Bfflfflffi&jjH SEX IN INDUSTRY: A PLEA FOR THE WORKING-GIRL. AZEL AMES, JR., M.D., MEMBER MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, HONORARY MEMBER CALIFORNIA MEDICAL SOCIETY, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF INVESTIGATION MASSACHUSETTS BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF LABOR, ETC BOSTON : JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, (LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & co.) 1875. COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY AZEL AMES, JR. BOSTON : STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY RAND, AVERY, & Co. PBEFACE. SOME two years since, having been commis- sioned by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor of this Commonwealth, to make certain inquiries as to the conditions of homes and employments of working-people whereby their health might be unfavorably affected, I had my attention called, while visiting a factory near my home, to the marvellous rapidity of the digital manipulations required by the processes of a light manufacture conducted by girls. A reflec- tion upon the possible physiological tendencies of such extreme celerity opened a wide door of inquisitive thought ; and the interest thus awak- ened, heightened by the immediately subsequent appearance of Prof. Edward II . Clarke's " Sex in Education," which contained much bearing directly upon the subject, stimulated a wider study of the true relations sex sustains to industry. ivil6787 4 PREFACE. The very considerable effort involved in such farther inquiry was undertaken, with many mis- givings, for the Bureau referred to ; and its results have appeared in part in its annuaJL report for the current year. The earnest interest and encour- agement of Hon. Carroll D. Wright, chief of the Bureau, who from the first has manifested a deep concern in the investigation of the subject, and the more than generous co-operation of Prof. Clarke, have prompted this attempt to place in a form for more general consideration the facts thus obtained on this subject of daily-increasing importance. I have made free use of the wisdom and experience of others throughout this little monograph, believing that the testimony of many strong ones is better than the assertion of a single observer, which, , however careful and veracious, taken alone, might be deemed the over- expression of an enthusiast or specialist. I have not hesitated to speak with directness, or to call things by their right names, believing the cause of truth to be best served thereby. That the subject is full of difficulties, the most casual thinker cannot but perceive. In approaching them I have endeavored to keep both the present PREFACE. 5 and future in view, woman's material and spirit- ual worth, her enforced position, an$ her true intent. I shall be more than compensated for whatever of time and labor I have expended, if my rushlight shall have discovered any path that shall lead into broader day. Of my inability to deal with so broad a subject, except in the most ephemeral way, and the many evidences of this that this little volume contains, I am well aware. I have made no attempt at assuming Saul's armor, and shall be amply compensated if any of "the smooth stones from the brook," I have thrown from a novice's sling, may have found a vulnerable point in a giant wrong. WAKEFEELD, April, 1875. CONTENTS. PAKE I. INTRODUCTORY . . . . PAKT H. OBJECTIVE . 33 PAKE HI. SUGGESTIVE 128 " That all our knowledge begins with experience, there can be no doubt." KANT. " The end of the state is not merely to live, but to live nobly." ARISTOTLE : Politics, I., 2. "It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy ; and the two cannot be separated with impunity." BUSKIN. "Women will find their place; and it will neither be that in which they have been held, nor that to which some of them as- pire. Nature's old Salic law will not be repealed ; and no change of dynasty will be effected." HUXLEY. SEX IN INDUSTRY. PART I. INTRODUCTORY. "For this the worth of woman shows on every peopled shore : Ever as man in wisdom grows, he honors her the more." ELLIOTT. MAN, except in the savage state, is a work- ing animal. Even the pre-historic intlivid- ual erected unwittingly the monuments of his industry, and fidelity to type. Woman has been, in all time, man's com- panion and helper ; his elation to intelligence determining always the degree of hardship in her toil. Degraded with the savage, lightened in her burdens and raised to higher dignities with each step of man's advance, the lines of Elliott express an apothegm. '."tO 1 ***.; : ; ;S,E%'us_effect. That it has not more widely attained a reputation as a " non-salubrious " employ, is due to the facts, that those en- gaged in its most responsible, and therefore most hurtful positions, are with very rare exceptions safely past the forming period, are confirmed in their possession of wo- manly attributes; and those of impressible years are usually employed in " branch offices, " etc., places that do not exact that continuity or concentration in their work OBJECTIVE. 97 that main offices, etc., must have. These being the facts, it is doubly interesting to find, that, so purely is the occupation one of the physico-mental activity type, that though in the one case the labor is inter- mittent, and permissive of rest, and in the other the operator has passed the climacteric, the demands for concentration and co-opera- tive alertness are so great, that both suffer in health in a marked and universally recog- nized manner. It is but fair that the con- strained posture, sedentary habit, obstinate and confirmed constipation, and over-heat of the rooms, which very generally affect the operator, should be given due place in the causative effects of this recognized disturb- ance of health ; but to the character of the work itself is the great proportion of the result due. While, therefore, this particular avenue of employ cannot be looked upon as one of those affecting, to a wide extent, the peculiar sexual function in forming girls, from the fact that comparatively few such are employed therein, 98 SEX IN INDUSTRY. it is of great interest, as establishing in a marked manner the soundness of the princi- ple put forth, that, from a rapid exercise of concentrated mental and ph} r sical energy, there occurs the most emphatic effect upon the function in consideration. Wherever young girls are called upon to engage in the full requirements of a busy office, or experi- ence a sudden increase of labor and re- sponsibility, the effect on the economy is immediately apparent, and especially in the direction of the menstrual result, if contem- poraneous. " It is the common thing," says the super- intendent of a line, "for young beginners, those prpmoted to larger offices, and those placed suddenly upon responsible posts, to suffer a degree of physical prostration imme- diately thereafter ; and I have noticed this to be proportionate to the age and nervous habit of the individual." Numerous inqui- ries of operators, in a score of offices, have produced the unvarying answer to the ques- tion, " How long can you stand this employ OBJECTIVE. 99 in a busy office ? " " Not over a year, with- out a good vacation of at least a month." Indeed, that this is so, the managers of the principal lines seem to recognize, inasmuch as a month's vacation is allowed their " oper- ators " in each year ; though it is to be greatly regretted, that, even for sickness, they will make no further allowance, compelling the operator to resign if even a day or two more, however imperatively demanded by illness, is taken. On being interrogated as to the special causes and effects of prostration in telegraph- offices, the first reply of nearly all young u lady operators," perhaps not unnaturally, is to the effect, that the close confinement, over-heat of rooms, and position, are princi- pally operative ; but more direct inquiry, calling out the more active and self-examin- ing thought, invariably produces the reply, that the " nervous debility," " * hot head^land dizzy headache, make up a good part of the results ; while particular inquiry, in a large proportion of cases, estab- 100 SEX IN INDUSTRY. lishes the fact, always, in the larger offices, that menstruation occurs more frequently than it ought. When it is known, that, in the average business of a large city office, a " lady opera- tor " often receives a string of messages with the ear, writes them as they come with her right hand, counts them with her eye, checks them with her left hand, and answers her " O. K." to the sender, it will be readily understood that the interplay of nervous influences must be of the most rapid and ex- haustive character ; because, however expert the operator may become, she can never be- come purely automatic : mental concentration must be drawn upon to the full. A " lady operator," many years in the business, said to me, "I have broken down several times, completely worn out, suffering from sheer nervous debility. I had ' turned of age ' safely, and was well in this and every other particular when I entered the office : since I broke down the first time, I have never been 4 right,' though much improved when out on my va- OBJECTIVE. 