I


One of the most significant features of the common history of this
generation is the fact that nearly six million women are now gainfully
employed in this country. From time immemorial, women have, indeed,
worked, so that it is not quite as if an entire sex, living at ease at
home heretofore, had suddenly been thrown into an unwonted activity, as
many quoters of the census seem to believe. For the domestic labor in
which women have always engaged may be as severe and prolonged as
commercial labor. But not until recently have women been employed in
multitudes for wages, under many of the same conditions as men,
irrespective of the fact that their powers are different by nature from
those of men, and should, in reason, for themselves, for their children,
and for every one, indeed, be conserved by different industrial
regulations.

What, then, are the fortunes of some of these multitudes of women
gainfully employed? What do they give in their work? What do they get
from it? Clearly ascertained information on those points has been meagre.

About two years ago the National Consumers' League, through the
initiative of its Secretary, Mrs. Florence Kelley, started an inquiry on
the subject of the standard of living among self-supporting women workers
in many fields, away from home in New York. Among these workers were
saleswomen, waist-makers, hat makers, cloak finishers, textile workers in
silk, hosiery, and carpets, tobacco workers, machine tenders, packers of
candy, drugs, biscuits, and olives, laundry workers, hand embroiderers,
milliners, and dressmakers.