, +besides doing some herself. Riding to and from work nearly every day +increased her weekly expense 50 cents. This left her $4.40 a week for +clothing and sundries. + +Mrs. Green seemed extravagantly dressed; she said, however, that she +contrived to have effective waists and hats by making and trimming them +herself, and by purchasing materials with care at sales. In dressing +economically without sacrificing effect she was aided palpably by skill +and deftness. + +She was in good health; and, though she did not save, she had not spent, +even in her idle month, any of the reserve fund she had accumulated +before she began to work. + +Another self-supporting saleswoman aided by her experience in domestic +economy was Zetta Weyman, a young woman of twenty-eight, who had begun to +work for wages at the age of eleven; at this time she still attended +school, but did housework out of school hours. When she was older, she +was employed as a maid in the house of a very kind and responsive couple, +who gave her free access to their interesting library, where she read +eagerly. A trip to Europe had been especially stimulating. Her employer +was considerate, and tried to make it possible for her to benefit by the +experience. + +Throughout this period she had been observant of dress and manner among +the cultured people she saw, and had applied what she learned to her own +dress and conduct. At twenty-six, wishing for larger opportunities than +those she could have in personal service, she obtained work in a +department store at $7 a week. Here she soon advanced to $10 in a +department requiring more than average intelligence. At the end of two +years she was very much interested in her work. It made demands upon her +judgment, and offered opportunity for increasing knowledge and +heightening her value to the company. She expected soon to receive a +larger wage, as she considered her work worth at least $15 a week. Aside +from underpay, she thought she was fairly treated. She greatly +appreciated two weeks' vacation with full wages. + +Zetta gave $2.50 a week for a furnished hall bedroom and the use of a +bath-room. The warmth from the single gas-jet was the sole heat. She made +coffee in her room for breakfast; a light luncheon sufficed; and dinner +in a restaurant cost 25 to 35 cents a day. She was often entertained at +dinner, by friends. + +She usually rode to work, and walked home, eight blocks, spending thus 30 +cents a week carfare. All living expenses for the week came to about $6. +She paid for six years $24 a year on an insurance policy which promised +her $15 a week in case of illness, and was cumulative, making a return +during the life of the holder; $290 would be due from it in about a year. + +Zetta said that she was extravagant in her expense for clothing, but she +considered that her social position depended upon her appearance. She was +very attractive looking. Her manner had quiet and grace, and there was +something touching, even moving, in the dignity of her pure, clear +English, acquired in the teeth of a fortune that forced her to be a +little scullion and cook at the age of eleven. She was dressed with taste +and care at the time of the interview. Through watching sales and through +information obtained from heads of departments, she contrived to buy +clothing of excellent quality, silk stockings, and well-cut suits +comparatively cheaply. By waiting until the end of the season, she had +paid $35, the winter before, for a suit originally costing $70; $35 was +more than she had intended to spend, but the suit was becoming and she +could not resist the purchase. She managed to have pretty and +well-designed hats for from $2 to $5, because a friend trimmed them. + +She spent her vacation with relatives on a farm in the country. Railroad +fares and the occasional purchase of a magazine were her only +expenditures for pleasure. But she had many "good times" going to the +beaches in the summer with friends who paid her way. + +She considered that with careful planning a girl could live in fair +comfort for $10 a week. But she saved nothing. + +The drawback she mentioned in her own arrangements--the best she could +obtain for her present wage--was not the cold of her hall bedroom, warmed +only by the gas-jet, but that she had no suitable place for receiving men +friends. She was obliged to turn to trolley rides and walks and various +kinds of excursions,--literally to the streets,--for hospitality, when +she received a man's visit. She spoke frequently of one man with whom she +had many "good times." She could not take him to her room. Trolley +rides, and walks in winter, would pall. She hated park benches as a +resort for quiet conversation. Where, then, was she to see him? Although +she disapproved of it, she and another girl who had a larger and more +attractive room than her own had received men there. + +Zetta's income for the year had been $520. She had spent $130 for rent; +$105 for dinners; $55 for breakfasts, luncheons, and washing; $195 for +clothing, summer railway fares, and incidentals; $15 for carfare; and $20 +for insurance. + + +IV + +Zetta's interest in her daily occupation is somewhat unusual in the trade +chronicles of the shop-girls. One frequently hears complaint of the +inefficiency and inattention of New York saleswomen and their rudeness to +plainly dressed customers. While this criticism contains a certain truth, +it is, of course, unreasonable to expect excellence from service +frequently ill paid, often unevenly and unfairly promoted, and, except +with respect to dress, quite unstandardized. + +Further, it must be remembered that the world in which the shop-girl +follows her occupation is a world of externals. The fortunes, talents, +tastes, eager human effort spent in shop-window displays on Fifth Avenue, +the shimmer and sparkle of beautiful silks and jewels, the prestige of +"carriage trade," the distinction of presence of some of the customers +and their wealth and their freedom in buying--all the worldliness of the +most moneyed city of the United States here perpetually passes before the +eyes of Zettas in their $1.20 muslin waists so carefully scrubbed the +midnight before, and of Alices who have had breakfasts for 10 cents. Is +it surprising that they should adopt the New York shop-window-display +ideal of life manifested everywhere around them? + +The saleswomen themselves are the worst victims of their unstandardized +employment; and the fact that they spend long years of youth in work +involving a serious outlay of their strength, without training them in +concentration or individual responsibility or resourcefulness, but +apparently dissipating these powers, seems one of the gravest aspects of +their occupation. + +A proud and very pretty pink-cheeked little English shop-girl, with clear +hazel eyes, laid special stress upon unevenness of promotion, in telling +of her fortunes in this country. + +She was sitting, as she spoke, in the parlor of a Christian "home," +which, like that of many others where shop-girls live, was light and +clean, but had that unmistakably excellent and chilling air so subtly +imparted by the altruistic act of furnishing for others--the air that +characterizes spare rooms, hotel parlors, and great numbers of +settlement receiving rooms. + +"I had always wanted to come to America," she said in her quick English +enunciation. "And I saved something and borrowed ten pounds of my +brother, and came. Oh, it was hard the first part of the time I was here. +I remember, when I first came in at the door of this house, and +registered, one of the other shop-girls here was standing at the desk. I +had on a heavy winter coat, just a plain, rough-looking coat, but it's +warm. That girl gave me such a look, a sort of sneering look--oh, it made +me hot! But that's the way American shop-girls are. I never have spoken +to that girl. + +"I got down to 50 cents before I had a job. There was one store I didn't +want to go to. It was cheap, and had a mean name. One afternoon, when it +was cold and dark, I walked up to it at last; and it looked so horrid I +couldn't go in. There was another cheap store just beyond it, and +another. All the shoppers were hurrying along. Oh, it was a terrible time +that afternoon, terrible, standing there, looking at those big, cheap New +York stores all around me. + +"But at last I went in, and they took me on. It wasn't so bad, after all. +In about two months I had a chance to go to a better store. I like it +pretty well. But I can't save anything. I had $8 a week. Now I have $9. +I pay $4.50 a week here for board and lodging, but I always live up to my +salary, spending it for clothes and washing. Oh, I worry and worry about +money. But I've paid back my $50. I have a nice silk dress now, and a new +hat. And now I've got them," she added, with a laugh, "I haven't got +anywhere to wear them to. I look forward to Sunday through the week days; +but when Sunday comes, I like Monday best. + +"Though I think it doesn't make much difference how you do in the store +about being promoted. A girl next me who doesn't sell half as much as I +do gets $12 where I have $9; and the commission we have on sales in +Christmas week wasn't given to me fairly. The store is kind in many ways, +and lets the girls sit down every minute when customers aren't there, and +has evening classes and club-rooms. But yet the girls are discouraged +about not having promotions fairly and not having commissions straight. +Right is right."[4] + +The charmlessness of existence noticeable in most of the working girls' +homes was emphasized by a saleswoman in the china department of a +Broadway department store, Kate McCray, a pretty young Irishwoman of +about twenty-three, who was visited in a hotel she said she didn't like +to mention to people, for fear they would think it was queer. "You see, +it's a boat, a liner that a gentleman that has a large plantation gave +for a hotel for working girls. It seems peculiar to some people for a +girl to be living on the river." + +Miss McCray paid $3.50 a week board at the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel. Her +salary was $8 a week. She had been in the same department for four years, +and considered it wrong that she received no promotion. She could save +nothing, as she did none of her own washing on account of its inroads of +fatigue, and she was obliged to dress well. She was, however, in +excellent health and especially praised the store's policy of advising +the girls to sit down and to rest whenever no customers were present. + +It was misty and raining on the occasion of my visit to the Maverick +Deep-Sea Hotel, a liner anchored in the East River; and Miss McCray +conducted me into the cabin to a large party of boys, elderly women, and +children, most of them visitors like myself, and all listening to a +powerful-wristed youth happily playing, "You'll Come Back and Hang +Around," with heavily accented rag-time, on an upright piano. + +"About seventy girls board on this boat. That young lady going into the +pantry now is a stenographer--such a bright girl." + +Absorbed in the spectacle of a hotel freedom which permitted a guest to +go to a pantry at will, whatever the force of her brightness, I followed +Miss McCray about the boat. It was as if the hotel belonged to the girls, +while in the Christian homes it had been as if everything belonged, not +to the girls, but to benevolent though carefully possessive Christians. +Miss McCray praised highly the manager and his wife. + +"About twenty men and boys stay on a yacht anchored right out here. They +board on this boat, and go to their own boat when the whistle blows at +ten o'clock," she continued, leading me to the smoking-room, where she +introduced a number of very young gentlemen reading magazines and +knocking about gutturally together. They, too, seemed proud of their +position as boarders, proud of the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel. They were +nice, boyish young fellows, who might have been young mechanicians. + +She showed me the top deck with especial satisfaction as we came out into +the fresh, rainy air. The East River shipping and an empty recreation +pier rose black on one side, with the water sparkling in jetted +reflection between; and on the other quivered all the violet and silver +lights of the city. There were perhaps half a dozen tents pitched on +deck. + +"Some of the girls sleep outdoors up here," said Miss McCray in her +gentle voice. "They like it so, they do it all winter long. Have plenty +of cover, and just sleep here in the tents. Oh, we all like it! Some of +the men that were here first have married; and they like it so well, they +keep coming back here with their wives to see us. It's so friendly," said +the girl, quietly; "and no matter how tired I am when I come here in the +evening, I sit out on the deck, and I look at the water and the lights, +and it seems as if all my cares float away." + +The good humor of the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel, its rag-time, its boarders +from the yacht, the charm of the row of tents with the girls in them +sleeping their healthful sleep out in the midst of the river wind, the +masts, the chimneys, stars, and city lights, all served to deepen the +impression of the lack of normal pleasure in most of the shop-girls' +lives. + +This starvation in pleasure, as well as low wages and overwork, subjects +the women in the stores to a temptation readily conceivable. + +The girls in the stores are importuned, not only by men from without +these establishments, but also, to the shame of the managements, by men +employed within the stores. + +The constant close presence of this gulf has more than one painful +aspect. On account of it, not only the poor girls who fall suffer, but +also the girls who have the constant sense of being "on guard," and find +it wise, for fear of the worst suspicion, to forego all sorts of normal +delights and gayeties and youthful pleasures. Many girls said, "I keep +myself to myself"; "I don't make friends in the stores very fast, because +you can't be sure what any one is like." This fear of friendship among +contemporaries sharing the same fortune, fear, indeed, of the whole +world, seemed the most cruel comment possible on the atmosphere of the +girls' lives in their occupation. + +Another kind of meanness in human relations was abundantly witnessed by +Miss Johnson, the League's inquirer, who worked in one of the stores +during the week of Christmas good-will. + +The "rush" had begun when Miss Johnson was transferred in this Christmas +week from the neckwear to the muffler department on the first floor of +one of the cheaper stores. All the girls stood all day long--from eight +to twelve and from one to eight at night on the first days; from one at +noon to ten and eleven at night, as the season progressed; and, on the +last dreadful nights, from noon to the following midnight. The girls had +35 cents supper money. Except for that, all this extra labor was unpaid +for. + +The work was incessant. The girls were nervous, hateful, spiteful with +one another. The manager, a beautiful and extremely rough girl of +nineteen, swore constantly at all of them. The customers were grabbing, +insistent, unreasonable from morning to evening, from evening to +midnight. Behind the counter, with the advance of the day, the place +became an inferno of nervous exhaustion and exasperation. In the two +weeks of Miss Johnson's service one customer once thanked her; and one +tipped her 5 cents for the rapid return of a parcel. Both these acts of +consideration took place in the morning. Miss Johnson said that this was +fortunate for her, as, at one word of ordinary consideration toward the +end of her long day's work, she thought she must have burst into tears. + +There was a little bundler in the department, Catriona Malatesta, a +white, hungry-looking little North Italian of fourteen with a thin chin +and a dark-shadowed, worried face. She had an adored sick sister of four, +besides six other younger brothers and sisters, and a worshipped mother, +to whom she gave every cent of her wages of three dollars and a half a +week. An older brother, a day laborer, paid the rent and provided food +for all of them. Every other family expense was met by Catriona's three +dollars and a half, so that she was in the habit of spending only five +cents for her own lunch, and, on the nights of overtime, five cents for +her own dinner, in order to take home the extra thirty cents; and every +day she looked whiter and older. + +At the beginning of the week before Christmas, the store raised +Catriona's wage to four dollars. Her mother told her she might have the +extra half dollar for herself for Christmas. Though Catriona had worked +for some months, this was the first money of her own she had ever had. +With pride she told the department how it was to be spent. She was going +to surprise her mother with a new waist for Christmas, a waist Catriona +had seen in the store marked down to forty-nine cents. A ten per cent +discount was allowed to employees, so that the waist would cost +forty-five cents. With the remaining five cents Catriona would buy her +sick Rosa a doll. All her life Rosa had wanted a doll. Now, at last, she +could have one. + +On the day when she received the money, Catriona kept it close at hand, +in a little worn black leather purse, in a shabby bag hanging from her +arm, and not out of sight for an instant. + +Her purchases were to be made in the three-quarters of an hour allowed +for supper. The time Catriona consumed in eating her five-cent meal was +never long, so that, even allowing for prolonged purchasing, her absence +of an hour was strange. + +"D---- your soul, where in hell have you been all this time, Catie?" the +manager screamed at her, angrily, without glancing at her, when she came +back at last. + +Catriona looked more anxious and white than ever before. Her face was +stained with weeping. "I lost my purse," she said in a dazed, unsteady +voice. "It was gone when I opened my bag in the lunch-room. I've looked +for it everywhere." + +There was a sudden breathless change in the air of the department. You +could have heard a pin drop. + +"Better go down to the basement and wash your face," said the manager, +awkwardly, with unbelievable gentleness. + +"Well," she continued suddenly, the minute Catriona was out of ear-shot, +"I'm not so poor but I can help to make _that_ up." She took a dollar +bill from her pocket-book. Every one contributed something, though +several girls went without their supper for this purpose, and one girl +walked home four miles after midnight. Altogether they could give nearly +ten dollars. + +The manager sidled awkwardly toward Catriona, when she came back from +washing her face. "Here, kid," she muttered sheepishly, pushing the money +into the little girl's hand. Catriona, pale and dazed, looked up at +her--looked at the money, with a shy excitement and happiness dawning in +her eyes. Then she cried again with excitement and joy, and every one +laughed, and sent her off again to wash her face. + +That night everything was different in the department. There had been a +real miracle of transfiguration. The whole air of intercourse was +changed. All the girls were gentle and dignified with each other. +Catriona's eyes sparkled with pleasure. Her careworn air was gone. She +was a child again. She had never had any physical loveliness before; but +on that night hundreds of passing shoppers looked with attention at the +delight and beauty of her face. + +On the next day everything went on as before. The girls snapped at each +other and jostled each other. The beautiful manager swore. One girl came, +looking so ill that Miss Johnson was terrified. + +"Can't you stop, Kitty? You look so sick. For heaven's sake, go home and +rest." + +"I can't afford to go home." + +Cross and snappish as the girls were, they managed to spare Kitty, and to +stand in front of her to conceal her idleness from the floor-walker, and +give her a few minutes' occasional rest sitting down. She went through +the first hours of the morning as best she might, though clearly under +pressure of sharp suffering. But at about ten the floor-walker, for whom +it must be said that he was responsible for the sales and general +presentability of the department, saw her sitting down. "Why aren't you +busy?" he called. "Get up." + +At midnight on Christmas eve, as the still crowd of girls walked wanly +out of the great store into the brilliant New York street, some one said, +"How are you, Kitty?" + +She made no reply for a minute. Then she said wretchedly, "Oh--I hope +I'll be dead before the next Christmas." + + +V + +The sheer and causeless misery this girl endured was, of course, +attributable, not only to the long hours and to the standing demanded by +her occupation, but to the fact that this occupation was continued at a +period when the normal health of great numbers of women demands +reasonable quiet and rest. + +With a few honorable exceptions[5] it may be said to be the immemorial +custom of department stores in this country to treat women employees, in +so far as ability to stand and to stand at all seasons goes, exactly as +if they were men. + +The expert testimony collected by the publication secretary of the +National Consumers' League, Miss Josephine Goldmark, for the brief which +obtained the Illinois Ten-Hour Law, gives the clearest possible record of +the outlay of communal strength involved in these long hours of standing +for women. + + _Report of "Lancet" Sanitary Commission on Sanitation in the + Shop_. 1892 + + Without entering upon the vexed question of women's rights, we + may nevertheless urge it as an indisputable physiological fact + that, when compelled to stand for long hours, women, especially + young women, are exposed to greater injury and greater + suffering than men. + + + _British Sessional Papers_. Vol. XII. 1886. Report from Select + Committee on Shop Hours Regulation Bill + + Witness, W. Abbott, M.D. + + "Does their employment injuriously affect them, as + child-bearing women in after years?" + + "According to all scientific facts, it would do so." + + "And you, as a medical man of a considerable number of years' + experience, would not look to girls who have been worked so + many hours in one position as the bearers of healthy, strong + children?" + + "I should not." + + "Then it naturally follows, does it not, that this is a very + serious matter in the interest of the nation as a whole, apart + from the immediate injury to the person concerned?" + + "Yes. As regards the physical condition of the future race." + + + _British Sessional Papers_. Vol. XII, 1895. Report from the + Select Committee on Shops. Early Closing Bill + + Witness, Dr. Percy Kidd, M.D., of the University of Oxford, + Fellow of the College of Physicians and Member of the College + of Surgeons, attached to London Hospital and Brompton, + Hospital. + + "Would this be a fair way of putting it: It is not the actual + work of people in shops, but having to be there and standing + about in bad air; it is the long hours which is the injurious + part of it?" + + "Quite so; the prolonged tension." + + + _Official Information from the Reports of the [German] Factory + Inspectors_. Berlin, Bruer, 1898 + + The inspector in Hesse regards a reduction of working hours to + ten for women in textile mills as "absolutely imperative," as + the continuous standing is very injurious to the female + organism. + + + _Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography_. + Berlin, September, 1907. Vol. II, Sec. IV. Fatigue Resulting + from Occupation. Berlin, Hirschwald, 1908 + + Doctor Emil Roth: + + "My experience and observations do not permit me to feel any + uncertainty in believing that the injury to health inflicted + upon even fully capable workers by the special demands of a + periodically heightened rush of work is never compensated for. + Under this head we may consider the demands of all seasonal + work, ... as also the special rush season in shops before + Christmas." + + + _Night Work of Women in Industry. Reports on its Importance and + Legal Regulation_. Preface by Etienne Bauer. Night Work of Women + in Industry in Austria. Ilse Von Arlt. Jena, Fischer, 1903 + + The suitable limits of working time vary with individuals, but + it is acknowledged that not only is a regularly long day of + work injurious, but also that a single isolated instance of + overstrain may be harmful to a woman all the rest of her life. + + _Proceedings of the French Senate_, July 7, 1891. Report on the + Industrial Employment of Children, Young Girls, and Women. + + When I ask, when we ask, for a lessening of the daily toil of + women, it is not only of the women that we think, it is not + principally of the women, it is of the whole human race. It is + of the father, it is of the child, it is of society, which we + wish to reestablish on its foundation, from which we believe it + has perhaps swerved a little. + +In New York State, the hours of labor of adult women (women over +twenty-one) in mercantile establishments are not limited in any way by +law. + +The law concerning seats in stores is as follows:-- + + Seats for Women in Mercantile Establishments + + Chairs, stools, or other suitable seats shall be maintained in + mercantile establishments for the use of female employees + therein, to the number of at least one seat for every three + females employed, and the use thereof by such employees shall + be allowed at such times and to such extent as may be necessary + for the preservation of their health. + +The enforcement of this law is very difficult. The mercantile inspectors +can compel the requisite number of seats. They have successfully issued +one hundred and fourteen orders on this point[6] to the stores within the +year 1909. But the use of these seats to such extent as may be necessary +for the preservation of the health of the women employees is another +matter. For fear of being blacklisted by the merchants, the saleswomen +will not testify in court in those cases where employers practically +forbid the use of seats, by requesting the employees to do something +requiring a standing position whenever they sit down. So that in these +cases the inspectors cannot bring prosecution successfully, on account of +lack of sufficient evidence. + +Further, in one store the management especially advises the saleswomen to +be seated at every moment when the presence of a customer does not +require her to stand. But the saleswoman's inability to attract possible +customers while she is seated still keeps her standing, in order not to +diminish her sales. + +Curiously enough, it would seem that the shopping public of a nation +professedly democratic will not buy so much as a spool of thread from a +seated woman. There is, of course, much work for women[7]--such as +ironing for instance--in which standing is generally considered +absolutely necessary. Salesmanship is not work of this character. It is +primarily custom that demands the constant standing seen in the stores; +and, until shoppers establish a habit of buying of shop-girls who are +seated, and the stores provide enough seats for all saleswomen and permit +them to sell when seated, the present system of undermining the normal +health of women clerks will continue unchecked. + +The New York State law in regard to the work of the younger women +(minors)--in mercantile establishments is as follows:-- + + Hours of Labor of Minors[8] + + No female employee between sixteen and twenty-one years of age + shall be required, permitted, or suffered to work in or in + connection with any mercantile establishment more than sixty + hours in any one week; or more than ten hours in any one day, + unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day of some one + day of the week; or before seven o'clock in the morning or + after ten o'clock in the evening of any day. _This section does + not apply to the employment of persons sixteen years of age or + upward, between the eighteenth day of December and the + following twenty-fourth day of December, both inclusive_.[9] + +That is to say, that, for the holiday season, the time of all others when +it might seem wise and natural to protect the health of the younger women +working in the great metropolitan markets, for that season, of all +others, the State specifically provides that the strength of its youth is +to have no legal safeguard and may be subjected to labor without limit. + +Substantially, all the present legal protection for workers in the +stores was obtained in 1896, after the investigation of mercantile +establishments conducted in 1895 by the Rinehart Commission.[10] Ever +since, an annual attempt has been made to perfect the present law and to +secure its enforcement, which had been left in the hands of the local +Boards of Health, and was practically inoperative until 1908. Enforcement +was then transferred to the Labor Commissioner, and has since that time +been actively maintained. + +The hearings on the law relative to mercantile establishments are held in +Albany in a small room in the Capitol before the Judiciary Committee of +the Senate and the Assembly Commission on Labor. These hearings are very +fiery. The Support is represented by Attorney Mornay Williams, and Mrs. +Nathan, Mrs. Kelley, Miss Stokes, Miss Sanford, and Miss Goldmark of the +New York and National Consumers' Leagues, and delegates from the Child +Labor Committee, the Working-Girls' Clubs, and the Woman's Trade-Union +League. Both men and women speak fox the amendment.[11] The Support's +effort for legislation limiting hours has regularly been opposed by the +Retail Dry-Goods Merchants' Association, which yearly sends an +influential delegation to Albany. + +"These ladies have been coming here for sixteen years," said one of the +merchants, resentfully, last spring. Looking around, and observing +changes in the faces watching him among adherents of the Support, he +added: "Well, perhaps not the _same_ ladies. But they have come." + +"These ladies are professional agitators," said another merchant at +another hearing. "Why, they even misled Mr. Roosevelt, when he was +Governor, into recommending the passage of their bill." + +Such are some of the reasons offered by the opposition for not limiting +women's hours of labor in mercantile establishments. + +Among the several common features of the experiences of these New York +saleswomen, low wages, casual employment, heavy required expense in +laundry and dress, semidependence, uneven promotion, lack of training, +absence of normal pleasure, long hours of standing, and an excess of +seasonal work, the consideration of this last common condition is placed +last because its consequences seem the most far-reaching. + +Looking back at these common features in the lives of these average +American working girls, one has a sudden sense that the phenomenon of the +New York department stores represents a painful failure in democracy. +What will the aspect of the New York department stores be in the future? +For New York doubtless will long remain a port of merchandise, one of the +most picturesque and most frequented harbors of the Seven Seas. Doubtless +many women still will work in its markets. What will their chances in +life be? + +First, it may be trusted that the State law will not forever refuse to +protect these women and their future, which is also the future of the +community, from the danger of unlimited hours of labor. Then, the fact +that in a store in Cincinnati the efficiency of the saleswomen has been +standardized and their wages raised, the fact that in a store in Boston +the employees have become responsible factors in the business, and the +fact that a school of salesmanship has been opened in New York seem to +indicate the possibility of a day when salesmanship will become +standardized and professional, as nursing has within the last century. +Further, it may be believed that saleswomen will not forever acquiesce in +pursuing their trade in utterly machinal activity, without any common +expression of their common position. + +Very arresting is the fact that, year after year, the Union women go to +Albany to struggle for better chances in life for the shop-women who +cannot at present wisely make this struggle for themselves. The fact +that the Union women fail is of less moment than that they continue to +go. + +But what have the organized women workers, the factory girls who so +steadfastly make this stand for justice for the shop-girls, attained for +themselves in their fortunes by their Union? It was for an answer to this +question that we turned to the New York shirt-waist makers, whose income +and outlay will be next considered in this little chronicle of women's +wages. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: In the last six months further accounts from working women +in the trades mentioned in New York have been received by Miss Edith +Wyatt, Vice-President of the Consumers' League of Illinois. Aside from +the facts ascertained through the schedules filled by the workers, and +through Mrs. Clark's and Miss Wyatt's visits to them, information has +been obtained through Miss Helen Marot, Secretary of the New York Woman's +Trade-Union League, Miss Marion MacLean, Director of the Sociological +Investigation Committee of the Young Women's Christian Association of the +United States, Miss May Matthews, Head Worker of Hartley House, Miss +Hall, Head Worker of the Riverside Association, Miss Rosenfeld, Head +Worker of the Clara de Hirsch Home, the Clinton Street Headquarters of +the Union, the St. George Working Girls' Clubs, the Consumers' League of +the City of New York, and the offices or files of the _Survey_, the +_Independent_, the _Call_, and the _International Socialist Review_.] + +[Footnote 2: It remains to be said that there are both among saleswomen +and among women in business for the department stores, buyers, assistant +buyers, receivers of special orders, advertisers, and heads of +departments, earning salaries of from twenty dollars to two hundred +dollars a week. But this experience does not represent the average +fortune the League was interested in learning.] + +[Footnote 3: Here are the estimates made by the St. George's Working +Girls' Club of the smallest practicable expenditure for self-supporting +girls in New York: General expense per week: room, $2; meals, $3; +clothes, $1.25; washing, 75 cents; carfare, 60 cents; pleasures, 25 +cents; church, 10 cents; club, 5 cents: total $8. Itemized account of +clothing for the year at $1.25 a week, or $65 a year: 2 pair of shoes at +$2, and mending at $1.50, $5.50; 2 hats at $2.50, $5; 8 pair of stockings +at 12-1/2 cents, $1; 2 combination suits at 50 cents, $1; 4 shirts at +12-1/2 cents, 50 cents; 4 pairs of drawers at 25 cents, $1; 4 corset +covers at 25 cents, $1; 1 flannel petticoat, 25 cents; 2 white petticoats +at 75 cents, $1.50; 5 shirt-waists at $1.20, $6; 1 net waist, $2.50; 2 +corsets at $1, $2; gloves, $2; 2 pairs rubbers at 65 cents, $1.30; 1 +dozen handkerchiefs at 5 cents, 60 cents; 3 nightgowns at 50 cents, +$1.50; 1 sweater, $2; 2 suits at $15, $30: total, $65.65.] + +[Footnote 4: This worker later, however, in the winter of 1911, +considered she had been paid and promoted fairly.] + +[Footnote 5: Macy and Company of New York give to those of their +permanent women employees who desire it a monthly day of rest with pay. +The Daniels and Fisher Company of Denver refund to any woman employee who +requests it the amount deducted for a monthly day of absence for illness. +This excellent rule is, however, said to represent here rather a +privilege than a practice, and not to be generally taken advantage of, +because not generally understood. The present writer has not been able to +learn of other exceptions.] + +[Footnote 6: Ninth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 127.] + +[Footnote 7: See page 16 (foot-note), "Scientific Management as applied +to Women's Work."] + +[Footnote 8: This statement does not include the excellent New York Child +Labor Law for children under sixteen, which allows of no exception at +Christmas time.] + +[Footnote 9: Italics ours.] + +[Footnote 10: A New York State Commission, appointed for this purpose in +the year 1895, through the efforts of the Consumers' League of the city +of New York.] + +[Footnote 11: For fear of a permanent loss of position the saleswomen +themselves have never been urged to appear in support of this +legislation, nor, except in a few instances where this difficulty has +been nullified, have they been present at these hearings.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SHIRT-WAIST MAKERS' STRIKE + +I + + +Among the active members of the Ladies Waist Makers' Union in New York, +there is a young Russian Jewess of sixteen, who may be called Natalya +Urusova. She is little, looking hardly more than twelve years old, with a +pale, sensitive face, clear dark eyes, very soft, smooth black hair, +parted and twisted in braids at the nape of her neck, and the gentlest +voice in the world, a voice still thrilled with the light inflections of +a child. + +She is the daughter of a Russian teacher of Hebrew, who lived about three +years ago in a beech-wooded village on the steppes of Central Russia. +Here a neighbor of Natalya's family, a Jewish farmer, misunderstanding +that manifesto of the Czar which proclaimed free speech, and +misunderstanding socialism, had printed and scattered through the +neighborhood an edition of hand-bills stating that the Czar had +proclaimed socialism, and that the populace must rise and divide among +themselves a rich farm two miles away. + +Almost instantly on the appearance of these bills, this unhappy man and a +young Jewish friend who chanced to be with him at the time of his arrest +were seized and murdered by the government officers--the friend drowned, +the farmer struck dead with the blow of a cudgel. A Christian mob formed, +and the officers and the mob ravaged every Jewish house in the little +town. Thirty innocent Jews were clubbed to death, and then literally cut +to pieces. Natalya and her family, who occupied the last house on the +street, crept unnoticed to the shack of a Roman Catholic friend, a woman +who hid sixteen Jewish people under the straw of the hut in the fields +where she lived, in one room, with eight children and some pigs and +chickens. Hastily taking from a drawer a little bright-painted plaster +image of a wounded saint, this woman placed it over the door as a means +of averting suspicion. Her ruse was successful. "Are there Jews here?" +the officer called to her, half an hour afterward, as the mob came over +the fields to her house. + +"No," said the woman. + +"Open the door and let me see." + +The woman flung open the door. But, as he was quite unsuspecting, the +officer glanced in only very casually; and it was in utter ignorance that +the rage of the mob went on over the fields, past the jammed little room +of breathless Jews. + +As soon as the army withdrew from the town, Natalya and her family made +their way to America, where, they had been told, one had the right of +free belief and of free speech. Here they settled on the sixth floor of a +tenement on Monroe Street, on the East Side of New York. Nothing more +different from the open, silent country of the steppes could be conceived +than the place around them. + +The vista of the New York street is flanked by high rows of dingy brick +tenements, fringed with jutting white iron fire-escapes, and hung with +bulging feather-beds and pillows, puffing from the windows. By day and by +night the sidewalks and roads are crowded with people,--bearded old men +with caps, bare-headed wigged women, beautiful young girls, half-dressed +babies swarming in the gutters, playing jacks. Push carts, lit at night +with flaring torches, line the pavements and make the whole thronged, +talking place an open market, stuck with signs and filled with +merchandise and barter. Everybody stays out of doors as much as possible. +In summer-time the children sleep on the steps, and on covered chicken +coops along the sidewalk; for, inside, the rooms are too often small and +stifling, some on inner courts close-hung with washing, some of them +practically closets, without any opening whatever to the outer air. + +Many, many of Natalya's neighbors here are occupied in the garment +trade. According to the United States census of 1900, the men's clothing +made in factories in New York City amounted to nearly three times as much +as that manufactured in any other city in the United States. The women's +clothing made in factories in New York City amounted to more than ten +times that made in any other city; the manufacture of women's ready-made +clothing in this country is, indeed, almost completely in the hands of +New York's immense Jewish population.[12] + +As soon after her arrival as her age permitted, Natalya entered the +employment of a shirt-waist factory as an unskilled worker, at a salary +of $6 a week. Mounting the stairs of the waist factory, one is aware of +heavy vibrations. The roar and whir of the machines increase as the door +opens, and one sees in a long loft, which is usually fairly light and +clean, though sometimes neither, rows and rows of girls with heads bent +and eyes intent upon the flashing needles. They are all intensely +absorbed; for if they be paid by the piece, they hurry from ambition, and +if they be paid by the week, they are "speeded up" by the foreman to a +pace set by the swiftest workers. + +In the Broadway establishment, which may be called the Bruch Shirt-waist +Factory, where Natalya worked, there were four hundred girls--six hundred +in the busy season. The hours were long--from eight till half past +twelve, a half hour for lunch, and then from one till half past six. + +Sometimes the girls worked until half past eight, until nine. There were +only two elevators in the building, which contained other factories. +There were two thousand working people to be accommodated by these +elevators, all of whom began work at eight o'clock in the morning; so +that, even if Natalya reached the foot of the shaft at half past seven, +it was sometimes half past eight before she reached the shirt-waist +factory on the twelfth floor. She was docked for this inevitable +tardiness so often that frequently she had only five dollars a week +instead of six. This injustice, and the fact that sometimes the foreman +kept them waiting needlessly for several hours before telling them that +he had no work for them, was particularly wearing to the girls. + +Natalya was a "trimmer" in the factory. She cut the threads of the waists +after they were finished--a task requiring very little skill. But the +work of shirt-waist workers is of many grades. The earnings of makers of +"imported" lingerie waists sometimes rise as high as $25 a week. Such a +wage, however, is very exceptional, and, even so, is less high than might +appear, on account of the seasonal character of the work. + +The average skilled waist worker, when very busy, sometimes earns from +$12 to $15 a week. Here are the yearly budgets of some of the better paid +workers, more skilled than Natalya--operatives receiving from $10 to $15 +a week. + +Rachael, a shirt-waist operative of eighteen, had been at work three +years. She had begun at $5 a week and her skill had increased until in a +very busy week she could earn from $14 to $15 by piece-work. "But," she +said, "I was earning too much, so I was put back at week's work, at $11 a +week. The foreman is a bad, driving man. Ugh! he makes us work +fast--especially the young beginners." + +Rachael, too, had been driven out of Russia by Christian persecution. Her +little sister had been killed in a massacre. Her parents had gone in one +direction, and she and her two other sisters had fled in another to +America. + +Here in New York she lived in a tenement, sharing a room with two other +girls, and, besides working in the shirt-waist factory, did her own +washing, made her own waists, and went to night school. + +Her income was seriously depleted by the seasonal character of her work. +Out of the twelve months of the year, for one month she was idle, for +four months she had only three or four days' work a week, for three +months she had five days' work a week, and for four months only did she +have work for all six days. Unhappily, during these months she developed +a severe cough, which lost her seven weeks of work, and gave her during +these weeks the expense of medicine, a doctor, and another boarding +place, as she could not in her illness sleep with her two friends. + +Her income for the year had been $348.25. Her expenses had been as +follows: rent for one-third of room at $3.50 a month, $42; suppers with +landlady at 20 cents each, $63; other meals, approximately, $90; board +while ill, seven weeks at $7, $49; doctor and medicine (about) $15; +clothing, $51.85; club, 5 cents a week, $2.60; total, $313.45, thus +leaving a balance of $34.80. + +Shoes alone consumed over one-half of the money used for clothing. They +wore out with such amazing rapidity that she had needed a new pair once a +month. At $2 each, except a best pair, costing $2.60, their price in a +year amounted to $24.60.