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Formerly Charities Fabrication Committee PUBLISHERS FOR THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 105 EAST 226. STREET, NEW YORK RUSSELLSAGE FOUNDATION WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE BY MARY VAN KLEECK i' SECRETARY COMMITTEE ON WOMEN S WORK RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION INTRODUCTION BY HENRY R. SEAGER PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY N EW YORK SURVEY ASSC CM A T E,S , MGMXSH.. Copyright, 1913, by THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PRESS OF WM. F. FELL CO. PHILADELPHIA INTRODUCTION THE time has gone by when any large number of intelligent persons attempts to justify present conditions by urging that they are better than those of the past, or that, if we will only be patient, the "survival of the fittest," and the "elimination of the unfit," that are believed to be in progress, will make those of the future still better. However great our faith in the beneficence of the evolutionary process, we have learned that it can be both hastened in its operation and made more certain in its results by deliberate and purposeful human action. Through public sanitation and labor legislation the plane on which the struggle for existence is carried on may be raised to the advantage of all concerned. On the other hand, isolation of the insane, the feeble-minded, and other defectives may eliminate in one generation "unfit" lines of heredity which might otherwise be perpetuated indefinitely. But to accomplish the task of improving social and industrial conditions by deliberate and pur- poseful action, we must first have knowledge of the conditions to be improved. This was the thought which caused editors of Charities and the 259923 INTRODUCTION Commons to organize and carry out and the Russell Sage Foundation to supply the funds for the epoch- making Pittsburgh Survey. It was the same thought which led the Foundation later to es- tablish the Committee on Women's Work, with Miss Mary Van Kleeck as secretary. The first fruit of the patient and careful investigations which are being made by that Committee is the present volume. There are several reasons why it is advantageous to study women in industry as though they con- stituted a distinct class and their problem was a distinct problem. In the first place, the proportion of women who enter gainful employments is con- stantly growing. This gives rise to special ques- tions as to the effect of the increasing employment of girls and women on marriage and birth rates, the reaction of the employment of married women on the conditions of home life and particularly on the rearing of children, and the influence of the competition of women workers on the wages of men. We do not have similar problems for men because their gainful employment has long been an established fact to which our whole social life has become adjusted. In the second place, there can be no doubt that the condition of women wage-earners is in many respects even less satisfactory than that of men. The range of skilled occupations open to them is smaller. Those who enter gainful employments as girls of from fourteen to eighteen, vi INTRODUCTION may marry before they reach the age of twenty- five. With this possibility before them they have less incentive than boys to learn trades. The consequence of these two facts, re-enforced by the inferior strength of women, is that they are able to command wages which average only about one-half those that are paid to men. This means for most girls and women who have to be self- supporting a heart-breaking and health-destroying struggle. Underpay and its correlative overwork are the common lot. The easy escape from these hard conditions which prostitution appears to offer in a large city further differentiates her problem from' that of her working brothers. Finally, and as a consequence of these reasons, we have the putting forward of a protective pro- gram for women wage-earners which would seem to most people unnecessary, or at best premature, if proposed for men. Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has placed the stamp of its approval on this procedure by declaring that woman's "physical nature and the evil effects of overwork upon her and her future children justify legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of men," the legislative treatment of women workers is likely for many years to come to be differentiated from that applied to men. The Russell Sage Foundation thus acted wisely when it decided to create a special depart- ment on Women's Work. By so doing it has prepared itself to attack one of the worst phases of vii INTRODUCTION the labor problem the phase, at the same time, in connection with which efforts toward a solution are most certain to command public, legislative, and judicial support. The bookbinding trade was chosen first for study because it is one of the most important trades for women in New York City, and also in many respects a typical one. As Miss Van Kleeck explains, it affords employment to every grade of woman worker from the skilled craftsman who does artistic binding by hand to the machine operator, the hand folder, the wrapper, and the errand girl. The competition in it between out- going hand processes and incoming machine proc- esses is incessant. In some branches work is regular; in others it is highly irregular, overtime and free days occurring in the same week. Finally, there is a union in the trade to which some of the women employes belong; while most of the women are unorganized and little impressed by the ad- vantages of organization. Bookbinding in New York City thus presents in miniature most of the important problems which confront women wage- earners. The present report is the first of a series of studies which will serve to place before the people of the United States authoritative information in regard to the conditions under which women wage- earners carry on their work and the wages which they receive. Volumes treating of the Makers of viii INTRODUCTION Artificial Flowers and of Women and Girls in the Public Evening Schools of New York City are nearly ready. As these are published readers will be able to get a comparative view of conditions in different trades, the lack of which inevitably weakens the force of the conclusions that may be drawn from the study of any single trade. Knowledge of existing conditions is the necessary preliminary to a reform of those conditions; but it is the reform and not the knowledge that must ever be the chief concern of an organization like the Russell Sage Foundation. As the information contained in the Pittsburgh Survey gave a tremen- dous impetus to movements for civic and industrial betterment not only in that city but in the whole state of Pennsylvania, so the facts presented in this volume about women employed in book- binderies should afford a basis for effective agita- tion for the reforms most urgently called for. Of these, none seem to stand out more clearly than an effective prohibition on the employment of women at night and the regulation of the em- ployment of girls from fourteen to eighteen so that they will be enabled to learn the trade in which they are engaged and not be mere drifters, regular in nothing except in frequent changes from employer to employer and prolonged periods of unemployment, and certain of nothing except that their wages will never be sufficient to enable them to be adequately self-supporting. ix COMMITTEE ON WOMEN'S WORK OF THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION HENRY R. SEAGER, Chairman Miss LILIAN BRANDT SAMUEL McCuNE LINDSAY MRS. HENRY R. SEAGER ANTONIO STELLA, M.D. Miss ELLEN J. STONE LAWRENCE VEILLER MRS. LAWRENCE VEILLER XII TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION. By Henry R. Seager v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv LIST OF TABLES . xvii I. Introductory i 1 1 . The Bookbinding Trade 13 III. Women's Work in the Binderies ... 38 IV. Wages and Home Conditions .... 72 . V. Irregularity of Employment . . . . 101 VI. Overtime and the Factory Laws . . .133 VII. Collective Bargaining in the Bindery Trade 169 VIII. Teaching Girls the Trade 194 IX. Summary and Outlook 219 APPENDICES A. Outline of Investigation 239 B. Supplementary Statistics 249 C. Sixty-Hour Restriction. Held to be Con- stitutional 256 INDEX 261 Xlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS i PAGE Gold Leaf Layers , -5 A Stamper I7 ^ Drop-roll Folding Machine ,84 Automatic Folding Machine . . . . ] ,84 Hand Folders , 9 g The Point Folding Machine . . ,8 XVI LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1 . Binderies in Manhattan, by nature of products, 1910 26 2. Number of persons engaged in bookbinding in the United States, by decades. 1850-1900 . 29 3. Distribution of women bookbinders. United States, 1900 31 4. Women employed in bookbinding in Man- hattan in 1910, by principal product of binderies and number of women employed 33 5. Nativity and nativity of parents of women employed in bookbinding, New York City 35 6. Weekly wages of women employed in book- binding by years of employment in the trade 75 7. Weekly earnings of women employed in bookbinding during first week of employ- ment in bookbinding 76 8. Binderies employing women as learners by weekly wages of learners, and the minimum age at which they are employed ... 78 9. Comparative weekly earnings of men and women employed in bookbinding and of women in all manufacturing industries. New York state, 1905 79 10. Approximate yearly income of women em- ployed in bookbinding, by ages ... 85 1 1 . Family status of women employed in book- binding 87 xvii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Photographs by Lewis W. Hine FACING PAGE Wire-stitching Frontispiece Pasting Machine 14 Edge Gilders 14 Sewing Books by Hand 24 Sewing Books by Machine 24 Case Makers 42 Gathering and Wire-stitching Machine ... 42 Gathering by Hand 54 Gathering Machine 54 Press and Plow Machine 68 Trimming Magazines 68 Folding by Hand 82 Folding and Gathering 82 Covering Magazines by Machine .... 92 Gathering Machine 92 Box Girls 108 Men Case-making and Girls Labeling . . .108 Collating 122 Gathering Machine 122 Wire-stitchers. Artificial Light all Day . . .140 One End of a Crowded Bindery . . . .140 A Crowded Workroom 1 50 Accumulated Stock Gathering Dust . . .150 Midnight in a Magazine Bindery . . . .160 The Midnight Lunch Hour 160 xv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING Gold Leaf Layers ,^5 A Stamper I7 6 Drop-roll Folding Machine ,84 Automatic Folding Machine ... ^4 Hand Folders .... 108 The Point Folding Machine . ,98 XVI LIST OF TABLES FABLE PAGE 1 . Binderies in Manhattan, by nature of products, 1910 26 2. Number of persons engaged in bookbinding in the United States, by decades. 1850-1900 . 29 3. Distribution of women bookbinders. United States, 1900 31 4. Women employed in bookbinding in Man- hattan in 1910, by principal product of binderies and number of women employed 33 5. Nativity and nativity of parents of women employed in bookbinding, New York City 35 6. Weekly wages of women employed in book- binding by years of employment in the trade 75 7. Weekly earnings of women employed in bookbinding during first week of employ- ment in bookbinding 76 8. Binderies employing women as learners by weekly wages of learners, and the minimum age at which they are employed ... 78 9. Comparative weekly earnings of men and women employed in bookbinding and of women in all manufacturing industries. New York state, 1905 79 10. Approximate yearly income of women em- ployed in bookbinding, by ages ... 85 1 1 . Family status of women employed in book- binding 87 xvii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 12. Persons per room in families of women em- ployed in bookbinding 97 13. Length of employment of 201 women em- ployed in bookbinding 98 14. Maximum number of women employed in bookbinding in Manhattan, by the season of greatest activity of the establishments in which they are employed . . . .104 15. Bookbinding establishments in Manhattan, by season of greatest activity . . . .105 1 6. Proportion of women employed in book- binding "laid off" in dull season in establish- ments in Manhattan 107 17. Processes mentioned in advertisements for bindery women in New York World, on Sundays and Wednesdays, from July i, 1908, to June 30, 1909 108 1 8. Advertisements for bindery women in the New York World, on Sundays and Wednesdays from July i, 1908, to June 30, 1909, by month and branch of trade . . . .110 19. Reasons for leaving positions in binderies as stated by women employed in book- binding 112 20. Length of time for which women were em- ployed in latest position in bookbinding . 113 21. Number of positions held in past year by women employed in bookbinding at time of investigation 114 22. Periods for which women employed in book- binding were idle after leaving positions . 115 23. Time lost in the past year from all causes by women employed in bookbinding . . .117 xviii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 24. Time lost in past year because of slack season, by women employed in bookbinding . .118 25. Means by which women find positions in bookbinding establishments . . . .125 26. Daily hours of work of women employed in bookbinding 138 27. Weekly hours of work of women employed in bookbinding 139 28. Violations in bookbinding establishments of law restricting hours of work for women and girls 141 APPENDIX B SUPPLEMENTARY STATISTICS A. Schools previously attended by 144 women employed in bookbinding and by women in all trades attending public evening schools, New York City, 1910-191 1 .... 250 B. Last day school attended by women employed in bookbinding and by women in all trades attending public evening schools, New York City, 1910-1911 250 C. Years of attendance at day school of women employed in bookbinding and of women in all trades attending public evening schools, New York City, 1910-191 1 .... 251 D. Age at leaving day school of women employed in bookbinding and of women in all trades attending public evening schools, New York City, 1910-191 1 251 xix WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE week reported their 'longest day's* laborVas 2oX, 22>^, and 24^ hours. These 'long days' occurred once, and sometimes twice, a week for a period of 16 to 26 weeks, except in the case of the girl who worked 24^ hours. Her usual long day was 20^4 hours, but she had worked 24^ twice in 21 weeks/' Two of these girls were not yet twenty-one years old. It would appear, therefore, that in the twenty years intervening between these two official re- ports, the overtime work required of women in bookbinding had not been lessened. But now the public is beginning to display a keener interest in the conditions of employment of women, and a thorough investigation of a trade in which such flagrant instances of overwork are officially recorded should help to arouse the community to a fuller sense of its responsibility for the welfare of wage- earning girls. This volume is the result of such an investigation made by the Committee on Women's Work of the Russell Sage Founda- tion. The significance of the investigation is increased by the varied aspects of the bookbinding industry, and by its concentration and importance in New York.f The United States census reports show that in 1900 more than 15,000 women were en- gaged in the bindery trade and its allied occupa- * In binderies where such schedules of hours prevail, the phrase "long day" is commonly used to refer to the long periods of work, f See Chapter I, p. 32. 2 INTRODUCTORY tions throughout the country.* More than 26 per cent of these were employed in New York City. Except for the large groups of women in the gar- ment industries including dressmaking, seam- stress work, tailoring, and millinery bookbinding ranks second only to cigar making as a trade for women in this city. In no other trade in New York are the numbers of men and women so nearly equal. None illustrates better the sur- vival of century old methods side by side with the newest inventions. None can show more strik- ingly the contrast between the artist craftsman and the worker who automatically repeats a single process, both of whom are called bookbinders. Few occupations reveal more clearly the effect of changing processes and changing machines. In none can more marked instances be found of un- equal distribution of work through the hours of the day or the months of the year. Bookbinding, however, is by no means the most undesirable of occupations for women. Its con- ditions are important not because they are unique but because they illustrate concretely problems common to many other industries. It is not in binderies alone that conditions change rapidly; that machines cause a reorganization of work and then give place to new inventions involving further reorganization; that speed is an essential require- ment; that specialization is the custom, weakening * Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Special Reports, Occupa- tions, p. Hi. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE by continual repetition of one process that power of adjustment so vital to success in a changing in- dustrial environment ; that women work exhaust- ingly long hours in the busy season; that irregu- larity of employment during the dull season com- pels the worker to forego all or part of her wages, when even in the busy season the income of the majority of women employes is insufficient for self-support. Conditions like these would compel attention even if they occurred in but one occu- pation. When it is known that they affect the welfare of young girls and women in many differ- ent wage-earning pursuits, their importance is greatly increased. To analyze the facts about the bindery trade, to discover the constructive forces potent in the industry, to disclose oppor- tunities for further improvements by employers, workers, and the community, and to make this knowledge common property should point the way toward changing the lot of women in many industries in which similar conditions exist. Many books have been written on bookbinding as a craft, but not one has been found which con- tains facts regarding conditions of employment. The International Bookbinder, which describes itself as "a journal devoted to the interests of the book- binders of the United States and Canada/' is a chronicle of events in the workers' trade union. The United States census gives the numerical out- lines of the industry, and contains some data about wages, regularity of employment, and nationality INTRODUCTORY and age of the workers, but the figures are confused by counting as bookbinding and blankbook mak- ing* several minor occupations, such as book stamping, chromo and show-card mounting, map publishing, line ruling, and the making of paper tablets, sample cards, and show cards, whose con- ditions do not resemble the real bindery trade. The reports of the New York State Department of Labor give the number of establishments in the state and city and their size, the number of men, women, and children employed, the normal hours of labor of the workers as a whole,! and the number and results of inspections and prosecutions. Important as are these sources of information, the facts which they present are incomplete as a basis for a study of women workers. From them we learn nothing about the organization of the workroom force nor the processes carried on by women. They give no information about wages in relation to length of experience, about the methods of training workers, or about the previous schooling of the girls who enter the industry. They contain no facts about a girl's trade career, the necessity for frequent change from one shop to another, or from one occupation to another; the uncertainty of the seasons or the reasons for irregular employ- ment. They do not show the home responsibilities of bindery girls nor their attitude toward their work. They do not give the facts about overtime. * Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Manufactures, Vol. VII, p. 693. t Hours are not reported separately for women however. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE They do not show differences as between establish- ments or between diverse branches of the trade. Thus, although the official figures throw light on the extent of the industry, its location, and certain of its external characteristics, nevertheless, to under- stand how women workers fare in this occupation, it was necessary to observe shop conditions at first hand, to interview employers, and to know a number of bindery women personally in their own homes. The foundation of this report was the industrial history of 201 women workers in the trade, com- bined with data secured from all the binderies in Manhattan. The main subjects on which informa- tion was sought in the interviews with employers and workers were the processes of work done by women in the various branches of the trade, irreg- ularity of employment, hours of work, the enforce- ment of factory laws, wages, home responsibilities, the activity of the trade union and the attitude of women workers and employers toward it, and the methods of teaching girls the trade. Three record cards,* 5x8 inches in size,were used in the field work, one for the record of a worker, one for the record of a workshop, and one for the worker's report of conditions in the shop in which she was employed. A brief outline of the sources of names and ad- dresses, and the methods of interviewing, is neces- sary to show how the detailed information asked for was secured. The field work was begun in co- * See Appendix A, pp. 239-248, for outline of investigation, and facsimiles of cards. INTRODUCTORY operation with the Alliance Employment Bureau, a philanthropic agency, managed by representa- tives of social settlements and working girls' clubs, which undertakes to find employment for girls in trades and offices. The Bureau had from time to time received applications for work from women who had had experience in the bindery trade or who wished to learn it. On the other hand, it had fre- quently been asked by employers to supply them with bindery workers. It is the policy of this agency to investigate work-places before sending applicants to them, and the managers believed that a thorough study of binderies would yield the information needed to enable them to place girls in establishments where good conditions prevail. Thus, while the larger purpose of the investigation was to gather evidence regarding conditions in the industry as they affect women workers, the early part of the inquiry was designed to be of immediate use in the daily placement work of the Alliance Employment Bureau. This latter object afforded a reason for seeking interviews and enabled the investigators, in visiting both establishments and workers, to act as agents of the Bureau. This preliminary, co-operative investigation was made between August i, 1908, and August i, 1909, while the Committee on Women's Work was a department of the Alliance Employment Bureau. The study was completed in the winter and spring of 1910-11, when employers representing some of the largest binderies in New York were again inter- 7 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE viewed by agents of the Committee, and more than 100 visits were made at the homes of bindery girls attending public evening schools in Manhattan and the Bronx. The field work lasted until July, 191 1. The first task was to secure the names and ad- dresses of all binderies in Manhattan. A street directory in the form of a card index was compiled from as many sources as possible, including the business directories of New York City, the files of the Alliance Employment Bureau, the statements of bindery workers regarding their places of em- ployment, and all advertisements for bindery women appearing in The World during a period of six months. It may be that a few binderies were omitted, but shops which did not appear in any of these sources could not have been important. The difficulty of securing a complete list of es- tablishments in one trade even in a single borough of New York, is an evidence of the interlocking of occupations. Not all bookbinderies are indepen- dent. Bindery departments were discovered in lithographing establishments, in printing offices, in sample card manufactories, and even in so unex- pected a place as a wholesale store, where the trade catalogue of the firm was bound on the premises. In this part of the investigation alone 478 visits were made at 417 addresses, with the result that 247 binderies or bindery departments employing a regular force of women were found, while 33 of the places visited were printing offices, or lithograph- 8 INTRODUCTORY ing establishments, or other allied branches of the printing industry, in which bindery hands were employed only for temporary work. Some estab- lishments had failed or had moved out of the borough of Manhattan, a few had consolidated with other firms, and in several no women were employed in binding processes. Of the 247 per- manent binderies visited, 210 were investigated. Information about the others was incomplete. The investigation of bindery establishments pre- sented peculiar difficulties. To secure complete information from every employer interviewed was impossible. The obstacles were due not al- ways to lack of interest on the part of the em- ployer, or to a desire to conceal his "own business/' but often to indefmiteness of conditions. Not all workshops are as carefully organized as the in- dustrial ideal of the present century demands. "It depends on the orders/' and "It all depends on the run of work/' are replies recorded in answer to questions regarding wages, seasons, and other conditions. " How can I tell what kind of work's coming in?" said one employer impatiently when asked what branch of the trade was his specialty. Great differences in organization, found not only in different establishments, but in the same establish- ment from day to day, present many obstacles to the gathering of exact statistics. In many cases, however, employers gave very full information about the conditions of work of the women in their binderies. Their statements were verified and WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE supplemented by the case study of bindery girls. At the close of the investigation it was found that members of the group of girls interviewed had been employed at some time during their trade careers in over 50 per cent of the binderies investigated. This fact made it possible to determine the accuracy and value of statements made both by employers and by workers.* The names of bindery girls were secured from the files of the Alliance Employment Bureau, from public evening schools, girls' clubs, and other or- ganizations, and from women in the trade. The list numbered 362. To cover these cases it was necessary to make 732 visits. The number of complete records secured was 2Oi.| The reasons for not securing full information from the others are various. Of the whole group, 61 girls had not * Girls were interviewed who had worked in 36 of the 37 edition and pamphlet binderies in New York, employing 50 or more girls, in 56 of the 1 19 edition, pamphlet, job, and art binderies employing less than 50, and in 17 of the 54 blankbook binderies investigated. Of one bindery 21 present or former employes were interviewed, of another 19, another 18, and another 14. None were interviewed in the workroom. fThe sources of these 201 names were varied enough to inspire confidence in the representative character of the results. Alliance Employment Bureau 86 Fellow workers in binderies 53 Evening schools 36 Settlements or girls' clubs, etc 20 (Includes Jacob A. Riis House, Richmond Hill House, Girls' Friendly Society, Educational Alli- ance, Greenpoint Settlement) Visits to binderies 4 Manhattan Trade School i Advertisement i Total 201 10 INTRODUCTORY been in the trade within the year preceding the date of the interview, and therefore their records were not tabulated; 13 gave incomplete or inac- curate information; 87 were not found, had never worked in the trade, had definitely left it, or were employed only in some allied process like litho- graphing, pattern folding, sample card mounting, or printing. Interviews with those girls whose records were not complete or recent enough to be tabulated, or who were employed in some allied process, often, however, threw light on conditions of work and thus contributed data to the investi- gation. Such a case study of workers is more time-con- suming than is the investigation of work places. The visits must be made at night to find the girls at home from work. It is seldom possible for one person to talk fully with more than two in an evening, and often the whole time is given to one. The majority of the interviews were in the homes of the workers, although several girls were met in the office of the Alliance Employment Bureau, and a few at a social settlement. Plenty of time was allowed for full and frank discussion. The record cards were not used during the conversa- tion, lest their appearance should have a chilling effect. The investigators who took part in the field work for long or short periods in the course of the study were Miss Louise C. Odencrantz, Miss Zaida E. Udell, Miss Elizabeth L. Meigs, and WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE the writer. Miss Odencrantz also tabulated the records and compiled the statistics used in these chapters. To those who expect investigators to outline a single, clear-cut method of reform, these pages may be a disappointment. The material is not arranged as an argument in favor of any special social program. It proves rather the complexity of the problem and the necessity of varied methods of approach. It is designed to afford full and de- tailed information presented without bias, in the hope of enlisting the interest of those who as em- ployers, as workers, as teachers, as legislators, as voters, or as buyers, share responsibility for the welfare of wage-earning women. 12 CHAPTER II THE BOOKBINDING TRADE THE bookbinder of today has a more complex business to manage than did his predecessor of two or three hundred years ago. His products are used so widely that he serves prac- tically every trade, business, or profession in the community. He binds the Bible, Shakespeare, and many less classic writings for individual cus- tomers. He covers several thousand volumes of a new novel for a publisher. He takes an order from a printer to bind copies of a pamphlet. He stitches programs for a theater or an opera house, or fastens together the sheets of a church calendar. He makes manifold books for the use of sales- women in department stores. He puts together the leaves of a telephone directory and pastes on the cover. He works for stock brokers, law- yers, gas companies, steel corporations, and banks, binding briefs, numbering checks, paging cash books, and rebinding heavy ledgers. He folds, stitches, and mails magazines for publishers, and makes albums, not so often now-a-days for family photographs as for postal cards and kodak pic- tures. He binds school books, and rebinds vol- umes for the public library. Sometimes he takes '3 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE over work from another bookbinder, who has secured an order too large for him to handle alone, or who is specializing in some other line. He also handles trade catalogues, and all sorts and conditions of advertising material, thus being called upon to adjust his business to the seasons and market conditions of every occupation which uses printed advertisements. And with all this extension of the trade have come changes in methods and conditions which have exerted a far- reaching influence on the welfare of the workers. In New York, where more bookbinders congregate than in any other city of the United States, this complexity is magnified. Nevertheless, in spite of the variety of products and processes involved in the modern industry, to many the word "bookbinding" still suggests only morocco and gold leaf, the artist's design, the craftsman's skilful touch. But the treasures of the bibliophile are produced in only a very few small shops in New York today, and in the large binderies, equipped with machinery, the methods which have been adopted bear slight resemblance to the ancient art of bookbinding. The careful hand work of the eighteenth century is eclipsed by machinery, and the detailed ac- counts rendered by Roger Payne to his cus- tomers would make the bookkeeper of a modern bindery smile in wonder. His bill for binding a copy of "Aeschylus Glasguae MDCCXCV Flax- man illustravit," reads: 14 PASTING MACHINE EDGE GILDERS THE BOOKBINDING TRADE " Bound in the very best manner, sew'd with strong Silk, every Sheet round every Band, not false bands: the Back lined with Russia Leather, Cut Exceeding large; Finished in the most magni- ficent manner. Embordered with ERMINE ex- pressive of The High Rank of the Noble Patroness of The Designs, The other Parts Finished in the most Elegant Taste with small Tool Gold Borders Studded with Gold; and small Tool Panes of the most exact Work. Measured with the Compasses. It takes a great deal of Time making out the differ- ent measurements, preparing the Tools, and mak- ing out new Patterns. The Back Finished in Compartments with parts of Gold studded work and open Work to relieve the Rich close studded work."* He continues with a description of his methods, as further justification for the size of his bill: "All the Tools except studded points are obliged to be worked off plain first, and after- wards the Gold laid on and Worked off again. And this Gold Work requires double Gold being on Rough Grained Morocco. The impressions of the Tools must be fitted and cover'd at the bottom with Gold to prevent flaws and cracks/' But archaic as this description sounds, book- binding has a history beginning long before the time of Roger Payne. Preceding him were Grolier in France in the reign of Francis I, the Italian binders of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- * Quoted in Encyclopedia Britannica, gth edition, 1876. Vol. IV, p. 42. 15 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE turies, the monks in the dark ages, who executed elaborate bindings for the preservation of their hand-written volumes, and earlier still the slaves who bound manuscripts when the Roman Empire was at the height of its power. Older than these were the palm leaves "bound" by silken strings, which formed the sacred books of Ceylon, and still more ancient the tiles of baked clay encased one within another.* Nor was the delicate art of bookbinding in early days confined to men. On the contrary there are scattered references in history and in fiction which indicate that for several centuries women have helped to bind books. Stevenson tells us that in 1450 in the court of Blois, a woman, the widow of a bookbinder, bound books for Charles of Orleans. f "He (Charles of Orleans) was a bit of a book- fancier, and had vied with his brother Angouleme in bringing back the library of their grandfather Charles V when Bedford put it up for sale in Lon- don. The duchess had a library of her own ; and we hear of her borrowing romances from ladies in attendance on the blue-stocking Margaret of Scotland. Not only were books collected, but new books were written at the court of Blois. The widow of one Jean Fougere, a bookbinder, seems to have done a number of odd commissions * Zaehnsdorf, J. W. : Bookbinding, Introduction. London, George Bell and Sons, 1903. t Stevenson, Robert Louis: Works, Vol. XIV, Familiar Studies of Men and Books, Essay on Charles of Orleans, p. 233. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895. 16 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE for the bibliophilous count. She it was who re- ceived three vellum skins to bind the duchess's Book of Hours, and who was employed to prepare parchment for the use of the duke's scribes. And she it was who bound in vermillion leather the great manuscript of Charles's own poems, which was presented to him by his secretary, Anthony Astesan,with the text in one column, and Astesan's Latin version in the other." And as time went on it is evident that the art was one in which the plodding industry as well as the taste of women found employment, for we learn from Victor Hugo that about the year 1800, Jean Valjean in the fourth year of his captivity had news that his sister was trying to support herself and her little son by binding pamphlets in Paris.