The employment of women in the clothing trade

Preface

All that the following study attempts is to give a description of the actual conditions under which women are working in a certain limited field of activity. My purpose has been to reveal special economic and social facts and relations, not to establish or defend any particular methods of regulation.

Purely technical trade matters have as far as possible been avoided, but where they have been introduced it has seemed advisable to adopt the rule of employing invariably the terms used by those engaged in the industry itself. This is the only justification for the use of such expressions as “pants,” “ edge-baster,” “overalls-operator,” and the like.

The following description is based chiefly upon my personal investigations and records made during the last four years. In many cases, however, these investigations would have been impossible but for assistance most kindly given. I am indebted to Mr. John R. Commons for the privilege of reading all the evidence collected by him in the preparation of a report on the clothing industry for the Industrial Commission ; to Mr. Abram Bisno, a special agent of the Industrial Commission, for much help in visiting shops and factories; and to Mr. Edward T. Devine, General Secretary of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, for access to maps and records of that society. My greatest obligation is to Mr. Henry White, General Secretary of *69] 3

PREFACE the United Garment Workers of America, without whose aid the collection of the facts presented concerning women’s unions would have been impossible. For the generous co-operation of numerous trade-union officials, and for the considerate attention received from factory superintendents and clothing manufacturers, all of whom it is impossible to name here, I wish also to acknowledge my indebtedness.

Chapter I Women In Industry ?ac2

The industrial employment of women in England— The Gild System— The Domestic System — The Factory System — The early history of the industrial employment of women in the United States— The distribution by States of women employed in manufactures— The distribution of women by industries ... . . n

Chapter II

The distribution of the manufacture of men's ready-made clothing in the United States — Early history of the clothing trade in New York City — The Transition Shops — The Task System —

The Factory System — The manufacture of coats, pants, and vests — The use of power machines— The contractor 31

Chapter III Women In The Clothing Industry

The participation of women and children in the ready-made clothing trade— Clothing shops and factories in New York City — The division of labor along sex lines, in work on coats, vests, and pants — Conclusions concerning the general employment of women in the ready-made clothing industry in New York City. 53

CHAPTER IV WOMEN IN THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY (i Continued)

Hours of work— Wages— Time required to learn the trade— Relative wages of men and women — The industrial position of the German women— The Jewish girls in the shops— The Italian working-girls 73

Chapter V The Italian Finishers In Their Homes

PAGE

The distribution by blocks of tenement-house work in the clothing trade in New York City — The nationality and education of the home finishers — Age, conjugal condition, number of children, and size of families — The character of the homes . . . . 94

Chapter VI Work, Wages, And Expenses Of The Home Finishers

Method of obtaining work — Hours of work — Character of the work — Wages — Difficulty in obtaining wages due — The family income— The living expenses — The amount of charitable aid received— The Italian Mutual Benevolent Societies . * . . 106

Chapter VII The Factory System In The Overalls Trade

The development of the factory system in the manufacture of overalls— The distribution of the industry in New York State— The division of labor between the sexes — Personal characteristics of the women employed — The factories — Hours of work and regularity of employment — Wages — Time required to learn the trade —Life of the women outside the factory — Relation between wages and living expenses . . ..... 134

Chapter VIII Labor Legislation In New York State

The classes of work-places regulated by law — Legal provisions concerning the employment of women and children in factories — Laws regulating tenement-house manufacture — The present administration of the “license” clauses — The results of this policy — The methods employed to enforce the law . . . 149

Chapter IX

Early organizations among the workers on men’s ready-made clothing— Composition of the United Garment Workers of America— The participation of women in the affairs of the

PAGE national body, and their relation to the general policy of the union — Their share in its financial burdens and benefits — The establishment of women’s local unions — The general characteristics and history of the local unions — The conditions under which unions are most successfully maintained . 165

Chapter X

Therpossibility of improved conditions for women workers through a spontaneous increase in the size of shops or the number of factories, through a more rigid interpretation of the laws, and through trade unions 197

ERRATUM.

On Map A, between pages 26 and 27, it is stated that the conditions there noted existed in 1890. This is an error; it should have read 1900. The error was discovered too late for correction elsewhere.

