The Girl in Industry

by Dorothy Josephine Collier

The Transition from School to Factory Life

In reviewing the effects of the transition from school to factory life it must be remembered that the evidence from the non-textile industries refers to girls who are over 14 years of age, while in the textile towns the large majority of the children start work either as half-timers at 12 or as full timers at 13. The general trend of the evidence shows that the taking up of non-textile employment is attended by a considerable falling-off in health. Most girls become thinner and lose their colour and vitality during their first six months at the factory, and those working long hours become "like machines, able to keep on without breakdown, but lose all their normal interests." This, however, appears to pass off after a time, and their health and vitality return.

Some witnesses had noticed that the usual manifestations of lessened vitality and anaemia were not so general as in pre-war days, and this is naturally attributed to the better feeding and consideration obtainable at the present time. My attention was drawn several times to the desirability of increased care during the critical years of early adolescence through an extension of the medical service under the National Insurance Act to all industrially employed persons. Some Welfare Workers found that constant attention was needed to prevent a widespread deterioration in health during the first period of employment, and their efforts were frequently hampered by lack of facilities for medical attention.

Some witnesses, notably those from the Hebden Bridge clothing trade, as well as from some of the miscellaneous trades investigated, state that girls are put to easier and lighter work when they first leave school and that they take their ease at it, so that no falling-off in health accompanies the transition stage, but a deterioration in physique with increased sickness shows itself at 16 or 17, when they begin to work at a high pressure.

The special problem of half-time labour in the cotton and worsted industries, dealing as it does with the employment of children as distinct from adolescents, does not concern us here, so that we will review only the taking up of full-time employment at 13. Where girls come straight from 6 hours' work at school to the full working-day of 10 hours the change involves a considerable strain, even when, as tenters and learners, they are not worked hard. Opinions vary as to the stress of work during the first few months of employment, some witnesses declaring that the children take their ease at first. This may be the case when they are earning a time-wage as back-tenters in the card room or as tenters in the weaving shed, provided they are working for kindly, considerate persons, but where they are put on piece-work the more general opinion is that the anxiety for earnings is as strong an incentive to young as to adult workers, and that all alike work at top speed. These witnesses lay stress on the inevitable deterioration which sets in at this time, and they attribute it mainly to the strain of factory life coming at the same time as the onset of puberty. This opinion is reinforced by the examples often quoted of girls who have not taken up industrial work until 15 or 16; these soon settle down without any falling-off in health. The comparison between girls who go to the mills at 13 and those who go to the secondary schools is even more striking. In most of the cotton towns, particularly in north-east Lancashire, the majority of the pupils at the secondary schools are drawn from the same class and come from the same type of homes as the girls who go to the mills, so that the different circumstances of their lives after they leave the elementary schools must be responsible for the differences in health and physique which are so marked at this period.

Many witnesses were of the opinion that the certifying factory surgeons are not careful enough in excluding girls from the factories, so that many delicate girls work at the mills who might grow out of their weakness in a more favourable environment. If the surgeons were able to postpone admission to the factory for varying periods much deterioration might be avoided.

Special Problems

Girls in the Mule Rooms.—The shortage of boy labour in the spinning branch of the cotton industry has led during recent years to a revival of the old custom of employing women and girls in the mule rooms. In strongly organised districts this means that girls are being engaged as piecers in increasing numbers, while where Trade Union organisation is weak, outside the great spinning areas, as in Wigan, they are frequently acting as mule minders. As might be expected, the influence of war conditions has been to intensify this shortage of boy labour and to increase the number of female piecers, so that the Bolton Operative Cotton Spinners' Association finds that no fewer than 1163 additional girl piecers have been brought into the mule rooms in their district since the outbreak of war, making a total of 3315. The increase will be proportional in Oldham and district.

In this inquiry the evidence as to the effects of such work was drawn entirely from non-medical sources, as it was impossible to get definite medical experience of the problem. Consequently the conclusions are more general than exact. Many employers and overlookers and some Trade Union witnesses were firmly of the opinion that mule-room work exerted no injurious influence on the health of girls, but it must be noted that these witnesses were drawn entirely from Wigan and Leigh, where the proximity of coal-mines with the attraction of higher wages absorbs most of the available boy labour, so that the shortage has been acute for some years, and the witnesses have got so accustomed to the presence of girls in the mule rooms that they can see nothing against it. All the more striking, therefore, is the testimony of some overlookers in these districts who declared that the work made girls thin, weak-chested, and anaemic. The temperature of the mule room frequently exceeds 90°F. and girls and men work in very scanty clothing, and the liability to colds on leaving the overheated atmosphere is very marked. Girls are on their feet the whole day, with no opportunity for rest, and by the end of the day they have walked many miles. One witness said that girls get very tired, but that no permanent ill-effects are noticed; but he advocated that rest-rooms be provided in order to prevent undue fatigue. More than one mule-room overlooker declared that no daughter of his should ever work in the spinning room, and the opposition to such work was based on physical as well as on moral grounds. One manager pointed out that "wiping down" the mule is particularly "nasty work" for girls: every two hours or so the little piecer has to run down the mule under the ends and clean with both hands as she runs, and this has to be done with great speed, as the spinners object to the mules being stopped for more than a minute or so.