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
of most of the girls is light. It is to put letters or figures on the
articles sent, and when dyed, fold and tie them up, and place the
numbers on. In the dye house where she was, one girl received $3.50--the
others, each, $3 per week. They worked ten hours a day. One girl was
employed in finishing the goods--that is, running them over a heated
cylinder to smooth and dry them. She says the floors of dye houses are
so wet that women would find it not only filthy, but injurious. Mr. Y.
says women are not employed in the mechanical department of his dye and
print establishment--that the business requires the workers to stand in
liquids, and the atmosphere is very damp. A woman would be liable to
suffer from exposure of that kind. A girl employed at another place to
mark goods, told me she received $3 per week. Was told at C.'s dye house
that he employs four girls, paying $3, and $3.50 a week. They put
numbers on goods, and do other work of that kind. They work ten hours. A
cotton goods bleacher and dyer told me the work was too wet and dirty
for women. Most of the winding of cotton for dyeing is done by
machinery. By steam power one person could do ten times as much as by a
wheel. At one place they paid thirty-five cents for basting together two
pieces of cloth eight yards long to be bleached; and a woman could earn
from seventy-five cents to $3 per day; but the work could not last long.
We called at a dyer and bleacher's. He said: "Very few women are
employed in dyeing in this country, but in the old country they are. He
has seen them at it in Scotland, and there it is rather better paid than
most women's work. They are also employed in bleaching, both by
chemicals and exposure to the sun. It is not unhealthy, although in a
dye house a person must be wet from the knees down. By wearing thick
boots, and leggings of India rubber, they would not be likely to suffer.
Occasionally, dyers get some of the chemicals they use into sores on
their hands and feet, which may injure them some, but not seriously. He
says the work must be done in a certain time, and so they cannot be
particular about keeping their feet dry. He pays old women for hanking
cotton 37½ cents a score, and so they may earn $2.25 a week." There are
mechanical modes of printing textile fabrics. In the Staten Island Dye
and Print Works, "there are a good many women and children employed. The
latter are principally confined to the printing department, each of the
sixty printers engaged there being allowed a child for the purpose of
adjusting or distributing the color evenly, previous to the application
of the block. The rate of wages paid in this establishment is, we
understand, as follows: the printers and block makers are paid by the
piece, and when in full work can earn from $60 to $70 a month; the dyers
and other workmen receive from 37½ cents to $1.25 a day; the women $6 to
$12 a month, and the children from $6 to $8." A dyer writes: "Women are
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