MAPS, TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

PAGE

Map A. Proportion of the Total Female Population of the Different States Found among the Women Wage-Earners Employed in Manufactures in 1900 . 26

Table A. Women Wage-Earners Employed in the Manufacturing Industries in 1890 and in 1900, by States .... 28

Diagram A. Number of Women in 1890 in the Fifteen Manufacturing Industries Employing the Largest Number of Women . 30

Table B. Number of People Working on Men’s Clothing, Factory Product, in the Six Leading States in 1900 . . . 32

Map B. Number of People Working on Men’s Clothing, Factory Product, in 1900, by States . . 32

Table C. Relative Size of Clothing Establishments Employing Foot Power and Mechanical Power . . . 47

Table D. Employment of Women and Children in the Manufacture of Men’s Clothing, Factory Product . . *53

Table E. Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Coats . 57

Table F. Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Pants . 59

Table G. Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Vests . 61

Table II. Employment of Women in an “Inside” Coat Factory. 62

Table I. Wages of Women Employed in the Manufacture of

Men's Clothing, Factory Product . . 78

Map C. Distribution of Home Work on Men’s Clothing in the Borough of Manhattan, New York City, by Blocks . . 94

Map D. Distribution of Home Work on Men’s Clothing in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City, by Blocks . 95

Table J. Italian PIome-Finishers in New York City . . 101

Table K. Wages of Home-Finishers Working on Pants . . 114

IO

MAPS, TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

PAGE

Table L. Cases of Attempted Withholding of Wages . . 118

Table M. Wages of Women in the Overalls Trade . . 143

Table N. Prosecutions for Failure to Comply with the License Provisions of the New York State Labor Law . . 163

Table O. Composition aud Length of Life of the Women's Local Unions of the United Garment Workers of America .... 179

Table P. Organization of the Women's Local Unions of the United Garment Workers of America . . . 188

Chapter I

The industrial employment of women is no new thing. Under the primitive conditions of savage life women have borne and still bear the major part of the industrial burden. Only the accumulation and diffusion of wealth attendant upon a high civilization can make possible the creation of such a leisure class as is found to-day, probably to a greater extent than ever before, among the women of the middleand higher ranks of society. Yet it is under these modern conditions that there has arisen a peculiar interest in the problems connected with the industrial activity of women. Since the close of the eighteenth century, when the improvements in machinery made it possible for women and children to do much of the work formerly restricted to men, the share of the former in industrial life has received constantly increasing attention. During the first part of the succeeding century public feeling in England was actively aroused by the disclosure of the frightful conditions prevalent among the factory children. But it was not until the discussion of Mr. Sadler’s bill for limiting the hours of labor of children and young persons in 1832 that we find any intimation of the recognition of special evils attendant upon the employment of women in factories, and of the distinct problems which women’s labor under modern industrial conditions involves. Since that time, however, the subject of the employment of women has proved a 175] 11 fruitful one for special governmental investigations. So much attention has in fact been given to the relation of women to the factory system that there is danger of underestimating their activity during the preceding periods when other industrial systems prevailed.

There has been no critical study of the industrial position of women in England under the gild system, but there are many interesting and suggestive references to them and to their work, both in the laws of the time and in the gild regulations. According to Lucy Toulmin Smith, “ scarcely five out of the five hundred [gilds] were not formed equally of men and women.” 1 The charter of the Draper’s Company admitted women with full rights, including those of taking apprentices and making ordinances for better government.2 We find in the Guildhall records that “the office of Plumber of the Bridge was granted to the widow Foster, 1595.” The Clock Makers, founded in 1632, had female apprentices sanctioned as late as 1747, while the Grocers’ Company gave social recognition to the wives of members, and permitted widows to pay brotherhood money, hold apprentices, trade, and receive all the benefits of the gild.3 A good part of the industrial provisions concerning women apply to widows, who, it is evident, frequently carried on the business after the death of their husbands. We hear for example of “Widows of London who make great trade in wool and other things, such as Isabella Bucknell and others.”4 It is not uncommon, however, to find such provisions as this: “And when a woman

1 Toulmin Smith, English Gilds, p. xxx.

s Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, British Frcewomcn. Their Historical Privilege, p. 81.

zIhid., p. 81.

4 Rolls of the Hundreds, vol. i., pp. 403-404.

coverte de baron follows any craft within the said city by herself apart, with which the husband in no way intermeddles, such woman shall be bound as a single woman as to all that concerns, her said craft.” x She can be imprisoned for debt, and has her duties and penalties as well as her privileges.

It is possible, however, to give undue weight to the industrial independence attained by a few women, and to confuse the membership of women in the gild as a result of its social functions with direct participation in its economic privileges. Women ordinarily became free of the gild not in their own right but as wives or daughters of gild members. It is not uncommon, in spite of the fact that statutes regulating apprenticeship and wages applied ordinarily to men and women alike, to find gild regulations similar to the following: ‘‘No one of the trade shall set any woman to work other than his wedded wife and daughter.”2 That the industrial efficiency of wives and daughters, however, quite generally supplemented that of the head of the family is clear. The performance of ordinary household duties by no means exhausted the range of their activity.

