Women Wage-Earners: Their Past, Their Present, and Their FutureCampbell, Helen
History
Women Wage-Earners: Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future
Campbell, Helen
Women -- Employment -- United States
"Homes" of every order have been established in Boston and in other
large towns in the State; and as they give board at the lowest rate,
they are filled with girls. They are rigid as to rules and regulations,
and not in favor, as a rule, with the majority. A very slight relaxing
of lines and more effort to make them cheerful would result in bringing
many who now remain outside; but in any case they can reach but a small
proportion.
In unskilled labor there is little difference among the workers. All
alike are half starved, half clothed, overworked to a frightful degree;
the report specifying numbers whose day's work runs from fourteen to
sixteen hours, and with neither time to learn some better method of
earning a living, nor hope enough to spur them on in any new path. This
class is found chiefly among sewing-women on cheap clothing, bags, etc.;
and there is no present means of reaching them or altering the
conditions which surround them.
Connecticut factories are subject to the same general laws as those
governing like work in Maine and Massachusetts. Over thirty thousand
women and girls are engaged in factory work, and ten thousand
children,--chiefly girls, women being twenty-five per cent of all
employed in factories. Legislation has lessened or abolished altogether
some of the worst features of this life, and there are special mills
which have won the highest reputation for just dealing and care of every
interest of their employees. But the same reasons that affect general
conditions for all workers exist here also, and produce the same
results, not only in factory labor, but in all other industries open to
women. The fact that there are no large cities, and thus little
overcrowding in tenements, and that there is home life for a large
proportion of the workers, tells in their favor. Factory boarding-houses
fairly well kept abound; but the average wage, $6.50, is a trifle lower
than that of Massachusetts, and implies more difficulty in making ends
meet. Many of the worst abuses in child labor arose in Connecticut, and
the reports for both 1885 and 1886 state that for both women and
children much remains to be done. Clothing here, as elsewhere, is
synonymous with overwork and underpay, the wage being below subsistence
point; and want of training is often found to be a portion of the reason
for these conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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