[8] The number of insane in the State is increasing far more rapidly than the provision which is being made for them. The last report of the State Hospital Commission shows that in hospitals for the insane, planned to accommodate 27,890 patients, there were in June, 1916, 33,873 patients, an overcrowding of 21.5 per cent. The State Hospital Commission urgently requests a bond issue to provide immediately for the construction of new buildings.
XXI
THE PROTECTION OF WORKING-WOMEN
The war has brought a revolution in woman’s work.
Because of the increased demand for labor, trades and all kinds of employment that have been considered exclusively the province of men, have been opened to women. The universal verdict is that they have everywhere made good. Work that demands the greatest exactness and care, specialized technical operations that have been supposed to require a man’s brain, have been done by them quite as well as by men. But their employment in many of the new industries has brought new industrial problems, and they have gone into many new occupations which are not included in the protection extended by existing labor laws.
Even before the war New York State was the greatest industrial State in the Union. More women were at work here than in any other State, and more women were at work in New York City than in any entire State except Pennsylvania.
There were 248 separate manufacturing industries in this State, and women worked in all trades in which over 1,000 workers were employed, except in the manufacture of bricks, tiles, fertilizers, and ice.
They were doing everything, from making cores in foundries, sausages in packing-houses, pickles and candies, to working in human hair, chemicals, and rags.
Women have always done their share of the world’s work, but in the past their labor was in the home. During the early years of our nation there were very few women who did not work or supervise work, but they did this in their homes for their homes, and they were not paid in money.
When the cotton-gin was invented and the use of steam was discovered, it was the dream of the inventors that their machines should be really labor-saving, and that people would have leisure for the development of the wider and deeper things of life. This became true for some people, and to-day there are many women of comparative leisure who can do as they please with their time. But on the other hand, undreamed-of evils and dangers have come to women who toil, and necessity compels women by the millions to seek work in the industrial world. In spite of the fact that the wages of women have been appallingly low, the woman who must earn money in order to live has had to find work outside of her own home.
Number of Women Wage-earners: In 1910, according to the census, there were in New York State 3,291,714 women over fifteen years of age; only 1,793,558 were married, and 1,498,156 were unmarried or widowed; 983,686 of these had to work in order to live, or to support some members of their families. This number did not include the great mass of women who work in their homes.