Women and economic evolution: or, The effects of industrial changes upon the status of women

by Theresa Schmid McMahon

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Dawson, German Life in Town and Country, p. 50.

[36] Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of England, p. 287.

[37] Orne, Eliza, Conditions of Women in the Nail, Chain and Bolt Making Industries.

[38] Ibid, p. 574.

[39] Gohre, Three Months in a Workshop, p. 190.

[40] Charities and Commons, Feb. 6, 1909, p. 916.

[41] Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life, pp. 39, 54.

[42] Cadbury, Edward; Matheson, M. Cecile; Shann, George. Women’s Work and Wages.

[43] Booth, Life and Labor of The People, IV, p. 801.

[44] Booth, Labour and Life of the People, IV, p. 295.

[45] Webb, Problems In Modern Industry, p. 75.

[46] Campbell, Prisoners of Poverty, pp. 30-1.

[47] More, Wage Earners’ Budgets, pp. 83, 87.

[48] Cost of Living in French Towns, 1909, p. XVI; Cost of Living in German Towns, 1908, p. 11.

CHAPTER IV
The Effects of Industrial Changes Upon the Homes of the Middle-Class Workers

The middle class worker is a worker whose remuneration is sufficient to allow him to maintain a plane of living commonly considered adequate for his physical well being.

His employment is not necessarily in the skilled trades, for many of the skilled workers are kept on a margin of bare subsistence, while many unskilled workers are able to enjoy a considerable degree of comfort. So much depends upon the economic conditions of a country or section, and the demand for and supply of labor that a classification according to occupation or remuneration would not be feasible.

In congested cities where the cost of living is high, employment uncertain, and labor plentiful, the unskilled worker frequently finds it impossible to live and enjoy the simple comforts and decencies of life. On the other hand, in newly settled communities, where labor is scarce and opportunities many, the unskilled worker is often able to accumulate property and to give his children advantages usually confined to the prosperous business class in a large city.

Hence, in discussing the middle class worker, he will be considered as a man having sufficient pay, irrespective of his occupation, or the occupation of his family to enjoy a plane of living generally accepted as necessary to a normal and healthful life.

Peoples that make any progress constantly press toward an ideal. This ideal is the standard—so to speak—accepted by all classes to a certain extent, reflected in the schools, churches and all other social institutions. It is a part of the spirit of the age. To judge a class by any other standard, to expect its members to embrace the ideals held by their ancestors because we think it more in keeping with their financial circumstances, is as unfair as it is illogical. It is expecting of others what we feel no one has a right to expect of us. To share in the benefits of our social institutions and the advance they make from year to year is a right claimed by all irrespective of class, that a woman no longer “contented with bare floors and tin dishes,” or even ingrain carpets and porcelain, or a blue calico gown and white apron for an afternoon social function, does not signify she is losing her sense of the fitness of things but that she no longer lives in an age of bare floors and tin dishes and that she too has through imitation shared in the rise of material standards. When a class departs from a seemingly sensible course, it is more often a joining of the procession of imitators and if the example is not worthy of imitation, the fault is further up the line.

The middle class worker has as his goal the social class just ahead of him. He is following a standard he did not establish, but he must go with the current or drift back. One cannot long stand still.

In the last chapter was discussed a class of workers who have little, if any, freedom in the choice of a plane of living. Their poverty is so great that outside of the civilizing forces afforded by the community, gratis to all, they merely exist. We now come to a class of workers who possess those qualities of character which determine the type of civilization of a country and from whom have come the progressive movements tending toward the general uplift of humanity. They are the real fighters. They stand on a side hill and fight both ways—fight to keep from being shoved down the hill and to gain an inch on the upgrade. They are neither exclusively the victims nor the beneficiaries of the economic regime.

The home of the middle-class worker contains all the elements of change characteristic of the age, and the success or failure of the breadwinner in the economic struggle determines the degree to which these elements are developed. To apply a test to their respective values would be unfair unless the same test were applied to the families of the higher social classes. What will be attempted will be to trace the influence of economic changes upon the home and the resulting change in the status of the wife.

Whatever struggle the workingman engages in involves the destiny of those dependent upon him for subsistence. His success determines their plane of living, and their interests are identical with his. In no other class do we see the home so complete an economic unit. The individual is often completely lost sight of in deference to the family interests. There is a recognized division of work between the husband and wife. The common object is the economic well-being of the family, and although there may not be sufficient economic liberty to enable them to choose the work most congenial, they gain by the increased strength brought about by their close co-operation.