[13] + +In regard to Rachael's expenditure and conservation in strength, she had +drawn heavily upon her health and energy. Her cough continued to exhaust +her. She was worn and frail, and at eighteen her health was breaking. + +Anna Klotin, another older skilled worker, an able and clever Russian +girl of twenty-one, an operative and trimmer, earned $12 a week. She had +been idle twelve weeks on account of slack work. For four weeks she had +night work for three nights a week, and payment for this extra time had +brought her income up to $480 for the year. Of this sum she paid $312 ($6 +a week) for board and lodging alone in a large, pleasant room with a +friendly family on the East Side. To her family in Russia she had sent +$120, and she had somehow contrived, by doing her own washing, making her +own waists and skirts, and repairing garments left from the previous +year, to buy shoes and to pay carfare and all her other expenses from the +remaining $48. She had bought five pairs of shoes at $2 each, and a suit +for $15. + +Fanny Wardoff, a shirt-waist worker of twenty, who had been in the United +States only a year, helped her family by supporting her younger brother. + +For some time after her arrival in this country the ill effects of her +steerage voyage had left her too miserable to work. She then obtained +employment as a finisher in a skirt factory, where her best wage was $7. +But her earnings in this place had been so fluctuating that she was +uncertain what her total income had been before the last thirteen weeks. +At the beginning of this time she had left the skirt factory and become +a finisher in a waist factory, where she earned from $10 to $12 a week, +working nine and a half hours a day. + +Her place to sleep, and breakfast and dinner, in a tenement, cost $2.50 a +week. She paid the same for her younger brother, who still attended +school. The weekly expense was palpably increased by 60 cents a week for +luncheon and 30 cents for carfare to ride to work. She walked home, +fifteen blocks. + +Her clothing, during the eight months of work, had cost about $40. Of +this, $8 had been spent for four pairs of shoes. Two ready-made skirts +had cost $9, and a jacket $10. Her expense for waists was only the cost +of material, as she had made them herself. + +She spent 35 cents a week for the theatre, and economized by doing her +own washing. + +Here are the budgets of some shirt-waist operatives earning from $7 to +$10 a week, less skilled than the workers described above, but more +skilled than Natalya. + +Irena Kovalova, a girl of sixteen, supported herself and three other +people, her mother and her younger brother and sister, on her slight wage +of $9 a week. She was a very beautiful girl, short, but heavily built, +with grave dark eyes, a square face, and a manner more mature and +responsible than that of many women of forty. Irena Kovalova had not been +out of work for one whole week in the year she described. She had never +done night work; but she had almost always worked half a day on +Sunday--except in slack weeks. She was not certain how many of these +there had been; but there had been enough slack time to reduce her income +for her family for the year to $450. They had paid $207 rent for four +rooms on the East Side, and had lived on the remaining $243, all of which +Irena had given to her mother. + +Her mother helped her with her washing, and she had worn the clothes she +had the year before, with the exception of shoes. She had been forced to +buy four pairs of these at $2 a pair. They all realized that if Irena +could spend a little more for her shoes they would wear longer. "But for +shoes," she said, with a little laugh, "two dollars--it is the most I +ever could pay." + +She was a girl of unusual health and strength, and though sometimes very +weary at night and troubled with eye strain from watching the needle, it +was a different drain of her vitality that she mentioned as alarming. She +was obliged to work at a time of the month when she normally needed rest, +and endured anguish at her machine at this season. She had thought, she +said gravely, that if she ever had any money ahead, she would try to use +it to have a little rest then. + +Molly Zaplasky, a little Russian shirt-waist worker of fifteen, operated +a machine for fifty-six hours a week, did her own washing, and even went +to evening school. She had worked for five months, earning $9 a week for +five weeks of this time, and sometimes $6, sometimes $7, for the +remainder. She and her sister Dora, of seventeen, also a shirt-waist +maker, had a room with a cousin's family on the East Side. + +Dora had worked a year and a half. She, too, earned $9 a week in full +weeks. But there had been only twenty-two such weeks in that period. For +seventeen weeks she had earned $6 a week. For four weeks she had been +idle because of slackness of work, and for nine weeks recently she had +been too ill to work, having developed tuberculosis. Dora, too, did her +own washing. She made her own waists, and went to evening school. She had +paid $2.75 a week for partial board and for lodging. The food, not +included in her board, cost about $1 a week. The little Molly had paid +for Dora's board and lodging in her nine weeks' illness. Dora, who had +worked so valiantly, was quietly expecting just as valiantly her turn in +the long waiting list of applicants for the Montefiore Home for +consumptives. She knew that the chance of her return to Molly was very +slight. + +Her expenditure for food, shelter, and clothing for the year had been as +follows: room and board (exclusive of nine weeks' illness), $161.25; +clothing, $41.85; total, $203.10. As her income for the year had been +$297.50, this left a balance of $94.40 for all other expenses. Items for +clothing had been: suit, $12; jacket, $4.50; a hat, $2.50; shoes (two +pairs), $4.25; stockings (two pairs a week at 15 cents), $15.60; +underwear, $3; total, $41.85. + +One point should be accentuated in this budget--the striking cost of +stockings, due to the daily walk to and from work and the ill little +worker's lack of strength and time for darning. The outlay for footwear +in all the budgets of the operators is heavy, in spite of the fact that +much of their work is done sitting. + +Here are the budgets of some of the shirt-waist makers who were earning +Natalya's wage of $6 a week, or less than this wage. + +Rea Lupatkin, a shirt-waist maker of nineteen, had been in New York only +ten months, and was at first a finisher in a cloak factory. Afterward, +obtaining work as operator in a waist factory, she could get $4 in +fifty-six hours on a time basis. She had been in this factory six weeks. + +Rea was paying $4 a month for lodging in two rooms of a tenement-house +with a man and his wife and baby and little boy. She saved carfare by a +walk of three-quarters of an hour, adding daily one and a half hours to +the nine and a half already spent in operating. Her food cost $2.25 a +week so that, with 93 cents a week for lodging, her regular weekly cost +of living was $3.18, leaving her 82 cents for every other expense. In +spite of this, and although she had been forced to spend $3 for +examination of her eyes and for eyeglasses, Rea contrived to send an +occasional $2 back to her family in Europe. + +Ida Bergeson, a little girl of fifteen, was visited at half past eight +o'clock one evening, in a tenement on the lower East Side. The gas was +burning brightly in the room; several people were talking; and this +frail-looking little Ida lay on a couch in their midst, sleeping, in all +the noise and light, in complete exhaustion. Her sister said that every +night the child returned from the factory utterly worn out, she was +obliged to work so hard and so fast. + +Ida received the same wage as Natalya--$6 a week. She worked fifty-six +hours a week--eight more than the law allows for minors. She paid $4 a +week for board and a room shared with the anxious older sister, who told +about her experience. Ida needed all the rest of her $2 for her clothing. +She did her own washing. As the inquirer came away, leaving the worn +little girl sleeping in her utter fatigue, she wondered with what +strength Ida could enter upon her possible marriage and +motherhood--whether, indeed, she would struggle through to maturity. + +Katia Halperian, a shirt-waist worker of fifteen, had been in New York +only six months. During twenty-one weeks of this time she was employed in +a Wooster Street factory, earning for a week of nine-and-a-half-hour days +only $3.50. Katia, like Natalya, was a "trimmer." + +After paying $3 a week board to an aunt, she had a surplus of 50 cents +for all clothing, recreation, doctor's bills, and incidentals. + +To save carfare she walked to her work--about forty minutes' distance. +Her aunt lived on the fourth floor of a tenement. After working nine and +a half hours and walking an hour and twenty minutes daily, Katia climbed +four flights of stairs and then helped with the housework. + +Sonia Lavretsky, a girl of twenty, had been self-supporting for four +years. She lived in a most wretched, ill-kept tenement, with a family who +made artificial flowers. She had been totally unable to find work for the +last five months, but this family, though very poor, had kept her with +them without payment through all this time. + +She had been three months an operative, putting cuffs on waists. Working +on a time basis, she earned $3 the first week and $4 the second. She was +then put on piece-work, and in fifty-four hours and a half could earn +only $3. Laid off, she found employment at felling cloaks, earning from +$3 to $6 a week. But after twelve weeks, trade in this place also had +grown dull. + +During her idle time she became "run down" and was ill three weeks. +Fortunately, a brother was able to pay her doctor's bills, until he also +was laid off during part of her idle time. + +When Sonia had any money she gave her landlady, for part of a room in the +poor tenement with the flower-makers, $3.50 a month, and about $2.50 a +week for food. Before her dull season and slack work began, she had paid +20 cents a week dues to a self-education society and social club. + +Her brother had given her all the clothing she had. The burden of her +support evidently fell heavily upon him and upon the poverty-stricken +family of her hostess. And Sonia was in deep discouragement. She was +about to go away from New York in hopes of finding work in Syracuse. + +Getta Bursova, an attractive Russian girl of twenty, had worked for eight +years--ever since she was twelve. She had been employed as a waist +operative for six years in London and for two in New York. + +Here she worked nine and a half hours daily in a factory on Nineteenth +Street, earning $5 to $6 a week. Of this wage she paid her sister $4 a +week for food and lodging in an inside tenement room in very poor East +Side quarters, so far from her work that she was obliged to spend 60 +cents a week for carfare. In her busy weeks she had never more than $1.40 +a week left, and often only 60 cents, for her clothing and every other +expense. + +Getta had been idle, moreover, for nearly six months. During this time +she had been supported by her sister's family. + +In spite of this defeat in her fortunes, her presence had a lovely +brightness and initiative, and her inexpensive dress had a certain +daintiness. She was eager for knowledge, and through all her busy weeks +had paid 10 cents dues to a self-education society. + +Nevertheless, her long dull season was a harassing burden and +disappointment both for herself and her sister's struggling family. + +Betty Lukin, a shirt-waist maker of twenty, had been making sleeves for +two years. For nine months of the year she earned from $6 to $10 a week; +for the remaining three months only $2 a week. Her average weekly wage +for the year would be about $6. Of this she spent $3 a week for suppers +and a place in a tenement to sleep, and about 50 cents a week for +breakfast and luncheon--a roll and a bit of fruit or candy from a push +cart. Her father was in New York, doing little to support himself, so +that many weeks she deprived herself to give him $3 or $4. + +She spent 50 cents a week to go to the theatre and 10 cents for club +dues. She had, of course, very little left for dress. She looked ill +clad, and she was, naturally, improperly nourished and very delicate. + +Two points in Betty's little account are suggestive: one is that she +could always help her father. In listening to the account of an organizer +of the Shirt-waist Makers' Union, a man who had known some 40,000 garment +workers, I exclaimed on the hardships of the trade for the number of +married men it contained, and was about to make a note of this item when +he eagerly stopped me. "Wait, wait, please," he cried generously. "When +you put it down, then put this down, too. It is just the same for the +girls. The most of them are married to a family. They, too, take care of +others." + +To this truth, Betty's expense of $3 to $4 for her father from her +average wage of $6, and little Molly's item of nine weeks' board and +lodging for her sister, bear eloquent testimony. On the girls' part they +were mentioned merely as "all in the day's work," and with the tacit +simplicity of that common mortal responsibility which is heroic. + +The other fact to be remarked in Betty's account is that she spent 60 +cents a week for club dues and the theatre, and only 50 cents for all her +casual sidewalk breakfasts and luncheons from the push carts. Such an +eager hunger for complete change of scene and thought, such a desire for +beauty and romance as these two comparative items show, appear in +themselves a true romance. Nearly all the Russian shirt-waist makers +visit the theatre and attend clubs and night classes, whatever their wage +or their hours of labor. Most of them contribute to the support of a +family. + +These shirt-waist makers, all self-supporting, whose income and outlay +are described above, were all--with the exception of Irena Kovalova, who +supported a family of four--living away from home. Natalya lived with her +mother and father. + +She did not do her own washing, though she made her own waists and those +of her sister and mother. But her story is given because in other +ways--in casual employment, long hours, unfair and undignified treatment +from her employers, and in the conditions of her peaceable effort to +obtain juster and better terms of living--her experience has seemed +characteristic of the trade fortunes of many of the forty thousand +shirt-waist makers employed in New York for the last two years. + +In conditions such as described above, Natalya and other shirt-waist +makers were working last fall, when one day she saw a girl, a +piece-worker, shaking her head and objecting sadly to the low price the +foreman was offering her for making a waist. "If you don't like it," +said the foreman, with a laugh, "why don't you join your old 'sisters' +out on the street, then?" + +Natalya wondered with interest who these "sisters" were. On making +inquiry, she found that the workers in other shirt-waist factories had +struck, for various reasons of dissatisfaction with the terms of their +trade. + +The factories had continued work with strike breakers. Some of the +companies had stationed women of the street and their cadets in front of +the shops to insult and attack the Union members whenever they came to +speak to their fellow-workers and to try to dissuade them from selling +their work on unfair terms. Some had employed special police protection +and thugs against the pickets. + +There is, of course, no law against picketing. Every one in the United +States has as clear a legal right to address another person peaceably on +the subject of his belief in selling his work as on the subject of his +belief in the tariff. But on the 19th of October ten girls belonging to +the Union, who had been talking peaceably on the day before with some of +the strike breakers, were suddenly arrested as they were walking quietly +along the street, were charged with disorderly conduct, arraigned in the +Jefferson Market Court, and fined $1 each. The chairman of the strikers +from one shop was set upon by a gang of thugs while he was collecting +funds, and beaten and maimed so that he was confined to his bed for +weeks. + +A girl of nineteen, one of the strikers, as she was walking home one +afternoon was attacked in the open daylight by a thug, who struck her in +the side and broke one of her ribs. She was in bed for four weeks, and +will always be somewhat disabled by her injury. These and other illegal +oppressions visited on the strikers roused a number of members of the +Woman's Trade-Union League to assist the girls in peaceful picketing. + +Early in November, a policeman arrested Miss Mary E. Dreier, the +President of the Woman's Trade-Union League, because she entered into a +quiet conversation with one of the strike breakers. Miss Dreier is a +woman of large independent means, socially well known throughout New York +and Brooklyn. When the sergeant recognized her as she came into the +station, he at once discharged her case, reprimanded the officer, and +assured Miss Dreier that she would never have been arrested if they had +known who she was. + +This flat instance of discrimination inspired the officers of the Woman's +Trade-Union League to protest to Police Commissioner Baker against the +arbitrary oppression of the strikers by the policemen. He was asked to +investigate the action of the police. He replied that the pickets would +in future receive as much consideration as other people. The attitude of +the police did not, however, change. + +It was to these events, as Natalya Urusova found, that the foreman of the +Bruch factory had referred when he asked the girls, with a sneer, why +they didn't join their "sisters." Going to the Union headquarters on +Clinton Street, she learned all she could about the Union. Afterward, in +the Bruch factory, whenever any complaints arose, she would say casually, +in pretended helplessness, "But what can we do? Is there any way to +change this?" Vague suggestions of the Union headquarters would arise, +and she would inquire into this eagerly and would pretend to allow +herself to be led to Clinton Street. So, little by little, as the long +hours and low wages and impudence from the foreman continued, she induced +about sixty girls to understand about organization and to consider it +favorably. + +On the evening of the 22d of November, Natalya, and how many others from +the factory she could not tell, attended a mass meeting at Cooper Union, +of which they had been informed by hand-bills. It was called for the +purpose of discussing a general strike of shirt-waist workers in New York +City. The hall was packed. Overflow meetings were held at Beethoven Hall, +Manhattan Lyceum, and Astoria Hall. In the Cooper Union addresses were +delivered by Samuel Gompers, by Miss Dreier, and by many others. +Finally, a girl of eighteen asked the chairman for the privilege of the +floor. She said: "I have listened to all the speeches. I am one who +thinks and feels from the things they describe. I, too, have worked and +suffered. I am tired of the talking. I move that we go on a general +strike." + +The meeting broke into wild applause. The motion was unanimously +indorsed. The chairman, Mr. Feigenbaum, a Union officer, rapped on the +table. "Do you mean faith?" he called to the workers. "Will you take the +old Jewish oath?" Thousands of right hands were held up and the whole +audience repeated in Yiddish:[14] "If I turn traitor to the cause I now +pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise." + +This was the beginning of the general shirt-waist strike. A committee of +fifteen girls and one boy was appointed at the Cooper Union meeting, and +went from one to the other of the overflow meetings, where the same +motion was offered and unanimously indorsed. + + +II + +"But I did not know how many workers in my shop had taken that oath at +that meeting. I could not tell how many would go on strike in our factory +the next day," said Natalya, afterward. "When we came back the next +morning to the factory, though, no one went to the dressing-room. We all +sat at the machines with our hats and coats beside us, ready to leave. +The foreman had no work for us when we got there. But, just as always, he +did not tell when there would be any, or if there would be any at all +that day. And there was whispering and talking softly all around the room +among the machines: 'Shall we wait like this?' 'There is a general +strike,' 'Who will get up first?' 'It would be better to be the last to +get up, and then the company might remember it of you afterward, and do +well for you,' But I told them," observed Natalya, with a little shrug, +"'What difference does it make which one is first and which one is last?' +Well, so we stayed whispering, and no one knowing what the other would +do, not making up our minds, for two hours. Then I started to get up." +Her lips trembled. "And at just the same minute all--we all got up +together, in one second. No one after the other; no one before. And when +I saw it--that time--oh, it excites me so yet, I can hardly talk about +it. So we all stood up, and all walked out together. And already out on +the sidewalk in front the policemen stood with the clubs. One of them +said, 'If you don't behave, you'll get this on your head.' And he shook +his club at me. + +"We hardly knew where to go--what to do next. But one of the American +girls, who knew how to telephone, called up the Woman's Trade-Union +League, and they told us all to come to a big hall a few blocks away. +After we were there, we wrote out on paper what terms we wanted: not any +night work, except as it would be arranged for in some special need for +it for the trade; and shorter hours; and to have wages arranged by a +committee to arbitrate the price for every one fairly; and to have better +treatment from the bosses. + +"Then a leader spoke to us and told us about picketing quietly, and the +law.[15] + +"Our factory had begun to work with a few Italian strike breakers.[16] +The next day we went back to the factory, and saw five Italian girls +taken in to work, and then taken away afterward in an automobile. I was +with an older girl from our shop, Anna Lunska. The next morning in front +of the factory, Anna Lunska and I met a tall Italian man going into the +factory with some girls. So I said to her: 'These girls fear us in some +way. They do not understand, and I will speak to them, and ask them why +they work, and tell them we are not going to harm them at all--only to +speak about our work.' + +"I moved toward them to say this to them. Then the tall man struck Anna +Lunska in the breast so hard, he nearly knocked her down. She couldn't +get her breath. And I went to a policeman standing right there and said, +'Why do you not arrest this man for striking my friend? Why do you let +him do it? Look at her. She cannot speak; she is crying. She did nothing +at all,' Then he arrested the man; and he said, 'But you must come, too, +to make a charge against him.' The tall Italian called a man out of the +factory, and went with me and Anna Lunska and the three girls to the +court." + +But when Natalya and Anna reached the court, and had made their charge +against the tall Italian, to their bewilderment not only he, but they, +too, were conducted downstairs to the cells. He had charged them with +attacking the girls he was escorting into the factory. + +"They made me go into a cell," said Natalya, "and suddenly they locked us +in. Then I was frightened, and I said to the policeman there, 'Why do you +do this? I have done nothing at all. The man struck my friend. I must +send for somebody.' + +"He said, 'You cannot send for any one at all. You are a prisoner.' + +"We cried then. We were frightened. We did not know what to do. + +"After about an hour and a half he came and said some one was asking for +us. We looked out. It was Miss Violet Pike. A boy I knew had seen us go +into the prison with the Italian, and not come out, and so he thought +something was wrong and he had gone to the League and told them. + +"So Miss Pike had come from the League; and she bailed us out; and she +came back with us on the next day for our trial." + +On the next morning the case against the tall Italian was rapidly +examined, and the Italian discharged. He was then summoned back in +rebuttal, and Natalya and Anna's case was called. Four witnesses, one of +them being the proprietor of the factory, were produced against them, and +stated that Natalya and Anna had struck one of the girls the Italian was +escorting. At the close of the case against Natalya and Anna, Judge +Cornell said:[17] "I find the girls guilty. It would be perfectly futile +for me to fine them. Some charitable women would pay their fines or they +could get a bond. I am going to commit them to the workhouse under the +Cumulative Sentence Act, and there they will have an opportunity of +thinking over what they have done." + +"Miss Violet Pike came forward then," said Natalya, "and said, 'Cannot +this sentence be mollified?' + +"And he said it could not be mollified. + +"They took us away in a patrol to the Tombs. + +"We waited in the waiting-room there. The matron looked at us and said, +'You are not bad girls. I will not send you down to the cells. You can do +some sewing for me here.' But I could not sew. I felt so bad, because I +could not eat the food they gave us at noon for dinner in the long hall +with all the other prisoners. It was coffee with molasses in it, and +oatmeal and bread so bad that after one taste we could not swallow it +down. Then, for supper, we had the same, but soup, too, with some meat +bones in it. And even before you sat down at the table these bones +smelled so it made you very sick. But they forced you to sit down at the +table before it, whether you ate or drank anything or not. And the +prisoners walked by in a long line afterward and put their spoons in a +pail of hot water, just the same whether they had eaten anything with the +spoons or not. + +"Then we walked to our cells. It was night, and it was dark--oh, so dark +in there it was dreadful! There were three other women in the cell--some +of them were horrid women that came off the street. The beds were one +over the other, like on the boats--iron beds, with a quilt and a blanket. +But it was so cold you had to put both over you; and the iron springs +underneath were bare, and they were dreadful to lie on. There was no air; +you could hardly breathe. The horrid women laughed and screamed and said +terrible words. + +"Anna Lunska felt so sick and was so very faint, I thought what should we +do if she was so much worse in the night in this terrible darkness, where +you could see nothing at all. Then I called through the little grating to +a woman who was a sentinel that went by in the hall all through the +night, 'My friend is sick. Can you get me something if I call you in the +night?' + +"The woman just laughed and said, 'Where do you think you are? But if you +pay me, I will come and see what I can do.' + +"In a few minutes she came back with a candle, and shuffled some cards +under the candlelight, and called to us, 'Here, put your hand through the +grate and give me a quarter and I'll tell you who your fellows are by the +cards.' Then Anna Lunska said, 'We do not care to hear talk like that,' +and the woman went away. + +"All that night it was dreadful. In the morning we could not eat any of +the breakfast. They took us in a wagon like a prison with a little +grating, and then in a boat like a prison with a little grating. As we +got on to it, there was another girl, not like the rest of the women +prisoners. She cried and cried. And I saw she was a working girl. I +managed to speak to her and say, 'Who are you?' She said, 'I am a +striker. I cannot speak any English.' That was all. They did not wish me +to speak to her, and I had to go on. + +"From the boat they made us go into the prison they call Blackwell's +Island. Here they made us put on other clothes. All the clothes they had +were much, much too large for me, and they were dirty. They had dresses +in one piece of very heavy, coarse material, with stripes all around, and +the skirts are gathered, and so heavy for the women. They almost drag you +down to the ground. Everything was so very much too big for me, the +sleeves trailed over my hands so far and the skirts on the ground so far, +they had to pin and pin them up with safety-pins. + +"Then we had the same kind of food I could not eat; and they put us to +work sewing gloves. But I could not sew, I was so faint and sick. At +night there was the same kind of food I could not eat, and all the time I +wondered about that shirt-waist striker that could not speak one word of +English, and she was all alone and had the same we had in other ways. +When we walked by the matron to go to our cells at night, at first she +started to send Anna Lunska and me to different cells. She would have +made me go alone with one of the terrible women from the street. But I +was so dreadfully frightened, and cried so, and begged her so to let Anna +Lunska and me stay together, that at last she said we could. + +"Just after that I saw that other girl, away down the line, so white, she +must have cried and cried, and looking so frightened. I thought, 'Oh, I +ought to ask for her to come with us, too' But I did not dare. I thought, +'I will make that matron so mad that she will not even let Anna Lunska +and me stay together,' So I got almost to our cell before I went out of +the line and across the hall and went back to the matron and said: 'Oh, +there is another Russian girl here. She is all alone. She cannot speak +one word of English. Please, please couldn't that girl come with my +friend and me?' + +"She said, 'Well, for goodness' sake! So you want to band all the +strikers together here, do you? How long have you known her?' + +"I said, 'I never saw her until to-day.' + +"The matron said, 'For the land's sake, what do you expect here?' but she +did not say anything else. So I went off, just as though she wasn't going +to let that girl come with us; for I knew she would not want to seem as +though she would do it, at any rate. + +"But, after we were in the cell with an Irish woman and another woman, +the door opened, and that Russian girl came in with us. Oh, she was so +glad! + +"After that it was the same as the night before, except that we could see +the light of the boats passing. But it was dark and cold, and we had to +put both the quilt and the blanket over us and lie on the springs, and +you must keep all of your clothes on to try to be warm. But the air and +the smells are so bad. I think if it were any warmer, you would almost +faint there. I could not sleep. + +"The next day they made me scrub. But I did not know how to scrub. And, +for Anna Lunska, she wet herself all over from head to foot. So they +said, very cross, 'It seems to us you do not know how to scrub a bit. You +can go back to the sewing department.' On the way I went through a room +filled with negresses, and they called out, 'Look, look at the little +kid,' And they took hold of me, and turned me around, and all laughed and +sang and danced all around me. These women, they do not seem to mind at +all that they are in prison. + +"In the sewing room the next two days I was so sick I could hardly sew. +The women often said horrid things to each other, and I sat on the bench +with them. There was one woman over us at sewing that argued with me so +much, and told me how much better it was for me here than in Russian +prisons, and how grateful I should be. + +"I said, 'How is that, then? Isn't there the same kind of food in those +prisons and in these prisons? And I think there is just as much +liberty.'" + +On the last day of Natalya's sentence, after she was dressed in her own +little jacket and hat again and just ready to go, one of the most +repellent women of the street said to her, "I am staying in here and +you're going out. Give me a kiss for good-by." Natalya said that this +woman was a horror to her. "But I thought it was not very nice to refuse +this; so I kissed her a good-by kiss and came away." + +The officers guarded the girls to the prison boat for their return to New +York. There, at the ferry, stood a delegation of the members of the +Woman's Trade-Union League and the Union waiting to receive them. + +Such is the account of one of the seven hundred arrests made during the +shirt-waist strike, the chronicle of a peaceful striker. + +As the weeks went on, however, in spite of the advice of the Union +officers, there were a few instances of violence on the part of the Union +members. Among thirty thousand girls it could not be expected that every +single person should maintain the struggle in justice and temperance with +perfect self-control. In two or three cases the Union members struck back +when they were attacked. In a few cases they became excited and attacked +strike breakers. In one factory, although there was no violence, the +workers conducted their negotiations in an unfair and unfortunate manner. +They had felt that all their conditions except the amount of wages were +just, and they admired and were even remarkably proud of the management, +a firm of young and well-intentioned manufacturers. Early in the general +strike, however, they went out without a word to the management, without +even signifying to it in any way the point they considered unjust. The +management did not send to inquire. After a few days it resumed work with +strike breakers. The former employees began picketing. The management +sent word to them that it would not employ against them, so long as they +were peaceful and within the law, any of the means of intimidation that +numbers of the other firms were using--special police and thugs. The +girls sent word back that they would picket peacefully and quietly. But +afterward, on their own admission, which was most disarming in its +candor, they became careless and "too gay." They went picketing in too +large numbers and were too noisy. Instantly the firm employed police. +Before this, however, the girls had begun to discuss and to realize the +unintelligence of their behavior in failing to send a committee to the +management to describe their position clearly and to obtain terms. They +now appointed and instructed such a committee, came rapidly to terms with +the management, and have been working for them in friendly relations ever +since. + +While in general the strike was both peaceful in conduct and just in +demand and methods of demand on the part of the strikers, these +exceptions must, of course, be mentioned in the interests of truth. +Further, it would convey a false impression to imply that every striker +arrested had as much sense and force of character as Natalya Urusova. +Natalya was especially protected in her ordeal by a vital love of +observation and a sense of humor, charmingly frequent in the present +writer's experience of young Russian girls and women. With these +qualities she could spend night after night locked up with the women of +the street, in her funny, enormous prison clothes, and remain as +uninfluenced by her companions as if she had been some blossoming +geranium or mignonette set inside a filthy cellar as a convenience for a +few minutes, and then carried out again to her native fresh air. But such +qualities as hers cannot be demanded of all very young and unprotected +girls, and to place them wantonly with women of the streets has in +general an outrageous irresponsibility and folly quite insufficiently +implied by the experience of a girl of Natalya's individual penetration +and self-reliance. + + +III + +In the period since the strike began many factories had been settling +upon Union terms. But many factories were still on strike, and picketing +on the part of the Union was continuing, as well as unwarranted arrests, +like Natalya's, on the part of the employers and the police. The few +exceptions to the general rule of peaceful picketing have been stated. +Over two hundred arrests were made within three days early in December. +On the 3d of December a procession of ten thousand women marched to the +City Hall, accompanying delegates from the Union and the Woman's +Trade-Union League, and visited Mayor McClellan in his office and gave +him this letter:-- + + HONORABLE GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, + Mayor of the City of New York. + + We, the members of the Ladies' Shirt-waist Makers' Union, a + body of thirty thousand women, appeal to you to put an + immediate stop to the insults and intimidations and to the + abuses to which the police have subjected us while we have been + picketing. This is our lawful right. + + We protest to you against the flagrant discrimination of the + Police Department in favor of the employers, who are using + every method to incite us to violence. + + We appeal to you directly in this instance, instead of to your + Police Commissioner. + + We do this because our requests during the past six months have + had no effect in decreasing the outrages perpetrated upon our + members, nor have our requests been granted a fair hearing. + + Yours respectfully, + S. SHINDLER, Secretary. + +The Mayor thanked the committee for bringing the matter to his attention, +and promised to take up the complaint with the Police Commissioner. + +But the arrests and violence of the police continued unchecked. + +On the 5th of December the Political Equality League, at the instigation +of Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, held a packed meeting for the benefit of the +Shirt-waist Makers' Union. Many imprisoned girls were present, and gave +to the public clear, straightforward stories of the treatment they had +received at the hands of the city. The committee of the meeting had +offered the Mayor and other city officials a box, but they refused to be +present. + +Again the arrests and violence continued without protection for the +workers. Nevertheless their cause was constantly gaining, and although +all attempts at general arbitration were unsuccessful, more and more +employers settled with the operatives. They continued to settle during +December and January until the middle of February. All but thirteen of +the shops in New York had then made satisfactory terms with the Union +workers. It was officially declared that the strike was over. + +Natalya's shop had settled with the operatives on the 23d of January, and +she went back to work on the next day. + +She had an increase of $2 a week in wages--$8 a week instead of $6. Her +hours were now fifty-two a week instead of sixty--that is to say, nine +and one-half hours a day, with a Saturday half-holiday. But she has +since then been obliged to enter another factory on account of slack +work. + +Among the more skilled workers than Natalya in New York to-day, Irena +Kovalova, who supports her mother and her younger brother and sister, has +$11 a week instead of $9. She is not obliged to work on Sunday, and her +factory closes at five o'clock instead of six on Saturday. "I have four +hours less a week," she said with satisfaction. The family have felt able +to afford for her a new dress costing $11, and material for a suit, +costing $6. A friend, a neighbor, made this for Irena as a present. + +Among the older workers of more skill than Irena, Anna Klotin, who sent +$120 home to her family last year, has now, however, only $6, $7, and $8 +a week, and very poor and uncertain work, instead of her former $12 a +week. Hers was one of the thirteen factories that did not settle. Of +their one hundred and fifty girls, they wished about twenty of their more +skilled operators to return to them under Union conditions, leaving the +rest under the old long hours of overtime and indeterminate, unregulated +wages. Anna was one of the workers the firm wished to retain on Union +terms, but she felt she could not separate her chances in her trade from +the fortunes of her one hundred and thirty companions. She refused to +return under conditions so unjust for them. She has stayed on in her +boarding place, as her landlady, realizing Anna's responsible character, +is always willing to wait for money when work is slack. She has bought +this year only two pairs of shoes, a hat for 50 cents, and one or two +muslin waists, which she made herself. She has lived on such work as she +could find from time to time in different factories. Anna did not grudge +in any way her sacrifice for the less skilled workers. "In time," she +said, "we will have things better for all of us." And the chief regret +she mentioned was that she had been unable to send any money home since +the strike. + +The staunchest allies of the shirt-waist makers in their attempt to +obtain wiser trade conditions were the members and officers of the +Woman's Trade-Union League, whose response and generosity were constant +from the beginning to the end of the strike. The chronicle of the largest +woman's strike in this country is not yet complete. A suit is now pending +against the Woman's Trade-Union League and the Union for conspiracy in +restraint of trade, brought by the Sittomer Shirt-waist Co. A test suit +is pending against Judge Cornell for false imprisonment, brought by one +of the shirt-waist strikers. + +The whole outcome of the strike in its effect on women's wages in the +shirt-waist trade, their income and outlay in their work, both +financially and in vitality, cannot, of course, yet be fully known. The +statement that there has been a general rise of wages must be modified in +other ways than that suggested by the depletion of Anna Klotin's income +in the year since the strike. In factories where price on piece-work is +subject to arbitration between a Union committee of the workers and the +firm, the committee is not always able to obtain a fair price for labor. +One of the largest factories made a verbal agreement to observe Union +conditions, but it signed no written contract, and has since broken its +word. It discriminates against Union members, and it insists on Sunday +work and on night work for more than two nights a week. Further, during +the seventeen weeks of the strike many shirt-waist orders ordinarily +filled in New York were placed with New Jersey and Pennsylvania firms. +The present New York season has been unusually dull, and now, on this +writing, early in August, many girls are discouraged on account of the +slight amounts they earn through slack work. + +"But that is not the fault of the employers," said one of the workers. +"You must be reasonable for them. You cannot ask them for work they are +not able to obtain to give you." Her remark is quoted both from its +wisdom and for another purpose. She was the girl who will always be +disabled by the attack of her employer's thug. Her quiet and instinctive +mention of the need of justice in considering conditions for employers +had for the listener who heard her a most significant, unconscious +generosity and nobility. + +Looking back upon the shirt-waist strike nearly a year afterward, its +profoundest common value would appear to an unprejudiced onlooker to be +its spirit. Something larger than a class spirit, something fairer than a +mob spirit, something which may perhaps be called a mass spirit, +manifested itself in the shirt-waist makers' effort for better terms of +life. + +"The most remarkable feature of the strike," says a writer in the +_Call_,[18] "is the absence of leaders. All the girls seem to be imbued +with a spirit of activity that by far surpasses all former industrial +uprisings. One like all are ready to take the chairmanship, +secretaryship, do picket duty, be arrested, and go to prison." + +There has never before been a strike quite like the shirt-waist makers' +strike. Perhaps there never will be another quite like it again. When +every fair criticism of its conduct has been faced, and its errors have +all been admitted, the fact remains that the New York strike said, "All +for one and one for all," with a magnetic candor new and stirring in the +voice of the greatest and the richest city of our country--perhaps new +in the voice of the world. Wonderful it is to know that in that world +to-day, unseen, unheard, are forces like those of that ghetto girl who, +in the meanest quarter of New York, on stinted food, in scanty clothes, +drained with faint health and overwork, could yet walk through her life, +giving away half of her wage by day to some one else, enjoying the +theatre at night, and, in the poorest circumstances, pouring her slight +strength out richly like a song for pleasure and devotion. Wonderful it +is to know that when Natalya Urusova was in darkness, hunger, fright, and +cold on Blackwell's Island, she still could be responsibly concerned for +the fortunes of a stranger and had something she could offer to her +nobly. Wonderful to know that, after her very bones had been broken by +the violence of a thug of an employer, one of these girls could still +speak for perfect fairness for him with an instinct for justice truly +large and thrilling. Such women as that ennoble life and give to the +world a richer and altered conception of justice--a justice of +imagination and the heart, concerned not at all with vengeance, but +simply with the beauty of the perfect truth for the fortunes of all +mortal creatures. + +Besides the value to the workers of the spirit of the shirt-waist strike, +they gained another advantage. This was of graver moment even than an +advance in wages and of deeper consequences for their future. They +gained shorter hours. + +What, then, are the trade fortunes of some of those thousands of other +women, other machine operatives whose hours and wages are now as the +shirt-waist makers' were before the shirt-waist strike? What do some of +these other women factory workers, unorganized and entirely dependent +upon legislation for conserving their strength by shorter working hours, +give in their industry? What do they get from it? For an answer to these +questions, we turn to some of the white goods sewers, belt makers, and +stitchers on children's dresses, for the annals of their income and +outlay in their work away from home in New York. