Making Both Ends Meet - The income and outlay of New York working girls by Edith Wyatt;Sue Ainslie Clark
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page 5 of 237 (02%)
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many authors, from many authentic sources.
Unstandardized conditions in women's work are so frequently mentioned in the first six chapters that their connection with the last chapter will be sufficiently clear. What is the way out of the unstandardized and unsatisfactory conditions obtaining for multitudes of women workers? Legislation is undoubtedly one way out. Trade organization is undoubtedly one way out. But legislation is ineffectual unless it is strongly backed by conscientious inspection and powerful enforcement. In the great garment-trade strikes in New York, in spite of their victories, the trade orders have gone in such numbers to other cities that neither the spirit of the shirt-waist makers' strike nor the wisdom of the Cloak Makers' Preferential Union Agreement have since availed to provide sufficient employment for the workers. Further, neither legislation nor trade organization are permanently valuable unless they are informed by justice and understanding. In the same manner, unless it is informed by these qualities, the new plan of management outlined in the last chapter is incapable of any lasting and far-reaching industrial deliverance. But it provides a way out, hitherto untried. With an account of this way as it appears to-day our book ends, as a testimony to living facts can only end, not with the hard-and-fast wall of dogma, but with an open door. EDITH WYATT. CHICAGO, March 19, 1911. CONTENTS |
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