In England one of the important duties assigned the Welfare Supervisor is to teach the employés to play: “Familiarise the working woman with methods of recreation hitherto unknown to her,” the instructions read. So they have organised for her dramatic entertainments and choral classes and they are even teaching her to dance. One factory recently announced: “We have decided to erect a large theatre as a cinema and concert hall.” Really, Alice in Wonderland met with no more amazing surprises than has Mrs. Black.
And to make sure that she misses nothing that is coming to her, the Home Office arranged its “follow-up” system. A large staff of women inspectors are travelling up and down England stopping at the factories. In 1915 alone, they made 13,445 visits. Is there anything more the working lady needs? the Government always inquires when the woman factory inspector returns from a trip. And it was the woman factory inspector who brought word early in the war, “Why, yes, the lady should have a new dress.”
EVEN THEY DESIGN HER CLOTHES
So the Ministry of Munitions took the matter up and summoned the designers. As the result, the most charming “creation” was adapted from the vaudeville stage for industry. The girl “lift” conductors at Selfridge’s Store in London are the prettiest things you will find out of a chorus. Theirs are called, I believe, “peg-top” breeches, and there is a semi-fitted coat, the whole uniform in mauve and beautifully tailored. Well, the Government has issued a variety of patterns, some of course, for a much less expensive outfit than this. There is one uniform that costs not more than 4 shillings: sometimes the firm even furnishes it and launders it. The costume it is most desired to introduce is the khaki trousers with the tunic and a round cap, because it is really a protection for the workers against the revolving machinery. Factories not yet quite ready for the whole innovation, begin with the tunic and a cap and a skirt. But when you have convinced Mrs. Black how well she is going to look in the other things, she’s ready to put them on.
The situation adjusts itself. This report has been made on it to the Government. I quote verbatim from the published Proceedings of Parliament and a member’s speech: “The Ministry has spent a very considerable amount of time in going into this matter. It would seem to us as men a simple thing. But at any rate now from all I have heard, they appear to have solved the difficulties. The women’s uniforms up and down the country vary, of course, according to the duties they have to perform, but they must strike all who have observed them not only as useful and comely, but also as reflecting credit on the fatherly care which the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Munitions has exercised over the many thousands of the daughters of Eve who look to him as their protector.”
Daughters of Eve in your country’s service, is there anything more that you require? Yes, one thing more: Parliament, please hold the baby! It was a response returned from Northumberland to Wales. Every government summoning its women in industry has sooner or later faced the request. There were lines of women applying for Poor Relief. But why not go to work, the authorities would ask. And the child in her arms was the woman’s answer. Not every woman like Mrs. Black had a maiden aunt who could be hired to take care of the children. So it happened that, figuratively speaking, the baby was passed to Parliament. Those gentlemen, exclaiming “Goodness gracious!” hastily looked about for a place to lay it down.
And the public crèche has been promptly erected. Sometimes it’s done by philanthropy, sometimes by the factory, and sometimes at public expense. “We’ll pay for it,” says perspiring Parliament, “only hurry!” And they have hurried all over Europe. The baby of a reigning monarch is scarcely more scientifically cared for to-day than is the working woman’s baby.
Industry has been made over to adapt it to maternity! A baby used to be the crowning reason of all against woman’s industrial employment. Even if you didn’t have one, you might have. And they were very likely to tell you they couldn’t bother to have you around. If you did succeed in getting employment, some committee was sure to go “investigating” while you were away from home, and they’d report that your parlour was dusty and that your children had a dirty face. You tried to tell the sociologists, of course, that it wasn’t so bad for children to have a dirty face as a hungry one, and you’d wash them on Sunday. But no one would understand and you never could adequately explain. Now you don’t have to any more.
Every facility for first aid for the housekeeping the woman in industry has left behind her, is being arranged. They have bought a few more cups and plates and it has been found that the meals at public schools that used to be for poor children can just as well be for everybody’s children. It’s a great help to the maiden aunt. And if you haven’t one, and you feel that you must go home to dust the parlour or to see that little Mary puts her rubbers on when she’s out to play, why that can be arranged. The London Board of Trade, in a special pamphlet on “The Substitution of Women in Industry,” pointed the way to all nations with this paragraph: “The supply of women can be frequently increased by adaptation of the conditions of employment to local circumstances. For example, one large mill in a certain district where ordinary factory operatives were scarce, obtained many married women by arranging the hours of work to suit household exigencies. In one department these hours were from 10 A. M. to 5 P. M., while another branch was kept going by two shifts of women, one set working from 7 A. M. to midday, and the other from 1 P. M. to 6 P. M.” Also a memorandum from the Health of Munition Workers’ Committee says: “It is the experience of managers that concessions to married women such as half-an-hour’s grace on leaving and arriving, or occasional ‘time off’ is not injurious to output, as the lost time is made good by increased activity.”
EXPERT AT HER JOB