* "Every morning she went to a printing office, No. 3 Rue de Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher; she had to be there at 6 in the morn- ing, long before daylight in winter. In the same house with the printing office there was a day school, to which she took her little boy, who was seven years of age. But as she went to work at 6 and the school did not open till 7 o'clock, the boy was compelled to wait in the yard for an hour, in winter, an hour of night in the open air. The boy was not allowed to enter the printing office, because it was said that he would be in the way." Long before 1800, however, the industry had * Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables. Fantine, Book II, Chapter VI, pp. 128-129. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1887. 2 17 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE crossed to America, for we have the account of one Hugh Gaine,* who in 1752 had a printing and bind- ing establishment in Hanover Square, New York. It is probable that as soon as men began to prac- tice the art in the United States, women were employed for some of the processes. In 1834 when Harriet Martineau visited this country she found women engaged as folders and stitchers. The reference in her bookf is as interesting for her emphatic denunciation of the social condi- tions that prevailed at the time as for her dis- closure that the trade of bookbinding was one in which women were supporting themselves. In a country "where it is a boast that women do not labour," she wrote, " the encourage- ment and rewards of labour are not pro- vided. It is so in America. In some parts there are now so many women dependent on their own exertions for a maintenance, that the evil will give way before the force of circumstances. In the meantime, the lot of poor women is sad. Before the opening of the factories, there were but three resources; teaching, needle- work, and keeping boarding-houses or hotels. Now there are the mills; and women are employed in printing offices as compositors, as well as folders and stitchers." Before the date of Harriet Martineau's visit, Philadelphia had become the largest publishing * Depew, C. ML: One Hundred Years of American Commerce, p. 642. New York, D. O. Haynes and Co., 1895. t Martineau, Harriet: Society in America, Vol. II, p. 257. New York, Saunders and Otley, 1837. 18 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE center, and boasted "the greatest publisher in the United States/' Mathew Carey.* Thus some very early products of the bindery trade in this country were such pamphlets as "An open letter to the ladies who have undertaken to establish a house of industry," published in 1831 by Carey, and "An appeal to the wealth of the land on the character, conduct, situation, and prospects of those whose sole dependence for subsistence is on the labour of their hands," a document issued in 1833. Indeed, Carey himself took an active interest in the condi- tions of women's work, carrying on a pamphlet and newspaper agitation for better wages for them, and presiding at a large meeting of working women, which included bookbinders. This meeting was called for the purpose of organizing the Female Improvement Society, with committees represent- ing different trades. f When the printing press came into general use and multiplied the number of books, necessarily the careful binding heretofore accorded a single laboriously written manuscript gave place to more rapid methods of preparing volumes for the hands of readers. Separated in beauty of form and finish as is a Grolier edition of De Bury's Philo- biblon from a quarterly telephone directory, there * Depew, C. M.: One Hundred Years of American Commerce, p. 314. New York, D. O. Haynes and Co., 1895. t Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-earners in the United States. Vol. X, History of Women in Trade Unions, pp. 39-40. U. S. Senate document No. 645. Pages 40-41 refer to a strike in 1835 by the Female Book Union Association in New York in an effort to secure " a small advance in their list of prices." 19 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE is a fundamental resemblance in the processes of binding. In both it is the task of the binder to take the sheets as they have come from the print- ing press, and so treat them that their preservation in proper sequence will be assured. Whether a book is to be bound by hand or machine, whether it is to be covered with levant or thin paper, whether it is to be sewed with linen thread or stitched with wire, it is necessary to fold the sheets in uniform size, to fasten the folded sections to- gether in proper sequence, and to put on a cover. It is in the covering that the branches of the trade differ most widely. The making of the hand- bound book, designed to last several generations, demands the most numerous processes. At the other extreme is the paper-covered pamphlet whose destination is likely to be the nearest waste basket. THE PROCESS OF BINDING If a book is to be bound by hand, the printed sheets are first folded to the desired size. For example, a quarto sheet is folded into two folds making a section of four leaves or eight pages, and an octavo into four folds making a section of eight leaves or 16 pages. The sections are then gathered in proper sequence, as indicated by a number called "the signature" printed on the first page of the section. They are then beaten with a hammer or rolled in a machine to make them a compact volume. They are next "col- 20 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE lated," or examined, to make sure that each page is in its proper place. At various stages the volume is pressed. If the book is to be sewed "flexible" on raised cords, the back must be marked to show the position of the cords, and if they are to be embedded in the back, grooves are sawed for them. When the end papers have been put in, the rough edges trimmed, and the back rounded, the book is ready for its cover. The ends of the cords are drawn through holes in the mill-boards (the stiff foundation of a cover), pasted, and hammered smooth. The edges of the pages are cut with the "plough" in the cutting machine, to give each page uniform margins. The edges may then be sprinkled, colored, or gilded, after which the head-bands are attached to the back at top and bottom. Finally, the book is covered with leather or silk or some other material, and the cover is ornamented. These last pro- cesses vary with the kind of material used and the plan of ornamentation. The machine method of binding books omits many processes of hand binding, and combines others into one simple operation. In hand bind- ing, one book is the center of attention until it is finished, and each volume may receive slightly different treatment according to the design chosen for it. In machine binding, the method is to re- peat one process thousands of times, adopting the factory system with its division of labor and its mechanical devices. Books and their covers are 21 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE fed by the hundred through machines in different departments, and they are not brought together until the last stage is reached. Machines fold, gather, smash, sew, trim, round, and back. The backs are lined up and glued in quick succession, and in gilding the edges, instead of handling the volumes one by one, several are placed in a " lying- press " and gilded simultaneously. These proc- esses involved in getting the sheets ready for the cover are called "forwarding." In the meantime, the cover or case is being pre- pared. The boards and the cloth are cut to fit the volume, and both are fed into the case-making machine, which covers the cloth with glue, lays the boards in their proper places, pastes a strip of paper on the back, and turns down the edges of the cloth, all in one complex operation, delivering the finished cases at the side of the machine. If the covers are to be ornamented or lettered, gold leaf, or some substitute, is laid on by hand, and the titles or designs stamped into the cloth by means of a powerful press. The "forwarded books" and the covers are then fed into the casing- in machine, which smears the sides of each volume with paste and automatically attaches the covers. A pamphlet must be folded and its sections placed in as accurate order as a book bound in cloth or morocco, but as the pamphlet is to be covered only with heavy paper it does not require pressing, trimming, and retrimming, rounding and backing, gluing, lining-up, drawing-off, and all the 22 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE other diverse manipulations by which the hand worker on a single volume insures the preserva- tion of the sheets in a solid and substantial bind- ing. A pamphlet may be so printed that its sheets when folded must be inserted one within the other. In that case the paper cover may be put on before the pamphlet is stitched, and a wire staple, taking the place of the linen thread used in books, may be inserted from the back of the cover through the center of the inner sheet. Or the sections may be laid one on top of the other, and stitched flat along the back a short distance in from the edges. Then the cover is pasted, by hand or by machine, to the back of these stitched sheets. A magazine or periodical is in reality a pamphlet, but it is characterized by uniformity of size week after week, or month after month. Thus it lends itself admirably to machine production. When the gauges have once been set to fit the sheets they need not be changed, and it is possible to com- bine several machines in one. A word must be said of blankbook making, al- though this report concerns mainly the binding of printed books. The blankbook maker does not receive the sheets from a printer ready for binding. His trade includes the ruling and numbering of the pages of account books, ledgers, diaries, address books, albums, copybooks, and portfolios. In his craft, as in that of the "printer's binder/' the processes of work vary with the degree of preserva- tion required for the sheets. A heavy ledger, of 23 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE inestimable value to some business establishment, may be bound and rebound by hand in the most substantial way. A school child's copybook may be sewed by machine without any elaborate prep- aration for a covering. With the introduction of card systems and loose leaf note books, a great change has come over a portion of the blankbook maker's trade, and in some cases the "binder" has become the "manufacturer of loose leaf devices." BRANCHES OF THE TRADE Variety in products and in methods of work has divided the bookbinding trade into branches, with diverse processes, different machines, and distinct labor conditions. In the "job" bindery, for in- stance, each book is bound by hand for a "private" as distinguished from a "business" customer. The owner may be an art binder, who ornaments the covers of books with beautiful designs, or he may omit all ornament and devote his attention merely to executing a strong and durable piece of work. In the "edition" bindery, as its name implies, editions of thousands of volumes, all alike, are turned out by machines. The customers are usually publishers, unless the printer, from whom the binder receives the printed sheets of the book, acts as middleman between publisher and binder. In the "pamphlet" bindery, pamphlets are folded, stitched, and covered, but no books are bound in cloth or leather. In the "magazine" bindery, periodicals are bound and mailed. The customers 24 SEWING BOOKS BY HAND SEWING BOOKS BY MACHINE THE BOOKBINDING TRADE are publishers, or printers who make the contract with the publishers and then give out the binding to other establishments. In the "blankbook" bindery paper is ruled and blankbooks manufac- tured or rebound. The customer may be an indi- vidual or a firm giving an order for a single job, or a wholesale stationer ordering books in large quantities. These five job, edition, pamphlet, magazine, and blankbook binding are the distinct branches of the trade. One bookbinding establishment may include them all. It may be equipped not only with wire-stitching machines, but with sewing machines. Not only may pamphlets be covered, but books may be bound. A woman, sitting be- fore an old-fashioned frame, may sew a single book for a private customer, while, at the same time, a hundred thousand copies of a monthly magazine may be passing through the gathering machine. An establishment may lack one department necessary for the complete binding of a book, and a block or more away may be found another de- voting its entire force to the work of that one de- partment. For example, the trade includes firms whose only work is to gild the edges of books, or to lay the gold and stamp the covers, or to num- ber checks, bonds, and insurance policies. Mar- bling papers for the use of binders is now regarded as a separate industry. This specialization has made possible the work of a middleman or agent, to transfer a single branch of the work from the 25 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE binder who does not wish to handle it to the firm which makes it a specialty. Nevertheless, the middleman does not seem yet to be conspicuous in the industry. THE TRADE IN NEW YORK The most important center of the bookbinding trade in the United States is New York City.* The value of the products of New York binderies is 36 per cent of the total value of these products in the whole country. In the borough of Man- hattan alone, 280 binderies, including temporary departments, were found in the course of this in- vestigation. TABLE 1. BINDERIES IN MANHATTAN. BY NATURE OF PRODUCTS, 1910 Binderies Number Per Cent of all Binderies All binderies 280 Binderies engaged in Edition work 55 20 Pamphlet and magazine work . 149 53 Job or art work 44 16 Blankbook making, ruling, numbering, etc. Binding departments of establishments en- 74 26 gaged in- Lithographing 13 5 Printing Engraving, manufacture of stationery, etc. 98 26 35 9 Of the binderies in Manhattan, 5 3 per cent bind pamphlets and magazines, 20 per cent do edition * Cf. United States Census, Bulletin 59, New York State, Manu- factures, p. 50, 1905. 26 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE work, 1 6 per cent job or art work, 26 per cent blank- book work, 5 per cent are departments of litho- graphing establishments, 35 per cent printing offices, and 9 per cent are allied with engraving, stationery work, etc. These divisions are not mutually exclusive. It is often difficult to classify an establishment as an edition bindery, or a pam- phlet or magazine bindery, as the different products may be found in the same workroom. In that case the shop has been counted in each of these branches of the trade. The bookbinding trade has tended not only to concentrate in New York, but much of it has crowded into a single district of the city. The section of Manhattan Island about the City Hall may be regarded as the heart of the industry. Within a radius of a mile of the City Hall, in a semi-circle east of Broadway, 126 binderies, 45 per cent of the total in the borough of Manhattan, are located. Between 1900 and 1905 the importance of the trade in New York state increased from $5, 354,004 to $7,557,640, in capital invested, an increase of 4 1 .2 per cent ; from 7, 1 52 to 7,984, or 1 1 .6 per cent, in number of wage-earners; from $3, 152, 739 to $3,648,146, or 15.7 per cent, in total amount paid in wages; and from $9,049,198 to $11,165,333, or 23.4 per cent, in value of products.* The classi- fication of establishments according to value of * United States Census, Bulletin 59, New York State, Manu- factures, pp. 6, 10, 1905. 27 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE products brings to light the fact that in New York state in 1905, 212, or 69.7 per cent, of the total number of bookbinderies reported the value of their yearly output as less than $20,000 for each establishment, while only 26, or 8.6 per cent, valued their products as high as "$100,000 but less than $1,000,000." This small group of 26 binderies reported 72.7 per cent of the total capital, about $5,500,000, and 53.9 per cent, or 4,306, of the total number of wage-earners in the bookbinding in- dustry in New York state, while the much larger group of 212 binderies jointly claimed onlyio per cent, about $750,000, of the capital, and 17.7 per cent, or 1,408, of the number of employes.* Thus the greater part of the industry is in the hands of a few, whose establishments, in value of prod- ucts and number of employes, outrank the com- bined forces of more than nine-tenths of the employers in the trade. Official figures in the United States census indi- cate a steady growth in the number of women em- ployed in the bookbinding trade since 1870, when for the first time wage-earning women were sepa- rately classified according to their occupations. Indeed, it was not until 1850 that any detailed in- quiry regarding wage-earning pursuits was made by census enumerators, and even then these ques- tions did not apply to women and slaves. At that time 3,414 men over fifteen years of age were * United States Census, Bulletin 59, New York State, Manu- factures, p. 41, 1905. 28 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE recorded as bookbinders.* A decade later, in 1860, the trade of every free person, man or woman, was ascertained, but in the tabulation men and women were grouped together, so that for that year only the total number of bookbinders, 6,360, is known. In later years men and women ten years of age and over were counted separately. The facts are shown in Table 2. TABLE 2 NUMBER OF PERSONS ENGAGED IN BOOK- BINDING IN THE UNITED STATES, BY DECADES. 1850-1900a Census Year All Persons Men Women Per Cent Women 1850 b 3,414 b 1860 6,360 ..b _b . . 1870 9,104 6,375 2,729 30.0 1880 13.833 8,342 5,49i 39-7 1890 23,858 12,298 11,560 48.5 1900 30,278 14,646 15,632 51-6 * Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Special Reports, Occupa- tions, pp. Hi, Ix. b Facts not given in the Census. Thus, in 1870, when for the first time women in occupations were counted separately, 2,729 women and 6,375 mer * were found to be employed in the bindery trade in the United States. Of these groups, 1,309 women and 1,898 men were living in New York and Brooklyn. f From this decade on, not only did the number of bookbinders (men and * Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Special Reports, Occupa- tions, p. Ix. t Ninth United States Census, 1870. Vol. I, Population and Social Statistics, pp. 779, 793. 29 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE women) increase, but the proportion of women in the trade grew rapidly larger. In 1870, 30 per cent of the employes in binderies were women and 70 per cent were men; in 1880, 39.7 per cent were women and 60.3 per cent were men; in 15,632 15.000 10,000 5,000 Men Women 1870 Men Women 1880 Men Women 1890 Men Women 1900 CHART I. MEN AND WOMEN BOOKBINDERS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1870, 1880, 1890, AND 1900 1890, 48.5 per cent were women and 5 1.5 per cent were men; in 1900, 5 1.6 per cent were women and 48.4 per cent were men. The facts are shown in Chart I. 30 THE BOOKBINDING TRADE In 1900, more than 14,000 men and over 15,000 women were counted as bookbinders throughout the country. TABLE 3. DISTRIBUTION OF WOMEN BOOKBINDERS. UNITED STATES, 1900* WOMEN BOOK- BINDERS Residence Number Per Cent New York, N. Y. 4,086 26.1 Chicago, 111. i, 612 10.3 Philadelphia, Pa. 1,168 7-5 Boston, Mass. 897 5-7 St. Louis, Mo. 487 3-1 Washington, D. C. 279 .8 Cambridge, Mass. 274 .8 Milwaukee, Wis. 267 7 Jersey City, N. J. 265 7 San Francisco, Cal. 225 4 Cincinnati, O. 215 4 Buffalo, N. Y. 208 3 Cleveland, O. 172 .1 Baltimore, Md. 164 .1 Detroit, Mich. 158 .0 Other cities of 50 ooo or more 2,372 15.2 Smaller cities and country districts 2,783 17.8 Total in the United States. 15,632 1 00.0 a Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Special Reports, Occupa- tions. Considered geographically, the census states that four-fifths of the bindery women in the United States were found in the North Atlantic division, which includes the three cities of Boston, Phila- delphia, and New York.* Of these three cities * Twelfth United States Census, 1900. Special Reports, Statistics of Women at Work, p. 196. 31 III. hllm O UJ m U o Z N 597 773 684 61 1 87 40 37 '9 10 IOO Total . . . . 223 5.940 4,518 1,422 24 a Of the 280 binderies visited, 33 were only temporary depart- ments, and 37 supplied in general inadequate information. Thus in the general discussion only 210 binderies have been included. In this consideration of seasons, however, it has been thought essential to include as far as possible all the binderies visited. Fifty-seven did not supply information on this point. 107 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE These figures indicate that the demand for workers so fluctuates that one of every four bin- dery women needed in the busy season is super- fluous when the book market is dull. When orders grow brisk again employers rely largely on advertisements to increase their force. Thus the advertising columns of the newspaper considered in relation to other data on this point are a source of information regarding irregular employ- ment. They indicate also the processes in which changes are most frequent. TABLE 17. PROCESSES MENTIONED IN ADVERTISE- MENTS FOR BINDERY WOMEN IN NEW YORK WORLD, ON SUNDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS, FROM JULY 1, 1908, TO JUNE 30, 1909 Process of Work for Which Workers were Wanted Times each Process was Mentioned Hand folding 311 Wire-stitching 102 Machine folding (point folder, drop-roll, etc.) and knocking up 86 "General," "all round," "experienced," "generally useful," etc 76 Numbering, perforating, paging, check-end printing 65 Hand gathering 58 Hand and bench sewing (full and half bound work) . 47 Feeding ruling machine 46 Silk-stitching, looping, stringing cards ... 43 Inserting (hand) 37 Hand pasting 34 Tipping, covering, paper siding 3 2 Learners 3 1 Forewomen 26 Wrapping, examining, mailing, shipping ... 23 Machine sewing (including "cutting off") . . 20 Collating 14 Gold leaf laying 12 Head-trimming i Total . 1,064 108 Box GIRLS (Behind them is an automatic folding machine from which they lift the folded sheets) MEN CASE-MAKING AND GIRLS LABELING IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT Hand folders, who more often than others are employed for temporary work, face frequent changes. They exceed any other group of workers in the number of times they are mentioned in ad- vertisements. Wire-stitchers, often engaged for a small order of pamphlets, come second. Least frequently mentioned* are gold leaf layers, whose work requires care and skill in handling such pre- cious material; collators, whose task is a respon- sible one; and workers experienced in machine sewing, which is considered the most highly skilled process in a bindery. 1 1 would appear that workers skilled in these processes are not easy to secure, and are therefore less liable to be discarded in dull season. The months of greatest demand and the branches of the trade which most frequently adver- tise in the newspapers are shown in Table 18. A further tabulation of the total advertise- ments, daily and Sunday, which appeared in the last six months of the period covered in the preceding table, showed that they were inserted by 1 14 firms, including some who needed workers for temporary bindery departments in establishments engaged in allied work. One firm advertised 45 times, and one 37. Of the remainder, 37 inserted one to five advertisements ; 4 1 , five to i o ; 20, i o to 1 5 ; 8, 1 5 to 20; and 6, 20 to 30. Of the total the largest num- ber appeared in March, probably due to the fact that general industrial conditions were better in the first six months of 1909 than in the latter part of 1908. Magazine and pamphlet binderies, * Except head-trimming, a process in a job bindery. 109 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE aiO D u. s . 00 >. t*s *-> CQ 41 111 O .- ill O CT\ rr\ t^OO 00 O VO 10 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT including bindery departments of printing estab- lishments, were responsible for 344, or 46 per cent, of the advertisements. Seasonal contraction of the force, however, is not the only cause of irregular employment in bookbinding. Girls may leave positions or be dis- charged when the largest number of orders are on hand, and thus irregular employment is greater than would appear from a study merely of the bindery season as it fluctuates with the changing demand for books, pamphlets, and magazines. Other factors contributing to unemployment and to frequent changes in jobs are shown in a tabula- tion of the reasons for leaving 353 of the positions recorded in the trade histories of the group of workers interviewed. If we separate those reasons which obviously grow out of trade conditions, we find that they form a group of 73 per cent of the total. Illness may or may not be due to trade conditions. "Didn't like it," or "disagreement" indicates a minor form of maladjustment which might have been avoided. They are responsible for 9 per cent of the changes. "Worker unsatisfactory" is either a problem of education or an indi- cation of the need of better methods of finding the right place for the right worker. The apparent unimportance of changes in machinery as a reason for loss of work is interesting in view of the many comments made on this sub- ject by workers. It is probable that it was the indirect cause in more cases than appear in the in WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE TABLE 19 REASONS FOR LEAVING POSITIONS IN BINDERIES AS STATED BY WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING Reason for Leaving Position Number Per Cent Slack season a To advance, higher wages or better work a . Firm failed, moved, etc. a Dissatisfied with conditions of work a (night work, bad air, standing at work, carrying heavy 146 43 30 23 41.4 12.2 8. 5 6. 5 "Didn't like it" Illness Disagreement Strikes, rules of union, etc. a To return to former position or occupation Worker unsatisfactory .... Changes in machinery a Other reasons (employer's violation of factory laws, or to marry, or other reason) 15 15 ii 9 8 3 32 5-1 4.2 4.2 3 2.3 9.1 Total 353 IOO.O POSITIONS LEFT FOR EACH SPECI- FIED REASON a Reasons obviously due to trade conditions. table. As already pointed out in Chapter III, the introduction of a new machine may result first of all in a general reorganization with a temporary transfer of workers to other processes. Often the workers find that their wages are less in these other lines of work and leave for that reason, or because the changed conditions result in a gradual reduc- tion of the force. While the change in machinery is the real cause of this loss of position, it may not be the immediate reason appearing in the tabula- tion. 112 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT For all the reasons listed, jobs tend to be of short duration, and workers are likely to drift from bindery to bindery. To measure the length of employment in one position, a tabulation has been made of the duration of the last position preceding the date of the interview. TABLE 20. LENGTH OF TIME FOR WHICH WOMEN WERE EMPLOYED IN LATEST POSITION IN BOOKBINDING* NUMBER OF WOMEN EMPLOYED SPECIFIED LENGTH OF TIME IN Time in Position / /7C/ Present Position, if Position Worker is still in Her First Position Left in the Trade Less than i month . 29 I i month and less than 3 months 25 3 3 months and less than 6 months 17 i 6 months and less than 9 months 9 6 9 months and less than 12 months 7 2 Total less than i year 87 13 i year and less than 2 years . 25 8 2 years and less than 3 years 12 5 3 years and less than 5 years 14 11 5 years and less than 10 years 10 5 10 years and less than 15 years 1 4 Total 149 46 a Of 201 women interviewed, 6 did not supply information. Thus 87 of the 149 who are no longer in their first positions in bookbinding, held their last job less than one year. Yet, as already noted, the majority had been in the trade much longer than 8 113 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE one year. Only 17 per cent of those interviewed have had less than one year's experience in the trade, 29 per cent have worked in binderies one to three years, 18 per cent three to five years, 25 per cent five to ten years, and 1 1 per cent ten years or longer.* Obviously this experience in many cases has included more than one bindery, or more than one occupation. The number of positions (including those in other occupations as well as bookbinding) in which these girls have been employed in so short a time as twelve months preceding the interview, is shown in Table 21. TABLE 21. NUMBER OF POSITIONS* HELD IN PAST YEAR BY WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AT TIME OF INVESTIGATION b Number of Positions Held Number Per Cent 1 .... . . 83 51 2 .... . 35 22 3 .... . 26 .6 4 .... . 13 8 $ or 6 ... . 4 2 7 and less than 1 1 . . . 2 I Total l6 3 100 NUMBER OF WOMEN WHO WERE IN SPECIFIED NUMBER OF POSITIONS IN THE PAST YEAR a In determining the number of positions, all occupations, whether in bookbinding or in some other trade, have been considered. b Of 20 1 women interviewed, 29 had not been wage-earners dur- ing the entire past year and 9 did not supply information. Of the 1 63 women included here, all of whom have been wage-earners a year or more, 80, or nearly * See Table 13, p. 98. 114 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT half, have worked in two or more establishments in the past twelve months, and a few have changed from one employer to another four times or more. For the worker such frequent change, whether it be due to fluctuating seasons, uneven demand for labor, a casual attitude toward work, or any other cause, industrial or personal, means inevitably a loss of income. The first phase of the question to be considered is the loss of time between "jobs." This was determined for 176 positions. TABLE 22 PERIODS FOR WHICH WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING WERE IDLE AFTER LEAV- ING POSITIONS Time Idle POSITIONS AFTER LEAVING WHICH WOMEN WERE IDLE FOR PERIODS SPECIFIED Number Per Cent "No time" Less than i month i month and less than 2 months 2 months and less than 3 months 3 months or more 65 5 2 16 12 33 37 28 9 7 '9 Total ,76 100 The worker who finds another place within a week is likely to say that she has lost "no time/' Although this was the statement made of more than a third of the positions, it is probable that in many of these cases a day, at least, was lost. In more than a third the loss was one month or more. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE It is not only between positions that a worker loses time. She may be "laid off" for two or three weeks, or may work only part of the time without severing her connection with the estab- lishment. The vital fact to determine in a study of irregular employment is the total loss of time and wages suffered by the worker through as long a period as her memory can be trusted. This is information which can be secured from no one ex- cept the worker. The payrolls in an establish- ment would give data only during her period of employment there, without showing whether she was employed elsewhere, or whether she was out of work the rest of the year. Yet, as already ex- plained, to secure such facts accurately from the workers is exceedingly difficult, especially as the more irregular the employment the more strenu- ous is the task required of the memory. This difficulty is not peculiar to a study of women in the bookbinding industry. A search through lit- erature on the subject reveals the lack of case his- tories of the workers which would show, as no other source of information can, the effect of irregularity on the worker's income. For this reason data about even a few cases will be of value. Of the bindery girls interviewed 29 had not been wage-earners during the entire past year, and 52 could not state the length of unemployment accurately enough for tabulation. Table 23 con- tains the records of the remaining 120. 116 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT TABLE 23. TIME LOST IN THE PAST* YEAR FROM ALL CAUSES BY WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOK- BINDINGb Time Lost Women Who Lost the Time Specified "No time" Less than i month i month and less than 3 months 3 months and less than 6 months 6 months or more 14 36 36 18 16 Total reporting 120 a Preceding date of interview. b Of the 20 1 women interviewed, 29 had not been wage-earners during the past full year, and 52 did not supply information. Less than one in eight reported no time lost for any cause, while three in 10 reported a loss of one to three months, and more than one in four lost three months or more. The causes of the lost time were about as varied as the reasons already cited for leaving positions. An estimate of lost time from slack season alone was secured from 148. This group in Table 24 is larger than that in the preceding table, because not all of these 148 could give an account of the time out of work for all other causes, but they did make convincing state- ments about the weeks when they were "laid off slack/' a phrase which has become very familiar to investigators. Of the 148, who reported, a little more than a fourth had lost no time because of slack season. Twenty-five per cent could only say that they had suffered from this cause and could not 117 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE count up the days when they had worked part time, or when they had been out of work between jobs, or were laid off for temporary periods. The others made definite estimates of loss, 18 per cent less than one month, 15 per cent one to three months, 9 per cent three to six months, and 5 per cent six months or more. These were not uninterrupted periods. They were the sum of scattered days or weeks out of work through the year. TABLE 24. TIME LOST IN PAST* YEAR BECAUSE OF SLACK SEASON, BY WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDINGb Time Lost Women Who Lost the Time Specified "No time" Less than i month ... i month and less than 3 months. 