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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017572391

WOMEN

IN INDUSTRY

DECISION OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME

COURT IN CURT MULLER

VS.

STATE

OF OREGON
UPHOLDING THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE OREGON
TEN HOUR LAW FOR WOMEN
AND

BRIEF FOR THE STATE OF OREGON
BY

LOUIS
Assisted by

BRANDEIS

JOSEPHINE GOLDMARK

Fublication Secretary National Consumers' League

REPRINTED FOR

THE NATIONAL CONSUMERS' LEAGUE
105

East 22d Strest,

New York

City

^"io^^ol

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages

Laws of the Several States
Labor op Adult Women

Force Limiting the Hours op
1-8

ARGUMENT

— Legislation

FIRST PART

Hours

Restricting the

Labor for Women
I.

11-17

THE FOREIGN LEGISLATION

11-15

THE AMERICAN LEGISLATION

16, 17

PART SECOND — The
the

Legislation

Women
I.

World's Experience upon which

Lvmitmg

the

Hours

Labor for

Based

18-112

THE DANGERS OF LONG HOURS

18-55

18-27

Causes

(1)
(2)

Physical Differences between Men and
The New Strain in Manufacture

Women

Bad Eppect op Long Hours on Health
General Injuries from Long Hours
Evil Effects on Childbirth
(2) Specific
Functions
(1)

18-23
24-27

28-46
28-36

and

Female
36-42

Bad Eppect op Long Hours on Safety

Bad Effect op Long Hours on Morals

...

44-46

Bad Effect op Long Hours on General Welfare

47-55

(1) State's
(2)

The

Need

of Protecting

Effect of

42-44
.

Woman

47-51

Women's Overwork on Future Genera-

tions

II.

SHORTER HOURS THE ONLY POSSIBLE PROTECTION

51-55

Pages
III.

THE GENERAL BENEFITS OF SHORT HOURS

57-64

Good Effect on the Individual Health, Home

57, 58

Life, etc

Good Effect on the General Welfare

IV.

59-64

ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SHORT HOURS

65-84

Effect on Output
Hours increase Efficiency, and thus prevent
Reduction of Output
(2) Long Hours result in Inferior Quality of Product

65-77

(1) Shorter

Effect on Regularity of Employment

Adaptation of Customers to Shorter Hours

Incentivb to Improvements in Manufacture

Effect on Scope of Women's Employment

77-79

...
.

VII.

80-82
82-84

UNIFORMITY OF RESTRICTION

85-91

Allowance of Overtime Dangerous to Health

Uniformity Essential for Purposes of Enforce-

Uniformity Essential to Justice to Employers

THE REASONABLENESS OF THE TEN-HOUR DAY

79,

85,

MENT

VI.

65-75
75-77

86-88
.

89-91

92-103

A'.

Opinions of Physicians and Officials

Opinions of Employees

99-102

Opinions of Employers

102, 103

92-99

LAUNDRIES

104-112

Present Character of the Business
Bad Effect upon Health
C. Bad Effect upon Safety
D. Bad Effect upon Morals
E. Irregularity of Work

104-106

106-109

CONCLUSION

109

109-111
Ill, 112

113

mpreme

€mxt

% Into Stete

OOTOBEE TERM,

CURT MULLER,

1907

Plaintiff in Eeeor,
V.

THE STATE OP OREGON

BRIEF FOR DEFENDANT IN ERROR
This case presents the single question whether the
Statute of Oregon, approved Feb. 19, 1903, which provides that " no female [shall] be employed in any mechanical establishment or factory or laundry " " more
than ten hours during any one day," is unconstitutional
and void as violating the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Federal Constitution.

The decision in this case will, in effect, determine the
constitutionality of nearly all the statutes in force in the
United States, limiting the hours of labor of adult women,

— namely:

Massachusetts
First enacted in 1874

Revised Laws, chap. 106,

(chap. 221),
sec. 24, as

now embodied
amended by

Stat.

1902, chap. 435, as follows:

No woman shall be employed in laboring in a manufacturing
or mechanical establishment more than ten hours in any one day,
except as hereinafter provided in this section, unless a different

apportionment in hours of labor

made

for the sole purpose of

and in no
a week.
Hamilton Mfg. Co., 120 Mass.

making a shorter day's work for one day

of the week;

case shall the hours of labor exceed fifty-eight in

(Held constitutional

Comm.

383.)

Rhode Island
First enacted in 1885 (chap. 519, sec. 1),
in Stat. 1896, chap. 198, sec.

now embodied

22 (as amended by Stat.

1902, chap. 994), as follows:
.
No woman shall be employed in laboring in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment more than fifty-eight hours
in any one week; and in no case shall the hours of*labor exceed
.

ten hours in any one day, excepting

when

it is

necessary to

make

repairs or to prevent the interruption of the ordinary running of

when a different apportionment of the hours of
made for the sole purpose of making a shorter day's work
one day of the week.

the machinery, or

labor
for

LOXJISIANA
First enacted in 1886 (Act No. 43), and amended byActs of 1902 (No. 49) now embodied in Revised Laws
;

(1904, p. 989, sec. 4)

No woman shall be employed in any factory, warehouse,
workshop, telephone or telegraph office, clothing, dressmaking, or
millinery establishment, or in any place where the manufacture of
any kind of goods is carried on, or where any goods are prepared
for manufacture, for a longer period than an average of ten hours
in any day, or sixty hours in any week, and at least one hour shall
be allowed in the labor period of each day for dinner.'
.

Connecticut
First enacted in 1887 (chap. 62, sec. 1), now embodied
in General Statutes, Revision 1902, sec. 4691, as foUows:
.

No woman

shall be

employed

in laboring in

any manu-

facturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment more than ten
hours in any day, except when it is necessary to make repairs to

prevent the interruption of the ordinary running of the machinery,
or where a different apportionment of the hours of labor

made

a
for the sole purpose of making a shorter day's work for one day
of the week. ... In no case shall the hours of labor exceed sixty.
in a week.

Maine
First enacted in 1887 (chap. 139, sec. 1) now re-enacted
in Revised Statutes, 1903, chap. 40, sec. 48, as follows:
,

No woman

shall

be employed in laboring in any manu-

facturing or mechanical establishment in the State more than ten

hours in any one day, except when it is necessary to make repairs
to prevent the interruption of the ordinary running of the machinery, or
is

made

when a

apportionment of the hours of labor

different

for the sole purpose of

one day of the week
sixty in a week.

;

and

making a shorter day's work

no case

shall the

for

hours of labor exceed

a further provision that any woman " may
lawfully contract for such labor or any number of hours
in excess of ten hours a day, not exceeding six hours in
any one week or sixty hours in any one year, receiving
additional compensation therefor,"

There

New
by

Hampshire

First enacted in 1887 (chap. 25, sec. 1),
Stat. 1907, chap. 94, as follows:

now

re-enacted

shall be employed in a manufacturing or meNo woman
chanical establishment for more than nine hours and forty minutes
in one day except in the following cases: I. To make a shorter
.

day's work for one day in the week. II. To make up time lost on
some day in the same week in consequence of the stopping of
machinery upon which such person was dependent for employment.

When it is necessary to make repairs to prevent interruption
of the ordinary running of the machinery. In no case shall the
hours of labor exceed fifty-eight in one week.
III.

Maryland
(chap. 455), now embodied in
Public General Laws, Code of 1903, art. 100, sec. 1:
No corporation or manufacturing company engaged in manu-

First enacted in 1888

facturing either cotton or woollen yams, fabrics or domestics of

any kind, incorporated under the laws of

this

State,

such named corporation,

and no
and no

agent or servant of
agent or servant of such firm or person shall require, permit,
or suffer its, his, or their employees in its, his, or their service, or
under his, its, or their control, to work for more than ten hours
during each or any day of twenty-four hours for one full day's
work, and shall make no contract or agreement with such employees
or any of them providing that they or he shall work for more than
ten hours for one day's work during each or any day of twenty-four
hours, and said ten hours shall constitute one fuU day's work.
Section 2 makes it possible for male employees to work longer
officer,

either to

make

repairs, or

by express agreement.

ViEGINIA
First enacted in 1890 (chap. 193, sec, 1), now embodied
Code (1904), chap. 178 a, sec, 3657 b, as

in Virginia

follows

female shall work as an operative in any factory or manufac-

turing establishment in this State more than ten hours in any one
day of twenty-four hours. AU contracts made or to be made for
the employment of any female ... as an operative in any factory
or manufacturing establishment to work more than ten hours in

any one day of twenty-four hours

shall be void.

Pennsylvania
First enacted in 1897 (No. 26),
of 1905, No. 226, as follows:

and re-enacted

Laws

That the term " establishment," where used for the
mean any place within this Commonwealth other than where domestic, coal-mining, or farm labor is employed; where men, women, or children are engaged, and paid a
salary or wages, by any person, firm, or corporation, and where
Section

purpose of

this act, shall

such men, women, or children are employees, in the general acceptance of the term.
Section 3. ... No female shall be employed in any establishment for a longer period than sixty hours in any one week, nor for
a longer period than twelve hours in any one day.
(Certain exceptions covering Saturday and Christmas.)
(Held constitutional in Comm. v. Beatty, 15 Pa. Superior Ct. 5.)

New York
First enacted in 1899 (chap. 192, sec. 77), now embodied in Stat. 1907, chap. 507, sec. 77, sub-division 3:
.

No woman

employed or permitted to work in any
more than six days or sixty hours in any

shall be

factory in this State

one week ; nor for more than ten hours in one day.
A female sixteen years of- age or upwards

may

be employed in a factory more than ten hours a day ; (a) regularly in
not to exceed five days a week in order to make a short day or a
holiday on one of the six working days of the week
(b) irregularly in not to exceed three days a week; provided that no such
person shall be required or permitted to work more than twelve
hours in any one day or more than sixty hours in any one
.

;

week,

etc.

Nebraska
First enacted in 1899 (chap. 107), now embodied
Compiled Statutes (1905, sec. 7955 a):

No female shall be employed in any manufacturing, mechanical,
or mercantile establishment, hotel, or restaurant in this State more
than sixty hours during any one week, and ten hours shall constitute a day's labor. The hours of each day may be so arranged as
to permit the employment of such female at any time from six
o'clock A. M. to ten o'clock p. m. but in no case shall such employ;

ment exceed ten hours in any one day.
(Held constitutional in Wenham v.

State,

65 Neb. 400.)

Washington
Enacted

in 1901, Stat. 1901, chap. 68, sec. 1, as follows:

female shall be employed in any mechanical or mercantile
establishment, laundry, hotel, or restaurant in this State more than
ten hours during any day.

The hours of work may be so arranged as to permit the employment of females at any time so that they shall not work more than
ten hours during the twenty-four.

(Held constitutional

in State v.

Buchanan, 29 Wash. 603.)

The

acts in the following States raise

somewhat

similar

questions

Wisconsin
First enacted in 1867 (chap. 83, sec. 1), and amended
Stat. 1883, chap. 135, now embodied in Wisconsin
Statutes, Code of 1898, sec. 1728, as follows:

In all manufactories, workshops, or other places used for
mechanical or manufacturing purposes the time of labor ... of
women employed therein shall not exceed eight hours in one day;
and any employer, stockholder, director, officer, overseer, clerk, or

foreman who shall compel any woman ... to labor exceeding
shall be punished by fine not
eight hours in any one day,
fifty
dollars
for each such offence.
nor
more
than
less than five
.

NoETH Dakota
(Penal Code, sec. 739), now
Revised Code, 1905, sec. 9440, as follows:

First enacted in 1877

embodied

Every owner, stockholder,

overseer, employer, clerk, or

foreman

of any manufactory,, workshop, or other place used for mechanical

or manufacturing purposes, who, having control, shall compel any

woman ...

to labor in any day exceeding ten hours, shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred and not less than ten

doUars.

South Dakota
(Penal Code, sec. 739), now
Revised Code, 1903 (Penal Code, sec. 764),

First enacted in 1877

embodied

as follows:

Every owner, stockholder, overseer, employer, clerk, or foreof any manufactory, ^torkshop or other place used for mechanical or manufacturing purposes, who, having control, shall
compel any woman ... to labor in any day exceeding ten hours,
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall
be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred and not less than

man

ten dollars.

Oklahoma
First enacted in 1890 (Stat. 1890, chap. 25, article 58,
now embodied, in Revised Statutes, 1903, chap.

sec. 10),

25, article 58, sec. 729, as follows:

Every owner, stockholder, overseer, employer, clerk, or foreof any manufactory, workshop, or other place used for

man

mechanical or manufacturing purposes, who, having control, shall
compel any woman or any child under eighteen years of age, or
permit any child under fourteen years of age, to labor in any

day exceeding ten hours, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,
and upon conviction shall be punished by fine not exceeding one
hundred and not less than ten dollars.

New

Jersey*

First enacted in 1892 (chap. 92) , now embodied in Genpage 2350, sees. 66 and 67, as follows:

eral Statutes,

Section 66.
fifty-five hours shall constitute a week's work
any factory, workshop, or establishment where the manufacture
of any goods whatever is carried on
and the periods of employment shall be from seven o'clock in the forenoon until twelve
o'clock noon, and from one o'clock in the afternoon until six
o'clock in the evening of every working day except Saturday,
upon which last named day the period of employment shall be
from seven o'clock in the forenoon until twelve o'clock noon.
Section 67. ... no woman shall be employed in any factory,
.

;

workshop, or manufacturing establishment except during the
periods of employment hereinbefore mentioned: Provided, That
the provisions in this act in relation to the hours of employment
shall not apply to or affect any person engaged in preserving
perishable goods in fruit-canning establishments or in any factory engaged in the manufacture of glass.
* It has been suggested that this provision has been repealed by a general repealing act of 1904, chap. 83.

Colorado
Enacted

in 1903,

No woman

Acts of 1903, chap. 138,

sec, 3:

work or labor for a greater
number than eight hours in the twenty-four hour day, in any mill,
factory, manufacturing estabhshment, shop, or store for any person, agent, firm, company, copartnership, or corporation, where
such labor, work, or occupation by its nature, requires the woman
to stand or be upon her feet, in order to satisfactorily perform her
labors, work, or duty in such occupation and employment.
.

shall be required to

South Carolina
Approved February

19,

1907 (Acts of 1907, No. 223)

as follows

Ten hours a day or sixty hours a week shall conhours for working for all operatives and employees in

Section 1.
stitute the

cotton and woollen manufacturing establishments engaged in the
manufacture of yams, cloth, hosiery, and other products for
merchandise, except mechanics, engineers, firemen, watchmen,
teamsters, yard employees, and clerical force. All contracts for
longer hours of work other than herein provided in said manufacturing establishments shall be and the same are hereby null and
void; and any person entering into or enforcing such contracts
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor in each and every instance, and on conviction in a court of competent jurisdiction
shall be fined a sum of money not less than twenty-five or more
than one hundred dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding thirty
days, provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed
as forbidding or preventing any such manufacturing company
from making up lost time to the extent of sixty hours per annum,
where such lost time has been caused by accident or other unavoidable cause.

ARGUMENT
The legal rules applicable to this case are few and are
well established, namely:
First: The right to purchase or to sell labor is a part
of the " liberty " protected by the Fourteenth Amendment
of the Federal Constitution.
Lochner

New

York, 198 U. S. 45, 53.

Second: This right to " liberty "

is, however, subject to
such reasonable restraint of action as the State may impose

power

in the exercise of the police
health, safety, morals,

Lochner

New

for the protection of

and the general

York, 198 U.

welfare.

S. 45, 53, 67.

Third: The mere assertion that a statute restricting
" liberty " relates, though in a remote degree, to the public
health, safety, or welfare does not render it valid.
The
act must have a " real or substantial relation to the pro-

tection of the public health

Jacobson

and the public

Mass, 197 U.

safety."

S. 11, 31.

must have " a more direct relation, as a means to an end,
and the end itself must be appropriate and legitimate."
It

Lochner

New

York, 198 U. S. 46, 56, 57, 61.

Fourth: Such a law will not be sustained if the Court
can see that it has no real or substantial relation to public
health, safety, or welfare, or that it is " an unreasonable,
unnecessary and arbitrary interference 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 ap-

propriate or necessary for the support of himself and his
family."
But " If the end which the Legislature seeks to accomplish be one to which its power extends, and if the means
employed to that end, although not the wisest or best, are

yet not plainly and palpably tmauthorized by law, then the

10'

Court cannot
of a statute
is

upon

In other words, when the validity
questioned, the burden of proof, so to speak,

interfere.

those "

Lochner

who
v. New

assail

it.

York, 198 U. S. 45-68.

Fifth: The validity of the Oregon statute must therefore be sustained unless the Court can find that there is
no " fair ground, reasonable in and of itself, to say that
there is material danger to the public health (or safety),
or to the health (or safety) of the employees (or to the
general welfare), if the hours of labor are' not curtailed."
Lochner

New

York, 198 U. S. 45, 61.

was obviously enacted for the purpose of protecting the public health, safety, and welfare.
Indeed it declares:

The Oregon

statute

" Section 5. Inasmuch as the female employees in the various
establishments are not protected from overwork, an emergency is
hereby declared to exist, and this act shall be in full force and
effect

from and after

The

facts of

its

approval by the Governor."

common knowledge

take judicial notice

—

of which the Court

may

See Holden

v. Hardi/, 169 U. S. 366.
Jacobson v. Mass, 197 U. S. 11.
Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 481.

establish,

submit, conclusively, that there

reasonable

ground for holding that to permit women in Oregon to
work in a " mechanical establishment, or factory, or laundry " more than ten hours in one day is dangerous to the
public health, safety, morals, or welfare.
These facts of common knowledge will be considered
under the following heads:

Part

Legislation (foreign and American) restricting

the hours of labor for

Part II.

The

women.

world's experience

upon which

lation limiting the hours of labor for

women

the legis-

based.

PART FIRST
LEGISLATION RESTRICTING THE HOURS OF LABOR

FOR WOMEN

THE FOREIGN LEGISLATION

The leading countries in Europe in which women are
largely employed in factory or similar work have found
it necessary to take action for the protection of their
and safety and the public welfare, and have enacted
laws Umiting the hours of labor for adult women.
About two generations have elapsed since the enactment of the first law. In no coxintry in which the legal
limitation upon the hours of labor of adult women was
introduced has the law been repealed. Practically without exception every amendment of the law has been in
the line of strengthening the law or further reducing the
health

working time.
(a)

Geeat Britain
The

First law enacted in 1844.

British law of 1844

was

any country limiting the hours of labor
women. It simply extended to women the provisions of the Act of 1833, which had restricted the work of
children in textile miUs to twelve hours per day. In 1847
the legal working time for women as well as children in
textile mills was reduced to ten hours per day. By further
legislation in 1867, 1878, 1891, and 1901 further restricthe

first

statute in

for adult

tions

were introduced.

The

tions allowing overtime,

of 1901, 1

Edw. VII.

law, subject to certain excepin substance as follows

ch. 22)

(Law

12
Hours.
Textile Factories.

The period
begin at 6

(Sec. 24.)

of employment, except on Saturday, shall either

a. m.

and end at 6

p. m.,

or begin at 7 a. m. and end

at 7 P. M.

There shall be allowed for meals during said period of employment on every day except Saturday not less than two hours, of
which one hour at the least shall be before 3 p. m.
Special regulations for a shorter day on Saturdays.
NoTV-textUe Factories and Workshops.

The period
begin at 6

(Sec. 26.)

of employment, except on Saturdays, shall either

m. and end at 6 p. m., or begin at 7 a. m. and end

at 7 P. M., or begin at 8 a. m. and end at 8 p. m.

There shall be allowed for meals during the said period of
employment on every day except Saturday not less than one and
one-half houi:s, of which one hour at the least shall be before 3 p. m.
'Special regulations for a shorter work-day on Saturdays.
In a Workshop which does not employ Children, or Yov/ng People,

(Sec. 29.)

The

period of employment shall, except on Saturdays, be a

hours taken between 6 a. m. and 10 p. m.
There shall be allowed to a woman for meals and absence from
work during the period of employment not less than one and onespecified period of twelve

half hours.

(&)

Fbance

The law of 1848, as amended by Act of November 2,
1892, and March 30, 1900, which became operative in 1904,
provides in substance:
Hours of Labor

(in industrial establishments).

The maximum length
(Art. 3, sec. 2), broken

of the working

day

shall be ten

at least one hour of rest.

hours

(Art. 3,

sec. 1.)

Overtime may be granted by departmental decrees for two
hours in one day, during not more than sixty days in the year,
for certain trades, chiefly season trades.
(Art. 4, sec. 4.)
By
departmental decrees employment of women

may

be prohibited

13
or regulated in trades considered dangerous to health or morals.
(Arts. 12 and 13.)

(c)

Switzerland

The Canton of Glarus enacted in 1848 a law limiting
the hours of labor to thirteen in one day. In 1864 this
limit was reduced to twelve hours, and in 1872 it was
fvu-ther reduced to eleven hours.
The Town of Basel enacted in 1869 a law limiting the hours of labor to twelve
in one day.
The Canton of Ticino enacted in 1873 a law limiting
the hours of labor to twelve in one day.
The Federal Swiss Constitution of 1874 provided:
The Confederation has

Article 34:

prescription

the right to

make uniform

concerning the duration of labor which

may

required of adults.

The Federal law enacted
Hours

The

Labor

in 1877 provides:

(in industrial estabhshments).

daily hours of

work

shall not exceed eleven hours in one

day, and shall not exceed ten hours on the days before Sundays
or hohdays.
These working hours must be broken by a rest of at least one
one and one-half hours for women who have tg
hour at noon
;

attend to household.

Overtime

may

(Art. 2, sec. 1.)

be granted by the separate cantons for fixed

times and fixed hours.

All the cantons have the same restriction of hours as
the Federal law except

fixed

Zurich (Law of 1894).

Hours

The
and

Labor

(in industrial establishments).

daily hours of labor shall not exceed ten hours in one day,
not exceed nine hours on the days before Sundays and

shall

hohdays.
Overtime allowed for two hours in the day during seventy-five
days in the year for various causes, such as season trades, press
(Art. 9-16.)
of work, etc.

Austria

(d)

First law enacted in 1885

;

amended by Acts of 1897,

provides, in substance:

Hours

Labor

Women

and workshops).

(in factories

shall not be

employed more than eleven hours in one

(Art. 96 a, sees. 1-3).

day.

These working hours must be broken by rests amounting to
one and one-half hours, one hour of which is allowed at noon.
(Art.

74. a.)

may be granted by the MinCommerce and of the Interior for certain trades, the
which must be revised every three years. (Art. 96 a, sees.

Overtime for one hour in the day
isters of

list

1-3.)

The

Ministers

in trades held

may

prohibit or regulate employment of

women

dangerous to health.

{e)

Holland

First law enacted in 1889 provides as follows:

Hours

The
day.

Labor

and workshops).

(in factories

daily hours of labor shall not exceed eleven hours in one

(Art. 5, sec. 1.)

Between 11
be allowed.

a. m.

and 3

m. a rest of at least one hour must

(Art. 6.)

Overtime may be granted by the provincial governors, allowing a thirteen-hour day for at most six consecutive days, or on
alternative days during two weeks.
(Art. 5, sec. 3.)

By royal decree employment of women may be prohibited or
regulated in trades held dangerous to health.

