The Girl in Industry

by Dorothy Josephine Collier

This sketch of the conditions and circumstances of the girl in industry was undertaken as a contribution to the study of the effects of industrial employment on the health and physique of the female population of the country, and it was hoped that in the course of the investigation some light would be thrown on the question of the relation of the employment of the young girl to her health after marriage. Only a minority of women are normally employed at any time, but as an examination of the figures in [Table I.] shows, a large majority of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are employed, and of these more than one-half work in manufactures, over two-thirds of the factory and workshop girls being absorbed in the textile and clothing trades. It follows from this that the majority of women have been employed during the critical years of adolescence which have so great an influence on the physical constitution of later years.

As it was impossible in a private inquiry, such as this, to cover a wide range, certain industries which seemed to offer the best scope for the investigation were selected and subjected to as detailed an examination as was possible. The entrance of large numbers of girls and young women into the industries connected with the manufacture of munitions suggested Birmingham and Coventry as fruitful fields of inquiry, and the increase in welfare supervision with appointment of matrons and nurses in charge of surgeries and rest-rooms seemed to indicate that the required information would be easily obtained, while the abnormal conditions prevailing in these industries offered a favourable ground for investigation in that they afforded unusual opportunities of studying the effects of excessive hours of work, night work, and other variations in hours and conditions of employment. In addition to collecting evidence from a number of these supervisors in the factories, I endeavoured to find out from social workers, in touch with girls outside the factory, how far the abnormal conditions due to the pressure of war work are affecting the general health of girls. It is only natural that patriotic zeal and a desire to earn good money on piece-rates may mask any possible evil influences that long hours and increased speeding up may exert, so that the evidence from those in charge of girls in the factories, if considered alone, might not disclose the true state of affairs. Since it was impossible to get statistical evidence as to output, accidents, and actual industrial fatigue, I interviewed secretaries of Girls' Clubs and Care Committee workers connected with the Birmingham Juvenile Advisory Boards, who were in touch with girls between the ages of 14 and 16. I saw also a number of medical men and women with panel practices in industrial districts. The certifying surgeons were not able to give me any information, as they deal only with young persons who are commencing their industrial careers.

But it is from the textile trades that the great mass of the evidence is derived. The cotton industry of Lancashire and the wool and worsted industries of the West Riding of Yorkshire, built up as they are on the labour of children and young persons, offered a much wider field than the non-textile trades, and here, where the girls join their Trade Union directly they are working full time, there is much more class consciousness and reflection upon industrial conditions. Consequently evidence as to these industries, together with that of the clothing trade, is derived mainly from the Trade Union officials, particularly from the Sick Visitors of the Insurance sections, and from meetings of operatives called together for the purpose by the Trade Union secretary. In the course of the inquiry I visited a number of mills, both spinning and manufacturing, and thus gathered a good deal of information from employers, managers, and overlookers. A certain number of doctors were also visited, and some of these supplied much valuable evidence, but it must be remarked here that many doctors, possibly from stress of work, fail to note the relation between occupation and disease except in extreme and obvious cases, particularly in towns where one main industry occupies a large proportion of the inhabitants, and where one imagines deductions as to occupational disease and tendencies to disease could be most easily made.

In addition to the engineering and textile trades I have collected evidence from a few miscellaneous industries in the various towns I have visited, generally from "good" employers, who have made some study of industrial fatigue or whose interest in the welfare of their employees had directed their attention to some of the problems under discussion.

The evidence from the clothing trade was collected at Hebden Bridge and from various other towns where wholesale tailoring is merely a subsidiary industry. The conditions in Hebden Bridge due to the ever-present shortage of female labour make these clothing operatives the aristocrats of their trade, so that the general results of industrial work here had to be correlated with the evidence from the clothing trade in other towns.

General Conclusions

Hours.—The evidence to be considered under this heading is concerned with various factors: the total number of hours worked each week, the length of the spells, and the number and length of the pauses for rest and meals, as well as the time of employment, i.e. day or night work.

At the time when the inquiry was initiated (October 1916), practically all the munition factories in Birmingham were working a 60-hour week, and only in a very few cases had three 8-hour shifts been tried. This was due mainly to the difficulty of securing sufficient male labour for setting tools, etc., and also to the fact that there was already some difficulty in getting enough female workers. Similarly in Coventry the total weekly hours ranged between 55 and 60, though at one factory visited girls under 18 worked only 47 hours, and those over 18 worked 53 hours. The evidence of Welfare supervisors and nurses in charge of rest-rooms went to show that these long hours had not exerted the bad effect that had been expected. Various witnesses stated that "no signs of undue fatigue had been observed," "no increased sickness since the hours had been lengthened," "the strain of the long hours is considerable, but actual breakdowns are rare." Another witness is "quite astounded" at the good standard of health after a long period of 55-hour weeks. One witness, a medical woman who had examined the girls at a factory working 10 hours and more per day for six and sometimes seven days per week, found no marked deterioration when she examined them again at the end of six months. But she stated emphatically that the good food now obtainable because of the better wages was largely responsible for this result. It must be remembered that in pre-war times the average wage for girls on simple engineering processes in Birmingham and district was about 8s. to 10s. per week, while now they would get 16s. to 30s., and it must be concluded that some of the girls under discussion were now adequately nourished for the first time in their lives. Again, the results of this particular inquiry must be taken as representing the survival of the fittest, as many of the girls examined the first time the doctor visited the factory had left, possibly because of ill-health, before the second visit.

Nearly all the witnesses quoted above insisted that the high standard of health that prevailed was due mainly to better living and increased care, which did much to mitigate the possible evil effects of the long hours. One matron pointed out that girls who are earning good wages and who are therefore financially independent, get far better care and attention at home than if they are not earning, and this prevents breakdowns.

There is, however, another side to this optimistic picture, and this is presented by some of the doctors interviewed and by Girls' Club secretaries and Care Committee workers. One woman doctor stated that there is much increased sickness—anaemia, gastric disturbances, etc., among girls working long hours. Another doctor declared that the fatigue resulting from long hours of labour frequently leads to acute anaemia and then to irregular menstruation, and he said that the greater part of the work was not too heavy and not entirely unsuitable for girls, but that the hours were so long as not to allow time to recover from fatigue.