3 months and less than 6 months 6 months or more .... Some time lost, length could not be estimated (part time, etc.) 40 27 22 14 8 37 Total reporting 148 * Preceding date of interview. k Of the 20 1 women interviewed, 29 had not been wage-earners during the past full year, and 24 did not supply information. The periods of employment between these slack days were not in binderies only. Thus even these losses are less than they would have been had not many bindery girls found work in other occupa- tions. Only 37 per cent of those interviewed had not worked in any trade except bookbinding, 28 per cent reported one other occupation, while 35 per 118 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT cent had been employed in two or more other in- dustries in the course of their careers as wage-earn- ers. Some of these had worked in as many as five or six other lines of employment. The list of other occupations is so varied that it reads like a page from the census. Bindery girls have been errand girls, cash girls, saleswomen, domestic servants, waitresses, nurses, clerical workers, tele- phone operators, laundry workers, dressmakers, milliners, straw sewers, and machine operators in other trades. Nor is this list complete. Their employment in processes of work more or less closely allied with bookbinding includes slip- sheeting in printing offices, folding patterns, sample mounting, stationery work, sorting and packing cards, and pasting calendars. The statements of a few of the girls in the group whose records appear in these statistics may em- phasize further the facts about irregular work. An inserter employed in a magazine bindery earned $12 one week, $12 the next, had no work and no pay the third, and earned between $8.00 and $9.00 the fourth. She said that this was the story of a typical month's work. Another, a learner, when asked to tell what her earnings had been in the past four weeks said, "a little over $4.00 the first week, a little more than $5.00 the second, $5.92 the third, and I got $4.65 this week. Sometimes I work two full weeks in the month but not often. We're not often laid off, but a week or two in the month we're on part time and go home 119 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE at 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon." An- other's record reads, "Two weeks ago made $9.00, last week $1.50; had only two days' work. About two and a half full weeks of work in the month, not more." "I earned $5.40 this week; last week I earned $9.00," said an expert feeder of the drop-roll fold- ing machine in an edition and pamphlet bindery. She had been employed in the bookbinding trade six years. "Work is dull in the bindery now. There are signs up saying that we must not stop work until the whistle blows. They make strict rules like that because it's slack and they want an excuse to lay us off, but we're all behaving ourselves. My brother who works in the same place told me to go every day whether there was work or not, because otherwise I might lose my place. Last Sat- urday I knew I should not make a cent, but I went just the same and paid my carfare." She said that it was impossible to tell how much time she had lost. During two weeks in the month a magazine was being bound. At other times their work depended on whether a catalogue was being issued or a novel was ready for the binder. This girl com- plained of another cause of loss, lack of prompt- ness in repairing machines when they are out of order. If the operator is a piece worker, every hour of delay reduces her earnings. She has had this experience several times recently. When con- ditions were favorable and work plenty, her usual earnings were $9.00 in a week, but she could not 120 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT even estimate her yearly income, so much did it vary from year to year, not because of variation in her personal efficiency but because of unforeseen changes in the condition of the book market, or in the prosperity of the firm employing her. This girl was a skilled worker in the trade. For less expert bindery girls conditions are more serious. Since hand folding has become a casual task, necessary only for certain types of work for which machines are not adapted, the hand folders are drifters in the trade. One of them had been employed several years in binderies but had never learned to operate a machine. Hand folding had been her principal work. As a learner she had worked six months in an edition and pamphlet bind- ery, hand folding, straightening sheets, inserting, gathering, and mailing. Then she was "laid off slack." Her subsequent trade history is made up of many brief jobs. She worked two or three months in an edition bindery, folding by hand, earning $7.00 a week; one month in a pamphlet bindery, $6.00 or $7.00; two months in a magazine bindery, $7.00; six months in a printing establish- ment, hand folding, inserting, gathering, with a piece-work wage varying from $7.00 to $9.00; three or four months binding pamphlets, $8.00 to $9.00; returned to the printing establishment twice in the year, once for two months, and once for eight months, earning $7.00 to $9.00; worked one year in another printer's bindery, earning $8.00 to $9.00 until the firm failed. After losing two to 121 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE three months of work, she got a job folding pamph- lets by hand but stayed only one day, leaving be- cause she was obliged to work on a raised platform less than six feet from the ceiling, and carry sheets from the bindery below it. In every other case, except when the firm failed, the reason for leaving was "work slack/' "I would never advise a girl to go into bindery work/' was her comment, already familiar to investigators by frequent repetition. "It's awfully unsteady, and anyway, there are too many in it already." Another group of girls have not wandered from bindery to bindery in this way. One of these has been employed in the same bookbinding establish- ment eight years, and is now a collator there. With the exception of a candy factory where she stuffed dates one week just after leaving school, it was the only place where she had ever worked. Every summer while work was slack she has taken a vacation of two weeks, receiving no wages during that time. She says that in other binderies col- lators earn a dollar more a week than she is re- ceiving. " But it's worth the extra dollar to me," she said, "not to be in a place where they rush you." Still, she is sorry that she has stayed so long. "They think more of you if you change more." During the preceding year she lost a great deal of time because of the widespread in- dustrial depression. For several months there had been no work on Saturday morning, and the loss even of this half-day cost her nearly 70 cents 122 COLLATING GATHERING MACHINE (Man operating and women filling the boxes and taking out the gathered books) IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT of her week's pay and reduced her weekly earnings to about $7. 30. A girl sometimes prefers to accept a lower wage than is paid elsewhere, if she is reasonably sure of continued employment. One girl has been em- ployed eleven years in the same bindery, "setting up" machines. She says that it is a machinist's work and that she could earn higher wages in another bindery, but she is afraid to leave lest another position might not be as steady. Legal holidays are the only time lost in the year. An- other has been employed four years and has never lost a day except holidays. Even they have cost her a week's wages in a year. She is receiving only $7.00 a week for operating a wire-stitching machine, work for which a wage of $9.00 or $10 is paid in some binderies, but she prefers lower pay and steadier work. The irregular employment of an expert folder who helps to bind a commercial register issued quarterly, is pictured in Chart IV. She worked in the bindery from February i to March 7, and was laid off through March to the middle of May; worked from the middle of May to July, laid off two weeks in July ; worked from August i to Labor Day, laid off Labor Day to the middle of Novem- ber; worked from the middle of November to January 15. "It would have been better," she said, "to have had $6.00 a week steadily instead of earning $8.00 so irregularly." Loss of earnings is not the only result of irregu- 123 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE lar employment. The discouraging effect on the worker, the reckless spirit which is often produced by the uncertainty whether one's job will end to- day or last another month, the habit of drifting from one occupation to another, these are wholly Returned to work middle of November Laid off middle of January Returned to work February i Laid off March 7 Laid off Labor Day Returned to work August i Laid off middle of July Returned to work middle of May CHART IV. PERIODS OF WORK AND IDLENESS, DURING ONE YEAR, OF A GIRL EMPLOYED IN BINDING A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION. demoralizing influences, and they become more demoralizing rather than less so in proportion as the worker's wages are needed for the support of her family. Two important questions arise in a discussion of possible solutions. First, is there 124 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT any way of meeting the present seasonal condi- tion, so that without loss of time or wages, the displaced workers may be transferred systemat- ically from one bindery to another, or from one occupation to another? Second, and more funda- mental, would it be possible to plan the work in such a way that the workers would suffer no loss of time and wages during the year? At present the bindery girl must rely chiefly on her own efforts to solve the out-of-work problem. Her means of finding positions are shown in Table 25, which is based on a tabulation of how 439 jobs held by the group investigated were secured. TABLE 25. MEANS BY WHICH WOMEN FIND POSITIONS IN BOOKBINDING ESTABLISHMENTS Means of Finding Positions POSITIONS FOUND BY EACH SPECIFIED M EANS Number Per Cent Relatives Friends Applied, saw sign on door .... Advertisements Returned, sent for by former employer Other means 57 137 75 90 32 48 13 3' '7 21 7 ii Total 439 IOO That more than a third found positions through applying at the bindery, seeing a "help wanted" sign on the door, or by answering advertisements, is significant of much wasted effort. Employers say that in certain seasons a hundred girls will answer an advertisement when two are needed. 12$ WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE "Applying" usually means walking the streets until a job is secured. To find a position with the help of a friend means often a haphazard choice, but it is the bindery girl's chief means of relief from unemployment. Because these methods depend more on chance than on forethought, and be- cause the whole problem is so complex, many ob- servers whose knowledge of labor conditions is most intimate are urging the establishment of em- ployment bureaus to serve as clearing houses, enabling workers to get readily in touch with posi- tions which would otherwise be unknown to them. In a careful discussion of this subject, Dr. Edward T. Devine writes*: "The question which is pertinent and important is whether the unem- ployed are so (i) because they are unemployable, (2) because there is no work to be had, or (3) because of maladjustment." The third cause, he says, "an efficient employment bureau could at least to some extent overcome. It is obvious that if they are unemployed because they are unem- ployable, the employment bureau is no remedy. The only adequate remedy for a lack of efficiency would be education and training. If, again, they are unemployed because of a real and permanent surplus of supply over the demand for labor, it is plain that an employment bureau could not remedy the difficulty. . . In so far, however, as the lack of * Report on the Desirability of Establishing an Employment Bureau in the City of New York, p. 5. Russell Sage Foundation Publication. New York, Charities Publication Committee, 1909. 126 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT employment is due to maladjustment, that is, to the inability of people who want work to get quickly into contact with opportunities which exist and to which there are no other equally appropriate means of access, the bureau will be justified." It cannot be said that irregularity of employ- ment in the bookbinding trade is due solely to this sort of maladjustment, the inability of workers needing work to find openings where workers are needed. Some bindery girls are drifters, without the foothold which skill might give them in their occupation. Undoubtedly the industry itself is in part responsible for producing these drifters, but whatever the cause may be, an employment bureau could not directly apply a remedy. Fur- thermore, a large amount of unemployment in this trade is due to the unequal distribution of work throughout the weeks of the month, or the months of the year, which automatically results in a sur- plus of workers at certain seasons. An employ- ment bureau could not at those times find openings where none exist. The workers' records show, however, that transfers from one establishment to another, from one branch of the trade to another, or even from bindery work to some other occupa- tion, are entirely feasible. The difficulty is that because of the lack of any adequate clearing house for such transfers, time and effort are wasted in a blind search for jobs. This is where an employ- ment bureau would find its opportunity, provided its equipment were adequate and its reach ex- 127 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE tensive in many different fields of employment throughout the city. Through continuous con- tact with market demands, and discriminating study of the fitness of applicants, unwise choice of positions and the loss of time involved in trans- ferring workers from one establishment to another could be minimized, with distinct advantage both to workers and to employers. This same first- hand experience would enable an employment agent to read, in advance, the signs of a change in machinery or methods which so frequently dis- places workers without sufficient warning. Fur- thermore, such a clearing house ought also to be a storehouse of information regarding the causes of irregular employment. This transfer of workers from one position to another, without undue loss of time and earnings, is an immediate practical task, demanding a more effective system of guidance than newspaper ad- vertisements can supply. More fundamental, how- ever, is the possibility of preventing the neces- sity for such frequent transfers, by planning the work so that it may be evenly distributed through- out the year, thus avoiding dangerous over-fatigue at one period, and a total loss of income at another. Such a plan would involve no conflict of interest between capital and labor, since for both the steady use of the plant is of great ad- vantage. At present, however, little is being done in the bookbinding trade to bring about a more even 128 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT distribution of orders throughout the year. Some employers have attempted to keep the force to- gether by various devices, such as dividing the work so that all would be on part time instead of a few on full time and the others out of work. In some binderies the girls are laid off in shifts two or three days at a time, instead of their being dis- charged for a continuous period. The binders who have attempted to remedy this irregularity by inducing publishers to place orders in dull sea- son, even offering substantial reductions in price, say that their efforts have met with no encouraging response. It is, in fact, a case of divided responsibility. Author, editor, publisher, printer, binder, critic, reader, all have a share, more or less remote, in creating the conditions which make the bindery girl's work irregular. If the author has been tardy in preparing the manuscript; if the editor has dallied over revision; if the publisher, with his eye on the critic and the reader, sends the book to the printer at the moment when all other pub- lishers are sending their books and insists upon delivery at what he considers the psycholog- ical publication hour; if the printer has taken so many orders that he finishes this one several days late, then all together will demand that the bookbinder make up for these delays by rushing through the binding in a day and a night. In the meantime the bookbinder, eager to have a hand in the issue of as many as possible of this sudden 9 129 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE harvest of volumes, has taken more contracts than he could possibly execute during the normal hours of work. At the last moment then, when the pressure is greatest, it is the bindery hands who must make up for the time lost all along the line. Following this rush period comes unemployment or part time. Thus the rush period deserves con- sideration as a point of attack in attempting to prevent the evil of slack season. The necessity for such a stampede seems to be, after all, more or less a creation of the imagination of the makers and sellers of literature. Books are not perishable, in the physical sense. They can be bound and stored until the time comes to flood the market with them. Furthermore, publishers are surely not powerless to create in the popular imagination the desire for continuous rather than for seasonal publication. If critics and advertisers can so manipulate the intelligence of readers as to sell one hundred thousand copies of a trashy novel, why can they not persuade the same readers to buy a book every month? Already magazine publishers have begun to realize that they need not all seek the same date of publication. Unfortunately, however, a stronger motive for change is needed by the men and women who are managing the book market than the desire to give steady work to an unknown bindery hand. Uni- form pressure is necessary to restrain the least humane of employers from under-bidding his competitors by overworking his employes. Such 130 IRREGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT pressure may be provided by factory legislation. Interesting testimony on this point was brought together in a report of commissioners appointed to inquire into the working of the Factory and Workshops Act in England in 1876. Members of women's trade unions were called to testify. Bookbinders, questioned about the relation of legislation to their occupation, complained that the trade was most unnecessarily considered by the law a season trade. Moreover, they thought that the existence of the modification (permitting an extension of hours to fourteen per day, during certain periods of the year) made employers care- less of due economy in time. They declared that "there is a great deal of work done during those months which might as well be done during the slack season, such as school books or anything of that kind that are always required, but they are generally kept back until the beginning of the winter season comes on." One witness was asked whether it would be possible to bind magazines without working overtime. The reply was, "Not at present, but I think it is a thing which could be managed in time, because I think the publishers, when they know they can get them done by a certain day, very often keep them back when they might be pushed forward; because in such an emergency as that there is no respect to the Act, they keep them back until the last moment."* * Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the working of the Factory and Workshops Acts, Minutes of Evidence, p. 135. London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1876. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE This testimony, corroborated by statements made by New York bookbinders, suggests that restrictions on overtime in busy season would be a powerful means of compelling a more even dis- tribution of orders. The bookbinder who was sure that he and all his competitors must obey a state law limiting the hours of women's work would refuse orders which he could not execute in a normal working day. Publishers and all others concerned in the issue of a book would then be forced to adjust their plans to the new condition, by allowing more time for the binding. The diffi- culty of getting work done in busy season would also make them more responsive to the binders' overtures for dull-season orders. It is evident, therefore, that in legislation limiting the hours of work the state has one means of meeting its responsibility for the problem of steadying the seasons. 132 CHAPTER VI OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS BOOKBINDERIES are factories in the legal meaning of the term. According to the New York law no child under fourteen years of age may be employed in a bindery. None be- tween the ages of fourteen and sixteen may work unless provided with an employment certificate, nor may a child between these ages work longer than eight hours in a day, or at any time, except between the hours of 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. At the time of this investigation, no woman of sixteen years or older might be employed more than sixty hours weekly, more than six days in a week, or more than ten hours in a day except under certain conditions.* She might work overtime, however, regularly on five days in the week in order to make the sixth day shorter. Or she might work overtime irregularly on three days in the week, provided that the working day never * By an amendment enacted by the 1912 legislature, which took effect October ist, 1912, the working week for women was reduced from sixty to fifty-four hours, and the working day to nine hours, while certain exception clauses permitted ten hours under certain condi- tions, but never twelve hours as was possible under the former law. As this investigation was made before the enactment of the fifty- four hour law, the discussion in this chapter relates to a working week of sixty hours. The underlying principles of enforcement, however, and the need for public support of such legislation, as it is illustrated in the bookbinding trade, are unchanged by the differ- ences in the law. '33 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE exceeded twelve hours. Practically then, the New York law permitted a twelve-hour day. Under no conditions might the weekly hours exceed sixty. No woman under twenty-one years of age might work between the hours of 9 p. m. and 6 a. m. Women over twenty-one might work by night or by day, provided the working week did not exceed sixty hours and that the working day was not more than ten hours, except under the conditions already described, when a twelve-hour day was permissible. The law which became operative in October, 1912, reduced the sixty-hour weekly limit to fifty-four, and the daily hours to nine, with permission to work ten hours on the same terms which formerly made twelve hours possible. For children under sixteen then, the statute is plain, no work before 8 a. m., or after 5 p. m. or longer than eight hours in any one day, but as soon as the sixteenth birthday is passed the legal day is lengthened and confusing exceptions are introduced into the law. Their application to the bindery in- dustry can be made clearer by showing the actual hours of work of a few women in the trade. A girl of sixteen worked in a large bindery where books, department store catalogues, and a monthly magazine were bound. Her regular hours were eight in a day, from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m.; forty-eight in a week. Each month from the i6th to the 25th, when the magazine was bound, she worked until 9 p. m. sometimes twice and sometimes three times a week. Her day then was from 8 a. m. until 134 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS 9 p. m. with an hour for lunch and a half-hour for supper, or a total of eleven and one-half working hours, excluding meal time. The total weekly hours of labor were fifty-five when she worked overtime twice, and fifty-eight and a half when she stayed three evenings. This schedule of hours did not violate the law in any particular. The girl was sixteen years old and hence was not protected by the eight-hour law for children of fourteen and fifteen. She did not begin work before 6 a. m. nor work later than 9 p. m. She had thirty minutes for supper; the law requires only twenty minutes' recess when working later than 7 p. m. The total daily hours of actual labor when working over- time did not exceed eleven and one-half, and never occurred more than three times in a six-day work- ing week; the law permitted twelve hours three days in the week. The total working week did not exceed fifty-eight and a half hours; the law permitted sixty hours. Thus it was possible to work overtime without violating the law. In September and in February, however, this bindery no longer kept within the law. At those seasons the fall and spring catalogues of depart- ment stores were bound. Instead of working three nights, employes stayed until 9 p. m. on five nights a week and sometimes added three hours on Saturday, so that the working week was sixty- five and a half hours long with five days of over- time, or sixty-eight and a half when the Saturday's overtime work was added. 135 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE The differences between this schedule and the preceding one are the length of the working week, and the five or six days of overtime, instead of two or three, above ten hours. These differences constituted violations of the law. Sixty-eight and a half hours exceeded the legal sixty, and a day of longer than ten hours was permissible only when it occurred (a) regularly on five days or less, as a means of shortening the sixth day while completing a full week of sixty hours or less, or (b) irregularly on three days or less. This bindery could legally have lengthened its daily eight hours regularly to eleven from Monday to Friday and then worked five hours on Saturday. When the overtime above ten hours occurred "irregularly" at rush seasons, it must be limited to three days in a week. This illustration suffices to show the difficulty of enforcing either the sixty-hour law or the new fifty-four hour provision. Two or three nights of overtime does not constitute a violation. Proof cannot be complete without data showing the hours of actual work, exclusive of meal time, each day, and their combined total. A single inspection would be sufficient to give basis for prosecution if a girl under twenty-one were found working after 9 p. m. In that case, the inspector would be obliged to prove the age as well as the time at which the girl was found at work. This proof of age is necessary because, as soon as a woman passes her twenty-first birthday, the provision of law prohibiting the work of younger 136 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS women after 9 p. m. or before 6 a. m. no longer ap- plies to her. A girl twenty-three years old was employed to fill the boxes of a gathering machine in a magazine bindery. She worked from 8:30 a. m. to 5 130 p. m. with a half hour at noon. She began again at 6:30 p. m. and worked until mid- night. After a recess of thirty minutes she con- tinued her day's task until 5 130 a. m. This was a total working period of nineteen hours. Since the law permitted a twelve-hour day, and did not prohibit employment of adult women during the night, a working day of twenty-four hours was legal for them. With the stroke of the clock at midnight, a twelve-hour day ended and another twelve-hour day might begin. In the case of this girl, not the long stretch of work, but the fact that fourteen hours instead of twelve preceded midnight, was a viola- tion of the law. The legal provisions would have been fulfilled had she begun work two hours later and stayed in the bindery until noon the next day. These illustrations reveal the inadequacy of the law, its confusing exceptions and its failure to prohibit night work. Exact evidence as to its enforcement in any one trade is difficult to secure. Employers are not likely to give full information about their own offenses against it. Workers are often afraid to give exact facts damaging to their employers, lest to do so should result in loss of their jobs. In the bookbind- ing trade in particular, investigators encounter the further difficulty that overtime is so customary WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE that it does not occur to the workers to speak of it. They are surprised at the question, Have you ever worked overtime? " If you're in bindery work, you have to," they reply. Nevertheless, a statistical measure of the extent of overtime work has been secured by tabulating the girls' state- ments about their most recent positions. Their testimony about the physical effects of the work will show the need for a stronger law and better enforcement. First, however, it is important to know the length of the normal working day and week without overtime, as it appears on the records TABLE 26. DAILY HOURS OF WORK OF WOMEN EM- PLOYED IN BOOKBINDING* WOMEN WORKING SPECIFIED HOURS IN Edition and Daily Hours of Work Pamphlet Bind- eries Employing SO or more All Other Binderies All Binderies Women Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per ber Cent ber Cent ber Cent Less than 8 hours 58 2 58 \ 8 hours . 1,013 3 420 i? '.433 25 More than 8, less than 8}4 . 21 i 21 b 8}4 and less than 9 1,440 45 582 24 2,022 36 9 and less than 9^ 790 24 1,214 49 2,OO4 35 9> and less than 10 135 6 135 2 10 or more 16 i 16 b Total 3*243 IOO 2,446 IOO 5,689 IOO a Information was secured from 208 binderies, employing a normal force of 5,689 women. This table shows hours on first five days of the week, but not on Saturdays. b Less than 0.5 per cent. I 3 8 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS of binderies, supplemented by workers' reports and by figures given by the New York State Department of Labor. Nearly three-fourths work between eight and a half and nine and a half hours a day, while 25 per cent have an even eight-hour day. This state- ment applies to the hours of labor on the first five days in the week. In many cases the excess over eight hours on these days is due to a schedule by which the working period on Saturday is shortened, while the length of the week is forty-eight hours.* TABLE 27. WEEKLY HOURS OF WORK OF WOMEN EM- PLOYED IN BOOKBINDING* WOMEN WORKING SPECIFIED HOURS IN Edition and Weekly Hours of Work Pamphlet Binder- ies Employing 50 or more Women All Other Binderies All Binderies Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per ber Cent ber Cent ber Cent 48 hours or less 2,278 7' 818 35 3,096 56 Over 48 and less than 50 ... 125 4 178 8 303 6 50 and less than 52 135 4 332 14 467 9 52 and less than 54 380 12 287 12 667 12 54 and less than 56 275 9 617 2 7 892 16 56 and less than 58 60 3 60 i 58 and less than 60 .. 16 16 b Total 3.193 100 2,308 100 5.501 100 a Of the 5,689 women employed in binderies supplying any infor- mation regarding hours, 188 were in establishments which did not give complete data on weekly hours of labor. b Less than 0.5 per cent. * The time of beginning and ending work, and length of noon recess are shown in Appendix B, Tables I, J, and K, pp. 254-255. 139 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE Thus when not working overtime 56 per cent of the bindery women in these establishments have a normal working week of forty-eight hours, or, in a very few cases, less, and less than 2 per cent work fifty-six hours or more a week. In the busy season, however, these hours are frequently pro- longed, and this lengthening of the normal day or week is always called "overtime/' although it may not exceed or even equal the limit allowed by the law. Thus, a distinction must be kept in mind between overtime which is illegal because it exceeds the limits set by law, and overtime which is merely an excess above the usual schedule of hours pre- vailing in an establishment, without violating the state labor law designed to prevent excessive over- time. Of the 36 large edition and pamphlet bin- deries from which information about overtime was secured, 31 reported that they lengthened the hours of work at some season of the year. Of 88 smaller establishments giving this information, 63 had overtime, and of 31 blankbook makers, 22. These figures are based on the employers' state- ments. Although these establishments may not all ex- ceed the limit of the law, the girls' statements re- garding 227 positions which they have held very recently indicate that many do. Usually one girl's experience represented that of a number of her fellow-workers. Nine per cent of the reports of overtime were from girls under sixteen, 22 per cent from those sixteen to eighteen, 40 per cent 140 WIRE-STITCHERS. ARTIFICIAL LIGHT ALL DAY ONE END OF A CROWDED BINDERY OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS from workers between eighteen and twenty-one, and 29 per cent from those twenty-one and over. This indicates how large is the proportion of young girls among the workers whose hours are prolonged in busy season. The girls' reports covered 88 different binderies of which 36 were edition and pamphlet binderies employing 50 or more women. Seventy per cent, 159, of the reports showed overtime, including legal and illegal, while more than half of these instances of overtime were violations of the law. Workers reported 1 52 distinct violations in 42 different establishments. Table 28 classifies these violations according to the section of the law to which they relate. TABLE 28. VIOLATIONS IN BOOKBINDING ESTABLISH- MENTS OF LAW RESTRICTING HOURS OF WORK FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS Nature of Violation Number of Viola- tions of each Specified Nature Employment for more than 60 hours weekly Employment for more than 12 hours daily . Employment for more than 10 hours daily, irregu- larly more than 3 times a week .... Less than 20 minutes allowed for supper to women working overtime more than i hour after 6 p. m Employment for 7 days a week .... Employment of women under 21 years of age after 9 p. m. Employment of women 21 years and over after 9 p. m. (before law was declared unconsti- tutional) 51 35 25 '1 '7 i Total 152 141 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE These statistics are in no sense a measure of conditions in the trade. They are merely illustra- tions of too prevalent a practice of lengthening the hours of work in binderies. A fuller dis- cussion of the girls' reports of overtime, both legal and illegal, will make the situation clearer. Some of their 159 reports of overtime showed comparatively early closing hours, which were not violations of law (and did not appear in Table 28). In 21 per cent of the 159 cases the girls were not kept later than 7 o'clock, and in 16 per cent they left the bindery between 8 and 9. In 44 per cent they stayed until 9 and in 19 per cent, almost one in every five, they worked until later at night. Several flagrant cases were included in this last group; one reported work until 12:30 a. m., three until i in the morning, two until 3 o'clock, one until 5:30, one until 8 and one until 9 the next morning. In every one of these cases the girl had gone to work in the morning and worked through- out the day and evening until after midnight. For a girl to leave a bindery at such late hours as are here indicated, and go home alone through the streets, is obviously dangerous. The fact that the law permits women of twenty-one or over to work after 9 p. m. also makes a loop-hole for employing younger girls until late at night. One of the girls whose record appears in these state- ments was employed at the age of seventeen to stitch programs for opera houses and theaters. 142 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS During the theater season she worked overtime until ii or 12 o'clock at night, a day of fourteen and a half hours. She walked home alone, past the closed business houses downtown. "Only bums are down there at that hour of the night/' she said. Another girl of the same age was employed a year and a half in a pamphlet and maga- zine bindery "knocking up." She frequently worked overtime Saturday night, sometimes stay- ing until 2, 3, or 4 o'clock Sunday morning. Her home was in one of the worst sections of Fourteenth Street. She was laid off in March and had great difficulty in securing any other position. A few weeks later she disappeared and no one in her family knew where she had gone. Whether her employment at night and her walks along Four- teenth Street at 2 or 3 a. m. were the direct cause of her disappearance cannot be proved. But the danger of adding such influences to those which already surround young girls in a city like New York needs no proof. The total hours daily in all reports of overtime showed as wide a range as did the statements about closing hours. In 9 per cent of 139 cases in which the daily working hours were fully reported, the maximum day when working over- time did not exceed ten hours, in 14 per cent it was between ten and eleven hours, and in 29 per cent it was between eleven and twelve hours in length, 143 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE exclusive of meal time. Twelve-hour days ap- peared in 23 per cent of the reports, while in 25 per cent the overtime day was longer than twelve hours. The detailed reports of working days longer than twelve hours show appalling conditions. These hours represent actual working time, after deduct- ing the length of noon recess and the time allowed for supper. In four positions the day was 12^ hours long; in seven, 12^2 hours; in three, 12^; in nine, 13; in one, 13^; in two, 14; in two, 15^; in two, 16; in two, 18; in one, 19^; in one, 2i>^; and in one, 22 hours. The United States gov- ernment investigators, whose report has been quoted,* found an even more alarming example of overwork of a girl in a bindery, a working "day" of 24^ hours. The occurrence of these long days is, of course, not consecutive or continuous. That would be unendurable. For example, magazine binderies are notorious for the great irregularity in the length of successive days. The working week of a girl employed in one of them is shown in Chart V. The normal day is nine hours, but only one in this week was of that length. The other days varied from four to fifteen working hours. After fifteen hours of work on Thursday and fourteen on Friday, it requires no argument to prove that a short day of four hours on Saturday * See page 2. 