(/)

The law
Hours

June

19, 1902, provides in substance

of Labor.

Women
day.

Italy

shall

(Art. 7.)

not be employed more than twelve hours in one

The day's work shall be broken by one or more rests amounting to one and one-half hours in a day of from eight to eleven
hoifrs, and amounting to two hours in a day of more than eleven
(Art. 8.)

hours,

(g)

The law
Hours

of 1891 provides in substance:

Labor

Women

Germany

shall

(in industrial establishments).

not be employed more than eleven hours in one

day, and not more than ten hours on the days before Sundays or
holidays.

These working hours must be broken by a rest of at least one
hour at noon, or one and one-half hours for women who have to
attend to a household.
Overtime may be granted by the lower administrative authority
for not more than thirteen hours of labor in one day, during two
weeks, not more than forty days in the year.

(Art. 138 a, sees.

1-3.)

In case of accidents the higher administrative authority may
allow overtiipe without any restriction of hours during four weeks,
(Art. 139,
the Chancellor of the Empire for any longer period.
sec. 1.)

The Bundesrat may grant
139

a, sees. 1

and

(Art.

2.)

The Bundesrat may
in trades held

overtime for special trades.

prohibit or regulate employment of

dangerous to health or morals.

(Art. 139

women

a, sec. 1.)

II.

THE AMERICAN LEGISLATION

Twenty States of the Union, including nearly all of
those in which women are largely employed in factory
or similar work, have found it necessary to take action
for the protection of their health and safety and the public
welfare, and have enacted laws limiting the hours of labor
for adult

women.

This legislation has not been the result of sudden impulse or passing humor,
it has followed deliberate consideration, and been adopted in the face of much opposition.
More than a generation has elapsed between the

—

and the latest of these acts.
In no instance has any such law been repealed. Nearly
every amendment in any law has been in the line of
strengthening the law or further reducing the working time.
The earliest statute in the United States which underearliest

took to limit the hours of labor for women in mechanical
or manufacturing establishments was Wisconsin Statute,
1867, chap. 83, which fixed the hours of labor as eight.
The act, however, provided a penalty only in case of
compelling a woman to work longer hours.
See present Wisconsin Law, supra, p. 6.

The

earliest act

of labor for

which effectively restricted the hours
Massachusetts Statute, 1874,

women was

chap. 34, which fixed the limit at ten hours.
The passage of the Massachusetts Act was preceded by prolonged
agitation and repeated official investigations.
The first
legislative inquiry

was made

as early as 1865.

After the Massachusetts Act had been in force six
years, an elaborate investigation of its economic effects
was undertaken by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor
Statistics, under the supervision of its chief, Mr. CarroU D.
Wright. His report, published in 1881 (Twelfth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of
Labor), to the effect that the reduction of the hours of
labor had not resulted in increasing the cost or reducing

wages, led to the passage, in 1885 and 1887, of the tenhour law for women in Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire,

and Connecticut, and largely influenced the

legisla-

tion in other States.
See present laws, supra, pp. 1-8.

In the United States, as in foreign countries, there has
been a general movement to strengthen and to extend the
operation of these laws. In no State has any such law
been held unconstitutional, except in Illinois, where, in
Ritchie v. People, 154 111. 98, the Act of June 17, 1893,
entitled " An Act to regulate the manufacture of clothing,
wearing apparel, and other articles in this State," etc., was
held unconstitutional. That act provided (sec. 5) that
" No female shall be employed in any factory or workshop more than eight hours in any one day or forty-eight
hours in any one week."

PART SECOND
THE WORLD'S EXPERIENCE UPON WHICH THE LEGISLATION LIMITING THE HOURS OF LABOR FOR

WOMEN

BASED

THE DANGERS OF LONG HOURS
Causes

A.
(1)

Physical Differences between

Men and Women

dangers of long hours for women arise from their
special physical organization taken in connection with the
strain incident to factory and similar work.
Long hours of labor are dangerous for women primarily
because of their special physical organization. In structure and function women are differentiated from men.
Besides these anatomical and physiological differences,
physicians are agreed that women are fundamentally
weaker than men in all that makes for endurance: in
muscular strength, in nervous energy, in the powers of

The

and application. Overwork, thereendurance to the utmost, is more disastrous to the health of women than of men, and entails
persistent attention

which

fore,

strains

upon them more

lasting injury.

Report of Select Committee on Shops Early Closing

Bill, British

House

of GoTrvmons, 1895.

Dr. Percy
pitals

Kidd,

physician

Brompton and London Hos-

The most common

effect I

ral deterioration of health;

have noticed of the long hours

very general symptoms which

gen-

we medi-

19
and debility of the nervous system; that
more than what is called nervous disease, such as
constipation, a general slackness, and a great many other

cally att^ib^te to over-action,

includes a great deal
indigestion,

symptoms.
Are those symptoms more marked in women than in men ?
I think they are much more marked in women. I should say one
sees a great many more women of this class than men
but I have
seen precisely the same symptoms in men, I should not say in the same
proportion, because one has not been able to make anything like a
statistical inquiry.
There are other symptoms, but I mention those
Another symptom especially among
as being the most common.
women is anaemia, bloodlessness or pallor, that I have no doubt is
indefinite

;

connected with long hours indoors.

(Page 215.)

Report of Committee on Early Closing of Shops
Lards, 1901.

W. MacComac,

Sir

geons

President

the

Bill, British

House

Royal College of Sur-

Would you draw a
and the

You

distinction

evil resulting to

see

pacity than

between the

evil resulting to

women

men ?

men have undoubtedly a greater degree of physical cawomen have. Men are capable of greater effort in various

ways than women. If a like amount of physical toil and effort be
imposed upon women, they suffer to a larger degree. (Page 219.)
Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor

Statistics, 1888.

quote from Dr. Ely Van der Warker (1875)
is badly constructed for the purposes of standing eight
or ten hours upon her feet. I do not intend to bring into evidence the
peculiar position and nature of the organs contained in the pelvis,

Let

"Woman

but to

call attention to the peculiar construction of the

knee and the

shallowness of the pelvis, and the delicate nature of the foot as part
of a sustaining column. The knee joint of woman is a sexual characteristic.

Viewed

in front

and extended, the

joint in but

slight

degree interrupts the gradual taper of the thigh into the leg. Viewed
in a semi-flexed position, the joint forms a smooth ovate spheroid.

The

reason of this

lies in

the smallness of the patella in front, and the

narrowness of the articular surfaces of "the tibia and femur, and
which in man form the lateral prominences, and thus is much more
perfect as a sustaining

column than that

of a

woman.

The muscles

20
which keep the body fixed upon the thighs in the erect position labor
under the disadvantage of shortness of purchase, owing to the short
distance, compared to that of man, between the crest of the ilium and
the great trochanter of the femur, thus giving to man a much larger"
purchase in the leverage existing between the trunk and the extremiComparatively the foot is less able to sustain weight than that
ties.
of man, owing to its shortness and the more delicate formation of
the tarsus

and metatarsus.

(Page 142.)

Rsport of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1875.

A "lady operator," many years in the business, informed us: "I
have had hundreds of lady compositors in my employ, and they all
exhibited, in a marked manner, both in the way they performed their
work and in its results, the difference in physical ability between
themselves and men. They cannot endure the prolonged close attenI have
tion and confinement which is a great part of type-setting.
must
time
they
few girls with me more than two or three years at a
rapidly.
I
know
no
health
have vacations, and they break down in
if
she
were
as
a
man,
as
much
type
reason why a girl could not set
(Page 96.)
as strong to endure the demand on mind and body."
;

Report of the Nebraska Bureau of Labor and Industrial
1901-1902.

They (women)

Statistics,

are unable, by reason of their physical limitations,

endure the same hours of exhaustive labor as may be endured by
adult males. Certain kinds of work which may be performed by men
to

without injury to their health would wreck the constitution and destroy

women, and render them incapable of bearing their share
and the home. The State must be
accorded the right to guard and protect women as a class against
such a condition, and the law in question to that extent conserves
the public health, and welfare.
(Page 52.)
the health of

of the burdens of the family

Hygiene

The

of Occupations.

By Dr. Theodore Wetl.

investigations of Schuler

members

Jena, 1894.

and Burkhardt embracing 18,000

of Swiss insurance against sickness (about 25 per cent of the

Swiss factory workers and fifteen industries), show that factory work,
even in a short period, produces very unfavorable effects upon the
development of the body of young men. It is even more conspicuous in the case of women. Thus of 1000 men in the manufacture

21
of embroidery, 302 were sick to 332

women. In bleaching and dye279 men, 316 women; also in cotton spinning and weaving, the
morbidity of women was much greater than of men.
ing,

Similarly the number of working days lost through illness was
more among women than among men, being 6.47 among women to
6.25

among men.

With increasing

years, both frequency and duration of illness
(Page 7.)
second form of physical inferiority of women is their lessened

increase.

refractoriness to external injurious conditions.

with the relative morbidity of

All statistics dealing

men and women employed

in factories

number of days lost from work
that disease makes greater inroads upon them,
industrial labor is more injurious to women than

justify the deduction that the greater

by women indicate
and that in general
to men.
(Page 86.)

Nuit

Travail de

Bauer.

des

Femmes dans

I'lndustrie.

Prof. Etienne

Jena, 1903.

From the point of view of hygiene the protection of wage-earning
women cannot fail to have good effects in view of the greater morbidity
of

women.

According to the

German Empire

man

statistics of

16.7 days of assistance rendered, or hospital treatment,

case of sickness where the patient

1888-1899.

Man

the Krankenkassen of the

there occurred in each case where the patient

a woman, 18.6 days, in the period

(Page xxxvii.)

and Woman.

Havelock

In strength as well as

women

and each

Ellis.
rapidity

and precision

movement

are inferior to men.

This is not a conclusion that has ever
been contested. It is in harmony with all the practical experience of
It is perhaps also in harmony with the results of those investilife.
gators (Bibra, Pagliani, etc.

have found

Arch, per I'Antrop., Vol. VI,

that, as in the blood of

women,

173)

who

so also in their muscles,

To a very great extent it
is more water than in those of men.
a certainty, a matter of difference in exercise and environment. It
(Page 155.)
probably, also, partly a matter of organic constitution.
The motor superiority of men, and to some extent of males gener-

there
is
is

ally, is, it

what

can scarcely be doubted, a deep-lying fact.
most fundamental in men and in women, and

psychic organization.

(Page 156.)

It is

to their

whole

;

22
There appears to be a general agreement that women are more
and amenable to discipline that they can do light work equally
well that they are steadier in some respects but that, on the other
hand, they are often absent on account of slight indisposition, and
(Page 183.)
they break down sooner under strain.
docile

;

History of Factory Legislation.

Women are

"not only much

Hutchins and Harbison.
less free

agents than

1903.

men," but they

are physically incapable of bearing a continuance of work for the
same length of time as men, and a deterioration of their health is at-

tended with far more injurious consequences to society.

(Page 84.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1903, on the Thirteenth International Congress of Hygiene and

Demography.
Dr. Treves cited the case of a machine capable of giving 33,000
blows per diem, at which the men employed utilize on an average
18,000 to 20,000, while the women, less inured to fatigue and less
capable of attention,

utilize

Hygiene of Occupation
Sciences.

many

in Reference

Geoege M. Price, M.

spector, Health

but 13,000.

Handbook

Department of the City of

industries

of the Medical

D., Medical Sanitary In-

female labor

New

York. Vol. VI.

very largely employed

very detrimental to health. The
injurious influences of female labor are due to the following factors: (1) The comparative physical weakness- of the female organ-

and the

effect of

work on them

(2) The greater predisposition to harmful and poisonous
elements in the trades
(3) The periodical semi-pathological state
of health of women; (4) The effect of labor on the reproductive

ism;

;

organs; and (5) The effects on the offspring. As the muscular
organism of woman is. less developed than that of man, it is evident that those industrial occupations which require intense, constant, and prolonged muscular efforts must become highly detrimental to their health. This is shown in the general debility,
anjemia, chlorosis, and lack of tone in most women who are compelled to work in factories and in shops for long periods.

The

women

to industrial poisons and
by a great number of observers.
The female organism, especially when young, offers very little
resistance to the inroads of disease and to the various dangerous

increased susceptibility of

to diseases has been demonstrated

23
Hirt says, " It must be conceded that
certain trades affect women a great deal more injuriously than
men ;" and he mentions, among others, the effects of lead, mercury,
phosphorus, and other poisons.
Even where there are no special
noxious elements, work may produce, as already mentioned, harmful effects on the health of women; but when to the general effects
of industrial occupation are added the dangers of dust, fumes,
and gases, we find that the female organism succumbs very readily,
as compared with that of the male. Schuler found the frequency,
of sickness in females under eighteen, as compared with that of
men of the same age is as 174 to 100. Miss Mary E. Abrams
(Oliver: "Dangerous Trades") found that out of 138 lead-poisoning cases in Newcastle, where the number of men and women workers
was about the same, there were ninety-four cases among the women
and forty-one among the men. She also found that out of the
twenty-three deaths from plumbism in the years 1889— 189S,
twenty-two were women and only one was a man. The women
were all between seventeen and thirty years of age. These figures
are substantiated by Hirt, Arlidge, C. Paul, Tardien, and others.
elements of certain trades.

The

predisposition of

in general

women

greater than

it is

in industrial occupations to disease
in men, as

was proven by Hirt in his
effect of work on

among workers. The
development of women was found

statistics of tuberculosis

to be very detriArlidge says that
in those who from their youth work in high temperatures, the
bones and joints are imperfectly developed, and that they are
Herkner found
liable to female deformities and to narrow pelves.

the physical
mental, especially when they were very young.

in his studies of Belgian female workers that girls

who

are en-

from deformed joints, from deformities of
the spinal column, and from narrow pelves.
It has been estimated that out of every one hundred days women
are in a semi-pathological state of health for from fourteen to
sixteen days. The natural congestion of the pelvic organs during
menstruation is augmented and favored by work on sewing-

gaged

in mines suffered

machines and other industrial occupations necessitating the constant use of the lower part of the body. Work during these periods
tends to induce chronic congestion of the uterus and appendages,

and dysmenorrhoea and flexion of the uterus are
working girls. (Page 321.)

tions of

well

known

affec-

24
(2)

The New

Strain in Manufacture

endowment, women are affected to a far greater degree than men by the growing
Machinery is increasingly
strain of modern industry.
speeded up, the number of machines tended by individual
workers grows larger, processes become more and more
complex as more operations are performed simultaneously.
Such being

their physical

All these changes involve correspondingly greater physical
strain

upon the worker.

Reports of Medical Commissioners on the Health of Factory Operatives
Parliamentary Papers, 183S, Vol. XXI.

The
is

first

and most

influential of all disadvantages of factory

work

the indispensable, undeviating necessity of forcing both their mental

and bodily exertions

keep exact pace with the motions of machinery
(Page 72.)

propelled by unceasing, unvarying power.

Factory and Workshop Act

Commission, 1875.

British

Sessional

Papers, 1876.

We have already referred more than once to the unremitting and
monotonous character of all labor at a machine driven by steam.
If the day's work of a housemaid or even of a charwoman be closely
looked at and compared with that of an ordinary mill hand in a card
room or spinning room, it will be seen that the former, though occasionally making greater muscular efforts than are ever exacted from
the latter, is yet continually changing both her occupation and her
posture, and has very frequent intervals of rest. Work at a machine
has inevitably a treadmill character about it each step may be easy,
but it must be performed at the exact moment under pain of cbnsequences. In hand work and house work there is a certain freedom
;

of doing or of leaving undone.

Mill (i. e. machine) work must be
done as if by clockwork.
The people are tied as it were to
machinery moving at a great speed in certain operations again it has
been alleged that the state of the atmosphere is very unhealthy, and
.

;

the temperature at a great height, and from the employment of
machinery the speed has been so much increased, that the wear and

not merely of the body but of the mind
were too great for them to bear.
tear,

also, of the operatives

25
Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor

The constant nervous

Statistics, 1892.

tension from continued exertion in a

factory or workshop, for a period of ten hours,

modern

a severe strain upon
the physical system. Work is not done in the old, slow way, and, in
nearly all industries, by the present methods, from two to four times
the quantity of product is turned out in the ten hours. How much
faster is the operative compelled to work, and how much greater is
the strain, to accomplish this amount of work, in comparison with the
old twelve-hour method.
(Page 11.)

The

Effect of

Machmery on Wages.

London, 1892.

The power of machinery is from one point of view too great
and continuous
machines breathing fire and smoke, those slaves
of iron and steel, as Cournot calls them, can go on night and day
Hence results the tendency of machinery to
at high pressure.
add enormously to the toil of the laborers by increasing the day's
labor both in length and intensity.
Trades-unions often object
to piece-work because, to use a rowing phrase, the best men set
too fast a stroke for the comfort of the average workman, but
the strength of the strongest is as water compared with the

—

strength of machinery.
stated

forcibly

crushing task.

This objection to machines has been
" Machinery imposes on man a

Chevalier

Feeble appendage of a mighty

engine bound to an engine of immense power, the

bow
and

way

a tiny

its movements,
word, he must turn, twist,
just as much as the untiring machinery pleases." (Pages

to its attractions, give

force,

workman must

toil

in its

incessant pace

to the rapidity of

—

in a

62, 63.)

The

following from the Cotton Factory Times, February, 1892,

illustrates

very forcibly the influence of machinery in setting too
" We have frequently heard spinners in cotton mills

fast a pace

about being worked up, and made such that they could
neither enjoy food nor rest and their lives felt a burden to them,
and after leaving the mills at night they can be seen wending
their way to places where they can quench their thirst, and liquids
take precedence over food, which the appetite does not call for
when the human system is overworked and overheated and the
mind greatly disturbed by the difficulties and hardships which surtalk

round the workmen

in their

employments." (Page 74.)

;

By Allen Clarke.

Ejfects of the Factory System.

London, 1899.

Greater speed of improved machinery, whereby the work
increased

resulting

sixfold,

physical

deterioration

and mental

(Page 41.)

worry.

The

toil is

ceaseless; the

machinery demands constant watching.

Their feet are never still; their hands are full of tasks; their
eyes are always on the watch they toil in an unending strain that is
cruel on the nerves. (Page 49.)
spinner and weaver are
ten hours a day
And all these hours
down
no
resting
one
must keep up to the
their
no
sitting
on
feet
machinery though agonized with headache or troubled by any other
.

;

—

;

While the engine runs the workers must stand.

complaint.

(Page

51.)

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1900.

Mrs. Robertson tells me that when she was a girl, to run one or
two looms was as much as any woman would have tried. Now, in
some instances, there are women running nine looms, and the looms
have more than doubled or trebled their speed. This means more
work and harder work. (Page 63.)

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1901.
It is

intensity of labor

The
have made it

duction.

labor

brought out that in nearly

and

strain

all

occupations an increasing

required by

modern methods of proand the division of

introduction of machinery

possible to increase greatly the speed of the indi-

The testimony of a representative of the Cotton Weavers' Association shows this increasing strain of work. He
vidual

workman.

says:

"Anybody who works
was twenty-five or

has been increased to
it."

now knows

it is

not like what

machinery
such an extent, and they have to keep up with

(Page 763.)

Even

these cases where machinery has not increased the intensity

of exertion, a long
is

in the mills

thirty years ago, because the speed of the

workday with the machine,

greatly specialized, in

many

especially

where work

cases reduces the grade of intelligence.

The old handwork shops were schools of debate and discussion, and
they are so at the present time where they survive in country districts

27
but the factory imposes silence and discipline for all except the highLong workdays under such conditions tend to inertia and dis-

est.

sipation

when

the day's work

(Page 772.)

done.

By Thomas Oliveb, M. A., M. D., F. R. C. P.,
Medical Expert on the White Lead, Dangerous Trades, Pottery, and
Lucifer Match Committees of the Home Office.
London, 1902.

Dangerous Trades.

The

introduction of steam has revolutionized industry.

chinery acts with unerring uniformity.

At times

so simple

Ma-

mechdemands.

is its

anism that a child can almost guide it, yet how exacting are its
While machinery has in some senses lightened the burden of human
toil, it has not diminished fatigue in man.
All through the hours
of work in a factory the hum of the wheels never ceases.
While
the machinery pursues its relentless course and is insensitive to
fatigue, human beings are conscious, especially towards the end of
the day, that the competition is unequal, for their muscles are becoming tired and their brains jaded.
Present-day factory labor is
too much a competition of sensitive human nerve and muscle against
insensitive iron, and yet, apart from an appropriate shortening of the
hours of labor, it is difficult to see how this can be remedied.
The
greater the number of hours machinery runs per day the larger is the
.

output for the manufacturer, but the feebler are the
it.
To the machine time is nothing; to the

that guide

human
human

limbs
being

each hour that passes beyond a well-defined limit means increasing
fatigue and exhaustion.
(Page 117.)

The Working Hours

Female Factory Hands.

From

of Factory Inspectors, collaied in the Imperial Home

the Reports

Office.

Berlin,

1905.

From Frankfurt am Oder
for

two

textile mills

women employed

it is

show steady

reported that the insurance records
deterioration in the health of the

eleven hours a day.

One

reason for this

believed

Vigorous weavers stated
repeatedly that the old, slow looms exhausted them less in twelve
and thirteen hours than the swift new looms in eleven hours. The
more intensive work requires better nourishment; but there is no
to be the speeding

of the machinery.

adequate increase in wages to afford
eleven-hour day of more rapid work
the deteriorated health.

(Page 119.)

improved food, and the
presumably responsible for

this
is

Bad

Long Hours on Health

Effect of

fatigue which follows long hours of labor becomes
chronic and results in general deterioration of health.

The

Often ignored, since it does not result in immediate disease,
weakness and anaemia undermines the whole system;
it destroys the nervous energy most necessary for steady
work, and eflfectually predisposes to other illness. The
long hours of standing, which are required in many industries, are universally denounced by physicians as the
this

cause of pelvic disorders.

General Injubies from Long Hours

(1)

Reports of Medical Commissioners on the Health of Factory Operatives.
David Barry. British Sessional Papers, 1833, Vol. XXI.

Evidence of Francis Sharp, at Leeds, member of College of Surgeons in London, student of medical profession for fourteen years,
house surgeon of Leeds Infirmary for four years
"

The

nervous energy of the body I consider to be weakened by

the very long hours,

Were

and a foundation

not for the individuals

who

laid for

many

join the mills

diseases.

from the country,

the factory people would soon be deteriorated."
(Pages 12, 13.)
" Females whose work obliges them to stand constantly, are more

and to a larger and
have witnessed even in foot-

subject to varicose veins of the lower extremities

more dangerous extent than ever
soldiers."

(Page 73.)

Massachusetts Legislative Documents.

House, 1866, No.

98.

show the injurious effect of
There may be serious evils from
constant and exhausting labor, that do not show themselves in any
(Specific) cases are not necessary to

constant labor at long hours.

positive, clearly defined disease; while nevertheless the vital forces

man, physical and mental, are very greatly impaired.
(Page 35.)
Dr. Jarvis, physician of Dorchester, says
"Every man has a certain amount of constitutional force. This is

of the whole

which must not be diminished.
and definite amount of available

his vital capital

daily a certain

expend

in labor of

Out

of this comes
which he may
muscle or brain, without drawing on his vital
force,

He may and

he should work every day and expend so
and no more, that he shall awake the next morning and
every succeeding morning until he shall be threescore and ten, and
find in himself the same amount of available force, the same power,
and do his ordinary day's work, and again lie down at night with
capital.

much

his

force

constitutional force unimpaired."