1-01 cations. I could not have continued as long as I have, if it had not been that I have been changed about in small offices, and have been part of the time in charge of rooms." Another said, " Our girls all come to us looking bright, fresh, and ruddy ; but it is not long before they lose color, and strength seems to go with it. While I think it a nice occupation, and better than standing in stores or working in mills, it would be much better if vaca- tions could be better arranged, and the confinement lessened. " Miss , for several years in charge of the female department of one of the largest offices in the country, testified, "One year is as long as one can work in a busy office without a good vacation. The confined position, con- stipation, heat, and dizzy headache, I think, are the most noticeable troubles of ' lady operators ' who are 4 grown up. ' The hours are too long for such strained employment. From eight, A.M. , to six, P.M. , with only an hour for dinner, makes too long a day for the kind of work. I am sorry to say some of our girls eat their lunch in the room, not going out at all. A wo- 9* &t IN INDUSTRY. man can do as much as a man in this business, and do it as well, but does not get the same pay for it. ^A skilful ' lady operator^ here 'will sometimes have from two hundred to two hundred and thirty mes- sages a day ; but she could not stand that rate more than a month. Most of our chief-office ' lady operators ' are from twenty- three to twenty-four years old : our young- est is twenty-three. They generally begin to learn from sixteen to eighteen years of age, and the young- est, of course, feel it most. I think, that, with those of our age, the chief menstrual trouble is with its occur- ring too often." An inquiry of those among female opera- tors who more properly came within the designation of "forming" has developed some curious and interesting results. Miss C., a "lady operator " nineteen years of age, located at an office in a quiet town on one of our railroad lilies, owing to an accident on the line, had her office suddenly besieged for an entire day and into the night, by an unprecedented business, taxing her to the utmost. It occurred just at a " peculiar period : " a complete suppression resulted, and a general prostration ensued, from which OBJECTIVE. 103 she has slowly and imperfectly, as yet, re- covered. On "election night" the demand upon operators is, of course, unusually heavy ; and several of the female operators at large cen- tres state, that, for some days after, their sense of debility is great. In two cases the periodicity was notably disturbed by this or any other unusual requirement of the work, just previous to the time of normal recurrence. It not infrequently happens that sickness of an operator, or other contingency, requires the transfer of a young operator from her usual post to one of greater responsibility and more exacting duties ; and in such cases the operators are quite liable to find that a considerable disturbance of their periodical function occurs. Whenever a young opera- tor is transferred to one of the chief offices, especially if a person of nervous tempera- ment, the increased responsibility and ner- vous agitation (unless a person of unusual confidence and poise) will not infrequently occasion a disturbance of this character more 104 SEX IN INDUSTRY. or less prolonged. The weight of evidence would seem to indicate, that, with those of the " forming-period," the result of such in- fluences is to repress and retard ; while, with those of maturer years, it is to render more frequent and profuse. It is to be regretted that it is not readily possible to more com- pletely separate the other deleterious influ- ences, as posture, confinement, etc., from the distinct operation of the physico-mental con- centration and activity. A review, however, of the foregoing, indicates conclusively that, Though the extent of the employ of " forming " girls is not wide, wherever occur- ring, the results are those declared, and are exactly such as we should expect from the class of influence at work ; That this type of influence exerts its spe- cific effects, even upon those more advanced in years ; and, Its results are more quickly realized th/in those of any other influences tending toward the same channel of ill health. OBJECTIVE. 105 BASKET-MAKING. An observation of females, varying in age from sixteen to forty, engaged in basket-mak- ing, a labor requiring wonderful rapidity of manipulation, showed, that, in half a dozen new operatives placed upon the work in a well-ventilated, light, and cheerful room, 1. Five lost in weight in the first week appreciably ; the remaining one, a slower per- son, apparently not at all. 2. The youngest lost the largest per cent of weight. 3". Two, one sixteen and another eighteen, experienced disturbance of the menstrual function in the first month of employ, though previously regular. 4. The slow person began to lose weight appreciably on the fourth week, when her motions had quickened. 5. The decrease in weight continued with all (though there was no diminution of appe- tite or general health specially noticeable) for from four to six weeks ; when, the move- 106 SEX IN INDUSTRY. merits of the digits having become more mechanical, it ceased, and the weight re- mained essentially unchanged for a few weeks, varying with individuals, from one to three, when in four of the six it increased percepti- bly, in the other two slightly. The operatives of this department state, that a change in the shape of their work, requiring for a time more concentrated thought, will, if it occur at that juncture, effect sometimes a disturb- ance of the catamenial function. In all, familiarity with the work tends to remove the difficulty. THE COUNTING OF MONEY, ETC. The continuous counting of money or cer- tain other articles, conducted as a regular em- ployment, presents, perhaps, the purest type of manipulative celerity, co-operative with extreme mental concentration, known to in- vestigators. It has, moreover, the especial characteristic that only to a very slight degree, if at all, can it be made " mechani- cal." It cannot be performed unconsciously, OBJECTIVE. 107 but demands constant vigilance and alert digital reciprocity. Satisfied that a pursuit so entirely repre- senting extreme mental concentration, with most rapid physical manipulation, could not fail of producing a marked effect upon such girls of " forming" age as should be employed therein, inquiry was made at the United States Treasury at Washington, in the " counting department" of which some thirty ladies are constantly employed in counting " currency." This counting is of pieces of one denomination at a time only ; i.e., a person counting " tens " counts tens only for the time being ; and one upon " fifties " handles only pieces of that designa- tion : hence the pieces, and not the amount, are counted, the number of pieces multi- plied by the denomination, of course, giving the result in dollars and cents. The skill acquired in this department is truly wonder- ful, some of those employed counting millions of pieces per year. Let any one take a few hundred pieces of currency, and attempt to 108 SEX JN INDUSTRY. count them as rapidly as possible, and it will be found that not only is the manual move- ment exceedingly rapid, but that the mental concentration is most intense, monotonous, and unremitting ; while the result attained, even at the utmost endeavor, is not very great. It will hence be readily understood, that in the constant employ at this occupa- tion there must of necessity be a most ex- hausting draft upon the mental and physical forces. Exactly such is found to be the case ; and this pursuit, which, it will be seen, combines, to a degree that no other we have considered does, the several special influences of mental depression, concentra- tion, alertness, continued exercise, and monotony, exercises its deleterious power upon the periodicity of its followers in the way and with the rapidity that we should expect. Miss , the lady longest in the employ of the department, and in charge of the " counting " (over thirteen years), states that, OBJECTIVE. 