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 12: _Union Label Bulletin_, Vol. 2, No. I, p. 1.] + +[Footnote 13: This expense would at this date probably be heavier, as the +working girls at one of the St. George's Working Girls' Clubs estimated +early this summer that shoes of a quality purchasable two years ago at $2 +would now cost $2.50.] + +[Footnote 14: Constance Leupp, in the _Survey_.] + +[Footnote 15: The circular of advice issued a little later by the Union +reads as follows:-- + + RULES FOR PICKETS + + Don't walk in groups of more than two or three. + Don't stand in front of the shop; walk up and down the block. + Don't stop the person you wish to talk to; walk along side of him. + Don't get excited and shout when you are talking. + Don't put your hand on the person you are speaking to. Don't touch + his sleeve or button. This may be construed as a "technical + assault." + Don't call any one "scab" or use abusive language of any kind. + Plead, persuade, appeal, but do not threaten. + If a policeman arrest you and you are sure that you have committed + no offense, take down his number and give it to your Union + officers.] + +[Footnote 16: In the factories where the Russian and Italian girls worked +side by side, their feeling for each other seems generally to have been +friendly. After the beginning of the strike an attempt was made to +antagonize them against each other by religious and nationalistic +appeals. It met with little success. Italian headquarters for Italian +workers wishing organizations were soon established. Little by little the +Italian garment workers are entering the Union.] + +[Footnote 17: Extract from the court stenographer's minutes of the +proceedings in the Per trial.] + +[Footnote 18: Therese Malkiel, December 22.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS + +[Unskilled and Seasonal Factory Work] + +I + + +Besides the accounts of the waist makers, the National Consumers' League +received in its inquiry specific chronicles from skilled and from +unskilled factory workers, both hand workers and machine +operatives--among others, packers of drugs, biscuits, and olives, +cigarette rollers, box makers, umbrella makers, hat makers, glove makers, +fur sewers, hand embroiderers, white goods workers, skirt makers, workers +on men's coats, and workers on children's dresses. + +As will be seen, the situation occupied and described by any individual +girl may in a year or five years be no longer hers, but that of some +other worker. So that the synthesis of these chronicles is presented, not +as a composite photograph of the industrial experiences in any one trade, +but rather as an accurate kinetoscope view of the yearly life of chance +passing factory workers. + +For the purposes of record these annals may be loosely divided into those +of unskilled and seasonal factory workers, and those whose narratives +expressed the effects of monotony and fatigue, from speeding at their +tasks. This division must remain loose to convey a truthful impression. +For the same self-supporting girl has often been a skilled and an +unskilled worker, by hand, at a machine, and in several industries. + +Discouragement at the lack of opportunity to advance was expressed by +almost all the narrators of their histories who were engaged in unskilled +factory work. Among them, Emily Clement, an American girl, was one of the +first workers who gave the League an account of her experience. + +Emily was tending an envelope machine, at a wage of $6 a week. She was +about twenty years old; and before her employment at the envelope machine +she had worked, at the age of fourteen, for a year in a carpet mill; then +for two years in a tobacco factory; and then for two years had kept house +for a sister and an aunt living in an East Side tenement. + +She still lived with them, sharing a room with her sister, and paying $3 +a week for her lodging, with board and part of her washing. She did the +rest of her washing, and made some of her sister's clothes and all of her +own. This skill had enabled her to have for $5.20, the cost of the +material, the pretty spring suit she wore--a coat, skirt, and jumper, of +cloth much too thin to protect her from the chill of the weather, but +stylishly cut and becoming. + +In idle times she had done a little sewing for friends, for her income +had been quite inadequate. During the twenty-two weeks she had been in +the factory she had had full work for eleven and one-half weeks, at $6; +half-time for eight and one-half weeks, at $3; and two weeks of slack +work, in each of which she earned only $1.50. + +She had no money at all to spend for recreation; and, in her hopelessness +of the future and her natural thirst for pleasure, she sometimes accepted +it from chance men acquaintances met on the street. + +Another unskilled worker of twenty, Sarina Bashkitseff, intended to +escape from her monotonous work and low wage by educating herself in a +private evening school. + +For this she contrived to save $4 a month out of her income of $4 a week. +Sarina packed powders in a drug factory from eight to six o'clock, with +three-quarters of an hour for lunch. She was a beautiful and brilliant +girl, who used to come to work in the winter dressed in her summer coat, +with a little woollen under-jacket to protect her from the cold, and a +plain cheap felt hat, much mocked at by the American girls. Sarina +scorned the mental scope of these girls; scorned to spend for dress, +money with which she could learn to read "Othello" and "King Lear" in the +original; and scorned to spend in giggling the lunch hour, in which she +might read in Yiddish newspapers the latest tidings of the struggle in +Russia. + +In the drug factory, and in her East Side hall bedroom, she lived in a +world of her own--a splendid, generous world of the English tragedies she +studied at night school, and of the thrilling hopes and disappointments +of the Russian revolution. + +She had been in New York a year. In this time she had worked in an +artificial flower factory, earning from $2 to $2.25 a week; then as a +cutter in a box factory, where she had $3 a week at first, and then $5, +for ten hours' work a day. She left this place because the employer was +very lax about payment, and sometimes cheated her out of small amounts. +She then tried finishing men's coats; but working from seven-thirty to +twelve and from one to six daily brought her only $3 a week and severe +exhaustion.[19] + +From her present wage of $4 she spent 60 cents a week for carfare and +$4.25 a month for her share of a tenement hall bedroom. Although she did +not live with them, her mother and father were in New York, and she had +her dinners with them, free of cost. Her luncheon cost her from 7 to 10 +cents a day, and her breakfast consisted of 1-1/2 cents' worth of rolls. + +All that made Sarina Bashkitseff's starved and drudging days endurable +for her was her clear determination to escape from them by educating +herself. Her fate might be expressed in Whitman's words, "Henceforth I +ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune." + +Whatever her circumstances, few persons in the world could ever be in a +position to pity her. + +Marta Neumann, another unskilled factory worker, an Austrian girl of +nineteen, was also trying to escape from her present position by +educating herself at night school, but was drained by cruel homesickness. + +Marta had spent all her youth, since her childhood, at home,--four years +in New York,--in factory work, without the slightest prospect of +advancement. Her work was of the least skilled kind--cutting off the ends +of threads from men's suspenders, and folding and placing them in boxes. +She earned at first $3 a week, and had been advanced to $5 by a 50-cent +rise at every one of the last four Christmases since she had left her +mother and father. But she knew she would not be advanced beyond this +last price, and feared to undertake heavier work, as, though she had +kept her health, she was not at all strong. + +She worked from eight to six, with half an hour at noon. On Saturday the +factory closed at five in winter and at one in summer. Her income for the +year had been $237.50. She had spent $28.50 for carfare; $13 for a suit; +$2 for a hat; and $2 for a pair of shoes she had worn for ten months. Her +board and lodging with a married sister had cost her $2.50 a week, less +in one way than with strangers. But she slept with part of her sister's +family, did her own washing and her sister's, scrubbed the floor, and +rose every day at half past five to help with the work and prepare her +luncheon before starting for the factory at seven. + +Marta could earn so little that she had never been able to save enough to +make her deeply desired journey back to Austria to see her mother and +father. Although both their children were in the new country, her mother +and father would not be admitted under the immigration law, because her +father was blind. + +The lack of opportunity to rise, among older unskilled factory workers, +may be illustrated by the experience of Mrs. Hallett, an American woman +of forty, a slight, gentle-voiced little widow, who had been packing +candies and tying and labelling boxes for sixteen years. In this time she +had advanced from a wage of $4 a week to a wage of $6, earned by a week +of nine-hour days, with a Saturday half-holiday. + +However, as with Marta, this had represented payment from the company for +length of service, and not an advance to more skilled or responsible +labor with more outlook. In Mrs. Hallett's case this was partly because +the next step would have been to become a clerk in one of the company's +retail stores, and she was not strong enough to endure the all-day +standing which this would require. Mrs. Hallett liked this company. The +foreman was considerate, and a week's vacation with pay was given to the +employees. + +Mrs. Hallett lived in an excessively small, unheated hall bedroom, on the +fourth floor of an enormous old house filled with the clatter of the +elevated railroad. On the night of the inquirer's call, she was +pathetically concerned lest her visitor should catch cold because "she +wasn't used to it." She lighted a small candle to show her the room, +furnished with one straight hard chair, a cot, and a wash-stand with a +broken pitcher, but with barely space besides for Mrs. Clark and her +kind, public-spirited little hostess. They sat, drowned at times in the +noise of the elevated, in almost complete darkness, as Mrs. Hallett +insisted on making a vain effort to extract some heat for her guest from +the single gas-jet, by attaching to it an extremely small gas-stove. + +For this room, which was within walking distance of the candy factory, +Mrs. Hallett paid $1.75 a week. Her breakfast of coffee and rolls in a +bakery near by cost her 10 cents daily. She apportioned 15 or 25 cents +each for her luncheon or dinner at restaurants. In her hungriest and most +extravagant moments she lunched for 30 cents. Her allowance for food had +to be meagre, because, as she had no laundry facilities, she was obliged +to have her washing done outside. Sometimes she contrived to save a +dollar a week toward buying clothing. But this meant living less tidily +by having less washing done, or going hungrier. During the last year her +expense for clothing had been a little more than $23: summer hat, $1; +winter hat, $1.98; best hat, $2; shoes (2 pairs at $2.98, 2 pairs +rubbers), $7.16; wrap (long coat), $2.98; skirt (a best black +brilliantine, worn two years), at $5.50, $2.75; underskirt (black +sateen), 98 cents; shirtwaist (black cotton, worn every day in the year), +98 cents; black tights, 98 cents; 2 union suits at $1.25 (one every other +year), $1.25; 6 pairs stockings at 25 cents, $1.50; total, $23.56. + +She said with deprecation that she sometimes went to the theatre with +some young girl friends, paying 25 cents for a seat, "because I like a +good time now and then." + +These trade fortunes represent as clearly as possible the usual +industrial experience of the women workers in unskilled factory labor who +gave accounts of their income and outlay in their work away from home in +New York. + + +II + +The chronicles printed below, taken from establishments of different +kinds and grades, express as clearly as possible the several features +most common to the trade fortunes the workers described--uncertain and +seasonal employment, small exploitations, monotony in occupation, and +fatigue from speeding. + +Because of uncertain and seasonal employment, machine operatives in the +New York sewing industries frequently change from one trade to another. +This had been the experience of Yeddie Bruker, a young Hungarian +white-goods worker living in the Bronx. + +The tenements of the Bronx appear as crowded as those of the +longer-settled neighborhoods of Manhattan, the lower East Side, Harlem, +Chelsea, and the cross streets off the Bowery, where so many +self-supporting factory workers live. These newer-built lodgings, too, +have close, stifling halls, and inner courts hung thick with washing. +Here, too, you see, through the windows, flower makers and human hair +workers at their tasks; and in the entries, hung with Hungarian and +German signs, the children sit crowded among large women with many puffs +of hair and a striking preference for frail light pink and blue princess +dresses. These blocks of Rumanian and Hungarian tenement districts, their +fire-escapes hung with feather beds and old carpets, and looking like +great overflowing waste-baskets, are scattered in among little bluff +ledges, scraggy with walnut brush, some great rocks still unblasted, and +several patches of Indian corn in sloping hillside empty lots--small, +strange heights of old New York country, still unsubmerged by the wide +tide of Slav and Austrian immigration. + +In this curious and bizarre neighborhood, Yeddie Bruker and her sister +lived in a filthy tenement building, in one room of an extremely clean +little flat owned by a family of their own nationality. + +Yeddie was a spirited, handsome girl of twenty-one, though rather worn +looking and white. At work for six years in New York, she had at first +been a machine operative in a large pencil factory, where she fastened to +the ends of the pencils the little corrugated tin bands to which erasers +are attached. Then she had been a belt maker, then a stitcher on men's +collars, and during the last four years a white-goods worker. + +In the pencil factory of her first employment there was constant danger +of catching her fingers in the machinery; the air was bad; the forewoman +was harsh and nagging, and perpetually hurrying the workers. The jar of +the wheels, the darkness, and the frequent illnesses of workers from +breathing the particles of the pencil-wood shavings and the lead dust +flying in the air all frightened and preyed upon her. She earned only $4 +a week for nine and one-half hours' work a day, and was exhausting +herself when she left the place, hastened by the accident of a girl near +her, who sustained hideous injuries from catching her hair in the +machinery. + +In the collar factory she again earned $4 a week, stitching between five +and six dozen collars a day. The stitch on men's collars is extremely +small, almost invisible. It strained her eyes so painfully that she was +obliged to change her occupation again. + +As an operative on neckwear, and afterward on belts, she was thrown out +of work by the trade seasons. These still leave her idle, in her present +occupation as a white-goods worker, for more than three months in every +year. + +In the remaining nine months, working with a one-needle machine on +petticoats and wash dresses, in a small factory on the lower East Side, +she has had employment for about four days in the week for three months, +employment for all the working days in the week for another three months, +and employment with overtime three nights in a week and an occasional +half day on Sunday, for between two and three months. Legal holidays and +a few days of illness made up the year. + +In full weeks her wage is $8. Her income for the year had been $366, and +she had been able to save nothing. She had paid $208 for her board and +lodging, at the rate of $4 a week; a little more than $100 for clothing; +$38 for carfare, necessitated by living in the Bronx; $3 for a doctor; +$2.60 to a benefit association, which assures her $3 a week in case of +illness; $5 for the theatre; and $6 for Union dues. + +Her work was very exhausting. Evenly spaced machine ruffling on +petticoats is difficult, and she had a great deal of this work to do. She +sewed with a one-needle machine, which carried, however, five cottons and +was hard to thread. It may be said here that the number of needles does +not necessarily determine the difficulty of working on sewing-machines; +two-needle machines are sometimes harder to run than five or even +twelve-needle machines, because they are more cheaply and clumsily +constructed and the material is held less firmly by the metal guide under +the needle-point. It was not her eyes, Yeddie said, that were tired by +the stitching, but her shoulders and her back, from the jar of the +machines. Every month she suffered cruelly, but, because she needed +every cent she made, she never remained at home, when the factory was +open. + +One of the most trying aspects of machine-speeding, in the sewing trades, +is the perpetual goading and insistence of the foremen and forewomen, +frequently mentioned by other workers besides Yeddie. Two years ago, in a +waist and dress factory where 400 operatives--more than 300 girls and +about 20 men--were employed for the company by a well-known +subcontractor, Jake Klein, a foreman asked Mr. Klein to beset some of the +girls for a degree of speed he said he was unwilling to demand. The +manager discharged him. He asked to speak to the girls before he went +away. The manager refused his request. As Mr. Klein turned to the girls, +his superior summoned the elevator man, who seized Klein's collar, +overpowered him, and started to drag him over the floor toward the +stairs. "Brothers and sisters," Klein called to the operatives, "will you +sit by and see a fellow-workman used like this?" In one impulse of clear +justice, every worker arose, walked out of the shop with Jake Klein, and +stayed out till the company made overtures of peace. This adventure, +widely related on the East Side, serves to show the latent fire, kindled +by the accumulation of small overbearing oppressions, which smolders in +many sewing shops. + +The uncertainty of employment characterizing the sewing trades fell +heavily on Sarah Silberman, a delicate little Austrian Jewish girl of +seventeen, who finished and felled women's cloaks. + +She had always lived in poverty. She had worked in a stocking factory in +Austria when she was a little thing of nine, and had been self-supporting +ever since she was fourteen, machine-sewing in Vienna and London and New +York. + +She had been in New York for about a year, lodging, or rather sleeping at +night, in the tenement kitchen of some distant cousins of hers, +practically strangers. The kitchen opened on an air-shaft, and it was +used, not only as a kitchen, but as a dining room and living-room. For +the first four months after her arrival Sarah earned about $5 a week, +working from nine and one-half to ten hours a day as a finisher of boys' +trousers. From this wage she paid $3 a week for her kitchen sleeping +space and breakfast and supper. Luncheon cost her 7 cents a day. She had +been able to buy so very little clothing that she had kept no account of +it. She did her own washing, and walked to work. + +She had never had any education until she came to America, and she now +attended a night school, in which she was keenly interested. She was +living in this way when her factory closed. + +She then searched desperately for employment for two weeks, finding it +at last in a cloak factory[20] where she was employed from half past +seven in the morning until half past six or seven in the evening, with a +respite of only a few minutes at noon for a hasty luncheon. Her wage was +$3 a week. Working her hardest, she could not keep the wolf from the +door, and was obliged to go hungry at luncheon time or fail to pay the +full rent for her place to sleep in the kitchen. + +Sarah was very naturally unstrung and nervous in this hardness of +circumstance and her terror of destitution. As she told her story, she +sobbed and wrung her hands. In the next six months she had better +occupation, however, in spasmodically busy shops, where the hours were +shorter than in the cloak factory, and she managed to earn an average +wage of $6 a week. She was then more serene; she said she had "made out +good." + +During her six weeks of better pay at $6 a week, however, which so few +people would consider "making out good," she had suffered an especially +mean exploitation. + +She applied at an underwear factory which constantly advertises, in an +East Side Jewish paper, for operatives. The management told her they +would teach her to operate if she would work for them two weeks for +nothing and would give them a dollar. She gave them the dollar; but on +the first day in the place, as she received no instructions, and learned +through another worker that after her two weeks of work for nothing were +over she would not be employed, she came away, losing the dollar she had +given to the firm. + +Another worker who was distressed by the dull season, and had witnessed +unjust impositions, was Katia Markelov, a young operative on corsets. She +was a tiny, grave-looking girl of nineteen, very frail, with smooth black +hair, a lovely refinement of manner, and a very sweet smile. Like many +other operatives, she wore glasses. Katia was a good manager, and an +industrious and clever student, a constant attendant at night school. + +In the factory where she was employed she earned about $10 a week as a +week worker, a skilled worker making an entire corset, after it was cut +and before it was trimmed. But she had only twelve full weeks' work in +the year; for two and a half months she was entirely idle, and for the +remaining six and a half months she worked from two to five days a week. +Her income for the year had been about $346. + +Katia worked with a one-needle machine in a small factory off lower +Broadway. Before that she had been employed as a week worker in a Fifth +Avenue corset factory, which may be called Madame Cora's. Shortly before +Katia left this establishment, Madame Cora changed her basis of payment +from week work to piece-work. The girls' speed increased. Some of the +more rapid workers who had before made $10 were able to make $12. On +discovering this, Madame Cora cut their wages, not by frankly returning +to the old basis, but by suddenly beginning to charge the girls for +thread and needles. She made them pay her 2 cents for every needle. +Thread on a five-needle machine, sometimes with two eyes in each of the +needles, stitches up very rapidly. The girls were frequently obliged to +pay from a dollar and a half to two dollars a week for the thread sewed +into Madame Cora's corsets, and for needles. They rebelled when Madame +Cora refused to pay for these materials herself. From among the three +hundred girls, thirty girls struck, went to Union headquarters, and asked +to be organized. But Madame Cora simply filled their places with other +girls who were willing to supply her with thread for her corsets, and +refused to take them back. Katia did not respect Madame Cora's methods, +and had left before the strike. + +Katia spent $2.50 a week for breakfast and dinner and for her share of a +room with a congenial friend, another Russian girl, in Harlem. The room +was close and opened on an air-shaft, but was quiet and rather pleasant. +She paid from $1.25 to $1.50 for luncheons, and, out of the odd hundred +dollars left from her income, had contrived, by doing her own washing and +making her own waists, to buy all her clothing, and to spend $5 for books +and magazines, $7 for grand opera, which she deeply loved, and $30 for an +outing. On account of her cleverness Katia was less at the mercy of +unjust persons than some of the less skilful and younger girls. + +Among these, Molly Davousta, another young machine operative, was +struggling to make payments to an extortionate ticket seller, who had +swindled her in the purchase of a steamboat ticket. + +When Molly was thirteen, her mother and father, who had five younger +children, had sent her abroad out of Russia, with the remarkable +intention of having her prepare and provide a home for all of them in +some other country. + +Like Dick Whittington, the little girl went to London, though to seek, +not only her own fortune, but that of seven other people. After she had +been in London for four years, her father died. She and her next younger +sister, Bertha, working in Russia, became the sole support of the family; +and now, learning that wages were better in America, Molly, like +Whittington, turned again and came to New York. + +Here she found work on men's coats, at a wage fluctuating from $5 to $9 a +week. She lived in part of a tenement room for a rent of $3 a month. For +supper and Saturday meals she paid $1.50 a week. Other food she bought +from groceries and push carts, at a cost of about $2 a week. As she did +her own washing, and walked to work, she had no other fixed expenses, +except for shoes. Once in every two months these wore to pieces and she +was forced to buy new ones; and, till she had saved enough to pay for +them, she went without her push cart luncheon and breakfast. + +In this way she lived in New York for a year, during which time she +managed to send $90 home, for the others. + +Her sister Bertha, next younger than herself, had then come to New York, +and obtained work at sewing for a little less than $6 a week. Between +them, in the following six months, the two girls managed to buy a passage +ticket from Russia to New York for $42, and to send home $30. This, with +the passage ticket and two other tickets, which they purchased on the +instalment plan from a dealer, at a profit to him of $20, brought all the +rest of the family into New York harbor--the girls' mother, their three +younger sisters of fifteen, fourteen, and eight, and a little brother of +seven. + +Five months afterward Molly and Bertha were still making payments for +these extortionate tickets. + +In New York, the sister of fifteen found employment in running ribbons +into corset covers, earning from $1 to $1.50 a week. The +fourteen-year-old girl was learning operating on waists. The family of +seven lived in two rooms, paying for them $13.50 a month; their food cost +$9 or $10 a week; shoes came to at least $1 a week; the girls made most +of their own clothing, and for this purpose they were paying $1 a month +for a sewing-machine; and they gave $1 a month for the little brother's +Hebrew schooling. + +Molly was seen in the course of a coat makers' strike. She wept because +the family's rent was due and she had no means of paying it. She said she +suffered from headache and from backache. Every month she lost a day's +work through illness. + +She was only nineteen years old. By working every hour she could make a +fair wage, but, owing to the uncertain and spasmodic nature of the work, +she was unable to depend upon earning enough to maintain even a fair +standard of living. + +A point that should be accentuated in Molly Davousta's account is the +price of shoes. No one item of expense among working girls is more +suggestive. The cost of shoes is unescapable. A girl may make over an old +hat with a bit of ribbon or a flower, or make a new dress from a +dollar's worth of material, but for an ill-fitting, clumsy pair of shoes +she must pay at least $2; and no sooner has she bought them than she must +begin to skimp because in a month or six weeks she will need another +pair. The hour or two hours' walk each day through streets thickly +spread, oftener than not, with a slimy, miry dampness literally dissolves +these shoes. Long after up-town streets are dry and clean, those of the +congested quarters display the muddy travesty of snow in the city. The +stockings inside these cheap shoes, with their worn linings, wear out +even more quickly than the shoes. It is practically impossible to mend +stockings besides walking to work, making one's waists, and doing one's +washing. + +All Molly Davousta's cares, her anxiety about shoes and her foreboding +concerning seasonal work, were increased by her position of family +responsibility. + +In the same way, in the course of her seasonal work, family +responsibility pressed on Rita Karpovna. She was a girl of nineteen, who +had come to America a few years before with her older brother, Nikolai. +Together they were to earn their own living and make enough money to +bring over their widowed mother, a little brother, and a sister a year or +two younger than Rita. + +Soon after she arrived, she found employment in finishing men's vests, +at $6 or $7 a week, for ten hours' work a day. Living and saving with her +brother, she contrived to send home $4 a month. Between them, Nikolai and +Rita brought over their mother and the little brother. But, very soon +after they were all settled together, their mother died. They were +obliged to put the little brother into an institution. Then Nikolai fell +from a scaffolding and incapacitated himself, so that, after his partial +recovery, his wage was sufficient only for his own support, near his +work. + +Rita now lived alone, spending $3.50 a month for a sleeping place in a +tenement, and for suppers $1.25 a week. Her luncheons and breakfasts, +picked up anywhere at groceries or push carts, amounted, when she was +working, to about 12 cents a day. At other times she often went without +both meals. For in the last year her average wage had been reduced to +$4.33 a week by over four months and a half of almost complete idleness. +Through nine weeks of this time she had an occasional day of work, and +for nine weeks none at all. + +When she was working, she paid 60 cents a week carfare, 25 cents a month +to the Union, of which she was an enthusiastic member, and 10 cents a +month to a "Woman's Self-Education Society." The Union and this club +meant more to Rita than the breakfasts and luncheons she dispensed with, +and more, apparently, than dress, for which she had spent only $20 in a +year and a half. + +Some months afterward, Mrs. Clark received word that Rita had solved many +of her difficulties by a happy marriage, and could hope that many of her +domestic anxieties were relieved. + +The chief of these, worry over the situation of her younger sister, still +in Russia, had been enhanced by her observations of the unhappiness of a +friend, another girl, working in the same shop--a tragedy told here +because of its very serious bearing on the question of seasonal work. +Rita's younger sister was in somewhat the same position as this girl, +alone, without physical strength for her work, and, indeed, so delicate +that it was doubtful whether her admission to the United States could be +secured, even if Rita could possibly save enough for her passage money. +The friend in the shop, hard pressed by the dull season, had at last +become the mistress of a man who supported her until the time of the +birth of their child, when he left her resourceless. Slack and dull +seasons in factory work must, of course, expose the women dependent on +their wage-earning powers, most of them young and many of them with great +beauty, to the greatest dangers and temptations.[21] Especially at the +mercy of the seasons were some of the fur sewers, and the dressmakers, +and milliners working, not independently, but in factories and workshops. + +Helena Hardman, an Austrian girl, a fur sewer, had been employed for only +twenty weeks in the year. She sewed by hand on fur garments in a Twelfth +Street shop, for $7 a week, working nine hours a day, with a Saturday +half-holiday. The air and odors in the fur shop were very disagreeable, +but had not affected her health. + +At the end of the twenty weeks she had been laid off, and had looked +unsuccessfully for work for seventeen weeks, before she found employment +as an operative in an apron factory. Here, however, in this unaccustomed +industry, by working as an operative nine hours a day for five days a +week, and six hours on Saturday, she could earn only $3 or $4. + +She paid $4 a week for board and a tenement room shared with another +girl. She had been obliged to go in debt to her landlady for part of her +long idle time, after her savings had been exhausted. + +During this time she had been unable to buy any clothing, though her +expense for this before had been slender: a suit, $18; a hat, $3; shoes, +$3; waists, $3; and underwear, $2.50. She looked very well, however, in +spite of the struggle and low wages necessitated by learning a secondary +trade. + +The dull season is tided over in various ways. A few fortunate girls go +home and live without expense. Many live partly at the expense of +philanthropic persons, in subsidized homes. In these ways they save a +little money for the dull time, and also store more energy from their +more comfortable living. + +On the horizon of the milliner the dull season looms black. All the world +wants a new hat, gets it, and thinks no more of hats or the makers of +hats. On this account a fast and feverish making and trimming of hats, an +exhausting drain of the energy of milliners for a few weeks, is followed +by weeks of no demand upon their skill. + +Girl after girl told the investigator that the busy season more than wore +her out, but that the worry and lower standard of living of the dull +season were worse. The hardship is the greater because the skilled +milliner has had to spend time and money for her training. + +Many of these girls try to find supplementary work, as waitresses in +summer hotels, or in some other trade. A great difficulty here is the +overlapping of seasons. The summer hotel waitress is needed until +September, at least, but the milliner must begin work in August. To +obtain employment in a non-seasonal industry, it is often necessary to +lie. In each new occupation it is necessary to accept a beginner's wage. + +Regina Siegerson had come alone, at the age of fifteen, from Russia to +New York, where she had been for seven years. The first winter was cruel. +She supported herself on $3 a week. She had been forced to live in the +most miserable of tenements with "ignorant" people. She had subsisted +mainly by eating bananas, and had worn a spring jacket through the cold +winter. It seemed, however, that no hardship had ever prevented her from +attending evening school, where her persistence had taken her to the +fourth year of high school. She was thinking of college at the time of +the interview. Regina was a Russian revolutionist, and keenly thirsting +for knowledge. She talked eagerly to the inquirer about Victor Hugo, +Gorky, Tolstoy, and Bernard Shaw. With no less interest she spoke of the +trade fortunes of milliners in New York, and her own last year's +experience. She had worked through May, June, and July as a trimmer, +making $11 in a week of nine hours a day, with Saturday closing at five. +During August and September and the first weeks in October she had only +six weeks' work, as a maker in a ready-to-wear hat factory, situated on +the lower West Side over a stable, where she made $10 in a week of nine +hours a day. + +Regina and a girl friend had managed to furnish a two-room tenement +apartment with very simple conveniences, and there they kept house. Rent +was $10.50 a month; gas for heating and cooking, $1.80; and food for the +two, about $5 a week. As Regina did her own washing, the weekly expense +for each was but $3.67, less than many lodgers pay for very much less +comfort. + +The greatest pleasure the girls had in their little establishment was the +opportunity it gave them for entertaining friends. Before, it had been +impossible for them to see any one, except in other people's crowded +living-rooms, or on the street. + +Regina was engaged to a young apothecary student, whom she expected to +marry in the spring. Like her, he was in New York without his family, and +he took his meals at the two girls' little flat with them. + +Regina's father, who was living in Russia with a second wife, had sent +her $100 when she wrote him of her intended marriage. This, and about $40 +saved in the six weeks of earning $10, were her reserve fund in the long +dull season. + +The inquirer saw Regina again a few days before Thanksgiving. She was +still out of work, but was learning at home to do some mechanical china +decorating for the Christmas trade. + +Among the milliners, several girls were studying to acquire, not only a +training in a secondary trade, but the better general education which +Frances Ashton, a young American girl of twenty, had obtained through +better fortunes. + +Her father, a professional man, had been comfortably situated. Without +anticipating the necessity of supporting herself, she had studied +millinery at Pratt Institute for half a year. Then, because it was rather +a lark, she had gone to work in New York. Most of her wage was spent for +board and recreation, her father sending her an allowance for clothes. + +After a year, his sudden death made it necessary for her to live more +economically, as her inheritance was not large. The expenses of an attack +of typhoid one summer, and of an operation the next year, entirely +consumed it. + +In the year she described, she had been a copyist in one of the most +exclusive shops on Fifth Avenue. The woman in charge was exceptionally +considerate, keeping the girls as long as possible. She used to weep +when she was obliged to dismiss them, for she realized the suffering and +the temptation of the long idle period. + +However, the season had lasted only three or three and a half months at a +time, from February 1 to May 15, and from August 18 to December 4. During +the six busy weeks in the spring and the autumn, while the orders were +piling up, work was carried on with feverish intensity. The working day +lasted from eight-thirty until six, with an hour at noon for luncheon. +Many employees, however, stayed until nine o'clock, receiving $1, besides +30 cents supper money, for overtime. But by six o'clock Frances was so +exhausted that she could do no more, and she always went home at that +hour. + +In addition to her thirty weeks in the Fifth Avenue order establishment, +Frances had two weeks' work in a wholesale house, where the season began +earlier; so that she had been employed for thirty-two weeks in the year, +and idle for twenty. She was a piece-worker and she had earned from $8 to +$14 a week. + +The twenty idle weeks had been filled with continuous futile attempts to +find anything to do. Application at department stores had been +ineffectual, so had answered advertisements. She said she had lost all +scruples about lying, because, the moment it was known that she wanted a +place during the dull season only, she had no chance at all. + +Frances lived in one of the pleasantest and most expensive subsidized +homes for working girls, paying for board, and a large, delightful room +shared with two other girls, $4.50 a week. Although she walked sometimes +from work, carfare usually amounted to 50 cents a week. Laundering two +sets of underwear and one white waist a week cost 60 cents. Thus, for a +reasonable degree of cleanliness and comfort, partly provided by +philanthropic persons, she spent $5.60 a week aside from the cost of +clothing. + +She dressed plainly, though everything she had was of nice quality. She +said she could spend nothing for pleasure, because of her constant +foreboding of the dull season, and the necessity of always saving for her +apparently inevitable weeks of idleness. She was, at the time she gave +her account, extremely anxious because she did not know how she was to +pay another week's board. + +Yet she had excellent training and skill, the advantage of living +comfortably and being well nourished, and the advantage of a considerate +employer, who did as well as she could for her workers, under the +circumstances. + +Something, then, must be said about these circumstances--this widespread +precariousness in work, against which no amount of thrift or +industriousness or foresight can adequately provide. Where industry acts +the part of the grasshopper in the fable, it is clearly quite hopeless +for workers to attempt to attain the history of the ant. Among the +factory workers, the waist makers' admirable efforts for juster wages +were, as far as yearly income was concerned, largely ineffectual, on +account of this obstacle of slack and dull seasons, whose occurrence +employers are as powerless as employees to forestall. + +These chronicles, showing the effect of seasonal work on the fortunes of +some self-supporting operatives and hand workers in New York factories +and workshops, concern only one corner of American industry, in which, as +every observer must realize, there are many other enormous fields of +seasonal work. These histories are nevertheless clear and authentic +instances of a strange and widespread social waste. Neither trade +organization nor State legislation for shorter hours is primarily +directed toward a more general regular and foresighted distribution of +work among all seasonal trades and all seasonal workers. Until some +focussed, specific attempt is made to secure such a distribution, it +seems impossible but that extreme seasonal want, from seasonal idleness, +will be combined with exhausting seasonal work from overtime or +exhausting seasonal work in speeding, in a manner apparently arranged by +fortune to devastate human energy in the least intelligent manner +possible. + +Further effects of speeding and of monotony in this labor were described +by other self-supporting factory workers whose chronicles, being also +concerned with industry in mechanical establishments, will be placed +next. + +[Illustration: Photograph by Lewis Hine + + "Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound;-- + But where is what I started for so long ago, + And why is it still unfound?" + + --WALT WHITMAN.] