Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-07-03
Efficiency of Miners
Depends Upon Having
Families With Then

The women of coal miners families
their employment status, employment
opportunities, and home and commun-
ity environment are the subject of
report just issued by the Women's
Bureau of the L. 5. Department. oi
Labor.
The facts revealed in TINS report
which is an analysis OF data collected
by the L. S. Coal Commission, rails
the question: Are the coai-miuiug
companies, coai-mining communities,
and the Nation as i whole returning
value received to these half miiaen
women who. occupy i position Of peca-
| liar industrial and economic lupor-
lance in d basic industry OF the Unit
Ell States? Since c0al-mlning Is 81
necessity carried on in many instances
in isolated localities, the presence ol
| the family Is essential Ter keeping the
mine workers in these regions and the
help of the wives whether guintJlly
employed or not means greater ell
cheney on the part OF the miners them
selves.
Both bituminous and anthracite
fields are covered by the report b
cuse of the location Of the mines, the
miners wives and daughters who are
forced to become wage-earners-moi e
than 100000 of them--are faced IN
many cases with extremely limited
opportunities of employment. Three
foufths of the bituminous-mine WORK
ers and less than a third of those In
the anthracite section lived in places
sufficiently remote from towns ana
cities to cut Off gainful occupation IN
many of the avenues open TO women.
Consequently much larger proper
ton of women in the anthracite region
than in the btuminous regions were
gainfully employed
The majority of employed daughter
in the anthracite section were IN man
ufacturing establishments - chiefly
silk and other textile mills--ana ~
trade. In the bituminous regions
which offer less extensive and Varled
opportunities for work, the empieFea
daughters still living at home worked
chiefly as sales-girIs and domestic
servants, a few finding employment as
school-teacheTs and operators IN small
factories.
Married women, because Of conha-
ing home and family duties, are natuI-
allv more limited than are the dauga-
tiers in regard to opportunities len
gainful occupation, even though the
need be very urgent. or the bread
winning wives Of miners. the over
whelming majority were supplement
inc the family income chiefly by tax
ing mine-woIkers as b3afdefs Ct
lodgers-an employment Of import
ance to the coal-mIning indu ,fy.
Day work outside the home tauael
ing and eleaning) was only a seeoHa-
AIRY opportunity Of employment Iai
women with home cares.
While facilities available 10 miners
wives should be Of such a type a. lo|
enable them to carry on the Work ~
their households as efficiently a. pos
.ible. the inve tigation revealed anu
emphasized that with the exception 81
lighting facilities which were fairly
good. this was generally speaking nat
only not the case, but that the nome
and community resources II both COM
nanv-owned and independent mining
towns were too often far below what
might be termed American Standard.
Especially conspicuous vas the lack
of ADEQUATE water facilities. over
eighty thousand DWELLING In aIl corr
munities were covered in the invezi-
gation. OF these little more than eFs-
fiftb had running water, about ) per
cent had a bathtub CT shower, ana