109 * ' The girls usually come into the work looking rosy and healthy; but they very soon grow pale- lipped and pale-cheeked, and soon begin to require more or less absence. When they first begin the work, they all sit very straight, and count very fast, although I always counsel them against the fast counting; for no one has ever yet undertaken it that did not break down, if young. Gradually they learn to count faster, but they cannot continue in the work but a short time. The sickness and absence become more frequent, and by and by they are obliged to leave altogether. We have those over fifty, and one of sixty years of age employed; and they are the only ones, with perhaps a single exception, who do not seem to feel the effects." Question. "What is the exception?" Answer. " We have a young lady who counts easily, and looks off her work more or less, and is not in general so closely confined to her work as the others, and does not seem to feel it as much as they." Q. "Do you consider that she can do her work 1 mechanically,' then? " A. " She thinks she can." Q. "Do you ? " A. " We do not find her work as correct." Q. " You would hardly be willing to trust it?" A. "We do not." Q. "Have you satisfied yourself of the way, the direction, in which this steady and concentrated labor 10 110 SEX IN INDUSTRY. acts upon your young ladies ? " A . " They all suffer more or less from headaches, severe backaches, debility, and constipation, but all the younger ones, particularly, from too frequent and profuse return of their menses. I think this last the worst feature ; for, as soon as that begins, they lose color, grow nervous and feeble, are often absent, and suffer along till they 1 give up.' ' Q. u Are there any influences connected with the work other than those which, as we see, are part of it, that act badly on the employees?" A. u Our rooms are fearfully hot, most unhealthily so, I think ; and of course the stoop which a girl soon gets is bad, as well as her sitting so long in one posi- tion. No other unhealthy ' influences.' ' Q. " You consider, then, that the very character of the work is surely and rapidly prejudicial to the health of the young women engaged in it, and espe- cially on account of their sex ? " A . " Yes, I do ; and they camrot remain it but a very short time. It told upon me severely when I began, and I was matured when I began; and, if I had been at the counting, I could not have remained." The counting of " strands " of rattan, used in " cane-seating " furniture, etc., is an em- ployment which, as carried on at Wakefield OBJECTIVE. Ill and Fitcliburg, Mass., employs a large number of women and girls. The work consists in each of those engaged drawing rapidly and continuously from a large roll of tangled strands, just as received from the " hatcheling " machine, one or more of these strips, and straightening it, placing them on a peg upon the wall, so arranged that the strand length can be measured as it hangs ; and subsequently counting them off into bundles, the latter part being performed with great rapidity. There is no aid to the counting except that each operative learns, in time, about how many her right hand will hold ; for, as she holds the loose bundle of strands in her left, she transfers them, with a swift, sliding motion, under the thumb of the right, until the hand is full,, thereby in time acquiring a general idea* of about how many it would usually contain. The allied mental and physical demands of the process itself are closely similar to those of money-counting, but the labor has the additional exhaustive 112 SEX IN INDUSTRY. characteristic that it is performed stand- ing.* An inquiry among those engaged in this department, and into the factory record of those who have been so employed, establishes the following : Young girls of the forming period are not now put upon the work at all, it having been found that it was impossible for them to continue it long. With those of more advanced age, the menopause is more or less affected, the gen- * "The same causes of ill health, physical and mental, which obtain in many schools, arid which to my mind are very efficient in mischief to the developing woman, are found, as we all know, in shops and factories, in constant operation, and in the most aggravated form. I consider those employments which require girls from twelve to twenty to stand at the counter or loom from eight to twelve hours a day, week in and week out, as little short of suicidal, murderous perhaps I should say. Table and nursery girls, in hotels and city houses, are notable sub- jects of menorrhagia, ansemia, chlorosis, and often of hys- terical excitement or melancholia. These things are mat- ters of experience to every physician, though hard to present in statistical form." THEO. W. FISHER, M. D. : Letter to author. OBJECTIVE. 113 eral disturbance being in the direction of menorrhagia, or profuse menstruation. The more advanced toward matured adult life the individual, the better she is able to endure the hardship of the employ. There is general suffering with those so engaged, from persistent headache, dropsical affections, and severe dyspepsia ; while not infrequent "uterine inflammations and dis- placement have come under my own knowl- edge among the operatives in this depart- ment. Few have been able to follow it for any length of time, and these not continuously ; the duration of employ being closely * pro- portionate to the maturity of the individual. A casual inquiry among stenographers has assured me, that, although a vocation ad- mirably adapted in many of its features for the exercise of female ability, and embracing demands for the deft celerity, with the ready perception and appreciation of women ; its requirements of concentration and nervous 10* 114 SEX IN INDUSTRY. force are such, as well as considerable phys- ical endurance, that women shrink from it, although the demand for skilled stenog- raphers is daily greater. The United States census of 1870 shows that only three had thus far established themselves as such. One of the most expert of this class in the country gives it as his opinion, that " constant em- ploy therein would inevitably break a young woman down in a short time." It certainly is significant, that an employment whose general characteristics, associations, and pe- cuniary return may be said to be so enticing to women should not have attracted to its ranks larger numbers, when the field is so wide. Were it not that its effects, and the difficulty of securing success therein without incurring them, have become recognized, it certainly would seem that its labors would have been far more widely adopted. SEWING-MACHINE LABOR. The several branches of industry hitherto considered have all been such as have their OBJECTIVE. 115 physical requirements principally met by the labor of the hands alone (except such in- volvement of pedal power as was embraced in standing, walking, etc.) ; but, in sewing- machine use, we have an employ calling into exercise the active service of the feet and lower limbs, which, as more closely allied to the organs involved in menstruation, and to a certain extent enjoying the same vascular system, may be considered as possessing a new relay of interest. While all the pursuits dwelt upon have been characterized by a greater or less degree of disadvantage in posture, in the use of the sewing-machine this disadvan- tage is rather aggravated than otherwise. There is no need to enlarge upon the extent of its use, or to state that the use of power- propelled machines does not fall under re- view ; nor will it be necessary, in view of the exhaustive examinations of the subject by Guibout,* Decaisne,f Nichols, J and others, to * Paper before "Soc. Medicale des Hopitaux." t Ann.'d'Hyg. Pub. 1870, 2d ser. vol. xxxvi. t Dr. A. H. Nichols, 3d Rep. Board of Health, Mass. 116 SEX IN INDUSTRY. do more than adapt their findings to the place they properly hold in relation to the results we are considering. While the investigations of Guibout are characterized, on the one hand, by an exagger- ation of the injurious influences incident to sewing-machine use, and those of Decaisne, on the other hand, by a too slight regard for these influences (though his inquiries were extended), the more nearly trustworthy de- ductions of Dr. Nichols * establish a series of " conclusions " which expose a grave degree of harm. The comprehensive question asked by Dr. Nichols of his correspondents was, u Have you observed any injury to health from the use of sewing-machines used by foot-power ? If so, please to send us all the information you may have on the subject." Replies were received from one hundred and thirty-eight correspondents, representing one hundred and twenty towns in Massachu- setts, and several in other States. * Dr. A. H. Nichols, 3d Eep. Board of Health, Mass. OBJECTIVE. 