144 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS even followed by rest on Sunday does not com- pensate for the intense physical strain endured on those two days. Thus, even though the working week was only two and a half hours longer than the law allows, within that time an exhausting period of labor was possible. A tabulation of the weekly hours, however, indicated also excessive overwork in many positions. Not all the reports of over- time gave all the information necessary for de- termining the length of the working week. The weekly hours were within the legal limit, sixty hours or less, in 46 cases, and exceeded it in Hours Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 24 ' Saturday CHART V. DAILY HOURS OF LABOR IN A ONE WEEK PERIOD, IN A PAMPHLET BINDERY 51. The details of the group working 70 to 80 hours showed 70 hours in three cases, 71 in two, 10 145 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE 72 in one, 72 X in one, 75^ in one, 78 in two, and 80 in one. To realize fully how great a menace such overwork is to the health of bindery girls, it is necessary to emphasize the nature of their tasks, the conditions under which they work, the possible danger of accidents, and the more com- mon danger of fatigue to which many of the work- ers bore witness. Liability to accidents increases with overwork, and must be considered in relation to the legal regulation of the working day. Injuries to the hands or fingers seem to be more frequent than fatal accidents among bindery women. The worker usually suffers loss of time as a result; in some cases a change of occupation is necessary. A girl who worked in the trade fourteen years, said that she had never tried to operate a machine. "They're too dangerous, and if you lose your finger the boss ain't goin' to do anything for you. I've seen girls get the ends of their fingers cut off by the machine." "We work on machines at our own risk," said the feeder of a folding machine. "On the point folding machine the girls have to put their hands under the knife and draw them back before the knife comes down." One girl, sixteen years old, was employed to operate the wire-stitching machine in a magazine bindery. She wire-stitched her finger one Sunday morning early when she had been working steadily since Saturday at 8:30 a. m. One girl had her finger caught by the descending knife of a cutting ma- 146 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS chine from which she was taking the magazines. She fainted and was taken to a hospital. She reported every day at the bindery for three weeks and was paid full wages ($7.00 a week) but did very little work except running errands. After three weeks, the finger was better, but she was so unnerved that she could not work near the ma- chines. She folded sheets by hand, but her in- jury hindered her in the work, and prevented her earning more than $4.00 a week. Another girl lost the forefinger of her right hand while operating an indexing machine in a blankbook bindery. At that time she was earning $5.00 a week. The company did not reimburse her loss, although she had to begin again as a learner and practice other processes in which the loss of the finger would not be a hindrance. "Any ma- chine is dangerous if you don't watch it carefully," said another girl. Over the entrance to the work- room of a magazine bindery is a sign which reads: "DANGER. All persons are warned to use care when around machines and promptly to report any defects." The fatigue caused by prolonged periods of work is greatly increased when the workroom is dark, dusty, or badly ventilated. Great variety char- acterizes conditions in the workrooms of New York binderies. Girls have been found stitching a magazine "devoted to the interests of health," in a cellar workroom entirely below street level, WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE lighted by gas. Others have been found at work in large lofts of high buildings, where ventilation and light were excellent. In some binderies' a modern passenger elevator carries one to the work- room; in others one must choose between long flights of dark and dusty wooden stairs and the slow freight "hoist" with its sign, "All persons riding in this elevator do so at their own risk." Overcrowding, insufficient lighting, and lack of proper ventilation endanger the workers' health in too many binderies. Books piled high cut off light and air. The seats provided often lack backs or foot-rests, and in many processes constant standing is the custom. The story of a bookbinder who is now too ill to work will illustrate the danger to which many of her fellow- workers are exposed, through bad work- room conditions, combined with the breaking down of physical resistance by heavy tasks and long hours. A board of health physician found this girl tubercular, and through the activity of a re- lief society she was sent to a sanatorium. The girl's home and the place where she had been em- ployed were visited. She had worked five years in the same workroom. Before that, illness had forced her to leave her previous position, which she had held also for five years. In this first posi- tion, she had frequently worked overtime in win- ter three nights a week until 9 p. m., a day of twelve and a half hours. To save carfare she had walked to and from the bindery. "I'd walk 148 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS home," she said, "and mamma 'd be out nursing and I'd be too tired to get any supper; that's how I got run down." She was ill three months. A physician then said that her lungs were sound, but that care would be necessary to keep them so. In the bindery where she was at work when she became ill with tuberculosis she had stood all day during the first year, examining and wrapping heavy bound volumes for a wage of $4.00 to $5.00 a week. After that she learned to collate the sheets of the books, and sat at work. The paper was heavy. It "tired" her chest and back to hold the sheets while collating. Although she was a week worker "it was necessary to rush because I had to keep the sewer, who was on piece work, supplied. If I didn't collate fast enough she'd complain to the forewoman that she couldn't make out." To conditions in this workroom she attributed her illness from tuberculosis. Other cases had developed in the same bindery. The books were not always bound immediately. After they had been gathered they were sometimes stacked for months, and the collators were the first ones to handle them while they were covered with ac- cumulated dust. The workroom was not kept clean, and the floor was swept while the girls were at work. In response to a complaint the Labor Department sent a ventilation expert to investigate the bindery, and the results of the inspection were reported in these words : 149 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE "He found the air openings in the windows too small for proper ventilation and ordered them to be enlarged. The air test showed 12 to 14 parts carbonic anhydride in 10,000 volumes, which is above the legal limit. The water closets were found clean. The fourth floor workroom (wom- en's department) was found blocked with accumu- lated stock which was covered with dust. Orders were given to cover the stock and wet-cleanse the floor every day." This girl's home was immaculately clean, and her mother a careful housekeeper. But good care at home could not prevent the undermining of health in ten years of bindery work beginning with long daily hours, a walk home late on cold winter nights, a deferred supper or none at all because she was "too tired to eat," a heavy cold, and then five years of exhausting work in a bindery where the dust was allowed to accumulate and was then stirred up by handling sheets of paper or sweeping while the workers were in the bindery. Yet no factor in this bindery girl's history is unique, except her unusually comfortable home. A witness of the processes of work in bookbin- deries would require no medical proof of two chief dangers to which bindery women are exposed, the danger from the accumulation of dust on paper, and the danger of fatigue. The workers' own statements are important as testimony on these points. "She was all worn out and she got so thin there 150 A CROWDED WORKROOM ACCUMULATED STOCK GATHERING DUST OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS wasn't anything to her/' said the mother of a girl who for three years had worked all night two or three times a week in the winter months. She began in the morning and worked until 5:30 a. m. the following day. "Then she was supposed to rest all day and until the next morning at 8 when she went to work again," said her mother. " But she got so tired she would cry all morning when she came home and she couldn't sleep well. The doctor told her she'd have to stop night work." In a certain bindery in New York a grocers' cata- logue is bound every Wednesday evening. In order not to miss tardy advertisements it is not brought to the bindery until 7 p. m. Two women work until 10 or 1 1 p. m. to prepare it for the mail Thursday morning. After that hour, one of them, twenty-three years old, must journey an hour from Brooklyn Bridge before reaching home uptown in Manhattan. Just before the Fourth of July, 1911, in a record-breaking hot spell this girl was overcome by the heat at night in the bindery. She was dizzy and nauseated, and "could hardly hold her head up," but the grocers' catalogue must be wire-stitched and she could not stop work until the order was finished. She was ill for two weeks afterwards, receiving no wages for the time lost, but the catalogue was mailed in time, and thus the firm did not lose the contract for binding it. But aside from the fatigue caused by working such long hours, the processes in themselves are hard, even under the best conditions. "Gather- WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE ing is very heavy," said a bindery girl in New York City. "I'm always thin. I never can pick up." One girl wears gloves while inserting the large sheets of a magazine one within another, to pre- vent the swelling of her hands and wrists. Another bandages her wrists. "The work wears you out after awhile," she said. Both these girls stand at work all day. " Bindery work is very hard work," said another. " When you get your wages, you've earned every cent. When the girls get home they're too tired to do anything." " I don't like bookbinding," said a learner who had been em- ployed a year in the trade. "They're getting machines for everything. I was on a machine, gathering, and every once in a while I'd be so tired I'd have to stay home a day. Knocking up is tiresome too." A girl seventeen years old who had charge of four folding machines said that tend- ing them made her so nervous that she frequently cried from fatigue when she reached home at night. "No girl should go into bookbinding un- less she is very strong," said another. A young learner emptied the boxes into which the large folding machine delivers the folded sheets. The work was so heavy that she broke down and was idle three months. "They ought to have boys to do that work," she said. An examiner and wrapper who handled the com- pleted volumes, often heavy, asserted that the rapid turning of the pages of the books tired her eyes very quickly. "At first," she said, "I used 152 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS to see the pages moving in my sleep." She stood at work and seldom had a chance to sit down. "We fairly had to swipe our chairs. If we sat down long they'd give us a look, as much as to say, ' It's time you stood up." Another girl, who stood always while doing this work, left because of illness; she said that it was due to standing and to holding the heavy volumes. Her two sisters had been bindery girls. Their father objected to their working in this trade. "He can't be havin' us work in binderies, and then be havin' to pay doc- tor's bills." A girl who was employed more than four years in the gold laying department of an edition bindery was obliged to leave the trade because of illness. Air, circulating freely, might blow the gold leaf. Lack of ventilation caused her to faint and have nausea. Another gold layer said that it was impossible to ventilate the room, and that in summer it was almost unendurable. Others com- plained, also, of eye-strain. "The gold has a glare," said one of them. " I would never advise a girl to take up number- ing," said an operator of a numbering machine, which is run by a foot-pedal, pressed eight or ten thousand times a day. " I know a lot of girls that have had to have operations because of it." In a blankbook bindery, a girl who does general work complains of severe pains in her side, due to the constant pressure of the foot on the pedal of a perforating machine. Usually she does a few 153 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE hours' work a day on this machine, and then turns to other work, but recently the firm had a large order which lasted nearly four weeks, and the machine was running constantly, one girl taking it the moment another stopped operating it. The bulk of this work falls to her share because she operates the machine more carefully than the others. The visitor's report of her interview reads: "Katie looks worn out and is discouraged because she doesn't get more than $7.00 for the hard work she is doing. She was busy washing the supper dishes (8 120 p.m.). Her younger sister was dressing to go to a wedding. Katie said that she used to go to dances and weddings when she was young but she is too tired to go now. She is twenty-two years old." It is obvious that even the unskilled work of lifting sheets from the boxes of machines or carry- ing books from one part of the workroom to another is exhausting, especially if the working hours be long. Doubtless it was dislike of this heavy work which led the London Societies of Journeymen Bookbinders, in an agreement in which the women workers were not represented or consulted, to declare that "they will not make it a grievance if," in addition to a few other processes, "female or unskilled labour is placed upon the carrying of loads of work about the work shop."* * MacDonald, J. Ramsay: Women in the Printing Trades, p. 8. London, King, 1904. 154 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS " Physical effort," writes Dr. Oliver,* "and the lifting and carrying of heavy weights not only im- press themselves upon the muscles and nervous system, but upon all parts of the body, particu- larly the bones in early adolescence and the period of growth. ... If standing all day when at work in an overheated factory causes tiredness of the muscles and also varicose veins, prolonged sitting may be just as harmful, for the lumbar region of the spinal column becomes bent, the movements of the abdominal viscera are interfered with, the lower ribs are compressed, and since deep inspiration is hardly possible the lungs are badly ventilated and the aeration of the blood is imperfect." It follows that specialization in proc- esses, which compels a worker to maintain one position throughout the working day, should be listed among the occupational dangers. This dan- ger exists in binderies, and is multiplied as the hours of labor are prolonged. An increasing number of experiments to deter- mine the nature of fatigue are supplying scientific proof of the need for labor legislation.! " Fatigue or tiredness," writes Dr. Oliver, J "is a sensation, the outcome of a particular state of the nervous system, the result of work carried beyond the capabilities of the organism. In ordinary physio- *Oliver, Thomas, M.D.: Diseases of Occupation, p. n. New York, Dutton, 1908. fGoIdmark, Josephine: Fatigue and Efficiency. Russell Sage Foun- dation Publication. New York, Charities Publication Committee, 1912. t Oliver, op. cit., pp. 6, 9. '55 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE logical activity exhaustion is never attained, for fatigue is the warning signal. . . . The waste products added to the blood act upon the nerve endings in muscle and upon the grey matter of the brain, and create a sense of fatigue. . . and on the other hand they poison the large nerve cells in the grey matter of the brain, render them less receptive of sensory stimuli, and in this way re- duce their power of emitting volitional impulses. There is, therefore, in fatigue an element that is mental as well as physical. After rest and sleep the sensation of fatigue wears off, and we rise invigo- rated and strengthened for work. During repose, structure is being rebuilt and waste products are eliminated. . . . One of the important fea- tures of overwork, calling for notice, is the manner in which fatigue is repaired. It is a question of length of time." It is evident that fatigue is not the result of a particular process of work, but a sign of overwork in any occupation. The time element is the de- cisive factor in its cause; it is also the decisive factor in recovery. Of course, the length of time necessary to induce fatigue varies with the nature of the work, and the individual power of endurance. But that time alone can cure fatigue, and that ex- haustion may be the result of ignoring it are facts which the scientists have proved applicable to every worker in every occupation. It is the pur- pose of labor laws to protect the health of workers against the poisonous effects of fatigue. How in- 156 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS adequate is the protection extended to bindery women in New York is clear, and suggests a dis- cussion of the law. In 1886, the legislature of New York state passed its first factory law, entitled "An act to regulate the employment of women and children in manu- facturing establishments, and to provide for the appointment of inspectors to enforce the same." According to this law no woman under twenty-one might be employed more than sixty hours in any one week, "unless for the purpose of making neces- sary repairs." It prohibited the employment of any child under the age of thirteen years. Only one inspector and one assistant were appointed to enforce it. In 1889, the daily working hours of women under twenty-one years were limited to ten, but an "exception" clause permitted longer days for the purpose of shortening the hours of work on Saturday. In the same year night work of women under twenty-one years was prohibited between the hours of 9 p. m. and 6 a. m. In 1899, by a single act, the provisions of the law were extended to all women irrespective of age. Judging by the number of prosecutions, lax en- forcement has characterized the history of the law. In the six years preceding 1906, there were only four prosecutions in New York state either for employing women more than sixty hours in a week or for employing them after 9 p. m. in any factory. Only one employer was convicted and fined in that period. One was acquitted. Two were con- WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE victed and sentence suspended. Yet violations were known to the commissioner of labor, for he wrote in his report of 1902,* "Reference to the tables of orders, complaints, and prosecutions will show that the principal source of trouble is the tendency on the part of factory managers to exact longer hours than the legal maximum for women and minors, and to employ children without filing the required certificate of age, school attendance and physical fitness/' The year 1906 was characterized by a sudden burst of activity with more than three times as many prosecutions begun as in the preceding five years. Six employers in the bookbinding trade were arrested for employing women after 9 p. m. Seven other prosecutions were begun for employ- ing women more than sixty hours in a week.f This activity resulted in court decisions in two cases in the same year, in one of which the prohibition of night work was declared unconstitutional, while in the other the sixty-hour law was held to be a legiti- mate exercise of the police power of the state.! * Second Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of New York, 1902. Vol. I. Pt. III. Report of the Bureau of Factory Inspection, p. 24. t New York State Department of Labor, Factory Inspection, 1906. Part II, p. 210. {The case of one Mary Seeback's employment in a laundry more than sixty hours in a week never passed beyond the court of special sessions, which declared that "a law which attempts to limit the num- ber of hours of labor of a woman employed in a factory, may well be a health regulation and a proper legislative exercise of the state's police power." New York State Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 31, December, 1906, p. 484. For court decision, People v. Howe, Court of Special Sessions, see Appendix C, pp. 256-258. I 5 8 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS The case regarding the prohibition of night work, now wellknown as the People v. Williams, is of direct interest in a study of the bookbinding trade. The opening paragraphs of the judges' decision give the setting. "At twenty minutes after ten o'clock on the night of January 31, 1906, a deputy factory inspector visited the bookbinding establishment of the defendant, No. 437 Eleventh Avenue, in the County of New York, and there found one Katie Mead, a female more than twenty- one years of age, and a citizen, employed in 'gathering/ to wit, assembling printed papers in the form of a book or pamphlet for binding purposes. The defendant, one of the proprietors of the establishment, was present and in charge of the work and the employes, and among them were several other women. There is no pretext that the building was insecure, the light bad, ventila- tion defective, or the general sanitary condition defi- cient. In these respects, the deputy testified, 'It is the best factory of the kind in New York City/ "The information upon which the defendant was tried and convicted charges a misdemeanor under sec- tion 77, article 6, entitled ' Factories/ of the General Laws Relating to Labor, in that he employed, permitted and suffered the said Katie Mead to work in that factory after nine o'clock at night on the date specified/'* Katie Mead, on the night of January 31, 1906, was not only a bindery hand. She was a represen- tative of all the women employed in factories in * New York State Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 30, Sep- tember, 1906, p. 340 ff. People v. Williams, Court of Special Sessions. '59 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE New York state. The work that she did in the bindery that night after 9 o'clock resulted in "the first judicial construction thus far made in the United States of a statute prohibiting the em- ployment of women in factories at night/'* Three courts, in succession, declared the prohibi- tion unconstitutional, and, as a result of their de- cision, Katie Mead and all other adult women in binderies or in any other factories of New York state may be "employed, permitted and suffered" to work throughout the night. The reasoning of the courts is somewhat in- volved, but the importance of the decision in the history of factory laws in New York, and its im- mediate bearing on their present enforcement, makes full discussion of it desirable. The court declared that the issue was not the limitation of the working hours in a day or a week. "How long the woman worked on the day in question, how long she worked that week, or how many hours of labor she had contracted to perform on the night she was found working in the factory none of these things appear. The sole fact before us is that a woman was employed in factory work for a few minutes during hours when the statute declares it was unlawful to so employ her." The justice believed that one of women's rights certainly was " the right to contract for her labor and to work when and where she pleased without reference to the position * Ibid., p. 336 if. 1 60 MIDNIGHT IN A MAGAZINE BINDERY THE MIDNIGHT LUNCH HOUR OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS of the hands upon the dial of the clock. . . . There is nothing in the prohibition of the section in question which indicates that its object is to promote the health or the public welfare. Had the statute been so framed as to provide that none of the employment of women for sixty hours a week or ten hours a day should be be- tween 9 p. m. and 6 a. m., or had it provided that women might work only a limited time after 9 o'clock p. m. and before 6 o'clock a. m., if she was employed during other hours of the day, its object as a health regulation might be apparent. When, however, it is so drawn as to prevent an adult citizen from exercising her right to contract for employment, even for so limited a period as one hour during the prohibited time, it cannot prop- erly be considered a health regulation." The appellate division of the Supreme Court affirmed this decision but their vote was divided, two of the five justices dissenting.* Justice Scott, writing the majority opinion, declared that "the opinion delivered by the learned justice who wrote for the Court of Special Sessions discusses the constitu- tional infirmity of that clause of the statute upon which the prosecution is based so satisfactorily that we adopt it as the opinion of this Court. . . . The provision under examination is aimed solely against work at night, without regard to the length of time during which work is performed, or the conditions under which it is carried on, and in order to sustain the reasonableness of the provision, we must find that, owing to some physical or nervous difference, it is more harmful for a woman * New York State Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 31, December, 1906, p. 478 ff. People v. Williams, 115 App. Div. ii 161 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE work at night in binderies means too often per- mission to prolong the day's labor. Few binderies (not more than two or three) have regular night shifts for women, who begin work in the evening without having worked during the day. In a far greater number, girls who work during the day stay on through the night hours. Probably Katie Mead had been working since 8 a. m., although the evidence presented to the court showed only the single fact that she was found at work at 10:20 p. m. without regard to the length of employment preceding that moment. Some of the actual in- stances of overtime work cited in this chapter demonstrate that the prescribing of a definite rest period during definite hours of the night is essential to prevent the joining together of two working days at the stroke of midnight. That the long periods of employment resulting from such a practice have disastrous effects on the health of women was pointed out by the factory inspectors of New York in their annual report as long ago as 1887.* " Inquiry among those females above the statutory agef who worked twelve and fifteen hours a day in printing offices, candy fac- tories, woolen mills, and other manufacturing establishments/' they wrote in that year, "elicited the information that the women who labor these long hours were more subject to fits of nervous * Second Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of the State of New York, 1887, p. 28. f At that time the law applied only to women under twenty-one years of age. .64 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS prostration and debility than those who worked the normal day of ten hours ; and, as a rule, at the end of a year, they would not have so much working time to their credit as those who were not so overworked." That the factory inspectors recognized the connection between a prohibition of night work and the regulation of the length of the working day, is shown by the fact that this statement of the bad effects of prolonged periods of employment was used in their annual report as an argument in favor of their recommendation that the employment of any woman, adult as well as minor, after 9 p. m. be prohibited. The constitutionality of a law designed to pre- vent such prolonged periods of employment by limiting the hours of work of women to ten in a day was clearly affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1908 in the case of Muller v. Oregon. The argument for the law rested on "the world's experience upon which the legislation lim- iting the hours of labor for women is based," and counsel pointed out that no court can ignore facts of common knowledge, when deciding whether a statute is a legitimate exercise of the police power. " The danger of long hours for women/' wrote the counsel for the state of Oregon, in his summary of the statements of authorities in many nations,* " arises from their special physical organization taken in connection * Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1907, No. 107. Curt Muller, Plaintiff in Error, v. State of Oregon. Brief for Defendant in Error, Brandeis, Louis D., pp. 18, 24, 28. 165 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE with the strain incident to factory and similar work. . . . Such being their physical endowment, women are affected to a far greater degree than men by the growing strain of modern industry. Machinery is in- creasingly speeded up, the number of machines tended by individual workers grows larger, processes become more and more complex as more operations are per- formed simultaneously. . . . The fatigue which follows long hours of labor becomes chronic and results in general deterioration of health." In affirming the constitutionality of the statute, the court said,* "The two sexes differ in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor, particularly when done standing, the influence of vigor- ous health upon the future well-being of the race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon her/' As progress is made in strengthening legislation regulating the daily hours, it is to be hoped that the necessity for a prohibition of night work will also be recognized by courts and legislatures. In 1906, 13 European nations recognized this need by signing an international treaty which did not emphasize the idea of prohibition of employ- ment but stated the situation more positively by * United States Reports, Vol. 208. Cases adjudged in The Su- preme Court at October term, 1907. Muller Plaintiff in Error, v. The State of Oregon, p. 422. N. Y., The Banks Law Publishing Co., 1908. 166 OVERTIME AND THE FACTORY LAWS providing for a rest period each night for women workers. Nothing in the New York decision of 1906 would prevent the possibility of a more fav- orable interpretation at some future time of a law technically correct in drawing and supported by evidence showing its necessity as a health regu- lation. Such a decision is urgently needed to strengthen the New York restriction on the hours of work of women. The constitutionality of the law regulating the weekly and daily hours has never been denied in New York state, and the way is open for a better enforcement of this law. As a means to this end it is of urgent importance that convictions for violations should be followed by the imposition of fines in the magistrates' courts. Such a record as that of 1907 is discouraging to factory inspectors; in that year, 28 convictions were secured for viola- tions of the sixty-hour weekly law, and in 27 of these cases the magistrates suspended sentence.* The result of this use of the suspended sentence, combined with a misunderstanding of the applica- tion of the court decision denying the constitu- tionality of the night-work prohibition, has been to give a wide impression that the statute limiting the daily and weekly hours of labor is a dead letter. On the contrary, an increasing number of court decisions in other parts of the country are in agree- ment with that of the United States Supreme * New York State Department of Labor, Annual Report, 1907, Part II, p. 19. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE Court in affirming the constitutionality of such legislation. Indeed, in 1906, more than a year before the Oregon decision, the Court of Special Sessions* in New York declared the sixty-hour law a legitimate exercise of the state's police power for the protection of the public health. An aroused public opinion is needed now to give life to the statute, and to insure more adequate protection for women in factories. *New York State Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 31, De- cember, 1906, p. 484. People v. Howe. See Appendix C, pp. 256-258. 