Judging by

this standard, there

can be no doubt of the serious

injury often resulting from overwork, even

appears.

when no palpable evidence

(Page 36.)

Dr. Ordway, practising physician many years (in Lawrence), has
no hesitation in saying that mill work, long continued, is injurious to
bodily and mental health, and materially shortens life, especially of

women.

(Page 63.)

Reports of Commissioners on the Hours of Labor.
Legislative DocuTnents.
House, 1867, No. 44.

Women

are held under the present customs

Massachusetts

and ideas

each half day of continjious work, often in the most
tedious, minute, and monotonous employ.
It is assumed
that
they have no lower limbs to ache with swollen or ruptured veins, no
delicacy of nerve, or versatility of mind, to revolt from such severity
least five hours

of application.

(Page 66.)

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.

Woman's Work,

Domestic Labor and

1872.

women and children are pale,
The women appear dispirited, and the

In the cotton mills at Fitchburg the
crooked, and sickly-looking.
children without the

bloom

of childhood in their cheeks, or the elasti-

city that belongs to that age.

Hours, 60 to 67f a week.

(Page 94.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1873, Vol.

The house

XIX.

surgeon of a large hospital has stated that every year

he had a large number of cases of pulmonary disease in girls, the
origin of which he could distinctly trace to long and late hours in
(Page 43.)
overcrowded and unhealthy workrooms.
Factory and Workshops Act Commission, 1875.

Miss A. E. Todd.

Great Britain Sessional Papers, 1876, Vol.

XXIX, Appendix D.

would say that factory work

to those engaged in

it;

country

often, but not always, injurious

girls especially suffer

from the

80
air

of them fall into consumption or bad
have known many deaths from this cause in
I have also found much derangement of the liver, stom-

and confinement; many

health of some kind.
this class.

and digestive organs, owing, 1 think, partially to the rapidity
(Page 164.)
with which they are obliged to eat their meals.
ach,

Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor

Statistics,

1888.

saleswomen are so worn out, when their week's work is
ended, that a good part of their Sundays is spent in bed, recuperating for the next week's demands. And one by one girls drop out and
This I know from observation and
die, often from sheer overwork.
personal acquaintance.
(Page 142.)

Many

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1893.

Arguments against overtime

{i.

more than ten and a

half

hours)
2.

That

the long hours of confinement are injurious to the health

of the workers.

"Overtime

{i.

over ten and a half hours daily) allows but
The consequent effect upon the

scanty opportunity for leisure.

health of the workers -is exceedingly injurious.

Some employers,

too,

hold that in proportion as the workpeople suffer in health, their

work

(Page 11.)

suffers in execution."

Report of Select Committee on Shops Early Closing Bill, British
of

Commons,

House

1895.

Miss MacDonald, M.B., now attached
in Euston Road:

to the Hospital for

Wo-

men

Dr. Kidd told us just
pital there

now

was a good deal

that in his experience at

Brompton Hos-

of general deterioration of health

among

women ?
That

exactly

what I should

say, ansemia

and general nervous

debility.

And would not standing so long very much affect women, if they
were married, afterwards ?
It is not good for women to stand ... at all really.
If it is not good for them to stand at all, still less will it be good for
them

to stand thirteen hours

I think

it is

shocking.

a day

)

31
.

The

them more

standing of course would exhaust the

lialjle

to other illnesses.

women and make

(See pages 5S79-5387.

Reports from Committee on Early Closing of Shops, British
of Lords, 1901, Vol. VI.

House

Considering the weight which belongs to that memorial (submitted

by some doctors

Committee did not deem it necessary
on the subject. The presidents, however, both of the College of Physicians and of the College of Surgeons,
have come before us and spoken strongly on the great and increasin 1888), the

to multiply medical evidence

ing evils of the present long hours.

"There

no doubt

my mind

Sir

W. MacCormac

that such long hours

(it

stated that

speaks of an

average of fourteen hours per day) must contribute to the incidence
of disease; that it must lower the general vitality of persons so en-

gaged and render them more liable than they otherwise would be to
attacks of different forms of disease. These hours, too, for the most
part, are worked in an atmosphere very prejudicial to health, and
we know how largely the air so contaminated contributed to the production of various forms of disease in which tubercule, for instance,
and manifold forms of disease in which tubercule manifests itself,
and that other disease of great cities (rickette) has some parts of its
origin

from

this cause."

Furthermore, he urged on us that the evil is one which increases as
time runs on " it is gradual and progressive in its effects, and it goes
on, I am afraid, in a cumulative degree."
Sir W. Selby Church, the president of the College of Physicians,
;

gave similar evidence.
We are able, however, to appeal to the highest medical testimony
especially on women).
as to the injury thus caused Gong hours
medical
colleges with some of
great
In 1888 presidents of the two
Paget, Sir Anprofession.
Sir
James
the other leaders of the medical
Marshall,
John
Dr. Playfair,
Mr.
Duncan,
drew Clark, Dr. Matthews

—

Dr. Priestly, Sir Richard Quain, Sir Wm. Savory, Sir Samuel Wilks,
called the attention of Parliament to the subject and urged the pass(Page v.)
ing of the Early Closing Bill.
Report of British Chief Inspectors of Factories and Workshops, 1901.

Ten and a

half hours sitting bent over stitching, requiring very

careful attention, with

two

can be eaten, that there

intervals so short that only a hasty

time for exercise,

meal

even were the workers

32
permitted to go out, and that, day after day, might well try the
strongest constitutions and ruin the best digestions and nerves.

on the health is injurious is constantly brought
before one, and anaemic and heavy-eyed workers who suffer from
neuralgia who form too large a proportion of the whole number,
make one feel very strongly that some reform is needed. (Page 176.)

That

its

effect

Report of British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1903.
T. M. Legge, H. M. Medical Inspector of Factories and Workshops.

point of

some importance which was mentioned

me by

the

medical attendant at one factory (cigar) was that the number of
cases under treatment for sickness varied pari passu with the amount
of overtime

Journal

field.
Sir

work,"

i. e.

over ten hours in one day.

Royal Sanitary
London, 1904.

William

Institute,

MacCormae,

giving

XXV. M.

Vol.

evidence

Committee on The Early Closing of Shops,

(Page 286.)

before

G. Bond-

the

Lords'

"There is no doubt,
I think in my mind, that such long hours must contribute to the
incidence of disease that it must lower the general vitality of persons
so engaged, and render them more liable than they otherwise would be
to attacks of different forms of disease.
These hours, too, for
the most part are worked in an atmosphere very prejudicial to health.
said,

;

... I quite agree with the opinions of my predecessors that such
long hours are very grievous, and are calculated to do the community
in

which they prevail serious harm. ...

their offspring, undoubtedly.

to be urgent, but

it is

insidious;

must have an influence

... In one
it is

sense it cannot be said
gradual and progressive in its

And it goes on I am afraid, in a cimiulative degree."
(Page 742.)
Sir William Church, who gave evidence the same day, said:
"There is another great group which falls under the observation of the
ordinary physician and of which we see a very great deal in our
effect.

London

Hospitals, and that is an anaemic condition which is produced
by long hours of work, and still more by the confinement that
employment entails," (Page 743.)

partly
this

33
From

the Reports of Factory

Home

Berlin,

Office,

Inspectors.

1905.

Collated in the Imperial

The Working Hours

Female

Factory Hands.

Report for Bremen The reduction for the working hours for
will be of great value to the entire working population, and
more especially to workingmen's families. It is of great hygienic
importance on account of the more delicate physical organization of
woman, and will contribute much toward the better care of children
and the maintenance of a regular family life.
:

women

The

Inspector for Erfurt urges the introduction of the ten-hour

day for women because "eleven hours daily toil in a factory is extremely exhausting for the weaker physical organization of woman.
Although perhaps under good sanitary conditions of work no direct

may be
women and

injury to health

traced to the eleven-hours day,

certain that

who work in factories are worn out
who do not. The factory worker who has

much

sooner than those

most

still

a poor physical inheritance to contend with, and

likely

poorly nourished,

girls

liable to frequent attacks of sickness."

Report for Cassel: The ill effects of factory work for women
is most marked in those cases where long hours are joined to heavy
work. The female frame is not strong enough to resist the harmful
Although the ill
influence of such work for any length of time.
effects

may

not show themselves at once, it is not unlikely that inwhich manifest themselves years after may be traced

juries to health

back to former work in the factory. The total exclusion of women
from the factories is not at present contemplated, but the introduction
of the ten-hour day will tend towards reducing the harmful influence
of factory work.

The

(Page 107.)

inspector for Erfurt reports that

when a working

girl

marries,

very strong she gradually fails in health and is frequently
unfitted for giving birth to healthy children or to nurse those who are
unless she

(Page 111.)

born.

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
Appendix II. Report on Tobacco, Cigars and Cigarette
1906.
Industry.

The

question of the health of the workers has been the main

object of our enquiry,
to this point.

one.

and we have therefore given our attention

chiefly

impossible to consider the industry an unhealthy

With the exception

of one or

two processes there has been

little

34
or no evidence to prove that the manufacture of tobacco
injurious to health.

... In

in itself

a Very

six of the largest factories visited

complete system of preliminary medical examination was found to be
We
carried out by the doctors specially appointed by the firms.
.

have gained a great deal of information from these doctors, whose
Our attention was drawn to a very
experience is almost unique.
interesting

and important point by two

of the doctors

;

their experi-

ence (which in one case has been tabulated) had led them to form
the opinion that overtime has a very marked bearing on the normal
health of the workers.

They had noted an

increase during

work of from one-third
workers coming to them for treatment

number

and

just

to one-half in the

after periods of overtime

;

the matters

com-

plained of were not anything special, but simply an increase in the

usual form of ailment, such as indigestion, anaemia, heavy colds

(in

summer. When one considers that overtime here means simply employment up to the normal legal period,
that is, ten and ten and a half hours a day, and does not mean overwinter), gastric disorders in

time as permitted in a large number of industries

women

the case of

(in

over eighteen), and which extends to twelve hours in the day,

is all the more striking, and one
one of the industries in which overtime

the result

feels that

more noticeable

statistics of

a similar record

allowed would produce

the results of over-fatigue.

The

conclu-

and a half to nine hours' work a
day cannot be exceeded by women and girls without overstrain and
sion seems to us clear that eight

fatigue resulting in a lower standard of health.

From

(Page 253.)

Reports by the District Inspectors {of France) upon the Question
of

Night Work

{Paris,

1900).

By M. Legard,

Inspecteur

Divisionnaire de la 10^ circonscription a Marseille.

During an investigation made by the inspector (lady) of work in
the dressmaking establishments of the city of Marseilles, several work-

ingwomen complained that after a certain number of evenings of
overtime, they did not recover their sleep, dispelled by fatigue. They
went home
their work.

some hours in the morning before returning to
Therefore these workers lost a part of the seven or eight

to sleep

hours of sleep absolutely requisite to an adult for proper rest. They
did not have restful nights after very full days. Insomnia visited them
with all its accompanying evils. Sleep is so important from the health
standpoint that there is perhaps no function which should be so conscientiously exercised.
Everything which affects the hygiene of sleep
constitutes a danger, because the equilibrium of the nervous system
is

jeopardized.

(Page 71.)

)

35
Age and Sex in Occupations. Twentieth Century
1895, Vol. III. By Db. James H. Lloyd.

Woman may

Practice of Medicine,

ways that do not

suffer in health in various

affect

— neurasthenia, the bane of overworked and

materially her mortality

underfed women, does not leave a definite trace on the mortality tables.
Again, woman's ill-health and drudgery in a factory may affect her

progeny

a way that the

Women

statistician

cannot estimate.

(Page 326.

are said to suffer from derangements

and displacements
from occupations requiring long standing and certain movements of
the body, while the lacteal secretion is impaired by some occupations,
and also by enforced absence of mothers from their nursing infants.
(Page 327).
Neurasthenia from overwork. ... It cannot be ignored, because

among

its

well recognized

and

active causes

the strain of excessive

(Page 488).
with the numerous facts that have come
I have been struck
to my notice tending to convince me that one of the most common
effects of overwork and poor hygiene in industrial life is an ill-defined
condition of neurasthenia, insomnia, headache, and pains in and along
extreme lassitude and weakness occur.
the spine
The treatment of neurasthenia from overwork should be first, by removing or modifying the cause as much as possible. (Page 490.)

labor.

Journal of the American Medical Association,

By Dr. Frederick
sity, N. Y.

May

19, 1906.

Fatigue.

Lee, Prof. Physiology, Columbia Univer-

There are probably few physiologic functions that are not affected
unfavorably by the prolonged and excessive activity of the muscular
and the nervous systems. In such a condition the normal action of
the tissues

may

easily give place to pathologic action.

Fatigue undoubtedly diminishes the resistance of the tissues to
bacteria,

and

also predisposes the individual to attacks

other than bacterial.

from diseases

Heretofore attention has been directed chiefly to the extreme effects
of the pathologic acids.

We should not forget, however, that long before these extreme
effects are manifested the same causes are producing evil, if less
obvious, phenomena, and rendering the cells less capable of their
proper functions.

Mankind

can administer no food or drug that can push
Only the assimilation
up the metabolic grade.

at present

the wearied cells

36
**and ditoxication that normally come with
are capable of adequate restoring power.

rest,

and

best, rest

with sleep,

The Hygiene, Diseases, and Mortality of Occupations. 1892. J. T.
Ahlidge, M. D., F. R. C. p.. Late Melroy Lecturer at Royal
College.

may

Excessive exertion

operate either over a long period and pro-

When such
be sudden and severe.
people are seized by some definite lesion, attention is so completely
attracted to it that the antecedent over-toil laying the foundation for
duce

the

its ill

malady

results slowly, or

(Page 16.)

apt to be overlooked.

The want

body induces general torpidity of functions, reduces lung capacity and respiratory completeness, and the
activity of the abdominal muscles, which aid both respiration and the
of exercise of the

Hence, the proclivity to venous
and lower extremities
and
and in the rectal vessels, with the production of constipation,
add to these disorders of digesin women of menstrual difficulties,
tion in their multiform shape, debilitated muscular power, and a low
functions of the digestive organs.

(congestion), particularly in the pelvis

stasis

—

vitality

and vigor

When

generally.

muscular activity

insufficient

associated with

almost

constant standing, the increased difficulty to the return of the blood

from the lower limbs

tive of varicose veins,

and

the most pronounced feature, and produculcers

and thickened knee, and ankle

joints.

(Page 19.)

(2)

The
riage

on Childbirth and Female
Functions

Specific Evil Effects

evil eflFect of

upon

overwork before as well as after maris marked and disastrous.

childbirth

Report of Select Committee on Shops Early Closing

House

Testimony

Bill.

British

Commons, 1895.
of

Dr.

W. Chapman Grigg (formerly out-patient
women at Westminster Hospital, and

physician for the diseases of
senior physician to the

Queen

Charlotte Lying-in Hospital and the

Victoria Hospital for Children).

Would you

please

tell

us in a general

way your

the effects of these prolonged hours on health
It

experience as to

has a very grave effect upon the generative organs of women,

37
and also injuring a very large body
up inflammation in the pelvis in connec-

entailing a great deal of suffering
of

them permanently,

setting

tion with those organs.

have had a great many sad cases come before me of women
who were permanent invalids in consequence.
If the matter could be gone into carefully, I think the committee
would be perfectly surprised to find what a large number of these
women are rendered sterUe in consequence of these prolonged
I

hours.
I believe that is

hours.

one of the greatest

I have seen

who have pursued

many

evils

attached to these prolonged

cases in families where certain

members

the calling of shop-girl assistants have been

sterile,

have borne children. I know of
one case where four members of a family who were shop-girls were
sterile, and two other girls in the family, not shop-girls, have borne
children; and I have known other cases in which this has occurred.
... I have patients come to me from all parts of London. It appears
to be a most common condition.
When these women have children, do you find that the children
themselves suffer from the woman having been affected by these very
long hours ?
I have seen many cases where I have attributed the mischief
arising in childbed to this inflammatory mischief in the mother,
which, after delivery, has set up fresh mischief, and I have seen
serious consequences resulting. (Page 219.)
while other

members

of the family

to the Local Governing Board on Proposed Changes in Hours
and Ages of Employment in Textile Factories, by J. H.
BbipgEs, M.D., and T. Holmes. British Parliamentary Papers.
(Page 39.)
1873. Vol. LV.

Report

Experience afforded by residence in the worsted manufacturing
town of Bradford, and extensive practise among its population during
periods of from one to thirty-five years
Amongst the women of factory operatives, much more than
A.
among tLe general population, derangements of the digestive organs
are common, e. g., pyrosis, sickness, constipation, vertigo, and headache, generated

by neglect of the

calls of

nature through the early hours

of work, the short intervals at meals, the eating

and drinking

prepared foods, as bread, tea, and coffee, and the neglect of meat
and fresh cooked vegetables. Other deranged states of a still worse
character are present, e. g., leucorrhcea and too frequent and profuse
easily

38
Cases also of displacement, flexions, and versions of
and the increased heat
CEdema and varicose veins of the
of and confinement in the mill.
legs are common amongst female mill-workers of middle age.
menstruation.

the uterus, arising from the constant standing
.

Has

mortality

the labor any tendency to increase the rate of infant

The

A. Yes.

occurring in

evils

women

as detailed in answer to

more perfect growth of the child in
utero, and dispose it when born more easily to become diseased.
Signed on behalf of the Bradford Medico Chirurgical Society, at a
question 2 indirectly affect the

meeting held February

4, 1873.

Sub-Committee.
President,

H. Bell,

M.D.

P. E. MiiLL,
Secretary,

M.R.C.S.
David Gotdee, M.D.

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1873'. Dh. R. H. Leach, Certifying Surgeon for over Thirty Years.

Shorten their hours of labor, for I believe that scores of infants are
annually lost under the present system. As things now stand, a

mother leaves her infant (say of two months old) at 6
asleep in bed, at 8 she nurses

then until 12.30 the child

it,

or stuffed with indigestible food.

and exhausted, her milk

a. m., often
is

bottle fed,

her return at noon, overheated

unfit for the child's nourishment,

state of things is again repeated until 6 p. m.

;

and

the consequence

is,

this

that

the child suffers from spasmodic diarrhoea, often complicated with

convulsions and ending in death.

Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

Statistics,

1875.

seems to be the back that gives out. Girls cannot work more
than eight hours, and keep it up they know it, and they rarely will,
and even this seems to "pull them down," so that it is extremely rare
that a girl continues more than a few years at the business.
It

;

—

foreman of a large printing establishmeht, says:
I never knew but one woman, and she
a strong, vigorous Irishwoman, of unusual height, who could stand
at the case like a man.
Female compositors, as a rule, are sickly,
suffering much from backache, headache, weak limbs, and
general
M^r.

"Girls must

sit

at the 'case.'

'female weakness.'"

Miss

for several years in charge of the female

department

39
of one of the largest offices in the country, testified:

as long as one can

The

work

a busy

"One year is
without a good vacation.

office

confined position, constipation, heat, and dizzy headache, I

most noticeable troubles

think, are the

'grown up.'

The hours

of 'lady operators'

who

are

are too long for such strained employment.

From

8 a. m. to 6 p. m., with only an hour for dinner, makes too long
a day for the kind of work," (Pages 90-92.)

a lady compositor, says: "We cannot stand at the
back and head ache, and weakness of limbs, as
well as a dragging weight about the hips. I have been at this work
five years, but have been frequently obliged to give up for vacations

Miss J

It increases

'case.'

from peculiar troubles and general

when

fourteen;

am now

when

type for a year,

and have been more or

I began to menstruate

debility.

twenty-two.

was

well until I

had

set

I began to be troubled with difficult periods,
less

ever since.

but, as often as I return to

When I go away I get better,
am troubled again. Have

work, I

lost color, and am not nearly as fleshy and heavy as when I
began work. I have now a good deal of pain in my chest, and some
cough, which increases, if I work harder than usual. I am well

whoUy

acquainted with

many

other lady compositors

who

suffer as I do."

Miss S
a lady long in charge of the "composing-room"
(female department) of a large printing establishment testifies: "I
was myself a compositor, and have had scores of girls under me and
with me, many of whom I have known intimately. I have no hesitation in saying that I think I never knew a dozen lady compositors
who were 'well.' Their principal troubles are those belonging to the
sex, and great pain in back, limbs, and head."
,

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1884.

secured the personal history of these 1032 of the whole 20,000

working

girls of

Boston, a

number amply

purposes of the investigation.

Long

hours,

(Page

and being obliged

sufficient for the scientific

5.)

to stand all day, are very generally

any lack or loss of health occar
advanced
Exhaustion
from overwork. In
girls.
3.
work
of
the
sioned by the
labor,
the
great
speed
the machinery
hours
of
of
the
long
consequence
weavers
tend,
and
looms
the
the general
number
of
the
large
is run at,
produced
in
most
cases
that,
exhaustion
is
much
so
overtasking,
immediately after taking supper, the tired operatives drop to sleep
as the principal reasons for

in their chairs.

...

10.

Predisposition to pelvic disease.

There

appears, as far as
pelvic disease

among

The

culty in parturition.

much

very

observation goes, quite a predisposition to

the female factory operatives, producing

diffi-

necessity for instrumental delivery has

increased within a few years, owing to the females working

pregnant and in consequence of deformed
Other uterine diseases are produced, and, in other cases,
(Page 69.)
aggravated in consequence of the same.
in the mills while they are

pelvis.

Report of the California Bureau of Labor

Kane

Dr. F. B.

attention has been

Statistics,

1887-1888.

of San Francisco says: "Very many times my
drawn professionally to the injury caused by the

long hours of standing required of the saleswomen in this

city,

the one

most calculated to cause the manifold diseases peculiar to
sex, and direfuUy does Nature punish the disobedience of her

position
their

laws."
"I

Dr. C. A. Clinton, of the San Francisco Board of Health, says:
am decidedly of the opinion that it is highly injurious. It will cer-

tainly aggravate

any

existing complaints,

and

still

more,

will

and

does have a tendency to induce complaints in persons previously free
from them. It is especially injurious to females in regard to the diseases peculiar to the female sex."

(Page 102.)

New Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries,

Report of the
1902.

The weak,
females,

The

physical

condition

very noticeable.

of the operatives, especially the

long hours of labor, frequently ten or twelve, and the foul

air of the

workroom

operatives.

most marked in its efiFects upon the female
to throat and lung diseases, which are

In addition

almost equally prevalent among both sexes, the sufferings of the
female operatives from causes peculiar to the sex is very greatly
aggravated by the conditions under which they wofK.\

physician of high standing whose practice

is largely-among the
authority for the statement that a large
majority of female mill-workers are sufferers from some one or more
of the organic complaints brought on or intensified by the condi-

operatives of these mills

tions

under which they work.

ing the mill,
if it

did exist

If no such disease existed before enterwas almost sure to develop soon after beginning work;
before, it was aggravated to a degree that made them

easy victims of consumption.

The

long hours of labor, being constantly standing, the foul air of

the workroom, and,

from the motion
in

more than all, the ceaseless vibration of the floor
mass of machinery are the prime factors

of the great

producing these diseases.

La RegUmentation

(Page 377.)

Legale du Travail des

rindustrie Italienne.