117 Eighty report more or less ill effects ob- served by them ; the balance, giving negative or doubtful answers, were mainly from towns where the machines were used only in pri- vate families, etc. My own analysis of the published replies shows that sixty-nine phy- sicians replied to the query. Of this num- ber, forty-four answered in an emphatic manner, declaring the results to be un- doubted upon the organs of menstruation and the function itself; four, only, held nega- tive views ; while the remainder assigned to the use other results indirectly operative to the same end. I quote a few only, taken at random from the many unequivocal statements of these physicians as to the pernicious effects of this industry. REPLIES FROM MASSACHUSETTS PHYSICIANS. A. " Quite a number of cases, in which pain and lameness in the back and thighs, dyspepsia, leucor- rhoea, vaginitis, and menorrhagia existed, I have attrib- uted to their use." B. "The most common disease I have seen is a 118 SEX IN INDUSTRY. chronic form of ovaritis, which it is impossible to cure while the girl is at work." C. u The use of the machine during menstruation is especially injurious. I have even known a case where a severe attack of ovaritis and retroflexion of the uterus followed its use during a single menstrual period." D. u I think I have observed a greater tendency to dysmenorrhoea and other uterine troubles among those who use the sewing-machine for a living than among others." E. " Cases of unmistakable injury, very frequent a few years ago^ causing marked irregularities of the menstrual function,* and their usual sequelce. The almost universal introduction of steam-power has greatly diminished this class of cases." F. " Constant and long-continued use of sewing- machines, moved by foot-power, tends to induce func- tional diseases of the uterus. Three girls working in the same shop ten hours daily, for two or three years, now suffer from dysmenorrhoea, from which they were formerly free. " Says a Boston physician * who for many years has given special attention to the gynaecological affections of women, * Horatio R. Storer, M.D., Lecture on Female Hygiene, before State Board of Health of California, p. 13. OBJECTIVE. 119 " The sewing-machine, that compound of blessing and curse to woman, adds to the list of influences causative of disease, not only acting in several of the ways suggested, by the long-continued and con- strained position and fatiguing of the pelvic muscles ; but in another, not generally sufficiently appreciated, by which a mental and dangerous disquietude is origin- ated and enhanced by the unintentional auto-stupra- tion." t Another well-known physician * of Boston writes : 4 i I once observed many cases of debility, and pain in spine and side, with now and then menstrual dis- orders, in a shopful of sewing-machine girls, which ceased to exist when steam was applied. " OTHER PHYSICIANS. A. u I have investigated quite a number of cases where diseases were produced by running sewing-ma- chines by foot-power. Among these diseases, I have noticed' several cases of lameness of limbs and back, menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, amenorrhcea, leucor- rhcea, and displacements." B. " I have no doubt whatever that this employ- * Theo. W. Fisher, M.D. : Letter to the author. 120 SEX IN INDUSTRY. ment among females is more powerful and efficient in the production of disease of various kinds in that sex than almost all other causes combined." To these expressions of physicians, pre- sumably as safe a criterion of the real results produced by the occupation as can be ob- tained, Dr. Nichols has added numerous varying experiences of the workwomen themselves, which, though not as harmoni- ous or positive in their findings, are suffi- ciently so to make it certain that a grave degree of peculiar disturbance is recognized by them. The " conclusions " given by Dr. Nichols are : ' * That the illnesses which most frequently prevail among professional operatives (as distinguished from home operatives) making use of the treadle (foot- power) are, " (a) Indigestion, attributable to the unhealthy conditions in which they pursue their occupation, particularly the impure atmosphere of the workrooms, the sedentary employment, and want of open-air ex- ercise. " (6) Muscular pains, affecting the lower limbs and trunk, produced by the long-continued, frequent use of the muscles. OBJECTIVE. 121 " (c) Diseases peculiar to women, aggravated by, rather than caused by, the plethoric condition of the pelvic organs, induced by this exercise. 1 ' (d) General debility. By this is meant a state of physical deterioration - and nervous prostration brought on by overwork." Adding to these conclusions the single re- mark, that my own observations and review of the data given would indicate a classifica- tion of these influences upon female ill health as more decidedly " causative " than " ag- gravating," the belief may fairly be educed therefrom, that in the continued use of the sewing-machine by' foot-power, there resides a source of special functional disturbance in women, which is extensive in its reach, arid embraces overwork, often under bad sani- tary surroundings, labor to which much of the monotony and unremitting character in- cident to most machine-work attaches, and muscular activity coupled with a considera- ble degree of mental concentration ; this last being in an intermediate degree to that required by factory machinery, and that 11 122 SEX IN INDUSTRY. required by the telegraph instrument. The evidence of the direct influence of this spe- cies of employ upon the catamenial function is notably abundant, and raises the query, if the fact of pedal rather than manual muscu- lar power as here involved is the real cause of a greater effect ; or, whether the simpler methods of argument cause those affected (by localizing the energy in closer relation to the parts seen to be most influenced) to infer an injury that they would be slow to recognize when remote agents, as the hand, are active, and the brain must be summoned to greater participation to produce the effect. As an employment still enlisting the labors of large numbers of young women of the ages we are considering, notwithstanding the very considerable introduction of steam- power to its uses, it is well worthy the con- sideration of the economist and legislator ; for from its ranks the offices of wife and mother are filled to no mean degree, few of the class continuing many years in the work, while those engaged therein are, as a rule, OBJECTIVE. 123 of different fibre from those of factory labor, and do not like them raise' up and perpetu- ate succeeding generations of employees for the same work. We may fairly conclude, from the fore- going testimony and data from the various channels of industry, First, That a sure and swift result must follow to the immature female whenever she engages in an employ requiring mental and physical concentration and celerity. Second, That the disturbance will be pro- portionate, in the rapidity of its advance and degree, to the degree of concentration, celer- ity, and continuity of employ. Third, That its most active and most bale- ful effects will be upon the functions peculiar to the sex. Whatsoever, therefore, in industry, exerts these influences (whose present and prospec- tive and almost unending results we have pointed out), demands the exercise of all ingenuity, wisdom, and care, to secure its alleviation and removal. Certain of the em- 124 SEX IN INDUSTRY. ployments of women include these evils from seeming present necessity ; but it becomes the duty of all to direct their studious atten- tion thereto, if perchance a relief may be found ; while for other forms of employ only the false notions that exist need to be over- thrown, to banish at least some of their at- tendant evils. PART III. SUGGESTIVE. " The commonwealth is to take necessary measures for the protection of public health, and to secure society against whatever may be a public nuisance or a public peril." MULFOKD : The Nation, p. 286. I HAVE intimated that the exactions of * distorted views of life, the consequent dis- arrangement of economic adjustments, and woman's own mistaken ambitions, have in- flicted upon her a position in industrial toil foreign to the true intent of her being. In brief, she must now labor for bread in the same field with men, and, so doing, falls short of, is outside, her true and highest possibilities and privileges. What, then, are these ? and how may the designed condition, 11* 125 126 SEX IN INDUSTRY. so far as industry is concerned, be brought about ? Says Maudsley : * " Could we in imagination trace mankind back- ward along the path stretching through the ages, on which it has gone forward to its present height and complexity of emotion, and suppose each new emotional element to be given off at the spot where it was acquired, we should view a road along which the fragments of our high, special, and complex feeling were scattered, and should reach a starting-point of the primitive instincts of self -preservation and propa- gation. 