Behind the scenes in a restaurant: A study of 1017 women restaurant employees

A Study of 1017 Women Restaurant Employees
By The Consumers’ League of New York City 1916

Wanted—A Rest
“I keep hearing about laws for women. Where are they?” This was the question asked by a woman working twelve hours a day in a restaurant. What must we tell her? What excuse have we to offer for excluding her from the protection the law gives to women working in factories and mercantile establishments? That we have safeguarded women in these fields of employment from overwork proves that we know the dangers of overwork, that long hours interpreted in terms of human life mean exhaustion, disease, immorality, pauperism and a weaker generation to follow our own. This is an old story, it has been told again and again. Yet with our over-sensitiveness to an encroachment upon the rights and liberties of American citizens, we have failed to extend the protection of our laws to all who need their protection.
The New York State Labor Law as it stands makes it illegal to employ women in factories and mercantile establishments more than fifty-four hours or six days in any one week, or between ten o’clock at night and six o’clock in the morning. So far, so good. If these laws are enforced, we may feel fairly confident that women in these branches of industry at least have some measure of protection. But what of the women not safeguarded by the law? Who are they, and why should they be neglected?

Believing that one of the most satisfactory sources of information in regard to labor conditions is the word of the workers themselves, the Consumers’ League decided to base its study mainly upon interviews with restaurant employees. One thousand and seventeen (1,017) women were interviewed in New York City and in six of the larger cities of the State. They were seen in their homes, at their places of employment and through employment agencies.
In New York City all the interviews were held at the Occupational Clinic of the Board of Health, where, through the courtesy of Dr. Harris, Chief of the Bureau of Industrial Hygiene, a room was set aside for the use of the League investigator. In response to a requirement of the Health Department, all food-handlers in the city come to the Clinic for a physical examination and certificate testifying that they are free from communicable disease. The investigator could in this way meet the women on neutral ground when there was no temptation to conceal or distort facts, and talk confidentially with them. The interviews taken at the Clinic in five months would have required at least a year to get in any other way.