Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study.
General
Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study.
Printing industry -- Great Britain; Women -- Employment -- Great Britain; Women printers -- Great Britain; Working class women -- Great Britain
A third branch of the trade is "vellum-binding," a name which covers the
binding of all ledgers, account books, and bank books, whether bound in
vellum or no. The workers engaged in this branch form a separate group,
are rarely found on the premises of regular bookbinders, and work
chiefly in a separate department in printing houses. The employments of
women in vellum-binding are much the same as in publishers' binding;
they fold and sew much in the usual manner, the only marked difference
arising in the case of large day-books, etc., which are elaborately
hand-sewn in frames, each section of the book having a separate guard of
linen.
It is difficult to draw lines of demarcation between the various workers
whose occupations have now been described. In large workplaces a worker
will probably be kept at one minute process; the folder will do nothing
but fold, the sewer will only sew, the collator only collate, and the
inserter only insert. Some forewomen, however, think it better to give
the women a change of employment. Gold layers-on and openers-up are
always entirely apart from folders and sewers, but collators begin with
folding and sewing, and in small houses sometimes combine one or both
these processes with collating.
The divisions of work between men and women are not made upon any
discernible principle of fitness, and except in the case of folding and
sewing, which have belonged to women from time immemorial, the various
processes began in the hands of men and have been gradually taken up by
women. This gradual encroachment has been generally resented and often
resisted by the men, and in May, 1893, an elaborate agreement was drawn
up by the Bookbinding Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce
representing the masters, and the secretaries of the men's unions
representing the men working in the trade. The women workers were not
represented or consulted. The agreement is as follows:--
LONDON SOCIETIES OF JOURNEYMEN BOOKBINDERS.
_London Consolidated Society; Bookbinders' and Machine Rulers'
Consolidated Union, London Branch; Society of Day-working
Bookbinders._
That this meeting of representatives of the Bookbinding Section of
the London Chamber of Commerce, with representatives of the
Journeymen Bookbinders' Trade Societies, deeming it desirable that
a definition of bookbinding should be agreed upon for the
delimitation of work to be paid for at recognised rates, hereby
agrees that the following divisions or sub-divisions of labour be
for the future recognised as the work of bookbinders or
apprentices, taking the book from the time of leaving the women
after sewing, except wrappering, which is unaffected by this
agreement:--
Forwarding, and the following sub-divisions of bookbinding:
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