The husband offers his services for money; the wife remains at home administering to the needs of the family. Her work is of a productive nature satisfying the primary needs of those about her. She prepares the food for consumption, makes the clothing for the family and engages in numberless pursuits—all of which have real economic value to the family. This is the prevailing ideal of the middle class family of today, but like many other social ideals is found only under the most favorable conditions. We find it in many rural communities, or communities half urban and half rural. Much depends upon the extent to which manufacturing is carried on in the vicinity, the facilities for transportation and the price of the commodities brought into the home as substitutes for the wife’s handiwork.

In countries where labor is cheaper than the use of machinery, the home has retained its function as a center of production. Under such circumstances life is simple and wants necessarily few. In some communities women still do all the spinning and weaving, the making of the clothing, and the preparation of all foods for consumption. This type of family especially when it owns the ground it occupies, represents a self-sufficing economic unit, such as was characteristic of the period of domestic industry before the era of machinery.

In the early colonial days of the United States many homes represented the best of European civilization in their culture and ideals. But economically they represented an earlier industrial stage. Specialization and co-operation were not practiced, and all the hardships were felt that characterized a domestic system of industry. A farmer said in 1787 “At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten dollars a year which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat or wear was bought, as my farm provided all.”[49]

Undoubtedly the duties of the farmer’s wife differed little from those of the German woman in the 18th century whose husband lauded her in the following words. “Our cheese and butter, apples, pears, and plums, fresh or dry, were all of her own preparation.... Her pickles (fruit preserved in vinegar) excelled anything I ever ate, and I do not know how she could make the vinegar so incomparable. Every year she made bitter drops for the stomach. She prepared her elderberry wine herself, and better peppermint than hers was found in no convent. During all our married life no one brought a penny-worth of medicine from the apothecary”....[50]

The introduction of the factory product into the home was a slow process, and was stubbornly resisted. If it were left to choice we would still be clinging to the home-made article with a tenacity more creditable to our conservatism than our judgment. Fortunately, necessity forces men to change their habits. At present many of the occupations followed by our grandmothers have left the home for all time, and we have become reconciled to the change.

Whatever changes have taken place in the home are reflections of changes taking place outside the home. When war ceased to be the occupation of all men a large amount of productive energy was released and woman’s sphere of activities became more limited. She was probably just as busy as when the field work fell to her lot, and her work was equally productive. What really took place was the gratification of a wider circle of wants. When the field had its quota of workers, there was a surplus of male labor to be applied to the indoor work. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, men again invaded woman’s field of work and assumed industrial occupations formerly associated with the fireside. It was not long before there was a marked change in the industrial unit, but in spite of the fact that men performed a great deal of indoor work when the home was a diminutive factory, the family group lost none of its compactness. Practically all the needs of the family were supplied by its own individual workers.

Soon man learned the advantage of the division of labor. He gave certain portions of his work to be done by his neighbor, and this portion tended to constantly increase. It was not long before he had but one occupation and it alone did not produce a finished product. It still had to be passed on to another worker before it was ready for consumption. This division of labor necessitated a medium of exchange. He received money for the large supply of goods he produced over and above his family needs, and with this money he purchased those articles which he and his family formerly produced on their own plot of ground and under their own roof.

How about woman’s work? Instead of producing more of a kind, as the men did, she produced the same amount, and the leisure falling to her lot by virtue of certain industries being taken out of the home was applied to new forms of production. She was just as busy as ever. There arose a greater variety of wants and it was for her to satisfy them.

The process might have gone on from generation to generation with no marked change except a progressive one. The wife might continue to work in the home, and as her productive employments departed to the factory she might substitute others. Wants of a higher nature would demand her constantly increasing time. But what did happen was that the factory constantly made inroads upon the work of the home while the money income of the family remained unaffected.

The income of the family did not tend to increase in the same proportion as the cost of maintaining the accustomed plane of living. This forced men into combination for self protection, these combinations taking the form of trade-unions.

The women who followed their work into the factory were the least fortunate. It was only where the men had lost their footing in the economic struggle that the women offered their services outside of the home for a wage. They were the least efficient workers, and least able to protect themselves from a ruthless exploitation. The women who remained at home were the more fortunate in their matrimonial relations, for their husbands were still able to provide for their families, and the family social group was not disturbed. The women continued to can their fruit and to make their garments. The home was not less a home than under the old domestic system of industry but more a home, for the number and variety of wants had increased and the standard of living had been raised.