1 ' In the first place, a proper regard to the physical nature of women means attention given, in their training, to their peculiar functions, and to their fore-ordained work as mothers and nurses of children. Whatever aspirations of an intellectual kind they may have, they cannot be relieved from the performance of those offices so long as it is thought necessary that mankind should continue on earth. 9 ' For woman is reserved, therefore, the dis- tinctive glory and honor of the chief agency in the perpetuity, development, and training of her race. To a distinction so dignified, a * Sex in Mind and Education, Henry Maudsley, M.D. SUGGESTIVE. 127 position so ennobling, the highest enthrone- ment is fittingly to be accorded. " Nothing/' says Gaskell, * " would tend more to elevate the moral Condition of the population than the restoration of woman to her proper social rank ; noth- ing would exercise greater influence upon the form and growth of her offspring than her devotion to those womanly occupations which would render her a denizen of home. No great step can be made till she is snatched from unremitting toil, and made what nature meant she should be, the centre of a system of -social delights. Domestic avocations are those of her peculiar lot. The poor man who suffers his wife to work, separated from him and from home, is a bad calculator. ' ' To bring woman to the position she should hold in the world's work, is hence but to recognize, her, in the fullest sense, as the custodian and exponent of powers and prin- ciples of paramount importance, not only to the well-being, but to the very existence of the race. Sex, God-implanted, imperative for the very possibility of being, claims for * Op. cit. p. 160. ftpiitaho.*f I 128 SEX IN INDUSTRY. itself more than ordinary recognition : it demands tlie most enlarged consideration. Woman, as we have seen, holds in industry a position inconsistent and. incompatible with the coeval possession of her true plane. To take things as they are, and without creating disaster in the machinery of society, to bring the female worker to the higher level of her intended vocation, is a problem not easy of solution, and yet is the one that it is all essential, if we are to retain our place and nation, should receive a not tardy dem- onstration. In the adaptation of educational systems to the physiological needs of the forming girl, the measures to be taken are few and obvious. To re-adjust industry on the same basis, and to the same ends, involves such an intricacy of detail, such an innova- tion of existing customs, and so entire an overthrow of the established order of things, that any movement in this direction must be exceedingly gradual, and attack only the edges of the great mass of error. I may presume, therefore, only to offer a SUGGESTIVE. 129 few suggestions which aim at improvement of existing conditions in industry ; hoping that in some degree I may have made bare, for the steel of more stalwart axemen, the roots and fibres that bind us to degeneracy and decay. That for years to come, our girls of form- ing age will continue from necessity to enter the various lines of industry, there can be no doubt. And, so long as it is a necessity im- posed by the duty of bearing the burden of self-support that else must fall unduly on others, the toil becomes a dignity ; and, so long as it be honest, ennobles the laborer. Hence the dignity of labor is universal ; and there is no rightful pride of superiority which one form may exercise over another, so long as the one engaged in is the best for which the individual is fitted, for the result to herself and society. The book-keeper trained to that employ has no right of supe- riority over the sewing-machine girl trained to that work, by virtue of the more distinct- ively mental character of her pursuit. But 130 SEX IN INDUSTRY. there is a comparison that may rightfully be, and should be drawn, between these employ- ments of women ; and it is based solely on their respective effects on the health of the operative. It is to such a distinction, as affecting wages, hours, and the persistence of labor of employees, that we look for a measure of good to the working-girl. A scientific gradation of pursuits as to their salubrity or non-salubrity, their physiological effects, will sooner or later be effected, and govern, to a great degree, the participation therein of the forming female. The influ- ences * affecting moral conditions in various * While these last pages have been going through the press, I have received a letter from a widely-known physician in one of the large manufacturing cities of this State; in which, speaking of the evil effects of moral and phj^sical disregard in the want of privies, or the bad loca- tion thereof, he says, "A trip to L to examine the water-closets of the workshops of this place would pay, or, rather, to see the general lack of all convenience in the shops for women and girls. I am satisfied that a very large proportion of disease in our L female population is due to the fact that so few facilities are afforded women to attend to calls of nature. SUGGESTIVE. 131 classes of employ, as inseparable from definite physical and physico-moral effects on those employed therein, will, also, undoubtedly come in for a much-needed share of con- sideration. It has not been difficult to discover and point out the errors and evils that attend upon the several forms of employ, and that operate against the health, happiness, and usefulness of women. To suggest the reme- dies for these is obviously a matter of no small moment, and not easy of accomplish- ment. As there are basis principles of health, which are affected, as we have seen, by these conditions of employ, so are there basis prin- "I am equally satisfied, from the fact, that in shops where a water-closet is so exposed that women must be seen by all the men when they enter, that that alone has a bad moral influence upon them. I know it; and in a conversation I had in my office to-day, with a girl of eighteen, who suffered severely from constipation, and inflammation of the bladder (that being her usual habit), she gave as a cause, that, in her shop, the men could see every girl that visited the closet, and that therefore none but the lad girls would go." 132 SEX IN INDUSTRY. ciples of error which lie at the root of all branches of wrong. I believe that the grave mistakes of our labor system, as affecting the class of females considered, are, First, That we employ those therein whose years absolutely prohibit their being employed at labor at all. Second, That their hours of labor are too long; and, Third, That we sadly neglect the meas- ures that are adaptable to insure a correct sanitary condition of our operatives during their labor. Under one or the other of these cardinal forms of error, all the specific evils of differ- ent occupations or circumstances will ar- range themselves. No child or young person of either sex, under the age of fifteen years, should ever be engaged in any form of industrial employ necessitating absence from school, or a draft on vital energy. The normal position of those of that age is in the work of educa- SUGGESTIVE. 