Femmes

des Enfants dans

Lionel Baudoin.

At the International Congress at Milan, on accidents among the
May, 1894, Mr. Luigi Belloc (Factory Inspector
of the Department of Labor) represented Italy.
He stated that the
continuous motion of the body taxes the nervous system, causing the
gravest troubles. The sewing-machine, which requires of the operator
40,000 movements a day, causes in the long run abdominal and renal
troubles, disarrangement of the menstrual function, and falling and
deviations of the uterus. Functional weaknesses and paralysis are the
The
result of the continual performance of the same movement.
necessity of standing or sitting for the whole day causes malformation
of the body or curvature of the spine, as a result of the strained posiThe attention required in watching a machine, especially an
tion.

laboring class, in

automatic one,

very fatiguing, on account of the large

number

wheels operating at the same time which need attention.
Women employed in the manufacture of tobacco and of matches
are subject to gastric, intestinal troubles, and affections of the respiratory tract, necrosis of the jaw, and are liable to miscarriage. Women
employed in sorting rags used in the manufacture of paper are liable
to

Tuberculosis

smallpox or carbuncle.

spreads with alarming

and wool weavers. Those whom
tuberculosis spares drag along with anaemia, the most common malady
rapidity, especially -among cotton

of the

women

factory workers, especially the textile workers,

subject to long hours of labor.

For the cotton industry
(Page

the ten-hour day.

Infant Mortality:

who

are

in particular

Mr. Luigi Belloc demands

14.)

Social Problem.

Geo. Newman, M. D., Lon-

don, 1906.
if accompanied by a strain and
a decided effect in the production of premature birth, particularly if these conditions are accompanied by long
(Page 80.)
hours of work and poor or insuflBcient nourishment.

Physical fatigue, particularly

stress, are likely to exert

The

direct injuries to

workshops are:

and

(c)

women and

girls

employed

Injury through fatigue and

insufficient periods of rest for food,

and

in factories

strain, long
(e)

Too

hours

short a

period of rest at the time of childbirth.

Over and over again,

in the official reports of factory inspectors or

medical

officers of health,

juries.

Where

does one meet with evidences of these in-

the conditions resulting in these evils, coupled with

home, are present, the infant mor-

the absence of the mother from
tality is

high; where they are not present,

it is

usually low.

(Page

131.)

In consequence of the fact that while there has been a steady and
continuous decline in the general mortality of Preston during the
past thirty years, the infant mortality has shown an increase, a sub-

committee was appointed to inquire into the causes (1902), and
submitted certain conclusions
(1) First among these causes is the employment of female labor
in mills.
An occupation requiring a woman to stand during the
greater part of the day when continued up to within a few days or even
hours of the time of parturition, must act to the detriment of the offspring, and there is less chance of the latter coming into the world
fully grown, well formed, and in good health.
Many deaths taking
place during the first month, which are returned as due to premature
birth, immaturity, congenital debility, convulsions,

and the

like,

may

safely be ascribed to this cause.
it may be said that it is the employment of women
through married life and through the period of child-

In a general way

from girlhood

all

bearing, the continual stress

and

strain of the

work and hours, and

general conditions prevailing in women's labor, that

baneful influence on the individual and on the home.

(Page 134.)

Bad

Effect of

exerting

its

Long Hours on Safety

Accidents to working women occur most frequently at
the close of the day, or after a long period of uninterrupted work. The coincidence of casualties and fatigue
due to long hours is thus made manifest.
British Parliamentary Debates.

Third

Series.

1844.

Vol.

LXXIII.

Lord Ashley's Speech.

"Those honourable gentlemen who have been in the habit of
perusing the melancholy details of mill accidents should know that

—

a large proportion of those accidents
particularly those which
may be denominated the minor class, such as loss of fingers and the
like
occur in the last hours of the evening, when the people become

—

so tired that they absolutely get reckless of the danger.

I state this

on the authority

arise

of several practical spinners.

Hence

many

serious evils to the working classes, none greater than the early

prostration of their strength."

(Page 1082.)

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1895.

The ten-hour day, with the exceptions necessary for certain trades,
a measure which can be introduced without great difficulty, and
which would prevent many dangers threatening the health of workers.
Many accidents are no doubt due to the relaxed vigilance and lessening
is

of bodily strength following excessive hours of work.

(Page 369.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1900.

One can

only feel surprise that accidents are not more numerous

(in laundries),

inattention

may

when one

the hot cylinders, and

may

realizes that the slightest carelessness or

result in the fingers or

when one

hand being drawn between

considers

arise in the case of the over-tired

how

easily

such inattention

young workers.

(Page 383.)

Report of British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1903.

the

The comparative immunity from accidents in
West Riding of Yorkshire may be possibly due

to the

the laundries
in

some measure

moderate hours of employment.

The

day is somewhat
most dangerous hours apparently being 11 a. m. to
12 noon and 4 to 6 p. m.
Probably 11 a. m. to 12 noon is more
generally than any other time the last tiring hour of a day five hours'
4-6 p. m. covers the time when most generally the transition is
spell
from daylight to artificial light. (Page 210.)
Reference was also made (in the Thirteenth International Congress
of Hygiene), although figures were not adduced, to the alleged increase
in the number of accidents which occur late in the working day when
the effect of intellectual and physical fatigue have made themselves
incidents of accidents according to time of

surprising, the

;

apparent.

(Page 298.)

44
Infant Mortality:

Social Problem.

Geohge Newman, M.

D.,

London^ 1906.

The

results of fatigue

become manifest

in various

least being the occurrence of accidents or of

ways, not the

physical breakdown.

now well recognized, occur most frequently in
For example, since 1900 there has been a steady,
though not marked, increase in the number of accidents to women
over eighteen years of age in laundries. In 1900 such accidents
numbered 131 in 1904, 157. Now it has been shown that whilst
the first half of the day yields about the same number of accidents
as the second half, more accidents, amounting to nearly double the
number, occur between the hours of 11 a. m. and 1 p. m., and
between 4 p. m. and 7 p. m. than at any other time of the day.
The

former, as

fatigued workers.

;

(Page 112.)

Getting a Living.

Chap. 15.

G. L. Bohn.

Shoetee Wouxday.
much work has been done

If in the tenth hour as

as the average

for the previous nine hours, a reduction of time to nine hours per
day, at the same pay, would be an increase of wages by eleven and
one-ninth per cent, unless the extra hour of rest increased the

hourly product. But in any work not fixed in speed by steadily
running machinery, less is done in the tenth hour, by reason of
weariness, than in other hours
and the work of the last hour,
like overtime work at night, weakens a person for the next day.
;

It is this weariness that causes accidents to occur two or three
times as frequently in the last hour as in other hours
a fact

—

proved by European

statistics.

With

the steady machinery, too,

weariness, as a rule, either lowers the quaUty of the work done,
or by frequent stoppage lessens its amount
often causing both

—

these losses.

(Page 407.)

D. Bad Ejfed

The

effect of

Long Hours on Morals

overwork on morals is closely related to
Laxity of moral fibre follows physical
the working day is so long that no time

the injury to health.
debility.

When

whatever

relief

lants

left for

minimum

from the strain of work
and other excesses.

of leisure or home-life,

sought in alcoholic stimu-

45
Massachusetts Legislative Document.

Overwork

House, 1866, No.

eleven hours daily of hard labor are more than the

...

bear, save in a few exceptional cases.
health, shortens

98.

Ten and
human system can

the fruitful source of innumerable

evils.

It cripples the

body, ruins

mind, gives no time for culture,
no opportunity for reading, study, or mental improvement. It leaves
the system jaded and worn, with no ability to study. ... It tends
to dissipation in various forms. The exhausted system craves stimulants. This opens the door to other indulgences, from which flow
not only the degeneracy of individuals, but the degeneracy of the
race.
(Page 24.)
It stunts the

life.

and

Relations between Labor
Vol.

Testimony

U. S. Senate Committee, 1883.

Capital.

Robert Howard, Mule-Spinner

in Fall

River Cotton Mills.
I

have noticed that the hard, slavish overwork

into the saloons, after they leave the mills evenings

come out

is
.

driving those girls
.

good, respect-

and so thirsty and so exhausted
from working along steadily from hour to hour and breathing the
noxious effluvia from the grease and other ingredients used in the mill.
Wherever you go
near the abodes of people who are overworked, you will always find the sign of the rum-shop.
Drinking is most prevalent among working people where the hours
able girls, but they
.

so tired

(Page 647.)

of labor are long.

The Case

for the Factory Acts.

Edited by

Mrs. Sidney Webb.

London, 1901.
If working long and irregular hours, accepting a bare subsistence
wage and enduring insanitary conditions tended to increase women's
physical strength and industrial skill
if these conditions of unregulated industry even left unimpaired the woman's natural stock of
strength and skill
we might regard factory legislation as irrelevant.
But as a mattei^)f fact a whole century of evidence proves
exactly the contrary/^To leave women's labor unregulated by law
means inevitably to leave it exposed to terribly deteriorating influences. The woman's lack of skill and lack of strength is made worse

—

by lack of regulation^
one

who has

And

there

is still

a further deterioration.

Any

read the evidence given in the various inquiries into the

Sweating System

will

have been struck by the invariable coincidence

)

46
low standard of regularity, sobriety, and morality, with the condiwhich women, under free competition, are exposed. (Page

of a

tions to

209.)

Thomas Olivee, M. D. London,

Dangerous Trades.

1902.

women

as a class are intem-

perate and rougher than most industrial workers.

That they are pecuand the long

It is frequently asserted that

laundry

liarly irregular in their habits it is

and exhaustion due

hours, the discomfort

and

impossible to deny

;

to constant standing in wet

heat, discourage the entrance into the trade of a better class of

workers

certain.

many of them,

The

prevalence of the drink habit

among

which so much is said, is not difficult to account for:
the heat of an atmosphere often laden with particles of soda, ammonia,
and other chemicals has a remarkably thirst-inducing effect; the
work is for the most part exhausting, even apart from the conditions,
and the pernicious habit of quenching the thirst, and stimulating an
overtired physical condition, with beer.
(Page 672.
of

Report of the British Chief

Inspector of Factories

and Workshops,

1902.

The

result is disastrous, even from the point of view of this industry
which if properly organized would be capable of offering really
desirable employment to skilled workers instead of being, as it too
itself,

often

is,

the last resort of the idle

and intemperate. ... I would add
is created by the conditions of

that too often the very intemperance

employment, by the excessive overstrain of endurance.

(Page 174.

Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: the
Economic Effect of Legislation Regulating Women's Labor, 1902.

the morals of the workers there has been a

the Factory Acts].
just as irregularity

"Saint

Monday"

now

marked

effect [by

a thing of the past, and

conduces to drunkenness and irregular

living,

and

the rush of overtime at the end of the week, with nothing to do in the
early parts, induced an irregular and careless mode of life, so the
comparative steadiness of the present methods have tended to raise
the standard of morality and sobriety.
(Page 287.)

Bad

Effect of

Long Hours on General Welfare

The experience of manufacturing countries has illustrated the evil effect of overwork upon the general welfare.
Deterioration of any large portion of the population incommunity physically, mentally,
and morally. When the health of women has been injured
by long hours, not only is the working efficiency of the
community impaired, but the deterioration is handed
evitably lowers the entire

down

to succeeding generations.
Infant mortality rises,
while the children of married working- women, who survive, are injured by inevitable neglect. The overwork of
future mothers thus directly attacks the welfare of the

nation.

The

(1)

Need of Protecting Woman

State's

Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, 1873.
Jarvis, M. D.
All additions to the physical, moral, or intellectual

Edward

power of

indi-

— in any individual to that extent, additions to the energy
and the productive force — the effectiveness of the State and on the
deductions from these
whether of mind or body —
contrary,
every impairment of energy —
every sickness, and injury or
viduals

are,

;

forces,

all

disability,

much from

take so

body

politic.

The

an interest not only in the prosperity, but also
and strength and effective power of each one of its mem-

State thus has

in the health

bers.

the mental force, the safe administration of the

The first and
human power

largest interest of the State lies in the great agency

— the health of the people.

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

(Page 336.)
Statistics, 1871.

It is claimed that legislation on this subject is an interference
But legislation has interfered with
between labor and capital.
.

capital

and labor both,

good.

Now public

in the

safety

demand

for public safety

and public good, the wealth

and the public

of the

common-

wealth, centred, as such wealth is, in the well-being of its common
people, demands that the State should interfere by special act in favor

)

working-women, and working children, by enacting a tenhour law, to be enforced, by a system of efficient inspection. (Page
of

567.)
International Conference in Relation to Labor Legislation.

Berlin,

1890.
It

demands
it

German Emperor

the idea of the

the attention of

all

that the industrial question

the civilized nations.

The quest of a solution becomes not only a humanitarian duty, but
is exacted also by governmental wisdom, which should at once look
all its citizens

out for the well-being of

Proceedings of the French Senate.

and the preservation

of the

(Page 29.

inestimable benefits of civilization.

Session of July

1891.

M. Jules

Simon.
impossible for

It is

position of

women

tlemen, I ask permission to

tell the Senate what I think of the
and that I may gain your favor, genyou that for at least forty years I have

not to

in industry,
tell

(Page 573.)

applied myself to this question.

When
women,

I ask,
is

when we

ask, for a lessening of the daily toil of

not only of the

women

that

think;

not princi-

It is of the
whole human race.
father, it is of the child, it is of society, which we wish to re-establish
on its foundation, from which we believe it has perhaps swerved a

pally of the

women,

of the

(Page 575.)

little.

Report of the

The

New

York Bureau

Labor

family, furnishes the really

growing generation
life

thus

really

— the

Statistics,

1900.

fundamental education of the

education of character

determines the

quality of

as efficient or non-efficient wealth

the

;

and the family

rising

generation

a reduction in
the hours of labor does promote the growth of a purer and better
family life, it will unquestionably result in the production of greater
producers.

material wealth on the part of the generation trained under

ence

;

its influ-

nothing else in fact will so effectively diminish the vast number

and idlers, who, in the present generation,
consume the people's substance. When one or both parents are
away from home for twelve or thirteen hours (the necessary period
for those who work ten hours) a day, the children receive comparatively little attention.
What was said in the opening paragraph of
of criminals, paupers,

49
this

section in discussing the importance of a

good family

the training of character needs repeated emphasis, for

damental argument for a shorter working day.

Hygiene

Women

and the

essen-

State has a vital

interest in securing for itself future generations capable of living

maintaining

it.

and

(Page 84.)

The Working Hours

From

of Female Factory Hands.
Factory Inspectors collated by the Imperial
lin,

Jena, 1904.

bear the following generation whose health

influenced by that of the mothers,

tially

life

the fun-

(Page 69.)

Db. Theodore Weyl.

of Occupations.

it is

Home

reports of the
Office.

Ber-

1905.

The

reports from Marseburg, Erfurt, Breslau, Hanover, Wurtemand Offenbach dwell upon the dependence of future generations
their total efficiency and value
upon the protection of
working women and girls. (Page 111.)
berg,

—

President Roosevelt's

59th Congress.

Annual Message delivered
December 4i, 1906.

More and more our

Second Session

people are growing to recognize the fact that

the questions which are not merely of industrial but of social imporall others
and these two questions (labor of women
and children ) most emphatically come in the category of those which
affect in the most far-reaching way the home life of the Nation.

tance outweigh

Legislative Control of

;

Women's Work.

Journal of Political Economy.

Vol.

S. P.

XIV.

Beeckinridge.

1906.

The assumption of control over the conditions under which inwomen are employed is one of the most significant features
of recent legislative policy.
In many of the advanced industrial
communities the State not only undertakes to prescribe a minimum
dustrial

of decency, safety, and healthfulness, below which

may not

its

wage-earners

be asked to go, but takes cognizance in several ways of

sex differences and sex relationships.

...

In the third place, the

State sometimes takes cognizance of the peculiarly close relationship which exists between the health of its

physical vigor of future generations.

...

women

citizens

and the

It has been declared a

matter of public concern that no group of

its

women workers

50
should be allowed to unfit themselves by excessive hours of work,
by standing, or other physical strain, for the burden of motherhood which each of them should be able to assume. (Page 107.)

The

object of such control

the protection of the physical

community by setting a

well-being of the

limit to the exploita-

tion of the improvident, unworkmanlike, unorganized

women who

are yet the mothers, actual or prospective, of the coming genera-

(Pages 108, 109.)

tion.

Physical and Medical Aspects of Labor and Industry.

Hoffman. Annals of Amer. Academy
Science. Vol. XXVII.
May, 1906.
Again, in longevity, an increase of
liability,

of Political

J. L.

and Social

vitality, a decrease in disease

economic-elements of the greatest possible economic
They lie at the root of the true labor problem, for

are

all

importance.

they determine in the long run the real and enduring progress,
prosperity, and well-being of the masses. ... It manifestly must
be to the advantage of the State, and the employers of labor, that
nothing within reason be left undone to raise to the highest possible

standard the

level of national

trial efficiency.

The

physique and of health and indus-

interests of the nation, of wage-earners

and of society as a whole, transcend the narrow and

as a class,

of short-sighted employers of labor, who, disregarding the teachings of medical and other sciences, manage industry and permit the existence of conditions contrary to a sound
industrial economy and a rational humanitarianism.
selfish interests

Women

Lahor Laws for

in Germany.

Women's

lished by the

Dr. Alice Salomon.

Industrial Council.

A study of the laws relating to female labor reveals that
the special
of the

aim

women

of the legislators to protect

in their character as wives

generations.

Pub-

London, 1907.
it

has been

and preserve the health

and as the mothers

of future

the one hand, the regulations are intended to pre-

vent injury to health through over-long hours, or the resumption of

work

too soon after confinement, often the cause of serious illness

which may render the patient incapable of bearing healthy
.

But

work

married ones

—

in the factory

it is all

the

be a necessity for

women

offspring.

— even for

desirable that protective legislation

should be so extended and worked out in such detail as to ensure the
fullest attainment of its object, viz.
protection for the health of the
:

51
female working population, as well as for the family and the home.
(Page 5.)
Report of the Maine Bureau of Labor

Employers should

realize that long hours at

among

cause of irritation

almost any trouble, and

The

lent strikes.

Statistics, 1892.

trifles

a severe tension are a

and they become

their employees,

ripe for

are often sufficient to precipitate vio-

real cause of

many

of these strikes

overwork.

(Page 11.)
(2)

The Effect

of Women's

Overwork on Future Generations

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1871.

Progressive physical deterioration produced by family labor in

14.

It is well

factories.

known

that like begets like,

and

the parents

are feeble in constitution, the children must also inevitably be feeble.

Hence, among that class of people, you find many puny, sickly, partly
developed children every generation growing more and more so.
15. Connection between continuous factory labor and premature
old age. It is a fact, patent to every one, that premature old age is
fully developed, in consequence of long hours of labor and close con(Page
Very few live to be old that work in a factory.
finement.
;

504.)

Proceedings of the French Senate, July

Ten-hour

Day

The woman
mill-gates

;

she

for

1891.

Arguments

for

Women.

wage-earner, gentlemen, does not always live at the
is

therefore obliged to

make a

half or three-quarters'

hour journey before she arrives consequently she will leave home at
half-past five in the morning, only to return at half-past eight or nine
;

o'clock in the evening.

can a

Is that living?

woman truly care for

Under such circumstances

her children and her

Report of the Maryland Bureau of Industrial

Once
.

(Page 581.)

Statistics, 1896.

of the factory a weary day's work of
begun, with an intermission for lunch at

inside the walls

ten hours' duration

noon.

home ?

work is at last over, the wearied crowd trooping
from their place of employment hasten in all directions to their homes,
which in many instances are in the extreme suburbs of the city. Once

When

the day's

)

52
home, they swallow a hasty supper and soon retire to a needed and
deserved rest, with no pleasant anticipations for the morrow.
What lives are these for future wives and mothers ? Future generations will answer.

(Page 52.)

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1901.

Factory

life

brings incidentally

new and

depressing effects, which

those whose experience has been wholly agricultural do not appreci-

which have pushed their way from
and have found that their
delay in protecting their factory employees has weakened the physical and moral strength of the new generation of working people,
would seem to be an experience which the citizens of new manufacturing States should hope to avoid.
(Page 788.)

But the experience

ate.

of States

agricultural to manufacturing industries,

Report of the Committee on the Early Closing of Shops Bill, British
House of Lords, 1901.
Sir W. MacCormac, President of the Royal College of Surgeons
And you can hardly expect that women who have been suffering

from such long hours should become the mothers of healthy children ?
That is what I ventured to hint. It must have an influence on
their offspring undoubtedly.

...

It is

afraid, in

gradual and progressive in
a cumulative degree.

its effect,

and

goes on, I

You mean that from generation to generation the population will
become feebler and feebler, and less able to resist disease ?
It must suffer from the influence of it, no doubt.
(Page 119.)
Report of the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor

In certain

fields of

Statistics,

1903-1904.

industry, like the manufacture of cotton goods

we may find the establishments paying the
lowest wages, working their employees the longest hours, and under
the worst sanitary conditions, temporarily driving out of the field of
or hosiery and

Icnit

goods,

competition those establishments paying the best wages, working
a reasonable length of time surrounded by the best
sanitary conditions; but if the process is allowed to continue, the
nation tolerating it will certainly revert to a state of discontent, pov-

their employees

and crime, which no agency or force can overcome so well as
wise factory legislation strictly and judiciously enforced.
(Page 137.
Besides this many eminent students of social conditions maintain
erty,

;

53
that in countries where industries have been allowed to run for centuries without

any form

of regulation,

pauperism and crime are more

prevalent than in those countries where regulation exists.
countries where regulations have been imposed

Also, in

and withdrawn, misery

and want have risen and fallen in almost direct proportion to the
imposition and withdrawal of such regulation, and poor relief has
ebbed and flowed in almost the same proportion. (Pa)ge 140.)

The Working Hours

Female Factory Hands.

Factory Inspectors, Collated by the Imperial

From

Home

Reports of the
Office.

Berlin,

1905.

The

report for Wiirtemberg says, in regard to the injurious effect

—

work: "The children of such mothers
according to the
unanimous testimony of nurses, physicians, and others who were
are mostly pale and weakly
interrogated on this important subject
when these in turn, as usually happens, must enter upon factory work
immediately upon leaving school, to contribute to the support of the
of factory

—

family,

it is

impossible for a sound, sturdy, enduring race to develop.

(Page 113.)

The Case

for the Factory Acts.

Edited by

Mrs. Sidney Webb.

The

question arises, however, whether on philanthropic grounds

alone individuals of mature years can be denied the right to work as
long and as unhealthily as they like. The Acts of 1891 and 1895 show
signs of a recognition, if a tardy one, that the real grounds of interference with industry are considerations of public health and safety.

The

old idea of protecting certain classes of workers because they are

not "free agents"
ingless.

There are

more and more
still

those

who

felt to

be irrelevant,

ask in astonishment,

not mean-

"May

not

a man, may not a woman, employ their capital or their labor as they
choose ? " But the State says, with a less and less hesitating sound,
"Not under conditions wasteful of the life, or destructive of the efficiency, of those employed, or dangerous to the safety and well-being
To this conclusion it has been driven by inquiry
of' the community."
into the conditions of public health.

The Case

for the Factory Acts.

(Page 122.)

Edited by Mrs. Sidney

Webb.