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 19: See Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-earners in +the United States. Volume II, Men's Ready-made Clothing, pages 141-157; +160-165; 384-395.] + +[Footnote 20: The income and outlay of other cloak makers will be +separately presented.] + +[Footnote 21: In the first report of the New York Probation Association +the statement is made that out of 300 girls committed by the courts +during the year to the charge of Waverley House, 72 had been engaged in +factory work. Of these many had been at one time or other employed as +operatives. On questioning the probation worker, Miss Stella Miner, who +had lived with them and knew their stories most fully, it was learned, +however, that almost every one of these girls had gone astray while they +were little children, had been remanded by courts to the House of the +Good Shepherd, where they had learned machine operating, and on going out +of its protection to factories had drifted back again to their old ways +of life. How far their early habit and experience had dragged these young +girls in its undertow cannot of course, be known. The truth remains that +factory work, when it is seasonal, must increase temptation by its +economic pressure.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY-WORKERS + +[Monotony and Fatigue in Speeding] + + +One of the strangest effects of the introduction of machinery into +industry is that instead of liberating the human powers and initiative of +workers from mechanical drudgery, it has often tended to devitalize and +warp these forces to the functions of machines.[22] + +This stupefying and wearying effect of machine-work from concentration +and intensity of application and attention was frequently mentioned by +the factory workers in their accounts. + +Tina Levin, a young girl eighteen years old, had worked two years in an +underwear factory in New York; and before her arrival in America, six +years in an underwear factory in Russia. She had come from abroad to her +fiance, Ivan Levin, whom she had recently married. She still worked in +the underwear factory, although she was not entirely self-supporting. She +and her young husband met the League's Inquirer at a Jewish Girls' +Self-Education Club, where they gave between them the account of Tina's +self-supporting years. + +Before her marriage, Tina had worked at a machine ten hours a day for an +underwear manufacturer on Canal Street. In the height of the season the +shop often worked overtime until 8 o'clock, two or three nights a week. +Besides this, many of the girls took hand work home, where they sewed +till eleven or twelve o'clock. But Tina was so exhausted by her long day +that she never did this. Working as hard as possible, she earned $7, and +sometimes $8 a week, during the six busy months. + +For part of this time she lived a full hour-and-a-half's car ride from +the factory. So that with dressing, and eating two meals at her lodging, +when she was at the machine twelve hours a day, she had only about six +hours sleep. + +At least half the year was so dull that she could earn only $3 or $3.50 a +week; and she was so worn out that every month she was utterly unable to +work for three or four days. This loss had reduced her income by $32. She +had been obliged to pay $9 for medicine. Her income for the year had been +about $262. For board and lodging in a tenement she had paid $3.50 a +week; for carfare 60 cents a week; and she had sent $5 home in the year; +and given $9 for medicine; $36 for the dentist; and $1 a month to the +Jewish Girls' Self-Education Society. She had less than $10 left for +dress for the year. But her lover had helped her with many presents; and +had given her many good times and pleasures, besides those obtainable at +the Jewish Girls' Self-Education Society. + +Tina had the advantage of a knowledge of English. This lack of +opportunity to learn the tongue of the country in which she lived was +poignantly regretted by another machine operative, Fanny Leysher, a +white-goods operative of twenty-one who had been in America four years. +She lived in one room of a tenement off the Bowery, where she boarded and +lodged for $4 a week. She worked in a factory within walking distance, +earning $7 a week in the busy season. + +Fanny was a pretty, fair girl, with a graceful presence, a wistful smile, +and the charm peculiar to blond Russians with long gray eyes. She looked, +however, painfully frail and white. In the factory she had worked for +four years, first at time work, then at piece-work. She could earn $7 a +week by stitching up and down the fronts and stitching on the belts of +108 corset covers--9 dozen a day. This was the most she could possibly +complete. The unremitting speeding and close attention this amount of +stitching required left her too exhausted at six o'clock to be able to +attend night school, or to learn English. She suffered greatly from +headache and from backache. + +Fanny worked in this way for forty-one weeks of the year. For six weeks +she worked three days in the week. For two weeks the factory closed. For +three weeks she had been ill. + +She was a girl of quick nervous intelligence, eager for life and with a +nice sense of quality. When she talked of her inability to go to night +school because of her frailness and weariness, tears flooded her eyes. +Her room was very nicely kept, and she had on a shelf a novel of +Sudermann's and a little book of Rosenthal's sweat shop verses. +Everything she wore was put on carefully and with good taste. Her dress +showed the quickest adaptability, and in correctness, and simplicity of +line and color might have belonged to a college freshman "with every +advantage." It was a little trim delft-blue linen frock with a white +pique collar and a loose blue tie. She had tan stockings and low russet +shoes. Fanny belonged to the Working-man's Circle. She said she went as +often as she could possibly afford it to the theatre. And when she was +asked what plays she liked, she replied with an unforgettable keenness +and eagerness, "Oh, I want nothing but the best. Only what will tell me +about real life." + +She said she had spent too much money for dress last year; but she had +been able to buy clothing of a quality which she thought would last her +for a long time. The little plain gold watch in her list she had partly +needed and partly had been unable to resist. One of the three summer +dresses costing $14 was her blue linen dress, for which she had given $7. +She expected to wear it for two summers with alterations. + + Last year's suit cleaned $ 3 + Shoes 11 + Hat 10 + Dresses (1 winter, $10; 3 summer, $14) 24 + Coat 9 + Every-day hat 4.50 + Muslin (for white waists and corset covers made by herself) 5 + Umbrella 2 + Gloves 2 + Pocket-book 1 + Watch 11 + ______ + $82.50 + +Painful as it was in some ways to see Fanny Leysher, who liked "nothing +but the best," pouring her life force into stitching 108 corset covers a +day, she yet seemed less helpless than some still younger workers. + +Minna Waldemar, a girl of sixteen, an operative in an umbrella factory, +had been in the United States for six months. For five months of this +time she had been stitching the seams and hems of umbrella covers for 35 +cents a hundred. Her usual output was about 200 a day. By working very +fast, she could in a full day make 300, but when she did, it left her +thumb very sore. + +Minna paid $3 a month for sleeping space in a tenement; $1.75 a week for +suppers; and for breakfasts and luncheons, from 15 to 30 cents a day. + +She wore a black sateen waist, which had cost $1. A suit had cost $8; a +hat, $3; and a pair of shoes, $2. Working her hardest and fastest, she +had not received enough money to pay for even these meagre belongings, +and was obliged to have assistance from her brother, her only relative in +New York. + +Every line of Minna's little figure looked overworked. This was true, +too, of Sadie, a little underfed, grayish Austrian girl of seventeen, who +had come to New York as the advance guard of her family. + +In the last year since her arrival, two and one-half years before, she +had first been employed for seven months in a neckwear factory, where she +earned from $2.50 a week to $6 and $7 on piece-work. In two very busy +weeks she had earned $9 a week. + +After the slack season, the factory closed. Hunting desperately for a way +to make money, Sadie found employment as an operative on children's +dresses, running a foot-power machine in a tenement work-room for $2.50 a +week. In the second week her wage was advanced to $3 and continued at +this for the next three or four months. + +After this, the demand for neckwear had increased again. She had returned +to the neckwear factory, and was earning $6 a week. Her busiest days were +eleven hours long, and her others nine. + +She spent nothing for pleasure. She could send nothing to her family. In +the course of two years and a half she had bought one hat for $3 and a +suit for $12. She went to night school, but was generally so weary that +she could learn really nothing. She did her own washing, and for $3 a +month she rented a sleeping space in the kitchen of a squalid, crowded +East Side tenement. It was the living-room of her poverty-stricken +landlady's family; and she had to wait until they all left it, sometimes +late at night, before she dragged her bed out of an obscure corner and +flung it on the floor for her long-desired sleep. Supper with the +landlady cost her 20 cents a night. Sadie's breakfasts and dinners +depended absolutely upon her income and her other expenses. As in the +weeks when she was earning $3 she had only 90 cents for fourteen meals a +week and her clothing, and in the weeks when she earned $2.50, only 40 +cents a week for fourteen meals and her clothing, her depleted health is +easily understood. + +Sadie's custom of paying rent and yet dragging a pallet out of the corner +and finding or waiting for a place to throw it in, like a little vagrant, +is very characteristic of East Side tenements. She paid $36 a year for +lodging, and yet can scarcely be said to have received for this sum any +definite space at all under a roof-tree, honestly provided for her as her +own, but simply the chance of getting such a place when she could. + +If she had attempted to find a better and less expensive place for +sleeping, in a less congested quarter of the city, she would have been +obliged to pay, besides her rent, a sum at least half as large, for +transportation. In the same way, for this really very large sum of $15 or +$20 paid yearly to the city railroads, she would not have received in +their cars any definite place at all, honestly provided for her as her +own, but simply a chance of getting a foothold when she could on a +cross-town car or the Bronx elevated during the rush hours. The yearly +sums paid to the car companies by factory workers too exhausted to walk +home are very striking in these budgets. Tina Levin had paid nearly +$30--more than she had spent for her clothing during the year. This +expense of carfare and the wretched conditions in transportation which +most of the car companies supply to the workers compelled to use their +lines in rush hours is a difficulty scarcely less than that of New York +rents and congestion, and inseparably connected with them. + +Anna Flodin, a girl of eighteen, forced by illness to leave the congested +quarters of New York for the Bronx, did not attempt to return to work +until she was able to live again within walking distance of the factory. + +Anna Flodin was a pale, quiet girl with smooth black hair and a serious, +almost poignant expression. All her life had been one of poverty, a sheer +struggle to keep the wolf from the door. She spoke no English, though she +could understand a little. + +She stitched regularly in the busy season 1568 yards of machine sewing +daily in fastening belts to cheap corset covers. The forewoman gave her +in the course of the day 28 bundles, each containing 28 corset covers +with the belts basted to the waist lines and the loose ends of the belts +basted ready to finish. + +The instant Anna failed to complete this amount, or seemed to drop behind +in the course of the day, the forewoman blamed her, and threatened to +reduce her wage. + +Anna worked in this manner ten hours a day, for $6 a week. If she were +five minutes late, she was docked for half an hour. She was docked for +every needle she broke in the rapid pace she was obliged to keep, and in +the first year she was obliged to pay out of her wage, which had then +been only $5 a week, for all the many hundred yards of thread she +stitched into the white-goods company's output. + +In order to complete 784 yards of belting a day--over 1600 yards of +stitching, for she fastened both edges of the belt--she was forced, of +course, to work as fast as she could feed and guide belts under the +needle. She had strong eyes. But her back ached from the stooping to +guide the material, and she suffered cruelly from pain in her shoulders. + +There had been seventeen weeks of this work. Then there had been ten +weeks of two or three days' work a week, when it seemed impossible to +earn enough to live on. Then, ten weeks when the factory closed. Then she +had an illness lasting over two months, which began a few weeks after the +factory closed. + +She said the doctor had told her that her illness was consumption and +that he had cured it. It must have been, of course, not consumption or +not arrested in that space of time. But, during it, she had paid him +$28.50 and given $22.50 for her board and lodging, with an uncle in the +Bronx, and for milk and eggs. + +Almost as soon as she was declared able to return to stitching seven +hundred belts a day, she hurried back to work. But within a few days the +girls struck against the company's practice of making them buy thread, +and were out for five weeks. At the end of this time they won their +point. + +Altogether her income for the year had been about $150; and the severity +and amount of labor she had given in earning it had left her cruelly +spent. + +She could not possibly live on this amount, as board and lodging alone +had cost her $3 a week--$126 for the year. She had been obliged to borrow +$50 for her treatment in her illness; and she had not yet paid back this +sum. Besides, her landlady had trusted her for some board bills she had +not yet paid. For clothing she had spent $26.59,--one dress for $7; one +hat for $2; one jacket for $6; two pairs of shoes at $2; a pair for $4; +36 pairs of stockings at 10 cents a pair for $3.60; three waists at 98 +cents each for $2.94; and three suits of winter underwear for $1.05. But +she said winter underwear of this quality failed to keep her really warm. + +In the evening she was too tired to leave the tenement for night school +or for anything else. She did her own washing. In the course of a year +her only pleasure had been a trip to the theatre for 35 cents. + +Anna Flodin lived in a very poor tenement off the Bowery; and she told +her experiences in her work, in spite of her muteness and struggle to +express herself, with a sort of public spirit, and an almost +ambassadorial dignity, which was inexpressibly touching. + +That spirit--a fine freedom from personal self-consciousness and clear +interest in testifying to the truth about women's work, and wages, and +expenditure of strength--was evinced by countless girls. None, indeed, +were pressed for any facts they did not wish to give, nor sought, unless +they wished to help in the inquiry. But perhaps because it arose from +such an immured depth of youth spent in foreboding poverty, the voice of +Anna Flodin's chronicle was distinctively thrilling. + +She told her experience in her work with great clearness, sitting in a +little dark, clean room in a tenement, looking out on a filthy, +ill-smelling inner court. The only brightening of her grave, young face +throughout her story and our questions was her smile when she spoke of +her one visit to the theatre, and another change of expression when she +spoke of the other girls in the shop, in connection with the strike about +thread. She was a member of the Union. In the shop there were girls not +members who were willing to continue to buy the management's thread +indefinitely. Anna Flodin said quietly, with a look of quick scorn, that +she would never have anything to do with such girls. + +Her mute life and mechanical days could make one understand in her with +every sympathy all kinds of unreasoning prejudices and aversions. + +She was very young; and it was partly her youth which deepened all the +sense of dumb oppression and exhaustion her still presence and appealing +eyes imparted. There is a great deal of talk about the danger and sadness +of dissipation in youth. Too little is said of the fact that such an +enclosing monotony and stark poverty of existence as Anna Flodin's is in +youth sadness itself, as cruel to the pulses in its numb passage as the +painful sense of wreck. All tragedies are not those of violence, but of +depletion, too, and of starvation. + +The drain and exhaustion experienced after a day of speeding at a machine +was described by another worker, a girl of good health and lively mind, +who afterwards found more attractive employment. She said that in her +factory days she used to walk home, a distance of a mile, at nine +o'clock, after her work was done, with a cousin. The cousin was another +clever and spirited Russian girl of the same age. They had a hundred +things to talk about, but as they left the factory, one would almost +always say to the other: "Please do not speak to me on my way home. I am +so tired I can scarcely answer." Instantly after supper they went to bed. +In the morning they hurried through breakfast to be at the factory at +eight, to go through the round of the day before. + +"We only went from bed to work, and from work to bed again," one of the +girls said, "and sometimes if we sat up a little while at home, we were +so tired we could not speak to the rest, and we hardly knew what they +were talking about. And still, although there was nothing for us but bed +and machine, we could not earn enough to take care of ourselves through +the slack season." + +It is significant to compare with the account of these ill-paid +operatives, exhausted from speeding, the chronicle of a skilled worker in +a belt-factory, Theresa Luther, earning $17 a week. + +She was a young German-American Protestant woman of 27, born in New York. +After her father died, she instantly helped her older brother shoulder +the support of the family, as readily as though she had been a capable +and adventurous boy. Strong, competent, and high-spirited, Miss Luther +was a tall girl, fair-haired, with dark blue eyes, and a very beautiful +direct glance. + +Her father had been a wood-carver, an artist responsible for some of the +most interesting work in his craft done in New York. Theresa, too, had +dexterity with her hands. At the age of fifteen she entered a leather +belt factory as a "trimmer." She was so quick that she earned almost +immediately $7 a week, a remarkable wage for a beginner of fifteen. Soon +she was permitted to fold and pack. Not long afterwards, overhearing a +forewoman lamenting the absence of machine operatives, she observed that +she could run a sewing-machine at home. The forewoman, amused, placed her +at the machine. After that she had stitched belts for eleven years, +though not in the same factory. + +Leather belt stitching is at once heavy and skilled work. The row of +stitching is placed at the very edge of the belt. The slightest deviation +from a straight line in the stitch spoils the entire piece of work. +Running the needle-point through the leather is hard, and requires so +much strength that the stitching through the doubled leather, +necessitated by putting on the buckle, can be performed only by men. +Theresa used to complete two gross of belts a day. She and other +Americans in the factory were hard-pressed by some Russian girls, who +could finish in a day four gross of very badly sewed belts with enormous +stitches and loose threads. When the forewoman blamed Theresa for +finishing less work than these girls, she freely expressed her contempt +for their slovenly belts. She had a strong handicraft pride, and it was +pleasant to see her instinctive scorn in quoting the forewoman's reply +that "None of them (the badly made belts) ever came back"--as though +their selling quality were the one test of their workmanship. + +She had left the factory because of a complete breakdown from long hours +of overwork. In one winter she had been at the machine seventy-one hours +a week for ten weeks. After this severe experience, she had a long +prostration and was depleted, exhausted, in a sort of physical torpor in +which she was unable to do anything for months. + +On her recovery she entered another factory, where the hours are not so +excessive, the treatment is fair, and she has now an excellent position +as forewoman at $18 a week. + +Theresa was a very earnest, clear-minded girl, with strong convictions +concerning the bad effect of excessive hours for working women. At the +time when the hearing on the New York State Labor Law was held at Albany +last spring, she had been active in obtaining a petition, signed by a +body of New York working girls and placed in the hands of Labor +Commissioner Williams, to aid in securing a shortening of their present +legal hours. Theresa had advanced beyond the drudgery of her trade to one +of its better positions by extraordinary ability. Some of the skilled +machine operatives, like some of the unskilled factory workers, were +buoyed through the monotony of their present calling by the hope of +leaving it for another occupation. + +Alta Semenova, a Polish glove maker, twenty years old, worked nine hours +a day at a machine for $7 a week, and studied five evenings a week in a +private evening school, for which she paid $4 a month tuition. + +She lived in a small hall bedroom with an admired girl friend. Each paid +$4.25 a month rent. Her food amounted to $2.90 a week. Saturday evening +she spent in doing her washing. She lived near enough to the factory to +walk to work in five or ten minutes. She paid 25 cents a month for Union +dues. + +Alta was working for "counts" toward entering college or Cooper Union. In +spare moments she read the modern Russians. During her year in New York +she has mastered sufficient English to read Shakespeare in the original. +In a few years she will be a teacher. Alta was an eager Russian +revolutionist. She had the student's passion, and her head was full of +plans for a life of intellectual work. + +These chronicles of the income and outlay of some New York factory +workers have described monotony and speeding in machine-work. The annals +of the New York factory workers presented below describe monotony and +speeding in hand-work. + +Yetta Sigurdin, an Austrian girl nineteen years old, had been in New York +three years, and in the last year and a half had been employed in a +tobacco factory, a Union shop, as a skilled roller, on piece-work. + +Her hours were eight a day. In a full day, Yetta could roll 2200 +cigarettes. So her best wage was about $12 a week. The average was, +however, not more than $8, as the factory had been idle four weeks, and +very dull for five months, though busy for the remaining six. + +Yetta looked very robust and happy. She seemed comfortable in her work +and with her income, in spite of the extra labor of washing some of her +own clothes and making her own waists. This, no doubt, was due largely to +her sane and reasonable working hours, and partly to the fact that her +work did not require the intensity of watching and application demanded +by rapid machine-work. Indeed in some Union tobacco factories the rollers +sometimes make up a sum among themselves to pay a reader by the hour to +read aloud to them while they are at work. + +Yetta paid $3 a week for room, breakfast, and supper in a tenement. It +was in an extremely poor neighborhood, but was fresh, pleasant, and well +aired. Her dinners cost about $1.50 a week. She did part of her washing +and part was included in the charge for board. Her Union fee was 15 cents +a week. The members of the Cigarette Makers' Union pay a weekly due of 5 +cents for the support of a sanatorium in Colorado for tubercular tobacco +workers. Yetta contributed to this sanatorium and gave a 10-cent monthly +fee for Union agitation. + +She estimated the cost of her clothing at about $82 for the year. A +winter suit cost $14; a spring suit, $15; a summer dress, $5; and a +winter dress, $18. Six pairs of shoes cost $15. She could not remember +the items of the rest of her expenditure for dress. Part of it was for +underwear and part of it for material for waists she had made herself. + +In spite of the monotony and speed of Yetta's work, it did not exhaust +her powers of living, because it neither required intense application nor +was pursued beyond a reasonable number of hours. + +Barbara Cotton, an American woman of thirty-two, a skilled hand-worker in +an electrical goods factory, had been self-supporting for more than +eighteen years, spending the last nine in her present employment. + +In the electrical goods factory she separated layers of mica until it was +split into the thinnest possible sheets. She was paid by the number she +succeeded in splitting. The constant repetition of an act of such +accuracy for nine hours a day had strained her eyes excessively and made +her extremely nervous. + +For six months of these nine-hour days, she earned $8 or $8.50 a week. +During the other six months there was no work on Saturdays, and she +earned about $7 a week. She had a week's vacation with pay. She had lost +during the year she described two months' work from illness, due to her +run-down condition. This she said, however, was not caused by her work, +but by combining with it, in an emergency, the care of the children of a +sister, who had been sick. + +Miss Cotton belonged to a benefit society and through her own illness she +had received an allowance of $5 a week. + +Her income for the year had been about $367, an average of $7.06 a week. + +Miss Cotton had tried living in boarding-houses and furnished rooms, and +although the expense was about the same, the places were much less +attractive in every way than the hotel for working girls where she was +staying at the time of the interview. + +For half of a room a little larger than an ordinary hall bedroom and for +breakfasts and dinners, she paid $4.50 a week. Luncheons in addition cost +her $1 a week. As she was within walking distance of work, she had no +other expense but 35 cents for part of her washing. The rest she did +herself. + +She bought very little clothing, as out of the $1.15 a week she had left +after paying every necessary expense, she generously helped to support a +sick sister and niece. After eighteen years of hard, steady work--nine +years of it skilled work--she had saved nothing except in the form of +benefit fees, and she had no prospect of saving. + +Although she was nervously worn, and her eyesight was strained, she was +less exhausted by her industrial experience than Katherine Ryan, an Irish +worker of forty-five, who had been cutting and sewing trimmings for six +years in an applique factory. + +Eight and a quarter hours of this work a day exhausted her. She received +$7 a week. Her eyes were fast failing her from the close watch she had +to keep on her scissors to guard against cutting too far. + +She often went to bed at eight or half past eight o'clock, worn out by +one day's task and eager to be fresh for the next, for she was hard +pressed by the competition of young eyes and quick fingers. + +Newer workers were given finer and more profitable work to do. In spite +of her faithfulness, and straining for speed, she was laid off two months +earlier in the last season than in any previous year, and newer helpers +were retained. She thought the forewoman was prejudiced against her, and +naturally could not understand the truth that from the standpoint of +modern industry she was aged at forty-five. + +She had been paying $3 a week for board in a philanthropic home, and +there she was permitted to stay and to pay for her board and lodging when +she had no money by helping with the housework. Miss Ryan, however, had +exhausted herself less rapidly than Elena and Gerda Nakov, two young +Polish women of thirty-three and twenty-nine, skilled hand-workers on +children's dresses. + +Elena had come from South Russia to seek her fortunes when she was +sixteen years old. Her mother and father were dead. She had been educated +by an uncle, with whom her younger sister, Gerda, remained. + +According to the testimony of Elena's brother-in-law, the kind-hearted +husband of a married sister living in New York, and also according to the +testimony of Gerda, Elena at sixteen was a very beautiful girl. She was +small, but very strong and well knit, with a fresh, glowing color, deep +gray eyes, and heavy reddish gold hair, growing low upon her forehead in +a widow's peak. + +Elena first found work as a cigarette roller, earning $4 a week. Here she +was subjected to constant insolence and scurrilous language from the +foreman and the men working with her. Her eyes turned black with contempt +when she spoke of this offence--"Oh" she exclaimed, "I thought, 'I am +poor, but I will never in my life be so poor as to stand things like +that.'" + +She left the tobacco factory and found employment as a neckwear worker. +Here, too, she earned $4, but the season grew dull, and she entered a +small factory, where she worked on children's dresses, embroidering, +buttonholing, faggoting, and feather-stitching. In this craft she proved +to have such deftness, nicety of touch, and speed that she could do in an +hour twice as much as most of the other girls and women in the factory. + +She sewed from eight to six, with half an hour for lunch. She always took +work home and sometimes she sewed for half of Sunday, for living expenses +consumed all of her $4 a week. Her stomach had failed her in the +intensity of her occupation and from the insufficient food she was able +to purchase, and she needed all the extra money she could earn for +doctor's bills and medicine. + +She was thin, spent, worn, and pale, when Gerda came over from Russia, +four years after Elena had arrived. Gerda was a strong, attractive girl, +with good health, dark curling hair, and a lovely color. + +Entering the same factory with Elena, she soon became almost as able as +her sister in fine sewing, and almost as ill. She earned $3 a week. + +The factory was owned by a young German widow, Mrs. Mendell, an extremely +attractive, pretty, and skilful person, appearing in her office an +agreeable and well-educated young woman, and able to produce the most +engaging little dresses, caps, and undermuslins for children, at a high +profit, by paying extremely small wages to skilled immigrant +seamstresses. In her workroom, Mrs. Mendell alternately terrorized and +flattered the girls. She speeded them constantly. Unless they had done as +much work as she wished to accomplish through the day, she refused to +speak to them. She made the younger girls put on her boots, and dress her +when she changed her office frock for the clothes in which she motored +home at night. And in the morning she punished girls who had not +finished as much work as she wished over night by giving them the worst +paid and hardest sewing in the factory. + +One night she sent Elena and Gerda home with two great bundles of +infants' bands--shoulder-straps and waistbands--to be made ready to be +fastened to long skirts the next morning. They were all to be +feather-stitched around the shoulder-bands and upper edges of the +waist-bands, three buttons sewed on, and three buttonholes made in each. +This was to be done for 2-1/2 cents a piece--a quarter a dozen. + +In the morning after she had completed this work, Elena felt so nervous +and ill when she went to the factory, that as she handed Mrs. Mendell +back the bundle and received the quarter, she burst into tears. She told +Mrs. Mendell she was sick. She could not live and work as she was +working. Gerda's eyes were always strained. Their wages must be raised. + +Mrs. Mendell replied with calm and self-approbation, that she herself +stayed in the factory all day, but she never complained in any such way. +However, she raised Elena's wages 50 cents. + +At this time the two girls lived in a tiny, inner room with one window, +on an air-shaft in an East Side tenement. For this they paid $8 a month. +It was scarcely more than a closet, holding one chair, one table, and a +bed; and so small that Elena and Gerda could scarcely squeeze in between +their meagre furnishings. They did their own washing, cooked their own +breakfasts on the landlady's stove, prepared a lunch they took with them +to the factory, and paid 20 cents a night apiece for dinner. Almost all +the money they had left, after their lodging and board and the barest +necessities for clothing were paid for, went for medicines and doctors. + +Their clothing was so poor that they were ashamed to go out on +Sunday--when everybody else put on "best dresses"--and would sit in their +room all day. However, in the evenings they sometimes went to see +relatives in the Bronx, and on one of these occasions they had a piece of +good fortune of the oddest character. On the elevated road on which they +happened to be riding there was an accident--a collision. They were +neither of them injured; but they saw the collision, and were summoned as +witnesses for the road. They were obliged to spend several mornings away +from making children's dresses, waiting to give their testimony in the +criminal court, which they found highly pleasant and recreative. However, +after all, the road settled with the prosecutors before the girls were +ever called on for their testimony, and the case never came to trial. But +the railroad gave Elena and Gerda for the time they had spent on its +behalf a check for $20. + +At this they determined to move to better quarters. The factory, besides, +had grown and moved into larger rooms farther up-town (though its +workrooms had always been well lighted and ventilated), so that the girls +were obliged to spend more than they could afford for carfare. With the +$20 they furnished their room in Harlem. They were in a wild, +disreputable neighborhood, of which the girls remained quite independent. +But the rooms were airy and attractive. Having now their own furnishings, +they paid only $8 a month for all this added space and comfort, so that +they could continue to live in these accommodations, but only with severe +effort and industry on Elena's part. For Gerda's optic nerve was now so +affected by strain, and she suffered so from indigestion, faintness, and +illness, that she was unable to go to the factory. She kept the house, +doing some sewing at home. + +Elena's wages during the next six years, by struggle after struggle with +Mrs. Mendell, were raised to $7 a week after her thirteen years of +service. But she was nearly frantic with alarm over her failing health. +She was thin and frail, and eating almost nothing from gastritis. + +At last a woman physician she saw told her she must stop work or she +would die. Her stomach was almost completely worn out. This doctor sent +her to a hospital, and visited Gerda and sent her, too, to a hospital. + +This was four years ago. But both the young women are so broken down that +no efforts of public or private philanthropic medical care in the state +and the city have been able to restore their health. The doctors in whose +charge they have been say that these young women's strength is simply +worn out from these years of overwork and strain and poor and scanty +food, and that they can never again be really well. + +They leave the hospitals or sanatoria for a few weeks of wage-earning, +six, at the most, to return again ill and unable to do any work at all. +Their life is now indeed a curious modern pilgrimage among the various +forms of charitable cure and the great charitable institutions of the +community which is entirely unable to return to them the strength they +have lost in its industries. + +It may be pointed out that the exhaustion of these two workers has +involved a loss and expense not only to themselves, but to the factory +management, which has been obliged to employ in Elena's place two other +less skilful embroiderers, and to the taxpayers and the philanthropists +of New York who support charity hospitals and vacation homes. + +These chronicles express as clearly as possible, in the order followed, +monotony and speeding in factory work among younger and older women, +operatives and hand-workers. + +While one of the strangest results of the introduction of machinery into +modern industry is that instead of liberating the human powers and +initiative of the workers, it has often tended to devitalize and warp +these forces to the functions of machines, yet this result is so strange +that it cannot seem inevitable. Speeding for long hours at machines, +rather than machine labor itself, appears most widely responsible for the +fatigue described by the operatives whose trade histories have been +narrated. Further, speeding and long hours were responsible for the most +drastic experience of exhaustion related among all the factory workers +encountered--the experience of Elena and Gerda Nikov, who were employed +not at machines, but in handiwork so delicate it might with more accuracy +be called a handicraft. + +The exhaustion of these workers was partly attributable to their custom +of pursuing their trade not only in factory hours, but outside the +factory, at home. Within the last year, the most widely constructive +effort to abolish sweated home labor from the needle trades ever +undertaken in this country has been initiated by the New York cloak +makers, to whom we next turned for an account of their industrial +fortunes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 22: These testimonies are cited from the brief for the Illinois +Ten-Hour Law, prepared by Louis D. Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark. + +_Investigations into the Conditions of Health of the Swiss Factory +Workers._ Dr. Fridlion Schuler, Swiss Factory Inspector, and Dr. A. E. +Burckhardt, Professor of Hygiene. + +"Instead of becoming wearied by personal labor, as in earlier stages of +industry, it is to-day the unremitting, tense concentration of watching +the machine, the necessary rapidity of motion, that fatigues the worker." + +_Dangerous Trades._ Thomas Oliver, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P. London. 1902. + +"The introduction of steam has revolutionized industry.... While +machinery has, in some senses, lightened the burden of human toil it has +not diminished fatigue in man. While the machinery pursues its relentless +course, and insensitive to fatigue, human beings are conscious, +especially towards the end of the day, that the competition is unequal, +for their muscles are becoming tired and their brains jaded. Present-day +factory labor is too much a competition of sensitive human nerve and +muscle against insensitive iron." + +_Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography_, Berlin, +September, 1907. Fatigue Resulting from Occupation. Dr. Emil Roth, +Regierungsrat, Potsdam. + +"With the progressive division of labor, work has become more and more +mechanical. A definite share of overfatigue and its sequels, especially +neurasthenia, must be ascribed to this monotony--to the absence of +spontaneity or joy in work." + +_Proceedings of the First International Convention on Industrial +Diseases_, Milan, 1906. Imbecility and Criminality in Relation to +Certain Forms of Labor. Professor Crisafuli. + +"When only one brain-centre works, it becomes overfatigued much more +easily than if the functions were alternately performed by the various +centres. + +"Here, then, is another factor in overfatigue due to the _monotony_ of +work, interrupted only at long intervals. + +"This monotony is the determining cause of local disturbances and +endangers the entire organism."] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CLOAK MAKERS' STRIKE AND THE PREFERENTIAL UNION SHOP + + +Forty million dollars are invested in New York in the making of women's +cloaks, skirts, and suits. One hundred and eighty million dollars' worth +of these garments are produced in New York in a year.[23] + +Between sixty and seventy thousand organized men and women in the city +are employed in these industries. The Union members constitute +ninety-five per cent of the workers engaged in the trade, and about ten +thousand of these members are women.