It is evident that under the gild system, as at thepresent time, there was a marked tendency toward the segregation of women workers in particular industries. We hear of “women, that is to say, brewers, bakers, carders, and spinners, and workers as well of wool as of linen cloth and of silk ; brawdsters and breakers of wool, and all others that do use and work all handy work,”3 being especially exempted from certain restrictions. It

1“ Liber Albus” compiled 1419, trans. by Henry T. Riley, p. 181.

2 Memorials of London and London Life in the XHIlh, XIVth and XVth Centuries. Edited by Henry Thomas Riley, pp. 217, 278 and 547.

3 Statutes at Large , 37 Edward III., c. 6.

i4

WOMEN IN THE CLOTHING TEA BE

,is clear that they were at that time practically in control of those industries. Especially in the interests of the silk (women were numerous acts passed, such as that forbidding the importation of silk by the Lombards and 'others, “ imagining to destroy the said mystery and all such virtuous occupations of women in the said realm.”1 Such extension of the range of men’s activity should not be forgotten or passed over in silence when the present field of women’s labor attracts increasing attention and 'in some quarters arouses alarm. When direct competition between men and women sprang up, the result was usually that women were retained only in the simpler parts of the work, while those in which the development of a high degree of skill was possible, or in which physical strength was an advantage, were taken over by men.

Under the domestic system of industry, which developed with the weakening of the control exercised by the gilds, the division of labor continued much the same. Women and children were still engaged in industrial life, but ordinarily in such a fashion as to supplement the work of the men. There seem to have been few cases where both sexes were engaged in the same branches of work. Defoe, in his classic description of the woolen industry in the West Riding of Yorkshire at the beginning of the eighteenth century, says : “ Though we met few People without Doors, yet within we saw the Houses full of lusty Fellows, some at the Dye-vat, some at the Loom, others dressing the cloths; the Women and Children cording or spinning; all employed, from the youngest to the oldest; scarce anything above four years old but its Hands were sufficient for its own Support.”2

1 Statutes at Large, Henry VI., c. 5.

* Daniel Defoe, A Tour ihrotigh the Whole Island of Great Britaint 4th ed., vol. iii, p. 139.

!79]

It is generally conceded that women played a greater part in industrial life under the domestic system than in the preceding period, but of the real extent and character of their work we have little information until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then the increasing introduction of machinery and the extension of the factories caused apprehensions of disaster among the home manufacturers, resulting in an agitation for the revival of the apprenticeship laws and the limitation of looms, and a parliamentary investigation was made into the relative merits of the domestic and of the factory system. The results of this appear in the Report of the Woolen Manufacture of England in 1806. The conditions here reflected may be regarded as fairly typical not only of the woolen trade, but, in a general way, of the other textile industries of that time. The description of the domestic system applies as well to a much earlier period. The report recognizes three systems under which the woolen manufacture is carried on: the domestic, the master clothier, and the factory system. The second of these, the master clothier system, is practically identical with the system under which, as will be shown later, ready-made clothing is still to some extent manufactured in New York. The master clothier was the owner of the raw material, the wool, which was made up sometimes in part in his own home, but more often in the homes of his workmen, where the whole family united in the work. This system differed from the domestic system in that the workmen had ceased to own the material upon which they and their families worked, and had become wrage-earners; from the factory system in that the workers were not massed in large establishments by the employer, but the material was given out to be made up wholly or in part in the homes of the people.

j6 WOMEN IN THE CLOTHING TRADE jjgQ

In the descriptions of both the domestic and the master clothier system, we find many instances in which the family is treated as a productive unit, as, for example, when a master asserts that he employs “three or four families.” Of the division of labor within the family, we get a fairly typical view from the following extracts: “Q. ‘Do you employ women to spin?’ A. ‘Yes.’ Q. ‘A man who has a wife may have her assistance to spin?’ A. ‘Yes; and some of them warp and web, and the children fetch the bobbins, and so on; there are a great many things a family may assist in.’ Q. ‘With respect to dyeing the wool, the buying, the putting it in, and weaving it, those things must be done by persons who have skill, but the rest may be done by the various descriptions of persons in the family?’ A. ‘Yes.’”1

