amount of which it was claimed by many that the worker had large share.

In 1878 large space was given to education and the work of the young,
for whom the half-time system was urged. The conjugal condition of wives
and mothers was also considered, and the bearing of their work upon the
home. The financial distress of the period had affected wages, and the
report for 1879 considered the effect of this, with the condition of
the "unemployed," the tramp question, and other phases of the problem.
With 1880 and the ending of the first decade of work in this direction
came a fuller report on the social life of workingmen and the divorces
in Massachusetts; 1881 made a plea for uniform hours, and 1882 was
devoted to wages, prices, and profits, and further details of the life
of operatives within their homes; and 1883 found reason again to go over
the question of wages and prices.

I have given this detail because, when one views the work of the bureau
as a whole, it will be seen that each year formed one step toward the
final result, which has been of most vital bearing upon all since
accomplished in the same direction for women. Until the appearance of
the report for 1884, on the "Working-Girls of Boston," there had been no
absolute and authoritative knowledge as to their lives, their earnings,
and their status as a whole. Their numbers were equally unknown, nor was
there interest in their condition, save here and there among special
students of social science. On the other hand there was a popular
impression that the ranks of prostitution were recruited from the
manufactory, and that a certain stigma necessarily rested upon the
factory-worker and indeed upon working-girls as a class.

Six divisions had been found essential to the thorough handling of the
subject; and these divisions have formed the basis of all work since