The history of women in industry is, in short, the story of the transfer of women workers from the home to the factory, from labor in harmony with their deepest ambitions to monotonous, nerve-racking work, divided and subdivided until the woman, like the traditional tailor who is called the ninth part of a man, is merely a fraction, and sometimes an almost infinitesimal fragment, of an artisan. It is a story of long hours, overwork, unwholesome conditions of life and labor and miserably low wages. It is a story of the underbidding of men bread winners by women, who have been driven by dire necessity, by a lower standard of living, or by the sense of ultimate dependence upon some man, even if he be only a hypothetical husband, to offer their services upon the bargain counter of the labor market. It is a story of the futile efforts of misdirected charity, whether that of fathers and brothers, of factory boarding houses or of philanthropic organizations, to aid the oppressed working women by offering them partial support, thereby enabling them to accept wages below the subsistence level, and still hold together soul and body. It is, finally, a story of wasted human lives, some of them wasted in the desperate effort to snatch from the world a little share of joy, and some of them wasted through disease and death or through the loss of the powers of body and mind required for efficient motherhood.
That such has been the history of women in industry is due in part to their lack of training, skill and vital interest in their work. In part it is due to excessive competition in their traditional occupations, combined with a variety of impediments, some of them rooted in established customs and ideals and some of them perhaps inherent in woman herself, to their free movement into new occupations, into the higher paid positions and into less congested communities. In part, however, it is due to the lack of appreciation of the need for legislative action.
The four great curses of working women have always been, as they are today, insufficient wages, intense and often unfair competition, overstrain due to long hours, heavy work or unhygienic conditions, and the lack of diversified skill, or of any opportunity or incentive to acquire and display ability and wisely-directed energy. The story of woman’s wage labor is, therefore, pitifully sad and in many respects discouraging. But it is the story of an industrial readjustment which is not yet near completion, and there is good reason to believe that the turning point has been reached and that better things are in store for the working woman. When we realize, however, what the economic position of women has been in the past and through how many generations large numbers of them have toiled under conditions which involved not only terrible suffering to themselves, but shocking waste to the community, it becomes evident that the present problem will not solve itself, but demands of our generation the best thought, the best energy, and the most thorough legislative regulation designed to conserve the human resources bound up in the mothers of the nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In 1870, the earliest year for which statistics are available, 14.7%, and in 1900 20.6% of the female population 16 years of age and over were breadwinners.
[2] In 1870, 58.1% and in 1900 only 39.4% of all females 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations were in the division “domestic and personal service.”
[3] Boston Courier, July 13, 1829.
[4] From the proceedings of the National Trades’ Union, published in the National Laborer, Nov. 12, 1836, and reprinted in the Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. vi, pp. 285-6.
[5] In 1870 nearly 20% of all females 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations were in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits and only 1% in trade and transportation, but in 1900, while the proportion of women in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits had increased to 24.7%, the proportion in trade and transportation had increased to 9.4%.
[6] Carey, Miscellaneous Pamphlets, Phila., 1831, “To the Ladies who have undertaken to establish a House of Industry in New York,” and “To the Editor of the New York Daily Sentinel,” Select Excerpta (A collection of newspaper clippings made by Matthew Carey, now in the Ridgway Branch of the Library Company, Philadelphia), vol. 13, pp. 138-142; Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land, 3d ed., p. 15.