133 tion ; and, until this is recognized, the nation and individuals must suffer present and future loss, loss of bodily vigor, without which a nation must die ; loss of knowl- edge, which is power to upbuild, to keep, to develop ; loss in the higher values that belong to the nobler parts of our being, and that cannot expand in a soul or body dwarfed and exhausted by the gross de- mands of purely animal existence. But it is objected, it can be clearly shown in this Commonwealth, that while it is true, that the money in savings banks, to a con- siderable extent, belongs to laboring people, little of it would be there if it were not for the labor of women and children, the wives and offspring of laboring men ; indeed, that, without their assisting labor, it is proved that the average laborer could not make the ends of the year meet. Granted ; and yet my proposition is nevertheless of full force, and for two reasons : First, Because it is plain that there is an error in that price and form of labor that will 12 134 SEX IN INDUSTRY. not permit a man to support his family in comfort without drawing on the vital powers of those to whom we must look to make his place good, and to not only carry on, but im- prove upon, the work of society. Second, Because we can never afford to set a price upon body and soul ; and any bar- ter of strength, happiness, and knowledge, for mere money-return, is an exchange that will surely rob us in the long-run. Is it true, as scientists * tell us, that there is a progressive decline and deterioration in the mental vigor and physical stability of our people ? We have to thank for it these er- rors that exhaust the life of the fathers and mothers of coming generations, to convert it * " That there has been a decided change in female organization in New England within fifty or a hundred years, there can be no question. Formerly there was more muscle, a larger frame, greater fulness of form, and a better development of all those organs that are classed under the sanguine and lymphatic temperaments. The brain and nervous system relatively were not especially predominant ; neither were they taxed continuously or excessively above any other class of organs." NATHAN ALLEN, M.D. : Medical Problems of the Day, p. 78. SUGGESTIVE. 135 by a base alchemy into present gold, a gold that by and by, like that of the Phry- gian king, will be all there is to offer as bread, as homes, as armies, as thought-power, and as happiness. The hours of labor are too long, not too long to earn a living in, for they barely suf- fice, as things now stand, for the purpose ; but too long for the proper physical good, mental culture, and moral growth of those involved. The proper physical good is es- pecially our concern. If the co-operative system of labor ever reaches a general result as favorable as that its individual successes would warrant a hope of, I believe there may then be both time and an inclination (not -existing at its best in a worn body and tired mind) to regard those questions of per- sonal cleanliness, diet, clothing, hygienic sur- roundings, and physical development, now so sadly disregarded by the working-classes, wherever found. An hour more in the morning for the young and forming female (and that is where it may be most advanta- 136 SEX IN INDUSTRY. geously gained, as all labor investigators agree) would save the necessity of ill- cooked, hurriedly - eaten, badly - digested breakfasts (made on hurriedly-prepared food, in which tea holds a prominent place), un- washed faces, neglect of nature's calls, hur- ried passage to the place of employ, and a disturbed, dissatisfied, and fermenting body and mind, stomach and brain. Get a right conception and adoption of the true relation of these things into the mind and lives of working-people, and half the complaints that now arise, like those from the Israelites in the desert, will cease, as did theirs, with the right appreciation of the manna from heaven. Remedy these ills, and thereby elevate the intrinsic character of working-girls, and a large part of the invidious social distinction made between brain-labor and hand-labor, against the latter, will die a natural death. An advanced intelligence and humanity is yet to recognize, moreover, the adaptation not only of the right strength, but the right SUGGESTIVE. 137 hours of employ, at the various processes of labor. There are occupations at which a Hercules has no right to labor a full day, and they should be graded as such, and others in proportion ; the hours of labor being adjusted for the labor, just as the strength of the individual should be adapted to it. It is not sought to raise a nation of effem- inates or dilettanti ; nor do we wish, on the other hand, to make the land a hospital for worn-out, debilitated, dyspeptic, chlorotic, anaemic, unsexed men and women. Shorter hours of labor, better improved, on better systems of the divisions of profits, may be, to some degree at least, an antidote. We sadly neglect the measures that are adaptable to insure a correct sanitary con- dition of our operatives during their labor. Of this the proof is in every workshop, salesroom, and office in the land. Every occupation proves it, and the diseases and mortality registers make it indisputable. What can be done to remedy this general 138 SEX IN INDUSTRY. neglect, and what to meet, with special pre- ventives, the specific dangers of definite occupations ? There can be but two ways in which either the general or the detailed ills of this nature can be met. They are, the diffusion of sound intelligence bearing thereon, and the enactment and enforcement of efficient repressing law. The dissemina- tion of intelligence to a degree that shall cause sex to be recognized in labor ; a fitness of things in the apportionment of occupa- tions, both as to strength and time ; that shall convince legislators of the necessity of laws, and their enforcement in these direc- tions ; that shall demonstrate to the employer the certainty that every draft he makes upon the vital forces of by and by, must be paid out of his children's pockets and their lives, such a dissemination is at once the most powerful and the slowest-growing of influ- ences. Much of it, however, must exist before the second influence legislation and its execution can be established. So long as men are prone to consult their own selfish SUGGESTIVE. 139 interests, so long as the present is a greater reality than the future in the eyes of men ; the simple existence, in partial recognition, of principles which, however vital they may be, are found to be at variance with men's interests, or to deal largely with the future, will not be sufficient to command the respect they intrinsically demand. It becomes ne- cessary that the minds that do recognize what other minds would recognize but for their blinds of self-interest and distance, must bring into operative force the princi- ples that should prevail ; and this can be only through the medium of law. * % % * Says Dr. Jarvis, "Can government aid in improving human life? Is there room here in the field of human life for governmental co-operation, as well as in the agri- cultural field of vegetable and animal life? It is power- ful there : it is not powerless, and need not be ineffective, here. The power of government is threefold, and is exe- cuted in a triple way. It is mandatory, and says, Thou shalt, and thou shalt not. It is permissive, and grants privileges. It is advisory, instructive, and encouraging. It teaches the people their best interests, and points the way of gaining them." Polit. Econ. of Health, Op. cit. p. 363. 140 SEX IN INDUSTRY. It is hence essential, that such enactments should be made and prosecuted as shall best establish the condition of things that should be ; and it is to such well-considered and efficient enactments that we must look for the prevention of much that now affects most unfavorably the condition of working- people, and especially women and children. Provision for the due inspection of, and in- quiry into, the real conditions of labor, is naturally indicated as the initial desideratum of such law, and in this Commonwealth is especially necessary. What is needed is the existence of inspec- tors of labor concomitants, with laws suffi- ciently regulative of those conditions, and power in the inspectors acting under those laws to maintain them as they should be. But inasmuch as the inspector, without law to establish what is evil and what good, is useless, though with it most potent, the law becomes the chief agent in the work of re- form ; and it is to the wise creation and the subsequent execution of these laws that we must look for an improvement. SUGGESTIVE. 