It may be enough for the individual employer if his workpeople
remain alive during the period for which he hires them. But for the

54
continued efficiency of the nation's industry, it is indispensable that
its- citizens should not merely continue to exist for a few months or
years, but should be well brought up as children, and maintained for

unimpaired in health, strength, and character.
The human beings of a community form as truly a portion of its
working capital as its land, its machinery, or its cattle. If the employers in a particular trade are able to take such advantage of the

normal

their full

necessities of

life

their

workpeople as to hire them for wages actually
enough food, clothing, and shelter to maintain

insufficient to provide

them and

their children in health

;

they are able to work them for

hours so long as to deprive them of adequate rest and recreation
if

;

they subject them to conditions so dangerous or insanitary as posi-

tively to shorten their lives, that trade

clearly using

up and

destroy-

ing a part of the nation's working capital.
.

Industries yielding only a bare

minimum

momentary sub-

In deteriorating the

sistence are therefore not really self-supporting.

physique, intelligence, and character of their operatives, they are

drawing on the capital stock of the nation.
is

And

even

the using

not actually so rapid as to prevent the "sweated" workers from

producing a new generation to replace them, the trade is none the
In persistently deteriorating the stock it employs, it

less parasitic.
is

subtly draining

away

the vital energy of the community.

It is

taking from these workers,

week by week, more than its wages can
restore to them. A whole community might conceivably thus become
parasitic on itself, or, rather, upon its future.
(Page 20.)
History

of Factory Legislation.

Hutchins and Harrison.

So far from being regarded as romantically philanthropic, like
bill of 1844
the bills of 1867 were taken as a matter
of common sense and economic prudence.
Only a certain
amount of work is to be got out of women and children in the twentyfour hours.
Nothing can be gained in the end by anticipating
our resources, and to employ women and children unduly is simply to
run in debt to Nature. (Page 167.)
the ten-hour

Infant Mortality.

Social Problem.

George

Nevstman,

M. D.

London, 1906.

A nation grows out of its children, and if its children die in infancy,
means that the sources of a nation's population are being sapped,
and further that the conditions that kill such a large proportion of
it

)

55
infants injure

was a
Wales

many

of those

which

survive.

Last year, 1905, there

England and
which is almost exactly one quarter of all the
deaths in England and Wales in that year.
(Page 2.
And this enormous sacrifice of human life is being repeated year
by year and is not growing less. (Page 7.)
Nor is England alone.
The birth rate is declining in civilized
nations with few exceptions and the same may be said of the death
But the infant mortality rate, as a rule, is stationary or even
rate.
loss to the nation of 120,000

dead

infants, in

alone, a figure

;

increasing.

There are two

features, however,

which appear

to be

common

the high infant mortality districts, namely, a high density of population

and a considerable degree

manufacturing industry.

(Page 26.

II.

SHORTER HOURS THE ONLY POSSIBLE
PROTECTION

This needed protection to women can be afforded only
through shortening the hours of labor. A decrease of the
intensity of exertion is not feasible.
Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1901
It is certain that

must

exertion

any programme for reducing

The

fail.

entire tendency of industry

this intensity of
is

in the direction

an increased exertion. Any restrictions on output must work to
the disadvantage of American industry, and the employers are often
right in their demand, usually successful, that such restrictions be
abandoned. This being true, there is but one alternative if the working population is to be protected in its health and trade longevity,
(Page 763.)
namely, a reduction of the hours of labor.
of

Industrial

Conference

New

York, 1902.

The

factory system

makes

necessary in proportion as
all

perfected in

exacting.

the machinery or the method, the

(Page 173.)
And whatever

Naiional

this (shortening

it is

more and more

the time

the

necessary to

The

make

its

Civic

hours) more and more

mechanism.

attention

if it

calls for too

much

becomes

required.

the most of the machinery

the laborers tired, then, so far as the employer
tired;

greater the perfection of

important to the successful conduct of the industry.

must be

Federation.

If that

makes

concerned, they

strenuous attention, too

much

nerve exhaustion, then the nerve exhaustion must come or the
is a failure.
The remedy for this cannot be found in
up on the demands for economic output and effectiveness
The remedy for that must come on the other
the machinery.

machinery
slackening
in

side, shortening the day,

effort.
The tension may
may be reduced. The exhaustion on the

not slackening the

not be lessened, but the hours

laborer must be avoided, but

duction

it cannot be avoided by reducing' prothey (employers) find that modern business is more

exacting than ever and

that to slacken

fail.

Consequently

they find that long vacations are necessary to avoid physical exhaustion.
But long vacations are impossible for laborers
they must have relief by lessening the duration of the pressure every day.
(Page 174.)
.

III.

THE GENERAL BENEFITS OF SHORT
HOURS

History, which has illustrated the deterioration due to
long hours, bears witness no less clearly to the regeneration due to the shorter working day. To the individual
and to society alike, shorter- hours have been a benefit
wherever introduced. The married and unmarried working woman is enabled to obtain the decencies of life out-

working hours. With the improvement in home
the tone of the entire community is raised. Wherever
sufficient time has elapsed since the establishment of the
shorter working day, the succeeding generation has shown
extraordinary improvement in physique and morals.
side of

life,

A. Good Effect on

Home

the Individual Health,
Life, etc.

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1871.

Their hours of labor should not exceed ten hours per day,

for, as

we have seen, 85 -\- per cent of the working girls of Boston do
own housework and sewing either wholly or in part, and
homework must be done in addition to that performed for
eniployers.

their
this

their

(Page 558.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1877.

Ten

years ago,

when

made

the

first

effort to

introduce the

Factory Acts in London, I was frequently met with the statement on
the part of employers that the tendency of the Act would be to encourage' prostitution, because by giving the women an enforced leisure
I was loath to
they would be exposed to additional temptation.
believe any such theory, and I am glad to say that, so far as my

experience during the last ten years goes, the fears thus expressed
realized. There has been quite a revolution during

have never been

that period in the conditions on which seamstress
in the metropolis.

The employment

them

work

carried on

workshops and

fac-

58
has increased enormously, but I can find no employer willing
to commit himself to the opinion that in their respective classes
there has been any deterioration in the' character and the conduct of
tories

All the evidence indeed

the workpeople.

goes to establish the contrary.

Report

of the

The
cially

New

wife's life

York Bureau

which I have obtained

(Page 14.)

Labor

Statistics, 1900.

darkened even more by the long-hour day, espewoman. Even if the day be one of

she also be a working

only ten hours, she must arise as early as five o'clock to prepare
breakfast for her husband

work

and

herself, so that they

may

be at their

Beginning at that early hour her day
(Page 69.)

places at seven.

a very long one.

Female Factory Hands.

From

Factory Inspectors collated by the Imperial

Home

The Working Hours

reports of the
Office.

Ber-

1905.

lin,

The

will

inspector for

Upper Bavaria dwells upon the advantage

ac-

cruing to the health of working-girls as follows
,

"In the matter

of health the shortening of the

unusual value, because for them free time

working hours

not resting time, as

it is

man. For the working-girl on her return from the factory there
a variety of work waiting. She has her room to keep clean and in
order, her laundry work to do, clothes to repair and clean, and, besides
this, she should be learning to keep house if her future household is

for a
is

not to be disorderly and a failure."

Many

(Page 111.)

inspectors urge the need of shortening the hours of laBor

on grounds of morality.
From Offenbach it is reported: "The
period before marriage is the time for learning the future profession,
but during this period the factory worker is exposed to strain and
fatigue, which hinder her bodily development and deprive her of
educational opportunity. Desirable, therefore, would be a reduction
of the working hours which should give to married women more time
for their housework and family life, and to the younger unmarried
women the opportunity to learn the art of home-making, because
upon this the health," welfare, and prosperity of her whole family
(Page 113.)
will depend."

Good

Effect on the General Welfare

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1859.
I think I can show that the Factory Acts have put an end to the
premature decrepitude of the former long-hour workers; that they
have enlarged their social and intellectual privileges; that by making them masters of their own time they have given them a moral
energy which is directing them to the eventual possession of political
power and that they have lifted them up high in the scale of rational
beings, compared with that which they had attained in 1833. Moreover, I think I can further prove that all this has been accomplished
without any prejudice whatever to our commercial prosperity.
There is no need to raise again to public view the crooked and
;

attenuated creatures of that bygone period.

The

" factory leg "

and the "curved spine" were a proverb and a reproach.
How happily then may we turn to the contemplation of it in 1859
The proverb has died a natural death, and the reproach is all but
taken away. There is scarcely now to be seen in any of the manu.

facturing districts a crooked leg or a distorted spine as the result of
factory labor.

The

may

classes
try.

physical condition of the future mothers of the working

be challenged to meet that of any mothers of any coun-

(Page 47.)

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1873.
On Results of Ten-houb, Laboe Law in England.
"

the good moral and social influence of
most favorable from the clergymen and
school teachers throughout Yorkshire and Lancaster. How have the

Lord Ashley

said

Upon

the change, the testimony

used their time ? Hundreds of them are attending evening
to read and write and to knit and sew, things
that they could not have learned under the twelve-hour system.
" A burial society testifies to the diminution of burial although the

women
school,

— learning

cholera was

that the diminution was among
and he assumes as a reason that
and give that attention to children which

upon the town, and

children under five years of age,

mothers can get home earlier
no hired nurse can ensure.
"

The

number

Catholic priests at Stockport and Bolton testify that the
more than doubled,

of factory workers attending schools has

;

60
and that there was not the

slightest

physical condition of the people

Report of the

New

doubt that the moral, social, and
(Page 491.)

had improved."

Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industry,

1886.

The Factory

Acts were believed to be the death-blow to English

made labor more efficient, more intelmore decent, and more continuous without trenching on

manufactures, and they have
ligent,
profits.

In 1851 and 1852 those

who advocated

that ten hours should be

a legal day's work were denounced as demagogues, and the ten-hour
plan as a

humbug which

could only tend to reduce the wages propor-

tionately, while all kinds of evil results

cation, especially to agricultural labor.

become the

wages have not

rule;

prophesied disaster are

now

as the friends of the change.

were sure to follow its appliBut we have seen ten hours

fallen,

and many

as loud in their praises of

of those

its

who

beneficence

(Page 231.)

Report of the Massachusetts Chief of the District Police, 1889.

The good
ent,

results of shortening the

hours of labor were soon appar-

the substantial disappearance of discontent

among

those

maintenance of the standard of factory productions, both as to quantity and quality; and in placing Massachusetts in the lead, where, by her history and her aspirations, she
affected thereby;

in the

rightfully belonged.

...

If experience has shown anything in this matter, it has been
wisdom and statesmanship of the body of laws in our Public Statutes and additions thereto, which are known as industrial legislation.
It is sixteen years since the ten-hour law was enacted; and it is entirely safe to say that, if it were stricken from the statutes to-day, not
an influential voice would be raised within our borders in favor of the

the

restoration of the order of things

which that law changed. The inis a very significant

crease of public interest in matters of this kind
fact.

(Page

7.)

Report of the Illinois Chief Inspector of Factories, 1895.

In England the principle of the regulation of the hours of work of
children has been established for more than a generation

women and

and the regeneration

of the

working

class in that country,

from the

61
degradation in which
tory Acts,

and

was sunk

French Review

Fac-

in 1844, is attributed to the

especially to this essential feature of them.

Hygiene and Sanitary

(Page

Vol. XVIII.

Police.

5.)

1896.

knows well that there is much to do, and that, if our
has already bettered conditions, new ameliorations are
desirable, but they will come, I think, only through the pressure of
All the world

legislation

public opinion,

have made clear the

which

will

become exacting

when

doctors

a protection which regards not only the
woman, but, secondarily, the child to be born by her; when it knows
utility of

better that to protect the
of the race.

Report of the

mother

an absolute necessity for the future

(Page 193.)

New

York Bureau

Labor

But the good accomplished by each

Statistics, 1900.

successive factory law

was so

clearly apparent, that even capitalistic Parliament could not refuse
to continue the policy of labor protection.

The

evidence that this

wrought a revolutionary change in the amount of crime, pauperism, and misery is superabundant but it is too familiar to warrant
repetition now.
(Page 49).
The best evidence of the overwhelming success of the short-hour
law from all points of view is afforded by the complete conversion of
its opponents.
Thus it came to pass that. in 1860, when a bill was
introduced to extend the ten-hour law to other branches of the textile
industry, J. A. Roebuck, who had originally opposed with bitterness
policy

;

kind of legislation, made the following recantation
" I am about to speak on this question under somewhat peculiar
circumstances. Very early in my parliamentary career Lord Ashley,
this

now the

Earl of Shaftesbury, introduced a

bill of this

description.

am now, opposed the measure,
in my opposition by what the

being an ardent political economist, as I
.

and was very much influenced

gentlemen of Lancashire said. They declared that it was the last
half-hour of the work performed by their operatives which made all
their profits, and that if we took away that last half-hour we should
ruin the manufacturers of England.

I listened to that statement

and

but Lord

trembled for the manufacturers of England
Ashley persevered. Parliament passed the bill which he brought in.
From that time down to the present the factories of this country have
[a laugh];

been under State control, and I appeal to
manufacturers of England have suffered by

this

House whether

this legislation,"

the

62
James Graham, another persistent antagonist of the short-hour
Mr. Roebuck with a similar recantation
am sorry once more to be involved in a short-time discussion.

Sir

laws, followed

" I

I have,

however, a confession to

has shown to

make to the House.
Experience
many of the predictions formerly
.

satisfaction that

made against the factory bill have not been verified by the result, as,
on the whole, that great measure of relief for women and children has
contributed to the well-being and comfort of the working classes,
while it has not injured their masters. The enactment of the present
bill ought to approach as nearly as possible the Factory Act. ... By
the vote I shall give to-night, I will endeavor to make some amends
for the course I pursued in earlier life in opposing the factory bill."
(Page 51.)
All travellers unite in

testifying

the wonderful energy dis-

played in their work by the wage-earners of Australia.
is

Such energy

much of the stimulating climate as the high standmade possible by the short working-day. Con-

a product not so

ard of

comfort

adduced
John Rae

siderable evidence might be

opinion

enthusiastic

support of the following

in
("

Eight .Hours for Work,"

page 312).

The

inore

we examine

pression borne in from

the subject the

irresistibly is the

im-

growing up in Australia,
consequence of the eight-hour day, a working class,
all sides

that there

and very largely in
who, for general morale,

intelligence, and industrial efficiency is probably already superior to that of any other branch of our Anglo-Saxon
race, and for happiness, cheerfulness, and all-around comfort of life

has never had

its

equal in the world before.

(Page 59.)

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1901.

Lessening of hours leaves more opportunity and more vigor for
the betterment of character, the improvement of the home.
For
these reasons the short work-day for working people brings an ad.

vantage to the entire community.

Night-work

Women

in Industry.

(Page 773.)
Pkof. Etienne Bauer.

Jena,

1903.

Above all, there is perceptible in all the countries in which
are protected, a reduction in the mortality both of women
children.
For England the convincing argument on
produced.

women
and

this point has often been
There, since the establishment of the normal working

63
day the mortality

working-women have fallen much lower
This proportion was as follows: 1841-1850,
23.11 per cent for men, 21.58 per cent for women. From 1881-1890,
20.22 per cent for men, 18.01 per cent for women.
The diminution in the two figures taken together is to be attributed
to the great advance in hygiene achieved in the interval, and the relafigures for

than those for men.

tively greater decrease in the mortality of

to the protective legislation.

women

to be attributed

(Page 37.)

Report of the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor

Statistics,

1903-1904.

No private individual has any more moral right to exhaust the
working energy and working capital of a nation without giving "value
received " than he has to take the life of an employee outright. The
only difference is that one is a slower criminal process than the other.
It is not enough that workmen should obtain barely enough for their
labor to enable them to

live,

They should

much

clothing,

receive as

but they should receive a competency.
energy from their employers in food,

homes, and furnishings amid healthful surroundings as they

give to their employers in the articles they produce.

The

stronger, healthier,

wealth he represents.
capital just as the

The

and more

intelligent

hands of the farmer,

And

a laborer

is,

laborers of a nation represent
his horse, or his

its

the

working

ox represent

and healthier either may be,
the more capital it represents. The more efiBcient this capital becomes, the more wealth will be produced.
Machinery operators
represent the working capital of the manufacturer, and he owes it
to the nation which protects him in his business to do everything in
his power to increase this working capital and keep it in the highest
his

working

capital.

possible state of efliciency.

The

the stronger

(Page 129.)

regulation of factories either by law or by special agree-

ment worked marvellous changes in England. In the course of half
a century the "sweated" laborers of this great country whose course
of life seemed almost run became energetic, self-reliant, intelligent,
and efficient workers, owning their own homes, amid wholesome surroundings, and working a reasonable number of hours for a' day's
work.

Not only
put to the

test

is
it

factory legislation sound in principle, but wherever

has been found sound

in practice as well.

(Page 137.)

64
History 0/ Factory Legislation.

Hutchins and Harrison.

In 1861 the president of the Economic Section of the British Association could say in his address that the results of that bill (ten-

hours bill) were "something of which all parties might well be proud.
There is in truth a general assent that if there has been one change
which more than another has strengthened and consolidated the social
fabric in this part of the island, has cleared away a mass of depravity

and

discontent, has placed the manufacturing enterprise of the coun-

on a

try

safe basis,

and has conferred upon us resources against the

competition which can scarcely be overvalued, it is
-precisely the changes which have been brought about by the sagaeffects of foreign

and persevering and successful

cious

efforts to establish in

manufac-

turing occupations a sound system of legal interference with the hours

(Page 122.)

of labor."

The Case

for the Factory Acts.

The two

Edited by

Mrs. Sidney Webb.

great industries which, at the beginning of the nine-

teenth century, were conspicuous for the worst horrors of sweating

were the textile manufactures and coal-mining. Between 1830 and
1850 the parliamentary inquiries into these trades disclosed sickening
details of starvation wages, incredibly long hours, and conditions of

work degrading

to decency

and

tive, of

a compulsory

minimum

The remedy

health.

substitution, for individual bargaining

applied was the

between employer and opera-

set forth in

common

rules prescrib-

ing standard conditions of employment.

What was the result? Fortunately, there is no dispute.
Every one who knows these great industries agrees in declaring that
the horrors which used to prevail under individual bargaining have
been brought to an end. The terms "cotton-operative" and "coalminer," instead of denoting typically degraded workers, as they did
in 1830, are now used to designate the very aristocracy of our labor.
And when, to-day, those who are interested in the industrial progress
of women need an example of a free and self-reliant class of female
wage-earners, earning full subsistence, enjoying adequate leisure,
and capable of effective organization, they are compelled to turn to
the great body of Lancashire cotton-weavers, now for half a century
"restricted " in every feature of their contract.
(Page 36.)
.

)

IV.

ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SHORT
HOURS
A. Effect on Output

The universal testimony of manufacturing countries
tends to prove that the regulation of the working day acts
favorably upon output. With long hours, output declines
with short hours, it rises. The heightened eflSciency of
the workers, due to the shorter day, more than balances
any loss of time. Production is not only increased, but

;

improved in

quality.

Shorter HotrRs inceease Efficiency, and thus prevent
Reduction of Output

(1)

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1900.

Those

States

which are

just

now advancing

to the position of

man-

ufacturing communities might well learn from these examples the
lesson that

permanent

physical exhaustion of

industrial progress cannot be built

women and

children.

... A

upon the

reduction in

hours has never lessened the working-people's ability to compete in the
markets of the world. States with shorter work-days actually manufacture their products at a lower cost than States with longer workdays.

(Page 788.)

History of Factory Legislation.

Hutchins and Harrison.

Bleachers in a petition to their employers, 1853

believe the

such as to corroborate our statement that short
hours produce more work and that of a better quality than under the
old system. (Page 132.
result generally is

)

66
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.

The

testimony of those

most unanimous

who have adopted

in its favor.

of the employees.

many

Many

instance

the shorter time

given of decreased wages, though

report an increase, not only in wages, but in production.

arguments against reduction made

of the

is al-

reported an improved condition

hours and over are answered by those
time,

1872.

and worked under that system

All

by those working eleven

who have adopted the shorter
for years.
The advocates of

eleven hours have utterly failed to sustain themselves in their con-

tinued adhesion to a system that England outgrew twenty-two years

ago

;

a system unworthy of our State and nation, and one that would
month if the victims of it were men instead of women and

not last a

children, as

most

them

are.

(Page 240.)

Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.

1873.

The overseer (of Pemberton Mills, Lawrence) informed us that
they took the result of every half -hour's work, and upon inquiring the
relative product of the different hours,

he assured us that invariably

the last hour was the least productive.

(Page 246.

Hon. William Gray, Treasurer of the Atlantic Mills, LavsTence,
began the ten-hour experiment with the operatives in his employ,
June, 1867, and his testimony concerning

its

practical

and

financial

may be regarded as nearly, if not quite, authoritative and
decisive. Ten and three-fourths hours had been the running time of
this mill previous to this date. The result of this reduction is substansuccess

tially as follows

In three and a half years from the time of the change, the prodwas fully equal to the product of ten and three-

uct of the hours

fourths hours, and this was accomplished with old machinery that
had been running for twenty years with very little change.
With no material change in machinery, these results appear.
First. An improvement in the operatives directly after adopting
ten hours,
which improvement has been going on and they now

—

have the best

;

workers that have been in the mills for fifteen
years, this being the opinion of the agent and overseers, as well as the
treasurer.
(Page 495.)
set of

67
Factory and Workshops Act Commission, 1875.
Papers, 1876. Vol. XXX.

British Sessional

Testimony of Phillip Grant, representing operatives
During the agitation for the ten-hours bill in the year 1844 or 1845,
he

(a cotton-spinner

Preston) reduced his time voluntarily to

eleven hours instead of twelve,

and at the end of twelve months he
Mr. Hugh Mason did, that he had got a better quality of
work and more of it in the eleven hours than he had in the twelve,
and that is obvious to anybody who understands the process of
reported, as

following a machine.

(Paragraph 8582.)

Report of the British Factory Inspector, 1877.

The women

at the close of the twelve hours,

which period con-

stitutes the usual day's

work, were tired and exhausted, and hardly
did enough after that to pay for the gas consumed. Book sewers and
folders are all paid by piecework, and if overtime were continued for
a few weeks together their earnings would soon fall to about the

same amount as when they worked the regular hours.

Report of Massachkisetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1881.
It is

much

apparent that Massachusetts with ten hours produces as
man or per loom or per spindle, equal grades being con-

per

sidered, as other States with eleven and more hours; and also that
wages here rule as high, if not higher, than in the States where the
mills run longer time.
(Page 457.)
But perhaps the most emphatic testimony is that of another
carpet mill employing about twelve hundred persons.
This mill,
which has been running but ten hours for several years, and has
during this period tried the experiment of running overtime, gives

the following results.

management and

The manager

supervision, the

said, "I believe, with proper
same help will produce as many

goods, and of superior quality, in ten hours as they will in eleven.

judge so from the fact that during certain seasons, being pushed for
goods,

we have run up

to nine o'clock,

production was increased materially.

and

for the first

month

the

After this, however, the help

would grow listless, and the production would fall off and the quality
of the goods deteriorate."
(Page 460.)
The reason is, the flesh and blood of the operatives have only

)

much work in them, and it was all got out in ten hours, and no
more could be got out in twelve and what was got extra in the first
month was taken right out of the life of the operatives. (Page 461.)
so

;

Report of the Connecticut Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1886.

