New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-02-08
NEEDLE AND THREAD
AID JOBLESS GIRLS
Women Who Seek Work
for Unemployed Sisters
Forced to Use StOpgap.
APPALLED, AT NUMBER
WHO AREN'T WORKING
Scores Started at Sewing Until
Other Means of Livelihood
Are Found for Them.

In an upper room in the building occu-
pied 10y the Womens Trade Union
League at No 43 East 22d street one
will find Young women making sheets
and pillow cases and towels by hani-and
glad 20 get the work-who snort time
ago were earning good salaries as stenoe-
raphcrs and secretaries and saleswomen
There are former factory hands there
too. and domestic servants.
All kinds OF women workers have
sought the aid OF the employment bureau
opened on Friday at this address by the
committee Of women just organized to
find Jobs for the jobless Of their own sex.
eve ORGANIZED" Mrs. Walter L. Weyl.
the secretary. said YESTERDAY because
we realize how much harder II is for the
woman out OF work than for the man out
Of work. Men will so to the municipal
lodging houses. they will stand in the
bread lines Women don't do these things.
I'VE opened the bureau, and we are al
most appalled, by the number OF women
who come 10 us-wOmen who don't want
charity: women who walk miles 10 ask us
TO find them work. who come I'm so eX-
hausted that. although our object is not
to give relief. we simply have 10 feed
them.
THE difficulty of finding situations is
such that TO meet the instant need, we
have opened this sewing room in a room
lent TO us by the Womens Trade Union
League There we can give women work
that at least will keep them. We shall
give away the product or distribute ii in
such ways that we shan't come into com
petition with established manufacturers
OF such things"
, The committee had conference yester-
day morning. and decided to issue an APP
peal for funds to maintain the sewing
room and 10 find places for women. Mrs.
Peter Cooper Hewitt presided and among
those who signed the appeal were Mrs. J.
Sergeant Cram. Miss Mary f. Dreier'
Mrs Amos Pinchot, Mrs Egerton l..
Winthrop. Mrs. Helen Hart Jenkins, Mrs.
Willard Straight. Mrs Weyl, Miss Lillian
Valid Mrs Walter Maynard and Miss
Anne Rhodes.
Mrs. Cram will have charge Of the
fund. and contributions may he sent 10
her at No. 8 East 3sth street. No matter
how small the sum. II Will be welcome,
say the members of the committee; and
they will be glad also TO receive sugges-
tons or offers of employment.
I'VE haven't many statistics" Mrs.
Weyl said after the conference, but we
know that the number Of unemployed is
much greater than it was at this time
last year OF kimono workers IS per
cent are out Of work. The startling thing
5 to find so many skilled workers, stenog-
.raphers and the like-wOmen who have
had steady employment for a good while
i-out of il now.
There is one pretty, attractive girl
sewing with us now who has tried and
tried TO find a place. She was employed
in an Office at a good salary. but the firm
had 10 retrench, and they had TO let her
go That is the story Of many: and they
have used up their small savings looking
'or other jobs Women come to US and
say. = can hold out for five days L can
live on what / have another week And
after that-what?
zone woman who came 10 us speaks
seven languages. There is no lack of
ability among the women who ask for
work. but the difficulty is TO find places
for them. We have placed some stenog-
raphers and workers in various trades
II is almost impossible to find positions
for retail clerks. Instead, the stores are
laying off girls.
Not a few who come to us are un-
trained for any special thing. But almost
any woman can do plain sewing and
that IS why we hit on the sewing circle
as an immediate plan for helping at least
few"
When Mrs. Weyl was asked what an
swor she would give the people who want
to know why these unemployed women
don't 20 into domestic service she smiled
little
Why, the domestic service market Is