Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-10-21
VANISHING Of Wash Day.

| was not so much of a specialist Is she
| is now, deserted the mixing bowl for
| the tub, and the family ate cold meat
| for dinner or thes "wash-lady" came
| in by the day, and the children stood
at a distance watching her elbow deep
| in foaming suds, laughing and Cos
siping with the cook as she washed
all the morning and ironed all the af-
| ternoon 1t wasn't so very long ago
| that our grandmothers were doing
their own washing, and il was Louisa
Alcott who wrote in glorification of
| her experience along this line:
Queen of my tub | rub and scrub.
But now the Monday Afternoon Club
| meets and the. day in many homes is
free from that pungent aroma of
Ilaundry soap which used inevitably to
accompany it.
The fact is that in laundry work as
in most other kinds of domestic labor
the task is being transferred from the
| home to machine equipped factories in
a recent study made of the employ
ment of women in power laundries IN
Milwaukee by Marie l.. Obenauer for
the Federal Department of Lablr'
some interesting facts We're disclosed
concerning working conditions ana
physical demands of the various laan-
dry occupations. Milwaukee was cho-
sen as the place 10 make this study,
because it is considered representative
of the industry as whole, IN Whlch
50. 900 workers, mostly women, are
employed The laundry business is
distributed through the whole country
in places of all sizes, and the patrons
are individuals, private families, res
taurants, and hotels which do not
maintain their own laandries. MIL
waukee has thirty-one power laun-
dries, and shows the whole range OF
modern laundry equipment.
4 total of $40 persons, of whom soZ,
ar about SO per cent, are women, are
employed in the Milwaukee laundries.
Nearly three-fourths of these women
are either Polish or German, the per
cent of American women being very
small. while the following natlonah-
lies are also represented: french,
English. Scotch, Bohemians, Ruman-
ians. Slavonians, Syrians, Austro-
Hungarians, Greeks, Italians, He
brews. Norwegians, Swedes, Welsh
and Dutch.
Many Things They Do.
u,hese women were chiefly engaged
in marking soiled clothes, IN silahihs
and strengthening out fiat work Tor
the ironers in operating has
ironers- in receiving and folding
ironed linen from the machlhes' III
starching and dampenng, In machine
and hand ironing. and III assembling
the Numbered articles for deilVery.
IL, sf1h
The conditions under when 'nes
work are hard. First, there Is .ne
ouestion of drainage and Ventiia.ioIi III
tho wa shrooms because of the volume
of water and steam. Twenty-seVeh OF
tho thirtv-one laundries had cement
floors but the other four had hoefs
of wood. which were unsanitafy.
Another problem is that of heat ana
.,,vn;a;tV and in nineteen of the lauh-
-. +rsro was no exhaust system
- raa,,ee heat or humidity in the
.,.oshrooyps In the starching ana
t,o,;,o rooms the exposure to heat Is
even greater, the temperature so,it
fines reaching 50 degrees, even "a'ei'
tho ont door temperature was moaei
ota and the women who do TINS "oth
orc obliged to stand all day IN most
of the laundries. It'd
ronta zion or infection from sollea
clothing is a constant source Oh oah-
Ger. and this chiefly concerns the W.
men who do the sorting.
Careless use of chemicals, accloeh.s
a,o to the fact that the machinery Is
;nsufficiently guarded, and excessive
fatigne caused by exacting foo1-trea-
Az machines are other sources OF
danoer to which laundry workers are
exnosed. Women take these risks ioi
az aY,a,ape wage of s65S week.
None except those at the head OF de-
nartments earn more thah so'-'
week, and some received only hNe
dollars. o,
In looking over taple Oh "oii'e,'
tabulated in regard to age, manu-
wa shers' were found among the mum
bAr There We're nine OF them, any
they were the Oldest women eihpioSeo
in the industry. Working on the aN
erase of 80 hours a day, they receiNeu
S-15 week. There is something pa
thatic in these facts which even the
columns of statistics cannot niue.
cocial workers give SO as the lowest
NO 90 ON which a girl can support ner-
lie dacentlv in New York, While Dos
ION investigators place the inquire al
ss these women working IN the
milwaukee, laundries at the age VI
forty are earning less than either is
nre. and when they get httie oiaei
are thrown out of employment because
If ,nfitness They are already 700 GU
annarentlv. to be trusted to WORK at
| the machines -,
- Danger From Machinery
The situation of the younger VIZ
| ,,on 10 NOT much better. Danger from
| m-euarded eontrivances is beng oeai'
with under accident and compehsa-
ton laws, but injury from excessive :
strain in operating heaVy-fuiin III.
machinery is still prevalent ~
"boav ironer" for ironing the pooS %
garments. as its name implies IS 'he
ss,achine most conspicuous for i's OPP
Grating demands. Most OF these ma
hines require slow but continuous
treading motion. with the strain o "a
ono set of muscles, which tenus ~
n,o,se the worker one-sided' Inc
| port saws: ,v, FIR doubt
| ,+har cnch machines Snouii