Women's employment

“ The history of the last fifty years has recorded the growing and continuous influx of women into wage-earning employment which bears no relationship to sex. Women cure the sick, plead in the law courts, teach in the schools, do manual labour in garden, field, factory, and workshop, and serve increasingly as clerks, typists and shop assistants. ”

“ It is necessary to remove the obstacles to the larger employment of women. As soon as manufacturers show plenty of initiative and adaptiveness for this new class of labour, and cease to cherish preconceived opinions as to the inferiority of woman's work and as to the low wages it merits, the labour of women will respond splendidly to the utmost variety of demands. ”

“ There was no need for women to seek employment outside the home, because there was a superabundance of work to be done within. There was no economic necessity that impelled women to compete with men in those occupations traditionally regarded as man's work, because woman's field of work was so large and so important that it required the services of all women. ”

“ The employment bureau must become, it seems to me, this mediary; it must give this help to the educator, to the employer, and above all, to the girl. It will undoubtedly demonstrate that many occupations in which women are now engaged are eminently unsuitable, failing entirely to reach the standard set by Miss Marshall that they shall “develop that kind of efficiency which will be of value to the woman as a home maker, and which will not be detrimental physically or morally.” ”

“ Another problem arising out of the present extension of women’s employment relates to the enormous strain imposed upon the women and the inadequate pay they have in many cases received. We have touched on this point above in connection with the wool and worsted trades. Incidentally these conditions show that the unorganised state of women prevents their taking full advantage of the labour market even when the position is strategically in their favour. ”

“ The occupation of women in many fields of employment with which they are still principally associated, such as spinning and the making of clothes, is probably as ancient as the industries themselves. The employment of women as wage-earners in such work is, however, comparatively recent. As a member of a family, or as a servant or retainer, woman has worked for generations in many tasks which formerly were, but now, with the increased specialisation of industry, have ceased to be, part of the ordinary routine of domestic activity. ”

“ Then there is the alleged wrongness of permitting women to work in factories and offices. We are all probably prepared to admit that we have been shocked at the commercial employment of women. But it has probably occurred to few of us that the shock was due simply to their commercial employment. ”

“ The world of work, embracing industry, business, the professions, is primarily a man’s world. Women are admitted, but not yet on an equal footing. Their opportunities for employment are restricted, sometimes by law, but more often by lack of training; and their remuneration as wage-earners and salaried workers is generally less than that of men. ”

“ Already has fashion driven numbers of women out of their livelihood to make way for the encroachments of the men on the female provinces of industry, though there never was a time, in which it was not a just complaint that there were rather much too few means of employment for women. ”

“ But instead of seeing in the temporary employment of so many girls only another reason why they need the protection and the educational advantages of organization, we have been too contented to let ill alone, and all alike, the girl, the workingman, and the community are suffering for this inertia.
In this connection the first and most important matter to take up is that of women organizers, for women workers will never be enrolled in the labor movement of America in adequate numbers except through women organizers. ”

“ 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 addition to the large numbers of young women who have found employment in the government service, there is no railroad company, insurance company, or any other large semi-public or private business firm or company, which has not found women to be of peculiar serviceability. The great number of women who, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, fitted themselves for business careers indicates not only a change of ideal, with a realization of their self-sufficiency, but the increased adaptability of women to the peculiar conditions of modern society. ”

“ Little attention has been given until quite recent times to the position of the woman worker and the special problems concerning her industrial and commercial employment. The historical material relating to the share of women in industry is extremely scanty. Women in mediaeval times must have done a very large share of the total work necessary for carrying on social existence, but the work of men was more specialised, more differentiated, more picturesque. ”

“ The history of combination among women lies within a narrow compass. Its action has been confined entirely to the working classes, and even among them the period of its existence is as yet but short. No organization fulfilling the purposes of a Trade Union is to be found among women of the cultured classes, and the corporations by which professional and commercial men secure the maintenance of a definite system of employment and a fixed standard of payment have no parallel among workers of the other sex. ”

“ The factory system has now invaded one manufacturing industry after another, and the use of power and division of work in numerous processes have opened a considerable amount of employment to women. There have been two lines of development; on the one hand, occupations have been opened for women in trades with which previously they had nothing, or very little to do ”

“ The opinion of men on this subject would probably receive no consideration from the gentler sex, but a journal recently started specially to advance the interests of women, declares that at the present time there are over three hundred occupations in the United States, aside from{518} housekeeping, in which women find abundant and remunerative employment. What woman has said, man would be a brute to unsay. ”

“ The great demand for female labor in the domestic employments in this section of the country is becoming intolerable, on account of the general desire to obtain employment in the factories." The machines are small and easily worked, for making lines and figures on rules. The rivets of rules might, I think, be inserted by women. I was told, men employed in working at rule manufacture are paid $8, and some $9 a week. ”

“ Great as its immediate services may be, organization at present reaches but a small fraction of women workers, and its permanent value in the larger view perhaps lies chiefly in educating working women, employers and the public to higher standards of employment and pay. ”

