The pages which follow were prepared originally as a prize monograph for the American Economic Association, receiving an award from it in 1891. The restriction of the subject to a fixed number of words hampered the treatment, and it was thought best to enlarge many points which in the allotted space could have hardly more than mention. Acting on this wish, the monograph has been nearly doubled in size, but still must be counted only an imperfect summary, since facts in these lines are in most cases very nearly unobtainable, and, aside from the few reports of Labor Bureaus, there are as yet almost no sources of full information. But as there is no existing manual of reference on this topic, the student of social questions will accept this attempt to meet the need, till more facts enable a fuller and better presentation of the difficult subject. NEW YORK, _August, 1893._ CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER I. A LOOK BACKWARD 25 II. EMPLOYMENTS FOR WOMEN DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACTORY 57 III. EARLY ASPECTS OF FACTORY LABOR FOR WOMEN 77 IV. RISE AND GROWTH OF TRADES UP TO THE PRESENT TIME 95 V. LABOR BUREAUS AND THEIR WORK IN RELATION TO WOMEN 111 VI. PRESENT WAGE-RATES IN THE UNITED STATES 126 VII. GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR ENGLISH WORKERS 142 VIII. GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR CONTINENTAL WORKERS 161 IX. GENERAL CONDITIONS AMONG WAGE-EARNING WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES 188 X. GENERAL CONDITIONS IN THE WESTERN STATES 199 XI. SPECIFIC EVILS AND ABUSES IN FACTORY LIFE AND IN GENERAL TRADES 212 XII. REMEDIES AND SUGGESTIONS 249 APPENDIX. FACTORY INSPECTION LAW 275 AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN PREPARING THIS BOOK 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WOMAN'S LABOR AND OF THE WOMAN QUESTION 294 INDEX 305 WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS; THEIR PAST, THEIR PRESENT, AND THEIR FUTURE. INTRODUCTION The one great question that to-day agitates the whole civilized world is an economic question. It is not the production but the distribution of wealth; in other words, the wages question,--the wages of men and women. Nowhere do we find any suggestion that capital and the landlord do not receive a _quid pro quo_. Instead, the whole labor world cries out that the capitalist and the landlord are enslaving the rest of the world, and absorbing the lion's share of the joint production.