Down to a certain point, the nations who work shorter hours not
merely do better work, but more work than their competitors. In
Russia the hands work twelve hours a day in Germany and France,
eleven; in England, nine.
Yet nine hours a day of English work
;

mean more than twelve hours of Russian work.
The laborer receives better wages, and at the same time the
manufacturer gets a larger product
so much larger that it is the
Russian, the German, or the Frenchman who requires protection

—

against his English competitor in spite of the longer hours

day's wages.

and lower

(Page 16.)

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1886-1887.

Report for Mittel and Unter Franken
It has been repeatedly shown that a shortening of the working
day does not lessen the value of the work done, because owing to
the effort to prevent a decrease in the income, the shorter time is
more profitably used. (Page 86.)

Belgium.

Commission du Travail, 1886.

Inquiry into Industrial Labor.

But

Report of the Sessions of

Brussels, 1887.

shown that everything which makes the worker more
more energetic, more intelligent, etc. (and these
will be the results of greater leisure, and the observance of rules
prescribed for hygiene, upon the subject of the hours of labor and
rest), make him also more productive.
Therefore the introduction of
strong,

healthy,

reforms indicates strongly that the final result will be a very great
increase of production with a shorter time period for work. (Page 65.

International Conference in Relation to Labor Legislation, Berlin, 1890.

Alone, the nations hesitate to reduce the hours of work for fear
modern machinery, experience has

of competition, although, with

abundantly proved that the countries with the shortest working day

)

maximum of production. These are the countries that
produce under good conditions most cheaply that are most prosperous, and most feared as competitors in the world's markets. (Page 88.
attain the

;

Report of the Maine Bureau of Labor

eleven hours in mills
is

Statistics, 1890.

State, since the adoption of the ten hours in lieu of the

and

factories

where machinery

employed,

the universal verdict of manufacturers that their product

as great

under the ten-hour system as it was under the eleven-hour system,
and I think that the same answer comes from every State that has
adopted the ten-hom: system.
Conditions of Female Labor in Toronto, by
Toronto, 1891.

Jean Thomson Scott.

Experts say that the cost of production in the cotton

trajie

where the wages are the highest and the hours
shortest.
Dr. Schulze Gaevernitz shows this specifically, because
the standard of living of the workers has been raised and with it
their general intelligence, enabling them to do more in a shorter
time
what I have called "intensive work."
That is the opinion of experts on the trade throughout the
actually the lowest

—

world.

They

say that

all

over the world the cost of production

lowest where wages are highest

Report of the

and hours

German Imperial Factory

shortest.

(Page 44.

Inspectors, 1893.

In most establishments the working day was eleven hours, not
seldom the ten-hour day was introduced. The shorter day turned
out well in

all cases.

(Liegnitz.)

In a cigar-box and wrapper-mold factory
given uniform working hours in

summer and

all

adult workers were

—

a nine-hour
time
noon.
The owner
hours
free
at
day, from seven to six, with two
formerly
less
work
is
done
than
in
this
shorter
time
no
asserts that in
the longer time, the eleven-hours day.

Report of the Imperial

German Factory

winter,

(Kassel.)

(Page 155.)

Inspectors, 1893.

The week workers expressed anxiety in many cases lest their wage
be cut after the new regulations took effect, but our observation is
that, in most cases, the pay of the women wage-earners remained
unchanged.

(Page 155.)

70
Report of the Connecticvi Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1893.

As to the effect of reducing the working time to nine hours daily,
no inquiry was made, but several employers stated voluntarily to
agents of the bureau that their experience proved to them that production was as large in nine hours as it had been in ten. (Page 28.)
Report of the

The

German Imperial Factory

report of

amount and value

working day are also of

of the

The

interest.

Inspectors, 1895.

work done

in the

reduced

fact that the value of the

work

but slowly understood. A
wool factory reduced their working day by one hour, in accordance
with the law of June 1, 1891; subtracting the rest periods, it now
is

not in proportion to the hours of work

The owners assert that the
amounts to ten and one-half hours.
amount and value of work done by both males and females remain
the same, while calls upon sick fund have greatly diminished. (Page
370.)

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1898.

In one laundry in Plauen, where the hours of the workers have been
reduced from eleven to ten hours, it has been proved that the women
accomplish fully as much as before this reduction. In a jute spinning
and weaving factory in Cassel the ten-hour day was provisionally
introduced at the request of the hands in September. Thus far it has
worked so well that the shorter day will probably be retained. (Page
106.)

Report of

New

York Bureau

Fortunately, statistics are at

Labor

Statistics, 1900.

hand which

afford simple but fairly
Massachusetts industries are threatlabor legislation.
In the first place,

effective tests of the assertion that

ened with ruin by

restrictive

Massachusetts' cotton industry, the business chiefly affected by shorthour laws, has fully kept pace with that of rival States in the North.
Certain facts appear with distinctness, one of which

that the

cotton industry of Massachusetts has not only grown steadily through-

out the period of short-hour legislation, but
pressive

— has made

larger gains than are

States with less radical short-hour laws.

— what

is far more imshown by the adjacent

In 1870, four years before

had 39.5 per cent
North Atlantic States six years after
that law Massachusetts' proportion was 45 per cent;

the enactment of the ten-hour law, Massachusetts
of all the cotton spindles in the

the passage of

;

71
it was 47.5 per cent, and in 1900 53.5 per cent.
It is difficult
what clearer proof could be demanded of the beneficial results
of the Massachusetts short-hour laws of 1874 (sixty hours a week)
and 1892 (fifty-eight hours). (Page 55.)

1890

to see

all

those departments of the factory in which wages are paid by

piece-work

— and

these constitute probably not less than four-fifths

of the whole, the proportion to fixed daily

wages being daily on the
has been found that the quantity produced in ten and
one-half hours falls little short of that formerly obtained from twelve
hours. In some cases it is said to be equal. This is accounted for
increase

—

by the increased stimulus given to ingenuity to make the mamore perfect and capable of increased speed, but it arises far
more from the workpeople by improved health, by absence of that
weariness and exhaustion which the long hours occasioned, and by
their increased cheerfulness and activity, being enabled to work more
steadily and diligently and to economize time, intervals of rest while
at their work being now less necessary.
(Page 50.)
partly

chines

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1900.
It is also

Vol. VII.

claimed that a shorter day would not lessen production

hand work.

Perhaps you would be interested in the experiwho had an establishment in Fitchburg where
were made the balls used in bicycle bearings. When he first took
charge of the establishment they were running ten hours a day, with
even

ment

of a gentleman

when they ran eight, making fifty-eight
were employed in inspecting the balls. They
do this by touch, which becomes very perfect in time and sensitive
to the least imperfection
the balls are dropped into boxes, the perfect
balls into one box and the imperfect ones into others, graded according to the imperfection.
In the afternoon the work done by one
woman in the morning is inspected by another, and thus there is a
double inspection. He became persuaded that there was a certain
strain in this work on the eyes, the fingers, and the attention, and
finally he made up his mind that shorter hours would be better for
it would
the women and would not lessen the amount of work done
be better for their health and quite as well for the business. Accordingly he directed the women's department to be run but nine hours a
day. At first the women were very much distressed. As they were
paid by the number of thousands of balls inspected, they thought it
would permit them to earn less money but they sooh found that they
the exception of Saturday,

hours a week.

Women

;

—

;

did just as

many

balls in the nine hours as they

had heretofore done

72
and they had besides ten minutes' vacation in the middle
Later, the time was
of the morning session and in the afternoon.
so much objection
was
not
half.
There
and
a
shortened to eight hours
was, and they
object
what
the
see
they
began
to
as at first, because
half
as
in nine. At
and
a
in
eight
much
did
just
as
soon found they
hours,
and it was
eight
shortened
to
time
had
been
accounts
the
last
(Page 63.)
believed it could be cut down to seven and one-half.
in the ten

;

Report of the United States Industrial Commission, 1900.

What I wanted to show was that the trend of intelligent business
management is to the conclusion that when a person who is doing the
work has less strain upon him, he will get out more work up to a cerand where the work !s done by the piece it is
tain limit, in less time
done with less dawdling and more diligence, nor is it so hard to work
with that severe attention for less time as it is to work longer hours
;

with

less attention.

Report of the

(Page 64.)

New York Department

of Factory Inspection, 1901.

It was feared by employers that to reduce the hours of labor
was to reduce the quantity of products, and that in the competition for markets the longer hours would have a decided advantage
but it has been demonstrated that the
over the shorter hours
;

lessening of the hours of labor does not, within certain hmits,

an increase of products instead.
Another phase of the subject has also come to the front gradually in the course of this agitation for a shorter work-day.
It is
that quality of product may be improved by a shorter day, and
by this improvement in quality of the product has come to be considered the improvement of the quality of the laborer himself.
(Page 562.)
result in a decrease, but rather in

Factory People and

their

Employers.

E. L. Shtjey.

New

York, 1900.

Among
for women.

the most desirable things

the matter of shorter hours

The

experience of a number of leading manufacturers
has indicated that equal results may be obtained in many forms of

manufacture in the shorter hours. Fels & Co. of Philadelphia
gradually reduced the time of their women from ten to eight hours,
girls working five days in the week. At the same time wages have
been practically increased. The Levy Bros. Co. (England) has

73
had a similar experience. The National Cash Register Co.
same manner reduced its hours for women from ten to
(Page 113.)
Report of the

New York Bureau

in the

eight.

of Labor, 1901.

" It
men that every
successive reduction of the hours of labor from fifteen hours to
the Kmit, say ten or eleven hours in ordinary mercantile pursuits,
effected not a proportional loss of product, not a loss at all, but a
positive gain, especially if not only the present productive power

Walker thus sums up

Prof. r. A.

this general conclusion

the general belief of intelligent and disinterested

of the

body of laborers

considered, but also the keeping

the full supply of labor in fuU numbers and unimpaired strength

from generation to generation."

(Page 562.)

The Case for

Edited by Mks. Sidney Webb.

the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

The

direct

and constant

of employment

is,

result of enforcing standard conditions

to raise the capacity of the workers.

The

prevention of excessive or irregular hours of work, the require-

ment of healthy conditions, and the insistence on decency in the
factory or workshop
the direct results of factory legislation
represent exactly what is required to extricate the mass of working women from the slough of inefficiency in which they are
unfortunately sunk.
Hence, so far from regulation being any

—

detriment to the persons regulated,
a positive good.

it is,

all

experience proves,

(Page 209.)

Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
1902.

There was a general consensus of opinion that shorter hours
and better sanitation enforced by legislation had been amongst
.

the causes tending to increase the efficiency of

women

workers,

(Page 287.)
Travail de Nuit des Femmes dans I'Industrie.
Bauee. Jena, 1903.

Peof. Etienne

Before the enactment of the German Imperial Law of 1891
restricting the hours of labor of women there, overtime work was

;

74.

concerned, occasional and irregular.

already, In the industries

The very great majority

of the establishments affected were work-

ing regularly eleven hours a day or less as early as 1892.
Not one fact indicates that industry suffered under the restriction.
The output, which, in a few establishments, diminished at
soon regained its normal dimensions, thanks to the greater
energy evinced by the employees. (Page 12.)
first,

Bulletin of the French

Labor

There are estabhshments

1903.

Office,

which

may

be affirmed, according

to the statement of a district inspector of Nantes, that the proas the number of hours per day
These are the industries in which the personal qualiof the worker are an important factor in production.
(Page

duction per hour increases
decreases.
ties

807.)

Report of the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor

Statistics,

1903—1904.

Manufacturers maintain that by enforcing shorter hours they
are unable to compete with those factories which are not hampered
in this

way.

In order to test the truth or falsity of this claim, the

Salford Iron

Works

of Manchester, England, voluntarily reduced

the number of hours required for a day's work to eight. After
giving the system a fair trial, the management declared that the

character of work performed and wages paid remained about the
same ; that although a depression in trade took place about the
same time this experiment was being made, and competition was
exceedingly fierce, the output was greater and the receipts larger
than under the old system. The Salford Iron Works continue the
eight-hour system to the present day, and other allied industries
and the arsenal works and dock-yards are following example.

(Page 140.)

The

Relation- of

TANo.

New

Labor

to the

Law

of To-day.

By Lujo Been-

York.

Why

then does an increase in wages and a decrease in the time

work

in general lead to a greater capability for

work ? Because
higher wages and a shorter day's work make it possible for
laborers to increase and satisfy their physical and spiritual needs
because better food, more careful fostering, greater and more
moral recreation increase the power to work, and because they

75
increase the pleasure in labor.
in

wages and a decrease

...

In other words, an increase

in the time of

work

lead to a greater

performance, because they elevate the standard of hving of the
laborer, a higher standard of living necessarily spurs to greater
intensity of labor, and at the same time makes the same possible.
(Pages 233, 234.)

Getting a Livmg.

G. L. Bolen.

Repeated shortening of the factory day has come because it
was found that strength was saved, intelligence promoted, and
that product and wages were both increased. (Pages 423, 424.)

Long Houes Result

(2)

in Infeuigk. Quality of

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

The

Product

Statistics, 1871.

operatives vary in perfectness and productiveness as the

day progresses; and

there should be a reduction to ten hours

there would not be a loss of one-eleventh of the product.

...

wiU be found that much of the cloth made during the
eleventh hour is of poorer quality than the rest, and that the necessity of looking it over the next day and fixing it all right lessens
the product of that next day. ... I certainly believe that the
think

may

productive capacity of a set of work-people
creasing the hours of their daily work.

mately one of arithmetic, nor can

one-eleventh less or one-tenth more.

by actual

results

on long-continued

The

be lessened by in-

question

not

legiti-

be settled by argument about
It

a question to be settled

trial.

(Page 498

ff.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1893.

Arguments against overtime (i. e., two hours more than the
and one-half)
1. That the work done during overtime is not equal, in amount
or quality, to that done during the reguMr time.
daily ten

Dangerous Trades.
It

Thomas Omver, M. D.

London, 1902.

admitted that in iron-works and factories, where the hours

of labor have been ^ unusually long, say ten

and eleven hours, the

76
work done

in the latter

part of the day

not so good as that done

in the forenoon.

Women

the

Prmtmg

Trades.

Edited hy 3. R. MacDonaid.

London, 1904.

From this it is evident that protection is viewed favorably by
many employers, on the specific ground that it prevents systematic
On the whole they are of the opinion that after overovertime.
(Page 82.)
time the next day's work suffers.
8 p. m. regularly, including
to
from
8
a.
m.
B. used to work
was tired out at the end
overtime,
dishked
She
Saturdays.
.

and thought the other women were too, and
how b^dly the work was done after eight
Later
on, as a forewoman, she noticed that
hours
at
it.
or nine
loafed about the next day and did
always
overtime
girls
after
the
of a day's work,

she had often noticed

well.
(Page 84.)
Another forewoman gave it as her dehberate opinion that when
overtime is worked the piece workers do not make more, as a rule,
for they get so tired that if they stay late one night, they work

not work

less

the next day.

is the unanimous view held by the forewomen, and it comes
with considerable force from them, as it is they who have to arrange to get work done somehow within a certain time. They are
the people who have to put on the pressure, and are in such a posi-

This

tion as to see

how any particular system

of getting

work

done.

(Page 87.)

Hours and Wages

m Relation

Luigi Beentano.

to Production.

By degrees the employers themselves admitted that the last two
hours, formerly considered indispensable, used generally to produce work far inferior to that of the preceding hours, and that
owing to the greater industry of the employees, who no longer idled
through the first hours of the day, the regular unbroken labor of
the new working day 'was much more advantageous to the employees than the longer working day, with its alternations of
overwork and indolence. So it came about, as a result of the
curtailment of the working day, production did not diminish, but
actually increased.

(Page 29.)

In the report of the Stuttgart Chamber of Commerce of 1890
we find, on page 47, a corset factory reports " Five years ago
:

77
we returned to a ten-hour working day (with a half-hour pause in
the morning and another in the afternoon) we find that our workwomen can get through very much more with regular work for ten
or even nine hours, than when the working day is longer." (Page
36.)

Effect on 'Regularity of

Employment

Wherever the employment of women has been promore than ten hours in one day, a more equal
distribution of work throughout the year has followed.
The supposed need of dangerously long and irregular

hibited for

hours in the season trades are shown to be unnecessary.
In place of alternating periods of intense overwork with
periods of idleness, employers have found

possible to

avoid such irregularities by foresight and mjinagement.
Report of Conference of Members of Women's Trade Unions on
the Factory and Workshops Act, 1875. Vol. XXIX.

The permission granted

to season trades for the extension of

the hours to fourteen per day, during certain periods of the year,

should be withdrawn, with the view of equalizing the work through-

out the year.

Bookbinders complained that the trade was most unnecessarily
The existence of the
considered by the law a season trade.
modification made employers careless of due economy in time.
.

(Page 193.)
Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1892.
I

convinced that there is no necessity for this overtime ; the
work or the press orders would be executed just the

season-trade

and many of
work would only be spread over a
longer period or mean the employment of more hands. Much of
the good done by the Factory Act is undone by allowing delicate
women and girls to work from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. for two months
(Page 89.)
of the year.
same

overtime were

illegal, as it is in the textile

the non-textile trades;

the

78
Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1892.
I believe that

time

on the
actual

hands,
nearly

much

of the apparent necessity for

working over-

simply the result of want of forethought and organization
How little
part of employers and their managers.
protected
part
of
overtime
on
the
demand there is for
Out of
district
will
show.
this
I think the return from
workshops,
only
factories
and
of
nine thousand occupiers
.

about two hundred apparently avail themselves of the permission
to work overtime
but then these two hundred have between them
two
thousand occasions during the year. (Page
made overtime on
;

88.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1900.

One

of the most unsatisfactory results of the present system or

lack of system 'of working hours in laundries

is the unfortunate
on the women and girls of this irregularity. The difficulty of securing steady regular work from employees and of ensuring punctual attendance is complained of on all sides, and the
more intelligent employers are beginning to see that this is the

moral

effect

natural result of the irregularity in working hours.
Workers who on one or tWo days in the week are dismissed to idleness or
to other occupations, while on the remaining days they are ex.

pected to work for abnormally long hours, are not rendered methodical, industrious, or dependable workers by such an unsatis-

factory training. The self-control and good habits engendered
by a regular and definite period of moderate daily employment,
which affords an excellent training for the young worker in all

organized industries, is sadly lacking, and, instead, one finds
periods of violent overwork alternating with hours of exhaustion.
The result is the estabHshment of a kind of " vicious circle " bad
;

habits

among workers make compliance by

any regulation as to hours very

difficult.

their employers with

(Page 385.)

Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
1902.

make their trade as regular as
the overtime clauses have operated toward increased

forcing the employers to

possible,
eflSciency.

(Page 287.)

79
Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
1903.

A very important, perhaps from the economic point of view the
most important, effect of legislation has been to spread the period
of work more uniformly through the week, month, and year than
had been the case before regulation. (Page 5.)
Restriction is met by adaptation of manufacture or rearrangement of numbers employed and time at which work is done, women
being still employed at the work.
Thus, it will be seen that the loss of overtime is not
necessarily a loss of work, but a redistribution (and an economical
one, too) of the times a,t which work is done, and does not therefore mean a loss in income, but a steadying and regulation of
income.
(Page 13.)
.

Adaptation of Customers

Experience shows

how

the

to Shorter

demands

to the requirements of a fixed

Hours

of customers yield

working day.

When

cus-

tomers are obUged to place orders sufficiently in advance
to enable them to be filled without necessitating overtime work, compliance with this habit becomes automatic.
Factory and Workshops Acts Commission, 1875.
sional Papers, 1876.

Vol.

British Ses-

XXIX.

very large number of the orders of customers (to printers,
which it has been usual to keep back
to the last minute and then throw upon the already fuUy-burdened
workers, not merely can be quite as easily given so as to have
milliners, dressmakers, etc.),

plenty of time for their completion, but also will be so given, and
are in fact so given, when and so often as the customer is made
to recognize that he otherwise runs the risk of not having his

orders completed in time to suit his

own

convenience.

We
may

trust in time that the use of overtime in trades of this class
(Page 41.)
be restricted down to the vanishing point.

Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
1903.

The tendency to put off giving orders to the last moment is
easily checked when the customer can be met with a universal legal
prohibition.

(Page

7.)

80
History of Factory Legislation.

Htjtchins

and Haekison.

1903.

Tremenheere then took the opinion of certain of the merchants
this point, and found them much more favorable to the extension of the Factory Act. ... A hmitation of hours might, it was
admitted, occasionally produce inconvenience, but this would by
degrees adjust itself.
Merchants would have to think of thei»
One bleacher very candidly adorders a little beforehand.
mitted that knowing the bleacher would undertake to bleach and
finish one thousand pieces of cloth in five days he often, in cases
of sudden orders, gave him only five days to do it in but that, if
the hours of the boys and women working were restricted so he
would know the work could not be accomplished in that time, he
should have to make his arrangements beforehand to give seven
on

;

or ten days, or to send part of the order to another bleacher.

was pointed out that if a bleacher lost part of an order on one
occasion it would be made up to him on another, and that very
possibly the bleachers would enlarge their works and keep more
hands ready. If legislation were alike for all, the outlay would
do the trade no harm. Tremenheere arrived at the conclusion
that a limitation of women's and boys' hours would cause the
masters to enlarge their works and improve their machinery
rather than chance losing an order. ... In 1857
the mere
anticipation of some such measure had caused additions to be made
both to buildings and machinery which would considerably augment the firms' power of getting speedily through an increased
quantity.
(Page 134.)
.

D. Incentive

Improvements

Manufacture

The regulation of the working day has acted as a
stimulus to improvement in processes of manufacture.
Invention of new machinery and perfection of old methods have followed the introduction of shorter hours.
Report of the Wisconsvn Bureau of Labor

Statistics,

1903-1904.

Wherever a uniform standard of wages, hours of labor, and
wholesome sanitary conditions have been uniformly enforced, the
result has been that laborers have been stimulated to render

81
greater services to their employers, and, in turn, employers strive
to excel in improved machinery

employees,

sanitation,

and devices for the protection of
and methods of production in general.

(Page 138.)

That

the enforcing of a certain standard in regard to hours
and sanitary conditions compels employers to

of labor, wages,

continually seek more improved machinery and methods of production is as true in practice as in theory.
(Page 140.)

The Case for

the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

Edited by Mus. Sidney Webb.

But the exemption from regulation is also responsible for
corresponding deficiencies in the technical administration of the
industry.
The very fact that the employers are legally free to

make

their operatives work without limit, and to crowd any number
them into one room, makes them disinclined to put thought and
capital into improving the arrangements.
We might indefinitely prolong the list of examples of the
effect of the Factory Acts in improving the processes of manufacture.
(Page 53.)

Woman

in Industry.

R. Gonnard.

Paris, 1905.

The

inspector of labor of Lyons says:
" It has come about that this decrease of the legal

maximum

Hmit of hours of labor (ten hours a day), which went into effect
the 28th of March, 1902, obliging the employer to pay a higher
wage for overtime hours, has urged the manufacturers to replace
their former equipment by machines of great producing power.
In short, for the manufacturers in question, the regulation has
become a powerful stimulus, which has driven them to do away
with methods of manufacture already somewhat superannuated."

(Page 78.)
History

Factory Legislation.

Hutchins and Haerison.

