Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1906-01-13

a GIRL CLEANING A MACHINE WAS CAUGHT
BY HER LOOSE HAIR.
competitive life has called women into
almost every vocation, hazardous work
lis no longer given to men alone, says
the Detroit Tribune
Of the 1880 girls who work for a
living in Detroit by far the largest per
centage are employed in factories, and
In many of these factories there are de
partments where women and girls are
in danger of accident. Side by side
with men in pin and can factories, in
button works and stamping plants,
girls from sixteen to twenty work on
machines whose huge belts and revolv-
ing rollers operate presses and dies
that fall with a pressure Of from hun
edreds to thousands of pounds. While
serious accidents in these factories are
not often reported, accidents involving
the loss Of fingers are not infrequent.
There is, however, always the danger
for women who work around machin-
cry of getting the hair or loose clothing
caught in a wheel OF roller.
But there are other dangers besides
those resulting from machinery. In
the match factories, where women are
employed exclusively to do certain
work, there is always danger of phos-
phorus poisoning, and within the past
year several serious cases have devel-
eOped. In the great laboratories of the
acity, where more than thousand girls
are employed, great precautions have
ito be taken by those who work over
the fumes of poisonous drugs. Win
dow cleaners have yet another hazard
GUS occupation, and, while window
cleaning is done largely by men, there
are still buildings where women perch
at dizzy heights of sixty or seventy
feet above the sidewalks as they clean
the windows in the sixth and seventh
stories. Nursing is a profession given
over almost entirely to women, and for
1hoSe who work in the contagious
wards the dangers are such that many
men would not care to face. Even the
2,61S girls who work in DetrOit'S to-
bacco factories are risking their health
in way little appreciated by the thou
sands of cigar consumers, for many of
them are exposing themselves to the
dangers of nicotine poisoning. Nor are
the telephone operators immune from
danger, for in spite of the elaborate
precautions taken by the company to
guard their employees there have been
ecases where accidents have resulted to
sgirls at switch boards.
1t is impossible for many reasons to
obtain the number of accidents to wo-
men who work among machinery, but
ut is q notable fact that 81 per cent of
the accidents occurred in places where
the machinery was not properly guard
ed This would go to prove that, with
all the care taken by employers, wom-
zen who work around machinery are
far from safe and that only by close
attention to their work is the number
of accidents kept down.
In the tin can and button factories
between 800 and 400 girls operate
heavy machines that are hazardous at
least to the hands and fingers. Where
"a girl each day has to feed thousands
of pieces of tin into a swiftly running
machine accidents are only avoided by
reason Of the carefulness with which
the skilled operators work At the rate
of sixty and seventy-five per minute
square pieces of tin are passed under
the heavy dies to be cut into the de-
sired shapes. In the tin can factories,