Among this latter class of seamstresses 38 out of 41 answered that their surroundings were very offensive through being "near offensive stables.' The order of the day was, "general filth, water-closets, bad sewerage, dirty neighborhoods, overcrowding, and poor ventilation." Similar complaints came from compositors in printing-offices, women in type-foundries, kid-glove sewers, carpet-factory operators, and silk weavers.

While in many of the large factories the sanitary conditions. were good and proper, ventilation being secured,-when it did not interfere with the work carried on,—there were other features that if less injurious to health were quite as objectionable to the wage-worker. In the carpet and silk factories, women were obliged to stand all day, as, though seats were provided in many instances, fines were exacted from those using them. It was the same with washing facilities; women employed in silk establishments in weaving light-colored or white silks were fined as high as fifty cents for washing their hands, and fines were also imposed if spots got on the goods. Women testified that they were fined "if discovered reading a letter, or a paper, or spoke to one another." The proprietor of one of these factories stated that the fines he collected in this way he gave away in "charity," and, "That five dollars a week was enough for a girl to live on." In some carpet factories the system of fines was even more excessive. Women were docked as much as five dollars if any accident happened to the machinery, which they were compelled to clean while it was in motion. In one mill, they were "not allowed to talk to one another during working hours or at noon, under penalty of being docked or discharged." The fine in some places for being five minutes late was twenty-five cents, while a half-hour over-time was exacted. How disproportionate this punishment was is evident; those women who were fined at the rate of thirty dollars per day, were being paid at the rate of eight cents an hour. When women were not fined for being five minutes behind time, they were "locked out" for two hours. These were the hands employed on piece work, and the loss of two hours made, as it was intended, a large hole in the day's earnings. In most cases it was claimed that the amount of fines exacted was optional with the foreman or superintendent, and that frequently they were so excessive as to affect the whole pay of employees for weeks ahead.

The tyranny of the strong and powerful over the weak and helpless, which found expression in the exaction of fines from those who were termed variously "white slaves," " slave girls,"

"prisoners of poverty," etc.,-existed in another form in the long hours of labor demanded by the Legrees of the industrial world from the wage-working women. While in many factories the legal limit of sixty hours per week for minors, and women under twenty-one, was observed, there were grave and numerous exceptions to this rule among tobacco-workers, seamstresses, bakery employees, etc., etc. In the cigar factories, the great majority of bunch-makers and rollers, whether employed at home or in the factory proper, were worked fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and even eighteen hours a day. Operatives on clothing worked from nine to sixteen hours per day. In the collar, cuff, and shirt-making factories in Troy, as well as the laundries in that place, the hours were uniformly ten, and in New York from eight to twelve. Milliners worked nine hours in factories and from fourteen to sixteen at home. Featherworkers in factories nine to ten. Operatives on ladies' underwear eight to ten in factories; twelve to fourteen hours at home. While this made a good showing for the factories engaged in these industries, it must be remembered that much of the work quoted as done "at home" was only a continuation of factory labor, as work was in many cases taken home from these, either to supplement the day's earnings, or to oblige (?) employers, who withheld extra compensation for the extra work exacted. In occupations requiring a different kind of skill, or impossible at home, the hours were found to be sometimes less than the legal limit. Those for compositors were from eight to ten. Type-foundry operatives, seven and a half to nine. Stenographers, telegraphers, and typewriters, from five and a half to six, seven, and eight. Saleswomen, again, worked many hours over-time in all except the largest houses, and during the holiday season these largest stores were no longer exceptions. In fancy-goods stores, millinery shops, bakeries, candy stores, etc., etc., no limit was placed through the holidays,—that were in no sense holidays to employees,-except the limit of physical endurance. In return no portion of the extra profit this extra work brought was shared by proprietors with their overtaxed employees.

Economically speaking, the worst of all the evils society perpetrated against the working-women was that of forcing her into long hours of continuous labor; for, whether standing at the looms and in the stores, or sitting at the sewing-machine, specific diseases of the sexual organs were induced, causing marriage to be followed by miscarriage or sickly children. No original statistics were collected by the

bureau to show how far the health and morals of women engaged in industries were affected by their employments, and what relation this influence exerted in reference to woman's position in the State. While this prevented the report from being of full service to the political economist, to the historian its pages were valuable as forming a succession of genre pictures, otherwise unattainable, of the proletarian women, as they lived, labored, and suffered in New York City in 1885.