Thus we see that the industrial evolution has had one of two effects upon the homes of the working class. It has forced thousands of women and children into the factories, many of whom make up the ranks of the “submerged tenth” or the population in a “slum” district. They were economically the weakest, hence were easy victims of a laissez faire economic regime. Their homes spelled retrogression in the evolution of the race, for they constituted the most unfit type in the industrial evolution.

Those who were not victims of the economic regime benefited, at least in some measure, by the decreased cost of production. The wives of the men who were able, either alone or through trade association, to hold their own in the economic struggle gradually ceased to be drudges. Every time the factory invaded the home to deprive it of one more of its industries, the wife either was forced to follow her work, or gained an increased amount of leisure to be applied in her home as she saw fit. Upon each encroachment of the factory upon the home there followed a weeding-out process and a few more women became wage earners. This process has gone on from decade to decade, and excepting in a few individual cases, women have been helpless in determining their fate. Excepting where they went to the factory they did not affect the economic situation of the time. They adapted themselves to circumstances as best they could, and had no other conception of the economic situation than that the money income of the family had increased or decreased. At only one period in their lives did they and their parents realize they had a voice in their economic destiny, and that was when they chose their life companions. They appreciated the importance of a competent bread-winner. For this reason man’s economic status has always been important in winning a bride. Indeed many sins of his past have been forgiven because he was able “to make her a good living.”

In the countries of Europe where the evolution of industry has run its full painful course from the beginning, the middle class workers are losing ground. Their numbers have relatively decreased, and as a class they are protesting loudly through their organizations against conditions that make the old ideal of the family well nigh impossible. Many of the single men emigrate to countries offering greater opportunities to working men, thus leaving the young women to win for themselves a footing in the industrial life outside the home. Neither men nor women wish to lose their social status by virtue of failure in the economic struggle, and so they meet the problem separately and on different continents.

Those countries not yet fully exploited profit by the courage and individualism of the north European immigrant. The high price of labor in consequence of its scarcity made possible a plane of living beyond the dreams of the home folks, and with this higher standard of consumption has gone invariably a degree of culture, self improvement, and self confidence which stood them in good stead at a later day. When the community became thickly settled and the old industrial problems arose women did not show the same inclination to go to the factory, or to lower their plane of consumption to meet the decreased income of the family, but sought the professions as avenues for industrial employment. They did not lose social caste and there was a real economic gain. The United States census report of 1900 says “women as a class are engaging more generally in those occupations which are supposed to represent a higher grade in the social scale.” Undoubtedly the next census report will make this still more apparent.[51]

The women of the United States have greater educational opportunities than the women of any other country, and when these opportunities are taken advantage of, they show a like inclination with men to desert those employments which call for the least skill, and pay the smallest wage. They assert an independence characteristic of the better classes, and assume they have a right to a social status a little higher than their income permits.

This is especially true of the married women. If they enjoy an option between remaining at home or entering the industrial field, they tend to be more independent as to hours of labor, and the wages they will accept. Free, in a large measure, from pressing economic necessity, they are in a better position to dictate terms than the unmarried women or the men of their class.

And yet these same married women are considered by their employers as desirable workers. They tend to be steadier than their unmarried sisters, and show greater concentration in their work. The secretary of one of the large glove maker’s union said of the factory in which she was employed. “When a good worker marries, her place is kept open for her for several weeks so that she can return within a reasonable time if she so desires. And she nearly always comes.” Not hunger drives her back into the factory, but a preference for the industry in which she has acquired a degree of skill over an industry like housework of which she knows little, and for which she cares less. From a financial point of view, it is cheaper for her to hire some one to perform the distasteful household tasks while she takes her place at her husband’s side in the factory. There is much to be said for the social advantages of her work. Once in the home she loses her old associations and finds herself in an environment which offers little entertainment outside of her romantic dreams. When these vanish she longs for her old companions and reënters the factory which, to her, spells industrial freedom, and a fuller life.

Many wives of the middle class workers are still engaged in work also carried on in factories. The latter have not yet attained that cheapness of production which makes it a waste of time for the housewife to compete with them. But the attractive rates offered by laundries for “plain pieces,” and the bargain counters in the basements of large department stores produce a sigh of relief and the remark “women have it easier now days than they used to.” Few see the relation between this cheapened cost of production and wages, for the breadwinner in all probability belongs to the skilled trades, and the small wage brought home by the daughter is considered pure gain.

While the home of the poorest paid worker gives no evidence of luxury and the wife’s time is employed in satisfying the wants which have to do with the preparation of food and clothing in their elementary stages, much of the energy of the home maker of the better paid worker is applied to maintaining a higher standard of living.