[24] + +It seems at first strange to find that the multitudinous fields of the +metropolitan needle trades,--industries traditionally occupied by sewing +women,--are, in fact, far more heavily crowded with sewing men. There is, +however, a division of labor, the men doing practically all the cutting, +machine sewing, and pressing, and in many cases working at +hand-finishing; the women practically never cutting, machine sewing, or +pressing, and in all cases working at hand-finishing. + +A general strike involving all these men and women in the cloak making +trade was declared on the 8th of July, 1910. The industry had for years +burdened both its men and women workers with certain grave +difficulties--an unstandardized wage, the subcontracting system, +competition with home work, and long seasonal hours. + +The subcontracting system bore most severely on the women in the trade, +as the greater proportion of the finishers were women, and before the +strike nearly every finisher was employed by a subcontractor. + +The wages paid to finishers in the same shop, whether they were girls or +men, were the same. But as compared with cutters, basters, and operators +the finishers both before and since the strike had always been paid +relatively below their deserts. + +Wages were lowered, not only by the unstandardized rates prevalent +through the sub-subcontracting system, but also by the practice of +sending hand-finishing out of the factories and shops to be done at home. +When inquiry was made of numerous self-supporting girls employed as cloak +finishers, most of them said that at the end of the working day they were +too exhausted to carry any sewing home. But work had been carried away +by various strong girls in the trade, and by old men, and by young men to +their families. + +Among the women cloak finishers, Rose Halowitch, a delicate little +Russian girl of seventeen, a helper in a cloak factory, who gave her +account to the Consumers' League, about two years and a half ago received +a wage of from $3.50 to $6 a week. In busy weeks she would work from +eight in the morning till eight at night, with only one stop of an hour +for her insufficient noon lunch, for which she could afford to spend only +6 or 7 cents. + +Among the home workers Rhetta Salmonsen, a Russian woman of forty, the +mother of four children, used to finish at night the cloaks brought to +her by her husband, who worked through the day as an operator in a cloak +factory. Between them they would earn $12 and $15 in busy weeks. In these +weeks there were some occasions when Mrs. Salmonsen would do the +housework till her husband came home late at night. After clearing away +his supper and putting the children to bed, she would start felling seams +at midnight; and in order to complete the cloaks he had brought before he +returned to the shop in the morning, she would sew until she saw the +white daylight coming in at the tenement window, and it was time for her +to prepare breakfast again. With all this industry, as her husband had +been ill and there had been three months of either slack work or +idleness, the family had fallen in debt. Rent, food, and shoes alone had +cost them $400. This left less than $100 a year for all the other +clothing and expenses of six people in New York. Against such a standard +of living as this, then, cloak finishers were obliged to compete as long +as they attempted to underbid the hours and prices of home work. + +Among the stronger girls who had taken work home, Ermengard Freiburg, a +powerful young Galician woman of twenty-eight, who had been finishing +cloaks ever since she was eleven, had earned $1 in the first week and had +advanced rapidly to $3 a week. In the last years, however, she had not +carried any work home. She had sewed on piece-work from eight in the +morning to six at night with an hour for lunch and no night work or +overtime. She had earned from $20 to $25 a week in the busy weeks when +the better pieces of work were more plentiful; and in the slack weeks $6 +and $7. Ermengard had no complaint whatever to make about her own trade +fortunes. All her concern and conversation were for the numbers of women +cloak makers who lacked her own wonderful strength. Successful without +education, she was astonishingly destitute of the wearisome fallacy of +complacent self-reference characteristic of many people of uncommon +ability. During the past year she had twice been discharged for +organizing the workers in cloak factories where she was employed. In the +first establishment subcontracting had made conditions too hard for most +of the women; and in the second, wages were too low for a decent +livelihood for most of the workers. + +These instances serve to express in the industry and lives of women cloak +workers the subcontracting system, long seasonal hours, home work, and an +unstandardized wage--the features under discussion in the cloak making +trade in the spring of 1910. + +The whole cloak making trade of New York presents, for an outside +observer, the kaleidoscopic interest of a population not static. The +cutter of one decade is the employer of another decade. In the general +strike of the cloakmakers in 1896 nearly all the manufacturers were +German. In the strike of last summer nearly all the manufacturers were +Galician and Russian. + +This aspect of the New York needle trades must be borne in mind in +realizing those occurrences in the last strike which led to the present +joint effort of both manufacturers and workers to standardize the wage +scale, to regulate seasonal hours, to abolish the subcontracting system +and home work, and to establish the preferential Union shop throughout +the metropolitan industry. + +Dr. Henry Moskowitz, an effective non-partisan leader in achieving the +settlement of the strike, was an eye-witness and student of all its +crises, and the outline of its history below is mainly drawn from his +chronicle and observation. + +Between the cloak makers and the manufacturers of New York a contest +waged in numerous strikes had continued for twenty-five years. The +agreements reached at the close of these strikes had been only temporary, +because the cloak makers were never able to maintain a Union strong +enough to hold the points won at the close of the struggle. The cloak +makers had always proved themselves heroic strikers, but feeble +Unionists, lacking sustained power. Again and again, men and women who +had been sincerely ready to risk starvation for the justice of their +claims during the fight would in peace become indifferent, fail to attend +Union meetings, fail to pay Union dues; and the organization, strong in +the time of defeat through the members' zeal, would weaken through their +negligence in the critical hour of an ill-established success. + +The main contestants in this struggle had been the cloak makers on one +side, and on the other the manufacturers belonging to the Cloak and Suit +Manufacturers' Protective Association. The majority of the manufacturers +in the association are men of standing in the trade, controlling large +West Side establishments, and supplying fifty per cent of the New York +output, though they represent only a small percentage of the cloak houses +of New York. These cloak houses altogether number between thirteen and +fourteen hundred, most of them on the East Side and the lower West Side, +manufacturing cheap and medium-grade clothing. Such smaller houses had +frequently broken the strikes of the last twenty-five years by temporary +agreements in which they afterwards proved false to the workers. Many +small dealers had become rich merchants through such strike harvests. + +On this account the cloak makers naturally distrusted employers' +agreements. On the other hand, in many instances in the settlement of +former strikes, cloak makers had made with certain dealers secret terms +which enabled them to undersell their competitors. For this reason the +manufacturers naturally distrusted cloak makers' agreements. With this +mutual suspicion, the strike of 1910 began in June in two houses, an East +Side and a West Side house. From the first house the workers went out +because of the subcontracting system, and from the second practically on +account of lockout. + +On the 3d of July, a mass meeting of 10,000 cloakmakers gathered in +Madison Square Garden. It was decided that the question of a general +strike should be put to the vote of the 10,000 Union members. Balloting +continued at the three polls of the three Union offices for two +succeeding days. Of these 10,000, all but about 600 voted in favor of the +strike, and of these 600 the majority afterward declared that they, too, +were in sympathy with the action. + +The wide prevalence of the difficulties which led to the decision of the +10,000 workers assembled at Madison Square Garden was evinced by the fact +that within the next week an army of over 40,000 men and women in the New +York garment trade joined the Cloak and Suit Makers' Union. + +These crowds poured into the three Union offices, filled the building +entries, the streets before them, reached sometimes around the +block--great processions of Rumanians, Hungarians, Poles, Germans, +Italians, Galicians, and Russians, the last two nationalities in the +greatest numbers, men and women who had been driven out of Europe by +military conscription, by persecution and pillage, literally by fire and +sword, bearded patriarchs, nicely dressed young girls with copies of +Sudermann and Gorky under their arms, shawled, wigged women with children +clinging to their skirts, handsome young Jews who might have stood as +models for clothiers' advertisements--cutters, pressers, operators, +finishers, subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors; for these, too, struck +with all the rest. In watching these sewing men and sewing women +streaming through the Union office on Tenth Street--an office hastily +improvised in an old dwelling-house in a large room, evidently formerly a +bedroom, and still papered with a delicate design of white and blue +stripes, and a border of garlands of rosebuds--it seemed to an onlooker +that almost no economic procession could ever before have comprised +elements so very catholic and various. Who could lead such a body? How +could the position of their great opponents, from day to day, be made +known to them? As a matter of fact, no one man can be said to have led +the 60,000 New York cloak makers. In the absence of such control, the +corps of more prominent Union officers and their attorney, Meyer London, +and through these men the multitudes of the Union members, were virtually +guided by an East Side Yiddish paper, the _Vorwaerts_. + +In the meantime, while these multitudes were flocking into the Union +early in July, the Cloak Manufacturers' Association, representing +beforehand about seventy-five houses, had by the inclusion of many +smaller firms extended its membership to twelve hundred +establishments.[25] + +Soon after the formation of the alliance, it became apparent to the +smaller firms that the larger ones were not in any haste for settlement. +The latter felt that they could beat their opponents by a waiting game; +while the smaller firms, with their lesser capital, scarcely more able +than their workers to exist through a prolonged beleaguering of the cloak +makers, felt that the present stand of the larger manufacturers involved, +not only beating the Unionists, but driving themselves, the weaker +manufacturers, out of the industry. + +One by one, they left the association, sought the Union headquarters, and +settled with the cloak makers. The profit reaped by these firms starting +to work induced others to meet the workers' demands. By the end of July +and the first week in August, six hundred smaller firms, employing +altogether 20,000 cloakmakers, had settled.[26] In many instances the +men and women marched back to their work with bands of music playing and +with flying flags and banners. + +In July two attempts were made, on behalf of the cloak makers, by the +State Board of Arbitration to induce the manufacturers to meet the Union +members and to arbitrate with them. These attempts failed because the +Union insisted on the question of the closed shop as essential. The +manufacturers refused to arbitrate the question of the closed shop. + +At this juncture a public-spirited retailer of Boston, Mr. Lincoln +Filene, entered the controversy. Mr. Filene resolved that, as a large +consumer, he and his class had no right to shirk their responsibility by +passively acquiescing in sweat-shop conditions. As an intermediary +between the wholesaler and the public, the retailer had an important part +in the conflict, not only because he suffered directly from the temporary +paralysis of the industry, but also because his indifference to the +claims of the worker for a just wage, sanitary factory conditions, +abolition of home work, and for a decent working-day was equivalent to an +active complicity in the guilt of the manufacturer. Through Mr. Filene's +intervention, the manufacturers and the Union officials agreed to confer, +and to request Mr. Louis Brandeis of Boston to act as chairman. + +Mr. Brandeis had, at the outset, the confidence of both parties. Each +side recognized in him that combination of wide legal learning and a +social economic sense which had made him an effective participant in the +development of the progressive political and industrial policies of the +nation. The employers welcomed Mr. Brandeis because they had faith in his +sense of fairness. The cloak makers welcomed him because of his brilliant +and signal service to the entire trade-union movement and to American +working women in securing from the United States Supreme Court the +decision which declared constitutional the ten-hour law for the women +laundry workers of Oregon. + +The conference that was to have determined the industrial fortunes of +more than 40,000 New York workers for the following year opened on +Thursday morning, July 28, in a small room in the Metropolitan Life +Building. Mr. Brandeis was in the chair. On one side of a long table sat +the ten representatives of the cloak makers, including their attorney, a +member of the _Vorwaerts_ staff, and the Secretary of the International +Garment Workers' Union, all these three men of middle age, intellectual +faces, and sociological education, keenly identified with the ideas and +principles of the workers; three or four rather younger representatives +of the cloak makers, alert and thoroughly Americanized; and three older +men, who had fought throughout the quarter-of-a-century contest, men with +the sort of trade education that nothing but a working experience can +give, deeply imbued with the traditions of that struggle, a hostility to +"scabs," a distrust (too often well founded) of employers, and an +unshaken belief in the general panacea of the closed shop--a subject +which was, by agreement, to remain undiscussed in the conference. All +these men, with the exception of their attorney, Mr. London, had cut and +sewed on the benches of the garment trade. On the other side of the table +sat the ten representatives of the manufacturers, some of them men of +wide culture and learning, versed in philosophies, and prominent members +of the Ethical Society, some of them New York financiers who had come +from East Side sweat shops. Perhaps the most eager opponent of the +closed shop in their body was a cosmopolitan young manufacturer, a +linguist and "literary" man, interested in "style" from every point of +view, who had introduced into the New York trade from abroad a +considerable number of the cloak designs now widely worn throughout +America. This man felt the keenest personal pride in his output. He is +said at one time to have remarked, _"Le cloak c'est moi"_ And, bizarre as +it may seem to an outsider, a really sincere reason of his against +accepting workmen on the recommendation of the Union was that the cloak +manufacturer as an artist should adopt toward his workers "the attitude +of Hammerstein to his orchestra." One of the manufacturers had been a +strike leader in 1896. "Your bitterest opponent of fourteen years ago +sits on the same side of the table with you now," said one of the older +cloak makers, in a deep, intense voice, as the men took their places. + +Mr. Brandeis opened the conference with these words: "Gentlemen, we have +come together in a matter which we must all recognize is a very serious +and an important business--not only to settle this strike, but to create +a relation which will prevent similar strikes in the future. That work is +one which, it seems to me, is approached in a spirit that makes the +situation a very hopeful one, and I am sure, from my conferences with +counsel of both parties[27] and with individual members whom they +represent, that those who are here are all here with that desire." + +Up to a certain point in the conference, which lasted for three days, +this seemed to be true. The manufacturers agreed to abolish home work, to +abolish subcontracting, to give a weekly half-holiday, besides the Jewish +Sabbath, during June, July, and August, and to limit overtime work to two +hours and a half a day during the busy season, with no work permitted +after half past eight at night, or before eight in the morning. Beyond +this, the question of hours was left to arbitration. Also, the question +of wages was left to arbitration. + +The last subject to be dealt with at the Brandeis conference was the +general method of enforcing agreements between the Manufacturers' +Association and the Union. It was in this discussion that the question of +the closed shop and the open shop came before the conference. + +Though the Union leaders had agreed to eliminate the discussion of the +closed shop before they entered into negotiations, it was almost +impossible for them to refrain from suggesting it as a means of enforcing +agreements. As one of the cloak makers, one of the old leaders of the +labor movement in America, said: "This organization of cloak makers in +the city of New York can only control the situation where Union people +are employed. They have absolutely no control of the situation where +non-union people are employed. They cannot enforce any rules, nor any +discipline of any kind, shape, or description, and if we are to cooeperate +in any way that will be absolutely effective, then the ... Manufacturers' +Association, ... it seems to me, should see that the necessary first step +is that they shall run Union shops."[28] + +The Union shop the speaker had in mind, the Union shop advocated by the +_Vorwaerts_ and desired, as it proved, by a majority of the workers, was a +different matter from the closed shop, which constitutes a trade monopoly +by limiting the membership of a trade to a certain comparatively small +number of workers. + +The institution of the closed shop is by intention autocratic and +exclusive. The institution of the Union shop is by intention democratic +and inclusive. With the cloak makers' organization, entrance into the +Union was almost a matter of form. There were no prohibitive initiation +fees, or dues, as in other unions. They offered every non-union man and +woman an opportunity to join their ranks. + +The manufacturers contended that they had no objection to the voluntary +enlistment of non-union men in Union ranks; but they would not insist +that all their workers belong to the Union. + +This deadlock was reached on the third day of the conference. At this +point Mr. Brandeis brought before the meeting the opinion that "an +effective cooeperation between the manufacturers and the Union ... would +involve, ... of necessity, a strong Union." "I realize," he said, ... +"from a consideration of ... general Union questions, that in the +ordinary open shop, where that prevails, there is great difficulty in +building up the Union. I felt, therefore, particularly in view of the +fact that so many of the members of the Garment Workers' Union are recent +members, that to make an effective Union it was necessary that you should +be aided ... by the manufacturers, ... and that aid could be effectively +... given by providing that the manufacturers should, in the employment +of labor hereafter, give preference to Union men, where the Union men +were equal in efficiency to any non-union applicants.... That presented +in the rough what seemed to me a proper basis for coming together.... I +think, if such an arrangement as we have discussed can be accomplished, +it will be the greatest advance, not only that unionism has made in this +country, but it would be one of the greatest advances that has generally +been made in improving the condition of the working-man, for which +unionism is merely an instrument." + +This, then, was the first public presentation of the idea of the +preferential shop. Mr. Brandeis, as a result of close study of labor +disputes and a rich experience in settling strikes, had reached the +conclusion that the position of the adherents of the closed as well as +those of the open shop was economically and socially untenable. The +inherent objection to the closed shop, he contends, is that it creates an +uncontrolled and irresponsible monopoly of labor. + +On the other hand, the so-called open shop, even if conducted with +fairness and honesty on the part of the employer, is apt to result in a +disintegration of the Union. It has been a frequent experience of +organized labor that, even after a strike has been won, men drop out of +the Union and leave the burden of Union obligation to the loyal minority, +who, weakened in numbers, face not only a loss of what the strike has +gained, but a retrogression of those Union standards that have been the +result of past struggles and sacrifices. + +By the preferential Union plan, when an employer obliges himself to +prefer Union to non-union men, a Union man in good standing, that is, a +Union man who has paid his dues and met his Union obligations, is +insured employment to a limited extent, and the dues represent a premium +paid by him for such employment. + +It was not an easy task to secure assent to this idea from the +manufacturers, for Mr. Brandeis made it clear that, while the plan did +not oblige the manufacturers to coerce men into joining the Union, it +clearly placed them on record in favor of a trade-union, and obliged them +to do nothing, directly or indirectly, to injure the Union, and +positively to do everything in their power, outside of coercion, to +strengthen the Union. + +In Mr. Brandeis' appeal to the Union representatives he referred to the +history of the Cloak Makers' Union as a telling illustration of the +futility of their past policy. He pointed out that the membership of the +Union during a strike was no test of its strength--a Union's solidity +rested upon its membership in time of peace. Were they not justified in +assuming that what had occurred in the past of the Cloak Makers' Union +would occur in the future, and that its membership would dwindle to a +small number of the faithful? How could their organization be permanently +strengthened? + +Cloak making, as a seasonal trade, offered a fair field for proving the +efficiency of the preferential plan, for in the slack season the +manufacturers must, by its terms, prefer Union men. The industrial +situation provided a test of this good faith. The Union leaders could +then effectively show the non-union worker the advantage of the union +membership. + +The final formation of the preferential union shop as presented to both +sides by Mr. Brandeis, Mr. London, and Mr. Cohen, in the Brandeis +conference, was this: "The manufacturers can and will declare in +appropriate terms their sympathy with the Union, their desire to aid and +strengthen the Union, and their agreement that, as between Union and +non-union men of equal ability to do the job, the Union men shall be +given the preference." + +The manufacturers were willing to make this agreement. But the +representatives of the Union received it with a natural suspicion bred by +years of oppression. "Can the man who has ground us down year after year +suddenly be held by a sentiment for the organization he has fought for a +quarter of a century?" they asked. "Between Union and non-union men, will +he candidly give the preference to Union men of equal ability? Will he +not rather, since the question of ability is a matter of personal +judgment and is left to his judgment, prefer the non-union man, and +justify his preference by a pretence, in each case, that he considers the +skill of the non-union man superior?" + +Nevertheless, a majority of the leaders of the cloak makers were willing +to try the plan.... A minority refused. This minority was influenced +partly by its certain knowledge that the 40,000 cloak makers would never +accept an agreement based on the idea of the preferential Union shop, and +partly by its complete distrust of the good will of the manufacturers. +The minority was trusted and powerful. It won. The conference broke. + +The _Vorwaerts_ printed a statement that the preferential shop was the +"open shop with honey." The news of the Brandeis conference reached the +cloak makers through the bulletins of this paper; and during its progress +and after its close, frantic crowds stood before the office on the lower +East Side, waiting for these bulletins, eager for the victory of the +closed shop, the panacea for all industrial evils. + +After the decision of the leaders, after the breaking of the conference, +the cloak makers who had settled gave fifteen per cent of their wages to +support those standing out for the closed shop, and volunteered to give +fifty per cent. The _Vorwaerts_ headed a subscription list with $2000 for +the strikers, and collected $50,000. A furore for the closed shop arose. +Young boys and bearded old men and young women came to the office and +offered half their wages, three-quarters of their wages. One boy offered +to give all his wages and sell papers for his living. Every day the +office was besieged by committees, appointed by the men and women in the +settled shops, asking to contribute to the cause more than the percentage +determined by the Union. These were men and women accustomed to enduring +hardships for a principle, men and women who had fought in Russia, who +were revolutionists, willing to make sacrifices, eager to make +sacrifices. Their blind faith was the backbone of the strike. + +This furore was continuing when, in the third week in August, the loss of +contracts by the manufacturers and the general stagnation of business due +to the idleness of 40,000 men and women, normally wage-earners, induced a +number of bankers and merchants of the East Side to bring pressure for a +settlement of the strike. Louis Marshall, an attorney well known in New +York in Jewish charities, assembled the lawyers of both sides. They drew +up an agreement in which the preferential union shop again appeared as +the basis of future operations, formulated as in the Brandeis conference. + +The _Vorwaerts_ printed the result of the Marshall conference with deep +concern. It maintained a neutral attitude. The editorials urged that the +readers consider the whole document soberly, discuss it freely in local +meetings, and vote for themselves, on their own full understanding, after +mature conviction on each point. + +Tremendous crowds surged around the _Vorwaerts_ office. They almost mobbed +the East Side leaders, with their voluble questioning about the +preferential Union shop. Thousands of men and women and children called +out pleas and reproaches and recriminations in an avid personal +demonstration possible only to their race. "Oh, you wouldn't sell us +out?" they cried desperately. "You wouldn't sell us out? You are our +hope." + +Imagine what these days of doubt, of an attempt to understand, meant to +these multitudes, knowing no industrial faith but that of the closed shop +which had failed them absolutely, wanderers from a strange country, +turning wildly to their leaders, who could only tell them that they must +determine their own fates, they must decide for themselves. These leaders +have been blamed at once for their autocracy and for not mobilizing and +informing and directing these multitudes more clearly and firmly. Their +critics failed to conceive the remarkably various economic and political +histories of the enormous concourse of human beings engaged in the needle +trades of New York. + +However that may be, when the workers and their families surged around +the _Vorwaerts_ office and asked the leaders if they had betrayed them, +Schlesinger, the business manager, and the old strike leaders addressed +them from the windows, and said to the people, with painful emotion: +"You are our masters. What you decide we will report back to the +association lawyers. What you decide shall be done." + +Terrible was the position of these men. Well they knew that the winter +was approaching; that the closed shop could not win; that the workers +could not hear the truth about the preferential Union shop, and that the +man who stood avowedly for the preferential shop, now the best hope of +victory for the Union, would be called a traitor to the Union. + +In great anxiety, the meetings assembled. The workers had all come to the +same conclusion. They all rejected the Marshall agreement. + +Soon after this, the tide of loyalty to the closed shop was incited to +its high-water mark by the action of Judge Goff, who, as a result of a +suit of one of the firms of the Manufacturers' Association, issued an +injunction against peaceful picketing, on the part of the strikers, on +the ground that picketing for the closed shop was an action of conspiracy +in constraint of trade, and therefore unlawful. + +The manufacturers were now, naturally, more deeply distrusted than ever +on the East Side.[29] The doctrine of the closed shop became almost +ritualistic. Early in September, one of the Labor Day parades was headed +by an aged Jew, white-bearded and fierce-eyed,--a cloak maker who knew no +other words of English than those he uttered,--who waved a purple banner +and shouted at regular intervals: "Closed shop! Closed shop!" That man +represented the spirit of thousands of immigrants who have recently +become trade-unionists in America. Impossible to say to such a man that +the idea of the closed shop had been an enemy to the spread of +trade-unionism in this country by its implication of monopolistic +tyranny. + +Impossible, indeed, to say anything to Unionists whose reply to every +just representation is, "Closed shop"; or to employers whose reply to +every just representation is, "We do not wish other people to run our +business." This reply the Marshall conference still had to hear for some +days. It was now the first week in September. There was great suffering +among the cloak makers. On the manufacturers' side, contracts heretofore +always filled by certain New York houses, in this prolonged stoppage of +their factories were finally lost to them and placed with establishments +in other important cloak making centres--Cleveland, Philadelphia, +Chicago, and even abroad. Two or three large Union houses settled for +terms, in hours and wages, which were satisfactory to every one +concerned, though lower than the demands on these points listed in the +cloak makers' first letter. + +Curiously enough, wages and hours had been left to arbitration, had never +been thoroughly considered in the whole situation before. Neither the +workers nor the employers had clearly stated what they really would stand +for on these vital points. No one, not even the most wildly partisan +figures on either side, supposed that the first demands as to wages and +hours represented an ultimatum. The debaters in the Marshall conference +now agreed on feasible terms on these points,[30] though, curiously +enough, the rates for piece-work were left to the arbitration of +individual shops. In spite of this fact, the majority of the workers are +paid by piece-work. The former clauses of the agreement relating to the +abolition of home work and of subcontracting remained practically as they +had stood before.[31] As for the idea of the preferential Union shop, it +had undoubtedly been gaining ground. Naturally, at first, appearing to +the _Vorwaerts'_ staff and to many ardent unionists as opposed to +unionism, it had now assumed a different aspect. This was the final +formulation of the preferential Union shop in the Marshall agreement: +"Each member of the Manufacturers' Association is to maintain a Union +shop, a 'Union shop' being understood to refer to a shop where Union +standards as to working conditions prevail, and where, when hiring help, +Union men are preferred, it being recognized that, since there are +differences of skill among those employed in the trade, employers shall +have freedom of selection between one Union man and another, and shall +not be confined to any list nor bound to follow any prescribed order +whatsoever. + +"It is further understood that all existing agreements and obligations of +the employer, including those to present employees, shall be respected. +The manufacturers, however, declare their belief in the Union, and that +all who desire its benefits should share in its burdens." + +As will be seen, this formulation signified that the Union men available +for a special kind of work in a factory must be sought before any other +men. The words "non-union man," the words arousing the antagonism of the +East Side, are not mentioned. But whether the preference of Union men is +or is not insisted on as strongly as in the Brandeis agreement must +remain a matter of open opinion. + +This formulation was referred to the strike committee. It was accepted by +the strike committee, and went into force on September 8. + +The _Vorwaerts_ posted the news as a great Union victory. At the first +bulletin, the news ran like wildfire over the East Side. Multitudes +assembled; men, women, and children ran around Rutgers Square, in tumult +and rejoicing. The workers seized London, the unionists' lawyer, and +carried him around the square on their shoulders, and they even made him +stand on their shoulders and address the crowd from them. People sobbed +and wept and laughed and cheered; and Roman Catholic Italians and Russian +Jews, who had before sneered at each other as "dagoes" and "sheenies," +seized each other in their arms and called each other brother. + +Now that the men and women have returned to their shops, it remains for +all the people involved--the manufacturers, the workers, the retailers, +and the interested public--to make a dispassionate estimate of this new +arrangement. Is the preferential shop so delicate a fabric as to prove +futile? Has it sustaining power? Will the final agreement prove, at last, +to be a Union victory? Will both sides act in good faith--the +manufacturers always honestly preferring Union men, the Union leaders +always maintaining a democratic and an inclusive Union, without autocracy +or bureaucratic exclusion? Undoubtedly there will be failures on both +sides. But the New York cloak makers' strike may be historical, not only +for its results in the cloak industry, but for its contribution to the +industrial problems of the country. + +No outsider can read the statement of the terms of the manufacturers' +preference without feeling that a joint agreement committee should have +been established to consider cases of alleged unfair discrimination +against Union workers. On the other hand, no outsider can hear without a +feeling of uneasiness such an assertion as was made to one of the +writers--that strike breakers had been obliged to pay an initiation fee +of one hundred dollars to enter the Cloak Makers' Union. + +There is undoubtedly, on both sides, need of patience and a long +educational process to change the attitude of hostility and bitterness +engendered by over twenty years of a false policy of antagonism. But +never before, in the cloak makers' history, have the men and women gone +back to work after a strike holding their heads as high as they do +to-day.[32] It can be reasonably believed that their last summer's +struggle will achieve a permanent gain for the workers' industrial +future. This narrative of the industrial fortunes of the women cloak +makers in New York in the last year is given for its statement of the +effects of the struggle for the Preferential Union Shop on their trade +histories, and for its account of their gains as workers in the same +trade with men. + +These cloak makers' gains were local. What national gains have American +working women been able to obtain? For an answer to this question we +turned to the results of the National Consumers' League inquiry +concerning the fortunes of women workers in laundries and its chronicle +of the decision of the Federal Supreme Court on the point of their hours +of labor. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 23: Printed statement of the Cloak, Skirt, and Suit +Manufacturers' Protective Association, July 11, 1910.] + +[Footnote 24: Estimate of the Waverly Place Office of the International +Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, November 26 to 30.] + +[Footnote 25: For this account of the position of different cloak +manufacturers the writers wish to acknowledge the kindness of Miss Mary +Brown Sumner of the _Survey_.] + +[Footnote 26: These were the most important clauses of these early +settlements as regards women workers:-- + +I. The said firm hereby engages the Union to perform all the tailoring, +operating, pressing, finishing, cutting, and buttonhole-making work to be +done by the firm in the cloak and suit business during one year ... from +date; and the Union agrees to perform said work in a good and workmanlike +manner. + +II. During the continuance of this agreement, operators shall be paid in +accordance with the annexed price list. The following is the scale of +wages for week hands: ... skirt makers, not less than $24 per week; skirt +basters, not less than $15 per week; skirt finishers, not less than $12 +per week; buttonhole makers, not less than $1.10 per hundred buttonholes. + +III. A working week shall consist of forty-eight hours in six +working-days. + +IV. No overtime work shall be permitted between the fifteenth day of +November and the fifteenth day of January and during the months of June +and July. During the rest of the year employees may be required to work +overtime, provided all the employees of the firm, as well as all the +employees of the outside contractors of the firm, are engaged to the full +capacity of the factories. No overtime shall be permitted on Saturday nor +on any day for more than two and a half hours, nor before 8 A.M. or after +8 P.M. For overtime work the employees shall receive double the usual +pay. No contracting or subcontracting shall be permitted by the firm +inside its factory, and no operator or finisher shall be permitted more +than one helper. + +XIII. No work shall be given employees to be done at their homes. + +XV. Only members of respective locals above named shall be employed by +the firm to do the said work.] + +[Footnote 27: Mr. London for the cloak makers, and Mr. Cohen for the +manufacturers.] + +[Footnote 28: Stenographic minutes of the Brandeis conference.] + +[Footnote 29: This decision met with disapproval, not only on the East +Side. The New York _Evening Post_ said: "Justice Goff's decision embodies +rather strange law and certainly very poor policy. One need not be a +sympathizer with trade-union policy, as it reveals itself to-day, in +order to see that the latest injunction, if generally upheld, would +seriously cripple such defensive powers as legitimately belong to +organized labor." + +And the _Times_: "This is the strongest decision ever handed down against +labor."] + +[Footnote 30: These are the clauses of the Marshall agreement on wage +scale and hours of labor which affect women workers. The term "sample +makers" includes, of course, sample makers of cloaks. The week workers +among the cloak makers are principally the sample makers. But the greater +proportion of the workers in the cloak factories are piece-workers. This +explains why there is no definite weekly wage schedule listed for cloak +workers as such. Sample makers, $22; sample skirt makers, $22; skirt +basters, $14; skirt finishers, $10; buttonhole makers, Class A, a minimum +of $1.20 per 100 buttonholes; Class B a minimum of 80 cents per 100 +buttonholes. + +As to piece-work, the price to be paid is to be agreed upon by a +committee of the employees in each shop and their employer. The chairman +of said price committee of the employees shall act as the representative +of the employees in their dealings with the employer. + +The weekly hours of labor shall consist of 50 hours in 6 working days, to +wit, nine hours on all days except the sixth day, which shall consist of +five hours only. + +No overtime work shall be permitted between the fifteenth day of November +and the fifteenth day of January, or during the months of June and July, +except upon samples. + +No overtime work shall be permitted on Saturdays, except to workers not +working on Saturdays, nor on any day or more than two and one-half hours, +nor before 8 A.M., nor after 8.30 P.M. + +For overtime work all week workers shall receive double the usual pay.] + +[Footnote 31: There has been practically no complaint on the part of the +workers or the public concerning the sanitary conditions of the larger +houses. At present the strike settlement has established a joint board of +sanitary control, composed of three representatives of the public, Dr. +W.J. Scheffelin, chairman, Miss Wald of the Nurses' Settlement, and Dr. +Henry Moskowitz of the Down-town Ethical Society; two representatives of +the workers, Dr. George Price, Medical Sanitary Inspector of the New York +Department of Health, 1895-1904, and Mr. Schlesinger, Business Manager of +the _Vorwaerts_; and two representatives of the manufacturers, Mr. Max +Meier and Mr. Silver. The work of this committee will be the enforcement +of uniform sanitary conditions in all shops, including the more obscure +and smaller establishments.] + +[Footnote 32: This statement is written in the last week of September, +1910.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WOMEN LAUNDRY WORKERS IN NEW YORK + + (This article is composed of the reports of Miss Carola + Woerishofer, Miss Elizabeth Howard Westwood, and Miss Mary + Alden Hopkins, supplemented with an account of the Federal + Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of the Oregon + Ten-Hour Law for laundry workers.) + + +What do self-supporting women away from home in New York give in their +work, and what do they get from it, when their industry involves a +considerable outlay of muscular strength? For a reply to this question +the National Consumers' League turned to the reports of women's work as +machine ironers and hand ironers, workers at mangles, folders, and +shakers of sheets and napkins from wringers in the steam laundries of New +York. + +For, although the labor at the machines in the laundry wash-rooms is done +by men, and all work in laundries consists largely of machine tending, +still women's part in the industry can be performed only by unusually +strong women.[33] + +In the winter of 1907-1908 the National Consumers' League had received +from different parts of New York a series of letters filled with various +complaints against specified laundries in this city--complaints stating +that hours were long and irregular, wages unfair, the laundries dirty, +and the girls seldom allowed to sit down, and containing urgent pleas to +the women of the Consumers' League to help the women laundry workers. + +After consulting some of the laundry women, the League determined to +secure through a special inquiry a well-ascertained statement of +conditions as a basis for State factory legislation for uniform +improvements. A few months before, the constitutionality of the present +New York legislation, as well as of almost all of the State legislation +concerning the hours of work of adult women in this country, had been +virtually determined by the decision of the Federal Supreme Court in +regard to the ten-hour law for women laundry workers in Oregon. The +opinion of the National Supreme Court, which practically confirmed the +passed New York laundry laws and made future laws for fair regulation for +the women workers seem practicable, will be given after the account of +women's work in laundries in New York. + +Miss Carola Woerishofer conducted the inquiry, which was confined to +steam laundries, as hand laundries were more favorably described by many +reliable authorities. Among these, the large laundries were commercial +laundries, such as we all patronize, and hotel and hospital laundries. +The features chiefly observed in all these establishments were +sanitation, the danger of injury, and wages and hours of labor. For the +account of the hospital and hotel laundries the Consumers' League of the +city of New York obtained the services of Miss Elizabeth Howard Westwood +of Smith College and Miss Mary Alden Hopkins of Wellesley College. As a +means of investigating commercial laundries, Miss Woerishofer, answering +advertisements as they came, worked in laundries in trade employed in +nearly every branch of the industry in which women are engaged throughout +the borough of Manhattan. Her report follows. + + +I + +"Naturally, the first question which faced me was that of finding a job. +For this I turned to the laundry want 'ads' in the newspapers. To my +surprise, as my investigation was made in the summer, which is, curiously +enough, by far the slackest season in New York commercial laundries, I +was never without work for more than a day at a time, although I changed +continually, for the sake of experience, averaging about a week in a +place. + +"The first establishment to which I went was known as a model laundry. It +was large and well ventilated and had a dry floor. These sanitary +conditions may be said to be fairly typical. In only one laundry did I +find a girl who was compelled to stand in a wet place, though water +overflowed sometimes into the girls' quarters from the wash-rooms, where +the men worked. In some of these wash-rooms the water is at times +ankle-deep, a condition due only to bad drainage, as other wash-rooms are +absolutely dry. Whatever the condition of the work-rooms, the women's +dressing-rooms frequently had insanitary plumbing, and were verminous and +unhealthful. In one laundry the water supply was contaminated, smelling +and tasting offensively when it came from the faucet, and worse after it +had passed through the cooler. The women here at first kept bottles of +soda-water. Some old women had beer. But on a series of hot days, with +hours from half past seven to twelve, and from one till any time up to +ten at night, 10 cents' worth of beer or soda-water a day did not go far +to alleviate thirst, and soon drank a big hole in a wage of $5 a week. A +complaint was sent to the Board of Health. After nearly three weeks, the +Board of Health replied that the complaint must be sent to the Water +Department. From the Water Department no reply could possibly come for +several weeks more. And in the meantime, all the women workers in the +laundry, impelled by intolerable thirst, drank the contaminated water. + +"The work-room where I was employed had, on the whole, plenty of windows. +These were left open. But when a room is large and full of machinery, +artificial light is needed all day, and the outside air does not come in +very far to drive away the heat and the dampness. On going out at noon +from a laundry where I had dipped shirts in hot starch all the morning at +a breakneck pace, I was struck by the coolness of the day. That night I +discovered that the thermometer had been registering 96 deg. in the shade. +A few fans should be put in each laundry. They could be run by the power +that runs the machines. + +"In the 'model laundry,' I worked at first at a mangle, running spreads +and sheets and towels between two revolving cylinders. Here I found there +was danger of slipping my fingers too far under the cylinders in the +process of feeding. The mangle had a guard, to be sure,--a flexible metal +bar about three-quarters of an inch above the feeding-apron in front of +the cylinder. But I learned that this acted as a warning rather than a +protection. 