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
Some learners receive $2, and some $2.50 per week. Quickness, neatness,
and skill are required. Summer and fall are the busy seasons. The
females are mostly young Irish, born in the United States. Women are
superior in handiness, inferior in strength." A gentleman in the
business writes from Newburyport: "I employ usually from eight to ten
women. I pay eight cents per hour, and they work from four to seven
hours. The men's work is worth more than women's, and entirely different
from it. The prospect for this kind of work is good. There is no work in
winter or early spring. Seaports are the best localities for the
business. My women pay from $1.50 to $1.75 for respectable board."
=156. Sugar Makers.= When the part of the sugar cane to be pressed, is
cut, it is tied in bundles and drawn to the mill in wagons. It is
deposited in heaps outside, and negro girls carry the bundles on their
heads to the mill door. After the cane has been subjected to pressure by
cylinders, to obtain the juice, it falls through an opening in the mill
walls, and is carried off by negro women and spread in the sun, to dry
for fuel. The work in sugar mills is very warm and heavy. The work in
sugar refineries is very laborious, and requires the workers to be
subjected to great heat. Several refiners have informed me that the
business does not admit of the employment of women in any department.
The business is said to be very trying on the constitution, and produces
an unhealthy increase of flesh. It is said to be good for consumptives
on account of the great nutriment in sugar. A sugar refiner died not
long ago, whose salary received from the company amounted, I was told,
to $25,000 per annum. I have thought there is one part of the work a
woman might do--it is enveloping the sugar in paper cases. At a sugar
refinery a man told us, some women are employed to make bags for
containing char, _i. e._, burnt bones, and earn several dollars a week.
The sewing is done by hand; making the bags requires but a short time,
though it is heavy work. Most refiners buy theirs at bag factories, or
have their men to make them.
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