The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-01-06

o'clock every evening, passengers in
yariably glance UP in curiosity at the
great blocks of lighted factory win
dews which suddenly loom up out OF
the night Those are the munition
factories" some well-traveled person
remarks, as one after another the
great buildings slip by.
Behind those lighted windows men
and women are working all night long
making cartridges to be shipped
4 abroad by the Remington Arms I'm
i ion Metallic Cartridge Company, and
] half a mile away, in a still larger fac
tory adjoining the first and under the
same management, thousands more
! are fashioning rifles fer' the battle
fields Of Europe.
New workers; recruited in part from
nearbv towns, from industrial cities in
/ New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from
Canadian farms, but mainly from the
city of Bridgeport itself, many of
| them unframed and inexperienced in
this occupation, have gathered in the
great munition factories to share in
! the war work md in the war prosper
L fty. BY the summer of 1916 nearly
/ 1000 women and many more men,
! were employed.
To find out what war orders mean
to working girls in this country, the
/ Testimony of the girls themselves was
sought by representatives of the Rus
| sell Sage Foundation who went to
| Bridgeport last summer, The girls
who were interviewed were employed
III the largest munitions plant in
! bridgeport at the very center of the
, Munitions industry in Connecticut.
| 1She workers were chosen not because
Tie conditions in this factory were be-
Neved to be worse or better than those
4f similar establishments elsewhere,
but because the facts were significant
by reason Of the Importance of this
center in the munitions industry.
! Exactly one hundred of the women
were living with their own families,
/, and in these cases, they added infor-
mat about the family income and
the family expenditures, particularly
the item of rent. They also gave the
essential facts, about forty-six other
women in their families who were en-
Il ployed in the munitions industry.
Eighteen other women interviewed
were away from home, boarding or
living in furnished rooms, so that spe-
! cific Information was obtained for one
hundred and sixty-four workers in ALL
Alert and ambitious, interested and
willing to talk of their work and it's
advantages and handicaps, they were
prepossessing representatives Of AM
erican working women. Among
them were natives of ten foreign
countries, but the large majority were
girls born in the United States, 5edu-
Gated in American schools, and set
tied in Bridgeport before the war
boom. They represented all the inn
portant tasks for women in the in
dustry. Many of them had worked i'm
this occupation for years, nearly half
five years or longer. About one
fourth were past thirty years old; on
~ one in twenty was less than eight
cen. The majority, however, were
! not yet twenty-four. Compared with
some other manufacturing industries,
the proportion Of single women was
smaller than usual, for 80 per cent
Were single, and as large a proportion
as 20 per cent married or widowed
A sudden boom has never made q
utopia out of modern Industrial city.
Prosperity and expansion inevitably.
bring their pressing dilemmas High
wages have been offered by munition
4 factories in order to obtain a sufficient
labor supply The consequences of
good pay are seldom questioned, es-
pecially by the. people who receive lit;
but in the case Of the women munition
workers of Bridgeport three serious
issues have come up along with the
rates Of wages.
In the first place, in order to salts
fy the urgent need of speed and
large output from the factories, wo-
men have been. induced to work long
hours and at night. Second, they are
put to work near or with explosives
in ways which sometimes mean acct
dent, Industrial poisoning or other in
ness In the third place, the high
price of labor has been paraI1eled by
an exceptionally high cost of living,
and the increase in the number Of la
borers attracted by the high wages
has caused phenomenal rise in rents.
So the question is, docs the boom
pay?" What standards should the
community enforce to protect itself
not only from hard tinnes but from
ernergent prosperity-from the anti
social results Of abnormal1y rapid ex-
pansion in an Industry.
Night Work.
Night work was conspicuous fact
in the neighborhood of the big
Bridgeport cartridge factories last
summer, when the. field work of this
investigation was in process. About.
seven in the evening crowd of men
>and children began to line up outside
the factory fence, carrying packages
OF food. Many of them were the
husbands and children of the women,
who worked on, the earliest OF the
night shifts in the factory, from three
in the afternoon until eleven at night
In the fifteen minutes rest period
which came at seven o'clock they hur-
ried down to the fence to get their
lunches. Again, an hour before mid
night, the women came out Of the
factory with the crowds Of men, and
their places were taken by others who
worked until seven o'clock in the
morning. The day workers began at
seven o'clock and stopped at three. In
this way the twenty-four hours were
divided into three eight-hour shifts
In some of the departments which op-
Grated on different schedule women
stayed all night long, working from
half-past six at night until five in the
morning. A scant fifteen minute meal
period was allowed on each of the
eight-hour shifts, while only half an
hour was given on the $3.50 p. m/ to s
a. m. shift A small bonus was usual