The Oregon daily journal., May 31, 1908, Page 25, Image 25

PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY , MORNING, MAY ; 31, 1903
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Will Shop-Work Make Our Feminine
Types Like. Those of Russia?
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RJS tfr brutalizing our women f. 'Are squat, flat-chested, broad-backed, low-brow-ft
they being made more masculine ed creatures, working in the fields side by
nur side with the men. the burdens of wifehood
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woiw conditions impose upon so many of and motherhood coming but as an incident
themt "' " - r - ' - PftheJay: of. tdtU ; . '.. , .. , ; . .: .... :;. 'A :.. .
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conamons in trie vnucusewfcs tare w- . ,ft.'V-w- V
proved the working wome of the country cry is in the past of att crvilitid conn-
will rftrograde, mentally and phystcally,tn. tries. A iurther Interference in the field of
fb the class of the peasant women of Russia,. tne so-called freedom of contract cannoi.be1
Prof essor Edward A. Ross, of the' Univer- considered bold.- The.law can tell a girl just ..
sity of Wisconsin recently said: ; , how many hours of her time she may sell.'
:'Unless some one takes an interest in If women must, toil for daily bread, in .
working women, the truly feminine girl, the other words, should not .femininity, as we
one of frailty vanddelicacy, will pass from value it, be guarded against the1 debasing
cur working classes. (There will be a re- influences of toil f .Else what may bur age
version to the ' type of mascuUne women
A COORDDTG to statistics. Professor Boss
f . asserts that one-third of the women of '
yV the country between the ages-of 15 .
, and 25 are engaged in industrial oc
cupations. v.. 1 -- . 'r-,
1 ' Figures of the last census report showed the
number of women engaged in a few occupations
to be : Tobacco and cigar factories, 37,125 ;
I earns tresses, 138,724; shirt, . collar . and cuff
makers, 27,788; tailoresses, 61,571; textile mills,
231,458; laundresses, 328.C35. These were, all
upward of the age of 16. ,
According to the. annual report' of the fac
tory inspectors there were employed in the state
of New York, in food, liquor and tobacco estab
lishments, 29,745 over the age of 16 and 019 be
low that age; in textile work, 49465 over and
2756 under 16; in clothing, millinery and laun
dry work, 118,311 over and 2329 under 16. :
And before the thousands of toiling women
stands the ' specter of the woman ' of Russia,
dull, hardened, coarsened, a sister of the ox, a
creature from .whom God's image seems well
nigh blotted out. ,
- Are we brutalizing our women t Within the
last year economists have sounded the warning;
improvement leagues have been formed with
4the express purpose of bettering the conditions
of working women. .
Meanwhile the tide of disease is rising
among the workers, .their vitality is depleted,
their morals deteriorated, their children are
, puny, sickly, deformed. , ; " " "
Disease, ' functional disorders, tuberculosis '
these terrors daily loom before thousands of
Women compelled to work for their living. vk
, SUFFERINGS OF TOILERS '
Through the, long, , weary day their heads
ache, at night they cannot sleep; their eyes burn
with the pain of a -steady gaze uf on a brilliant
needle darting in the loom; or. their shoulders '
throb painfully from stooping over steaming
tubs ox, dirty garments or sewing clothing; or
their lungs are filled by noxious fumes. .
A countless army: of these women each
- morning march to their daily tasks', and each -evening
return, their doom more pronounced on !;
the faded, peaked faces, and . indicated bythe
hacking coughs and pains. Many also work
during the night, and in the- sweatshop "rooms
oi me Dig ciues iney ou ior zacre pittances.
the coarse-faced,; horny-handed women of "the
peasantry;:-hardened,, although fairly ' healthy ;
stupid, but with iron muscles and strong limbs.'
Surely wo - would' not, like our women of the
future to resemble these.
What, from a scientific standpoint,, are the
dangers that confront, the ..working, women of
our land t . ;
Dr. 'A. lacobi,' of New' York city, who has
done considerable - work among poor - working
women, states the case of one who came 'to him v
for advice; she looked to be 68, but was no -more
than 45. v...
ALWAYS. TIRED AND SLEEPY
Her story was commonplace; she was mar
ried, cared for a husband, a workman, and five
children; did the cooking, scrubbing, washing,
mending, and although aha was always tired
and sleepy, was unable to rest or sleep. - "No
law in the land could reach this woman's case',!
declared the doctor, "and there are 100,000
women in New York of the same kind. .
"Hundreds of women work in stores,' laun
dries, hotels;' work at irregular hours and be
yond endurance. I know of but one prescrip
tion: It is a different configuration of society,
with less individualism, more solidarity and a
greater sense of responsibility on the part of "
society and the state.
"Many practitioners of medicine in large
cities daily come into contact with young wom
en who work at tobacco '. trades," Dr. Jacob!
states, "Most of these patients " are anemic,
sallow, thin, underweight. .They: re poorly,
paid; poorly nourished, early risers- they begin
work without appetite. (
"Almost every one suffers from catarrh of
the . throat and catarrh of the bronchial tubes,
and the inhalation of tobacco dust, which re
sults . often in solidification and pigmentation '
of the lungs. Their circulation is incompetent
to keep off the influence of the changes between
the warm and overheated, or ill-ventilated shop :
and the' open air. : .' ' ---:-'r'stt
; "Colds are .common. ' Bright's diseaso is -becoming
morsr common. J The stomach "and di
gestion suffer., All these causes co-operate" to '
affect the nervous system. Depression 1 and
hysteria ' are the results. Tuberculosis of the i
lungs is very frequent among these young work
ers-, woo are carriea on in great numbers be-
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tion. In such rooms women sit -!ay and night -sewing
garments, wasting Jheir lives and fritter
ing away their vitality because of the dire need
of -bread. '-.&. vi-?,';v,::j- I;--' a:,
Annie S. Daniel, of tho New York Infirmary ,
for Women and Children, who has 'made a study, ,
of the home labor of women : in -New ..York, de-
clares that "many of the garmentsrworn by wo-'
men are being manufactured in these tenement
rooms. -In them garments from ; the coarsest .