'Once you get your fingers in, you never get them out,' +Jenny, the Italian girl beside me, said repeatedly. The Italian girls +Anglicized their names, and Jenny had probably been Giovanna at home. + +"At the collar machine, at which I was stationed after lunch, there was +an adequate guard where the collars were slipped in. Where they came out, +however, they had to be pushed in rapid succession under the farther side +of a burning hot cylinder with no guard at all. To avoid touching the +cylinder with my arm in this process, I was obliged either to raise it +unnaturally high, or to stand on tiptoe. 'You didn't get burned to-day or +yesterday,' said Jenny, 'but you sure will sometime. Everybody does on +that machine.' + +"In the ironing of collars and cuffs by machinery, there is continual +risk of burns on hands and arms. At a sleeve-ironing machine, in another +place I received some slight burn every day. And when I asked the girls +if this were because I was 'green,' they replied that every one got +burned at that machine all the time. Each burn is due to 'carelessness,' +but if the girls were to be careful, they would have to focus their minds +on self-protection instead of the proper accomplishment of their task, +and would also have to work at a lower rate of speed than the usual +output of the laundries demands. A graver danger than that from hot +surfaces and from slightly protected gas flames is from unguarded belts +and gears. + +"At mangles, too, the danger is grave. What the girls call 'millionaire +work'--work that has to come out straight--in contrast with +'boarding-house work," must be shoved up to within a quarter of an inch +of the cylinder. Fingers once caught in such mangles are crushed. +Consider, in connection with these two facts, the high rate of speed at +which the girls feed the work into the machine, and the precarious +character of their task will be realized. However, in many laundries, +good mangles for table and bed linen are in use, which either have a +stationary bar in front of the first cylinder, or else have the first +roll, whether connected or not with the power, attached to a lever, and +so constructed as to lift the pressure immediately from the finger, +should it be slipped underneath.[34] + +"For the purpose of inspecting the machinery I visited with different +factory inspectors, through the courtesy extended by the Department of +Labor, all, so far as I was able to determine, of the commercial steam +laundries in the borough of Manhattan. Out of sixty laundries inspected, +I found that twenty-six had either unguarded or inadequately guarded +mangles, collar presses, and collar dampeners, or else unguarded or +inadequately guarded gears and belts. In a laundry visited when the boss +was out, we conferred with the engineer about one particularly bad +mangle. + +"'What's this machine for? To cut girls' hands off?' asked the inspector. + +"'Well,', said the engineer, 'it came pretty near finishing up the last +girl we had here--caught her arm in an apron-string and got both hands +under the roll--happened over two months ago. Fingers cut off one hand, +and all twisted and useless on the other.' + +"Instead of having the machine guarded, after this mutilation, the owner +had employed a man to take chances here, instead of a girl. + +"This and all the illegal defects discovered were ordered remedied by the +factory inspectors. But New York labor legislation, no matter how +excellent, cannot be enforced, with the present number of inspectors. An +inspector will arrive on one day; will discover that rules are violated; +will impose a fine; will return in the next week and discover that rules +are not violated; will, perforce, return to another part of the field; +and after that the violation will continue as if he had never observed +it. + +"Further, it is difficult for the inspector to discover, through +employees, violations of the State laws enacted in their interest, as +they risk being discharged for complaints. In addition, moreover, to this +danger, bringing a charge means that the complainant must go to court, +thus losing both time and money. A union organization would be the only +possible means of settling the matter. Made up of the workers themselves, +it is always present to observe violations; and it offers to the workers +the advantage of reporting to the State, not as individuals, but as a +body. The cooeperative spirit present among almost all of the laundry +workers should make organization entirely feasible.[35] + +"On entering a new situation I found, as a rule, cordiality and friendly +interest. On several occasions it was expressed by this social form:-- + +"'Say, you got a feller?' + +"'Sure. Ain't you got one?' + +"'Sure.' + +"The girls are really very kind to one another, helping one another in +their work, and by loans of lunch and money. + +"In one place a woman with a baby to support--a shaker earning $4.50 a +week, and heavily in debt--used to borrow weekly a few pennies apiece +from all the girls around her to pay her rent. And the pennies were +always forthcoming, although the girls had hardly more than she had, and +knew quite well that they were seldom returned. There was a great deal of +swearing among the women in almost all of the laundries, but it was of an +entirely good-natured character. + +"While there was a natural division of labor, there was also an +artificial one, created during lunch hours. A deep-rooted feeling of +antagonism and suspicion exists between the Irish and the Italians, each +race clubbing together from the different departments in separate bands. + +"Aside from this distinction, there is another social cleavage--the +high-wage earners sitting apart from the low-wage earners, through +natural snobbishness. In one laundry, the high-wage earners, though they +often treated the $5 girls to stray sardines, cake, etc., were in the +habit of sending young girls to the delicatessen shop to get their +lunches, and also to the saloon for beer. Then the girl had to hurry out +on the street in her petticoat and little light dressing-sack that she +wore for work, for they gave her no time to change. For this service the +girl would get 10 cents a week from each of the women she did errands +for. They did not--the boss starcher explained to me with quiet +elegance--think of such a thing as drinking beer behind the boss's back, +but they 'just didn't want him to know.' + +"The same difficulties in enforcing the law about protected machinery in +laundries exist in the enforcing of the law requiring that adult women in +laundries shall not work more than sixty hours in a week. Just as in the +case of protected machinery, these difficulties might be partly removed +through trade organization. + +"Nearly all laundry work is performed standing, and on heavy days, when +the work is steady, except at lunch time, very few women get a chance to +sit down during any part of the day. The chief difference between laundry +work and that of other factories is in the irregularity of the hours. A +manufacturer knows more or less at the beginning of the week how much +work his factory will have to do, and can usually distribute overtime, +or engage or lay off extra girls, according to his knowledge. The +laundryman can never estimate the amount of work to be done until the +laundry bundles are actually on the premises. He can never tell when the +hotels, restaurants, steamboats, and all the small 'hand' laundries, +whose family laundries he rough-dries, and whose collars and table and +bed linen he finishes, will want their washing back. Hard as this is for +the employer, it is still harder for the workers. The small hand laundry +can seldom keep customers waiting longer than from Monday till Saturday. +On this account, the steam laundry will be obliged to rush all of its +work for the 'hand' laundry through in one or two days. I found some +steam laundries in which no work at all is done on Monday or Saturday, +but in the busy season the place keeps running regularly on the other +four days from seven in the morning till half past eleven and twelve at +night. Very seldom is there any compensation for these long hours. Few of +the laundries pay overtime. Of these, some dock the girls proportionately +for every hour less than sixty a week they work. No laundries in which I +worked, except one, give supper money. A piece-worker at least gets some +advantage to counterbalance long hours. But the week worker not only +lacks recompense for actual labor, but is often put to greater expense. + +"She does not know when her long day is coming, so she must buy her +supper, when supper is waiting for her at home. She is often so tired +that she must spend 5 cents for carfare, instead of walking. Seven cents +is a fair average spent upon supper--2 cents for bread and 5 cents for +sausage, cheese, or meat. If overtime is worked three nights a week, the +girl is out of pocket 36 cents--not a small item in wages of $4.50 and $5 +a week, where every penny counts. Often, also, she either has not extra +money or she forgets to bring it. Then she has to share some one else's +lunch. The girls are always willing to divide, however slight their own +provisions. I once saw a 1-cent piece of cake shared by four girls. + +"There are two kinds of long hours: those due to bad systematizing of +laundry work, creating long waits between lots; and those due to very +heavy work. In regard to the first kind, it must be said that the shirt +starchers, who are the main sufferers from waiting for work, are the best +paid, and hence are not as indignant at frequent overtime as the week +workers are. Besides, though obliged to stay in the work-room, they are +frequently seated throughout their waiting time, which sometimes lasts +for four or five hours. I saw one woman about to be confined, who +sometimes starched shirts until two in the morning, after arriving at the +laundry at half past seven on the morning before. + +"The other kind of long hours involves constant standing, and is most apt +to occur in laundries where only mangle work is done. These laundries do +not tend to work late at night, but they more frequently violate the +sixty-hour law than the others do. Work is almost absolutely steady. The +women stand on their feet ten and twelve hours, with just half an hour or +an hour for lunch, and work with extreme speed. + +"If your job is shaking the wrinkles out of towels and sheets, this in +itself is violent exercise. The air is hot and damp because you stand +near the washers. You are hurried at a furious rate. When you finish one +lot, you have to roll heavy baskets, and dump them upon your table, and +then go on shaking and shaking again, only to do more heavy loading and +dumping. One girl always had a headache late in the afternoon. After +standing ten or twelve hours, there are few whose feet or backs do not +ache. The effect on the feet is perhaps the chief ground of complaint. +Some merely wear rags about their feet, others put on old shoes or +slippers, which they slit up in front and at the sides. The girls who +press skirts by machine and those who do the body ironing have to press +down on pedals in order to accomplish their tasks, and find this, as a +rule, harder than standing still. An occasional worker, however, +pronounces it a relief. But several I met had serious internal trouble +which they claimed began after they had started laundry work. Few +laundries give holidays with pay. Some give half a day on the legal +holidays. In the others, 'shaking' and 'body ironing' and all the hard, +heavy processes of laundry work continue straight through Christmas day, +straight through New Year's day, straight through the Fourth of July, +just as at other times. + +"In recompense for these long hours of standing, the piece-worker often +has fairly high payment financially. But the opposite is true of the week +worker. In the down-town laundries, where the wage scale runs lower, the +amount is usually inadequate for the barest need. + +"The payment in laundries is extremely varied. The wages of the majority +of women I talked to in laundries amounted to between $8 and $4.50 a +week. But wages ranged from the highest exceptional instances in +piece-work, in hand starching and in hand ironing, at $25 a week, for a +few weeks in the year, down to $3 a week. + +"High wages generally involved long hours. For instance, in one laundry, +young American women between twenty and thirty were employed as hand +starchers at piece-work. They made $10 a week, when times were slack, by +working once or twice a week, from seven in the morning until eleven at +night. In busy times they sometimes made $22 a week by working +occasionally from seven o'clock one morn till two o'clock the following +morning.[36] + +"Although Italians, Russians, Irish, Polish, Germans, Americans, and +Swedes are employed in New York laundries, the greater part of the work +is done by Irish and Italians. The Irish receive the higher prices, the +Italians the lower prices. The best-paid work, the hand starching of +shirts and collars and the hand ironing, is done by Irish women, by +colored women, and by Italian and Jewish men. The actual process of hand +starching may be learned in less than one hour. Speed in the work may be +acquired in about ten days. On the other hand, to learn the nicer +processes of the ill-paid work of feeding and folding at the mangle--the +passing of towels and napkins through the machine without turning in or +wrinkling the edges, the passing of table-covers between cylinders in +such a way that the work will never come out in a shape other than +square--to learn these nicer processes requires from thirteen to fifteen +days. The reason for the low wages listed for mangle work seems to lie +only in nationality. Mangle work, as a rule, is done by Italians. In two +laundries I found, working side by side with American and Irish girls, +Italians, who were doing exactly the same work, and were paid less, +solely because they were Italians. The employer said he never paid the +Italians more than $4 a week. + +"In the next best-paid work after hand starching, the work of hand +ironing, paying roughly from $8 to $18 a week, Italian women are +practically never employed. + +"The worst part of mangle work, the shaking, is done by young girls and +by incapable older women of many nationalities. One of the ill-paid +girls, who had $4.50 a week, gave $3.50 a week board to an aunt, who +never let her delay payment a day. She had only $1 a week left for every +other expense. This girl was 'keeping company' with a longshoreman, who +had as much as $25 in good weeks. She had been engaged to him, and had +broken her engagement because he drank--'he got so terribly drunk.' But +when I saw her she was in such despair with her low wage, her hard hours +of standing, and only $5 a week ahead of her, that she was considering +whether she should not swallow her well-founded terror of the misery his +dissipation might bring upon them, and marry him, after all. + +"The shakers are the worst paid and the hardest worked employees. The +young girls expect to become folders and feeders. The older women are +widows with children, or women with husbands sick or out of work or in +some way incapacitated. Indeed, many of all these laundry workers, +probably a larger proportion than in any other trade, are widows with +children to support. 'The laundry is the place,' said one of the women, +'for women with bum husbands, sick, drunk, or lazy.' The lower the pay +and the damper and darker the laundry, the older and worse off these +women seem to be. + +"The low wages and long hours of the great majority of the women workers, +the gradual breaking and loss of the normal health of many lives through +undernourishment and physical strain, are, in my judgment, the most +serious danger in the laundries. The loss of a finger, the maiming of a +hand, even the mutilation of the poor girl who lost the use of both of +her hands--the occasional casualties for a few girls in the +laundries--are, though so much more salient, far less grave than the +exhaustion and underpayment of the many. + +"This, then, is the situation in general for women workers in the +commercial laundries. With respect to sanitation, the heat is excessive +wherever ironing is done by machinery. Many of the rooms are full of +steam. Some of the laundries have insanitary toilet and cloak rooms. With +respect to danger of injury, in a large proportion of places there is +unguarded or inadequately guarded machinery. In respect to hours of +labor, these often extend over the sixty-hour limit in rush seasons. The +hours are not only long, but irregular. A twelve to fourteen-hour +working-day is not infrequent. In a few places closing on Mondays and +Saturdays, or open for short hours on Mondays, the working-day runs up on +occasions to seventeen hours. Almost all the laundry work is done +standing. Wages for the majority of the workers are low." + +The League's conclusions in regard to legislation will be placed at the +close of the following accounts of the laundries of the large New York +hospitals and hotels, the first report being written by Miss Elizabeth +Howard Westwood, the second report by Miss Mary Alden Hopkins. + + +II + +"By a decision of the District Attorney, hotel and hospital laundries, +provided they do no outside work, do not come under the jurisdiction of +the Department of Labor. Women may work far beyond the sixty-hour limit +on seven days of the week without any interference on the part of the +government. Nor is there any authority that can force hospitals and hotel +keepers to guard their machinery. + +"While the hospitals did not, as a rule, exceed legal hours, were +excellent as a rule in point of sanitation, and paid better wages than +the commercial laundries to all but the more skilled workers, the +machinery was adequately guarded in only one of the eight hospital +laundries where I worked. + +"In some, the belt that transfers the power was left unscreened, to the +danger of passing workers. In others the mangle guard was insufficient. +In all the hospitals I heard of casualties. Fingers had been mashed. A +hand had been mashed. An arm had been dragged out. Unguarded machinery +was, of course, a striking inconsistency, more inexcusable in the +hospitals than in hotels or in commercial laundries. For hospitals are +not engaged in a gainful pursuit, regardless of all humanitarian +considerations. On the contrary, they are not only avowedly philanthropic +in aim, but are carried on solely in the cause of health. + +"The living-in system prevails in the hospitals, and wages are paid +partly in board and lodging. The laundry workers share the dormitories +and dining rooms of the other hospital employees. The dormitories were +in every case furnished with comfortable beds, and chiffonniers or +bureaus and adequate closet space were provided. Miss Hopkins and I did +not sleep in, but had our beds assigned us, and used our dormitory rights +merely for a cloak room. Here we lingered after hours to gossip, and here +we often retired at noon to stretch out for a few minutes' relaxation of +our aching muscles. The dormitories varied in size. Each hospital had +several large and several small ones. In most cases these dormitories +were on upper floors. In one they occupied the basement. Here, however, a +wide sunken alley skirted the house wall and gave the windows a fairly +good access to the air. + +"In all but two hospitals the food was excellent and the meals decently +served. There were eggs and milk in abundance. The soups were delicious, +the meats of fair quality and well cooked. There were plenty of +vegetables, and the desserts were appetizing. We sat, as a rule, at long +tables accommodating from ten to twenty. Sometimes we had table-cloths +and napkins; sometimes a white oil-cloth sufficed. We were waited on by +maids. + +"In most of the hospitals there is a fifteen or twenty-minute rest in the +morning and in the afternoon, when milk, tea, and bread and butter are +served. These oases of rest and nourishment were of extraordinary value +to us in resisting fatigue. Their efficiency in keeping workers in +condition is a humane and practical feature of the laundries which should +be sharply emphasized. + +"There was little variation in wages between the different grades of +workers. As a rule, only two prices obtained--one for all the manglers +and plain ironers, another for the starchers and shirt and fancy ironers. +In one laundry the wage fell as low as $10 a month. In the others it was +$14 and $15 for the lower grade of work, and $16 and $20 for the higher. +One of the laundries gave board, but no room, and here the universal +price was $20 a month. + +"As to hours, three of the hospitals had an eight-hour day; four had a +nine-and-a-half-hour day. In one of these there was no work on Saturday +afternoon, so that the weekly hours were forty-four. Another hospital +worked seventy-two hours a week, with no recompense in the form of +overtime pay. Generally the catchers at the mangles sat at their work. In +one hospital the feeders also sat, using high stools. We wondered why +this was not more often the custom. The difference in vigor in our own +cases when we worked sitting was marked. Sitting, we escaped unwearied; +standing all day left us numb with fatigue. In only one hospital was +artificial light necessary in the work-room. The rooms, as a rule, were +well ventilated and the air fresh when one came into them. + +"We often noticed that the workers in the hospital laundries were far +less contented than those in the other classes of laundries. It was not +surprising that they lacked enthusiasm for their work, for laundering is +not an interesting task; but, with conditions far beyond any other type +of laundry, it was strange that the hospital workers should be the most +shifting, faultfinding, and dispirited laundresses we encountered. Part +of this we attributed to the depressing effect of an atmosphere of +sickness, part to the fact that workers living out are doubtless +stimulated by the diversion of having a change of scene--of seeing at +least two sets of people, and, above all, generally by some special +sympathy and concern for their individual fortunes. In the last hospital +laundry where we worked, one conducted by the Sisters of Charity, though +the hours were long and the wages were only $10 a month, there was an +exceptional air of cheerfulness and interest among the workers. This was +due to no special privileges of theirs, but to the contagious spirit of +personal interest and kindness inherent in all the Sisters in charge. + +"The bitterness that characterized workers living in the hospitals was +observed by Miss Hopkins among the laundry workers living in the +hotels." + + +III + +"The twenty-one hotels where we conducted our inquiry were extremely +varied, ranging from a yellow brick house near the Haymarket, with red +and blue ingrain carpets and old-fashioned bells that rang a gong when +one twisted a knob, to the mosaic floors and the pale, shaded electric +lights of the most costly establishments in New York. + +"As to the sanitation of the twenty hotels visited, only six had their +laundries above ground. All the others were in basements or in cellars. +In most of these the ventilation was faulty and the air at times +intolerably hot. It is a striking fact--showing what intelligent modern +regulation can accomplish--that one laundry two stories underground in +New York was so high-ceiled and the summer cold-air apparatus so complete +that it was comfortable even in the hot months. In most of the hotel +laundries there were seats for the takers-off. Only three of the +laundries had wet floors; only three were dirty; only one had an +insanitary lavatory and toilet room. + +"In regard to the danger of injury, of the nineteen mangles that I +inspected for dangerous conditions, six were insufficiently protected. It +is the custom in most hotels, when an article winds around the cylinder +of the mangle, to pluck it off while the mangle is in motion. The women +sometimes climb up on the mangle and reach over, in imminent danger of +becoming entangled either by their dresses catching or by pitching +forward. The machinery of hotel laundries is even less carefully guarded +than is that of a commercial laundry, and in some establishments is, +besides, dangerously crowded. This was the case in one laundry in a hotel +cellar. I worked here at the ironing-table on a consignment of suits from +the navy-yard. As work came in from outside the hotel, the establishment +should have been under the State inspection. The rooms were narrow. There +was a ventilating fan, placed very low, near where the girls hung their +wraps, and as soon as I came in, they warned me that it caught up in its +blades and destroyed anything that came near it. The belting of the +machines was unboxed. A blue flame used sometimes to blow out four inches +beyond the body-ironer, directly into the narrow space where the girls +had to pass before it. In connection with the danger from machinery, +danger from employees' elevators should be noted. In one hotel I rode +forty-four times on an elevator where the guard door was closed only +once, though the car was often crowded, and twice I saw girls narrowly +escape injury from catching their skirts on the landing doors and the +latches. In another hotel, inexperienced elevator boys were broken in on +dangerous cars containing signs that read: 'This elevator shall not carry +more than fifteen persons.' The cars were used, not only for people, but +for trunks and heavy trucks of soiled linen. On one trip a car carried +one of these enormous trucks, two trunks, and twelve girls; on another +trip there were twenty-two people. + +"At eight of the hotels wages were paid partly in board and lodging. The +money wages are given below:-- + + WORKERS LIVING IN + PER MONTH + Ironers on flannels, stockings, and plain work $22 + Ironers--skilled workers on family wash 25-30 + Shakers 14-16 + All beginners 14-16 + + WORKERS LIVING OUT + PER WEEK + Ironers $7 and upward + Shakers 6 and upward + Feeders 6 and upward + Folders 6 and upward + Starchers (shirt), piece-work wages, average. 8 + Starchers (collars and cuffs) 15 and upward + +"The eight hotels varied widely in living conditions. The food was +reasonably well cooked, but, like most hotel fare, monotonous, and +destitute of fresh vegetables and of sweets. One of the results of this +is that the women spend a large part of their wages for fruit and other +food to supplement their unsatisfactory meals. Only two hotels planned +meals intelligently. + +"The dining rooms were usually below the street-level, and varied in +ventilation, crowding, and disorder. In one the waiters were Greek +immigrants, who were in their shirt-sleeves, wore ticking aprons and no +collars, and were frequently dirty and unshaved. In the fourteen meals I +had there, I sat down only once to a clean table. The coffee boilers +along the side of the room would be boiling over and sending streams of +water over the charwomen. The dirty dishes would be piled into large tin +tubs with a clatter, and pulled out rasping over the floor. The charwomen +would beg the waiters to clear the tables, which looked as if +garbage-cans had been emptied upon them. The steward could not enforce +his authority. There was constant noise and disorder in the room. In +another dining room, that of a pleasant, ramshackle old hotel near the +river, where a breeze came into our laundry through sixteen windows, the +employees were seated in one of the restaurant dining rooms after the +noon rush hour was over, served by the regular waiters, and given +attractive and varied fare and meat from the same cuts as the guests. +'They have respect for the help here,' said one of the women. + +"The dormitories were, with one exception, on upper stories. One room in +an expensive modern hotel, where there were twenty-seven beds, in tiers, +was aired only by three windows on an inner court. The room looked fresh +and pleasant because of its white paint and blue bedspreads; but it was +badly ventilated, both by condition and because the girls would keep the +windows closed for warmth. This was a frequent cause of poor ventilation +in other dormitories and in work-rooms. + +"The hours of work were irregular, and varied in different places. In one +large laundry I worked over ten hours for seven days in the week--more +than seventy-two hours. About nine and a half hours seemed to be the +usual day. Four hotels gave fifteen-minute rest pauses for tea, morning +and afternoon; two gave them once a day. These rests are of incalculable +relief. One hotel gave twenty-minute pauses, so that the hours were: 7.20 +to 9; 9.20 to 11.25; 12.30 to 2; 2.20 to closing time. This arrangement +gave very short work periods, but during them the women were able to work +vigorously; and they accomplished an astounding amount. + +"However, in most of the hotel laundries the women were tired all the +time. They dragged themselves out of bed at the last possible minute. +They lay in their beds at noon; they crawled into them again as soon as +the work was over in the evening. Some did not go out into the air for +days at a time. The greatest suffering from any one physical cause came +from feet. 'Feet' was the constant subject of conversation. But the women +had no idea what was the trouble with their feet, and, in many cases, +accepted as inevitable discomfort that could have been alleviated by +foot-baths, care, plates, and proper shoes. Colds hung on endlessly. Sore +throats were common. A girl who fed doilies into a mangle complained that +constantly watching a moving apron made her eyes 'sore,' so that she +could not see distinctly and sometimes fed in several doilies at a time +without noticing it. The lack of air undoubtedly had a profound influence +on the women's vigor. In the old hotel near the river, where the laundry +had sixteen windows, the women were in capital health. + +"In general, the older hotels, in spite of their more insanitary +dressing-rooms and less well-guarded machines, were more considerate of +their workers. But in one of the newer, more expensive hotels a sick girl +is attended by the hotel physician, and is provided with soup, milk, etc. +Her pay is not docked. She is treated with genuine sympathy. Here I once +overheard a woman telling the boss that she was ill and asking permission +to go to the dormitory. He gave the permission without question. None of +the women ever abused his kindness. The women here were in fairly good +shape, except, it must be admitted, for the extreme fatigue which seems +to sweep over almost all the laundry women, and which arises from their +hours of standing. + +"I used to notice one girl who was as light on her feet as a kitten, and +who seemed tireless; but every noon, as soon as she had finished her +lunch, she would wrap herself up in a blanket and lie motionless for the +whole period. One evening a woman stumbled into a dormitory, sat down on +a trunk, pulled off her shoes and stockings, and, as she rubbed her +swollen foot, cursed long and methodically all her circumstances--cursed +the other workers who had held back work by their slowness; cursed the +manager, who had asked of her extra work; cursed the dormitory and the +laundry; cursed the whole world. At the first word of sympathy I offered +her, she paused, and said with quiet truth, 'Dear heart, we're all +tired.' + +"Here are my notes for one day:-- + + When I went into the dormitory a little before half past seven, + several of the girls were dragging themselves out of bed to + dress. These went to work without breakfast, needing an extra + half hour of rest more than they craved food. + + Two stayed in bed. One had an ulcerated tooth extracted the + night before. I asked the other if she were sick. She groaned. + "I'll get up just as soon as the pains are gone out of my + stomach." Within an hour she was in the laundry, carrying + armfuls of men's working-suits to the drying-closet. She worked + until half past eight that night. + + All the morning I stood beside Old Sallie, who kept asking, + "What time is it now, dear?" because she could not see the + clock. + + At noon, as we sat or lay on the beds in the dormitory, one of + the girls said, "My God! I wish I could stay in bed this + afternoon." + + In the afternoon I stood beside Theresa, who kept repeating: + "It is so long to work until half past five! If I could only go + to bed at half past five!" + + I walked out to supper with a girl named Kate, who had sprained + her ankle a week ago. I said, "Hasn't the doctor seen it?" She + turned on me. "My God! when do I get time to see a doctor?" She + has a bad humor on her face, which is scarlet, and sometimes, + in the morning, covered with fine white scale. She obtains + relief by wiping her cheeks with the damp napkins she shakes. + + After supper I went up to the dormitory for a minute. Here I + found a cousin of Theresa's giving her some tea in bed, where I + urged her to stay. The cousin shook her head. "Ah, na," she + said, "she must na' give up; she's new yet at the job--they + wou'na like her to be sick." Theresa arose and crawled back to + the shaking-table, to work until seven o'clock. + + Throughout the evening I stood beside a girl, whose foot, when + she walked, hurt her "'way to the top of her head." She said, + "I've been on it ever since half past seven." + + On my way back to the dormitory at half past eight, one of the + girls told me how her arms ached and her legs ached. In the + dormitory, the girl who had been in bed all day was sobbing and + feverish. She had a sore throat, and was spitting blood. She + had been lying there all day, with no care, except to have tea + and toast brought to her by a maid. + + In looking back on this past week, it seems impossible it + could have been true. Watching these women has been like seeing + animals tortured. + +"Such a day of long hours as this generally follows some large festivity. +The Hudson-Fulton celebration, or the automobile show, or a great charity +ball, or the dinner of an excellent sociological society are the +occasions of increased hotel entertainment and a lavish use of beautiful +table linen, to be dried and mangled and folded next day by the laundry +girls underground. + +"All this pressure of extra work in the hotels here is produced, not by +ill-willed persons who are consciously oppressive,--indeed, as will be +seen, much of it was produced by sheer social good will and persons of +most progessive intent,--but simply by the unregulated conditions of the +laundries." + + +IV + +Such, then, is the account of what women workers give and what they +receive in their industry in the commercial, hotel, and hospital +laundries of New York. + +It cannot be said that the unfortunate features of the laundry conditions +observed are due to the greed of employers. These features seem to be due +rather to lack of system and regulation. Financial failures in the New +York laundry business are frequent. Even in the short time elapsing +between the Department of Labor's inspection of laundry machinery, early +in February, and a reinspection of the twenty-six establishments that had +improperly guarded machinery, made in August by Miss Westwood, two out of +these twenty-six firms had collapsed. Miss Westwood found some of the +same unfortunate features that characterized commercial and hotel +laundries in existence in hospital laundries, which are quite outside +trade. + +After the New York City Consumers' League had received the inquirers' +report, it determined that the wisest and most effective course it could +take for securing fairer terms for the laundry workers would be an effort +for the passage of the following legislation:[37]-- + + First: That an appropriation be made for additional factory + inspectors. + + Second: That no woman be employed in any mechanical + establishment, or factory, or laundry in this State for more + than ten hours during any one day. + + Third: That the laundries of hotels and hospitals be placed + under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor. + +A New York State law now exists providing for proper sanitation and +plumbing and clean drinking water for employees in factories and +laundries.[38] A law exists requiring that work-rooms where steam is +generated be so ventilated as to render the steam harmless, so far as is +practicable.[39] + +A law exists requiring the provision of suitable seats for the use of +female employees in factories and laundries; and this law should cover +the installation of seats for great numbers of workers now standing.[40] + +The establishment of juster wages, as well as the observance of all these +laws, and of the sixty-hour-a-week law, might be most practically +furthered by the existence of a trade-union in the laundries, backed by +stronger governmental provision for inspection. + + +V + +It has been said that the unfortunate features observed in the laundry +business in New York seemed to be due primarily to lack of general +regulation. In February 1911, the Laundrymen's Association of New York +State (President, Mr. J.A. Beatty), the Manhattan Laundrymen's +Association (President, Mr. J.A. Wallach), and the Brooklyn Laundrymen's +Association (President, Mr. Thomas Locken) conferred with the Consumers' +League, and asked to cooeperate with it in obtaining additional factory +inspection, the legal establishment of a ten-hour day in the trade, and +the placing of hotel and hospital laundries under the jurisdiction of the +State Labor laws. + +The League agreed to print on a published white list the names of the +laundries conforming within a year to a common standard determined on at +the conference. These are the main points agreed upon and endorsed. + + + WHITE LIST STANDARD FOR LAUNDRIES + + Physical Conditions + + 1. Wash rooms are either separated from other work-rooms or else + adequately ventilated so that the presence of steam throughout the + laundry is prevented. + + 2. Work, lunch, and retiring rooms are apart from each other and + conform in all respects to the present sanitary laws. + + 3. All machinery is guarded. + + 4. Proper drains under washing and starching machines, so that + there are no wet floors. + + 5. Seats adjusted to the machines are provided for at the + + a. Collar ironer feeder. + b. Collar ironer catcher. + c. Collar dampener feeder. + d. Collar dampener catcher. + e. Collar straightener. + f. Collar starcher feeder. + g. Collar starcher catcher. + h. Handkerchief flat-work feeder and catcher. + i. Folders on small work. + j. Collar shaper. + k. Collar seam-dampener. + l. Straight collar shaper. + + 6. The ordinances of the city and laws of the State are obeyed in + all particulars. + + + Wages + + 1. Equal pay is given for equal work irrespective of sex, and no + woman who is eighteen years of age or over and who has had one + year's experience receives less than $6 a week. This standard + includes piece-workers. + + + Hours + + 1. The normal working week does not exceed 54 hours, and on no day + shall work continue after 9 P.M. + + 2. When work is continued after 7 P.M. 20 minutes is allowed for + supper and supper money is given. + + 3. Half holidays in each week during two summer months. + + 4. A vacation of not less than one week with pay is given during + the summer season. + + 5. All overtime work, beyond the 54 hours a week standard, is paid + for. + + 6. Wages paid and premises closed on the six legal holidays, viz: + Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, + Decoration Day and Labor Day. + +The Laundrymen's Association of New York State appeared with the +Consumers' League at Albany at the last legislative session, and +repeatedly sent counsel to the capitol in support of a bill defining as a +factory any place where laundry work is done by mechanical power. The +association's support was able and determined. The bill has now passed +both houses. + +Such responsible action as this on the part of the commercial laundry +employers of the State of New York, Brooklyn, and Manhattan is in +striking contrast with the stand taken by the Oregon commercial laundry +employers in the matter of laundry employees' legal hours of industry. + + +VI + +The constitutionality of the present New York law concerning the hours of +labor of adult women in factories, laundries, and mechanical +establishments was virtually determined by the Federal decision in regard +to the Oregon Ten-Hour Day Law for working-women. + +About three years ago the State of Oregon enacted a law of practically +the same bearing as the New York law on the same subject, though superior +in that it limited the hours of labor of adult women in mechanical +establishments, factories, and laundries to ten hours during the +twenty-four hours of any one day, where the New York law, of the same +provision in other respects, limits the hours of labor of adult women to +sixty in a week. + +The laundries and the State of Oregon agreed to carry a test case to the +Federal Supreme Court to determine the new law's constitutionality. + +Mr. Curt Muller of Oregon employed a working woman in his laundry for +more than ten hours. Information was filed against him by an inspector. +Mr. Muller's trial resulted in a verdict against him, and a sentence of a +ten-dollar fine. He appealed the case to the State Supreme Court of +Oregon, which affirmed his conviction. Mr. Muller then appealed the case +to the Federal Supreme Court. + +In the defence of the law before the Federal Supreme Court, the National +Consumers' League had the good fortune to obtain, in cooeperation with the +State of Oregon, the services of Louis D. Brandeis, the most +distinguished services that could have been received, generously rendered +as a gift. This fact alone may serve to indicate the vital character of +the case, and the importance, for industrial justice in the future, of +securing a favorable verdict for the laundry workers. + +The argument of Mr. Muller was that the Oregon Ten-Hour Law was +unconstitutional: First, because the statute attempted to prevent persons +from making their own contracts, and thus violated the provisions of the +Fourteenth Amendment.