1903.
If

could be shown that this regulated industry, far from

suffering in competition with others, went ahead, improved its

machinery, and developed a higher standard of comfort than its
rivals, then, although the improvement might not be due to the
legislation, there would be, at all events, a strong presumption

harm had been
The improvement

And

what has
was

that good and not

done.

taken place.

in the regulated industry

and conspicuous.

clear

this is

(Page 121.)

E, Effect on Scope of Women's Employment

The

establishment of a legal limit to the hours of
result in contracting the sphere of
her work.

woman's labor does not

Work and English Wages. By Thomas Beassey, 1st
Baron Brassey. London, 1879.
The argument that the tendency of the Factory Acts is to
place an artificial restriction on the employment of women, and

Foreign

thus to depreciate the market value of this labor,

refuted on

every hand by practical experience in the textile manufactories.-

Here the restrictions upon women's work are the most stringent,
and yet the tendency for a long series of years has been the
opposite
the proportion of women employed has steadily in•

—

The same

creased.

observation applies to

occupations carried on in London.

many

of the trades and

for the rate of wages paid,

is not an employer in the metropolis who will hesitate to
acknowledge that there has been during the last ten or fifteen
years a very substantial and important advance in the remuneration given to women for their work.
(Pages S38, 339.)

there

The Case

for the Factory Acts.

Edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb.

Loridon, 1901.

But,

may

be objected, that although Factory Legislation
it annoys the employer, and makes him

would improve the women,
inclined to get rid of

matter of
is

women

fact, this course,

altogether and employ men.
As a
though often threatened beforehand,

Where women can be employed, their
much cheaper than that of men that there is no chance
being displaced. The work of men and women tending

not in practice followed.

labor

of their

automatically to differentiate itself into separate branches, it follows that there is very Httle direct competition between individual

men and women.

(Page 209.)

83
The Night-worJc

Women

m Industry.

Peofi E. Baueh.

Jena,

1903.
All the official Swiss figures indicate that the establishment of
the normal, legal working day has never, or rarely, narrowed the
field

of women's industrial activity.

upon the

The

restriction has exercised

who compose the
working world no notable influence.
The results show how unfounded were the fears cherished both
as to the loss for the working women of a part of their wage, and
the advantages which arise from the regulation of the working
day are, on the other hand, considerable for the whole body of the
workers. (Page 38.)
distribution of the classes of people

History of Factory Legislation.
It

HtrTCHiNS and Haekison.

1903.

surely extremely significant that whilst the attack on the

regulation of women's labor has been fruitless in better organized

—

that is, in those which can make their wishes felt
has taken effect precisely in those industries which are unorganized and collectively inarticulate. By the admission of the opposi-

industries
it

tion itself, the

women whose

trades have been under State control

now so strong, so efficient, so
who most strongly disapprove of
withdraw it from them. Yet we are

for thirty, forty, or fifty years are
well organized that even those

State control do not wish to

who

to believe that to those

are

still

working long hours,

sanitary conditions. State control would

haps ruin!

in un-

mean lowered wages, per-

(Page 193.)

Women's Worlc and Wages. By Edwakd Cadbury. London, 1906.
This witness (Mr. Johnson, Sub-inspector of Factories) did not
think that the limitation of hours of women would lead to the
substitution of men for women, nor to any reduction of women's
wages. He did not consider that there were many trades where
men could be substituted for women, because of the nature of the
work.
This was an inteihgent and true forecast of what has
actually happened.
It

work by

women

often stated

(Page 36.)
by those who oppose regulation of women's

legislation that the effect of such legislation is to displace

in favor of

this idea is

men.

Our inquiry seems

to prove,- however, that

erroneous, and that in the large majority of cases

it is

other questions altogether that determine the division of labor

A great deal of light has been thrown
on the question of women's work and wages generally by the elucidation of the fact that as a rule men and women do different work,
and the relation between men and women workers is, on the whole,
that of two non-competing groups.
It is quite true that that
marginal division between the two groups is constantly shifting,
but in the particular trades where this is the case the questions
considered are the difference in wages between the two groups, their
aptitude and physical fitness for certain work, and the fact that
between men and women.

women expect

to leave

work when married.

(Page 39.)

UNIFORMITY OF RESTRICTION

The arguments in favor of allowing overtime in seasonal
trade or in cases of supposed emergency have gradually
yielded to the dictates of experience which show that uniformity of restriction is essential to carrying out the purposes of the act.
A. Allowance of Overtime Dangerous

Health

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1873.

To my mind

seems verj fallacious reasoning to attempt to

amongst females ... on the ground that, taking
the year through, the hours of work average less than sixty weekly.
A girl is not a whit less likely to be injured physically and morally
by working fourteen hours a day in May and June because she has
not to work more than seven hours in September and October.
(Page 43.)
In regard to milliners and dressmakers, I strongly deprecate

justify overtime

the granting of " fourteen-hour permissions," which only unsettle

Such hours are very
(Page 134.)

the trade, and are quite unnecessary.

ous to the girls employed.

injuri-

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1898.
Sixty hours' actual work in a normal week may be considered as
a reasonable amount by the average laundry girl, but when one
day in the week is a whole holiday, prescribed by the Factory Act,

and she

is still

required to

work

sixty hours in the remaining five

days, she apparently seems to feel that she

not being fairly

taking away with one hand what it
gave with the other. Several complaints have been received of
sixty hours' employment in a laundry on the five consecutive days
dealt by,

and that the law

following a statutory holiday, as of something illegal, and a visit

86
paid in response to one of these on a Saturday following a Monday
Bank (holiday) found manageress, women, and girls tired out and
murmuring that a holiday which had to be made up for as they

had made

up was no

holiday.

(Page 107.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories cmd Workshops,
1901.
It

often said that the rigidly fixed hours for

in factories tend to

make

work and meals

of the worker a machine, taking no actual

personal interest in her work, while actually the effect is to help her,
the work does not occupy too great a part of the day, to be a
person of some vigor interested in the work, but not entirely to the
if

exclusion of other things, for which she can count on regular

periods of leisure.

(Page 178.)

Uniformity Essential for Purposes of Enforcement

In order to establish enforceable restrictions upon
working hours of women, the law must fix a maximum
working day. Without a fixed limit of hours, beyond
which employment is prohibited, regulation is practically
nullified.
Exemptions of special trades from the restriction of hours not only subject the workers in such industries to injurious overwork, but go far to destroy the whole
intent of the law.

The

difficulties of

inspection

The Case

for the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

become insuperable.

Edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb.

To accede to the demand for greater elasticity is to suppose
a higher code of morals on the part both of employers and of
employed than experience justifies, and it would also render necessary a far more elaborate and irritating system of inspection than
at present exists. The efficiency of modern factory industry de-

—

pends very greatly upon automatic working
upon its standardization of conditions
and the existing factory law with its inelastic
provisions is, in reality, a great aid in maintaining those conditions
;

of efficiency.

(Page 93.)

87
Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1873.

From the point of view of one empowered to carry out the law,
I consider these modifications in favor of " season trades " as most
They immensely increase -the difficulties of inspecintroduces an element of uncertainty and dissatisfaction into the relations between inspector and inspected, which cannot but be productive of ill results. For a law to be thoroughly

unfortunate.

and

tion,

respected and obeyed, there should be no apparent partiality or
contradiction in its provisions, and if it is to work with ease and
efficiency these cannot be too completely simplified.
(Page 134.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1873.

The

difficulty of

acquiring evidence, too, of this overwork

very

employment on the disclosure of
facts is so deterrent of exact information by the oppressed workers
that they will not appear before the magistrates to support the
great, for the danger of loss of

Sub-Inspector in his attempt to protect them, however urgently or
indignantly that protection has been claimed.

(Page 44.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1898.

Nothing has been more striking than the difficulties surrounding the law affecting laundries. The immensely long hours, the
absence of any conditions as to mealtimes other than that there
an hour in every five hours' spell, and the
manner
in
extraordinary
which overtime is at present worked, combine to make the inspection of laundries more difficult and more
(Page
ineffectual than in any trade I have had under my notice.
shall be at least half

107.)

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1900.

The

existence of an exemption in the fish-curing trade has ren-

It is
difllcult and uncertain in result.
noteworthy that in this trade, in which overtime is permissible to
women on sixty occasions in the year, I have never found overtime
The occupiers do not find them
notices in use in any workshop.

dered the administration

88
Starting with an exemption for one process, that of
" gutting, salting, and packing," the industry would seem to have

necessary.

shaken

itself

gradually free from control, until

now we

find fish

that have been in salt for several weeks dealt with as perishable

Given plenty of time and unsuitable surroundings, every
some extent perishable, and when a herring
has been kept in salt for some weeks there is no reason for working
on it at night except the reason that the day will bring other work,
and in this seems to he the cause of much of the late and irregular
hours of the fish-curing trade.
articles.

article of food is to

One

want of regulation leads is the
practice of employing the same person in the same day in processes
controlled by the Acts, and in those outside their control.
... In another case in which a curer had a factory and also a
kippering shop in the same town, the workers went from one to the
other, always sure of their full day's work in the factory, followed
very often by five or six hours' work in the other shop.
(Page
of the evils to which this

383.)

The Case for

the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

Edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb.

—

The fact that exceptions lead always to illegalities
that a
permission to work till ten at night leads constantly to work till
one or two in the morning
-appears frequently. (Page 153.)

—

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1902.

After six years' experience of the effect of the present regulais impossible not to feel greatly depressed by the result;
the elasticity of the law has tended to encourage rather than
check these unsettled hours.
(Page 174.)
tions, it

Labor Laws for Women in Germany. Dr. Alice Salomon. Published by the Women's Industrial Council.
London, 1907.
Unfortunately, however, the law provides for a number of exceptions to the above rules respecting the hours of labor, exceptions which render adequate control difficult and greatly weaken
the effect of the law.
(Page 5.)

Uniformity Essential to Justice to Employers

To grant exceptions from the restriction of hours to
certain industries places a premium upon irregularity
and the evasion of law. When restrictions are uniform,
the law operates

without favor and without injury to
employers are able to grant their employees reductions of hours, even if they are convinced
of its advantages, when their competitors are under no
such obligation. Justice to the employer as well as to the

individuals.

Few

employee therefore requires that the law set a fixed hmit
of hours for working women and a Hmit fixed for all
alike.

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Worldshops, 1873.

In regard to " season trades " modification, the employers in
favor of the modifications, argue, that it would be, firstly, a hardship upon them should they be unable to fulfil a large order unexpectedly coming in
that it would be calculated to drive their
trade from them to others, either employing more workers or not
;

at that time so busy.

To this I answer
that the hardship to themselves that the
employers here complain of is only one which they would share in
common with every other trader and manufacturer in the country,
which are happily prevented by legislative enactment from gratifying their cupidity oy caprice at the expense of others and that
the establishment of a uniform system of hours of labor would
place all upon a more equal footing in the very matter complained
.

;

of than in point of fact they are on now.

There can be no doubt that much uncertainty and dissatisfacexists amongst trades generally at the granting unusual
privileges to certain selected ones, and that this is a serious ob(Page
struction to the performance of the duties of inspection.
tion

134!.)

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1881.
As a further result, we have found that a large majority of
the manufacturers would prefer ten hours to any greater num-

90
ber, " if only all

would agree to it." Repeatedly has it occurred,
when our agents have made known their errand, that almost the
first words of the manufacturer would be, " It (ten hours) would
be better for manufacturer and operative, if it could only be made
universal " and these words, always spoken so spontaneously as
to show that they were the expression of a settled conviction, may
be fairly taken to express the united wisdom of the manufacturers
(Page 458.)
of textile fabrics in New York and New England.
As one reason for this it was constantly said, that, if all worked
but ten hours, then it would be the same for all, and so everybody
would have just as fair a chance for success under ten as now
under more hours. (Page 459.)
;

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1900.

A lack of loyal adherence to reasonable hours of employment
by many laundry occupiers increases the difficulty for those who
make the attempt in real earnestness. Many employers gladly
welcome further regulation as a means of organizing and controlling their workers. " What is the use of my making the effort
to so organize my work that the laundry shall close at 8 p. m. like
other reasonable work-places do," said a disheartened employer;

all

the neighboring laundries are open until nine, ten, or even

eleven o'clock,

and

my women

find it suits their irregular habits to

my premises they
laundry till 9.30 or 10 next
morning. If we all had to keep the same rules and close at the
same time, the law would work fairly as it is I must just scramble
on with the others in the stupid expensive old way." (Page 385.)
go and work

in these places after they leave

are then too tired out to arrive at

;

my
;

The Case for

the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

Edited hy Mrs. Sidney Webb.

Now and again an employer complains of some hard experience,
and forgets that a departure from rigid rule would destroy the
certainty which he feels that the law is treating him exactly as it
is his competitors.
Such a feeling of security is essential to business enterprise.
(Page 93.)

91
Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories cmd WorJc'
shops, 1902.

I have discussed this matter with numbers of all classes conwho are at present availing themselves to

cerned, even to those

the full of the concessions under the law, and with hardly any exceptions they have agreed that if we, as factory inspectors, could
insure that nowhere should the unprincipled be able to steal a

march on those who observed the law, and all overtime abolished,
they would be more than satisfied. They freely admit the evils
resulting from overtime, and these can be spoken to by all my colleagues, and I think in all large towns by the police. (Page 88.)
The innumerable loopholes and subterfuges which it affords to
a sharp and unscrupulous employer places his more stupid or more
scrupulous competitor at an unfair disadvantage, which

prevent-

and therefore should be prevented. The broad, clear limitations, easily understood and capable of being exactly and thoroughly enforced, which apply to other industries under the Act,
impose the same obligations and provide the same protection for
able,

all alike.

This

impossible where regulations cannot be properly

enforced and can be continually evaded with success.

(Page 174.)

—
92

THE REASONABLENESS OF THE
TEN-HOUR DAY

VI.

Factory inspectors, physicians, and working women are
unanimous in advocating the ten-hour day, wherever it
has not yet been estabhshed. Some indeed consider ten
hours too long a period of labor; but as opposed to the
unregulated or longer day, there is agreement that ten
hours is the maximum number of working hours compatible with health and efficiency.

A. Opinions of Physicians and
British Sessional Papers.

From

Du. Loudon.

Officials

1833.

Vol.

XXI.

fourteen (years of age) upwards, I would recommend

that no individual should, under any circumstaiices,

work more

than twelve hours a day although if practicable, as a physician,
I would prefer the limitation of ten hours for all persons who earn
their bread by industry.
Ten working hours a day are in fact
thirteen hours, allowing an hour for dinner, half an hour for breakfast, half an hour for tea-time, half an hour for going, and the
same for returning from work. (Page 24!.)
;

Report of Special Committee

to inquire as to the Propriety of

reducing the Hours of Labor.
Document. House, 1865.

Massachusetts Legislative'

—

This (system of ten hours) is now very generally in use,
the
exceptions being in manufacturing towns and corporations,
where they now require
women and children to work eleven

— one

hours daily
our opinion

(Page

—

hour more than in England
a disgrace in
to Massachusetts and an outrage on humanity.

2.)

Report of the Special Commission on the Hours of Labor. Massachusetts Legislative Documents. House, 1866, No. 98.
in

Dr. Tewksbury has been a practising physician eighteen years
Lawrence, and a close observer of the health and morals of

93
Thinks long confinement

operatives.

in mills

for meals injurious, and that ten hours a day

and
is

insufficient

time

better than eleven

or twelve hours.

Dr. Sargent,

Ten hours
women.

many

years practising physician in Lawrence:

a day enough for strong

men

;

too long for delicate

(Page 63.)
House, 1867, No. 44.

Massachusetts Legislative Documents.
I recommend, as the result of

investigations,

and

in view

of the expressed wish of the interest of labor in the factories,

the enactment of ten hours as a legal standard for a day's labor.

(Page 141.)
Conclusions

and Recommendations.

Massachusetts Bureau

Statistics of Labor, 1872.
1.

That the hours of labor are too long [for women], and that
the enactment of a law

the preliminary step to remedy the evil

restricting labor in all manufacturing

and mechanical

establish-

ments in the State to ten hours per day or to sixty hours per week.

(Page 96.)
Report to the Local Governing Board on Proposed Changes in
Hours and Ages of Employment in Textile Factories. By
British Sessional
J. H. Beldges, M.D., and T. Holmes.
Papers. Vol. LV. 1873.
7.

Do you

half hours)

think that the present day's work (ten and onetoo long for young persons under twenty or for

the grown-up women.?

A. Yes. Nine and one-half hours appears sufficiently long for
young persons under twenty, but eight hours would, ceteris
paribus, more greatly conduce to their health.
For women over twenty, nine and one-half hours is a reasonable
time so long as they remain unmarried. (Page 40.)

Factory and Workshops Act Commission, 1875. British Sessional Papers, 1876. Vol. XXIX. Appendix D. 87 c.

One of the

evils arising

from female labor

hours they are allowed to work, being so

many

the numbers of

hours in excess of

94
a great deal of male labor. We would suggest that all females,
married and single, commence work not earlier than 8 a. m. and
not work later than 7 p. m.
(Signed)

Edwakd Bennett.
Saul Hingley.

Permsylvania.

Part

III.

Arnnual Report of Secretary of Internal Affairs.
Industrial Statistics, 1880-1881. Vol. IX.

among

the working people
and 1835, extending
through many years. The custom of working twelve and thirteen
hours per day became exceedingly obnoxious to the working classes,
and great efforts were made to prevail upon proprietors to reduce
Injury to health, no
the number of hours to ten per day.

The

agitation of the ten-hour system

of this State began as far back as 1834

time for leisure, recreation, or study, a total deprivation of social

and innocent pleasure, by an aU-work and bed system, was the
great plea of the laborer, while the stereotyped objection of the
employer was, that a reduction of the hours would curtail production, and thus render them unable to compete with Kke establishments in other sections of the country. (Page 100.)
That ten hours per day is fuUy as much as should be exacted
from the employees we think cannot be gainsaid, and such is the
spirit of the law, as well as the sentiments of all who take an interest in promoting the welfare of mankind in general and of
labor in particular. The justice of both law and sentiment becomes more apparent when we contemplate the class of laboi
employed in factories and their relation to future generations.
To the strong and sturdy male adult the task of being compelled
to labor more than ten hours per day might not seem arduous,
more especially where the work assigned to him is not of such a
character as to be a drain upon his physical constitution; but,
while this exception may possibly be granted, its compulsory exac-

from the large number of women, girls, and young children
employed admits of no excuse. In the returns received by the
Bureau, the number of women and girls over fifteen years of age
employed are 23,076; boys under sixteen, 4,183, and 3,548 girls
under fifteen.
These figures, without special analysis, we presume are sufficient to convince the most sceptical of the wisdom of a systematic
enforcement of the ten-hour law by proper legislation, to the end
tion

95
that youtb be protected, the condition of hfe
be ameliorated, and
the future of our State be promoted. Nor should
the law be confined to factories alone, but extended to all industries
where women
and children are in any manner apt to be employed to the detri-

ment of hfe and

health.

(Page 104.)

Condition of Female Labor ki Toronto.
Scott. 1891.

By Jeax Thompson

The clause in the Act which allows a different apportionment of
the hours per day in case of shorter hours on Saturday is an unfortunate one, because it would permit an average of eleven hours
a day for
to work.

five

days

in the

week

—

far too long a period for

women

(Page 29.)

Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor

Statistics,

1892.

In view of all the facts in the case, we were led to accept the
ten-hour day, and it has proved a better day for all concerned
than the twelve or fourteen hour day. In many industries the

workers are employed at piece work, and do not average over
eight hours a day, and in this they simply follow natural law and
stop work when they feel that a good day's work has been accomplished and feel so tired as to need rest or change.

(Page 11.)

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1895.

For adult working women, with very few exceptions, the elevenhour working day is the rule. In Wiirzburg several establishments have ten hours. In the length of the working day there
is no conspicuous difference between factories and workshops
( Aschaffenburg)
As to the customary working hours in Hamburg the following
summary is enlightening. The working day of women varies from
eight to eleven hours.
8
8-8i

hours and
"

less

in 10 places with

115 women.

New York Department

Report of the

of Factory Inspection, 1897.

Any woman employed at manual labor for ten consecutive hours
per day, and constantly employed, is performing a task beyond
her strength, whether she is just under or over twenty-one years
of age.

(Page 25.)

Report of the Commission Superieure du Travail.

Paris, 1897.

Twelve hours of steady work is an exertion which any young
women cannot often repeat except at the expense of health.
The result of overtime work in the evening for a woman of any age
is physical deterioration when it does not lead to moral deterioragirls or

(Page 100.)

tion as well.

Report of the

New York Bureau

Labor

Statistics, 1900.

From that time (1881) to this, public opinion in Massachusetts
has upheld the ten-hour law, and approved the extension of its
principles.

(Page 53.)

Industrial Conference National Civic Federation, 1902.

The most striking fact about this question of hours of labor
me its universaHty. In virtually every country dominated

seems to

by Western civiKzation the daily work-time in mechanical industries is being cut down by successive movements that appear to be
as inevitable as the tide, and that have the appearance of steps in
the path of human progress.
(George Gunton, page 190.)
That the time is now ripe for another general reduction in the
daily working time is indicated by the testimony of physicians and
.

the mortality statistics of occupations.
Medical research shows
that a ten-hour day in modern industry calls for an expenditure
of either muscular or nervous energy or both
depending upon
the nature of the

Weber, Chief

work

— that

Statistician,

—

inevitably shortens

New York Department

life.

(A. F.

of Labor, page

200.)

Report of the California Bureau of Labor

suggestion

Statistics, 1904.

made, which it is hoped will have the serious
consideration of the people and of the legislators of the State and
it is, namely, that an amendment be made to
the Constitution of
California, providing, as is done by the Constitution of
Massachuis

;

)

97
setts regarding that State, that our legislature shall, by appropriate legislation, provide for the health and welfare of women

wage-earners in this State.

(Page 133.

The WorJcing Hours

of Female Factory-hands. From the Reports
of Factory Inspectors, collated in the Imperial Home Office.

Published by

The

Von Decker.

Berlin, 1905.

inspector for Breslau says, "

The reduction of the working
day to ten hours is such a decided step in advance, and is of such
marked and wholesome influence on the mental, physical, and moral
status of the entire working population, that its introduction
should be emphatically urged."

The
day for

inspector for Cologne says, "
all

women over

sixteen years

The

reduction of the working

must be regarded

as a necessity

for both moral and hygienic reasons."

The
of the

inspector for

(fl)

(b)
(c)

(d)
are

all

Hanover says, " The reasons

working day to ten hours

—

for the reduction

The physical organization of woman,
Her maternal functions,
The rearing and education of the children,
The maintenance of the home

—

so important

and

so far reaching that the need for such

education need hardly be discussed."
Another inspector says, " Considering the detrimental physical
defect of factory work, its nerve-exhausting character, its ruinous
influence
all

on family

life,

and the care of children, and, indeed, under

the aspects of the physical, moral, and mental development of

day for women
must be regarded as an emphatic demand and a moral obligation,
whose introduction must be urged after a careful and conscientious
weighing of all the reasons for and against it." (Page 106.)
the working class, the reduction of the legal working

Report of the Washington Bureau of Labor

The present law

Statistics,

1905-1906.

prohibits the employment of any female worker

any one calendar day. Splendid results have been obtained through the operation of this law,
for much as one may dislike to credit it, there are employers who
would insist upon working their female help from twelve to sixteen,
hours per day did the law not stand in their way.
for a longer period than ten hours in

98
There is peculiar necessity for protecting through legislative
means those classes of female workers who are employed in laundries, factories, and other similar industries. Eight hours of continuous work of that character is as much as should be exacted ,f rom
any woman, and there is general agreement among those who have
investigated the subject that the well-being of the community would
be consulted through the adoption of an eight-hour day for all
women employed in such occupations. (Page 18.)
Edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb.

