The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-01-20

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/ there can be no real hope OF effecting
any vital Improvement in their morals
/ What these workers need is better food
and plenty of it, regular wages, shorter
hours of labor, more amusements and
! FecTsa tiOns-in short, more humane
I treatment
/ Wherever the rewards Of industry are
/ greatest competition IS fiercest- In large
cities no wCman's place or stipend IS
safe or fixed. each individual being but
another atom fiattened by liYelier pro
! tCplaSm-" New York City is such a
/ center. In the vicinities of Pennsyl-
! Vania and Ohio wages for work on
clothing and underwear come often
/ perilously near starvation point. IN
/ Quaker villages and Bohemian and
/ Polish colonies. partly maintained
I homewOrkers make a dozen garments
for the price due needy seanstresses
/ for one. Mems shirts at 10 and 81 cents
a dozen; mems drawers at "a cents a
dozen, thread, machine rent and ex-
pTessage deducted, these rates Oft
times become the highest wages that
can be obtained by Self-SuppOrting Ia
Dor excluded from factories because Of
invalid or infant dependents. At the
south, new occupations, any occuDa-
tiQns, indeed, for women are a boon
Nowhere else in the world do SO many
3
Of male providers labor at manual
callings as at the south, pursuing with
out l0ei5 of caste YOCatiOns which else
/ where involve social ostracism- The
home labor supply being unlimited, cot
ton, coal and iron being cheap. and
the cost Of living being leSsened by a
mild climate, industries grow sPace. In
Chicago and the northwest natives with
difficulty hold the best places against
the higher class immigrants who are
the backbone of the nortirwest's Won
derful development. While wages are
better than in the east, living is dearer.
Numbers of virtuOus bTead-winlers,
! however, contribute regularly 10 the
family support, work under just and
lsbera1 employment, while living in good
homes. But the same class that suffers
in the east suffers more in the western
cities from the sharper, unWoTn wheels
Of the new industrial juggernaut. Chi
cago has municipal regulations en-
forced by Inspectors of both sexes Yet
here, as in New York, are 10 be found
conditions Characteristic of life in all
large cities-tenement and sWeatshOp
denominations, high rents and importu-
nate rivalry.
Still another side of eur subject must
be touched upOn-namely, that of the
pin money workers. Everywhere manu-
facturers and merchants advertise for
women workers who live at home, to
learn the business device, as stu
dents Of economics claim, to fill the
firms Golfers by inKeigling artisans and
small ShOp-keepers into giving their
daughters board, that the daughters
may engage for wages which VIII bare
IL ciGthe them. An investigation made
in Massachusetts recently of seam
stresses working in their own homes
on cotton underwear shows that, under
the present state law requiring a Ii
cenSe tor such workers, which is given
only to those whose homes are clean,
the amount of work so distributed has
been greatly reduced. The wages, how
ever, remain pitifully small, and the
pin money worker aids in lowering
wages by her willingness to accept a
pittance. Many cases are found where
women working at home are paying the
rent as their share of work. As a gen
eral RUE, it is very difficult for a WOm-
an 70 SUPPORT herself ertirely at home
work.
1t is a wide subiect-that of women
workers in the home Like many an
other problem confronting us in the
clCsiDg DAYS Of this century, the SuTeSt
means TO the best ends have not yet
been reached. Here. there and every
where women obliged to work at home
because CT Invalid or children depend
entss are seeking and not finding suf-
ficient employment Women's eX-
changes are giving substantial aid la
Dor unions, college settlements and con-
sumeFs' leagues are studying to meet
the needs Of workers, both men and
women, training schools fOT servants
are bringing household service into bet
ter repute, legislatures are investigat-
ing the evils of the sweating system,
and the miseries Of the submerged
tenth" But much remains 80 be done.
Trade and housekeeping schools should
be established to make dependent WOm-
en- eelf-suppOTting, while, a step fur
Their back, manual training should be
introduced in public schools to develop
faculty and create power. Domestic ger
vice should be dignifed and made mere
attractive by abrOgaTing the false dis
tinctioA between salesWomen and cooks
or maids by raising cooking and house
hold work into a trade ST. profession.
Again, the wonlen Of leisure Should in
terest themselves to know the real con
dition of the toilers of their sex, and
should use their social position to in
hUence public sentiment in behalf Of
reforms, or TO shape remedial legisla-
ton. It is through such measures, by
such influence that
Slow and sure comes up the golden