Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1890-02-18
PASTE-BRUSH Adopts.
The Box-Making Girls Of New
York and Their Work.
An nl-Paid Business in which Many
Thousands of Women Are Engaged
PastebOard, Gilt, spangles, Old
Gowns and Pretty Faces.

Yearly and during all seasons some hun
dreds Of men and many thousands of girls
are employed in the paper box. factories of
New York. Working women in this trade,
says the New York Star, are not as well
paid as those engaged in the more delicate
work of making artificial flowers, embroid-
cry and the like, nor as those in the more
laborious trades. The boxmaker's work
calls for less skill than the former, and less
Of both strength and skill than some of the
latter. Most branches of box-malking can
he learned in few weeks. The materials
are light and the tools simple. The result
is that wages are sometimes as low as 81 a
week, and seldom above IS or SO. The
women are employed at piece work The
men, whose wages are better, work by the
week. Men and b VS. run the machines and
prepare the material for the finishing
touches given by the girls.
On entering box factory one is bewil-
dered by a multitude of shapes and colors.
There are boxes, big and little, in cylinders,
in fiat tray-like forms, in long, narrow
blocks, and in a dozen other shapes to be
only indicated by learned geometrical terms.
Gay colored papers in reams, in strips, in
ribbons and in confused clippings, lie about
everywhere. Great machines at one end of
the room are cutting the ugly cheap straw
board into suitable shapes. The prepared
pasteboard, with notched edges and long,
straight cuts, where it is TO be turned up for
fitting, is laid in a great heap on table be-
fore a boy or man who stands on guard be-
fore great glue pot.
The heap is quickly arranged, so that one
edge of each piece of pasteboard is slightly
exposed, and with broad thick brush the
workman literally beglues all the edges at
few strokes. Other pieces are deftly fixed
to the glued edges, the pile is brought to an
even edge, turned over and pounded with
the mallet at the newly glued JOINTS. The
opposite edges are then glued, and finally,
piece by piece, the pasteboard is stood on
edge and brought round so as to form the
sides of box. A pinch where the glued
edges meet makes all fast, and the box,
without bottom or lid, is passed to one of
the girls.
The girl stands by her table and rapidly
smears a cardboard with glue. Upon this
glued space she lays half dozen long mar
row ribbons of paper. Selling the box she
claps on the pasteboard bottom and secures
1t by adeft and sure application of the paper
ribbon. She makes no pause for measure
ments, but tears off her ribbon when it is
too long and pieces it out when it is too
short. Thumb and forefnger fit the rib
bon with unerring accuracy. AS each box
is bottomed it is laid aside to dry, and it is
interesting to see how rapidly the pile
grows under the girls flying fingers Her
pay, however, is only small fraction of q
cent for each box.
Lids are fashioned much in the same way
The lid reaches the worker with edges
turned up, and her work is to apply the rib
bons of paper that add strength and orna
ment. The lid is rested upon a rounc
wooden post twelve or fifteen inches in di
ameter. This stands on the table. 1t is {
simple matter to turn the lid as it rests OF
the post and apply the ribuon Of paper to the
four sides. Hundreds of lids can be com
pleted IN a day. When nd ana potion ar
finished the box must be labeled, so as t,
indicate the article it is to contain. Thi
work is rapidly done by some of the youngel
girls.
Boxes OF this kind are turned out by thu
million and are sold at from one to five
dollars per hundred. Costlier boxes are
edged with gilt paper and covered with fig
ured material. Costlier still are the bon
bon boxes. Gay photographic pictures arc
imported by the thousand from Paris to or
nament such boxes. They are lined with
delicate paper end edged with an imitation
of lace. The foundation material of these
pretty cabinets for sweets is plain brown
pasteboard. 1t is an instructive lesson il
the s rilzing results of simple devices to sec
one of these bare, ugly pasteboard trays
grow under girls nimble fingers into tht
dainty receptacle that shall make sweet
meets doubly valuable. Bon-bon boxes
sometimes wholesale at twenty-five dollars
hundred, and wages for this work arc
somewhat higher than in other branches o:
the trade.
One accustomed to the sight Of the work
ing girls of New York at their daily tot
will note the absence of gay apparel among
the workers of the factories. Glue is al
enemy of pretty gowns, and the girls either
come to the factories in their Oldest garments
or exchange their street dress for soilet
working clothes on reaching the scene o.
their labor. Glue, however, does not injurC
face or figure and in the box factories, al
IN others, most of the girls are ruddy anC
clear eyed, while fair proportion can lay
good claim TO beauty.
THE TAI KATINE MINO