1 68 CHAPTER VII COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE THE trade union movement is a vigorous one in the bookbinding trade, and bindery women in New York are active in it. They have formed an organization composed entirely of women, and managed by their elected represen- tatives. Its purpose is to establish uniform, mini- mum standards regarding hours and wages, and to prevent unfair treatment of any worker in a union shop. It provides machinery for collective bargaining between an employer and his workers, not as individuals but as an organized group con- trolled by the votes of its members. The convic- tion behind this movement is that under present conditions of industry, unless there be a definite form of organization among the workers no indi- vidual protest of theirs against injustice will have any influence. The bookbinding trade affords a clear illustra- tion of the difference between the relation of the craftsman to his customer, and that of the obscure employe in a large establishment to the president of the corporation controlling it. It is still possible 169 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE to find a bookbinder, either man or woman, who works alone without employes and sells his labor to a purchaser without the intervention of an em- ployer or a salesman. But while the craftsman still holds his own, arranges his hours of labor, and bargains approximately as an equal with the cus- tomer who pays him for his services, the bindery girl in the ordinary workroom represents a changed industrial order. Her position is a reminder that since the days of Grolier, or Roger Payne, the forces of industrial revolution have been at work relentlessly and inevitably, changing methods in the workroom, enlarging the number of employes, splitting up their tasks into minute processes, in- troducing mechanical contrivances, and making each worker merely a humble part of a large system. The employer who formerly bound books in his own workroom has given place to the corporation manager whose chief duty is to study the book market. He pays no more attention than is neces- sary to the control of labor conditions. This phase of the business is handled by a delegation of authority from manager to superintendent, from superintendent to foreman, and from foreman to forewoman. Furthermore, not only does the worker occupy an obscure place in this hier- archy of industry, but the bookbinding trade itself is but a branch, and that a subordinate one, of the publishing business. The position of the worker and the impossibility of her modifying the conditions of her employment 170 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE are fairly well illustrated by the following descrip- tion written by an investigator who secured work in a bindery. "Reached above address at 8:10 a. m. Large red brick building, six stories high. Office on first floor. Group of girls, applying for work, stood around outside the railing. No talking. Several looked not more than sixteen or eighteen years; others older. Several came in after I did, and finally all together we num- bered 13. "A young girl from the office came forward and in- quired, 'How many of you are experienced hands?' Nothing was said by the crowd but quickly there was a separation of the wise from the otherwise. She spoke a word or two to several and then told them to go upstairs. Five or six went. While waiting, I had taken advantage of vacant space and was next in order to the sheep. Girl looked me over. "'Are you experienced?' "'I have done pasting, though not exactly this kind/ "Go upstairs/ " I climbed the three or four flights of stairs to the fourth floor and came upon the group which had pre- ceded me. A woman was speaking to one of them at a time. The girl ahead of me had had experience as a gatherer. I understood that she was sent down to work. Then came my turn. ' ' You have been here before?' "'No/ "I thought I had seen you before. In what are you experienced?' " ' I have not worked in a bindery before but I have 171 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE had to do careful filing in an office and I think I could do gathering/ 'Thinking and doing are very different things/ "She spoke a word to one of the foremen. "'You can't do gathering/ he said, 'tilj you've had experience/ ' ' How can I get experience?' " You'll have to start at the bottom and do folding. It's piece work and girls who have worked at it can earn 6.00 to $9.00 a week, but you couldn't/ "'But I want to learn/ ' ' Well, you'll have to come at your own risk. Get a bone folder and be here at 8 tomorrow/ " In such a case the girl may accept or refuse what is offered; she cannot modify the conditions. It is useless for an applicant for work to ask an em- ployer of 200 women to bargain with her individu- ally regarding hours of labor, the lighting of the workroom, or the position of the fire-escapes. Nor is a protest against too low wages likely to have any influence unless the employer is hard pressed for a worker in some particular process. Even a group of girls in the workroom cannot successfully make demands regarding conditions of employment, unless they are part of a larger or- ganization. A mere spontaneous uprising among them does not accomplish permanent results, and may only lead to their discharge. One girl de- scribed a "non-union strike" in a bindery in which she had worked. "The girls went out because they wanted more pay. It was a bad time for 172 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE there was very little work. All the girls, six or seven, walked out, except one. She was a foreigner and wouldn't have gone out for anybody. I told the others I thought it was better to wait until there was more work, but they wouldn't listen to me. We lost. The firm took on other girls." In another non-union bindery a few girls tried to organize a protest against overtime work. They had been working late in the week preceding Christmas, and they did not want to stay through Christmas Eve, which happened to be a Saturday. Two of the girls went about the workroom asking the others to refuse to work overtime that day. The one who afterwards told the story agreed to the plan, but as she was feeding the folding ma- chine she "could not hear what was going on." Meanwhile the other girls decided not to protest. Later in the afternoon the forewoman asked her if she intended to work overtime; she kept her agreement and refused. The forewoman dis- missed her. She stopped her machine and told the other girls that she was losing her job because they had not kept their word. Two of them offered to leave, but she urged them to stay. "There was no use having three people out of work," she said. But the forewoman appeared again, and dismissed all three. It should be remembered that in all these bar- gains, the state through its labor laws has already established a standard as a foundation for the agreement between employer and employe. In WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE these laws, already outlined, hours, sanitary con- ditions, and minimum age are defined. No manu- facturer may lawfully employ a child under four- teen; no child under sixteen may work more than eight hours in any one day, or at any time except between 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. No employer may legally require a girl under twenty-one to work dur- ing the night hours. No employer may contract for the labor of any woman for more than fifty- four hours in a week. Even if only one person is in his employ, a factory owner must meet these requirements, and others regarding ventilation, lighting, and sanitation. But the state has noth- ing to say regarding wages, and its standard of hours is much below the trade unionist's ideal of an eight-hour day. The demand for a living wage and an eight-hour day is left to be voiced by the thousands of unions in the many trades organized by the American Federation of Labor, of which the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders is a member. The International Brotherhood of Bookbinders was organized in Philadelphia in 1892, by book- binders who had formerly belonged to the Knights of Labor. Its membership included binders of printed books and blankbooks, paper rulers, paper cutters, edge gilders, and marblers, and workers in all other branches of the bookbinding industry. The Brotherhood is now made up of more than 200 local organizations to whom it has issued charters on application of 10 or more persons COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE working in the trade. The largest of any of these local unions in the bookbinding trade throughout the country is the bindery women's union in New York, known as Local 43 of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. Local 43 includes women workers in all pro- cesses of the trade except gold leaf laying.* It was organized in 1895, with less than 50 members. In 1906 it numbered 800, in 1909, 1400, and in 1912, 1600. Thus it has doubled its membership in six years. These six years have been the period of complete control of the organization by women officers. Early in this period, in 1907, a per- manent office was opened at 150 Nassau Street, New York, and one of the women members was elected secretary-treasurer to give her whole time to transacting the business of the union. In 191 1, the president gave up her work as sewer in a large bindery, and became a salaried organizer. The initiation fee is $3.00 and the monthly dues there- after 25 cents. In addition to paying its regular per capita tax to the International Brotherhood, Local 43 meets from these dues the expenses of its office. To those who think that trade unionism is syn- onymous with strikes and picketing and keeping another out of a job, a visit to the office of Local * The gold leaf layers in New York are members of Local 22, which is made up also of men stampers, and is part of the International Brotherhood. After the convention of the Brotherhood in June, 1912, Local 22 was merged with Locals i and 1 1 in a new Local 3, but in this chapter the former number is retained. 175 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE 43 would bring many surprises. With scarcely a strike in its history, this local, made up almost en- tirely of American-born girls, has continued its quiet, steady work, securing its aims by good busi- ness methods, by conference and discussion with employers, by give-and-take adjustments of diffi- culties arising in various shops, and by inducing employers to guarantee a minimum rate of pay for each process of women's work. It is these local unions in the various communi- ties which make trade agreements with employers. The international organization, especially in its biennial conventions and its trade journal, affords a means of discussion of interests common to all the local unions. It handles questions relating to co-operation with workers in other branches of the printing and publishing industry, and reenforces local efforts by the backing of its membership throughout the country. Its officers are elected by votes of the delegates from each local. The number of members in good standing, that is, those whose dues are paid, in each local, determines the number of votes to be cast by its delegates. The power of the central organization is strength- ened by its control of funds. Four separate per capita taxes are levied by the Brotherhood, and must be collected and paid at regular intervals by each local. For the journal fund men pay 5 cents a month and women 2 cents a month; for the funeral benefit fund ($75) both men and women pay 5 cents; for the organization fund each of the 176 GOLD LEAF LAYERS A STAMPER (This man takes the cover after the gold leaf has been laid on) COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE men members pays 10 cents a month, and each woman 3 cents; for the defense fund, used in time of strike, the tax is 20 cents a month for men and 5 cents for women; making a total tax of 40 cents a month for men and 15 cents for women. The defense fund may only be used to sustain legal strikes; that is, those authorized by the interna- tional executive committee. To members parti- cipating in such strikes the general office pays benefits of $7.00 a week to a married man, $5.00 to a single man, and $4.00 to a woman. The trade union label is one of the important tools for organizing workers in the various bin- deries. It is the same label as that used by print- ers and it signifies that the books or pamphlets on which it is stamped were manufactured in a union shop. To control its use in each community, and to discuss other common interests, Local Allied Printing Trades Councils are formed con- sisting of representatives of the unions of book- binders, printers, photo-engravers, stereotypers, and electrotypers. These councils also have an international association. It is their purpose to arouse public sentiment in favor of the label, par- ticularly on public documents and books used in the public schools, thus frequently inducing em- ployers who are seeking such public contracts to accept union organization in order to have the right to use the label when customers request it. Probably the most important event in the his- tory of the International Brotherhood of Book- 12 ,77 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE binders, one in which Local 43 took an active part, was the demand for the eight-hour day. It was made simultaneously on October i, 1907, by local unions throughout the country and is an excellent illustration of the relation of these locals to the international organization.* As early as April, 1907, the executive council of the International Brotherhood, meeting at Columbus, Ohio, adopted this resolution : "Resolved. That this Executive Council declare for the eight-hour workday on October i, 1907, and that the referendum be asked to ratify this action; the vote to be in the hands of the General Secretary on or before May 30, 1907." News of this decision was immediately sent to all members by means of a circular addressed to local unions Nos. i to 174, for ratification not by each local as a whole but by referendum vote by individual members. The result showed 4,906 votes in favor of the demand, and 1,758 opposed. The next step was to direct each local to send notices to the employers of their members, asking for a conference to discuss the inauguration of the shorter workday on October i , the date set by the executive council. Thus the demand represented not an impulsive action, but a carefully planned move ratified by a large majority, with due notice to employers. In some sections of the country * A full account of the campaign was given in the International Bookbinder, June, 1908, the trade journal published by the union. I 7 8 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE the fight was a long one, but in New York only two or three firms finally refused to grant the reduc- tion in hours. Against these a strike was ordered. It was at this time that an interesting organiza- tion of employers was formed in New York, as the outcome of these conferences with local unions. This organization is called the Bookbinders' League and its purpose, as stated in its constitu- tion, is " to discard the system of making individual labor contracts and instead to introduce the more equitable system of forming collective labor con- tracts." Membership is limited to those who own or manage union binderies within a radius of fifty miles of the City Hall of New York. These em- ployers planned to enter jointly into an agreement with the bookbinders' unions, instead of making as many separate contracts as there are firms, and they aimed also to establish committees for dis- cussion and conciliation of difficulties, and to in- sure arbitration of matters which cannot be settled by mutual consultation. The first subject for conference was the eight- hour day, and an agreement was signed by the Bookbinders' League and each of the local unions of New York City, providing that after November 18, 1907, the hours of labor should be forty-eight per week at the scales of wages then prevailing. When overtime should be necessary employes might work an additional six hours in the week with not more than three extra hours in any one day, at the same rate of wages, but any 179 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE more overtime must be paid for at time and a half, which means the day rate plus 50 per cent. It was agreed that after a year from the follow- ing January, all overtime above the forty-eight- hour week should be paid at the rate of time and a half. Provision was made for night work by agreeing that union binderies might run a second shift of forty-five hours a week at the same rate as that paid to day workers. A clause was inserted which provided that union members should be given the preference in all cases where positions were open, but that if the unions could not fur- nish workers the employer had the right to engage non-union men or women. This agreement was signed by the six local unions in New York and by the seven firms that were charter members of the Bookbinders' League. The unions then sent copies to all other firms, not members of the league, asking them to comply with the provisions regarding hours. With few exceptions, the agreement was accepted and the possibility of a widespread strike in New York was averted. In other cities, greater difficulties were encoun- tered. Almost two years later the president of the Brotherhood in an official letter to the Inter- national Bookbinder wrote that a strike was still in progress in Akron, Ohio, but that elsewhere the eight-hour day had been won. The total cost of the struggle in all sections of the country was more 1 80 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE than $200,000,* and this was paid by an assess- ment on all locals, even those that had secured their demands without a strike. Occurring at a time of widespread industrial depression, it was a severe test of the loyalty of the members. Members of Local 43 paid extra assessments during that period for the eight-hour workday fund, the greater part of which was used outside New York. This account shows how the unions throughout the country, led by the executive officers whom they elect to control the international organi- zation, may unite in a simultaneous demand. It shows also the way in which the local unions ne- gotiate with employers in their own communities, in order to secure certain conditions agreed upon by the local unions in all other communities. In case a prolonged strike is necessary, a bindery girl in New York pays a regular tax to help the workers in another state secure the eight-hour day which may have been granted in her place of employment nearly two years before. When these demands have been won their en- forcement must be watched by the local unions. The locals are responsible also for negotiations re- garding many matters which are not made the subject of international agreement. This is il- lustrated by the additional contract signed by the locals in New York and the Bookbinders' League on the same date on which they agreed to grant the eight-hour day in their binderies. It is so im- * International Bookbinder, March, 1909, p. 97. 181 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE portant as a peace protocol that it deserves full quotation. "The Bookbinders' League of New York and Local Unions Nos. i, 1 1, 22, 43, 77, 1 19 of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, being desirous of entering into an agreement for the purpose of maintaining an era of peace for their mutual advancement and prosperity, do hereby agree in all instances to consult by committee, trade court, or otherwise, and to conciliate if possible any controversies, disagreements, or misunderstandings, and if impossible to arrive at an amicable understand- ing, then and in all cases to submit to an arbitration of such matters the committees being composed of an equal number of employes and employers who shall ap- pear and state their case before the arbitrator, who shall be elected by mutual consent and that each body here- inbefore stated shall upon the signing of this agreement appoint a committee to arrange a schedule of prices and hours which shall be known and published as the Book- binders' League of New York Scale of Wages, and also that the Locals Nos. i, 1 1, 22, 43, 77, 119 of the Interna- tional Brotherhood of Bookbinders shall be and now are considered members of the Bookbinders' League of New York for the purposes for which it has been organized. "It is also understood that any arbitration must be settled in three months from the time of the submission to arbitration. " In accordance with resolution of Locals Nos. i, 1 1, 22, 43, 77, 119 of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders this agreement will be in force for one year from date."* * Dated New York, December 31, 1907. New York Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 36, March, 1908, pp. 26-27. 182 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE In accordance with this plan joint committees were appointed for conference and conciliation, and these committees have succeeded in settling various questions in the shops allied with the League. For the bindery women in New York the agreement should have led also to the ratification of their scale of wages, already prevailing in several union binderies. Unfortunately this plan to adopt a uniform wage scale was never carried out by the Bookbinders' League, except in the case of Local 22, which, as has been explained, includes stampers (men) and gold leaf layers (women). For gold leaf layers the minimum rate continued to be $10 a week. In January, 1912, by another agreement with the Bookbinders' League and other firms this was increased to $11. Local 43, through negotiation with individual firms, had already adopted a scale of wages, July i , 1 906, which still prevails in 1912. Whether pay- ment shall be by piece or by week is optional with the employer, and the wage scale specifies both the piece rate and the week rate. For example, for machine folding the rate for week work must be $10, but for piece work the price per 1,000 is specified for i2mo, i6mo, and 241110, for double sheets, and inserted sheets. In connection with each process is a clause reading, "All extra work, special prices upon mutual agreement/' Thus, while aiming at a rate of $10 a week for all experi- enced workers, it is evident that negotiation is 183 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE necessary to determine the rate for books of ex- ceptional size or quality of paper. Obviously, from the nature of the work, it is more difficult to interpret an agreement regarding rates of pay than to enforce an eight-hour day. Books are of many different sizes, and their sheets are of various grades of paper. Under the piece- work system it is a difficult task to maintain a fair rate. When the price is not definitely specified in the printed wage scale, it must be determined by some such method, for example, as that described by the superintendent of one of the union binderies. According to this plan, suggested by the officers of Local 43, three girls are put to work at the same task, one quick, one slow, and one of medium speed. They are timed, and their combined out- put is divided by three to determine the average. The rate of pay for piece-work is then determined so that with this average output the earnings would be $10 a week. The quick worker will earn more. The slow worker will earn less. In either case the union makes no objection. The superintendent who described this method cited the case of a gatherer employed in his bindery, who earned $22 a week, while the girl next to her, paid at the same rate per piece, earned $7.00. He considered this a sufficient answer to the objection that trade union- ism always and invariably keeps the good worker down, and forces up unduly the earnings of the in- competent. The superintendent of another union bindery said that he considered it a profitable plan 184 DROP-ROLL FOLDING MACHINE AUTOMATIC FOLDING MACHINE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE to pay the most efficient worker higher wages than the minimum scale demanded by the union. Besides hours and wages, other important sub- jects are included in the scope of Local 43*5 ac- tivities. These are the conditions of entrance to union shops, including the regulation of appren- ticeship and provisions for admitting experienced workers to the union, certain restrictions as to the transfer of workers from one process to another, the granting of legal holidays, attempts to mitigate the hardships of slack season, and methods of ad- justment in cases where hand workers are dis- placed by the introduction of machines. The subject of apprenticeship has been discussed by the International Brotherhood, but the dis- cussion has concerned boys primarily rather than girls. Local unions have been urged to introduce a system of indenturing apprentices, and to limit their number in proportion to the number of ex- perienced workers in each shop.* Such an arrange- ment, say the international officers, is of value to the employer since it insures the continued service of the apprentice during his term, usually four years, instead of permitting him to go to another shop before the employer who is training him can reap any benefit from such an investment. For the trade it is an advantage, because it counteracts the tendency, created by the introduction of machines, to make specialists in one branch. The effect of * See Report of United States Industrial Commission. IQOI, Vol. XVII, Part I, p.li. WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE this specialization on the wage scale was described by the secretary of the Brotherhood in his report to the Industrial Commission in 1901.* It "over- crowds our trade with incompetent mechanics," he wrote, "who, in many cases, when out of em- ployment, will accept a position at a reduced rate of wages just to obtain work. Such a man not only drags himself down financially, but others as well." The description of the work of women has al- ready shown the same danger of specialization in their tasks. To counteract it, Local 43 has made agreements with union firms limiting the pro- portion of apprentices to one in every group of 10 experienced women workers in a shop.f No girl under sixteen years of age may become an ap- prentice. The term is approximately one year. During that time the experienced workers are ex- pected to teach the learner all the hand processes, but she is not permitted to operate a machine, doubtless because she might thus reduce the rate of pay for machine operators to the level of learners' earnings, and because in acquiring facility in that one process she might learn nothing else. The minimum weekly wage for an apprentice is $5.00, with an increase of 50 cents at the end of six months. This rate of wage represents a recent union gain. In 1906 the rate for learners was $3.00. When * Ibid., p. no. t The superintendent of a union bindery said that this was not an arbitrary restriction but a natural one; a larger proportion of learners could not be properly taught. 186 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE sufficiently experienced, the learner becomes a member of the union, and receives the union scale of pay. None but competent workers are ad- mitted to membership, the executive committee of Local 43 passing upon each application. It is in the matter of apprenticeship that Local 43 differs markedly from Local 22, to which, as has been stated, girls employed in gold leaf laying belong. These girls are in the finishing depart- ments of the binderies and usually have no direct contact with the other bindery women. Young girls may be employed in this department to "size and clean" the books, but they may not touch the gold until formally admitted to membership in the union as apprentices. The term of apprenticeship is three years after admission. The wage at first is $5.00 with 50 cents increase every six months, until the end of three years when the minimum wage is $i i . The gold is so precious that employ- ers are quite willing not to permit inexperienced girls to handle it until they have done enough preliminary work in the department to be eligible to apprenticeship. About 200 women gold leaf layers are members of the union. In Local 43 admission to membership is not con- fined to girls who have been apprentices in union shops, but includes also experienced workers in the various processes, who have not before been union members. For these the conditions of join- ing are the same as for those who have just com- pleted their apprenticeship. Each application is 187 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE voted upon by the executive committee, serving as the elected representatives of all the members. The union welcomes additions to its ranks and does not make any attempt, as is often charged against such organizations, to restrict the number of workers in the trade. Its agreement with em- ployers, already quoted, permits the employment of non-union workers when the union is unable to furnish workers who are enrolled in its membership. If these non-union girls are merely temporary hands they may not be required to join the union, but if they are permanently employed they must become members within two weeks after beginning work in a union shop. To facilitate the carrying out of the employers* agreement to give the preference to union mem- bers, one of the most important duties of the sec- retary-treasurer is to maintain an employment registry. A list of unemployed members is kept up-to-date, and when union employers need work- ers they are expected to notify the union office. The workers needed for a particular process are recommended impartially according to the order of their application. This system not only serves as a convenience to employers but helps to relieve the hardship of irregular employment for the workers. As a further remedy for slack season, it is ar- ranged in some union shops that when the work on hand is insufficient for the normal force it shall be divided so that each may have a share. Thus un- employment for an indefinite period is avoided. 1 88 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE On the other hand, as a remedy for overwork, the union demands a higher rate of pay for overtime, and double price for employment on Sundays or legal holidays. On only one legal holiday Labor Day is work forbidden by the union. One more requirement made by Local 43 is im- portant. It concerns the transfer of a worker from one process to another. In the printed scale of prices the following paragraph appears: "Any member may be assigned work in any position other than the position in which she was engaged, in case of emergency, and if such emergency position car- ries with it a higher scale than she has been receiving, she will receive while filling that position the higher scale. Or a member sent to fill an emergency position at the lower scale shall not be reduced to the lower scale/' The reason for this provision, obviously, is to pro- tect the worker against a reduction in wages be- cause of transfer to another process, and, on the other hand, to prevent the lowering of an estab- lished rate for any process by putting a less well- paid girl to work at it. In the same spirit, the union attempts to protect the workers against loss when new machines are introduced. For example, in three union binderies in New York five women, who formerly were hand gatherers, are successfully operating the gathering machines, the mechanism of which is said by employers to be more com- plicated than that of any machine operated by men in the trade. The tendency is to employ 189 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE men operators for this work, but in each of the cases cited the women's union secured the oppor- tunity for a woman at the same wage that a man would receive, $18 a week. It is in making such adjustments that the con- structive business ability of Local 43 has been shown. A shop stewardess is appointed in each workroom. The workers complain to the steward- ess in case there is any violation of the agreement regarding hours, wages, or other conditions. If she fails to adjust a grievance through conference with the foreman or forewoman, the union officers take it up, and if the difficulty prove serious, it may finally be referred to the international executive council. Usually the adjustment is made in the workroom. If it cannot be adjusted in any other way the local, with the approval of the interna- tional officers, may order a strike, and the expenses of such a contest are borne during the first two weeks by the local, and afterwards by the inter- national defense fund. Local 43, as has been stated, has i ,600 members, and the women members of Local 22, the gold leaf layers, number about 200. The total number of women in the trade is about 6,000. Out of more than 200 shops counted in this investiga- tion, those in which the women are organized number about 40. Nevertheless, the union shops are important ones, and the union influence is greater than their numbers would indicate, a fact demonstrated by the rapid extension of the 190 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE eight-hour day to non-union shops after it had been won by union efforts. Workers are often content to reap the benefit of unionism without sharing in its burdens, and there are employers who see in this fact the possi- bility of keeping their employes out of the union by maintaining union conditions. Again and again employers say, "We have union conditions and don't bother with the union." As in many other trades, one hears employers who are opposed to dealing with an organization of their workers express their opinion in such phrases as, " I won't be dictated to," or " I wish no interference from the workers in running my own business." It is significant that the superintendent of an es- tablishment which has had long experience with trade unions in several branches of the print- ing industry expresses the conviction that only by frank conference and discussion, such as the union makes possible, can an employer hope for real efficiency in his workroom force. He pays a high tribute to trade unionism forwomen, especially as he has known it in the methods of Local 43. The indifferent attitude of some women toward unionism is illustrated by a letter from a bindery worker to whom an investigator had sent a book- let of information about the union. "I do not belong to any of the unions," she wrote, "as I don't think it necessary. We are not obliged to belong yet. At the same time, it is nice to be up-to-date and prepared for the occasion." 191 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE This girl worked in a shop where some school books are bound. Her implication that she might be obliged to join was due to the fact that pressure is often brought to bear to have the union label put on books which are public property. That the agitation for the use of the union label is not more of an aid than it actually is to the organiza- tion of bindery women is due in part to the in- difference of men in the trade to the welfare of the women. Some of them are quite content to consider a shop a good union place and to permit the use of the label on its products, if the men are organized, even when not one of the women is a union member. Furthermore, a union printer will sometimes put a label on a book, although he has had it bound in a shop where neither men nor women are union members. This defeats the purpose of the label as a means of unionizing all the workers in the shop which uses it. Employers agree with the women unionists that the growth of Local 43 has been due far more to the efforts of the women than to any co-operation on the part of the men. Indeed, in disputes over borderline processes, such as the operation of the gathering machine, the men have been, as one employer expressed it, "unbelievably hostile to the women." To judge of the results of trade unionism by com- parison between union and non-union shops is never fair, since, fortunately, betterment of condi- tions usually has an influence extending beyond the 192 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE BINDERY TRADE establishment in which it is first secured. Indeed, the trade unionist sometimes declares openly, to the amazement of the public, that the improve- ment of conditions is of less importance to him than recognition of the union, by which he means putting into operation the machinery of the col- lective bargain. Conditions in union binderies in New York, however, prove that the bindery women's union is an important factor in improving the conditions of women's work in the trade. In regulations regarding the training of learners, in the shortening of the normal hours below the limit which the state has been able to establish by legislation, in the gradual enforcement of a mini- mum wage scale, and in the protection of indi- vidual women against unjust and unfair treat- ment, it has accomplished results more important than any yet secured for this trade through legis- lation. 