Displacement.
That there is some displacement, either directly or by the substitution of younger workpeople, cannot be gainsaid with reference to particular processes.
The class most affected is the sewers. The evidence in support of their displacement places it beyond dispute, and though the increased facility for sewing has created an extra demand for folding, and some sewers have turned to folding in consequence, this class as a whole has suffered by machinery. Folders have been less affected.
The way in which the displacement is brought about is of some interest. We have, to begin with, the general apparent inability of women to manage machines, and we find that the folding machine has tended to reintroduce men to aid in work which for many years has been exclusively women's.[79] Here we have a case of men and machinery doing women's work. On the other hand, the sewing machine does not appear to have had that tendency, the only explanation apparently being that convention determines that in these trades sewing machines and women go together. Sewing machines are domestic implements in men's eyes. It is very curious that it should be so, but we are driven to that as the only possible explanation of well-observed facts. In this instance machines alone displace women.
[79] The manager of a firm with an extensive business in popular periodical literature says: "Folding, which was all hand work and women's work, is now largely done by machines managed by men. Wrapping, of which the same was true, is also largely done by machines which are managed by men.... If the machine is large and complicated, men will replace women, if it is small and simple, women will replace men."
No process—excepting the few rare instances in the typographical trade—seems to have been opened up to women in consequence of the introduction of machinery; and, on the other hand, the instances where young persons, either boys or girls, have been put to women's work owing to the introduction of machinery are very rare. So all that has happened has been that machines have somewhat changed the character of women's work, and their chief effect, beyond the displacement of sewers, has been to prevent the taking on of some learners who otherwise might have been employed in certain branches of these trades.
Conclusions can be arrived at with more accuracy in respect of the paper-colouring and enamelling processes.
Paper colouring and enamelling hardly exists as a separate trade now. Paper is coloured or enamelled, as a rule, in the mill where it is made, and the processes are carried out by machinery.
This trade, then, affords a definite instance of the replacement of women's work by machinery, handwork being now a rare survival. In one firm where forty-five women were formerly employed twelve now work. The process of colouring by hand is very simple. The sheet of paper to be coloured is placed in front of the woman who wets it over with the required colour by means of a long thin brush like a whitewash brush, which she dips into a bowl. She then takes another round brush, about 10 ins. in diameter, and brushes over the whole surface, so that the colour shall lie quite evenly. The process is now complete, and the sheet of paper is taken up and hung on a line to dry. Enamelling is done in precisely the same way, enamel, instead of colour, being applied.
These hand processes apparently survive in the case of small quantities of paper which it is not worth while to colour or enamel by machine. Those who have seen the process cannot regret the abolition of hand labour. The work is rough and dirty; the workers and the walls are all splashed over with the colour, the result being picturesque, but not healthy. When dry powder or dust is used in the process, meals may not be taken on the premises. The work does not attract a high grade of workers; they are of the job-hand type, friendly, rough and ready, and by no means tidy or "genteel."
Paper colouring and enamelling was once a man's trade but women replaced men for the same reason that machinery has now replaced women, i.e., cheapness.
Machine ruling has also been slightly affected. One of the investigators reports of an Edinburgh factory: "In this factory I was shown a ruling machine which was provided with an automatic feeder, in the form of two indiarubber wheels, which drew each sheet of paper into the machine with great exactness. The machine, after ruling one side, turned the paper and ruled the other without any adjustment by hand being necessary. After being set, this machine required only the occasional supervision of one man operative. It was estimated that its output equalled that of twelve persons on the old machines, whilst on some work of a simple kind which was merely to be run through, it might replace the work of thirty."