LABOR.[51]
The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes; and yet reports on the general question will not read very differently from those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as making shirts at seventy-five cents a dozen, and overalls at fifty cents. These women have two Protective Unions of their own, not connected with the Workingmen's Union; and most of them have, naturally enough, sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a decrease of wages, proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public departments, North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather than of choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field-labor and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions, women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer, I was shown open-air graperies, wholly managed by women, in several different localities; and was very happy to be told that my own influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England, field-labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British Association, last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned, in this country, as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hundred. I have seen it stated, that, during the last four years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation; but, judging from my local statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct.
To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the eight-hour movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of women, in 1866:—
Boston.—Glass Company, wages from $4.00 to $8.00 a week. Domestics, from $1.50 to $3.00 per week. Seamstresses, $1.00 a day. Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day.
Brookline.—Washerwomen, $1.00 a day.
Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the wages, but humbly confess that they are very low.
Chicopee pays women 90 per cent the wages of men.
Concord pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour.
Fairhaven gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men.
Hadley pays three-fourths; to domestics, one-third; seamstresses, one-quarter to one-third.
Holyoke, in its paper-mills, offers one-third to one-half.
Lancaster pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day.
Lee pays in the paper-mills one-half the wages of men.
Lowell.—The Manufacturing Company averages 90 cents a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day.
Newton pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour.
North Becket pays to women one-third the wages of men.
Northampton pays $5.00 a week.
Salisbury, for sewing hats, $1.00 a day.
South Reading, on rattan and shoe work, $5.00 to $10.00 a week.
South Yarmouth, half the wages of men, or less.
Taunton, one-third to two-thirds the wages of men.
Walpole pays two-thirds the wages of men.
Wareham pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to seamstresses, 50 cents to $1.00.
Wilmington pays two-thirds the wages of men.
Winchester pays dressmakers $1.00 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an hour.
Woburn keeps its women to work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them two-thirds the wages of men.
On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.
Lawrence, from the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pay from $1.00 to $2.00 a day.
Stoneham gives them $1.50 per week.
Waltham reports the wages of the watch-factory as very remunerative. In 1860, I reported this factory as paying from $2.50 to $4.00 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a general statement.
Boston has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7.00 a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed; but I cannot ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6.00 a week; but that must be above the average.
The best-looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of Mr. J.H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S.L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these mills make them the best examples I know; and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women.