193 CHAPTER VIII TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE CURRENT discussions of industrial educa- tion are emphasizing the fact that the com- munity through its public schools is re- sponsible for developing the efficiency of the work- ers in its industries. When these discussions are based not on general theory but on concrete knowl- edge of such conditions as prevail, for example, in the bookbinding trade, the real difficulties in the way of meeting this responsibility become clearer. For more discouraging than the lack of skilled work- men, frequently deplored in America, is the lack of demand for skill in the old sense of power com- pounded of manual dexterity and intelligence. Efficiency in a manual occupation is made up of three elements, brain, hand, and time, but it is the change in the relative importance of these three which is at the root of the present baffling problem of industrial education. Of this change, women's work in bookbinding is an excellent illustration. To plan the binding of a book from beginning to end, to have margins of the right width, to sew with the right sized thread for the right weight of paper, to design an appropriate 194 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE cover expressive of the spirit of the text, to choose the proper leather, and to treat it scientifically, to neglect no detail which belongs to a solid, sub- stantial, appropriate piece of work, requires a high order of brain and artistic ability. But the girl who folds the sheets in a modern bindery is not asked to choose the paper, or to plan the width of the margins, and very probably she will never see the cover of the completed book. She is required to fold so that the printing on one page will exactly coincide with the printing on the page which faces it, thus insuring even margins after the cutting machine has done its work; and she is expected to work fast. As the manual element is reduced to its simplest terms, mere rapid repetition, the brain element controlling the hand is not at a premium. For feeding a machine, knowledge of mechanical devices is desirable but not essential. Bookbinding for women is a skilled industry so organized as to be carried on in many departments by unskilled workers. It does not require the efficiency of the craftsman, and therefore, it does not demand of its novices that they meet the test of a thorough training designed to develop the sort of intelligence in which educators are in- terested. The restrictions on entrance to the trade are not severe, and they do not keep out workers who may not be adapted to the demands of the occupa- tion. They are three-fold, the law regulating the employment of children, regulations prescribed 195 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE by the trade union, and rules adopted by indi- vidual employers. The New York state law, governing bookbind- eries in common with all other factories, forbids the employment of any child who has not yet reached the fourteenth birthday, and requires that all children between the ages of fourteen and six- teen be provided with employment certificates. To secure the certificate, the child's age must have been proved satisfactorily, she must have reached the required grade in school (prescribed as 58 in New York City), and have attended at least 130 school days in the twelve months preceding her fourteenth birthday, or the date of her application. The trade union already described names six- teen as the minimum age of apprentices, and limits their proportion in relation to experienced workers in a ratio of one to 10. Employers' methods vary widely. Of 207 who stated a definite policy re- garding learners, 142 are willing to employ them, while 65 engage only experienced workers. Of the firms willing to employ learners, 1 16 gave definite information regarding the minimum age: 54 will employ no girls under sixteen years of age, three preferring workers seventeen years old; and 62 will employ girls of fourteen or fifteen. No defi- nite educational requirements are found. Only one employer expressed a preference for grammar graduates. Thus the barriers at entrance are not high enough to prevent the employment of a young girl of four- 196 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE teen, who has selected the occupation with no idea of its future opportunities for her, but merely because she happened to notice a bookbinder's ad- vertisement for learners the day she secured her working papers. She does not know then that a learner in the bookbinding trade is not necessarily an apprentice practicing tasks which will lead to more highly skilled work; she is ignorant of the fact that she may be merely an unskilled worker needed for certain processes which do not prepare her for other parts of the trade. The two types of learners may be working side by side in the same bindery. As the training is often so casual and differs so markedly for different girls, it can be accurately described only by relating the comments and ex- periences of individual workers. " I'm never laid off, because I can turn my hand to a good many different things," said one girl who considered herself an all-round worker, and took pleasure in telling how she had learned her trade. She went to work in an edition bindery when she was sixteen years old. Her sister was also a learner there. "When we first began," she said, " we were waiting on everybody in the place." When the feeder of one of the folding machines stopped work at 5:15, this girl would stay until 5:30 to practice operating it. "Most girls," she said, "won't stay after hours to practice. It's a girl's own fault if she doesn't learn. If they put her on cutting off, she ought to watch the machine and then she'll learn to sew. The forewoman in 197 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE our bindery teaches a girl if she's bright. Of course, if she isn't it doesn't pay to bother with her. But I'll admit it's discouraging when you first go into a bindery. You must have such a knack about everything. And you must be strong and not nervous, for you're liable to be hurt by the machines. The work they give learners, like knocking up, is heavy, and you're on your feet all day long." Her main work was knocking up the folded sheets. Gradually she learned to feed the point folding machine and that became her spe- cialty. It was necessary to learn hand folding, in order to detect errors in the work of the ma- chine. She learned to gather by hand and to size and clean the books in the gold laying department, a process not usually assigned to "general bindery" girls. She learned to examine and to wrap the finished volumes, and for a while was the head wrapper. The method of learning was obviously not systematic. At first the forewoman showed her how to do the work. Then she learned by watching and by seizing every opportunity to practice. She has never had a chance to paste, to collate, or to operate the sewing machine, yet she is considered an experienced bindery girl. "The girls show you," said another, who had begun work at the age of sixteen, before graduating from the public school, and had been employed for four years in the same edition bindery. She had "jogged" or "knocked up" the sheets folded by machine, "cut off" books from the sewing ma- 198 HAND FOLDERS THE POINT FOLDING MACHINE TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE chine; folded by hand; "pulled out" sheets from the gathering machine; and finally, as her main line of work, operated the wire-stitching machine. Occasionally she had gathered and pasted by hand and sewed by machine, but not often enough to learn these processes. The time it takes to learn "depends on yourself," she said. "If you don't sit yourself down at the machines and try them, no one else will ever sit you down at one. And you have to be willing to do work that you don't like." Stories like these, repeated many times by workers, gave the impression that the learner herself was the only one interested in her training. Some of the girls occupying the best positions in the trade have been strict specialists. An operator of a sewing machine, who has been a bindery worker for four years, understands no process except sewing. As a beginner she cut off the books after they were sewed, and thus learned the working of the machine and became an oper- ator. In contrast to her experience, her aunt who has worked six years in the trade has never oper- ated a machine. She has straightened sheets, folded and inserted by hand, and wrapped books. She and her niece work in the same bindery, but neither could take the other's place without be- coming a learner again. Even though the training received by these women has been neither systematic nor thorough, they have all been learners in the sense of having before them the possibility of advance, as they be- 199 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE came more expert in the processes which they had learned. Another type of learner is the inexper- ienced worker, employed in busy seasons to do un- skilled work which leads nowhere. Sometimes one of them passes on to a more skilled process. Many of them are casual workers, whose presence serves to complicate the problems of the bindery trade. As a group, they may be called the un- trained bindery workers. "We take on learners for temporary work," said the owner of a large pamphlet bindery. "Then we weed them out." This is the meaning of such advertisements as these which appear frequently in the newspapers: "Ten bright, quick girls; $4 weekly. Apply Sat- urday morning, ready to start work." "Wanted: 30 girls as learners: must be over 16: $4. 50 weekly. Call ready to work." In encouraging casual work, the bindery trade must be held in some measure responsible for creating drifters among working girls in New York. Securing no foothold in the bindery trade, they wander from one occupation to another. Two examples show trade histories of this kind. One girl folded patterns one year, earning $6.00 a week; worked in a department store one week, earning $3.00; folded by hand in a bindery three months, earning $5.00; and then was "laid off- slack"; folded by hand in another bindery two weeks, at $6.50, "laid off slack"; idle four to six months; folded and inserted circulars in the mailing department of a publishing house three weeks, a 200 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE temporary job for a wage of $7.00; folded pamph- lets, edge work, at $1.00 a day, but "didn't like it" and stayed only two days. Her record reads: " Has worked at other places for a short time. She leaves home about 6:45 a. m. to answer advertise- ments. She and her mother live alone in a fur- nished room and she is greatly in need of work. She would like to stay in the bindery trade if work were steady." Another began work as a cash girl, working two months for a weekly wage of $3.50, "laid off- slack." She then worked one year in a magazine bindery, helping the operator of the wire-stitching machine, and earning from $3. 50 to $4.00. She left "for a better place." She "took money out of tissues" in a bank note house a year and a half, earning $6.00 until she was "laid off slack." She packed candy two months during the Christmas rush, earning $5.00 per week. Then she was out of work ten months. She returned to pack candy one month at $5.00, and was again "laid off slack." She folded and pasted pamphlets two weeks in a printing office, where the bindery work was only temporary. She took sheets from the gathering machine in a magazine bindery, earning a wage of $1.00 a day only eight days in the month. She had worked five years altogether, and her maximum earnings in any week were $7.00. Such casual work seems to be most frequent in pamphlet binderies. The opportunities for begin- ners, however, are even more restricted in maga- 20 1 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE zine binderies, with their periodical rush of work and their extensive use of machinery. In one magazine bindery, "learners" are employed to separate the printed sections when they have been folded together. This is called outserting. Some- times the learners stack the folded sheets in bins, where they are kept until needed for the process of gathering. Sometimes they pull out the gathered sections from the machine. Five of the six magazines which are bound in this shop are folded on the printing presses, so that folding machines are needed for only one periodical, and hand folding is rare. No pasting, no sewing, no gathering by hand nor collating is necessary. The forewoman described two learners who began work there eight or nine years ago at $4.00. They learned to operate the wire-stitching machines, and are now earning $ 1 3 piece work. " They're among the fortunate ones," she said. " I can't teach all my girls wire-stitching; there are only 16 ma- chines." She is one of those who spoke of the changes in the bindery trade, saying, "I'd never advise any relative of mine to go into it." Workers and employers generally agree that an edition bindery is the best place for learners. The work is more exact and careful than in pamphlet binding. But in this branch of the trade no definite plan seems to have been developed except in union binderies, where the experienced workers feel a responsibility toward apprentices, and are interested from the trade union point of view in 202 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE preventing premature specialization. This is the case in one of the edition binderies frequently de- scribed as "a good place to learn." The number of apprentices is limited, according to the union standard, thus preventing the encouragement of casual employment. " If we took more than that," said the superintendent, "we could not teach them properly." The minimum age is sixteen. No written agreement is made on either side, but ac- cording to the policy of the trade union, learners are expected to stay until they have become ex- perienced, thus enabling the employer to be reason- ably sure that they will not leave before they begin to make returns for the trouble of teaching. " If a boy should leave us during his apprenticeship," said the superintendent, "and go to another union shop, we could prevent his working." The rule for girls is less rigid, and apprenticeship less formal. That methods of training vary even here is shown by the comments of several workers who learned the trade in this establishment. "They take only a few apprentices here," said one girl. "Then they are sure to teach them. But not every girl learns the whole trade. Some do only hand folding, some do only sewing, others know all the branches. I never learned to sew by hand or by machine. The girls on the sewing machines don't want to have too many girls learn their trade." She knocked up, counted, carried and "drew off" from the whip-stitching machine. As a learner she received $2.50. This 203 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE was ten years ago. Her wages were increased 50 cents every six months, until she received $5.00. Later her principal work was operating the wire- stitching machine, for which she was paid, by the piece, from $10 to $15 a week. Later still she helped to clean and repair books, cancelling soiled sheets and pasting, so that "no one could tell they had been repaired." "First I was straightening up the books for the wire-stitching machine," said another. "Most learners knock up for the folders. Then for two days I was on the machine for pasting covers on a Sunday school journal. Then I wanted more pay, so they said they'd try me on other work, and I knocked up for a folding machine. There were two boxes to empty, and my pay was $4.00. Then they gave me work on the gathering machine, and afterwards taught me hand folding. You can't make out on that. Two old ladies do it. After- wards I was put on piece work, inserting, hand folding, and outserting. Then I did hand pasting, because the pasting machine broke. When I had learned I made up to $8.50 piece work." Three or four others described their training in this bindery. One had been a box girl for a year, and knew no other process. Her sister learned within the first year hand work, pasting, insert- ing, gathering, and collating. Another began her career by jogging the sheets to prepare them for the wire-stitching machine. Later she became a wire-stitcher. Sometimes she did hand work, 204 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE folding, inserting, and covering. She had tried to learn to use the sewing machine by occasional furtive practicing "when the other girls were mak- ing tea/' but she was far from becoming a sewer, the part of the trade which most bindery girls pre- fer. Thus, even in this large bindery, with its reputation as "a good place to learn," chance seems to control the training of the apprentice. Many experienced workers say that large estab- lishments do not give so good an opportunity to learn as do small shops. "In the big binderies each girl has her own work, and the new ones don't get any chance. They teach you one thing and keep you at that." On the other hand, the train- ing received in small establishments may have dis- advantages. A bindery as well as a worker may be a specialist, and in such specialized workrooms a learner's opportunities will be even more re- stricted than in a large bindery with its subdivi- sion of work. "Our workroom is not a good place for learners," said a woman employed in a small pamphlet bindery. "We haven't any machines. We do only hand folding and pasting and insert- ing." Larger places give the advantage of a wider choice. " I watch the learners," said a forewoman in charge of 150 workers, "and when I see that a girl takes to one process more than to another, I teach her that." Employers in the bookbinding trade are gener- ally rather indifferent toward the problem of train- ing women workers. A few prefer to employ the 205 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE inexperienced in order that they may train them to do the work according to the special methods of their own workrooms. Only in this way, they declare, can they secure efficient service. Others, however, cite many reasons why they will employ none but experienced hands. "We bind only one weekly periodical. We have no miscellaneous work to give to learners/' "Our season lasts six to eight weeks at a time. We couldn't get anybody to teach learners. It would take too much time." "We have no time to teach and the girls haven't the patience to learn." " It is a poor proposition to take learners. As soon as they know anything, they leave." "As soon as boys and girls get a little smattering of experience, they want to go somewhere else where they can get more money. They don't care about learning the trade, and they spoil a great many sheets." " We can't bother with learners. Rents are too high. Sometimes we take inexperienced girls, 'kids' we call 'em, for extra orders and keep them about two months." "We do not like to take learners. We'd prefer to have them learn in a small establishment where they have more time to teach." "We haven't time to teach," said the owner of a bindery where three girls were employed. " We can't take learners. Every worker must count in so small an establishment." " I'm too small to take them. I haven't the capital. I have to take girls who know how to work, and who can get my orders out in the shortest possible time." 206 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE " We have not the floor space." "It's not practicable to take learners with so much competition as there is in this business. They spoil the work. And then most of it is done by machinery. It takes time to learn how to manage a machine/' "In these days of short hours, we can't curtail pro- duction by teaching learners/' "All our work is rush work. We use machinery and have no time for learners/' Thus, conditions in the trade complicate the learner's problem. I rregular employment, special- ization, rush work, the piece-work system, chang- ing methods, and the increasing complexity of machinery, all tend to discourage the inexper- ienced worker, and to make the expert less in- clined to take time to teach. As a result of these influences, two important problems of training are characteristic of the bindery trade; the problem of the specialist in a task which makes small de- mands on the worker's intelligence, and the prob- lem of the untrained, unskilled casual worker. For the community to discharge its responsibility toward these workers, as the advocates of indus- trial education demand, will be no easy task. This responsibility for the education of workers begins, of course, when the future worker is a child in school. A large majority, 89 per cent of the bindery girls interviewed, have attended school in New York, 56 per cent the public schools, and 33 per cent parochial schools. Only 2 per cent stated that the last day school attended was in a foreign 207 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE country, and 3 per cent had been to school in some section of the United States outside New York. Six percent did not report. Only 10 per cent had stayed in school until they were sixteen, while 67 per cent left at the age of fourteen or younger, and 20 per cent left when they were fifteen. Three per cent did not report. The group of course in- cludes those who went to work several years ago, before the present provisions of the child labor law were operative. Of those who attended public schools in New York only 9 per cent graduated from grammar school, and none had gone to high school, while 65 per cent had left while in the seventh grade or earlier. Fuller information about the previous schooling of bindery girls was secured from another inves- tigation, made by the Committee on Women's Work, in the public evening schools in Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn in 1910-11. In the course of it, girls in these schools filled out record cards giving detailed information about their previous training in day school. Among these cards were the records of 144 bindery girls. The results* shown are the more interesting as they can be compared with the facts for other working girls, who answered the same questions. Among the girls who named bookbinding as their occupation a very large proportion, 96 per cent, re- ported that the last day school attended was in New York, 62 per cent naming public schools and 34 per * For tables see Appendix B, pp. 250-253. 208 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE cent parochial or private. Nearly half, 45 per cent, had attended school eight years, and 25 per cent had remained longer, a better showing than for girls in all manufacturing pursuits grouped together. Sixty-four per cent left at the age of fourteen or younger, and only 10 per cent stayed in school after the sixteenth birthday. Although eight years is considered a sufficient time for the "normal child" to graduate from the elementary grades, 70 per cent of these bindery girls had failed to graduate. Measuring their progress in school by the average time taken to complete one grade, allowing one year for a grade, only 21 per cent of those who re- ceived all their school training in New York pub- lic schools were normal, 9 per cent were rapid, and 70 per cent were slow, compared with 59 per cent slow among girls in all trades. Not only has their schooling been brief, but for some reason they have not kept pace with the curriculum. Another fact of interest was their preference for manual work in evening school; 53 per cent had chosen such classes. These figures show that the schools are handi- capped by too brief a contact with these girls, that they become workers at an age when they cannot be expected to develop the skill of an adult craftsman. Too early a start in an occupation may be equivalent to a false start. It may con- demn a worker to inefficiency who might later have been more capable of directing her own prog- ress. This is the first step in industrial educa- 14 209 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE tion, to keep the children out of industry until they are equal physically, at least, to its de- mands. Other questions, however, are being asked con- cerning the desirability of definite training in processes of work either in preliminary trade schools or in continuation classes. As an example of the problem involved in this last phase of in- dustrial education it is worth while to outline the information gathered by the Committee on Wom- en's Work at the request of a member of the Board of Education of New York. The inquiry was made for the purpose of answering a specific question as to the desirability of forming a class in hand bind- ing in a public evening school. The results, con- sidered in relation to the other data of the inves- tigation, show concretely how baffling is the prob- blem of industrial education of girls in a trade like bookbinding. The immediate cause of the inquiry was a re- quest for supplies for a class in bookbinding to be carried on in connection with art work in leather in an evening high school. Behind this request, however, was the fundamental question of whether or not an evening class would be of practical ser- vice in equipping women for any branch of the bookbinding trade, or in increasing the efficiency of those already employed in it. This question was discussed with art binders, including a woman, who manages her own bindery and teaches the craft, with owners and superintendents of edition 210 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE binderies, pamphlet and magazine binderies, and with officers of the bookbinders' union. Not one believed that the plan was feasible or desirable. Their comments will show their reasons. The superintendent of a large edition bindery thought that, at a comparatively small expense, it might be possible to equip a room in a school building with cutting machine and wire-stitching machine, and girls could then be taught to handle sheets for pamphlets and to paste on the covers. A printer might give this practice shop the con- tract for binding a magazine, but "the trade" would probably object. A large plant might be developed if the department of education would have its books bound in this classroom. It would be difficult to get employers to co-operate as they do in some countries, because business men here are too much interested in "the dollar mark" and in immediate profit. But even if all these diffi- culties were removed, he believed that a more serious objection would remain; that after the girls were trained there would not be enough open- ings for them in the trade. In his opinion, the demand for women's labor in this industry is less now than the supply. Another summed up his objections tersely by saying that in edition binding the hand work done by women is so simple that there is nothing to learn, while the machine work would not be prac- ticable in a school. In "extra" or art binding the union will not permit women to do anything 211 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE but fold or sew. Equally final and even more brief, was the statement of a superintendent of a magazine bindery, that all the work done by women in a magazine bindery is unskilled labor. " There is nothing to teach/' "The only way you can teach a person a trade," said another, "is to put her in a workroom." A member of a firm which has departments for edition binding and for pamphlet and magazine work, considers that school training in bookbinding is not practicable for girls because their work in the trade requires mere manual dexterity and be- cause the demand for them is decreasing as ma- chinery develops. " Even if you had the machines," said another, "it wouldn't really be the trade." He did not think that it was necessary or practicable to teach the trade in a school, but he believed that the schools could fill a need by giving a more thor- ough general training in reading and writing. Bindery girls need this knowledge to enable them to put together the pages of books properly. It was not machine binding, however, but hand binding which was to be introduced into the pro- posed class in evening school, and although only 2 per cent of the bindery women of New York are employed in this branch of the trade, it had seemed, at first glance, more feasible to train women for hand work of this sort than for machine binding. But inquiry among men and women familiar with conditions in hand binderies brought replies quite 212 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE as discouraging as those in regard to the large machine binderies. One woman, who manages an art bindery, ex- pressed the opinion that women would do well to learn more about the processes which they are now permitted to carry on in binderies, such as sewing, pasting, and mending. She believed that mending books might in time offer a field for women's work, especially if this training were part of the equipment of librarians. She pointed out that accurate judgment is required in sewing, pasting, and other processes in commercial hand binderies. Women must know what kind of sewing is needed for each book, taking into consideration the thick- ness of the paper, the size of the book, and the character of the binding. For this they must be taught how to think. They cannot merely pick up the knowledge through casual work in a shop. She did not favor, however, an evening school class for bookbinders. To teach the artistic features of the trade would be useless, because women are not permitted to do this work. To teach the processes now recognized as women's work is not desirable, because of the very limited demand for women in hand binderies. A member of a firm whose craftsmanlike work has won a well-deserved and wide reputation, pointed out that certain conditions affecting the trade as a whole must be considered in relation to this question. Actually fewer books are being bound by art or job binders in New York today 213 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE than fifteen years ago. Binders are taxed for their imported raw materials, such as leather and paper, while many bound books come in free. Pub- lishers in the United States are sending some books abroad to be bound. As the finest class of work has been taken away from the commercial binders here, they have lost efficiency through lack of practice, and are turning out a grade of work lower than their potential abilities might justify. For skilled workmanship in the men's department, New York binderies depend more and more upon foreign-born workers, who have learned their trade before they came to the United States. Prac- tically no apprentices are now being trained here. One cause of this is that our apprenticeship law is too loose to hold a boy for a sufficiently long period to make his training profitable to the employer. Yet in spite of the need for skilled workers, this man did not believe that an evening class for women would be desirable. It might be well to teach women to sew better, or paste better, but, on the whole, he thought that this trade was not one which offered good opportunities for women at present. They would not be allowed to touch any processes in commercial hand binderies, except those they are now doing, and these are too limited to justify trade classes in public schools. If women are to succeed at all in bookbinding, they must look forward to owning their own shops. Otherwise those who make any effort to appro- 214 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE priate men's tasks will come into conflict with the men's trade union. He pointed out that the first question to be considered was the attitude of the trade union regarding such classes. They would have the power to put obstacles in the way, and their attitude on the question of women's work would demand careful consideration. The president of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders and the president and the secretary of the women's Local 43 defined for us the trade union attitude toward industrial education. The fundamental question which the trade unionist asks is, what effect will a trade school have upon wages? If a trade class results in turning out workers whose position in the labor market makes more difficult the trade union effort to maintain a standard wage, then organized labor opposes it. This is the ground of their opposition to prelim- inary training which tends to make a class in school the substitute for apprenticeship. But, knowing the workmen's handicap through lack of opportunity to practice the whole trade, the union strongly favors plans for classes which give supple- mentary technical education* to workers already employed in the trade. * "Men cannot know too much about the means by which they make a living. And it is well that they should learn all there is to know," said ex-President Prescott of the International Typographical Union in an address before the Brotherhood of Bookbinders at their annual convention in 1908. He had described the typographical union's educational scheme, correspondence courses for printers, and said that it was "in part an effort to save that trade from the blight that has settled on bookbinding in some localities." "In the book- binding trade," he said, "we see the deplorable effects of specializa- 215 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE These officers of the bookbinders' union said that they would oppose a class in bookbinding for girls in public evening schools for two reasons: first, because they would fear that the organization of such classes would tend to turn workers into the shops in too large numbers; and second, be- cause they considered that specific conditions in the trade made it undesirable to train women. Rapid changes in machinery are a menace to women's work. The women's department is minutely subdivided so that they are specialists in particular processes. The job binderies are so few in number and their work so limited that they are not worth considering as a field for women. As to the relation* of men's work to women's work, the trade union officers declared that the Brother- hood demands equal pay for equal work, and that, so long as this principle is followed, they do not object to the employment of women in any pro- cesses commonly carried on by men. In southern cities women are employed as forwarders, finishers, tion. The foreman of one of the best binderies there (Chicago) told me that there were at least eleven sub-divisions of the trade, and that the great majority of men were unable to do anything but their re- spective specialty. Collectively and individually the bookbinders would be advancing their best interests if they had a better grasp on the trade, were not the doers of one simple process. The monotony incident to such work brings on mental decay. What you can do . . . is problematical, but you should do what you can. There is certainly an opportunity to advance the branches of stamping and finishing. This is where craftsmanship of a high order can be brought to play. And craftsmanship can be taught. If designing were more general among bookbinders the field for their work would expand. There is an immense field in the decorative leather work which might be done in the bindery." Reported in the International Bookbinder, Vol. IX, p. 191 (June, 1908). 216 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE or rulers, and in New York some women are doing work commonly done by men and receiving the same wages. Without trade union organization, however, "female labor means cheap labor, and therein lies the danger/' Finally, although they agreed that the public evening schools might well be utilized to give supplementary technical educa- tion to girls, they were convinced that trade con- ditions in bookbinding made such a class as had been proposed undesirable. These statements, made by men and women who know trade conditions so well, and yet view them from different angles, are a practical sum- mary of the problem of industrial education for women in this trade. Their opinions show the complex factors which the schools must consider, and the different points of view which ought to be represented in any effort to solve the problem. The immediate steps to be taken are more obvious than any ultimate solution. Real success will depend upon the possibility of effective co-op- eration on the part of workers and employers. The trade union would be a powerful ally in efforts to keep children in school until they are sixteen, for already it excludes younger children from work in union binderies. To exclude these children from all binderies by legislative enactment would be an important step in industrial education. More careful systems of training in the workroom would be an asset for employers as well as a benefit to the workers. Further than that the problem can 217 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE be solved only by experiment. Such experimental plans might include opportunities to be offered in evening classes not to practice the trade but to gain instruction in fundamental principles, whether it be the construction of a machine or the treat- ment of leather. Co-operation of this sort be- tween the schools and the industry might do much to test the best methods of developing efficient workers. Meanwhile, it is well frankly to recog- nize that extreme specialization, constant stand- ing, prolonged hours of work, irregular employ- ment, and low wages produce inefficiency more rapidly than the schools would be able to train skilled workers. 218 CHAPTER IX SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK THE conditions of women's work in the book- binding trade fail in many particulars to measure up to the standard which public opinion has begun to demand. About i o per cent of the women workers are under sixteen. Careful su- pervision of learners in the workroom is rare. Pro- cesses are so subdivided as to deaden mental facul- ties rather than to encourage growth in intelligence. As yet the subject of industrial education is dis- cussed only with reference to the men in the trade, and little attention is given to the problem in the women's department. Operating complicated machines, repeating one process hour after hour, standing at work all day, carrying loads of heavy paper from one part of the shop to another, stoop- ing frequently to lift the folded sections of books, pressing a foot pedal rapidly and incessantly, or handling the completed volumes to wrap them for shipping, these are tasks which would in- evitably fatigue girls even though the day never lasted longer than eight hours. Yet only a fourth of the women in the shops investigated had as short a working day as eight hours, and 44 per 219 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE cent worked longer than forty-eight hours in a week. In fully three-fourths of the binderies the girls worked overtime at some season of the year. More than half of the statements collected re- garding this overtime showed an excess above the limit allowed by law. Moreover, flagrant instances are recorded of the employment of women through- out the night. The average wage reported by the group of girls interviewed by us was $7.22 a week, while the average reported by census enumerators in 1905 was even lower, $6. 