An epidemic of investigation into women's condition as wage-workers followed the New York report. Five StatesMaine, California, Colorado, Iowa, and Minnesota-prepared separate chapters on the subject of the working women for their Bureaus of Labor Statistics for 1887-1888. In New Jersey, although no original investigation was made by the State, the bureau reprinted in 1887 a large portion of an excellent report on "Woman's Work and Wages," gathered by Mrs. Barry in 1886 by order of the Knights of Labor. The latest, and what should have been the best report, was a national research into the social and economic environments of wage-earning women in twenty-two of the largest and most representative cities in the United States. This investigation, conducted under the auspices of the Central Bureau at Washington, comprehended statistics gained through interviewing and questioning personally 17,427 women engaged in industrial pursuits. Undertaken in 1888, this national report was printed in 1889, under the title of "Working-women in Large Cities." It formed a volume of 631 pages, mostly statistical tables, framed so as to seem to cover the most important points concerning women as industrial workers.

To two grades of readers these bureau publications were most welcome. First, to the more intelligent among the working-class," in whose humble cabins," it was said,* "complete sets of Bureau Reports could be found preserved in calico covers having as many colors as ' Joseph's coat,' and presenting as much evidence of constant use as the old-time spellingbook in a country school-house that was passed from scholar to scholar until it has made the round of the school." Second, to the students of sociology, who pored over their pages, hoping to gain clear ideas of what was going on in the working world of men and women. Excellent though they were, these reports were nevertheless disappointing, at least as far as they related to facts concerning woman's industrial position.

* Ohio Report for 1887. L. McHugh, commissioner.

The first and greatest disappointment for readers was the fact that the number of wage-earning women interviewed in any one place by the bureau agents was too small to give even an approximate idea of the whole; e. g. the statistical tables of all industries for New York City were founded on the testimony alone of 2984 women, while at that period (1889) the number of wage-earning women in that city and Brooklyn was estimated at 300,000.(?) As this method of taking one per cent. of the population of women as a guide by which to estimate the conditions of all the others prevailed everywhere, conclusions drawn from the presented statistics were, of necessity, vitiated. To a certain extent they had to be accepted with allowance.

With all that this limitation implies, the bureau statistics are, nevertheless, interesting as comprising the best data we have on which to base assumptions of the industrial status of wageearning women. In regard to wages, the conclusions, though obviously inexact, still show plainly enough that wages were regulated everywhere by the prices of rent and food, and that only so much was paid as would keep life in the worker. the appended table, taken from the National Report for 1889, it will be seen that in the South, where living is comparatively cheap, wages are lower than in the West, where life's necessaries come higher. In the East they are a mean between the

two.

AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS, BY CITIES.

In

In the 343 industries named in this report, for 1889, it will be seen that the conditions under which women gained their livelihood had not been bettered, and that, on the contrary, the

66

testimony as published in the other State reports disclosed a state of affairs similar to that which Engels* described as existing among the same class of laboring women in England in 1844. Nothing worse can be found in any of Engels' descriptions than the following account (given in the New Jersey Report for 1887-1888) of the tyranny practiced upon the linen thread spinners of Paterson: "In one branch of this industry," it is said, women are compelled to stand on a stone floor in water the year round, most of the time barefoot, with a spray of water from a revolving cylinder flying constantly against the breast; and the coldest night in winter, as well as the warmest in summer, these poor creatures must go to their homes with water dripping from their underclothing along their path, because there could not be space or a few moments allowed them wherein to change their clothing." Another account, which calls up the experiences at Leeds and Lancaster in 1844, is taken from the Wisconsin Report for 1888. In the prosperous city of Janesville, in that highly favored State described as a paradise for workers, the report tells of a factory "in which some three hundred women and children are employed, who work eleven and a half to twelve hours per day and night, the night being the time most of the children are employed." Although eight hours is the legal working day in Wisconsin, and fourteen years the age limit at which children may be employed, "many of the children are under fourteen years of age, and all have to work eleven and a half hours. The thermometer averages, in the heated season, about 108 degrees . . . . and loss of health follows women by reason" of the intense heat at night and insufficient sleep in the day-time."

These by no means exceptional cases show how conditions of work for laboring women were increasing in intensity in the United States. That they were becoming worse in other ways was evidenced in New England manufacturing towns, where employment of women and children as the cheaper wage-taking

*Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844, Frederick Engels. Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky.

In England this outrage on humanity was forbidden, in 1878, by Clause No. 35 of the Factory Bill, which provided that "no young person, or woman, shall be employed in any part of a factory in which the wet spinning of flax, hemp, jute, or tow is carried on, unless sufficient means be employed and continued for protecting the workers from being wetted, and, where hot water is used, for preventing the escape of steam into the room occupied by the workers."