Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1925-01-23
FIFTY YEARS women
IN PRINTING CRAFTS

tHelr right 70 engage IN the printing
craft, says a bulletin issued from the
Office Of James NJ. Lynch, president
q the International Typographical
Union here.
"The struggle was long one, ex-
asperatins IA both proponents and
opponents Of Awomen's rights within
tie typographical unien, but women
eventually were granted full men,
barship privileges in the craft organ
ization and today several hundreds of
ITEM are earning good wages in
American newspaper composing
rooms and in commercial printing
shops,1 the statement continues.
Apprehension felt by many schoI-
andy printers in the last century lest
women might preempt man's place
l. TIE craft failed 20 materialize.
Male printers ere vastly il majority
ard undoubtedly will continue to be
Is the craft appears to be essentially
q mans game.
'sIn day when industrial condi-
tons were very different than those
81 today. BENJAMIN FranhIin's two
nieces, daughters Of James Franklin,
learned to set type. That was before
1735. Other women members Of
early day editorial families also
worked at the craft, no doubt, but it
was not until century later that the
Typographical Society Of Philadel-
phia learned to its surprise and indig-
nation that a master printer was con-
templating teaching girls the printing
business. Nothing came Of the plan.
The bugaboo of women compet-
itors continued TO agitate early print
eFs' organizations, however, and in
1854 Charles F. Town, New York
man, exhorted the National Typo
graphical Union, in convention at
Buffalo, N. Y, to have regard for the
morals Of the nations womanhood
and to protect '1adies. from printing
ONCE contamination. Mr.. Town as
serted, among other things. that much
type must be set in the interests Of
science and medicine which young
ladies should not be permitted to
peruse."
The delegates assembled considered
the question too warm q one for their
handling and left it to local unions.
In the same year Horace Greeley,
famous editor Of the New York Trib-
une and one-time president Of New
York Typographical Union Nc. 8, be-
came q champion Of women's rights.
*"Your fears that women viii sup
plant you, or seriously reduce your
wages, Messrs. Gbmpesitors re neith-
er wise or manly Gfeely wrote in The
Tribune. The girls who marry and
have families to look after win stop
setting type never doubt that--sn-
less they are SO luckless as to get
drunken, Ioafing, good-for-nothing
husbands, who will do nothing to keep
the pot boiling, and then thsv must
work and you ought not to be mean
enough to stop them, or drive them
back to making shirts or binding
shoes at thre or four shillings a day.
'"If you find yourselves troubled
with too strong q competition from
female workers just prove yourselves
worthy to be their husbands; marry
them, provide good homes and earn
the means Of living comfortably, and
wen warrant them never to annoy
you thereafter by insisting on spend
ing their days at the printing Office
setting type.
'"But waxing theologic and pious,
you tell as Of the sphere Of action
God designed women to occupy-of
her purity and of the immortality and
vice she must inevitably sink into,
should she be admitted into the COM
posing room to set type beside you.
/ We feel the force Of these sugges-
tions-we admit the badness of the
company into which unregulated type
setting would sometimes throw her
but did it never occur to you that
this is her lookout rather than yours.
'"The celebrated printer-editor con-
cluded the editorial with the observa-
ton that women never could become
the equals Of men as typesetters but
that they could become proficient at
simple work and should be permitted
to do. The proficiency of some mod
ern women as linotype operators has
belied the prediction Of the 1854 sage.
"Miss Susan B. Anthony, female
suffrage leader, entered the contro-
versy in 1868 and through the coli
umns of The Revolution, a suffrage
paper, lambasted those journeymen
printers who opposed entrance Of
wenen to the trade. Attempts were
made to organize women's printers
unions and in 1869 the international
Typographical Union Of North Amer
lea granted recognition to such q
union Of New York women. Salts
factory settlement Of the women
compositors troubles was not reached
until the early eighties when they
hgan to affiliate with the mems
Unions as regular members and to re-
ceive the same wages as other COM
posifors, after completion Of appren-
ticeship requirements"
NASH MOTOR PROFITS LARGE
NEW YORK, Jan. 22s-Fhe Nash
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