“ And herein lies the ultimate solution of the problem of married women’s industrial employment. For it is only in the coöperative commonwealth that they can find just and beneficent conditions in which to carry on those industries which were theirs from the foundation of human life. ”

“ This is an important field of missionary labor in our own land, where women might be employed to great advantage—namely, as colportors, or distributors of tracts and books. The Boards of Publication now employ men only, whose services must be paid at a much higher rate than women would require. There are widows who need this employment for support, and single women who need employment for health, and many women would like this way of doing good. In every place, women would be found suitable and willing to undertake this profession. ”

“ There is not a concurrence of views as to the wisdom of special legislation with regard to the industrial place of women. Some see in the various acts passed to regulate the circumstances of their employment a distinct gain, while others view all such enactments as a regrettable interference of the state in a matter where it is not capable of taking cognizance of all the circumstances involved and of displaying the broadest wisdom in dealing with the subject. ”

“ We employ from twelve to fifteen American women in painting, varnishing, and bronzing inkstands, and pay from fifty to sixty cents per day of ten hours. Females do not per [Pg 248] form the same kind of labor that the males do. The wages of women are less, because there is a surplus in consequence of there being so little diversity in female employment. The occupation is learned in from one to two years. ”

“ If women hope to gain a footing in skilled occupations they must conciliate opposition, by showing that they have no intention of underselling their fellow workmen.
General Conclusions.—It will be seen that in almost all the occupations here considered women have special difficulties to contend with—imperfect training, amateurish habits, social customs or prejudices, and the opposition of those who, sometimes from prejudice and sometimes from a well-grounded fear of injury, oppose the industrial employment of women. ”

“ The factory inspector for Alsace states as the main cause for gainful employment of married women in modern industry, the demand for cheap labor, created by the means of transportation and by unrestricted competition. He furthermore states that manufacturers like to employ married women because they are more reliable and steady. The factory inspector for Baden, Dr. Woerishoffer, says: “The low wages paid to women workers is the main cause why [224] employers resort to female labor wherever it can be made use of. ”

“ Capitalism effected economic revolution in women’s position—By (a) substitution of individual for family wages— (b) employment of wage-earners on master’s premises— (c) rapid increase of master’s wealth.
Exclusion of women from skilled trades not originally due to sex jealousy—Women’s lack of specialised training due, (a) to its being unnecessary ”

“ They themselves will benefit by any such development, for better organisation of women will improve the lot of women who already work at trades, and will win more general recognition for the fact that the domestic labours of the household, whether performed for wages or not, are really work and not merely an occupation. Every woman with a dwelling and a family, irrespective of any other possible employment, is one of the country’s workers, and209 one of the best kind of workers, since her work is not done for a material reward but to fulfil a duty and attain an ideal. ”

“ We can expect an increasing assertion of the rights of females in every branch of industry, commerce, and the professions, accompanied by such a multiplication of ready workers that competition between the sexes will become acute. The first moment of violent strain will occur when women employers and women labour-leaders, both working under Feminist guidance, appropriate certain industries wholly to female labour. ”

“ Might it not be possible to bring them again under womanly influence, and at the same time find fit work for the brains, by introducing women of the employing class into factories? Might we not restore the old order of things, under which the payers of wages and the receivers of wages worked together, to the mutual advantage of both—by replacing women in the position of directors and overlookers of female labour? ”

“ The increasing specialization in industry, drawing more and more of the household arts out of the home and into factory, mill and shops, and the following of the jobs by women into the mills and factories, thus freeing woman from economic dependence on man, has already colored every branch of our social fabric. ”

“ Consequently when industry, passing from the control of the worker to that of the owner of the business, assumed its modern specialized form and took work and workers out of the home into the factory and workshop, this change, carried out with no regard for the results on the workers themselves, affected the lives of women in ways which are not paralleled in those of men. Besides other consequences, it greatly lessened woman’s efficiency both as mother and as worker. ”

“ Experience is now showing that in certain districts where the industry is becoming more and more a woman’s trade, [Pg 176] the women have not been lacking in capacity to take over the work of managing the Union’s affairs. ”

“ For instance, the subject of the organization of wage-earning women is indeed bound up with the industrial history of the United States, with the legal and social position of women, with the handicaps under which the colored races suffer, and with the entire labor problem. ”

“ Many of the difficulties and dangers surrounding the working-woman affect the workingman also, but on the other hand, there are special reasons, springing out of the ancestral claims which life makes upon woman, arising also out of her domestic and social environment, and again out of her special function as mother, why the condition of the wage-earning woman should be the subject of separate consideration. It is impossible to discuss intelligently wages, hours and sanitation in reference to women workers unless these facts are borne in mind. ”

“ When we remember that at the rise of the nineteenth century some kinds of factory labor, teaching, keeping boarders, sewing and domestic, service were practically the only occupations open to women, and that to-day only a few occupations remain in which women are not yet represented, we realize what a tremendous distance we have travelled, what a profound transformation has taken place in the historically brief space of a single century. When women first became wage-workers in large numbers they still were regarded as a negligible factor. ”