Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-05-21
466,0DO MARRIED
WOMEN IN TRADES
Speaker Cites Number in
Manufactures, Discussing
Industrial Problems.

The fact that 466, 900 married wom-
en- in 1920 were employed in manu-
| featuring and mechanical industries
alone shows that when I'VE discuss
married women in industry, we are
tackling a subject which is profound
1 ly important to both the social and
the industrial organization of the
country" declared Miss Mary N. Win
slow of the womens bureau, Depart
ment of Labor in an address before
/ a group meeting Of the National Con-
ference of Social Work in the Mount
Vernon NJ. E. Church today.
, With two million married women
working for money and with no ade-
quate body of facts on which to base
policies regarding the employment OF
such women, social workers also are
| confronted with problem demanding
| immediate analysis, added Miss Win
slow.
| Miss Viola I. Paradise. formerly
] with the Children's Bureau here, was
! the other speaker at the group meet
bureau presided.
| Speaks of the "GainfulIy Employed"
During the past ten years. said
| Miss Winslow, the number Of gain
! fully employed married women has
| increased at q far greater rate than
! the number of all women gainfully
! employed. Continuing, Miss Wins
I'VE have many expressions of
| prejudices or OF convictions that
married women should Or should not
ardent feminist who thinks that all
| women should work for wages, that
| the married woman is a slave if she
| cannot go out into industry and be
a wage Garner as her husband is.
posed to the idea of married
woman leaving her home and chill
| dren to look out for themselves
| while she goes out TO work.
I'VE have not yet adequate facts
/ on which to base policies regarding
[ the employment of such women. I'VE
I know that married women when Sthey
| do earn. often make only a small
wage, which amounts as a rule to
| less than one-third of the total fam
| lily income. We know that most mar
ried women use every cent that they
earn to help out with family ex-
penses. We know that the very
large majority of married women in
industry have to do Homework.
cooking and washing, in addition to
their work in industry. But we have
no adequate figures to show the re-
suit of the employment of married
FAINT mortality, on children's health
and education, on family standa rds
We need to apply real case work
m ethods to the solution of those
questions. Combining. the results of
such case work with the general
basic data which government bodies
like the bureau of the census and
the woman's bureau and chilhren's
bureau of the Department of Labor
are constantly assembling, we may
rny III n fn h.
ton above the prejudices and old
wives tales which now surround it,
and to see that a constructive policy
is outlined for the treatment Of this
large and vitality important group
of women"
"Industry and the Home"
Miss Paradise in her address under
Home" deplored the fact that after
fifty years Of social work all our
labors and statistics have not as yet
secured for us even so obvious and
elementary protection as a federal
child labor law
1.-THE census shows that there are
1,060.S58 child laborers in the United
States, but, unfortunately, quoting a
figure seems to satisfy the nation, for
we do nothing about it," continued
what lies behind a millionth part of
that figure would require nearly a
whole novel.
TT takes something hair-raising,
shudderful, to stir our sluggishness
What is more terrible than the slow,
grinding torture of poverty, the
crushing of the spirit of childhood
by child labor, Of which the figure
1,060,85S is the coeff1cient? But that
is just a statistic No one says: why,
look here, what about this national
superstition that the home and the
family are sacred in American
students wrestle with statistics,
social workers with their patches of
poverty, supreme courts with tech
nicalities. Our great American
wealth flows swiftly along, by the
millions of dollars. But the nation Is
blind hearted. Who is trying to tap
our great wealth of energy? Whose
fullness has given US feats of engi-
neering, and created so much of what
America 10 proud-commerce and
luxuries and high standards of living
for the few? Who is trying to tap
enough of this energy to do some
thing about the low standards of liy-
ing and hunger and dearth and
squalor and emptiness which stalk a
dark. ever present shadow to what
We imagine Is our wealth? Must the
task be left to the colossal patience
of the social worker, willing to keep
on laboring, moving millimeter by
millimeter toward an uncertain mill
iennium, out somewhere beyond the
horizon?"