[41] Next, because the statute did not apply equally +to all persons similarly situated and was class legislation. And, +finally, because the statute was not a valid exercise of the police +power; that is to say, there was no necessary or reasonable connection +between the limitations described by the act and the public health and +welfare. + +Mr. Brandeis' brief replied that, first, the guaranty of freedom of +contract was legally subject to such reasonable restraint of action as +the State may impose in the exercise of the police power for the +protection of the general health and welfare. It submitted that certain +facts of common knowledge established conclusively that there was +reasonable ground for holding that to permit women in Oregon to work in a +mechanical establishment or factory or laundry more than ten hours in one +day was dangerous to public welfare. + +These facts of common knowledge, collected by Miss Josephine Goldmark, +the Publication Secretary of the National Consumers' League, were +considered under two heads: first, that of American and foreign +legislation restricting the hours of labor for women; and, second, the +world's experience, upon which the legislation limiting the hours of +labor for women is based. + +These facts comprised the governmental restrictions of the number of +hours employers may require women to labor, from twenty States of the +United States, and from Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria, +Holland, Italy, and Germany. The laws were followed by authoritative +statements from over ninety reports of committees, bureaus of statistics, +commissioners of hygiene, and government inspectors, both in this country +and in all the civilized countries of Europe, asseverating that long +hours of labor are dangerous for women, primarily because of their +special physical organization. + +In reply to the second allegation,--that the act in question was class +legislation, as it did not apply equally to all persons similarly +situated,--the plaintiff answered that the specific prohibition of more +than ten hours' work in a laundry was not an arbitrary discrimination +against that trade; because the present character of the business and its +special dangers of long hours afford strong reasons for providing a legal +limitation of the hours of work in that industry as well as in +manufacturing and mechanical establishments. Statements from industrial +and medical authorities described conclusively the present character of +the laundry business. + +Mr. Brandeis finally submitted that, in view of all these facts, the +present Oregon statute was within Oregon's police power, as its public +health and welfare did require a legal limitation of the hours of women's +work in manufacturing and mechanical establishments and in laundries. + +Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United +States. The case was won. Here are, in part, the words of the decision:-- + + It may not be amiss in the present case, before examining the + constitutional question, to notice the course of legislation as + well as expressions of opinion from other judicial sources. In + the brief filed by Mr. Brandeis ... is a copious collection of + all these matters. The ... legislation and opinions referred to + ... are significant of a widespread belief that woman's + physical structure and the special functions she performs in + consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or + qualifying the conditions under which she should be permitted + to toil. + + Constitutional questions, it is true, are not settled by even a + consensus of present public opinion.... At the same time, when + a question of fact is debated and debatable, and the extent to + which a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by + the truth in respect to the fact, a widespread and + long-continued belief concerning it is worthy of consideration. + We take judicial cognizance of all matters of general + knowledge.... + + That woman's physical structure and the performance of + maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle + for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the + burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by + abundant testimony of the medical fraternity, continuance for a + long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, + tends to injurious effects upon her body, and as healthy + mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical + well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and + care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race. + +Nobody knowing the actual strain upon women laundry workers, no one who +had seen them lying motionless and numb with fatigue at the end of a long +day, or foregoing food itself for the sake of rest, could listen unmoved +to these thrilling words of the greatest court of our country. + +The most eloquent characteristic of the Supreme Court's affirmation was +the fact that it was essentially founded simply upon clear, human truth, +firmly and widely ascertained, founded on a respect, not only for the +past, but for the future of the whole nation. + +Too often does one hear that "law has nothing to do with equity," till +one might believe that law was made for law's sake, and not as a means of +deliverance from injustice. "The end of litigation is justice. We believe +that truth and justice are more sacred than any personal consideration." +Such was the conception of the office of the law expressed by Justice +Brewer twenty years before, on his appointment to the Supreme Bench. It +was this conception of law that made the determination of the Oregon case +a great decision in our country's history. + +From time immemorial, women as well as men have been workers of the +world. The vital feature of the statement that six million women are now +gainfully employed in this country is not the "entrance" of multitudinous +women into industry, but the fact that their industry, being now carried +on in public instead of private, has been acknowledged and paid. This +acknowledgment has led to the establishment of juster terms for women's +labor by the Federal Supreme Court. Such an establishment, as the opinion +of the court affirmed, is surely a distinct gain, not only for women, but +for children, for men, for the race. + +When the preparation of food and clothing, the traditional household +labor of women, passed in large measure from household fires and +spinning-wheels into the canning factories and garment trades with the +invention of machinery, women simply continued their traditional labor +outside their houses instead of inside them.[42] The accounts of the +laundry, the shirt-waist and the cloak making trades in New York seem to +show that, where men and women engage in the same field of activity, +their work is, by a natural division, not competitive or antagonistic, +but complementary. Indeed, so little is it antagonistic that the very +first spark that lit the fire of the largest strike of women that ever +occurred in this country, the shirt-waist makers' strike, was kindled by +an offensive injustice to a man. + +The chronicles of what self-supporting women have given and received in +their work in wage and in vitality, these working girls' budgets obtained +by the Consumers' League, will not have told their story truly unless +they have evoked with their narrative the presence of that impersonal +sense of right instinctive in the factory girls who go year after year to +Albany to fight against the long Christmas season hours for the +shop-girls, in the cloak makers in their effort to stop sweated home +work, in the responsible common-sense of countless working women. So that +the fact that six million women are now gainfully employed in this +country may finally tend to secure wiser adjustments and fairer returns +for the labor, not only of women, but of all the workers of the world. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 33: Its severity may be indicated by an account of the work a +machine ironer in Illinois regularly performed before the passage of the +Illinois Ten-Hour Law, when conditions in that State were as they now are +in the hotel and hospital laundries of New York. Miss Radway used to iron +five hundred shirt bosoms a day. Holding the loose part of the shirt up +above her head to prevent the muslin from being caught in the iron, she +pressed the bosom in a machine manipulated by three heavy treads--by +bearing all of her weight on her right foot stamping down on a pedal to +the right; then by bearing all her weight on her left foot, stamping down +a pedal to the left; then by pressing down both pedals with a jump. To +iron five hundred shirt bosoms required three thousand treads a day.] + +[Footnote 34: State Labor Law, paragraph 81.--Protection of Employees +Operating Machinery: "... If a machine or any part thereof is in a +dangerous condition or is not properly guarded, the use thereof may be +prohibited by the Commissioner of Labor, and a notice to that effect +shall be attached thereto. Such notice shall not be removed until the +machine is made safe and the required safeguards are provided, and in the +meantime such unsafe or dangerous machinery shall not be used."] + +[Footnote 35: Here is a letter from the Secretary of the Women's +Trade-Union League, stating the results of organization in the West in +the laundry trade: "The laundry workers in San Francisco eight years ago +were competing with the Chinese laundries. The girls working in the +laundries there received about $10 a month, with the privilege of 'living +in.' Three days in the week they began work at 6 A.M. and worked until 2 +A.M. the next morning. The other three days they worked from 7 A.M. to 8 +P.M. Since organization, they have established the nine-hour day and the +minimum wage of $7. They have extended their organization almost the +entire length of the Pacific Coast."] + +[Footnote 36: Perhaps a better survey of the standard of wages for all +departments of laundry work in which women are employed can be given by +the table below. By the word "standard" I mean the usual wage of a worker +of average skill who has been at work in a laundry for a period of at +least one year. + + Hand starching (shirts) $12 + Hand ironing 10 + Hand starching (collars) 9 + Hand washing 8 + Machine ironing 7 + Feeders 6 + Folders 6 + Catchers 5 + Machine starching (shirts) 5 + Collar ironing 5 + Machine starching (collars) 4.50 + Shakers 4.50] + +[Footnote 37: One of the suggestions the inquirers had made, in regard to +danger of injury, was the recommendation of the passage of the State +Compensation Act, drafted by the joint conference of the Central Labor +Bodies of the city of New York. This act became a law in September, 1910, +but has since then (July 22, 1911) been declared unconstitutional.] + +[Footnote 38: Laws of New York, Chapter 229, section 1, paragraph 88. +Became a law May 6, 1910.] + +[Footnote 39: Laws of New York, Chapter 31 of the Consolidated Laws, as +amended to July 1, 1909, paragraph 86. Inquirers' suggestion: This law +would be simpler to enforce if an amending clause required that, in +laundries, washing be done in a separate room from the rest of the work.] + +[Footnote 40: Laws of New York, Chapter 3 of the Consolidated Laws, as +amended to July 1, 1909, paragraph 86.] + +[Footnote 41: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge +the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States: nor shall +any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due +process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal +protection of the laws."] + +[Footnote 42: Jane Addams, "Democracy and Social Ethics."] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS APPLIED TO WOMEN'S WORK + + +Within the last thirty years a new method of conducting work, called +Scientific Management, has been established in various businesses in the +United States, including "machine shops and factories, steel work and +paper mills, cotton mills and shoe shops, in bleacheries and dye works, +in printing and bookbinding, in lithographing establishments, in the +manufacture of type-writers and optical instruments, in constructing and +engineering work--and to some extent--the manufacturing departments of +the Army and Navy."[43] + +Three of the enterprises to a greater or less degree reorganized by this +new system in this country employ women workers. These establishments are +a New Jersey cotton mill, a bleachery in Delaware, and a cloth finishing +factory in New England. The reduction of costs for the owning firms +inaugurating Scientific Management has already received a wide publicity. +It is the object of this account to present as clear a chronicle as has +been obtainable of the effect the methods of Scientific Management have +had on the fortunes of the workers--more especially on the hours, the +wages, and the general health of the women workers in these houses who +have so far experienced its training.[44] + +What, then, are the new principles of management which have been +inaugurated? What is Scientific Management? The expression may perhaps +best be defined to lay readers by a lay writer by means of an outline of +the growth of its working principles in this company--an outline traced +as far as possible in the words of the engineers creating the system, +whose courtesy in the matter is here gratefully acknowledged. + + +I + +In 1881, Mr. Frederick W. Taylor, the widely reverenced author of "The +Art of Cutting Metals" and of "Shop Management," then a young man of 21, +closed, in grave discouragement, a long, hard, and victorious contest of +his conducted as gang boss of the machinists of the Midvale Steel +Company in Pennsylvania. In the course of the last three years, as he +narrates in his book "Academic and Industrial Efficiency":[45]-- + + By discharging workers, lowering the wages of the more stubborn + men who refused to make any improvement, lowering the + piece-work rate, and by other such methods, he (the writer) + succeeded in very materially increasing the output of the + machines, in some cases doubling the output, and had been + promoted from one gang boss-ship to another until he became the + foreman of the shop.... For any right-minded man, however, this + success is in no sense a recompense for the bitter relations + which he is forced to maintain with all those around him. Life + which is one continuous struggle with other men is hardly worth + living.... Soon after being made foreman, therefore, he decided + to make a determined effort in some way to change the system of + management so that the interests of the workmen and the + management should become the same instead of antagonistic.... + He therefore obtained the permission from Mr. William Sellers, + the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to spend some money + in a careful scientific study of the time required to do + various kinds of work. + + Lack of information on the part of both workers and the + management as to the quickest time in which a piece of work can + be done constitutes what has been the most formidable obstacle + in the path of all progress toward improved industrial + conditions.... Every wasteful operation, every mistake, every + useless move has to be paid for by somebody, and in the long + run both the employer and the employee have to bear a + proportionate share.... For each job there is the quickest time + in which it can be done by a first-class man; this time may be + called the "Standard Time," for the job.... Under all the + ordinary systems this quickest time is more or less completely + shrouded in mist. + +Through a period of about twelve years the simplest operations in the +shop were now timed, observed, and studied by graduates from science +courses, different university men, engaged by Mr. Taylor, until a general +law had been discovered regarding the exertion of physical energy a +first-class worker could employ "and thrive under." It was found that the +worker's resistance of fatigue in lifting and carrying the load depended, +not on the amount of strength in terms of horse-power which he was +obliged to exert to elevate and sustain the load, but on the proportion +of his day spent in rest. For instance, a pig-iron handler, lifting and +carrying pigs weighing 92 pounds each, could lift and carry 47 tons of +iron in a day without undue fatigue if fifty-seven per cent of his +working hours were spent in rest, and forty-three per cent were spent in +work. If he lifted and put in place a number of pigs amounting to half +that tonnage, he might work without undue fatigue for a greater part of +the day. Under a certain far lighter load he could work without fatigue +all day long, with no rest whatever. + +With accurate time-study as a basis, the "quickest time" for each job is +at all times in plain sight of both employers and workmen, and is reached +with accuracy, precision, and speed.[46] + +OPERATION--WHEELBARROW EXCAVATION. Date, March 10, 189__ + +KEY: +A: Op. +B: Time +C: Av. +D: No. Shov. +E: Total time min. +F: Total picking min. +G: Total shoveling and wheeling min. +H: Times per barrow min. +I: No obs +J: Times per barrow min. +K: Time per pc. per shovel min. +L: No. shovels per barrow min. +M: Time wheeling 100 ft. min. + + |A| B | C | D |A| B | C | D |A | B |C | D |A |B |C +--------------------+-+----+----+---+-+-----+-----+---+--+----+--+---+--+--+- +Department-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Construction |a|1.37|1.37|15 |a|1.12 |1.12 |12 |a'|1.86| |11 | | | +Men--Mike Flaherty |b|1.56|0.19| |b|1.39 |0.27 | |a'|1.81| |13 | | | + |c|1.82|0.26| |c|1.58 |0.19 | |a'|2.14| |16 | | | +Materials--Sand | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + requiring no pick |d|1.97|0.15| |d|1.70 |0.12 | |a'|1.98| |14 | | | +Materials--Hard | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + clay in bank |e|1.97|0.15| |e|1.92 |0.22 | | | | | | | | +Implements--No. 3 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + shovel; | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Contractors' | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + wooden | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + wheelbarrow |f|2.36|0.09| |f|2.36 |0.09 | | | | | | | | +Conditions--Day-work| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + for a contractor. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + By previous | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + observation |a|1.24|1.24|13 |a|2.05 |0.13 |13 | | | | | | | +An average barrow | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + load of sand is | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + 2.32 cu. ft. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + measured in cut |b|1.36|0.12| |b|1.38 |0.15 | | | | | | | | +An average barrow | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + load of clay is | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + 2.15 cu. ft. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + measured in cut |c|1.59|0.23| |c|1.60 |0.22 | | | | | | | | + |d|1.83|0.24| |d|1.78 |0.18 | | | | | | | | + |e|2.08|0.25| |e|2.05 |0.27 | | | | | | | | + |f|2.23|0.25| |f|2.23 |0.18 | | | | | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Time | Complete | | | | | Detail | | | | | + | Operations | E | F | G | H | Operations |I | J | K | L | M +------+-------------+---+---+---+----+-------------+--+-----+-----+----+----- +7 A.M.|Commenced | | | | | | | | | | + |loading sand | | | | | | | | | | + 9.02 |43 loads |122| |122|2.84|a--Filling |4 |1.240|0.094|13.2| + |wheeled to a | | | | | barrow with | | | | | + |distance of | | | | | sand | | | | | + |50 ft. | | | | | | | | | | + 9.50 |Picking | 48| | | |b--Starting |4 |0.182| | | + |hard clay | | | | | | | | | | +11.39 |29 loads clay|109| | | |c--Wheeling |4 |0.225| | |0.450 + |wheeled to a | | | | | full--50 ft.| | | | | + |distance of | | | | | | | | | | + |50 ft. | | | | | | | | | | +11.46 |Picking clay | 7|55 | |1.67|d--Dumping |4 |0.172| | | + |again | | | | | & turning | | | | | +12.01 |4 loads clay | 15| |124|3.76|e--Returning |4 |0.260| | |0.520 + |wheeled to a | | | | | empty--50 | | | | | + |distance of | | | | | ft. | | | | | + |50 ft. | | | | | | | | | | + | |301| | | |f--Dropping |4 |0.162| | | + | | | | | | barrow & | | | | | + | | | | | | starting | | | | | + | | | | | | to shovel | | | | | + | | | | | |g-- | |2.241| | | + | | | | | |h-- | | | | | + | | | | | |i-- | | | | | + | | | | | |j-- | | | | | + | | | | | |k-- | | | | | + | | | | | |l-- | | | | | + | | | | | |m-- | | | | | + | | | | | |a'--Filling | | | | | + | | | | | | barrow with | | | | | + | | | | | | clay |4 |1.948|0.144|3.5 | +------+-------------+---+---+---+----+-------------+--+-----+-----+----+---- + + NOTE.--Comparison of "Detail" with "Complete" operations shows + that about 27 per cent of the total time was taken in rest and + other necessary delays. About the same quantity loose as at the + start. Observer: JAMES MONROE. + +Here is an account of the effect the result of this time-study and these +tests in strength produced on the output and wage of a group of men at +the Bethlehem Steel Co., whose work Mr. Taylor reorganized after that of +the Midvale Steel Company:-- + + The opening of the Spanish War found some 80,000 tons of + pig-iron piled in small piles in an open field adjoining the + Bethlehem Steel Company's works. Prices for pig-iron had been + so low that it could not be sold at a profit, and was therefore + stored. With the opening of the Spanish War the price of the + pig-iron rose, and this large accumulation of iron was sold. + The ...steel company's ...pig-iron gang ...consisted of about + 75 men ...good average pig-iron handlers, under an excellent + foreman ...A railroad switch was run out into the field, right + along the edge of the piles of pig-iron. An inclined plane was + placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up from + his pile a pig of iron weighing about 92 pounds, walked up the + inclined plank, and dropped it on the end of the car. + + We found that this gang were loading on the average of about + 12-1/2 tons per man per day in this manner. We were surprised + to find, after studying the matter, that a first-class pig-iron + handler ought to handle between 47 and 48 tons per day, instead + of 12-1/2 tons, which were being handled. + + This task seemed so very large that we were obliged to go over + our work several times before we were sure we were absolutely + right.... The task which faced us as managers under the modern + scientific plan ...was ...to see that the 80,000 tons of + pig-iron were loaded on the cars at the rate of 47 tons per man + per day in place of 12-1/2 tons.... It was further our duty to + see that this work was done without bringing on a strike among + the men, without any quarrel with the men, and to see that the + men were happier and better contented with loading at the new + rate of 47 tons than they were when loading at the old rate of + 12-1/2 tons. + + The first step was the scientific selection of the workmen.... + Under ...scientific management ...it is an inflexible rule to + talk to and deal with only one man at a time, since we are not + dealing with men in masses, but are trying to develop each + individual man to his highest state of efficiency and + prosperity. The 75 men in the gang were carefully watched and + studied for three or four days, at the end of which time we had + picked out four men who were believed to be physically able to + handle pig-iron at the rate of 47 tons per day. A careful study + was then made of each of these men.... Finally one man was + selected from among the four as the most likely man to start + with. + +This man, who had been receiving $1.15 a day, agreed to follow for $1.85 +a day the directions of the time-student, who had determined the +proportion and intervals of rest necessary for the regular accomplishment +of the task, without overstrain or undue fatigue. The worker started to +carry his accustomed load and at regular intervals was told by the +time-student, observing the proper period for rest and work with a watch: +"Now pick up a pig and walk. Now sit down and rest. Now, walk--now, rest, +etc." + +[Illustration: Courtesy of _Industrial Engineering_ + +THE NEW METHOD OF PROVIDING THE BRICKLAYER WITH MATERIAL] + + He walked when he was told to walk and rested when he was told + to rest, and at half past five in the afternoon had his 47-1/2 + tons loaded on the car. And he practically never failed to work + at this pace and to do the task that was set him during the + three years that the writer was at Bethlehem.... Throughout + this time, he averaged a little more than $1.85 a day; whereas + he had never received more than $1.15 a day, which was the + ruling wage at that time in Bethlehem.... One man after another + was picked out and trained to handle pig-iron at the rate of + 47-1/2 tons a day, until all of the pig-iron was handled at + this rate, and all of this gang were receiving sixty per cent + more wages than other men around them. + +A very brilliant and extended investigation concerning the elimination of +waste of human energy and labor by motion-study has been made +independently of Mr. Taylor by Mr. Frank Gilbreth, whose discoveries in +the field have already cut down the effort of the labor of bricklaying +two-thirds. The two accompanying photographs show what Scientific +Management and motion-study did in one case to serve the worker by an +orderly and convenient arrangement of his material. + +These extremely simple processes of bricklaying and carrying pig-iron +have been selected as instances of the procedure of Scientific +Management, because they reveal one of its most illuminating qualities. +Scientific Management makes an art of all work. It gives the most +primitive manual task its right dignity, and turns knowledge, science, +and the powers of direction from the position of tyrants of labor to that +of its servitors. + +Scientific Management, then, besides eliminating waste in human energy, +or rather by way of eliminating this waste, eliminates waste in +equipment, waste in machine power, and evolves through an extended +planning department such better appliances, such an improved programme of +work and recording of individual work as has been only very imperfectly +indicated here. + +For an instance of the elimination of waste in equipment the account of +the saving effected for one establishment by an efficient use of its +belting may be narrated. This was the work of Mr. Harrington Emerson, +widely known as a counselling engineer. In the '70's Mr. Emerson had +become interested in the subject of Efficiency Engineering by his study +of the successful conduct of the German Army during the Franco-Prussian +War; and he has since then reorganized numerous large enterprises in +accordance with the principles derived from his inquiry. Among these +establishments was a machine shop where the belting[47] + + "had cost (for maintenance and renewals) at one of the main + shops about $12,000 a year--or $1000 a month--and it was so + poorly installed and supervised that there was an average of 12 + breakdowns every working-day, each involving more or less + disorganization of the plant in its part or as a whole." The + workmen in charge of the belts now received directions as to + their charge from a general foreman, who received directions + from an efficiency engineer. This engineer had derived his + general information on the subject from a man who had made a + special study of belts for nine years. He laid down a few + general rules, requiring accurate records of breakdown, repair, + and installation, full authority and responsibility for the + special worker on belts, a better grade of work in installation + and better operation of the belts. Under this method "the + number of breakdowns declined from 12 each working-day to an + average of 2 a day, not one of them serious ...and due to + original defective installation, which it was impossible to + remedy without unjustifiable expense.... The cost of + maintaining belts fell from $1000 a month to $300 a month." + +This elimination of waste of human power, and in connection with it the +elimination of waste of equipment and of machine power, have, then, in +the course of the last thirty years, been studied and applied in this +country in the way roughly outlined by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Gilbreth, Mr. +Gantt, Mr. Sanford Thompson, Mr. Barth, Mr. Cook, and Mr. Hathaway; and +in somewhat the same manner by Mr. Harrington Emerson, Mr. Edward +Emerson, Mr. W.J. Power, Mr. Arion, Mr. Playfair, and Mr. Chipman. These +engineers have developed methods which have made it possible for them to +reorganize the various businesses mentioned which have consulted them, +and to decrease their costs and increase their profits. It will be seen +at once that the procedure of Scientific Management in determining by +scientific analysis the rate of speed and the working conditions under +which machine power and human energy can be at once most productively and +continuously employed, is really new, and differs radically from former +business management, however ably systematized. + +"But these," said Mr. Taylor, in speaking of the methods of Scientific +Management, "are incidents in the course of Scientific Management. Its +great underlying purpose is the achievement of prosperity for the workers +and for the employers." Mr. Taylor's definition of prosperity, given on +another occasion, is one of the finest the present writer has ever heard. +"By a man's prosperity, I mean his best use of his highest powers." + +It may be asked, after the efficiency of workers has been increased by +scientific study, what provision is made by scientific study for their +increased compensation. While Mr. Taylor was at the Bethlehem Steel +Company, Mr. Henry L. Gantt, then engaged with him in reorganizing the +Bethlehem Steel Works, first applied the Bonus and Task system of +compensation, which may be described loosely as a premium paid if a +certain predetermined amount be accomplished in a certain time. Its +general principles are these:[48]-- + +1. "A scientific investigation in detail of each piece of work and the +determination of the best method and the shortest time in which the work +can be done." + +2. "A teacher capable of teaching the best methods and shortest time." + +3. "Reward for both teacher and pupil, when the latter is +successful."[49] + + +II + +About five years ago Mr. Gantt was consulted concerning the application +of Scientific Management in a New England Cloth Finishing house. The +installation of the new system here began on the eve of a strike which +the workers lost. The history of this strike and its causes is not a part +of this account. Only these facts concerning it bear upon the present +subject. The strike started among the men folders, then folding 155 +pieces of cloth a day for $10 a week on week wages, and asking for ten +per cent increase of wage without increase of output. The women folders' +wage on lighter work was $7.50. As will be seen, this request was met by +Scientific Management. The wage was increased far beyond ten per cent. +The output was increased, both by improved mechanical methods, and by a +standard of more expert work, to from 447 to 887 pieces a day. The +engineers of Scientific Management had not on either one side or the +other any part whatever in the strike. But undoubtedly one of its +contributing causes was a distrust aroused by the rumor that a new system +of work was to be inaugurated. + +The Cloth Finishing establishment bleaches, starches, and calenders +dimities, muslins, percales, and shirtings, and folds and wraps them for +shipping. The factory has good light and good air and an excellent +situation in open, lightly rolling country. About two hundred young +women, Americans, Scotch, English, and French-Canadians are now employed +here on the bonus and task system, most of them whom I saw living with +their families in very attractive houses in pleasant villages near. One +or two were on the gloomy, muddy little streets of a French-Canadian mill +town. These girls, too, were in well-built houses and not living in +crowded conditions. But all their surroundings were dingy and +disagreeable. At the Cloth Finishing factory and both the other +establishments, every opportunity for the fullest inquiry among workers +as to the result of the system for them was offered by the owning +companies. Difficulties in the industry for the workers were frequently +pointed out by managers; and the addresses and names of the less +well-paid workers and those in the harder positions were supplied as +freely as information about the more fortunate effects of the system. +Both this firm and that of the cotton mill are anxious to obtain +first-class work through first-class working conditions as rapidly as +trade conditions will allow. + +The first process at which women are employed is that of keeping cloth +running evenly through a tentering machine. The machine holds on tenter +hooks--the hooks of the metaphorical reference--the damp cloth brought +from the process of bleaching, and rolls it through evenly into a drier, +where it slips off. There are two kinds of tentering machines. At one +kind two girls sit, each watching an edge of the cloth and keeping it +straight on the tenter hooks, so it will feed evenly. The newer machines +run in such a manner that one girl who may either stand or sit can watch +both edges. Because of the nearness of the drying closet, the air would +be hot and dry here but that outside air is driven in constantly by fans +through pipes with vents opening close to the workers. + +The tentering machines used to run slowly. This slowness enhanced the +natural monotony and wearisomeness of the work. The girls used to receive +wages of $6 a week, and to rest three-quarters of an hour in the morning +and three-quarters of an hour in the afternoon, with the same period for +dinner at noon in the middle of a ten-and-one-half hour day. After +Scientific Management was introduced, the girls sat at the machine only +an hour and twenty minutes at a time. They then had a twenty-minute rest, +and these intervals of work and rest were continued throughout the day by +an arrangement of spelling with "spare hands." The machines were run at a +more rapid rate than before. The girl's task was set at watching 32,000 +yards in a day; and if she achieved the bonus, as she did without any +difficulty, she could earn $9 a week. The output of the tentering +machines was increased about sixty per cent. + +The girls at the tentering machines praised the bonus system eagerly. +They said they could not bear to return to the former method of work; +that now the work was easier and more interesting than before, and the +payment and the hours were better. One of the "spare hands" showed me, as +a memento of a new era at tenter-hooking machines, the written slip of +paper the efficiency engineer had given to her, explaining to her how to +arrange the intervals of rest, and to start the "rest" with a different +girl on each Saturday--a five-hour day--so that the same girls would not +have three intervals of rest every Saturday. + +But in another part of the factory the girls at the tentering machines +had wished to lump their rest intervals and to take them altogether in +fifty-minute periods in the middle of the morning and of the afternoon. +Here the "spare hands" intervals at the machines fell awkwardly, and they +were obliged to work for an unduly long time. The girls became exhausted +with the monotony in these longer stretches of work; and further wearied +themselves by embroidering and sewing on fancy work in the long rest +periods. Here the girls were much less contented than in the other +departments.[50] + +After the cloth is dry and passed through calendering machines where men +are employed, it is run into yard lengths by a yarding machine or +"hooker." At the yarding machines the girls stand under the frame holding +the wooden arms that measure off the cloth back and forth. The workers +here used to earn $7.50 a week. They watch the machine, mark defects in +some kinds of cloth, by inserting slips of paper, stop the machine when +the material runs out, and lift the pile of measured cloth to a table +where it is taken up by the cutters and folders and inspectors. + +After the bonus system was introduced at the machines where the heavier +material is measured, the yarding machines were all elevated to small +platforms, so that the pile when finished would be on a level with an +adjacent table, and the worker need not lift and carry the heavy weight +of cloth to the table, but could slide the work. The machine was run more +rapidly. The task was increased to about 35,000 yards, or from about 155 +pieces to about 610. The wage with the bonus was now about $10 on full +time, and the hours were lessened 45 minutes, as at the tentering +machines. + +The worker stops the yarding machine by throwing her weight on her right +foot, on a pedal to the right. The girls interviewed said they did not +feel this as a strain, as there was a knack in doing it easily. On +consulting a neighborhood physician it was found that within the last ten +years, however, several women, both at the yarding and tentering +machines, had strained themselves, probably by the tread at the yarding +machine and by the slightly twisted seated position the older tentering +machines necessitated. The number of these cases traceable to any one +process of work had not increased under the new system. The whole number +of these cases in the factory had, on the other hand, either decreased +under the new system, or else had not come under this doctor's care. He +believed, however, that there was a reduction of the cases, and that this +reduction was attributable to the better general health achieved by +shorter hours, better ventilation, and better working conditions and +appliances. + +[Illustration: Courtesy of _Industrial Engineering_ + +THE USUAL METHOD OF PROVIDING THE BRICKLAYER WITH MATERIAL] + +The increased task at the yarding machine seems to have increased the +danger of accidents. A knife extends from the side of the machine; and +when the girl's attention is concentrated on her work, she sometimes puts +her fingers too near the blade, and cuts them, though no instance was +known here of the loss of a finger or of serious injury. + +The girls stand all day at the yarding machine and at most of the +succeeding processes of preparation. These are various arrangements of +inspecting, counting yards, folding in "book folds," of doubled-over +material, or "long folds" of the full width, ticketing and stamping, +tying selvages together with silk thread, or tying them to wrapping paper +by means of a little instrument called a knot-tier--this process is +called knotting--tying with ribbons, pasting on strips of silver tissue +ribbon, further ticketing and stamping, and running the sets of tickets +indicating the several yards in each piece through an adding machine, +which then produces on a stamped card the total number of yards in each +consignment, before it is finally rushed away for shipment. + +The process of inspection is different for different qualities of +material. Before the material is bleached, the number of yards and the +character of treatment for each piece are specified on stamped orders +issued from the planning room and sent with the cloth through the +processes of production. It may as well be said here, that several girls +have been promoted from manual work to work in this planning room, where +they stamp orders, on a bonus at different rates, giving them a wage of +about $10 a week in full time on office hours of 8 hours a day.[51] + +The inspector receiving the bales from the yarding machines now counts +off the number of yards and cuts the bale in accordance with these +directions. Some material she inspects yard by yard for imperfections and +dirt. After marking the yards on the cut piece, she sends it on to the +folder if it is clean, and if it is spotted, to girls who wash out the +spots and press the cloth.[52] On other material, imperfections are +marked by the girl at the yarding machine, by the insertion of slips of +paper. As the inspector has less to do on these pieces, she not only +counts and cuts, but folds them. + +Before the introduction of the bonus system, one girl used to fold, +inspect, and ticket. She used also to carry her material from a table +near the yarding machine. Boys now bring the material except where at the +yarding machines for heavier stuffs it is pushed along the table. The +hours, as for almost all of the bonus workers, have been shortened by 45 +minutes. The wages which were $7.50 a week are now between $10 and $11 on +full time. Almost all the workers here said they greatly preferred the +bonus system and would greatly dislike to return to other work. + +But in dealing with the heavier materials the work was tiring, and more +tiring under the new system than before, as the number of pieces lifted +had been increased. It was said while there was every intention of +fairness on the part of the management in arranging the work; it was +sometimes not evenly distributed in slack times, the same girls being +laid off repeatedly and the same girls chosen to work repeatedly instead +of in alternation. + +In the further processes of folding, some of the work and the lifting to +the piles of the sheer, book-folded stuff is light, but requires great +deftness; other parts of the work and the lifting to the piles are +heavier.[53] The wage before the bonus was introduced was $7.50 a week, +and with the bonus rose to $11 a week, in full time. As with the +inspectors, the work was now brought to the folders, and the hours were +shortened by 45 minutes. Here there was great variation in the account of +the system. + +One of the folders on light work, a wonderfully skilful young woman, who +had folded 155 pieces a day before, and now folded 887, could run far +beyond her task without exhaustion and earn as much as $15 a week. She +and some of the expert workers paused in the middle of the morning for 10 +or 15 minutes' rest and ate some fruit or other light refreshment, and +sometimes took another such rest in the afternoon. + +Another strong worker, employed on heavy material, though she liked the +bonus system, and said "it couldn't be better," had remained at work at +about the same wages as before, because she was a little ahead of the +others before and earned $8 a week; and now, as there was hardly more +than enough of her kind of work to occupy her for more than four days a +week, she still earned about $8. + +One folder was made very nervous by a constant fear that she would not +earn her bonus. She always did complete the necessary amount; but when +the system was first introduced, she had been sleepless night after +night. Though this sleeplessness had passed away, she still took a nerve +tonic to brace her through her work; and this was the case with another +folder. The mothers of both these girls urged them to return to week +work. But this was of poor quality--odds and ends--and the girls disliked +it, and persisted in the new system. + +In tying ribbons around the bolts of material, the girls sit at work. +Their wages had been $1 a day for tying ribbons around 600 pieces; and +now, on a bonus for 1200 pieces, is at times for quick workers, as high +as $11. But the ribbon tying was not steady work. It is applied to only +some of the material, and the task and bonus here are intermittent. The +girls who knot, or run silk threads through the selvages, paste on tinsel +ribbon, and wrap are younger than the other workers. Their wages before +had been from $5.80 to $6 a week. Now they are in some cases over $8; in +others about $7; in others about $6. The work reaches them in better +condition than before. They said it was more interesting, and the chief +difficulty was in lifting occasionally a greater number of heavy pieces +in piling. Seats were provided for these workers except for those at +tinselling; and if they found they were able to complete the task easily, +they sat at the work. At the heavier work, the girl at yarding, the +folder, knotter, and ticketer, all worked tandem, and if the girl at +yarding loses her bonus, all the girls lose the bonus. + +In the last process of stamping tickets and ticketing, the girls work +without one superfluous motion, with a deftness very attractive to see; +and both here and at book folding justify the claim made by Scientific +Management that speed is a function of quality. The wages here had been +$6 before, and were now in full time from $9 to $10. As the task before +had been combined with various other processes, it was, as in other +cases, impossible to determine how much the work of each worker had been +increased. The present task was that of ticketing 39 bundles of 5 pieces +each hourly, with different rates for different amounts of tickets, and +was not considered at all a strain. But at the ticketing connected with +the adding machines the work was not differentiated so carefully. More of +the heavy work came to these ticketers, and the lifting was sometimes too +exhausting. But the work was better than in former times, and the wages +of from $9 to $10 were thought just, if a higher rate had been added for +the heavier work here. + + +III + +All this work described at the tenter hooking, the yarding, the folding, +inspection, and ticketing, was of a different character from that +carried on under the bonus and task system in a large room where sheets +and pillowcases were manufactured. This work afforded the only instance +of an application of Scientific Management to the processes involved in +the great needle trades and was, on that account, of special interest. + +The white cloth is brought on trucks to the girls, who tear it into +lengths, in accordance with written orders received with each +consignment. They snip the cloth with scissors, place the cut against the +edge of an upright knife, set at a convenient height on a bench, and pull +the two sides of the cloth so that the knife tears through evenly to the +end; then they stamp the material, fold it over, and place it on a truck +to be carried to the machine sewer. The weekly wages before the bonus was +introduced had been $5.98 and were now with the bonus $6.75, though +workers sometimes tore more than the 1190 sheets required by the task and +made from $7 to $7.50 by a week's work. The quick workers occasionally +stopped for 10 or 12 minutes in the morning and ate a light lunch. The +task was severe for the muscles of the hand and forearm, and apt to cause +swollen fingers and strained wrists, though the girls bound their wrists +to prevent this. All the work was done standing. The loosened starch +flying here was annoying, both to the tearers and the girls at the +sewing-machines. + +Since the time of the inquiry, all the girls engaged in tearing have been +relieved and transferred to other positions, and the work of tearing has +been done by men. + +Here the sheets are turned back and hemmed by workers who sew tandem, one +girl finishing the broader hem and the other the narrower one, their task +being 620 sheets a day. The girls at the machines formerly earned $7.50, +and now earn with the machine set at the higher rate of speed from $8 to +$11. They stop for 10 minutes in the morning, and clean the machines and +clear away the litter around them. The sewing and stooping are +monotonous, and the work on bonus here is apt to cause nervousness, +because of uncertainty occasioned by frequent breakages in the +machines.