“Q. ‘Has she [your wife] often rendered you assistance . . . ?’ A. ‘Yes; she was always brought up to it.’ Q. ‘ Is that a general practice in your part of the country?’ A. ‘Yes.’ Q. ‘Is it common for people’s daughters to assist them likewise?’ A. ‘In our part of the country when a man has a family, whether they be boys or girls, as soon as they get big enough they put them to it.’ Q. ‘Are the girls or women apprenticed to it?’ A. ‘That is according to whether they have got parents to look over them or not. If they have their fathers to teach them, there is no occasion of any apprenticeship. . . I do not think it is a general practice;

there are some that are, . . . and some that get into it without.’ ” 2

Spinning, however, was an occupation by no means confined to the families of weavers. It was also a com-

1 Report of the Woolen Manufacture of England , Parliamentary’ Papers, 1806, p. 6.

l8l]

mon by-employment of the wives and daughters of rural laborers, and served to increase appreciably the family earnings.

We find then that while women were actively employed in industry, it was in a supplementary fashion, in the simpler, less skilled branches, and that it was only in rare cases that they received such systematic and prolonged training as was necessary to enable them to purchase, dye, and weave wool. All of this knowledge was necessary for the domestic master manufacturer.

Under the old hand loom system there is no trace of a difference in the rate of payment of women as compared with men. The question apparently did not arise. When the women did weaving it was generally of an inferior class of work, for which they were paid at the same rate as the old men and the boys with whom they came into competition. In case the husband or father was himself the owner of the product, there was no question of definite wages. When, on the other hand, the family worked for a master, there was either no separation in wages, or the wages of the women were drawn by the husband or father. Of the position of widows there is less definite information than under the gild system. One young man describes himself as “not exactly a master clothier, but carrying on the business in my mother’s name.” 1 No record was made of the financial arrangements in this case. There is no indication of the existence of any considerable number of women with training sufficient to enable them actively to conduct the business after the death of their husbands.

It is difficult to state with exactness the effect of the introduction of machinery and the factory system upon

1 Report of the Woolen Manufacture of England , Parliamentary Papers , 1806, p. 67.

i8 the number of women in industry, since definite statistical material for the preceding period is lacking. In so far as the processes to which the new inventions of the close of the eighteenth century were applied were those that had formerly been in the hands of women, the result was probably a diminution in the actual number of women engaged. Of the two chief processes in the textile industry, spinning and weaving, the former, which had been peculiarly the occupation of women, was the first to be revolutionized by new methods. The invention of the spinning jenny and of the mule made possible the production of a fine thread at low cost. Machine spinning rapidly superseded hand-work, and the number of women employed was at least temporarily much reduced. The effect was widely felt. Where spinning had served as a by-employment, as had been the case among the rural population, the women could not follow their work to the factory, and for large numbers of them there was no other employment. In the case of those families in which all the members had been cloth workers, partial compensation for the loss in spinning was made by temporary increase in the wages of weavers. Mobile female labor that could readily be concentrated in the mill towns found employment here, but the demand for women's work even here was less than might have been expected, owing to the fact that the opportunities for utilizing the labor of children had been greatly increased. In general, the reports unite in calling attention rather to the withdrawal of work from large numbers of women, than to their extended opportunities.

On the other hand, further inventions tended to open up to women work that had previously been performed in the main by men. The factories established for the weaving of wroolen goods employed almost exclusively i]

Is. The ability of the women to perform this work power looms was not, however, the only reason for ir employment. Domestic weaving still continued, lile the girls manifested a preference for factory life, jce it freed them from the restraints of home, the boys ored the domestic loom. To them it offered an portunity for learning the trade, with the hope of j/ancement and of greater ultimate liberty. The same iuence can be seen working to-day in favor of the all shop in the clothing trade in New York, whose uggle with its rival, the factory, is but a repetition of s earlier conflict. Under such circumstances there is, art from the question of relative wages, a distinct idency toward the grouping of girls in factories, and men in small shops. As long as the domestic loom ntended against the power loom we find, however, long the mill workers, comparatively few married mien, since the mill girls on marrying weavers found at if allowance were made for the value of their ser- :es as housekeepers, they could be as profitably emayed in working at home as at the mill.1 The typical effects upon the employment of women of |e introduction of machinery into a given industry may ' said then to be two-fold. In so far as the new achine performs mechanically simple operations preen sly performed by the hand labor of women, there is j decrease in the number of women demanded by the dustry. In so far as the new machine reduces the nount of physical strength or of skill required in spefic processes, it tends to further the substitution of omen for men in that industry. The relative impor-

: Miss Clara Collet, Report on Changes in the Employment of Women d Girls in Industrial Centres , issued by Board of Trade , C. 8794, 19.

