Women in Modern Industry

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women in Modern Industry, by B. L. Hutchins
“What is woman but an enemy of friendship, an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable affliction, a constantly flowing source of tears, a wicked work of nature covered with a shining varnish?”—Saint Chrysostom.
“Two justices of the peace, the mayor or other head officer of any city (etc.) and two aldermen ... may appoint any such woman as is of the age of 12 years and under the age of 40 years and unmarried and forth of service ... to be retained or serve by the year, week or day for such wages and in such reasonable sort as they shall think meet; and if any such woman shall refuse so to serve, then it shall be lawful for the said justices (etc.) to commit such woman to ward until she shall be bounden to serve.”— Statute of Labourers , 1563.
“Every woman spinner’s wage shall be such as, following her labour duly and painfully, she may make it account to.”—Justices of Wiltshire: Assessment of Wages , 1604.
“Sometimes one feels that one dare not contemplate too closely the life of our working women, it is such a grave reproach.”—Miss Anna Tracey, Factory Inspector , 1913.
“The State has trampled on its subjects for ‘ends of State’; it has neglected them; it is beginning to act consciously for them.... The progressive enrichment of human life and the remedy of its ills is not a private affair. It is a public charge. Indeed it is the one and noblest field of corporate action. The perception of that truth gives rise to the new art of social politics.”—B. Kirkman Gray.
WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY
BY B. L. HUTCHINS AUTHOR OF “CONFLICTING IDEALS” AND (WITH MRS. SPENCER, D.SC.) “A HISTORY OF FACTORY LEGISLATION”
WITH A CHAPTER CONTRIBUTED BY J. J. MALLON
LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, Ltd. 1915

The main plan of the book is to give a sketch or outline of the position of working women, with special reference to the effects of the industrial revolution on her employment, taking “industrial revolution” in its broader sense, not as an event of the late eighteenth century, but as a continuous process still actively at work. I have aimed at description rather than theory. Some of the current theories about women’s position are of great interest, and I make no pretence to an attitude of detachment in regard to them, but it certainly appears to me that we need more facts and knowledge before theory can be based on a sure foundation. Here and there I have drawn my own conclusions from what I saw and heard, but these conclusions are mostly provisional, and may well be modified in the light of clearer knowledge.