1 3. Yet it has been seen that women bookbinders are members of households in which it is difficult to make ends meet, and in which heavy responsibilities fall upon the women wage-earners. Their earnings are reduced still lower by reason of irregular work. Only about a third work in establishments reporting steady employment. Nearly three-fourths of the work- ers interviewed had frequently lost time in slack seasons. Only one in eight reported no time lost for any cause, while nearly a third reported a loss of one to three months during the year, and more than a fourth lost three months or more. An esti- mate of the approximate yearly income of bindery women shows that nearly three-fourths receive less than $400 in a year, in spite of their finding employment in other occupations when they have no work in bookbinding. An income of less than $400 a year is distinctly below the generally accepted estimate of $9.00 a week as the minimum 220 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK wage on which a woman can support herself in New York City. Yet this is a composite picture. It shows neither the worst nor the best conditions in the trade. The standards prevailing in the best es- tablishments show that improvement in condi- tions is an entirely practical possibility already tested. In contrast to the bindery in which hand folders work in a gallery less than six feet from the ceiling and must themselves fetch the sheets from the main workroom below, is the establishment in which women work in comfortable quarters and men or boys carry the sheets of books to their tables. In one bindery the accumulated stock piled high shuts of? light and air from the workers, while in another care is taken to keep the stock in a part of the workroom where it will not ob- struct ventilation. One employer provides a dressing room, supplied with hot and cold water and large enough for the girls to have space and privacy in which to change their clothing after the day's work. Another fastens a few hooks for hats and coats on the wall in a corner of the work- room, but gives no further thought to the work- ers' comfort. Similarly, one firm provides chairs of the right height for convenience and comfort, while another carelessly purchases stools without backs or foot-rests. One employer engages large numbers of very young workers whom he keeps only for a season, while another makes sixteen the minimum age in 221 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE the workroom, and employs inexperienced workers not as temporary hands for a rush order but as learners who have a future ahead. One firm squeezes the wages down to the lowest that workers will accept, while another adopts a definite standard of $5.00 a week for learners with an increase of 50 cents every six months until they become experienced, and thereafter a rate calcu- lated to permit an "average" worker to earn $10 a week. One employer makes every effort to steady the seasons, and, if reduction in the force is inevitable, he arranges a part time schedule or lays the workers off in relays for definite, short periods, thus mitigating to a certain extent the hardships of unemployment. Another takes on new hands for every sudden order with the delib- erate intention of dismissing them as soon as the work is finished. The prolonged working day, which gives the bindery trade so unenviable a reputation, is not by any means a universal practice. 1 1 is found chiefly in establishments which specialize in the binding and mailing of magazines. On the other hand, there are magazine binderies which have never found a twenty or twenty-two-hour day necessary. One firm habitually requires overtime work at certain seasons, while another has deliberately tried to avoid overtime and has succeeded in reducing it to a minimum. The impression made on the reader by this description of the employment of women in bind- 222 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK eries must depend on his outlook, and the stand- ards which he has in mind. The diverse points of view from which industrial conditions are observed result in different standards of judgment. Thus the bindery worker, if she read these chapters, will probably draw conclusions according to her own experience. She has doubtless found nine hours a long day, overtime exhausting, and $7.00 a week too low a wage to live upon. She will hope, there- fore, to see these conditions changed to meet her own needs. If she is a member of the trade union her standard will be definite an eight-hour day, extra compensation for overtime, and $10 a week for experienced workers and she will see in the statement of facts about her trade an added argu- ment for the extension of trade unionism. The employer too will probably base his judgment on his own experience, gauging the facts presented by the conditions prevailing in his establishment. Viewing wages primarily as an item of expense to himself rather than as the source of income to his employes, he will be disposed to be tolerant of con- ditions as he finds them. General readers will differ in their conclusions as they differ in their knowledge of industry and their ability to read the facts about a trade with full appreciation of their significance in relation to the welfare of the workers. In spite of differences in personal judgment, however, a growing fund of scientific data about industrial conditions throughout the country is making possible the formulation of 223 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE practicable standards. Their application toa trade will depend not upon the various conclusions of worker, employer, and the general public, but upon an impersonal, scientifically determined basis of fact. A notable instance of the use of scientific evidence as a basis for establishing a standard for women's work occurred in 1907, in a case argued before the highest court in the land. A laundry owner in Oregon was convicted of a violation of the state law which prohibits the employment of women more than ten hours a day. He appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court on the ground that such a legal restriction was not in accord with the freedom of contract guaranteed to all citizens by the federal constitution. His argu- ment was met by counsel for the state in a brief based not on a theoretical discussion of the rights of citizens nor on an oratorical appeal on behalf of working women, but on an impressive and scientific collection of the results of the world- wide experience which has led nations to set a legal limit to daily hours of work.* * In a marginal note to the opinion of the court appears an epitome of the material showing the general trend of this world-wide opinion. After a summary of legislation bearing on the question in this country and abroad, reference was made to "extracts from over ninety re- ports of committees, bureaus of statistics, commissioners of hygiene, inspectors of factories, both in this country and in Europe, to the effect that long hours of labor are dangerous for women, primarily because of their special physical organization. The matter is dis- cussed in these reports in different aspects, but all agree as to the danger. It would, of course, take too much space to give these reports in detail. Following them are extracts from similar reports discussing the general benefits of short hours from an economic 224 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK This array of authorities the court found con- vincing. The relation to the welfare of the race of legislation enacted to protect the health of women was thus summed up by the court: "That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abun- dant testimony of the medical fraternity, continu- ance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essen- tial to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." The court held "that woman's physical structure, and the functions she performs in consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the conditions under which she should be permitted to toil. . . . . . . We take judicial cognizance of all matters of general knowledge/'* aspect of the question. In many of these reports individual instances are given tending to support the general conclusion. Perhaps the general scope and character of all these reports may be summed up in what an inspector for Hanover says: 'The reasons for the reduc- tion of the working day to ten hours (a) the physical organization of woman, (b) her maternal functions, (c) the rearing and education of the children, (d) the maintenance of the home are all so impor- tant and so far-reaching that the need for such reduction need hardly be discussed.' " United States Reports, Vol. 208. Cases adjudged in the Supreme Court at October term, 1907, pp. 419-420. New York, The Banks Law Publishing Co., 1908. * Ibid., pp. 420, 42 1 . 15 225 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE In presenting evidence to the court important use was made of the results of laboratory research into the physical effect of fatigue, as a sound basis upon which to enact legislation. Scientific men in many countries have proved beyond question that getting tired is a physiological process equiva- lent to taking poison into the system. The poison is eliminated and the tissues restored only by a period of rest. Furthermore, rest must be taken before fatigue has become so great as to result in an exhaustion from which recovery is difficult. The application of these facts to the regulation of the hours of work of women in industry is obvious. The public welfare demands that work shall cease and rest be permitted before the worker becomes exhausted. No enlightened employer of women can fail to welcome the scientific conclusions already reached on this subject, and to take them into consideration in determining the hours of work in his establishment. That the determination of a definite standard of wages is likely to be increasingly sought from now on is indicated by such state action as the re- cent passage in Massachusetts of a bill providing for the "voluntary" establishment of minimum wage boards. For this purpose a permanent state commission has been appointed and its duties thus defined in the law:* " It shall be the duty of the commission to inquire into the wages paid to the female employes in any oc- * Massachusetts Labor Bulletin, No. 92, p. 58, June, 1912. 226 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK cupation in the commonwealth, if the commission has reason to believe that the wages paid to a substantial number of such employes are inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and to maintain the worker in health." If the inquiry into any industry should convince the commission that inadequate wages are paid to women, a minimum wage board is to be appointed, whose members shall be representatives of the general public, of employers, and of workers in the occupation in question. This board is to determine the minimum wages to be paid to women in the industry, but its determinations are to be recommendations which employers are not legally bound to accept. This law is indicative of a growing demand for the betterment of conditions, a demand in which all classes of the population are now joining, how- ever great may be their differences of opinion as to methods of reform. Reports of the meetings of the National Association of Manufacturers show their interest in the prevention and relief of work-accidents, in a comprehensive plan for indus- trial education, and in an effort to bring "manufac- turers in every department of industry to a higher realization of their social responsibility to their employes and the public."* The American Fed- eration of Labor works through its affiliated unions in many trades to prohibit the employment of * National Association of Manufacturers. Report of Seventeenth Annual Convention, May, 1912. 227 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE children under sixteen, to establish an eight-hour day in all trades, and to secure a living wage for every worker. State legislatures are rapidly fall- ing into line in the enactment of laws regarding child labor, the introduction of industrial educa- tion in public schools, the regulation of the hours of work of women, compensation for accidents, and the maintenance of sanitary conditions in facto- ries. The attitude of a group of men and women whose work brings them into close contact with social and industrial conditions throughout the country, is also significant. In June, 1912, at the National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection, the committee on standards of living and labor presented a platform of industrial mini- mums. This declaration dealt with wages, hours, safety and health, compensation and insurance, housing, and the term of working life. A living wage was the first plank, and it was defined as an amount sufficient "to secure the elements of a normal standard of living, to provide for educa- tion and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness and to permit of reasonable saving for old age/'* The platform demanded eight hours as the maximum working day for women and minors in all industries, an uninterrupted period of at least eight hours' night rest for all women workers, and the prohibition of the employment * The Survey, xxvm : 5 17 (July 6, 1912). 228 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK of children under sixteen years of age in any wage- earning occupation. Another section called for the prohibition of the employment of women in occupations which require constant standing. Of irregular employment, the platform declared that "any industrial occupation subject to rush periods and out-of-work seasons should be con- sidered abnormal and subject to government re- view and regulation/' These provisions were based on the principle that with knowledge of the facts of work and "the recent discoveries of physi- cians and neurologists, engineers and economists, the public can formulate minimum occupational standards below which, demonstrably, work is prosecuted only at a human deficit." Within a few weeks after this conference a new political party adopted an industrial platform containing practically the same planks. Thus its members registered their conviction that the time was ripe to make standards like these a party issue with a wide appeal to the whole people. All these expressions of opinion of manufac- turers, workers, and citizens are signs of the times, a promise of better things to come in industry. Following the general statement of principles, however, is the more difficult task of applying these principles in all the various fields of em- ployment into which the world's work is divided. For this application, detailed studies must be made of conditions in each occupation. Reform must necessarily come not in industry as a whole, 229 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE but trade by trade, since that is the way economic life is organized. Moreover, each trade has its peculiar problems. To establish proper standards in the bookbind- ing trade would require certain definite changes, which may be thus summarized: Prohibition of the employment of children under sixteen. Careful supervision of learners to insure thorough training. Co-operation with the public schools in efforts to supply additional opportunities to those who have left school at the age of sixteen. Limitation of the hours of work of all women to eight in a day, without permitting overtime. Provision for a definite rest period of at least eight hours during the night for all women, irre- spective of age. Planning the work so as to obviate the ill effects due to specialized tasks and to guard against the dangers peculiar to the trade.* Provisions for adequate light, ventilation, and * By allowing change of occupation and posture, by providing chairs with backs, and, if high, with foot-rests, by employing porters to carry the heavy sheets from one part of the workroom to another, and by so adjusting the height of the work-tables to the height of the chairs as to make it possible for hand workers to sit at work without loss of the speed on which their earnings depend; by cover- ing the stock to prevent accumulation of dust, by so placing the books and paper as not to obstruct ventilation, by sprinkling the floor before sweeping every day, or by using vacuum cleaners, by guarding machines likely to injure the hands or fingers, by doing away with the use of foot pedals, and by requiring that machines be constructed in such a way as to make stooping unnecessary, and to permit the operator to sit at work. 230 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK space in the workroom and dressing rooms, and for proper toilet facilities. Protection against fire assured. Resolute efforts to prevent unemployment, and to steady the seasons. Payment of adequate wages, with full recogni- tion of the fact that the public welfare requires a living wage for every worker. To raise all binderies to the level here indicated will require the co-operation of employers, work- ers, and the public. That the suggestions are practicable is proved by the fact that almost every one of them has been tried to some degree in at least one bindery in New York. No establish- ment combines them all. The whole trade cannot be suddenly transformed, but a few important changes which would mark a decided advance should now be made general throughout the trade by means of legislation. No revolutionary reforms are necessary to make state intervention practicable. To strengthen the present laws regarding women's work in factories in New York, and to enforce them strictly, would markedly improve conditions in the bookbinding trade. Many persons now believe that the employment of children under sixteen ought to be prohibited in any occupation, and especially in connection with machines, or in lifting or carrying heavy weights. It seems obvious that a child of four- teen or fifteen should not be employed for such 231 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE heavy work as that required in binding books. In any case, the present legal provision requiring that no employment certificate shall be issued unless the child "is in sound health and is physi- cally able to perform the work which it intends to do" should be more actively enforced. The law regarding the hours of work of women ought to be amended for the benefit not only of bindery women but of all women at work in facto- ries. Night work should be prohibited in order to assure an adequate rest period in every twenty- four hours, and to make possible the strict en- forcement of the fifty-four-hour law. The excep- tion to the nine-hour law permitting a maximum working day of ten hours should be repealed. Prosecutions should be in a reasonable ratio to the number of violations, in order to prove to em- ployers that the law is alive. Public opinion should express itself strongly enough to reach the magistrates' courts, in order that the results of convictions may not be nullified by an unwise use of the suspended sentence. A sufficient number of medical inspectors should be appointed to begin the collection of data on which to base extensive legislation for the protection of the health of working women. In- sufficient ventilation, dusty floors, dusty stock, and all other unwholesome workroom conditions should be corrected by definite laws scientifically determined, and not weakened, as at present, by 232 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK provisions giving inspectors discretionary power in such vital decisions. Legislation, however, is not sufficient without provision for inspection of workrooms and strict enforcement of law. The state labor department, charged with this task of enforcement, must be well organized and supplied with an adequate number of carefully chosen inspectors. The force of women inspectors should be increased especially to look after the welfare of women work- ers. Undoubtedly they could secure from women employes evidence of violation of the laws more readily than is possible for men inspectors. On the efficiency of the labor department depends the success of the state's effort to protect the health of women workers. The chief task is to bring home the sense of re- sponsibility to those who have the power to deter- mine conditions. The fact that more than half the bindery workers in New York City are employed in less than 10 per cent of the binderies indicates the power of a few employers and their responsibility for the welfare of women in the trade. It is in the large binderies, however, that members of the firm who have the power to make improvements have the least knowledge of the conditions of employment in their establishments. They appoint a super- intendent whom they hold responsible for two main results, economy in running his depart- ment and satisfactory workmanship. An investi- gator in search of facts about wages, hours, and 233 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE seasons soon learns to seek out the superintendent or the foreman rather than the head of the firm, whose knowledge of these vital facts is likely to be very hazy. No marked change in conditions will be possible until the men at the top require super- intendents to look after the health and comfort of their employes, and to pay them decent wages. If the small group of important bookbinding firms of New York would positively adopt this practice, they would benefit at once more than half the workers in the trade. They would also set an ex- ample which would have its influence on other establishments. But a firm and its superintendent cannot meet the problems single-handed. In regulating labor conditions they are dealing with vital human issues, which cannot be determined by hard-and- fast methods. Good team work depends upon a spirit of fellowship. The worker's loyalty to the firm and his interest in good workmanship can be secured only if it be possible for employer and employe to meet in a democratic way for discussion of conditions which cannot be wisely determined if the point of view of either be dis- regarded. As conditions grow more complex this exchange of ideas also grows more complicated. The trade union has developed to give organized expression to the interests of employes. It gives the workers who are active in it a broader view of trade conditions than their personal experience alone could afford. It is a means of securing 234 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK the adoption by many firms of the standards accepted by a few. Both employers and workmen, however, are at the service of the man who gives them orders, whether he be a private customer, a printer, or a publisher. The unreasonable demands of these customers are too often responsible for deplorable conditions of employment. Overtime work and slack season are both traceable to the publisher. When this responsibility is clearly recognized, it will be reasonable to expect publishers to take effective action to meet some of the problems of bindery work. Through books and articles on industrial topics, publishers of books and editors of magazines are trying to improve industrial con- ditions. To apply the teaching of these books and articles to the binderies where they are bound would be a practical demonstration of great value. But employer, worker, and customer are not the only persons responsible. While conditions in the best binderies in New York show the prac- ticability of reasonable standards, the contrasts cited in other binderies indicate quite as clearly the danger of leaving standard-making to the in- dividual employer. Enlightened employers will keep ahead of community action, but the commu- nity must see to it that none shall fall below the minimum conditions required for the health of the workers. Furthermore, the interest of the community should make possible a just balance between the 235 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE demands of worker and employer. The worker aims to secure higher wages to make possible a bet- ter standard of living. The employer is anxious to keep down expenses. The public interest would combine and balance these two views, pointing out that production cheapened at the expense of decent living conditions for the workers in reality costs too much. Without such a balance as the community alone can give, there is too often blind conflict of interests instead of a just and reasonable adoption of proper standards. Public interest is the vital factor needed to focus atten- tion on conditions of employment and to establish throughout the trade the standards which are essential to the health and happiness of thousands of working girls. The task is large and complex, but it is also an encouraging one. It challenges the best thought and effort of reader, writer, binder, printer, publisher, and worker. 236 APPENDICES APPENDIX A OUTLINE OF INVESTIGATION Three record cards* 5 x 8 inches in size were used in the field work, one for the record of a worker, one for the record of a workshop, and one for the worker's report of conditions in the shop in which she was employed. The card designed for the record of a worker pro- vided information on three large subjects, personal history and living conditions, education, and work. The investigation of personal history and living con- ditions included such facts as: Nativity, and date of birth. Relationship to head of family, indicating whether the girl was boarding or living at home. If living at home, nativity of father and mother, and the dates when they came to New York City; number and ages of children at home; other persons living with family; other wage-earners in family, their occupations and weekly earnings; condition of apartment, number of rooms, and rent. If boarding, where and at what cost. Disposition of earnings, amount given to home, weekly carfare, and yearly savings. Membership in organizations, trade union, church, and club. * See facsimiles of card records, pp. 245 to 248. 239 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE The information sought regarding the worker's schooling included: Last day school attended, place, date of leaving, and grade reached. Trade or technical school attended, courses taken, and dates of attendance. This was interpreted broadly to include any supplementary education, such as courses in public evening schools, or in business schools. The investigation of the girl's work history included the following data: Age at beginning work. Weeks out of work in the past year, and the reasons for this loss of time. Comparison of regularity of employment in the past twelve months and in the preceding year. Training received in a bindery, by whom given, kind of work assigned, and length of time required. Trade career, with a record of each position in chrono- logical order, stating dates employed, time held, name and address of firm, trade, kind of work done by the girl interviewed, weekly wages, how the position was found, reason for leaving, and the time idle after leaving. More detailed information was then secured regard- ing conditions in binderies in which the worker had been employed recently enough to insure accuracy. This material, recorded on a card to be filed under the firm name, afforded a valuable basis for the investiga- tion of establishments. The data gathered on this card included, besides the name and address of the firm: Name and address of the worker and the dates of her em- ployment in this bindery. 240 OUTLINE OF INVESTIGATION Kind of work done by her. Posture at work in these various occupations. Weekly wages. Fines imposed or any charges made for supplies. Weeks out of work in past year, or during the time of em- ployment here, if it had been less than a year. Hours of labor, including time of beginning work in the morning, time of ending work in the evening, length of noon recess, Saturday working hours, and total hours of labor daily and weekly. Overtime, with full information regarding number of evenings of overtime in a week, closing hour, time al- lowed for supper, total daily and weekly hours inclusive of overtime, rate of pay for extra work, and the season of the year when the hours of labor are thus prolonged. Home work,* if any, kind, hours spent on it and earnings. Workroom conditions, lighting, lunch-room privileges, kind of dressing room provided, and cleanliness of toilets. In interviewing an employer the same kind of in- formation was sought, but covering the whole estab- lishment rather than the conditions that affect a single worker. The information asked of employers was as follows: Kind of work done by women, with a description of the nature of the processes, posture required of the worker, and the qualities needed to make her successful, whether neatness, strength, experience, speed or skill. General range of weekly wages for each process, and whether calculated according to piece or time. The tendency here was to state the best possible wages for each class of work. * These card records were all designed for investigation of other trades as well as bookbinding. As a matter of fact, home work given out by binderies is very rare. 16 241 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE Total normal force of women employed, and minimum age. Employer's opinion of the desirability of trade school training for this work. Seasons, including time of employment of the maximum force of women and the usual number employed during that season; time of employment of minimum force and the number at work then. Hours of labor, in detail, normally and when working over- time. Home work, if any; number of workers and kind, whether families, contractors, or institutions. Workroom conditions, lighting, ventilation, space for workers and cleanliness. The following record of one of the girls interviewed will best illustrate the sort of information which we were seeking and the method of securing it. She was employed in a bindery in which conditions were un- usually good. We shall call her Mary Brown and give her address as 142 Greenwich Avenue, New York, third floor, back, south. An investigator visited her home one afternoon and talked with her grandmother and her sister, who was also a worker in a bindery. In the evening the visitor returned and talked with the girl herself. This gave an opportunity to check and verify the statements made in the earlier interview. The girl had left the fifth grade of a public school in 1905, three years before she would have graduated. She had been enrolled in a public evening school in two successive terms, once in the "regular course," and once in a dressmaking class, but she did not stay through the term in either class. She went to work at the age of fourteen, working a year as cash girl in a department store, first receiving a weekly wage of $3.00 and later $3.50. Her older sister who had worked in 242 OUTLINE OF INVESTIGATION the same store found the "job" for her. Mary left because there was "no chance to advance." A friend found her work in October, 1906, in the Western Bindery, where large editions of books were bound. As a learner, she folded sheets by hand and emptied boxes. The other girls showed her how to do the work. There was no definite time of learning. In three and a half years, how- ever, she had had only an occasional opportunity to try to operate a machine, and her weekly earnings had been increased only from $3.50 to $5.50. Her employment had been steady during the past twelve months. In the preceding year she had been without work or wages two weeks when the firm had moved. Her grandmother was the head of the household. The mother was dead, and the father had deserted his family. Every member of the family had been born in New York. There were five girls at home, ranging in age from twelve to twenty-two years. The other wage-earners were three sisters. One was a learner in a bindery, earning $3.50 a week. Another worked in a hotel laundry, earning $7.00 a week. The third was out of work at the date of the visit. She also had been working in a hotel laundry but the steam made her ill. The combined earnings of the three girls at work were $16 a week. An uncle sent them $10 a month. The grand- mother, although nearly blind, did the housework, and managed to make ends meet. The six members of the family lived in four rooms in a tenement built since the New York housing law has demanded a certain minimum of light and air. Mary gave all her earnings to her grandmother, who returned to her small sums needed for clothes and incidental expenses. She walked to work and carried her lunch, so spent no money for carfare or lunches. She was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. She belonged to no club, nor had she joined the union in the bookbinding trade. Her name had been given to the investigator by another girl employed in the Western Bindery. In the same visits, a similar record 243 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE was secured of the trade history of Mary's younger sister who was a learner in the bookbinding trade. The facts which Mary gave about the Western Bindery were recorded on another card and filed under the name of the bindery. Her chief work was to empty the boxes into which the folded sheets were dropped by the machine. Frequent stooping was necessary and the work was very tiring. She had been fined for being late but was "only scolded," not fined, for spoiling sheets. Her work had been steady. Her working hours were from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a half hour at noon, eight hours daily, forty-eight weekly. In summer she worked from 8 a.m. to 5:20 p.m., in order to stop work on Saturday at twelve noon. In busy season she had worked overtime once a week only, and then not later than 7 o'clock, a ten-and-a-half-hour day. Some of the older girls stayed two evenings a week. These hours represented unusually good conditions. She had never taken any work home. There was no lunch room. The girls ate their lunches in the workroom, and made tea on a gas stove in the dressing room. A month later the investigator visited the bindery and asked questions to verify and supplement the information given by this worker, concerning the kind of work done by women, weekly wages, training of learners, desirability of trade school training, methods of securing workers, seasons of employment, hours of work, overtime, home work, and the conditions in the workroom. Mary was at work in the bindery at the time of the visit, and her statements about processes of work were found to be correct. 244 1 >; to to t+ v> c l| to j C 1 i REASON FOR LKAVINCI 0) o o C i: JK T5 O CS O or o - C o> 0) SH 2 J o! 1 a O ! Ml c, c i nH >r( A s, O C 1 | HOW FOUND CO f CC r C -H X U. C 5 , s a r- 1 ?li 2 : & o c H, ^* * 2 t ^fe .4 Q 4 CO Regular course Dctuuikli 19( 1 Dept. Date adtuis. es. Indefinite. : I s c s If o TJ ll i * ? c c '. C CO Z i i H M CC eti t 1 4 h Avenue IS 3 - Name of schoc g, empty box 00 rH 1 O rH jl 5 c i i i > O H 0) a. t Department Store Edition Bindery s 1 oa i! c H 1 D1 >r NATIVITY U.S. I c C ~ to \ co I * ? i f OQ * *# V. cc x: : c c ! * h i I * 5 it ? " s I CO i c 1 ! > I "S ii : s ir5 5 'g i I r a i i I 1 o II H T3 b i4 -H -H 3 0) 03 CQ ^Sg, W rH O rH x: o) -P l^' BJ H *0 IP X^l OT3 SSfio 05 CD tt> rH ti ECO C-H 4) X5 ^ O TJ TJX1 0) fc, & *8> P 05 c o G . X fi c5 Pr-T to t. H-H wo bboo o t, d) o o c TJ s >> ^ ^ -H . t, O 4> o to -P OT IU rH W) C C 33 0> ^^^03^^^ 'OXI >>x: 05 OXJ O CrH OS * Xj 0-J T> -H -H O > eo -Pa) C*&x>o V.TJ X! * *O ( O jktlX} C.VH Li-PrH O 0-HrHt, COO^rHOOO XI X! S <-H O 00 CO X) -4) -P a a a dm oc xj a> o O > H -H .H ^H 0) 05 05 d ^^ 05 3 >-^ SO C O C O o to CO L, -H c 246 c: 5 A) s I 1 C | ] 5 E CT C P C | * 1 i 1 ! e I c 41 to a o i EH c H o o J 2 e r^ O 1 o 1 | C * f c o ! * 1 1 ! o M (D c 1 C JC o I 5 i c c o 5 a ) i r ' | rH * ; - rt ^^ 1 I j 1 f a c "o f 5 > I I m c 5 1 s u H M o > 1 5 i 1 C 9 S ^ ^, f~ t ^ fl' 5 ^ t c t* a? ^ ^ a CO s X < 5 D 5 9 E C 4 i o K o SB 5 i i j i i ( i c 1 PQ P c CO * C Ot J + i O 8 ** 5 a i u H H a r L E-i t 1 S I 1 I C I ci tt 1 ^ 2 B 03 C i 5 4? | o X (0 ^H t 3 O3 SB i i/) "ft! | CO H C 5 K z 1 3 X i I 1 * i |^ 1 w fti O I s a p a JQ 10 u (C a 03 (1 1 I i 1 S S3 {* ! : , H a 4) x 1 * I * 4 8 J *3 S s 1 * < o t ^ * j . H$f C J t E 1 2 CO H T Z * 2 f c T & c S i i > O c J j c i en ! : K | j ?' i a CO c a H 1 h I ^ 1 I o IB i s o ! * i 4 j V. | S o CO 5 2 i a The inconsistencies between the figures of this column and the figures of the corresponding column of table A, are due to a differ- ence in the number of women who supplied information. See intro- ductory note to Appendix B. 250 SUPPLEMENTARY STATISTICS TABLE C YEARS OF ATTENDANCE AT DAY SCHOOL OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALL TRADES ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910-1911 a YEARS IN SCHOOL WOMEN IN BOOKBINDING WOMEN IN ALL TRADES Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Less than 5 years .... 