The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's WorkPenny, Virginia
General
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work
Penny, Virginia
Women -- Employment
for $6 a month, to wash dishes, cook fruit, chop apples, pick dried
fruit, &c. The work requires more strength than skill. There are only
four large pie bakeries in New York. Madame L., who sells French pastry
and confectionery, says very few women are employed in Paris, in making
pastry, except for families. It requires too much strength and too long
labor, to do so for a saloon. The saloons are usually open until twelve
o'clock at night. At a bread bakery an attendant told me she prepares
the fruit for pies, but the bakers prepare the crust, make and bake
them. She says their men do that in the morning, when not otherwise
employed, and it would not pay to have a woman for that purpose alone.
Mrs. H. employs fifteen women. She pays $3.50 a month, with board and
lodging, to those that slice apples and carry pies to and from the oven.
Men place them in the oven and take them out. She pays $6.50 to those
that roll out pastry and wash dishes, &c. She has three thousand pies
made sometimes in one day. It requires more care to bake pies than
bread. At another pie bakery, the lady told me she has the fruit
prepared for pies in her kitchen and taken to the bakehouse, where they
are made up by men, to save the women from working where the men are.
She pays a woman for preparing fruit $5 a month and her board. In a pie
bakery in New York, one of the attendants said in the old country women
learn to bake pies and cakes for confectioners. They pay £30 for
instruction, and spend two years' apprenticeship. They learn the whole
process, including the stewing of fruit and preparing mince meat. In
this country that is followed as a separate branch, and mostly done by
women for bakers. She said in the bakery where she stood, girls were
required, not only to wait on customers, but wash the counters, shelves,
and windows of the store. The other attendant told me she found the
smell of the pastry, and being so constantly on her feet, very
injurious. They each receive $8 a month, and their board and washing. To
succeed, a person should be quick in her motions and calculations, and a
good judge of money. They are in the shop fifteen hours. In some
bakeries the girls spend eighteen hours in the shop. The time could be
shortened, if all the establishments of the kind would unite and make
regulations to that effect; but it could not be done by one or two
stores on account of the competition in the business. Such a store would
lose its patronage. The majority of girls board with the bakers'
families, on account of rising early to be in store. Summer is the
poorest season on Broadway, as most of their customers are out of the
city at that season; but in localities where the working classes are
supplied, the summer is the best season, as most of them do not go to
the expense of making up a fire to bake their bread and pastry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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