Evening star., 1915-12-24
WOMAN SHOE WORKERS
ARE ON THE INCREASE
Rank Next to Textile Operatives in
the Industries Of
Massachusetts,.
Earn Good Pay and Stand High in
Social scale Of Wage
Farmers.

Woman employees are greatly increas.
ing in number in the shoe industry
Of MASSACHUSETTS,, according to a report
on 'shoemaking as q trade for women,
issued today by the Department OF
Labor. The Importance Of the boot
and shoe industry Of Massachusetts.
says tho report. is indicated by the
fact that in 1911 1t employed an aver
age number of $4,000 workers. or near
ly half the number in the industry in
tho entire country. OF this number
35 per cent, or nearly $4,000, were
women and girls a greater number
than is employed at any other factory
trade except the textile Industries.
The majority of woman workers were
employed in the stitching room, q
smaller number in the packing room.
while in every room table work is done
by women and minors. outside Of these
occupations men performed all Of the
operations in the factory. Massachu-
setts women have not yet entered the
cutting rooms, except at skivfnS. The
packing room work, formerly done by
men. is now almost completely in the
found in the lasting room at assem-
bling machines and doing eye1etting
and buttonhole making.
High Wages In Industry.
AS compared with other Massachu-
setts Industries, the boot and shoe in
dustry pays nearly the highest an
nual las we'll as the highest weekly
wage. When adult women alone are
considered, the average weekly wage
Is about so cents higher than that
paid in the next highest, the electrica!
I'D .rStr In a
maximum employment. more than 40
per cent of the women In the boot
and shoe industry earned $40 and over,
a proportion nearly twice that shown
for any other industry:
Some indication of the instability OF
the working force among woman shoe
workers is given by the fact that the
number of women employed IN the
week of maximum employment Is only
81 per cent Of the total number en-
ployed during the year. as shown by
the pay rolls.
An attempt to ascertain the proper
ton of woman workers who were
steadily employed showed that in
twelvej factories 80 per cent of the
women worked forty-sfx weeks or more
during the year. the proportion reach
ing SO per cent in a Beverly factory
and s5 per cent in one Marlboro fac
tory.
or the women who worked forty-six
weeks OF more, Ill dOultp cApcIichSCu
and steady workers. three-ffths earned
less than $500 year, and not far from
one-half earned only $3.50 or less. Un-
questfonabiy, however, these earnings
exceed those of any other large body of
factory workers, says the report.
High Type Of Workers.
The women of the shoe factories.
wherever they are centered," says the
report, in summing up, "show charac-
teristics which mark no other large in
dustrial class so distinctively. What
ever may be their status as earners or
their social position in their communi-
ties. that status and position are af-
fected by no age-long heritage of ig-
norance or grinding toll, by no limita-
tions of opportunity or restrictions
placed upon freedom of choice in local
ity or occupation. The great stream
Of immigration from central and south
ern Europe (though for years flowing
inward from the port of Boston) has
as yet little affected the character of
the shoe oe-working women, and the nom
native additions to their numbers have
been, on the whole, in race and tradi-
tion, kindred to the New England stock.
In their ability and intelligence, in
their relatively high earnings, in the
permanence of their relation to the
communities of which they form q part,
in the uniformity of their social ideals
and training, the Massachusetts, shoe
worker is the best that the twentieth
century has produced of her type"