141 Says Dr. Jarvis,* " In as far as human life is more important than all financial interests, and, even in the financial view, the creative power of human force is more valuable than all created capital, this cardinal interest of the people, individually and collectively, should take pre- cedence of all other provisions in all legislation. Every law, grant, or privilege from the legislature should have this invariable condition : that human health, strength, or comfort should in no manner or degree be impaired or vitiated thereby. To frame laws to meet the demands of the principles I have recognized, under all their varying conditions, is not a task for this space, or one to be readily accomplished ; but we may fairly consider, in brief, some of the ends it is specially desirable should receive the appreciation of the public in general, and the employer in particular, and, it is to be hoped, will eventually find their recogni- tion in law. It is believed, That the employment at labor of any girl * Op. cit. p. 371. 142 SEX IN INDUSTRY. under fifteen years of age should not be al- lowed.* That the employment of girls of other ages and women generally at employments unsuited to their sex should not be suffered (such employments being determined by a council of salubrity, in France, composed of those most eminently fit for their high com- mission).! That, in siich employments as women should be admitted to, they should be per- mitted a " periodical absence," without pe- cuniary loss, for such time as might be just and necessary. That in employments where women should be admitted, and which require high de- grees of mental concentration, with physical energy, additional vacations of sufficient ex- tent should be the right of the employee. * Prof. Clarke has summed it up tersely when he says, "If excessive labor, either mental or physical, is imposed upon children, male or female, their development will in some way be checked." Op. cit. p, 41. t See appendix. SUGGESTIVE. 143 That, in all employments, it should be ob- ligatory upon the employer to conduct the processes of the occupation under the most advantageous conditions to health, and to secure all improvements in this regard that may become approved. That in all larger manufactories (of over certain numbers of employees) there should be special sanitary supervision at the ex- pense of the proprietors. That there should be a well-established examination and certification of all employes, male and female, proposing to engage in any deleterious or burdensome employ, only those being certified who are found in the possession of health not to be unduly im- paired thereby, and only such to be em- ployed as are certified. To the clause which provides, that in all employments it should be obligatory upon the employer to conduct the processes of the occupation under the most advantageous conditions to health, etc., I desire to direct attention. To improve is the possibility of 144 SEX IN INDUSTRY. the present; to re-establish may be the work* of centuries. We may and should, therefore, prosecute the improvement at once and assiduously. Dr. Clarke has sug- gested, that " the keen eye and rapid hand of gain, of what Jouffroy calls self-interest well understood, is sometimes quicker than the brain and will of philanthropy to discern and inaugurate reform." He says, " There is an establishment in Boston, owned and carried on by a man, in which ten or a dozen girls are constantly employed. Each of them is given, and is required to take, a vacation of three days every fourth week. It is sdarcely necessary to say, that their sanitary condition is exceptionally good, and that the aggregate yearly amount of work which the owner obtains is greater than when persistent attendance and labor was required." Unfortunately for woman and the race, few such cases of wise regard exist with employers ; but it is" precisely this condition of things that ought to exist, and become not the exception, but the unvarying custom. If the same consideration for employees were SUGGESTIVE. 145 everywhere exhibited as that shown by the Blackstone Mill at Blackstone, which has provided bath-rooms for its operatives, or the Hamilton Mills at Lowell, which have put in operation a new form of shuttle, by which the dangers incident to the old way of sucking the thread through in filling the shuttle gre removed, the employers, woman, and the race, would be greatly the gainers. Improved apparatus and less injurious processes, ventilation, the instant removal of dust from dust-producing machinery, the util- ization of steam (now injuriously wasted in " weave-rooms ") in heating water for baths, proper kinds, conditions, and seclusion of priv- ies, warm dressing-rooms for girls at mills, etc., where wet clothing, may be changed, alternation of labors when processes are specially exacting, seats for girls in stores, and better opportunities for food, such as are to be obtained through " cooking-de- pots," " Holly-tree inns," etc., all are agencies, which, with many others that 13 146 SEX IN INDUSTRY. might yet be enumerated, will powerfully act for the amelioration of the condition of the working female of whatever age, but have especial powers of good for the forming girl. The walls of the factories at Wakefield and other places, blackened by the foul va- pors escaping from their privies, attest the character of the atmosphere the operatives breathe. The foul condition and exposed location of these privies have been already shown. Wet floors, draughty rooms, and severe toil, so widely the rule in manufactur- ing establishments, have forced upon many a working girl an overthrow of her special forces, that ended in clouded intellect, brok- en health, and early death. It behooves the state, therefore, to stand, first, as the legal protector of its most weighty interests, its perpetuity and prog- ress : and, second, as the patron and pro- moter of whatever will aid therein. It has been deemed wise to stimulate, from time to time, special thought and inventive genius in SUGGESTIVE. 141 aid of agricultural * or commercial interests, by the promise of large pecuniary rewards. What more legimate, or more desirable, than that the commonwealth should use every spur to bring to the lives and health of its inhabit- ants every device by which they may be additionally secured or promoted ? If it be advisable to offer large rewards to him who shall discover the prevention of rot in the potato (an article of food of comparatively small value, physiologically considered), and to bestow a prize of due proportion for " the * "It is shown by the statistical tables of Continental Europe, that the annual human increase depends upon the agricultural product of it; and so well is this estab- lished, that, in countries where the army is made up by the conscription of a certain proportion of the popula- tion, it has been found, that not only the number to be had can, with a fair chance of accuracy, be estimated from the state of the market eighteen to twenty years previously, but even the average standard height of the men furnished." KREPP: The Sewage Question, p. 9. If this be so, is it not a rational thing, that powers fully as depletory and devitalizing as scarcity of food, viz., the inimical forces against the health of woman, should have an equally untoward effect against the vigor and num- bers of a nation ? 148 SEX IN INDUSTRY. r best essay on the building of roads," how much more so for the creation of agencies that shall lessen the dangers of dust in facto- ries, of injury from machinery, of fatiguing labor at the sewing-machine, the telegraph- instrument, and the type-case, and free from their baleful force the foul vapors of our noxious trades ! In nothing can the state more surely seek its riches; for he who thinks must accept the precept of Emerson, that " the first wealth is health." That the worker herself may, by the ex- ercise of recognized precautions, by personal attention to, or avoidance of, conditions unfavorable to health, and the cultivation of personal habits that aid the promotion there- of, do much to lessen the evil influences of labor, there can be no doubt. So far as she sympathizes in, and gives aid to, the effort that a comparatively few of her sex have for some years persistently urged with a zeal worthy of a better cause, for the competitive relation as between her and man in industry, she countenances an SUGGESTIVE. 