Wants a century ago were comparatively limited, but under the influence of modern democratic conditions they have increased many fold. They most often take the form of a greater variety of food and clothing, or the satisfying of the spiritual, intellectual and artistic desires. The newspapers, the magazines, the entire business world seem to have entered into a conspiracy to separate the working man from his small savings. Business depends largely upon its success in stimulating the desires of its patrons. Even our educational system makes every effort to stimulate higher cultural desires, which inevitably call for a greater expenditure of money.

These wants spread among the masses with great rapidity, and their gratification depends upon economic resources. The demands are generally felt first in the home. Many women attempt to satisfy them by their labor so that there is little danger of idleness on the part of the homeworker of this class as long as wants of this nature increase more rapidly than the desire for leisure. If their labor has a money value in the labor market it becomes a luxury when performed for their families, which could not afford to pay for these services at a very low cost. Only where the financial means of the families are sufficient to do without the help of the women in providing the necessities of life, can this new standard of life be maintained.

Hand in hand with the expansion of wants must go an increase of the money income of the family unless the cost of production has correspondingly cheapened. If not, the family is living beyond its means. The income of the family must be increased either by increasing the wages of men or by the wives and mothers entering the industrial field. Since to lower one’s standard of consumption is to lose one’s social status, it is considered far better to engage in some reputable employment outside the home, even though it entails continuous toil from morning until night.

The difficulty is not always met in the same way. In one community it may be perfectly proper for a married woman to continue her stenography after marriage while in another it would entail social ostracism. Often small economies are practiced in the home where no one is the wiser.

In France “the sitting-room is apt to be shut up all the week in the interest of the furniture, and only opened on the single afternoon the lady of the house is supposed to be at home to her friends. Then in winter, just before the hour of reception, the meagre wood-fire is set ablaze, and sometimes tea is prepared, along with biscuits far from fresh. You may be thankful—if tea is to be offered you, a rare occurence—should the tea be no staler than the biscuits.”[52]

We need not go to France for illustrations, for even in democratic America expensive table service does not necessarily imply an abundance of food. Where men’s incomes do not compensate for the decreased economic value of women’s work in the home, the problem is as pathetic as the one faced by the aristocracy of Cranford.

“The present relation of incomes to wants may be seen more clearly in the case of single men and women than in that of families. In the life of both sexes there is a lengthening period between the beginning of the working years and the marriage age, where the standards of the individuals are directly made by their income. Whatever they are they are carried into marriage; if the first epoch is one of advance, the second is likely to be also.”[53]

Of Fall River it is said that “the impulse which makes a married woman continue to work in the mill may be far less urgent in the economic sense and simultaneously far more urgent in the social sense.” And further on they tell us, “These Fall River women are women of a fine kind. They are highly skilled for women. They are well paid for women. They are intelligent, attractive, ambitious.”[54]

The woman who still “finds plenty to do at home,” and the woman who has become part of the industrial world represent two types of homes common in the middle class. There is still a third. It is the woman who lives in a modern apartment and can take full advantage of all the industrial changes that minimize her work. Probably Patten has her in mind when he says “Once the household industries gave to the staying-home woman a fair share of the labor, but today they are few, and the ‘home-maker’ suffers under enforced idleness, ungratified longing, and no productive time-killing.... Heredity has not been making idleness good for women while it has been making work good for men. Valuable qualities are developed by toil, and women improve as do men under the discipline of rewards.”[55]

Thus we have the three types of women in the middle class and there is a marked difference in the social attitude toward them. The woman who is busy in her home is looked upon as a vanishing type. The idle woman is viewed doubtfully. She is thought of as enjoying a leisure which she, as a member of the middle class is not entitled to. Her idleness weighs more on the social conscience than the idleness of the woman of wealth. And justly so; for her past stands for many of the better things of our civilization which we cherish as ideals, and to see her become an idler is to witness a growing waste of energy which was previously utilized to the great advantage of society. She is already beginning to ask “What can I do?” lest public sentiment should condemn her for her social parasitism.

It is the middle class woman who goes to work—whether married or single—who is arousing her sex from lethargy that threatens race degeneracy. She is taking her place with the men in trying to solve industrial and social problems. Her home life tends to represent a newer ideal. She often is not only the companion of her husband in the home but in the business world as well; a source of economic strength instead of weakness. What becomes of the children of these families? This question brings up the subject of “race-suicide” which will be discussed in another chapter.