[54] + +There is a room at one side of the department, where the girls were to +rest when they had completed their tasks. But the present foreman, not +understanding the system, comes to the rest room and hurries them out +again, even after the 620 sheets are finished.[55] One of the girls in +the department, an Italian girl, who used to run far beyond the task at +the machine, had fallen ill under the strain of the work, or at least +left the factory looking extremely ill and saying that she had broken +down and could not remain. Another unfortunate result of the speed at the +sewing-machines is that the girls are more apt than before to run the +needles through their fingers. + +The folding in this department is also exhausting, and the management is +trying to find a better system of conducting this process than that now +employed. The folders here stoop and pick up the sheets and fold them +lengthwise and crosswise. The task is 1200 a day; and the wage with the +bonus comes to between $6 and $7 a week. But after the bonus is earned, +payment is, for some reason, not suitably provided on work beyond the +task. One worker said she used to fold one or two pieces above the amount +without any objection, but lately she had folded as many as 200 beyond, +without payment. + +From the folders the sheets are carried away to a mangle, where they are +folded over again by young girls. The work is light, but the payment of +$5.80 to $6 for 770 pieces an hour is low. The mangle is well guarded. By +an excellent arrangement here, the material is piled on a small elevator, +so that the girl at the mangle does not have to stoop or lift, but +easily adjusts the elevator, so that she can feed the mangle from the +pile at her convenience. The girl at a mangle can earn from $7 to $8 and +is not tired in any way by her work. + +The final stamping and wrapping in paper and tying with cord are done at +a rate of 25 pieces an hour, for a wage coming to $6 a week, by young +girls; and the situation is otherwise about the same as with the other +wrappers. + +Except at the mangle, the operation of the sheet and pillow-case factory +was unsatisfactory to the management, who had begun to study the +department for reorganization just before the time of the inquiry. +Competition had so depressed the price of the manufacture of sheets that +the commission men, for whom these processes described were executed, +paid 25 cents a dozen sheets for the work. This does not, of course, +include the initial cost of the material. It means, however, that all of +the following kinds of machine tending and manual labor on a sheet were +to be done for 2-1/2 cents:-- + + Tearing; (men workers) + Hemming; (women workers) + Folding; (women workers) + Mangling; (women workers) + Book-folding; (women workers) + Wrapping; (women workers) + Ticketing; (women workers) + +The management lost in its payment for labor here, and yet felt the work +was too hard for its workers, and should be changed. Alterations in the +rest periods are now being introduced. For the girls the system of +operation at the time of the inquiry in the sheet and pillow-case +factory, except on the mangle, was undoubtedly more exhausting than the +old method, though their wages had been increased and their hours +shortened. + +In general in the Cloth Finishing establishment Scientific Management had +increased wages. + +It had shortened hours. + +In regard to health and fatigue, outside the sheet factory, when the +general vague impression that the new system was more exhausting than the +other was sifted down, the grist of fact remaining was small, and +consisted of the instances mentioned. About forty young women told me +their experience of the work. Sometimes their mothers and their fathers +talked with me about it. Every one whose health had suffered under the +new task had been exhausted by some old difficulty which had remained +unremedied. This point will be considered in relation to the industry of +the other women workers in the other houses after the accounts of their +experience of Scientific Management. + + +IV + +There are over 600 workers in the New Jersey cotton mill. Of these 188 +are women. One hundred and ten of the women workers are at present +engaged under the bonus and task system, though the management expects to +employ eventually under this system all of its workers, and is in this +establishment markedly in sympathy with Scientific Management. The mill +is a large, well-lighted brick structure, with fields around it, and +another factory on one side, on the outskirts of a factory town. The +establishment is composed of a larger and newer well-ventilated building, +with washed air blown through the work-rooms; and an older building, +where the part of the work is carried on which necessitates both heat and +dampness to prevent the threads from breaking. + +The cotton, which is of extremely fine quality, comes into the picker +building in great bales from our Southern sea-coast and from Egypt. It is +fed into the first of a series of cleaners, from the last of which it +issues in a long, flat sheet, to go through the processes of carding, +combing, drawing, and making into roving. The carding product consists of +a very delicate web, which, after being run through a trumpet and between +rollers, forms a "sliver" of the size of two of one's fingers, from which +it issues in a long strand. This strand or sliver Is threaded into a +machine with other ends of slivers and rolled out again in one stronger +strand; and this doubling and drawing process is innumerably repeated, +till the final roving is fed into a machine that gives it a twist once in +an inch and winds it on a bobbin. There are three kinds or stages of +twisting and winding roving on these machines, and at the last, the +"speeders," women are employed. + +Up to this point all the workers have been men. These speeders are in the +carding rooms, which are large and high, filled with great belts geared +from above, and machines placed in long lanes, where the operatives stand +and walk at their work. Humidifying pipes pass along the room, with spray +issuing from their vents. The lint fibres are constantly brushed and +wiped up by the workers, but there is still considerable lint in the air. +The heat, the whir of the machines, the heaviness of the atmosphere, and +the lint are at first overpowering to a visitor. While many of the girls +say that they grow accustomed to these conditions, others cannot work +under them, and go away after a few days' or sometimes a few hours' +trial.[56] + +The speeders stand at one end of a long row of 160 bobbins and watch for +a break in the parallel lines of 160 threads, and twist the two ends +together when this occurs. The greater number of the speeders used to +earn $6 a week. But two or three women, on piece-work, earned about $9 +and did nearly twice as much as the other workers. The speeders had +helpers who used to assist them to thread the back of the machine and to +remove and place the bobbins in front. The change or "doff" occupied +about 20 minutes. It generally occurred five times in the day of the +better worker and thus consumed an hour and forty minutes of her working +time. The hours in the cotton mill are ten and a half a day with five and +a half on Saturday,--58 hours a week. + +In order to ascertain the proper task for the speeders, a time-study was +made of the work of one of the abler workers, who may be called Mrs. +MacDermott, a strong and skilful Scotch woman, who had been employed at +speeding in the mill for 14 years. Mrs. MacDermott was employed to teach +the other speeders how to accomplish the same amount in the same time. +The girls now thread the back of the machines with her help. Mrs. +MacDermott, the speeder tender herself, and the doff boys, all working +together, remove the bobbins and fill the frame, thus accomplishing the +change in 7 minutes instead of 20 minutes. The girls are paid, while +learning better methods from Mrs. MacDermott, at their old rate of a +dollar a day. If they accomplish the task allotted, they receive a dollar +a week more flat-rate, a bonus equivalent to a few cents a pound on each +pound received by the management; and this brings the wage to $1.65 a +day, or between $8 and $10 a week. The work tires the girls no more than +it did before. They receive about thirty per cent more wages, and the +management receives from the speeders nearly twice as great an output as +before. Mrs. MacDermott's wage as a teacher has been raised to $12. + +From the speeders, the doff boys send the roving--called fine roving in +the mill, because the other rovings in preceding operations are +coarser--upstairs in the older building to the spinners. Spinning is a +more difficult task than speeding. Two rovings are here twisted together +by the machines. The spinners have 104 bobbins on one side of a frame, +and watch for breakage, and change the bobbins on three frames, or six +"sides." Spinners formerly worked at piece-work rates and by watching +eight sides, and frequently doing the work very imperfectly, would earn +about $9. After a time-study was taken, the task was set at six sides, +and doffs as called for by a schedule. With the bonus the girls' weekly +wage comes to about $10. In the spinning department there is a school for +spinners. The heads receive a dollar for every graduate who learns to +achieve the task and bonus. + +The yarn is carried from the spinners to the spoolers, and wound from +bobbins to spools for convenience in handling. The work of the spool +tenders seemed to the present writer to be the severest work for women in +this cotton mill. The bobbins run out very rapidly, and require constant +change. The girls watch the thread for breakages just as at the other +machines. In replacing the bobbins and fastening the broken threads with +a knot tier, the girls have to stoop down almost to the floor. Before the +time-study was taken, the girls were watching 75 bobbins, hurrying up and +down the sides, bending up and down perpetually at this work. Some of the +spool tenders had $6 a week on piece-work; others, more experienced +workers, were able to earn $10.50 at piece-work, although the work was +frequently unsatisfactory and had loose ends. A little Italian girl, who +may be called Lucia, an extremely rapid worker, used to run wildly from +one end of the frame to the other, and in the summer-time fainted several +times at her work from exhaustion. A time-study was taken from the work +of a very deft young Polish girl, and from Lucia. The other spoolers were +taught to work with the same rapidity, and were soon able to earn with +the bonus and the work done beyond the task a sum which brought their +wage up to nearly $12 a week. + +This lasted for about two months. But the work was so improperly done and +the spools were so full of loose and untied ends, etc., that the number +of spindles to be tended was reduced from 75 to 50, and the machines were +run at a lower rate of speed. The task was changed accordingly so that +the worker's wage, simply with the bonus, was as it had been before. But +she was unable to overrun the task as far as she had, formerly. By the +workers' constant attention, the work now improved in quality, but the +limit of quantity, was, of course, lower. The wages with the bonus +dropped back to a smaller excess, or $1.47 a day. This was, of course, +disheartening, though Lucia said it was better, she was so much less +tired by the work than she had been before. But the work is still +undoubtedly very wearying and difficult. The spoolers still give +incessant attention to their work, still do their best, and yet make by +close application far less than they had grown accustomed to expect +whether justly or unjustly.[57] The task is now 12 doffs a day--each doff +requiring a change of 208 bobbins. So that in changing bobbins alone the +girls have to stoop down over 2000 times a day, without counting all the +stooping for knot tying, which the forewoman said would about equal the +labor of bending and working at bobbin changing. She had talked with the +management about having the frames raised, so as to eliminate this +exhausting process of stooping to work for the spoolers. This change had +been made in two machines and will doubtless be extended.[58] + +At the further twisting and plying of the cotton, the processes +succeeding the spooling, men are employed. From these the yarn goes to +the winding room in the newer building, where better air and temperature +are possible than in the carding and spinning rooms. The winding room is +large and light. At one side stand the warps, very tall and interesting +to see, with their lines of delicate filament and high tiers of bobbins. +In the winding room girls are engaged at machines which wind the yarn +from spools back to bobbins for filling in the looms and also for the +warp. + +In winding the filling bobbins the girls watch the thread from eighteen +bobbins, and replace and stop bobbins by pressing on foot pedals. The +worker had made from $7 to $7.50 a week before a time-study was taken and +the task increased. She can now make from $8 to $10.50 a week. The work +is lightened for her by the fact that whereas she formerly placed the +bobbins on the warp, doffers now do this for her. But the increased +stamping of the pedals made necessary by the larger task is very tiring. + +There are no women on bonus in the weave room, where the warp and the +filling are now carried. After the woven product comes from the weaving +room--an extremely heavy, strong stuff of the highest grade, used for +filter cloth and automobile tires--it is hung in a large finishing room +in the newer building over a glass screen lighted with sixteen electric +lights which shine through the texture of the material and reveal its +slightest defect. After it has been rolled over the screen, it is sent to +girls who remedy these defects by needlework. + +It is again run over the lighted screen by the inspectors and returned to +the girls if there are still defects. Before the bonus system was +applied, the girls had made $5.04 a week, and finished about 5 rolls a +day. After the system was applied, they made from $7 to $8 and did +sometimes 10 and sometimes 12 rolls a day. But, in spite of the greatest +care on Mr. Gantt's part in standardizing the quality in this department, +here, as with the spool tenders, requirement as to quality had recently +caused a temporary drop in wages. This change in requirement was +occasioned, not as at the spool tending by the negligence of the workers, +but by the somewhat unreasonable caprice of a customer. Knots in the +texture, formerly sewed down as they were, are now cut and fastened +differently. To learn this process meant just as hard work for the girls, +and put them back temporarily to their old day rate,[59] though they were +recently becoming sufficiently quick in the new process to earn the bonus +as well as before. + +By and large, the wages of the women workers in the cotton mill had been +increased by Scientific Management. + +Their hours had not been affected. These were in all instances 10-1/2 a +day and 5-1/2 on Saturday. There was no overtime. But on five nights in +the week, women preparing yarn for the following day worked at speeding +and spinning from six at night until six in the morning, with half an +hour for lunch at midnight. This arrangement had always been the custom +of the mill. The girls go home at six for breakfast, sleep until about +half past four, rise, dress, and have supper, and go to work in the mill +again at six. The night workers I visited had worked at night in other +mills in New England before they worked in New Jersey. Their sole idea of +work, indeed, was night work; and if it were closed in one mill, they +sought it in another. One of the youngest girls, a clever little +Hungarian of 17, who had been only 3 years in this country and could +barely speak English, knew America simply as a land of night work and of +Sundays, and had spent her whole life here like a little mole. The +present owner, the superintendent, and the head of the planning +department all seriously disliked night work for women, and said they +were anxious to dispense with it. But they had not been able to arrange +their output so as to make this change, though they intended to +inaugurate it as rapidly as possible. + +Concerning the health and conservation of the strength of the women +workers in the mill under Scientific Management, the task of the speeders +and of the women at cloth inspection tired the girls no more than it had +before. In the spool tending and the winding, as the two most exhausting +operations in each process, the stooping and the stamping of the pedals, +had been increased by the heightened task, the exhaustion of the workers +was heightened. But the work of the excitable little spool tender +mentioned was finally so arranged as to leave her in better health than +in the days when she was employed on piece-work, and the management was +now endeavoring to eliminate the stooping at the bobbins. At spinning +almost all the spinners found the work easier than before, probably +because Scientific Management demands that machine supervision and +assistance shall be the best possible. It must be remembered that the +adjustment of conditions in the mill here is comparatively new. Almost +all the girls said: "They don't drive you at the mill. They make it as +easy for you as they can." It was of special value to observe the +operation of Scientific Management in an establishment where all the +industrial conditions are difficult for women. As in the white goods +sewing for the Cloth Finishing establishment, these industrial conditions +are unfortunately controlled to a great extent by competition and by +custom for both the employer and the employees. The best omen for the +conservation of the health of the women workers under Scientific +Management in the cotton mill was the entire equity and candor shown by +the management in facing situations unfavorable for the women workers' +health and their sincere intention of the best practicable readjustments. + + +V + +The application of Scientific Management to women's work in the Delaware +Bleachery was very limited, extending only to about 12 girls, all +employed in folding and wrapping cloth.[60] The factory, on the outskirts +of a charming old city in Delaware, is an enormous, picturesque cement +pile, reaching like a bastion along the Brandywine River, with its +windows overlooking the wooded bank of the stream. + +The girls stand in a large room, before tables piled with great bolts of +material, and stamp tickets and style cards, fasten them to the roll, +fold over the raw edges of the material in a lap, tie two pieces of +ribbon around the bolt, wrap it in paper, stamp and attach other tickets, +and tie it up with cord to be shipped. Here, after a time-study was made +of the quicker girls in all the operations, different tasks were set for +different weights of material; and if the task was accomplished, a bonus +was paid, amounting, roughly speaking, to a quarter of the worker's +hourly wage. The arrangement of the different processes was so different +for each worker, after and before the system was installed, that none of +the girls could compare the different amounts of work she completed at +the different times. But the whole output, partly through a better +routing of the work to the tables, and by paying the boys who brought it +a bonus of 5 cents for each worker who made her bonus, was increased from +twenty-five to fifty per cent. + +The girls' hours were decreased from 10-1/4 a day with frequent overtime +up to nine at night to 9-1/4 a day with no overtime, the Saturday +half-holiday remaining unchanged. Here is a list of the changes in the +week wages. The work at the time of the inquiry was slack. Sometimes +there were only a few hours in the day of wrapping of a kind on which the +task and bonus was applied. Besides, these workers were in the midst of +an establishment managed by another system. The bonus was given on the +basis of the former wage. And this remained lower in the case of workers +employed fewer years by the firm, though sometimes their task was the +same as that of workers employed longer. Where the girls wrapped both the +heavier and the lighter materials, the allotment of these was in the +hands of a sub-foreman, who, instead of being in the new position of a +teacher rewarded for helping each worker to make her bonus, was in the +old position of a distributor of favors. The slackness of the work had +led the management, in a good-willed attempt to provide as well as +possible for the employees, to place several girls from other departments +under this sub-foreman. One of these less strong and experienced girls, +at the time of the inquiry, was receiving such an amount of heavy work +that she could wrap only enough of the task to enable her to earn from $3 +to $5 a week. The firm's policy was paternalistic, and while in many ways +it had a genuine kindness, it was not in general sympathy with Scientific +Management, though the superintendent is a thorough and consistent +supporter of the new system. But he had not been able, single handed, to +achieve all the necessary adjustments, in spite of the decided increase +of output the new methods had already obtained for the company. + + | PER WEEK | FORMERLY + ----------------------------------------+-------------+--------- + Folding and ticketing on light material | $5 to 6 | $4.84 + Folding and ticketing on light material | 5 to 6 | 4.84 + Wrapping light material | 6 to 7 | 4.56 + Wrapping light material | 7 to 8 | 4.84 + Wrapping light and heavy material | 6 to 6.50 | 4.56 + Wrapping light and heavy material | | + combined with napkin tying | 6 to 7 | 4.84 + Folding and ticketing both light and | | + heavy material | 5 to 6 | 4.84 + Folding and ticketing both light and | | + heavy material (unaccustomed to the | 4.59 | 4.56 + work) | (once 6.69) | + Folding and ticketing both light and | | + heavy material (unaccustomed to the | | + work) | 5 | 4.56 + Folding and ticketing both light and | | + heavy material (unaccustomed to the | | + work) | 3 to 5 | 7 + |(in another department) + ----------------------------------------+-------------+--------- + +Even considering slackness, these increases per week for first-rate speed +and work, though in many cases the work was light, cannot but seem small. +All the girls lived in attractive houses and pleasant places. All but one +were with their families. The city has an open market. People of all +grades of income go to market properly with market-baskets, choose food +of excellent quality, and have fresh vegetables through the winter. The +ladies of the house, the girls' mothers, preserve fruit from June +strawberries to autumn apple-butter, and exhibit it proudly in row after +row of glass jars. But the girls' wages could not pay for such living +conditions. The girl who was boarding, and whose wages were sometimes $5 +a week, could not always pay her board bill and had almost nothing left +for other expenses.[61] + +In regard to health and fatigue the main difficulty here, as at the Cloth +Finishing factory, was in the lifting of heavier pieces of cloth. Two of +the girls had suffered, since the introduction of the bonus and task, by +straining themselves in this way. One of them was at home ill for a week, +and is now quite well again. The other girl was away for two months, and +though she is now at work, had not fully regained her health. The company +had at once obtained employment less straining for the first of these +girls, and the second said that the firm had always been fair with her in +arranging the work. It was said that it had been Mr. Gantt's intention to +have the heavier lifting done by men and boys, instead of combining it +with the larger tasks the girls now accomplished under the new system. +But the department had never fully carried out its intention, and +unfortunately since Mr. Gantt's departure rather more of the heavy +material had been ordered from the house than before. + +The general good will of the firm, the picturesque factory site, the +pleasant work-rooms, and the attractive living conditions of the Delaware +workers gave them an extraordinary opportunity to pursue their labor +healthfully. But because of its incomplete adoption, Scientific +Management, though it had shortened hours, and in most cases had raised +wages, had proven of less potential value to the workers than to those in +the more difficult industrial situation obtaining in the cotton mill. + + +VI + +In general, then, Scientific Management for women workers in this country +may be said as far as it has been applied to have increased wages, to +have shortened hours, and to have resulted fortunately for the health of +women workers in some instances and unfortunately in others. + +Wherever a process presented a difficulty which remained unremedied, if +the task were multiplied, the difficulty, of course, was multiplied. No +matter how greatly the weight of a wagon is lightened, if there is a hole +in the road of its passage, and the road is now to be travelled sixty +times a day, instead of twenty times, as before, the physical difficulty +from this hole is not only trebled, but while it may be endured with +patience twenty times, is not only a muscular, but a nervous strain at +the sixtieth. This was the situation in regard to all unrelieved heavy +lifting wherever cloth was manipulated, the situation in regard to the +stooping for the spool tenders, the stamping at the winding machine, and +the stooping and breakages at the sewing-machine. But these points, +instead of being ignored by the management, were seriously regarded by +the employers as inimical to their own best interests in combination with +those of their employees, and in all the establishments were in process +of adjustment. + +In the present writer's judgment this adjustment would have been +inaugurated earlier in several processes and would have been more rapid +and effective for both the employer's interest and that of the women +workers if the women workers' difficulties had been fairly and clearly +specified through trade organization. Such an organization would also be +of value in preventing danger of injury for workers whose attention under +Scientific Management should be concentrated on their tasks, and of value +in supporting the tendency of Scientific Management to pay work +absolutely according to the amount accomplished by the worker, and not +under a certain specified rate for this amount. + +Scientific Management as applied to women's work in this country is, of +course, very recent. This synthesis of its short history is collected +from the statements made by about eighty of the women workers, by Mr. +Gantt, and by the owner, superintendent, and head of the planning +department of the cotton mill, by the superintendent and one of the +owners of the Cloth Finishing factory, and the superintendent and one of +the owners of the Bleachery. The account should be supplemented by +several general observations. + +The first is that it is difficult to determine where the health of a +worker has been strained by industry and where by other causes. Quite +outside any of the narratives mentioned were those of two young women +employed under Scientific Management whose health was hopelessly broken. +Both of these poor girls were subject to wrong and oppressive +maltreatment at home. Indeed, from oppression at home, one of the girls +had repeatedly found refuge and protection in the consideration shown to +her by the establishment where she worked. It was not she who blamed the +new way of management for her breakdown, but people whose impression of +her situation was vague and lacked knowledge. + +The whole tendency of Scientific Management toward truth about industry, +toward justice, toward a clear personal record of work, established +without fear or favor, had inspired something really new and +revolutionary in the minds of both the managers and the women workers +where the system had been inaugurated. Nearly all of them wished to tell +and to obtain, as far as they could, the actual truth about the +experiment everywhere. Almost no one wished to "make out a case." This +expressed sense of candor and cooeperation on both sides seemed to the +present writer more stirring and vital than the gains in wages and hours, +far more serious even than the occasional strain on health which the +imperfect installation of Scientific Management had sometimes caused. + +These strains on women's health in industry in America--stooping and +monotony in all the needle trades, jumping on pedals in machine tending, +dampness and heat in cotton production, the standing without pause for +many hours a day throughout the month, the lifting of heavy weights in +packing and in distribution--all these industrial strains for women +constitute grave public questions affecting the good fortune of the whole +nation and not to be answered in four years, nor by one firm. It is +undoubtedly the tendency of Scientific Management to relieve all these +strains. + +No one can see even in part the complications of contemporary factory +work, the hundred operations of human hands and muscles required for +placing a single yard of cotton cloth on the market, the thousand threads +spinning and twisting, the thousand shuttles flying, the manifold folding +and refolding and wrapping and tying, the innumerable girls working, +standing, walking by these whirring wheels and twisting threads and high +piled folding tables, without feeling strongly that ours is indeed an +industrial civilization, and that the conditions of industry not only +completely control the lives of uncounted multitudes, but affect in some +measure every life in this country to-day. + +No finer dream was ever dreamed than that the industry by which the +nation lives should be so managed as to secure for the men and women +engaged in it their real prosperity, their best use of their highest +powers. By and large, the great task of common daily work our country +does to-day is surely not so managed, either by intent or by result, +either for the workers or for the most "successful" owners of dividends. +How far Scientific Management will go toward realizing its magnificent +dream in the future will be determined by the greatness of spirit and the +executive genius with which its principles are sustained by all the +people interested in its inauguration, the employers, the workers, and +the engineers. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 43: Brief on behalf of Traffic Committee of Commercial +Organizations of Atlantic Seaboard, p. 70. Louis D. Brandeis.] + +[Footnote 44: Fourteen years ago Scientific Management was applied to +women's work in a Rolling Machine Company in Massachusetts. Here the +women's hours were reduced from 10-1/2 day to 8-1/2; their wages were +increased about 100 per cent; and their output about 300 per cent. All +the women had two days' rest a month with pay. The work consisted in +inspecting ball-bearings for bicycles. Their department of the business, +however, closed twelve years ago. Accurate facts other than those listed +concerning the workers' experience as to hours, wages, and general health +under Scientific Management are at this date too few to be valuable.] + +[Footnote 45: "Academic and Industrial Efficiency," by F.W. Taylor and +Morris Llewellyn Cook.] + +[Footnote 46: The specialistic and detailed care necessary for practical +and exact time-study may be indicated by the reproduction below of a +method of record used by Mr. Sanford E. Thompson in timing wheelbarrow +excavations. (Explanation. The letters _a_, _b_, _c_, etc., indicate +elementary units of the operation: "Filling barrow" = (_a_); "starting" = +(_b_); "wheeling full" = (_c_), etc.)] + +[Footnote 47: "Efficiency." Harrington Emerson.] + +[Footnote 48: "Work, Wages and Profits," pp. 110 to 111. H.L. Gantt.] + +[Footnote 49: While the bonus system as a means of compensation has been +used very often in connection with the Scientific Management, it must +not, however, be supposed that this method of compensation is alone and +in itself Scientific Management. In fact, as employed without Scientific +Management, it is to be regarded with some apprehension.] + +[Footnote 50: The work in this department was, besides, rather slack at +the time of year when I visited the factory, and wages for some of these +workers were $6 a week, as low as they had been before the bonus was +introduced.] + +[Footnote 51: The girl who directs them and issues the orders receives a +bonus for every stamper earning a bonus and earns on full time from $12 +to $15.] + +[Footnote 52: These girls are not employed under the bonus and task +system. But it is interesting to observe that they may either sit or +stand to iron, as they prefer.] + +[Footnote 53: The men folders at the heaviest work here now receive with +the bonus from $14 to $17 a week.] + +[Footnote 54: A worker does not lose her regular wage if she is stopped +by a breakage. Her time-card is altered. And she has credit on a time +basis for the period while the machine is not running. A breakage in the +first machine of a tandem pair stops both sewers. But a breakage in the +second means that work piles up for the second sewer, and unless she +makes it up, she will prevent her companion from earning a bonus, though +not a time wage.] + +[Footnote 55: The management, on learning of this, said the practice +would be stopped at once.] + +[Footnote 56: "The cotton as it grows in the field becomes more or less +filled with blown dust.... Lint is given off in all processes up to and +including spinning.... The only practical way to keep down the dust in +all of these operations is by frequent sweeping and mopping the floor and +wiping off the machinery." Report on Condition of Women and Child +Wage-earners in the United States. Vol. I, p. 365. + +"What degree of moisture is safely permissible from the standpoint of the +operatives' health is an unsettled question.... When the operative after +a day's work in a humid and relaxing atmosphere goes into one relatively +drier, the assault on the delicate membrane of the air-passages is sharp. +The effect of these changes is greatly to lower the vital resistance and +make the worker especially susceptible to pulmonary, bronchial, or +catarrhal affections. It is very possible that the dust and lint present +in the mill have been credited with effects which are due in part to +these atmospheric conditions." Report on Condition of Women and Child +Wage-earners in the United States. Vol. I, p. 362.] + +[Footnote 57: Besides, work had lately been slack, and this had further +decreased the wages.] + +[Footnote 58: Since visiting the New Jersey cotton mill, the present +writer has seen spool tenders at work at a machine requiring no stooping, +and provided with a board below the bobbins, placed at such a height, +that the worker can relieve her position while standing by resting her +weight against the board, above one knee and then above the other.] + +[Footnote 59: At the same time work was slack so that week wages had +dropped to $3 and $4.] + +[Footnote 60: One of the girls issues batches of tickets. Another girl +unfolds one end of certain of the packages, and inserts a ticket and +stamps an outside label, to accord with the invoice system of some of the +purchasers. These girls had received before $5.40 and $4.84 a week, +respectively, and now receive, the one $5.73, and the other between $5 +and $6.] + +[Footnote 61: All the firms have rest rooms for the girls. The Delaware +firm and the New Jersey cotton mill have pleasant lunch-rooms, where an +excellent lunch is provided at cost.] + + + * * * * * + + +--------------------------------------------------------+ + | The following pages contain advertisements of a few of | + | the Macmillan books on kindred subjects | + +--------------------------------------------------------+ + +_Some Ethical Gains through Legislation_ + +By FLORENCE KELLEY, Secretary of the National Consumers' League + + This interesting volume has grown out of the author's + experience in philanthropic work in Chicago and New York, and + her service for the State of Illinois and for the Federal + Government in investigating the circumstances of the poorer + classes, and conditions in various trades. + + The value of the work lies in information gathered at close + range in a long association with, and effort to improve the + condition of, the very poor. + + Cloth, leather back, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35 + + +_Wage-Earning Women_ + +By ANNIE MARION MACLEAN, Professor of Sociology in Adelphi College + + "This book needed to be written. Society has to be reminded + that the prime function of women must ever be the perpetuation + of the race. It can be so reminded only by a startling + presentation of the woman who is 'speeded up' on a machine, the + woman who breaks records in packing prunes or picking hops, the + woman who outdoes all others in vamping shoes or spooling + cotton.... The chapters give glimpses of women wage-earners as + they toil in different parts of the country. The author visited + the shoeshops, and the paper, cotton, and woollen mills of New + England, the department stores of Chicago, the garment-makers' + homes in New York, the silk mills and potteries of New Jersey, + the fruit farms of California, the coal fields of Pennsylvania, + and the hop industries of Oregon. The author calls for + legislation regardless of constitutional quibble, for a shorter + work-day, a higher wage, the establishment of residential + clubs, the closer cooeperation between existing organizations + for industrial betterment."--_Boston Advertiser_. + + Cloth, leather back, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35 + + + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + +_American Social Progress Series_ + +EDITED BY + +PROFESSOR SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY, PH.D., LL.D. + +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY + + * * * * * + +A series of handbooks for the student and general reader, giving the +results of the newer social thought and of recent scientific +investigations of the facts of American social life and institutions. +Each volume about 200 pages. + +1--_The New Basis of Civilization_. By SIMON N. PATTEN, Ph.D., LL.D., +University of Pennsylvania. Price, $1.00 net. + +2--_Standards of Public Morality_. By ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, Ph.D., +LL.D., President of Yale University. Price, $1.00 net. + +3--_Misery and Its Causes_. By EDWARD T. DEVINE, Ph.D., LL.D., Columbia +University. Price, $1.25 net. + +4--_Government Action for Social Welfare_. By JEREMIAH W. JENKS, Ph.D., +LL.D., Cornell University. Price, $1.00 net. + +5--_Social Insurance_. A Program of Social Reform. By HENRY ROGERS +SEAGER, Ph.D., Columbia University. Price, $1.00 net. + +6--_The Social Basis of Religion_. By SIMON N. PATTEN, Ph.D., LL.D., +University of Pennsylvania. Price, $1.25 net. + +7--_Social Reform and the Constitution_. By FRANK J. GOODNOW, LL.D., +Columbia University. + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + +BY SCOTT NEARING, PH.D. + +Of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania + +_Social Adjustment_ + +Cloth, 377 pages, $1.50 net + + "It is a good book, and will help any one interested in the + study of present social problems."--_Christian Standard._ + + "A clear, sane gathering together of the sociological dicta of + to-day. Its range is wide--education, wages, distribution and + housing of population, conditions of women, home decadence, + tenure of working life and causes of distress, child labor, + unemployment, and remedial methods. A capital reading book for + the million, a text-book for church and school, and a companion + for the economist of the study desk." --_Book News Monthly._ + + +_Wages in the United States_ + +Cloth, 12mo. Preparing + + This work represents an examination of statistics offered by + various states and industries in an effort to determine the + average wage in the United States. As a scholarly and yet + simple statement it is a valuable contribution to the study of + one side of our social organization. + + +_Economics_ + +By SCOTT NEARING and FRANK D. WATSON, both Instructors in Political +Economy in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of +Pennsylvania + +Cloth, 8vo, 493 pages, $1.90 net + + The book discusses the whole subject of prosperity of the + factors which enter into the complex economic life of the + nation. A young man who wishes to read even the daily paper + with full intelligence would find time spent in reading this + book well employed for the help which it would give him in + understanding current discussions of such topics as the + standard of living; the natural resources of the country and + their conservation; the relations of labor and immigration; of + the labor of women and children to industrial progress; of + organization in business and its tendencies; of the growth and + functions of large corporations; of public ownership; of the + various experiments which have been tried at different times, + or the programmes which social leaders are now proposing for + the remedy or the prevention of economic injustice. + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + +BY MARY W. 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Comprehensive in + scope, and masterly in treatment, the book shows thorough + knowledge of all phases of the relief problem of to-day; and it + combines with the student's careful presentation of facts as + they are, the humanist's vision of what they yet may + be."--_Boston Transcript._ + + "A distinct contribution to the literature of scientific + philanthropy. It marks a step in the development of that + literature, for in it are brought to consciousness, perhaps for + the first time fully, the underlying principles on which the + charity organization society movement is based. Moreover, it + undertakes to give a comprehensive statement of the elementary + principles upon which all relief giving, whether public or + private, should rest; and it correlates these principles with + the general facts of economics and sociology in such a way as + to leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that the author has + mastered his subject. The point of view of the book is + constructive throughout, as its author evidently intends; and + it is safe to say that for many years to come it will be, both + for the practical worker and for the scientific student, the + authoritative work upon the 'Principles of Relief.'"--_Annals + of the American Academy._ + + * * * * * + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + +_The Tenement House Problem_ + +Edited by ROBERT W. 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