149 error. It is an error whose one certain effect is, to keep her in an abnormal condition, beneath her rights, and under her opportu- nities. The thoughtful ones of her sex recognize this. Says Dr. Frances Emily White,* " When we look around upon the great industries of life, mining, engineering, manufacturing, com- merce, and the rest, and consider how little direct agency woman has had in bringing them to their present stage of progress, we are compelled to believe, that she must not look toward direct competition with man for the best unfolding of her powers ; but rather, while continuing to supplement him, as he does her, in the varied interests of their common life, that her future progress, as in the past, will consist mainly in the development of a higher character of womanhood, through the selection and consequent intension of those traits peculiar to her own sex." Says Van de Warker,f " This effort of woman to invade all the higher forms of labor is a force battling with the established order of sexual relation. " * FRANCES E. WHITE, M.D. : Woman's Place in Nature, Popular Science Monthly, January, 1875, p. 301. t Op. cit. p. 470. 13* , 150 SEX IN INDUSTRY. Dr. Allen has said,* * "In all the situations and pursuits of life, the Almighty has established bounds or limitations beyond which woman cannot go without defeating the primary objects of her creation : maternity is the primary law of her creation." Says Dr. Maudsley,f "When we thus look the matter honestly in the face, it would seem plain, that women are marked out by nature for very different offices in life from those of men, and that the healthy performance of her special functions renders it improbable she will suc- ceed, and unwise for her to persevere, in running over the same course at the same pace with him. For such a race she is certainly weighted unfairly. Nor is it a sufficient reply to this argument, to allege, as is sometimes done, that there are many women who have not the opportunity of getting married, or who do not aspire to bear children ; for whether they care to be mothers, or not, they cannot dispense with those physiological functions of their nature that have reference to that aim, however much they might wish it; and they cannot disregard them in the labor of life without injury to their health.'* * Nathan Allen, M.D., op. cit. p. 41. t Sex in Mind and Education, p. 30. SUGGESTIVE. 151 The weight of evidence that may be pre- sumed to be worthy of confidence and con- sideration would seem to leave no doubt that the normal, the God-appointed work of woman, wherein lie her full equality, her peerage, her glory, and her power, is that of the home and the mother, tlie rearer, the trainer, the blessing of man. To the " noble army of martyrs," the tens of thousands of working-women, of all ages, in America to-day, who patiently and hope- fully toil on year by year, under the abnormal burdens a disjointed and unreflective society imposes, I pay the tribute of my earnest sympathy, my admiration, and my humble effort. I am assured, that, out of the laby- rinth of perplexity that has entangled the question of woman's rights, there will sooner or later be evolved this certainty : that the highest moral and physical well-being of a race demands that there shall be nothing in its conditions of life and labor that shall injure the richness and purity of the chief source whence its existence and its best influences come. 152 SEX IN INDUSTRY. When a senator of one of the most rugged States of our cold north-east was asked the most valuable product of his section, he replied with unction, " Men, sir, men ! " Cornelia's jewels are still the wealth of a woman and a state. The significance of Penelope's virtue is yet vital. For her right to rise from the ills that assail her sex in industry, her right to retain, through present enforced toil, her titles to future dignity and happiness, I make this plea for the working- girl. For woman's best is unbegun, her advent yet to come. APPENDIX. APPENDIX, I. THE following are the views of the celebrated M. Parent Duchalet of Paris as to the require- ment of such a Council of Salubrity as I have re- ferred to. u It is generally thought in the world, that the medi- cal knowledge acquired in the schools is ah 1 that is necessary to become a useful member of the council. The greater part of medical men themselves share this opinion ; and, on the strength of some precepts they have collected from books on health and professions, they think themselves sufficiently instructed to decide on the instant the gravest questions, which can only be resolved by special studies. " A man may have exhausted medical literature ; he may be an excellent practitioner at the sick-bed, a learned physician, a clever and eloquent professor; but all these acquirements, taken in themselves, are nearly useless in a 'Conseil de Salubrite' like that of Paris ; and, if an occasion presents itself to make use 155 156 APPENDIX. of them, a very small number of persons suffice to apply them. To be really useful in the council, it is necessary to have an extended knowledge of natural philosophy, of the constitution of the soil on which the state or city stands, and of the geology of neigh- boring regions; it is necessary, above all, to know with exactness the action which trades may have on the health of those who exercise them, and the much more important action of manufactories of every spe- cies on plants, on men congregated in towns, and on animals. This knowledge, so important, of the action of trades and manufactories, is not to be acquired by ordinary study, or in the silence of the cabinet. It is not to be obtained without positive notions on the arts, and on the greater part of the processes peculiar to each trade. It requires habit, and the frequenting of the places of work. In this particular, more even than in medicine, books are not a substitute for prac- tice ; and, if there exist works on this subject, they are more likely to mislead than enlighten. "From what has been said, the necessity will be evident, to introduce into the council those physicians who have made health, and particularly the public health, a special study ; and to join with them chem- ists, and, above all, manufacturing chemists : because what would many of those persons, whose life has been passed in hospitals and the exclusive study of medicine, be before a steam-engine ? It is clear that APPENDIX. 157 they would often be deceived by those adroit and skil- ful manufacturers who would have an interest in con- cealing the truth." II. Since putting these sheets to press I have re- ceived the following from a lady operator with whom I had held conversation as to the special effects of telegraphy : BOSTON, Feb. 28, 1875. DEAR SIR, Pardon my delay, but I was obliged to wait some time to hear from the friend I men- tioned. I find her views are similar to my own, and have nothing new to offer.. I made inquiries of the ladies employed in my room, as you requested; and all, with one exception, declared the business had no damaging effect upon the menstrual function : in that respect they have ex- perienced no change since they entered the business. Take it as a whole, I believe telegraphy exerts no unfavorable influence in that direction, although it would seem to be a natural result on account of the nervousness inseparable from the business. Those I have consulted say every other function will be af- fected except the menstrual. It is certainly true, that the business impairs the health of operators who work steadily, and they 158 APPENDIX. begin to run down in a year or so. Constipation is one great evil, and a general weariness. There is a constant strain upon the nerves and brain that -is not required in other business; and yet our work has many advantages over other branches. Sitting so much is bad, but preferable to standing in a store from morning to night. With a little rest now and then, or, at least, a Long vacation once a year, I think the ladies would get along very well. Of course every one would prefer to rest at certain times ; but, if women must work, I don't know but telegraphy is as healthy as any other busi- ness. Respectfully Yours, It is to be said, in comment on the above, that in the office in question there is no operator under twenty, and that a careful inquiry has established the fact, that though this is the case, besides the disturbances spoken of above, two at least are sufferers from dysmenorrhea, and two from occasional menorrhagia which always im- proves on taking a vacation. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO** 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 04 1993 * * f 3Z JAN21 FORAA NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY RFRKFIFY CA 94790 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDSlDSfilBM M12G767 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY