Wichita eagle., 1889-04-05
9ai1Y - as1e
WOMEN WHO WORK.
a Picture Of Their Industrial and
Social Conditions.
Tho Results OF the Labors of Two Women
Who Have interviewed Seventeen
Thousand Fema.s Workers in the
Chief Cities of This Country.

annual report OF the Commissioner Of La
Dor, which is devoted entirely to the condi-
90 ton of working women in the United
States. The compilation of the statistics
and information embodied in the volume
says the New York Sun, are due to the en-
deavor of two young women, working with
slight assistance from one man, under the
direction Of Mr.. Carroll D. Wright, Com
missioner of Labor, and with the purpose
of presenting an authentic picture Of the
industrial condition of working women of
the day, to furnish valuable addition to
the history OF the times which should be
absolutely true, and to gather data for its
scientific bearing upon social problems.
when MIR. Wright was in charge Of the Blu
reau OF Statistics he conceived the idea of
making report of the working women OF
Boston with respect to their home as well
as shop conditions, and to this end he had
1,OOO representative working women, not
including the semi-professional women, in
tervlewed personally. At his appointment
as Commissioner of Labor by President Ar
thur he determined to extend his investiga-
tons to other cities, and accordingly all
the representative cities from New En-
gland to the Mississippi river, and as far
south as New Orleans, as well as the
large cities On the Pacific coast, where
working-wouen are congregated in large
numbers, have been visited and the condi-
ton of their working people very thorough
ly looked into and accurately reported. The
gathering of this information required the
greatest tact and sagaclty, for working
women are, as a rule, extremely reserved,
too proud TO confess their actual needs and
deprivations, suspicious of interviewers,
and antagonistic to any thing that suggests
oh flh int IF II of
promising themselves, and sometimes in
Inundated by employers and superintend-
ents. In spite Of al this, between 1900
and $4,000 women have been interviewed
and visited not only in the shops but at
their homes, and the bulk of the work has
been accomplished by the two women to
whom it was relegated.
They have together visited Boston, Brook
Ign, Buffalo, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago,
st. Paul, and ST. Louis, Louisville, Cincin-
matt, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans,
Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, New York
Indianapolis and Richmond, remaining from
three weeks to five months IN each city, &C
cordlng to the number Of the working
women and the difficulty in obtaining the
desired information. They would 20 into
strange city alone, pick up such information
as they could concerning its industries by
consultation Of the census and questioning
the people they met, and then proceed to
Interview the employers, and if possible to
gain adulitJance to the work-rooms. This
was frequently denied them, and the ad-
dresses of the women also refused. They
would quietly visit another establish
snent. and, sooner or later, We're sure
TO find some one who had worked
IN the factory or shop to which they
had been refused aGmittance, and who
could tell them its condition, as well as the
addresses of some Of its employees. Ere
guently, too, they found the employees and
employers arrayed against each other in
most hostile relations, and TO gather the de-
sired information from both sides required
infinite tact and diplomacy The days were
Shus devoted to the collecting of informa-
ton, inc evenings to making out the written
reports of the same, and Sundays were
spenU in visiting the working people at their
homes. Sometimes in interviewing trade
they would visit every house in d street, for
operatives in the same branch of labor are
inclined to group themselves IN the same
neighborhood. Their interviews consisted
in learning the nativity, age, conjugal rela-
tlons, age at which work was begun, effect
of work upon health, wages and hours, work
previously done, if differing from that en-
gagged in at the time, from every woman
they visited From nine to ten per cent of
employees in shop or factory were visited.
When once the working women became sat
:sfied that their inquiries came with kindly
rather than charitable or reformatory mo-
tIves, they talked freely and intelligently
on the subject and allowed the figures to be
copied from their little pass books in which
I was the actual amount of wages they re-
ceived after all fines and other expenses de-
manded by the employers had been sub
tracted. Employers frequently allowed
their pay-rolls TO be copied, and from the
two accounts the correct average will be
made.
One of these remarkably bright aud in
teresting young women, who is from the
South and requests that her name be with
held, says as result of her two years in
yestigation:
"While find many serious evils in the
working -womans condition, | also find
brighter side than is popularity believed to
exist. Women work under a great disad-
vantage from want of proper training. The
less desirable portions of the work are
signed to them, and an infinite number Of
influences besides the rapacity of employers
affect their wages. immigration, while it
, tends to build up the country, reduces the
yate of labor very materially. The unfort-
Anate conditions under which women
work and amid which they live are often
owing to the n'1dnness of landlords in re-
fusing to make needed repairs or build san
Fary tenement houses. But | also find
working women on a much higher plane
than they We're Ten or fifteen years ago, and
many of them attained Independence by
their unaided labor. Where there were
formerly but % occupations open 10 women,
there are now about 400 in which money
may be earned. l find that many of them
go to work at fourteen, live VOL, dress
well, and sometimes save. Families in
which there are many daughters live very
nicely off the aggregate income, very often.
especially among foreigners, owning the
houses in which they live. They invest
their savings III a variety of ways in differ
ent places. In St Paul they buy lots and
speculate in real estate; in Indianapolis
they invest in the building and loan asso-
citation, and III Boston put their funds in tue
savings banks AS regards their moral con-
nition, it compares very favorably with that
of women in other walks of life, and consid-
ering their exposure and temptations. I
should call ii better. They are heroic
hand, constantly exhibiting evidence of
brave endurance, unparalleled devotion
and patient self-sacrifice, and the only diff
guilty with them is that they do not know
their own value and can not lay aside per-
sonal considerations for the sake Of the wei
fare OF The Masses
Tns bead Brought To life.
Prof Poe, Of Bridgeport, Conn, has IN
vented an artificial pair of lungs which he
uses in restoring life in cases of drowning