WOMEN JN THE CLOTHING TRADE tance of these two movements, the displacement of women by machinery, and the displacement of men by machinery and women, would naturally vary in different industries.

There are additional facts whose influence must be taken into account in order to realize the full effect of the modern industrial system upon the relative employment of men and women. Quite apart from the effect of machinery in reducing the amount of human labor necessary to perform a given piece of work, and even apart from the effect of division of labor, a woman factory hand accomplishes more work on the average than a woman employed at home — that is, the domestic system makes possible and probable the diffusion of work among a large body of women who are devoting only part of their time to it. Under the definite hours and systematic regulation of the factory, the same work would be accomplished by half the number of people, fully employed. There is under the factory system a concentration of work in the hands of those who can submit themselves wholly to its exigencies ; under the domestic system, a diffusion among those who are partly employed in other ways. This tendency toward concentration works, in conjunction with the displacement of female labor by mechanical, processes, to reduce still further the number of women required.

The second factor to be considered tends to counteract the effect of the displacement by machinery and the concentration of work. So far the assumption has been that the amount of product in the given industry remains stationary under the changed conditions. But this is rarely the case. The cheapening of the cost of production results normally in a lower price and an increased demand for the commodity. As the product is increased.

ture must grow larger. Whether this increase will be sufficiently great in itself to offset entirely the influences making for reduction will depend upon the elasticity of the demand for the given article. In any case the effect of this increase will of course be felt in those branches of the industry still employing men, just as it is in the women’s work, and will not affect the relative extent of their employment.

Up to this point we have considered the effects of the introduction of machinery and of the factory system into a single industry, and that an industry in which women’s labor has a share. No influence has been noted in it that tended toward the replacement of women by men ; several have been indicated, the balance between which might result either in an increase or a decrease in the number of women employed; but the reduction, when that occurred, would be compensated for by the work of machines or of children, rather than of men. If progressive methods were to be introduced into such an industry alone, there might be fair ground for the complaint that there was an increasing tendency toward the transference of the burdens of industrial life from the shoulders of those best able to bear them. But such industries do not stand alone. The inventive genius that has made possible such alterations in the conditions of labor in one industry, has been applied elsewhere with remarkable results. The vast expansion of industry characteristic of the last century has often occurred along lines with which women have had little to do. The enormous growth of the coal, iron, and steel trades are cases in point. As machinery has come to take the place of part of the work of women, and as women have found increased opportunities through mechanical inventions for entering upon pursuits formerly restricted to men, so through the further aid of mechanical inventions there have opened up new opportunities for men. There has been a leveling up all along the line. That this has occurred uniformly there is no reason to suppose. There has been pressure first at one point and then at another, and much suffering has been undergone during the process of adjustment to new conditions. But that economic expansion along the new lines would have been greatly retarded if there had been no substitution for man’s work in the old branches, we have no reason to doubt.

That the establishment of the factory system has resulted in an increase either in the number of women industrially employed, or in the share of the industrial burden borne by women, it would be difficult to prove. The factors in the problem are too complicated for an & priori judgment to carry great weight, and the absence of statistical material for the earlier period makes a full comparison impossible. It might be supposed that the fact that household cares formerly absorbed a greater part of women’s time would of itself prove conclusively that they participated less in remunerative employments. Unless we are willing to assume, however, that the amount of leisure time has not increased among the women of the laboring classes, this argument would not be decisive. The government investigations of the first half of the nineteenth century repeatedly called attention to the large number of women scattered throughout the country who suffered from the withdrawal of work. On the other hand, the concentration of women workers in factory towns made more prominent their share in industry, and the numerous instances in which their work came to supersede that of men helped to create the popular impression that their industrial importance was increasing.

Of the present tendency of women’s employment in England, the investigations of Miss Clara Collet afford an interesting study. In 1881 the women wage-earners constituted 34.05 per cent, of the females over ten years of age; in 1891, 34.42 per cent.1 As the increase is less than 4 per 1000, we may say that the proportion of women wage-earners has remained practically stationary. Miss Collet’s analysis of the English situation is extremely suggestive, and may profitably be kept in mind when the conditions in this country are under consideration. She distinguishes a twofold movement among women :

First, a tendency on the part of women of the upper middle class to engage in remunerative labor. The impression made on the popular mind by this movement has been wholly out of proportion to the comparatively small number of women affected.