home wrapper to the daintiest .lace gown for a
"v fine evening function are made. :i '? i -i ;
' ' "In addition to wearing apparel, the women
make boxes, cigars, pocketbooks; jewelry, clocks,
watches, wigs, fur . garments, paper bags and!
anything possibly made by hand or on small
machinery. Frequently' such working women! ,
take no more than five hours rest out of the '
twenty-four. ,'At 5 o'clock in the morning the
work begins, after a breakfast of bread anol
coffee; for lour or six hours the workers toil
unceasingly, bending over the garments . , oc -boxes,
strainingr their eyes in the dark they are
too poor to "burn gas or oil and after the even
ing repast they often begin sprain and work -until
1 or 2 in the znorningt Their pay aver-,
ages from 1 to 10 cents an hour. A girl of 13.
can earn as much doing various kinds of work .
, aa a grown woman."
Of 515 families Miss Daniel visitftl In New .
York she discovered that 824 were supported,
entirely or in part, by women. Of this number. - -160
women were engaged in manufacturing inr
their Jiving rooms, and of the 174 remaining; '
the women worked in factories, laundries, oa
took lodgers and boarders. , - .
Women of seventeen families, after com
pleting their work by day in factories, mada
' artificial flowers at night. The average income :
. of the 615 families was $5.69 a week. -'. -
RESTRICTIONS REQUIRED
"If women must add to the income of the
- family," said Miss DanieL "they should do it in .
buildings built for this purpose ; children, at
.'. least under 8 years of,' age, should not be em-
' ployed; -men andw6menrin the last stages of 7
' tuberculosis could, not work because of inability
to go to a factory., Children, the future Ameri- .
p: cans, would stand a better chance of becoming
useful citizens.", , -. , -
1 Coming to America with bright hopes, with -
gleaming eyes and the conviction' in their
' hearts of, enjoying prosperity "and peace, many t
t ' foreign ; women find themselves z dumped into
steaming courts and fetid alleys,'. And to make
ends meet, they . find, themselves compelled to
. labor, night and day, and the land which was
golden in their dreams becomes their curse, the
land of sordidness and misery..' And these wo
men become the mothers and grandmothers of
future citizens and future mothers,1 so that any
debasing influence exerted on their lives debases
their progeny. . ' 1 : . ' ' ? ; A . V s -:' -vy :' v v; C
In the poorest Italian homes tho industry of
rag-picking, with all its objectionable features,
is carried on. In the single rooms great heaps
of soiled, dirty-rags are gathered; they are torn
, into strips and sewed together end rolled into
balls. Working thirteen or fifteen hours a day,
the wizen-faced Italian woman may earn from
6 to 15 cents.' - ' i . , ' . . , 7.yrfj-,
Compare such conditions with those that '
exist among. the peasantry of BuBsia condi-,
tions which should warn us, acciding to the:
western economist and imagine the dire wage;
. the nation will be compelled to pay in, the!
future. t - ;
, Armies of women and girls marcK eacH
morning to the mills of the country women !
and girls who begin such careers rosy-faced,!
, bright-eyed, merry. There, during the long !
day, they watch the needles, mo-ring . with in-
credible rapidity, until their eyes burn. They;
Jbjjjngm jfe
their children wailing about them weak chil- . tween Ihe fifteenth mnA twnfffk -.
dren, who will grow, perhaps, to be fathers and i ' There are more than 37,000 women working
mothers of IB inept; weakly wrperverted Tice7-rrat''these-. tasks- in? this country, f
In the fields of .Eussia visitors have seen ; Another occupation peculiarly blasting to
women, is 'work in laundries. I Government sta
tistics give the number of women thus employed
as 328,935. ; Of this number 11444 are white,
of whom more , than 69,000 are native born. ,
. In this trade new machinery is being con
stantly adopted. A feature in even the small
laundries is ; the calender machine, which con
sists of - huge steam or gas-heated : cylinders,
varying from fur to nine feet in length. .These
revolve slowly, Mid the wet linen is drawn in
under the hot rollers.: Clouds of steam arise as
each new : article is fed" into the "machine.
Thomas Oliver; an expert on trades,. writes ; V "
- "The heat given off by these machines is
sometimes very great ; a temperature of over; 90
V -7:v:-
degrees Fahrenheit may v
be registered, ... even in
. winter, on the feeding '
' step in front of the ma- - 1
; chine, at i which little
. girls stand all day."
According to statist
tics gathered from groups of laundresses, .every
onejn seven workers suffers from ulcers of the
" legs, compared : with -one in twenty-eeven of
! women in other trades. . These wpmen are also
k subjected to phthisis, bronchitis and rheuma-
tism.- : ' .5"--'. ':4 ' ."V i-"-
t In New York city there are 300,000 rooms
' without windows- or. adequate means of ventila-
lift off bobbins of woolen vveigLiro' tea r u
apiece, and in one day one woman mny 1.: t
pounds. There is great heat in mui c t;
mills; and heavy, dlstigreeablo cdorj irl 1 fr.,
. damp wooL x , ,
This labor may con tL.ua dry afu r i. f
years. In many mills thero ero no r--t r .
r CONTIXVEl ON ISZlVi; rA"::j