IX

Perhaps the employment of mothers too close to the time of childbirth, both before and after, is almost as important as the subsequent neglect and intrusting of children to the tender mercies of ignorant and irresponsible caretakers. Élie Reclus tells us that among savages it is the universal custom to exempt their women from toil during stated periods prior to and following childbirth,[[32]] and in most countries legislation has been enacted forbidding the employment of women within a certain given period from the birth of a child. In Switzerland the employment of mothers is prohibited for two months before confinement and the same period afterwards.[[33]] At present the English law forbids the employment of a mother within four weeks after she has given birth to a child, and the trend of public opinion seems to be in favor of the extension of the period of exemption to the standard set by the Swiss law.[[34]] So far as I am aware there exists no legislation of this kind in the United States, in which respect we stand alone among the great nations, and behind the savage of all lands and ages.

Wherever women are employed in large numbers, as, for example, in the textile industries and in cigar-making, the need for such legislation has presented itself, and it is impossible, unfortunately, to think that the absence of it in this country indicates a like absence of need for it. Cases in which women endure the agony of parturition amid the roar and whirl of machinery, and the bed of childbirth is the factory floor, are by no means uncommon. From a large mill, less than twenty miles from New York City, four such cases were reported to me in less than three months. Careful personal investigation in each case revealed the fact that the unfortunate women had begged in vain that they might be allowed to go home. One such case occurred on the morning of June 27 of this year, and was reported to me that same evening by letter. The writer of the letter is well known to me and his testimony unimpeachable.

A poor Slav woman, little more than a child in years, begged for permission to go home because she felt ill and unable to stand. Notwithstanding that her condition was perfectly evident, her appeal was denied with most brutal oaths. Cowering with fear she shrank away back to her loom with tears of shame and physical agony. Soon afterward her shrieks were heard above the din of the mill and there, in the presence of scores of workers of both sexes,—many of whom were girls of fourteen years of age,—her child was born. Perhaps it is fortunate that the child did not live to be a constant reminder to the poor woman of that hour of unspeakable shame and suffering! The young daughter of my correspondent was one of the witnesses of this shameful, inhuman thing. Subsequently I secured ample corroboration of the story from the local Slav priest who knew the poor woman and visited her soon after the occurrence. When I showed the letter of my informant to a local physician, he acknowledged that he had heard of other similar cases occurring and begged me to see one of the principal owners of the mill and secure the discharge of the foreman whose name was given. As if that could do any good! What good would be accomplished by securing the discharge of the man, and possibly bringing him and his family to poverty? That it would salve the conscience of the mill owner is probable. That it would be a well-deserved rebuke of the foreman’s inhumanity is likewise true. But it would not contribute in any way to the solution of the problem of which the case in question was but one of many examples.

A SAMPLE REPORT
Careful investigation showed this report to be absolutely correct except for the fact that the birth was normal and not “premature.”

Not long ago, in one of the largest cigar factories in New York, a woman left her bench with a cry of agony and sank down in a corner of the factory, where, in the presence of scores of workers of both sexes, whose gay laughter and chatter her shrieks had stilled, she became a mother. The poor woman afterwards confessed that she had feared that it might happen so, but said she “wanted to get in another day so as to have a full week’s pay and money for the doctor.” Within two weeks she was back again at her trade, but in another shop, her baby being left in the care of an old woman of seventy who supports herself by caring for little children at a charge of five cents per day. In another factory a woman returned to work on the seventh day after her confinement, but was sent back by the foreman. This woman, a Bohemian, explained that she did not feel well enough to work but feared that she might lose her place if she remained longer away. The dread prospect of unemployment and hunger had forced her from her bed to face the awful perils attendant upon premature exertion and exposure. Had she been a “savage heathen” in the kraal of some Kaffir tribe in Africa she would have been shielded, protected, and spared this peril, but she was in a civilized country, in the richest city of the world, and therefore unprotected!

In many factories, probably a majority, women in whom the signs of approaching motherhood are conspicuous are discharged. “It don’t take two people to run this loom,” or “Two can’t work at one job,” are typically brutal examples of the language employed by bosses of a certain type upon such occasions. The fear of being discharged causes many a poor woman to adopt the most pitiful means to hide her condition from the boss. “It wouldn’t be so bad if we were only laid off for a few weeks, but it’s getting fired and the trouble of finding a new job that hurts,” they say. But the consequences are too serious alike to mother and child, to justify legislative neglect or the dependence upon the wisdom or humanity of employers or foremen. In many cases, doubtless, sympathy for the women themselves and the knowledge that discharge, or even suspension for a few weeks, would mean increased poverty and hardship, induces foremen to allow them to remain at work as long as they can stand. But in many other instances the condition of business and the needs of the employer at the moment determine the question. If the mill or factory is busy and in need of hands, the pregnant woman is rarely discharged; if there is difficulty in obtaining workers in certain unpopular departments, like the winding-room of a textile mill, for instance, such a woman will frequently be given the option of ceasing work or going into the less popular department, generally at less wages.

The evil is apparent, but the remedy is not so obvious. That no woman should be permitted to work during a period of six or eight weeks immediately before and after childbirth may be agreed, but then the necessity arises for some adequate means of securing her proper maintenance during her necessary and enforced idleness. To forbid her employment without making provision for her needs would possibly be an even greater evil than now cries for remedy. The question really resolves itself into this: Is civilized man equal to the task which the savage everywhere fulfils? Private philanthropy has occasionally grappled with this problem and the results have been highly significant of what might be accomplished if what has been done as a matter of charity in a few cases could be done generally as a matter of justice and right. Of these private experiments perhaps the most famous of all are those of the celebrated Alsatian manufacturer, M. Jean Dolphus, and the Messrs. Fox Brothers, of Wellington, Somerset, England.

M. Dolphus found that in his factory at Mülhausen, where a large number of married women were employed, the mothers lost over 40 per cent of their babies in the first year, though the average at that age for the whole district was only 18 per cent. He noticed, moreover, that the mortality was greatest in the first three months of life, and that set him thinking of a remedy. He decided therefore to require all mothers to remain away from their work for a period of six weeks after childbirth, during which time he undertook to pay them their wages in full. The results were astonishing, the decrease in infantile mortality in the first year being from more than 40 to less than 18 per cent.[[35]] Other employers followed with similarly beneficent results, among these being the firm of Fox Brothers, who employed considerably over one thousand persons, more than half of whom were women. They paid wages for three weeks only, but provided excellent crèches with competent matrons in charge for the care of the infants whose mothers were at work. There, also, the infantile death-rate was very materially reduced, though, owing to the fact that no statistics showing the rate among children whose mothers were employed by the firm prior to the introduction of the plan exist, it cannot be statistically represented. Mr. Charles H. Fox, head of the firm, is authority for the statement that the reduction was extensive.[[36]] The importance of these experiments, especially in conjunction with the experiences of Paris in the great siege and Lancashire in the cotton famine, cannot easily be overestimated. They clearly show that not only hunger, but that other aspect of poverty hardly less important, the neglect of infants through industrial conditions which force the mothers to neglect them, are responsible for an alarming sacrifice of life year by year, and that it is possible to reduce materially the rate of infant mortality by improving the economic circumstances of the parents.