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
Last on the list of State reports comes an admirable one from Michigan,
prepared by Labor Commissioner Henry A. Robinson, issued in February,
1892, which devotes nearly two hundred pages to women wage-earners, and
gives careful statistics of 137 different trades and 378 occupations.
Personal visits were made to 13,436 women and girls living in the most
important manufacturing towns and cities of the State; and the blanks,
which were prepared in the light of the experience gained by the work of
other bureaus, contained 129 questions, classified as follows: social,
28; industrial, 12; hours of labor, 14; economic, 54; sanitary, 21; and
seven other questions as to dress, societies, church attendance, with
remarks and suggestions by the women workers. The result is a very
minute knowledge of general conditions, the series of tables given being
admirably prepared. In those on the hours of labor it is found that
domestic service exacts the greatest number of hours; one class
returning fourteen hours as the rule. In this lies a hint of the
increasing objection to domestic service,--longer hours and less
freedom being the chief counts against it. The final summary gives the
average wage for the State as $4.86; the highest weekly average for
women workers employed as teachers or in public positions being $10.78.
The remarks and suggestions of the women themselves are extraordinarily
helpful. Outside the cities organization among them is unknown; but it
is found that those trades which are organized furnish the best paid and
most intelligent class of girls, who conceived at once the benefits of a
labor bureau, and answered fully and promptly. The hours of work in all
industries ranged from nine to ten, and the wage paid was found to be a
little more than fifty per cent less than that of men engaged in the
same work. A large proportion supported relatives, and general
conditions as to living were of much the same order of comfort and
discomfort as those given in other reports. The fact that this report is
the latest on this subject, and more minute in detail than has before
been possible, makes it invaluable to the student of social conditions;
and it is entertaining reading, even for the average reader.
We come now to the final report, in some ways a summary of all,--that
of the United States Labor Department at Washington, and the work for
1889.
In the twenty-two cities investigated by the agents of this bureau, the
average age at which girls began work was found to be 15 years and 4
months. Charleston, S.C., gives the highest average, it being there 18
years and 7 months, and Newark, N.J., the lowest,--14 years and 7
months. The average period in which all had been engaged in their
present occupations is shown to be 4 years and 9 months; while of the
total number interviewed, 9,540 were engaged in their first attempt to
earn a living.
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