5 years and less than 6 years . 6 years and less than 7 years . 7 years and less than 8 years . 8 years and less than 9 years . 9 years and less than 10 years . 10 years or more ..... None i 4 7 % 24 8 I 20 45 'I 212 135 270 585 958 446 210 34 7 5 9 21 M 7 i Total 125 IOO 2,850 IOO a Of 144 women employed in bookbinding, 19 did not supply information on this point. TABLE D. AGE AT LEAVING DAY SCHOOL OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALL TRADES ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910-1911a AGE AT LEAVING SCHOOL WOMEN IN BOOKBINDING WOMEN IN ALL TRADES Number Per Cent Number Per Cent 17 48 23 8 2 I I Under 14 years 14 years and under 15 years 15 years and under 16 years 1 6 years and under 17 years 17 years and under 18 years 18 years or over Never attended school 33 10 2 I ii 53 2 5 2 ''708 244 11 34 Total 128 IOO 3,089 IOO a Of 144 women employed in bookbinding, 16 did not supply in- formation on this point. 251 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE TABLE E. GRADE AT LEAVING NEW YORK PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALL TRADES ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910- 1911a GRADE AT LEAVING SCHOOL WOMEN IN BOOKBINDING WOMEN IN ALL TRADES Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Below the fifth grade .... Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth Graduate'of elementary school . High school (not graduates) High school graduates 3 2 14 21 18 18 6 3 2 18 26 22 22 7 78 197 393 527 197 499 133 4 4 10 '9 26 10 24 7 Total 82 100 2,028 100 a Of 85 women employed in bookbinding, whose last attendance was in New York public day schools, 3 did not supply information on this point. TABLE F PREVIOUS ATTENDANCE AT NEW YORK PUB- LIC DAY SCHOOLS ONLY, AND AT OTHER SCHOOLS OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALL TRADES, ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910-1911* ATTENDANCE AT WOMEN IN BOOKBINDING WOMEN IN ALL TRADES Number Per Cent Number Per Cent New York public schools only . Other schools 66 76 46 54 1,562 2,130 42 58 Total 142 IOO 3,692 IOO a Of 144 women employed in bookbinding, 2 did not supply in- formation on this point. 252 SUPPLEMENTARY STATISTICS TABLE G. YEARS OF ATTENDANCE IN PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALLTRADES, ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910-1911* WOMEN IN WOMEN IN YEARS OF ATTENDANCE IN NEW BOOKBINDING ALL TRADES YORK PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Less than 6 years .... 89 6 6 years and less than 7 years . 4 7 137 10 7 years and less than 8 years . 13 22 319 22 8 years and less than 9 years . 26 45 578 41 9 years or over 15 26 294 21 Total 58 100 1,417 IOO a This table relates to women who attended New York City public schools only. Of 66 women employed in bookbinding, who attended New York public schools only, 8 did not supply information on this point. TABLE H. PROGRESS IN PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING AND OF WOMEN IN ALL TRADES, ATTENDING PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY, 1910-1911* PROGRESS WOMEN IN BOOKBINDING WOMEN IN ALL TRADES Number Per Cent Number Per Cent Rapid Normal Slow 5 12 40 9 21 70 206 369 824 15 26 59 Total 57 IOO 1,399 IOO a This table relates to women who attended New York City public schools only. Of 66 women employed in bookbinding, who attended New York City public schools only, 9 did not supply information on this point. The rate of progress was measured by the number of years required to reach the grade in which the pupil was enrolled at the time of leaving school, allowing one year to each grade. For example, a pupil who had attended school six years was rated as "normal" if she had reached grade 6 B or 7 A, "slow" if she were in a lower grade, and "rapid" if she were in a higher grade. 253 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE TABLE I. HOURS AT WHICH WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING BEGIN WORKa Hour of Beginning Work WOMEN BEGINNING WORK AT SPECIFIED TIME IN Edition and Pamphlet Bind- eries Employing 50 or more Women All Other Binderies All Binderies Num- ber Per Cent Num- ber Per Cent Num- ber Per Cent 7 130 and before 8 a. m. 8 and before 8:30 a. m. 8:30 and before 9 a. m. At 9 a. m. . 525 2,298 210 % 7 .65 '.532 303 35 8 75 15 2 690 3,830 513 35 14 75 10 i Total . . . 3.033 100 2,035 100 5,068 IOO a Of the 5,689 women employed in binderies supplying any infor- mation regarding hours, 621 were in establishments which did not state time of beginning work. TABLE J LENGTH OF NOON RECESS OF WOMEN EM- PLOYED IN BOOKBINDING* WOMEN HAVING SPECIFIED LENGTH OF NOON RECESS IN Edition and Length of Noon Recess Pampblet Bind- eries Employing 50 or more All Other Binderies All Binderies Women Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per ber Cent ber Cent ber Cent 30 minutes and less than 45 . 2,243 74 1.533 73 3.776 74 45 and less than 60 . 60 minutes. 390 400 13 13 184 37i 9 18 574 771 1 1 15 Total . . . 3.033 IOO 2,088 IOO 5. 121 IOO a Of the 5,689 women employed in binderies supplying any infor- mation regarding hours, 568 were in establishments which did not state length of noon recess. 254 SUPPLEMENTARY STATISTICS TABLE K. HOURS AT WHICH WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING LEAVE WORK, WHEN NOT WORKING OVERTIME* WOMEN LEAVING WORK AT SPECIFIED HOURS IN Edition and Hour of Leaving Work Pamphlet Bind- eries Employing 50 or more All Other Binderies All Binderies Women Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per ber Cent ber Cent ber Cent Before 5 p. m. . 428 14 69 3 497 10 5 p. m. and before 5:30 p. m. 1,625 5 2 493 24 2,118 4i 5 130 p. m. and before 6 p. m. 1, 080 34 1,164 5t7 2,244 43 6 p. m. 321 16 321 6 Total . 3.'33 100 2,047 100 5,180 100 a Of 5,689 women employed in binderies supplying any information regarding hours, 509 were in establishments which did not state the hour of leaving work. 255 APPENDIX C SIXTY-HOUR RESTRICTION ON THE EM- PLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN FACTORIES IN NEW YORK STATE HELD TO BE CONSTITUTIONAL* People v. Howe, Court of Special Sessions, Oct. 31, 1906 PER CURIAM. The defendant pleaded guilty to an informa- tion charging him with violation of the provisions of section 77 of the Labor Law in that, during the week between the 24th day of September and the ist day of October, 1906, in the County of New York, he unlawfully did employ, and permit, and suffer to work in and in connection with a cer- tain factory a certain female, one Mary Seeback, for the period of more than sixty hours in said week. The defendant further pleaded guilty to two other informations charging him with a violation of the provisions of the same law in respect of two other females. Summary inquiry was had in each of these cases which developed the fact that the factory referred to in the in- formation was a steam laundry, and that each of the females alleged to have been employed illegally was an adult. Defendant thereupon, through counsel, moved in arrest of judgment on the ground that section 77 of the Labor Law, so far as it attempted to restrict the right to employ female labor in a factory more than 60 hours in a week or the right of females to labor more than 60 hours in any one week is * New York State Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 31, De- cember, 1906, p. 484. 256 SIXTY-HOUR LAW HELD CONSTITUTIONAL unconstitutional. He cited Lochner r. State of New York, 198 U. S., 45. This court has already declared that portion of section 77 of the Labor Law which prohibits employment in a factory of any female after 9 o'clock at night and before 6 o'clock in the morning to be unconstitutional, (People v. Williams, N. Y. Law Journal, Aug. 10, 1906), and defendant seeks to establish the unconstitutionality of the act in its further restriction of the number of hours a week during which a female may be employed. The decision in the Williams case rested solely upon the ground that that part of the law there invoked could not be considered as purely a health regulation, and as such within the police power of the state, and, as was decided in the Loch- ner case, that it was an "unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbi- trary intereference with the right of the individual to his personal liberty or to enter into those contracts in relation to labor which may seem to him appropriate or necessary for the support of himself and his family." There is a distinction between a law which prohibits the employment of a woman for the slightest period of time during certain hours and one which limits the number of hours in a day or a week during which she may be employed at factory work. A law which attempts to limit the number of hours of labor of a woman employed in a factory, may well be a health regulation and a proper legislative exercise of the state's police power. There has been no adjudication of this law by the appellate courts of this state. The courts of last resort in four other states, however, have passed upon this question of the hours of labor of women under statutes and constitutional provisions quite similar to those under consideration. In Massachusetts (Commonwealth v. Hamil- ton Manufacturing Co., 120 Mass., 383); in Nebraska, (Wenhan v. State, 91 Northwest Rep., 421); and in Washing- ton, (State of Washington v. Buchanan, 29 Wash., Rep., 602), the courts upheld the constitutionality of acts which limited 17 257 WOMEN IN THE BOOKBINDING TRADE the number of hours during which women labor in factories in those several states. In Illinois (Richie v. People, 155 Ills., 98), the Supreme Court of that state declared a similar act to be unconstitutional. The weight of authority, therefore, seems to be favorable to the constitutionality of a law which limits the number of hours in a day or week that a woman may be employed at work in a factory. There is nothing in the Lochner case, reported, which indicates the sex of the employe, who it was alleged was required to work more than sixty hours a week. We know that the person in that case was an employe in a bakery or confectionery establishment. Defendant's counsel urges that the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Lochner case is applicable here. The Lochner case, how- ever, did not turn upon the sex of the person employed, but upon the nature of the employment. The issue directly in point here is that of sex. It is an issue which has not yet been presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, but as has been said, the weight of authority being for the constitutionality of the act in question, this court is con- strained to deny, and does deny, the motion in arrest of judg- ment. 258 INDEX INDEX ACCIDENT LIABILITY: increases with overwork; its relation to legal regulation of work- ing day, 146 ADVERTISEMENTS FOR BINDERY WOMEN: by month and branch of trade, no; by processes mentioned, 108 AGE OF WOMEN: as evidence of length of service, 99; mini- mum, at which learners are employed, 78; minimum, named by trade union, 196; 10 per cent under sixteen years, 219 AKRON, OHIO: strike, 180 ALLIANCE EMPLOYMENT B URE AU : co-operation with investiga- tors, 7 AMERICAN FEDERATION or LABOR, 174, 227 ANCIENT ART OF BOOKBINDING, 14-17 APPRENTICES AND LEARNERS: ages, 77, 78, 196; edition bindery best place for "~ learners, 202; employers' attitude toward, 196, 205- 207, 210-217; inexperienced worker employed in busy seasons, 200; joining the union, 186, 187; magazine bindery work, 202; methods in binderies, statements by girls, 197-205; proportion of, in relation to experienced workers, 186, 196; special- ists, 199; supervision by local unions, 185-188, 202; types of learners, 197; wages, 76-78, 186, 187, 202-204 ARBITRATION CONTRACT: be- tween local unions and Bookbinders' League, 182 ART BOOKBINDERS, 45, 46, 213 BLANKBOOK BINDERIES: num- ber of women in 1910, 34; number of women by season of greatest activity, 104; steadiest employment in, 107; work of, 23 BOOKBINDER: typical, 46 BOOKBINDERS' LEAGUE: em- ployers' organization in New York, agreement concerning hours and wages, 179; arbi- tration contract with local unions, 182 BOOKBINDING: Ancient art of, 14-17 BOOKBINDING ESTABLISHMENTS: conditions in the workroom, 147-150, 221, 222; diffi- culties of investigating, 9; dull seasons, number of women laid off, in different types of binderies, 107; number in New York, by nature of products, 1910, 26; overtime hours, employers' statements, 140; reorgani- 261 INDEX zation, transfer of workers and loss of positions, as the result of introducing new machines, 51-70, 112, 189; seasons of greatest activity, periods of maximum em- ployment, 104, 105; typical binderies, showing women's work, 39-48; violations of law restricting hours of work, statistics, 141. See also Employers BOOKBINDING PROCESSES: ad- vertisements, processes men- tioned in, 1 08; changes, with development of machinery, 39; details, 20-24, 38; hard processes, statements of girls, 151-156. See also Hand Work; Machine Work BOOKBINDING TRADE: ancient history, 14-17; branches of the trade, 24-25; number of binderies in each branch, in New York, 26; capital invested, value of products, etc., 1900-1905, in New York, 27; characteristics are irregularity of work and frequent change in condi- tions, 48; employment bu- reaus to assist girls in finding positions, 126-128; employ- ment registry of Local 43, 1 88 ; future of women's work is problematical, 70, 231- 236; history of early days, 14-20; irregularity of em- ployment, 101-132; out- look for better conditions, 219-236; position of worker and impossibility of her modifying conditions of em- ployment, 1 69-1 73 ; problems of the specialist and of the untrained worker, 207; re- lation to other occupations for women, 3, 4; restric- tions on entrance to trade, 195, 196; second to cigar making as trade for women, 3; specialization in the bindery, result of use of machines, 57, 61-70, 185, 1 86; standards, proper, changes required to establish, 230-236; summary of con- ditions, 219-236; transfer of women and of women's work, 51-70, 112, 189; women's work in the binder- ies, 38-71. See also Hours; Statistics; Wages; Work of Women in the Binderies CAPITAL INVESTED: value of products, etc., 1900-1905, in New York, 27 CAREY, MATHEW, 19, 31 CHARTS: periods of work and idleness of girl, 124; weekly hours of girl, 145 CHILDREN: employment of, 196, 231 DEVINE, EDWARD T. : on employ- ment bureaus, 126 DISPLACED WORKERS, 51-56, 112, 189 DRIFTERS: among working girls, responsibility of the bindery, 200, 201 DULL SEASON : proportion of women laid off, 107; loss of time because of, 118 EARNINGS. See Wages EDITION BINDERIES, 24, 26: best place for learners, 202; machine methods, work of women, 39-42; number of women in, 1910, 34; num- 262 INDEX her by season of greatest activity, 104; piece-work system of payment, 74; training of apprentices, 203, 204 EIGHT-HOUR DAY: demand by trade unions in 1907, 177- 181 EMPLOYERS : attitude toward the training of women book- binders, 196, 205-207, 210- 217; complexity of his trade relations, 13; con- sideration for workers, dif- ferences, 221; efforts to remedy irregularity of em- ployment, 129; power and responsibility for welfare of women, 233; prosecution for violation of law and the suspended sentence, 157, 158, 167; violations of law restricting hours of work, 135, 136, 141 EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS : to serve as clearing houses, 126-128 EMPLOYMENT REGISTRY: of trade union, 188 EVENING SCHOOL CLASSES IN BOOKBINDING: considered not feasible by practical bookbinders, 210-217 FACTORY LAWS. See Law Con- cerning Labor FAMILY STATUS : of women book- binders, 87 FATHERS. See Parents FATIGUE: caused by long periods of work, 147-157, 225, 226 FEMALE IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY: first federation of working women's organizations, 19 FUTURE OF WOMEN'S WORK: in binderies, is problem- atical, 70, 231-236 GAINE, HUGH: binding establish- ment in New York, 1752, 17 GOLD LEAF LAYERS, 175: ap- prenticeship, 187 ; wages, 183, 187 GOLDMARK, JOSEPHINE: on fa- tigue and efficiency, 155 GROLIER, 15 HAND WORK: demand for wo- men is limited, 213; details, 44-48; evening school classes considered not feasible by practical bookbinders, 210- 217; folders are drifters in the trade, 121. See also Work of Women in the Binderies HEALTH OF WOMEN IN BINDER- IES, 147-157, 164; legisla- tion for protection, relation to welfare of the race, Supreme Court opinion, 165, 224-226 HISTORY OF BOOKBINDING, 14-20 HOME CONDITIONS OF WOMEN: family status, 87; fathers, wages of, 89; mothers, wage- earning, 91-95; necessity for contributions of bindery girls, 89, 90; occupations of fathers, 88; persons per room, 97; rents paid, 96, 97 HOURS OF LABOR: accident liability increases with over- work, 146; actual working time shown by reports, 134, 144; beginning and leaving hours, 254, 255; chart show- ing weekly hours of bindery 263 INDEX girl, 145; daily hours of work, statistics, 138; dan- gers to girls on street late at night, 142, 143; days longer than twelve hours, shown by reports, 144; eight-hour day demand by trade unions in 1907, 177- 181; eight-hour day of one- fourth of women in shops, 219; fatigue caused by long hours, I47~i57, 225, 226; health of workers, 147- 157, 164, 165, 224-226; ir- regularity of employment, 101-132; law governing hours of labor, 133-168; night work, agreement be- tween local unions and Book- binders' League, 180; night work, prohibition of , declared unconstitutional by courts, 158-164; nine-hour day for women since October, 1912, *33> I 34> noon recess, length of, 254; Oregon case, opinion of United States Supreme Court, 165, 224, 225; position of the worker and the impossibility of her changing conditions, 169- 173; prolonged working day not a universal practice, 222 ; violations of the law, 135, 136, 141; weekly hours of work, statistics, 139, 145; week!}' limit, fifty-four hours, 134. See also Irregularity of Employment; Overtime HUGO, VICTOR, 17 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION: atti- tude of International Bro- therhood of Bookbinders and Local 43, 215, 216; atti- tude of practical bookbin- ders toward training of women binders, 196, 205- 207, 210-217; elements of efficiency in manual occupa- tion, 194; evening school classes in bookbinding con- sidered not feasible by practical bookbinders, 210- 217; first step, to keep children out of industry until equal to its demands, 209; schooling as a neces- sary foundation, 207-209, 2 5 I ~ 2 55> women's work in bookbinding, problem of, 194, 195, 205-218 INSPECTORS: medical, 232; wo- men, 233 INSTRUCTION. See Apprentices and Learners; School Classes International Bookbinder, 4, 178, 180, 216 INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOOKBINDERS: aims and efforts, 176; apprenticeship, attitude toward, 185; atti- tude toward industrial edu- cation, 215, 216; eight-hour day demand in 1907, 177- 181; funds and benefits, 176, 177; membership, 174; organized in 1892, 174; resolution concerning cut- ting and folding machines, 49. See also Local 43 INVESTIGATION BY COMMITTEE ON WOMEN'S WORK, RUS- SELL SAGE FOUNDATION, 2; co-operation of Alliance Em- ployment Bureau, 7; field workers, 11-12; foundation report, 6; number of visits made and records secured, 10; outline of, 6-n, 239- 248; record cards, 239, 245- 248; scope of, 6; time covered, 1908-1911, 7, 8 IRREGULARITY or EMPLOYMENT, 101-132; census data of 1905 and its unreliability, 264 INDEX 103; characteristic of the industry, 48; chart showing periods of work and idleness of bindery girl, 124; de- moralizing and disorganiz- ing effect of, 101, 102, 124; difficulty of securing data, 101-103; dull season, loss of time because of, 118, pro- portion of women laid off during, 107; employment bureaus as clearing houses, a possible solution, 126-128; leaving of positions, reasons, in, 112; maximum num- ber of women employed, by season of greatest activity, 104, 105; positions, means of finding, -125, number held in one year, 114, reasons for leaving, in, 112; time in one place, 113; time lost between, 115; responsibil- ity for, 129-132; season of greatest activity, different types of binderies, 105, number of women employed, 104; solutions of the prob- lem, discussion of possible, 124-132; specialization of work in bindery, effect of, 57, 61-70, 185, 1 86; state- ments of girls about wages and irregular work, 119-123; time in one position, 113, loss of, between positions, 115, loss due to dull season, 1 1 8, loss due to failure to repair machines, 120, loss in year from all causes, 117. See also Hours; Overtime JOB BINDERIES: details of work, 24, 26; number of women, by season of greatest activ- ity, 104, in 1910, 34; time or week methods of pay- ment, 74 LABOR DEPARTMENT, STATE: responsibility of, 233 LAW CONCERNING LABOR: chil- dren, employment of, 196; difficulty of enforcing the law, 135-137; European conditions, 131, 166; Fac- tory and Workshops Act in England, 131; Katie Mead Case, court deci- sions, 159-164; New York state, 133, 134, 157, 174; night work, prohibition con- sidered unconstitutional, court decisions, 158-164; Oregon case, 165, 224-226; overtime work without vio- lating the law, 135; possi- bilities of legislation, to improve conditions, 132; prosecution for violation of the law, and the suspended sentence, 157, 158, 167; relation of legislation to the welfare of the race, Oregon case, 165, 224-226; sixty- hour restriction in employ- ment of women in factories in New York state held to be constitutional, 258; Su- preme Court decision, 165, 224-226; violations of the law, 135, 136, 141 LEARNERS. See Apprentices and Learners LEAVING OF POSITIONS: reasons. LOCAL ALLIED PRINTING TRADES COUNCILS: control use of trade union label, 177 LOCAL 22: includes women gold leaf layers, 175, 187 LOCAL 43, BINDERY WOMEN'S UNION: apprenticeship con- ditions, 185-188; arbitra- 265 INDEX tion contract with Book- binders' League, 182; atti- tude toward industrial edu- cation, 215, 216; construc- tive business ability, 190, 19 1 ; eight-hour day demand in 1907, 178-181; employ- ment registry, 188; fees and dues, 175; important factor in improving woman's con- dition, 193; joining, con- ditions of, 187; membership, 175, 187; office and officers, 175; organized in 1895, 175; purpose of organization, 169; results accomplished, 193; scope of its activities, 185; transfer of workers, require- ment of the union, 189; wage scale, 183, 184; work of, 176 LONDON SOCIETIES OF JOURNEY- MEN BOOKBINDERS, 154 Loss OF TIME. See Time MACHINE WORK: attitude of employers toward purchas- ing of machines, 57-62; automatic machine, 40; changes in machinery result in reorganization, transfer of workers, and loss of posi- tions, 51-70, 112, 189; com- bination machine, 50; devel- opment of machine binding, 40, 49; displaced workers and the machines, changes in earning power, 50-56, 112, 189; drop-roll folding ma- chine, 40; editionbindery,39~ 42; effect on binding pro- cesses, 39; folding machine, 40, 49; gathering machine, 41, 50; inserting machine, 49; lack of promptness in repairing machines causes operator loss of time, 120; magazine bindery, 42-44; pasting machine, 49; point machine, 40; sewing ma- chine demands greatest skill, 47, 50; specialization in the bindery, result of use of machines, 57, 61-70, 185, 186; trade union's attempt to protect workers against loss, 189; understanding of hand work necessary, 46; wages, changes in, due to change in machines, 51-56, 112, 189; wire-stitching machine, 50. See also Work of Women in the Binderies MAGAZINE BINDERIES: details, 24, 26; learners, 202; ma- chine methods, work of women, 42-44; number of women in, 1910, 34 MARTINEAU, HARRIET, 18 MEAD, KATIE: decision of courts concerning night work, 158- 164 MOTHERS. See Parents NAMES OF BINDERY GIRLS: how secured, 10 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MAN- UFACTURERS: welfare work, 227 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND CORREC- TION: platform of industrial minimums, 228 NATIVITY: of bindery women, 35-37 NEW YORK CITY: early printing and binding establishments, 17, 18; heart of the indus- try about City Hall, 27 266 INDEX New York World: advertise- ments for bindery women, 108, no NIGHT WORK: agreement be- tween local unions and Bookbinders' League, 180; prohibition of, declared un- constitutional by courts, 158-164 NINE-HOUR DAY: for women, since October, 1912, 133, 134 NUMBER OF BOOKBINDERS. See Statistics OLIVER, THOMAS: on diseases of occupation, 155 OREGON CASE: opinion of United States Supreme Court, 165, 224-226 OUTLOOK: for better conditions, 219-236 OVERTIME: agreement between local unions and Bookbind- ers' League, 179, 180, 188; girls' reports, 142-145; ille- gal and not illegal overtime, 140; law of employment in New York state, 133-168; reports of 1887 and 1907, conditions not bettered, i, 2; three-fourths of the binder- ies, overtime in, 220; with- out violating the law, 135. See also Irregularity of Em- ployment PAMPHLET BINDERIES: details, 24, 26; number of women in, 1910, 34; by season of greatest activity, 104 PARENTS: of bindery women, nativity, 36; occupations of fathers, 88; wage-earn- ing mothers, 91-95; wages of fathers, 89 PAYMENT FOR WORK. See Wages PAYNE, ROGER: his bill for binding, 14, 15 PHILADELPHIA: and Mathew Carey, 18, 19, 31 PIECE-WORK METHOD OF PAY- MENT, 73, 74, 183 POSITIONS: means of finding, 125; number held in one year, 114; reasons for leav- ing, in, 112; time in one place, 113; time lost be- tween, 115 PRINTING PRESS: influence of, on binding methods, 19 PROPORTION OF MEN AND WO- MEN BINDERS: in United States, 1850-1900, 29, 31, 65, 66, 69 PROSECUTIONS: for violation of labor law, and the sus- pended sentence, 157, 158, 167 PUBLIC OPINION: and the condi- tions of women's work, 219, 236 PUBLISHERS: their responsibil- ity for conditions in the bookbinding trade, 129-132, 235 RECORD CARDS: used in investi- gation, 239, 245-248 REQUIREMENTS OF WOMEN BIN- DERS: deftness, accuracy, and speed, 46-48 SCHOOL ATTENDANCE: of bin- dery, and of all women in the trades, 207-209, 249-253 SCHOOL CLASSES IN BOOKBIND- ING: not considered feasible 267 INDEX by practical bookbinders, 210-217 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE: as a basis for establishing stand- ard for women's work, 224 SEASONS: dull season, propor- tion of women laid off, 107; greatest activity, different types of binderies, 105; number of women employed, 104 SEEBACK, MARY: case of, 256 SPECIALIZATION: in the bindery, 57, 61-70, 185, 186 STANDARDS: in the bookbinding trade, changes required to establish proper, 230-236; use of scientific evidence to establish, 224 STATISTICS: advertisements for bindery women, by month and branch of trade, no, by processes mentioned, 108; age of women workers, 78, 99, 196, 219; binderies in Manhattan, by nature of products, 1910, 26, by season of greatest activity, 105; capital invested, value of products, etc., 1900-1905, in New York, 27; chart showing periods of work and idleness of girl, 124; chart showing weekly hours of bindery girl, 145; distribu- tion of women binders in different branches of the trade, 1910, 34; distribu- tion of women binders in United States, 1900, by cities, 30, 33; dull season, proportion of women laid off, 107; family status of women bookbinders, 87; hours of beginning and leaving work, 254, 255; 268 hours of work, daily and weekly, 138, 139; increase in number of women binders, 1850-1900, in United States, 2 9> .31, 65, 66; leaving of positions, reasons for, 112; names of girls interviewed, sources, 10; nativity of bindery women, 36; noon recess, length of, 254; num- ber of persons engaged in bookbinding in United States by decades, 1850-1900, 29, 31; number of women binders, in different branches of the trade in New York, 1910, 34; number of women binders in New York in 1900, 30, 33, in 1912, 32; number of women binders, by season of greatest activ- ity, 104, 105; number of women binders in United States, 2; persons per room in families of women binders, 97; positions, 111-115, 125; proportion of men and women binders in United States, changes in, 29, 31, 65, 66, 69; school attend- ance of bindery girls, and of women in all trades, 207- 209, 249-253; time in one position, 113; time lost, 115-118; violations in bin- deries of law restricting hours of work, 141; weekly earn- ings of men and women binders, and of women in all manufacturing industries, New York state, 1905, 79- 82; weekly earnings of women during first week, 76-78; weekly wages of women by years of employ- ment in the trade, 75; yearly income of women, approx- imate, by ages, 85; years of employment of women, 98, 99 INDEX STEVENSON, ROBERT Louis, 16 STEWARDESS IN WORKROOM: ap- pointed by trade union, 190 STRIKES: Akron, Ohio, 180; New York, ordered against firms refusing eight-hour day demand, 179, averted, 1 80; non-union attempts, 172, 173 SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: in the bookbinding trade, 219- 236 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: opinion on the relation of legislation for protection of women to the welfare of the race, 165, 224, 226 TEACHING GIRLS THE TRADE, 194-218: attitude of em- ployers toward the training of women workers, 196, 205- 207, 210-217; attitude of International Brotherhood of Bookbinders and Local 43, 215, 216; evening school classes, objections to, and reasons, by practical book- binders, 210-217; methods in binderies, statements by girls, 197-205. See also Apprentices aitd Learners TIME: in one position, 113; loss between positions, 115; loss due to dull season, 118; loss due to failure to repair machines, 120; loss in year from all causes, 117 TRADE CLASSES. See School Classes TRADE UNION LABEL: use of, 177, 192 TRADE UNIONISM: American Federation of Labor, 174; apprenticeship conditions, 185-188; arbitration con- tract between trade unions and the B ookbinders ' League, 182; Bookbinders' League, an employers' or- ganization in New York, 179, 181, 182; cost of struggle for eight-hour day, 1 80; eight-hour day demand in 1907, 177-181; gives workers broad view of trade conditions, 234; influence of the union, 190; Inter- national Brotherhood of Bookbinders, 49, 174-181, 185, 215, 216; Local Allied Printing Trades Councils, control use of trade union label, 177; Local 22, in New York, 175, 187; Local 43, in New York, aims and work of, 169, i74-i93> 2I 5> 216; opposition of some employ- ers, 191; position of worker and impossibility of her modifying conditions of em- ployment, 169-173; pur- pose of local organization, 169; results of trade union- ism, 192, 193; specializa- tion dangers, provision against, 185, 186; transfer of workers, requirement of union, 189; wage scales adopted through efforts of local union, 183, 184; work of local unions, 176-193. See also International Bro- therhood of Bookbinders; Local 43 TRAINING. See Apprentices and Learners; School Classes TRANSFER OF WORKERS, 51-70, 112, 189 269 INDEX UNEMPLOYMENT. See Irregular- ity of Employment VIOLATION OF THE LAW: restrict- ing hours of work, 135, 136, 141 WAGES OF WOMEN: agreement between local union and Bookbinders' League, 179, 1 80, 1 88; average wage, 220; changes in earning power resulting from changes in machines, 51-56; compara- tive weekly earnings of men and women binders, and of women in all manu- facturing industries, New York state, 1905, 79-82; differences in different estab- lishments, 82, 83; difficulty of securing definite informa- tion, 72, 73; drifters among working girls, 200, 201; fines and charges, 83, 84; gold leaf layers, 183, 187; irregularity of employment, effect of, statements of girls, 119-123; learners' wages , 76-78, 186, 187, 202-204; low wages of women a prime cause of poverty, 86; Mass- achusetts minimum wage board, 226; methods of payment, 73, 74, 183; piece work, 73, 74, 183; position of the worker and the im- possibility of her changing conditions, 169-173; scale arranged through efforts of Local Union 43, 183, 184; specialization in the bindery, effect of, 61-70, 185, 186; time work, 73; transfer of workers, requirement of trade union, 189; week work, 73, 183; weekly earn- ings, comparative, of men and women binders, and of women in all manufacturing industries, New York state, I 9 5 79~82; weekly earn- ings during first week of employment, 76-78; weekly wages by years of employ- ment in the trade, 75; yearly income, 220, by ages, 85 WORK OF WOMEN IN THE BIN- DERIES, 38-71; art binders, 45, 46; confined to the pre- paring department, 38, 46; displaced workers and the changes in binding machin- ery, 51-56, 112, 118; early days of bookbinding, 16-19; edition binderies, 39-42 ; future of work is problemat- ical, 70, 231-236; require- ments are deftness, accuracy, and speed, 46-48; speciali- zation in the bindery and its effect on time and wages, 61-70, 185, 1 86; transfer of work and workers, 51-70, 112, 189; typical binderies, 39-48; women stand on threshold of bindery trade, 38; years of employment, 98, 99. See also Appren- tices and Learners; Hand Work; Hours of Labor; Irregularity; Machine Work; Overtime; Wages WORKROOMS OF BINDERIES: physical conditions, 147, 149, 150; shop stewardess appointed by trade union, 190 270 THE SURVEY A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY HP HE SURVEY is a weekly magazine for all those who 1 believe that progress in this country hinges on social service: that legislation, city government, the care of the unfortunate, the cure of the sick, the edu- cation of children, the work of men and the homes of women, must pass muster in their relation to the com- mon welfare. As Critic, THE SURVEY examines conditions of life and labor, and points where they fail: how long hours, low pay, insanitary housing, disease, intemperance, in- discriminate charity, and lack of recreation, break down character and efficiency. As Student, THE SURVEY examines immigration, in- dustry, congestion, unemployment, to furnish a solid basis of fact for intelligent and permanent betterment. As Program, THE SURVEY stands for Prevention: Pre- vention of Poverty through wider opportunity and ade- quate charity; Prevention of Disease through long-range systems of sanitation, of hospitals and sanatoriums, of good homes, pure food and water, a chance for play out-of-doors; Prevention of Crime through fair laws, juvenile courts, real reformatories, indeterminate sen- tence, segregation, discipline and probation; Preven- tion of Inefficiency, both industrial and civic, through practice in democracy, restriction of child labor, fair hours, fair wages, enough leisure for reading and recrea- tion, compulsory school laws and schools that fit for life and labor, for the earning of income and for rational spending. PAUL U. KELLOGG EDI,TOR EDWARD T. DEVINE JANE ADDAMS h " " ASSOCIATE EDITORS GRAHAM TAYLOR 1- 103 E I w ! ^T EEI $2 . 22 YEARLY RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION PUBLICATION SALESWOMEN IN MERCANTILE STORES BY ELIZABETH BEARDSLEY BUTLER AUTHOR OF " WOMEN AND THE TRADES " \>f 1SS BUTLER has been called one of the two most *** competent American investigators of women in industry. In this work she takes up one specific group of women workers one of the largest groups and follows them through the year's work in a typical city of medium size Baltimore. The retail shop girls of Balti- more represent accurately the great majority of women engaged in this occupation. The careful statement of hours and wages, of the varying practice in regard to enforced vacations, of the prospects of a " raise " and of future advancement, are most convincing. Not so much in the chapter headings as in the titles over parts of chapters does the reader learn the real inwardness of shopgirl life. Here we find sections under such significant headings as Vacations and Arbitrary Discharge, Wages and the Cost of Living, Night Work and Overtime, Extra Pay, Fines. Here are the facts a clear, unbiased statement of things as they are that might well serve as a model for the reports of other investigators. 12mo. Illus. 236 Pages. POSTPAID, I.^ SURVEY ASSOCIATES, INC. FORMERLY CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE PUBLISHERS FOR THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 105 EAST 22D STREET, NEW YORK RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE r 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW MAI ^ U 19&! mm. MAY 02 BK HI! 1 1Qfl "UL 1 KjQQ ReCHV ^J ADD 1 n 1OflC UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY CA 94720 s GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. 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