The Case

of the Factory Acts.
London, 1901.

No one who studies the actual working of the Factory Code
can doubt that it will be perfected just in the measure in which all
these differences are abolished and an equal adequacy of protection
extended to all the places and all the persons who work. The ideal
is

that the regulations of

for gain

all

places in which manufacturing

work

carried on should approximate as closely as possible to

those which obtain in the most completely guarded places, namely,
.
the textile factory is cursed by no such
the textile factories
.

overtime exception as elsewhere undermines the value of the hours'
Hmitation.

The overtime exception Is doomed. Unless some .unforeseen
change in our industrial conditions revolutionizes the present order
of things, the total abolition of overtime for women must follow on
that for young persons, which was virtually accomphshed by Mr.
Asquith in 1895.
The case for abolition was as clearly proved
as the complete consensus of opinion on the subject of those who
work under the exception and those who have to enforce it could
prove anything. The opinions of H. M. Inspectors of Factories
and the opinions of the organized women workers were all but unanimous against allowing any overtime. These opinions, the expression of which dates back to the Royal Commission of 1875, are
based on arguments which carry with them conviction on many
grounds. Over and over again the view is stated that with better
.

organization of the business the need for overtime disappears.

Cases are quoted to prove that

many

large dressmaking and mil-

linery firms never avail themselves of this exception,

object lesson of the textile trade

given.

and the great

all textile factories,

and in a great many non-textile factories, to which no exception
has been granted, organization and management quite easily cope

99
with the recurring season pressure, and the trade automatically
adapts itself to the law's requirements. In other non-textile fac-

and workshops, to which the overtime exception has been
extended, demands no more urgent are met by the deliberate overtaxing of the workers' health and strength. (Page 153.)
tories

In 1878, when this industry (fruit-preserving (jam-making)
was first brought under inspection, the employers protested against any regulation of the hours of labor, or even of
sanitation, during the jam-making season, on the plea that the
fruit had to be dealt with as it was delivered. The House of Commons, instead of insisting that the employers should exert their
brains so as to cope with difficulties inherent in their particular
trade,' weakly accepted their plea, and exempted them from the
Common Rules enforced on other industries. What has been the
result.''
The majority of British jam factories at the beginning of
the twentieth century present, during the summer months, scenes
of overwork, overcrowding, dirt and disorder, hardly to be equalled
by the cotton mills at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Women and young girls are kept continuously at work week-days
and Sundays alike often as much as a hundred hours in the seven
days and sometimes for twenty or even thirty hours at a stretch.
As if on purpose to complete the proof that these shortcomings are not inevitable in the business, and are merely the result
of a disastrous exemption from regulation, we have the fact that,
here and there, in different parts of the kingdom, a few firms stand
out as preferring the " upward way " ; scientifically organizing
their supphes, providing cold storage, working their operatives
only normal hours, and seeing to it that the work-places are clean
and healthy. If the " downward way " were barred by law, as it is
in cotton-spinning, all jam-making firms would long ago have been
forced into the same course. (Page 50.)
factories)

;

Opinions of Employees

History of Factory Legislation.

Hutchdsts and Haeeison.

In June, 184!7, after the Bill became a law the rejoicings
throughout the manufacturing districts were such as had never
(Page 96.)
been known before.
In order to test the general feeling, 10,270 adult male laborers

)

100
were examined as to their views on the question, and
of these seventy per cent declared for a ten-hours day (for women
and young persons) even though it might involve a reduction in

in ten factories

wages.

(Page 99.)

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1871.

I have worked what is called ten hours a day, and the ten-hour
system always has a good influence on the work-people. We don't
lose one-eleventh of the pay, everybody knows that. I did n't lose a
(Page
single cent, because I did n't get so much exhausted.
.

498.)

To prove the soundness of the ten-hour claim, the operatives
instance the reduction in the past, from sixteen to fourteen, to thirThey also
teen and to twelve, and from twelve to eleven hours.
point to the twenty-one years' experience in Great Britain, where
the reduction was

made

1850 from twelve to ten, a reduction of
(Pages 557-568.

one-sixth of the working day.

Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1877.

" Since the meeting of the Trades Union Congress at Leicester,
however, I have made it my business to ascertain, so far as I could,
the opinion of women employed in different occupations in London
as to the influence of the Factory Acts, and I can say confidently

that without a single exception I have found the limitations imposed

upon

their hours of

work most

cordially

approved

of,

and the

greatest anxiety and positive alarm entertained at the prospeat of

any relaxation which would expose them to the irregular and uncertain hours of work which prevailed prior to the passing of the
Factory Act of 1867. Among what class of working-women of
London it can be pretended that the regulations and restrictions
imposed by the Factory Acts are unpopular, I confess I am altogether at a loss to understand. All I can say is that notwithstanding most diligent inquiry I have entirely failed to meet with
them.

..."

states:

"...

I decidedly prefer to work the

hours fixed by the Factory Acts. After working as a book-folder
for about five years I left, as I found the long and irregular hours
made me ill. I have never had any illness since the Factory Act

came into operation.

The

general opinion

among

the

women

in the

101
shop is that they prefer working under the Factory Act, and th^
grumble much when they are kept later than eight o'clock."
E
B
a book sewer, says " I have been six years em,

ployed in the sewing department. I am very well satisfied with the
Factory Acts as they are, and I think all the sewers are of opinion
that it is a good law, as it prevents excessive overwork. I had no
experience of the trade before the passing of the Factory Act, but
from what I have been told, the state of things must have been
dreadful. I have never heard any of the women complain of the
Factory Act in any way, nor of its preventing them from getting
employment ; and as far as I can judge, the number of women employed in the book-binding trade is increasing." (Pages 12, 13.)

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor

What
reply.

Statistics, 1881.

the greatest desire of the factory operatives.''

Beyond

operatives of America, relative to employment,
.

seers,

question, one of the greatest desires of the factory

all

for ten hours.

have examined hundreds, a large part of them overand altogether the greater part of them are in favor of ten
.

hours anyway,

let the

pay come

it will.

Report of Connecticut Bureau of Labor

(Page

4)64.)

Statistics, 1888.

The law forbidding the employment of women and children for
more than ten hours per day, or sixty hours per week, has met with
general public favor.
tiously obeyed-

In a majority of cases the law

conscien-

(Page 25.)

Report of the Connecticut Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 1890.

The violation of this law is objected to by the most of the
working people, on the ground that ten hours out of twenty-four
make as long a day as women and children should ever be required
to work. (Page 29.)
.

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1895.
In regard to efforts made to abolish female labor in factories,
" Among the

the inspector for the Dresden district remarks

workers themselves, even married women, there is no emphatic desire
to prohibit industrial work for women, provided that this labor
did not occur at night or on
was subject to certain limitations,
ten
hours by day." (Page 93.)
Sundays, and did not last more than

—

102
Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1895.
" For the working-women, even for those who suffer loss of wages,
the ten-hours day on Saturday, closing at 5.30 is very welcome, as
they have stated in numerous cases, and there is no doubt that the
law meets the wishes of the workers."

Report of the

New York Bureau

(Page 150.)

Labor

Statistics, 1900.

We have thus seen how industrial efficiency has been improved to
such an extent by legislative restrictions upon the hours of labor
that the maximum length of the working day for women and minors
has been successively reduced until it is nine and one-half in England and virtually the same in Massachusetts (fifty-eight hours a
week), and that the extension of such legislation has been, and stiU
is, desired by the operatives themselves, who would naturally be the
principal sufferers
duction.

such a policy really meant diminished pro-

(Page 58.)

Labor Laws for Women in Germany. Dr. Alice Salomon.
lished by Women's Industrial Council. London, 1907.

Pub-

A chief means to this end, desired not merely by the women of
Germany, but by most of her great political parties, is the reduction of the maximum working day to ten hours (to start with), a
demand long since ripe for settlement, which has been proved practicable by enquiries of a Government Commission.
For this concession working-women have already fought many a hard battle,
and it ought no longer to be withheld from them, especially in view
of the fact that most firms employing women have already adopted
the ten-hours day, so that the legal enforcement of this measure
would merely compel backward employers to bring their establishments up to date, (Page 9.)
C,

Opinions of Employers

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1884.
Report for the Rhine Province, District of Dusseldorf
Wolf:

The
whether

— Dr.

question as to the length of the working day and as to
it should be regulated by the State has been much discussed.

103

a meeting at Gladbach of Textile Manufacturers it was resolved
" that the length of the working day can be effectively regulated
only by the laws of the country, and that such regulation should
be urged." (Page 150.)

Report of the German Imperial Factory Inspectors, 1888.

The report

for the district of Chemnitz says that the manufac-

turers of that district have repeatedly expressed a desire for the

(Page 114.)

introduction of the ten-hour day.

United States Industrial Commission, 1900.

We may find that it is desirable in time to do by law what a few
persons are doing voluntarily. It is in that way that the original
ten-hour law was tried tentatively in England

a few manufacand found that their
ten hours as they theretofore had been

turers tested the matter in their

people could do as much in
doing in twelve and thirteen

(Page

;

own

that

;

factories

made

the law seem reasonable.

64-.)

Women

in the Printing Trade.

Edited hy J. R. MacDonald.

London, 1904.

Some employers,

like Mr. Bell, admit candidly enough that legisthem to be more humane (and humanity in this respect pays) than they could otherwise afford to be. The Act is
" a great relief," such an employer has said. " Legislation is an

lation enables

excellent thing

;

existing hours are quite long enough.

has not done her work by

If a person

the time they are up, she never will do it."

The Factory Acts are a very good thing," another has said.
" Legislation Is a very good thing. I don't believe in long hours.
Employers are often shortsighted and think that workers are like
but this
the longer you work them the more they do
machines
.

—

;

they work from nine to seven they have
is not really the case;
for." " The good done by the Facare
good
done as much as they
outweighed
any evils or hardships." (Page
tory Acts has quite
if

82.)

104

VII.

The

LAUNDRIES

specific prohibition in the

Oregon Act of more than

ten hours' work in laundries is not an arbitrary discrimination against that trade. Laimdries would probably not
"
be included under the general terms of " manufacturing
or " mechanical establishments " and yet the special dangers of long hours in laundries, as the business is now
conducted, present strong reasons for providing a legal
;

limitation of the hours of

work

in that business.

A. Present Character of the Business
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.
Laundries:

Much

of this

1872.

work is very fatiguing, and but few
month to month. (Page 96.)

are able to endure the labor from

Dangerous Trades.

Thomas Ouver, Medical Expert on Danger-

ous Trades Committees of the

XLVII.

Home

Office.

1902.

Chapter

Laundry Workers.

is perhaps difficult to realize that the radical change which
everywhere transformed industrial conditions has already
affected this occupation (laundry work) also, and that for good
or for evil the washerwoman is passing under the influences which
have so profoundly modified the circumstances of her sister of the

has

When the first washing
spinning-wheel and the sewing needle.
machine and ironing roUer were applied to this occupation, alteration in the conditions became as much a foregone conclusion as
it did in the case of the textile or the clothing manufactures, when
the spinning frame, the power loom, or the sewing machine
appeared.
Meanwhile, few industries afford at the present time a more
interesting study. From a simple home occupation it is steadily
being transformed by the application of power-driven machinery

and by the

division

of labor into a highly organized factory

industry, in which complicated labor-saving contrivances of

kinds play a prominent part.

The tremendous impetus

all

the

adoption of machinery, and the consequent modification of the

105
system of employment so striking in the large laundries, is not
greater than the less obvious but even more important development
in the same direction among small laundries. Indeed the difference
is

rapidly becoming one of degree only.

may

In the large laundries

be found perhaps more machinery and a greater number of

the newest devices, but the fundamental change has affected

all

ahke.

" With this advent
whole character of the
and more evident that,
industry is passing

—

of machinery and subdivision of labour, the

It is becoming more
from the smallest to the largest laundry, the
has indeed in some respects already passed
out of the peculiar position which it has hitherto occupied, and

industry has changed.

—

taking its place alongside ordinary trades." '
The manufacture of laundry machinery, to which much energy
and capital is devoted, is every year increasing. New and ingenious inventions and improvements constantly appear, many of

which come from America, whence a considerable amount of this
machinery is imported.
The " calender machine " has been adapted to laundry work,
and is now commonly found in quite small laundries; it consists
of huge steam or gas heated cylinders, varying from four to eight
or nine feet long, either revolving singly in a metal bed, as in the
case of the " decoudun," or on each other, as in the case of the
The hnen is generally drawn in under
multiple-roller calenders.
which thus " iron " it smooth and
rollers,
revolving
the hot,
as each damp article passes under
arising
steam
cloud
of
glossy, a
to so put the work under
required
care
is
Constant
roller.
the
drawn under; want of
also
are
not
hands
the
that
the machine
accident,
and even where care is
an
by
followed
be
attention may
string or hole in the
in
a
entangled
be
may
fingers
the
exercised
material and the hand thus drawn in. The heat given off by these
machines is sometimes very great; a temperature of over 90° F.
may be registered even in winter on the feeding-step in front of
this machine.

...

at which

little girls

stand

all

day long.

(Pages

663-666.)
This work is not the light and often pleasant occupation of
sewing or folding. It is not done sitting down. From morning
to night these young gii;ls are constantly standing; they are
generally tending machines, the majority of which are specially
heated, and they work in an atmosphere in which steam, which
•

Annual Report

of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1900.

106
nearly always present, makes the high temperature far more
oppressive than would be the case if the air were not thus artiSteam
ficially saturated to an excessive degree with moisture.
given
oif
It
is
rises from the calenders and various machines.

by the damp clothes, which in majiy laundries, even large ones,
hang drying or airing overhead or on " horses " in the room.
The conditions in this respect are often at least as trying as in
any spinning-mill, and the hours during which the girls are exposed to them very much longer. (Page 670.)

also

Third Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Sta1891-1892. Part II. Female Wage Earners.
the hours of employment during the rush fresome
laundries
In
quently extend to eleven and twelve hours per day, although no
extra compensation is paid to female employees, with but few ex-

Colorado.

tistics,

ceptions.

While machinery to a large extent

relieves

her

much work, the full strength of
taxed by a tedious attention to the

(the female laundry worker) of

her physical endurance
duties assigned her.

(Page 28.)

Bad

Effect upon Health

Report of British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1900.

The whole work

of a laundry, is done standing, and the pracapportioning the legal " sixty hours a week " that on
three or four days in the week the women have to work from
a practice which could be, and
8 A. M. to 10 or 11 at night
where there is proper organization often is, rendered needless
has its natural result in the form of disease to which laundry
workers are extremely liable. It is well known that they suffer
much from varicose veins, and terrible ulcers on the legs but the
extraordinary extent to which they are so afflicted is, I think, not
generally known. In many other trades standing is a necessary
condition, and it is difficult to account for the far greater prevalence of this disease among laundry workers than among others
of the same class engaged in ordinary factory occupations, except
on the ground of the long and irregular hours. (Page 383.)
tice of so

—

;

With a view to arriving, if possible, at some definite knowledge of the position of laundry workers as compared with other
women of their class and situation, in regard to the question of
health, I have this year devoted some time to inquiring into the

107
subject in the districts under
localities.

charge and in neighboring

the kindness of the superintendents of the two

first infirmaries (Islesworth, and Wandsworth and Clapham) I
have been able to examine the carefully kept records of the number,
ages, occupations, and diseases of the patients.
The following
tables, compiled from these records, speak for themselves, and
afford some indication of the kinds of disease to which laundry
workers appear to be particularly liable. (Page 384.)

Table A. Islksworth Infiemaby
(Includes Acton, Chiswick, Brentford

— a typical laimdry

district)

108

the

Fulham and Hammersmith Infirmary about the same

proportions exist, but

was not so easy to

collect accurate sta-

by the records of the cases
attended by the Kensington District Nursing Association show
a large proportion of ulcerated legs and of forms of internal
disease aggravated by standing for long hours. I was struck by
noticed
the absence of any particular liability to skin disease
tistics.

The

figures supplied

The
since almost disappeared.
some years ago, but
washing
process
of
immensely increased use of machinery in the
.

may

account for this difference.

The constant exposure to
great heat in which the work
at exhausting work,
disease.

amply

steam, standing on wet floors, the
is

carried on, and the long hours

explains the tendency to pulmonary

The badly arranged

wash-houses are a

floors in large

constant source of discomfort and probably of ill-health to the
iWorkers. ... It is not uncommon to find that the yellow and

row of tanks or washing machines at one side
of a wash-house flows all across the floor and over the feet of the
foul water from a

workers before eventually reaching the drain.

(Page 385.)

Dcmgerous Trades. Thomas Oliver, M.D., Medical Expert of the
Dangerous Trades Committee of the Home Office. 1902.
and steam, the exhausting manual
which is done standing), and above all the excessively long hours of work in this iU-regulated industry, can fail
to have a marked effect on the health of the workers as a class. In
1893 and 1894, when inquiry as to these conditions preceded the
passing of the Act of 1895, the periods of work of women and
young girls were found to be excessively long
and they are still
not only very long, but extraordinarily irregular. The most immediately obvious effect on health is to be found in the prevalence
among these workers of ulcers on the legs and varicose veins.
It would perhaps be hardly credited by any who are not intimately
acquainted with them to what extent these poor women suffer
in this respect. To stand at work all day is the lot of many industrial workers, but in no other woman's industry is this form of
suffering so serious.
In certain well-defined laundry districts
in West London an inquiry at the Poor Law Infirmaries, to
which, and not to the hospitals, the poor woman suffering
from this troublesome and painful ailment most naturally resort,
It is impossible that the heat

labour

(all of

—

109
demonstrated the peculiar

liability

of laundry workers in this

respect.

Ironers suffer from headaches and sore eyes, which result from
constantly bending over the gas-heated irons in general use. The
fumes from the tiny gas-jets
unless these and the air supply

—

to each iron are very carefully regulated
able on entering the room,

are of course worst of

all

— are disagreeably

notice-

and sometimes even the laundry, and

just above the iron so heated.

would be interesting to test the accuracy of this general
impression, which is shared by many medical and philanthropic
persons who are interested in laundry workers, if figures were
available on which to base a calculation of the " expectation of
" Worn out while still young " is the
life " among these women.
expression constantly used by those whose professional work brings
them into contact with these women when speaking of the effect
of the occupation on health.
(Pages 668-671.)
It

Bad

Effect on Safety

Report of British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1903.

The comparative immunity from accidents in
West Riding of Yorkshire may be possibly due

the

the laundries in
in

some measure

to the moderate hours of employment.

The

day is somewhat
most dangerous hours apparently being 11 a. m. to
Probably 11 a. m. to 12 noon is more
12 noon and 4 to 6 p. m.
generally than any other time the last tiring hour of a day five
4-6 p. m. covers the time when most generally the
hours' spell
(Page 210.)
transition from daylight to artificial light.
Reference was also made (in the Thirteenth International Congress of Hygiene), although figures were not adduced, to the
alleged increase in the number of accidents which occur late in the
working day when the effect of intellectual and physical fatigue
have made themselves apparent. (Page 298.)
incidents of accidents according to time of

surprising, the

;

D. Bad Effect upon Morals
Report of British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops,
1900.

One of the most unsatisfactory
or lack of system of working hours

results of the present system
in laundries is the

unfortunate

110
on the women and girls of this irregularity. The
securing steady regular work from employees and of
insuring punctual attendance is complained of on all sides, and the

moral

"effect

difficulty of

intelligent employers are

beginning to see that this

the

natural result of the irregularity in working hours, which is still
too readily fostered by many who do not realize its mischievous
effect.

Women who

are employed at arduous

work

till

far into

the night are not likely to be early risers nor given to punctual

attendance in the mornings, and workers who on one or two days
in the week are dismissed to idleness or to other occupations, while

on the remaining days they are expected to work for abnormally
long hours, are not rendered methodical, industrious, or dependable workers by such an unsatisfactory training. The self-control
and good habits engendered by a regular and definite period of
moderate daily employment, which affords an excellent training
for the young worker in all organized industries is sadly lacking,
and, instead, one finds periods of violent over-work alternating
with hours of exhaustion. The result is the establishment of a
kind of " vicious circle "
bad habits among workers make oompliance by their employers with any regulation as to hours very
difficult, while a lack of loyal adherence to reasonable hours of
employment by many laundry occupiers increases the difficulty for
those who make the attempt in real earnestness.
(Page 386.)
;

Dangerous Trades. Thomas Oliver, M.D., Medical Expert
Dangerous Trades Committee of the Home Office. 1902.

ten minutes or quarter-hour " lunch " of " beer " is common, and the " beer-man " who goes his rounds at 10 a. m. and

The

6 or 7

M. to

all

the laundries, delivering his cans of beer from

the nearest public house,

known

an institution which

is,

I believe, un-

any other trade. Imagine the amazement of the master
of a mill or weaving factory if his employees were to stop in a
body for a quarter of an hour twice a day between meals to drink
beer
Yet in many laundries the beer is kept on the premises for
the purpose, and it is certain that as long as time thus wasted
(to put it on the lowest grounds) can be made up by each separate
woman " working it out " at the end of the day, irregular dawdling
and intemperate habits will be encouraged. On the other hand, a
woman who is expected on Thursdays or Fridays to be in the
laundry from 8 or 8.30 in the morning till 9 or 10 or 11 at night
!

Ill

may

claim with some show of reason that only by some kind of
spur can she keep her over-tired body from flagging.

E. Irregularity of

Work

Debate in the British House of Lords on Clause 30, Factory and
Workshops Bill. Hansards' Parliamentary Debates, 18901891.

Vol.

The Eaul
work
said,

CCCLV.

of Dunkaven.

But the hours that the women
... I know it has been
your Lordships' House, that this

(in laundries) are excessively long

and

may

be repeated in

in the nature of a season trade

that there comes a
sudden rush of work, and that it cannot be performed and the
business carried on unless those employed in it work excessively
long hours. Believe me, that is all nonsense. It may be the cause
at the present time; but if the hours are limited, as they ought
to be, the trade would very soon adapt itself to the new conditions. ... Of course, my noble friend on the cross benches (Lord
Wemyss) may be perfectly right in saying that it is a mistake
but if
altogether to interfere with the liberty of adult women
so, let us at least be consistent and do away with all our factory
But if our factory legislation
legislation affecting adult women.
interfering with adult women is beneficial, as I beHeve it to be,
should it not be extended to these women who arc
then why
business

;

engaged

in this laborious work.

The Marquess

(Page 1034.)

surely
Then as to hours
regard to work that is so hard and so laborious these poor
women (laundresses) have just as good a claim to have their hours
regulated as have the milliners and women employed in bootmakers' establishments, who are brought under the regulations of
Some of the noble Lords
the Factories and Workshops Act.
who have addressed the House have spoken as if our factory legisI believe
lation was a thing to be deprecated and not extended.
it to be, as my noble friend behind me (Lord Sandhurst) said, one

of Ripon.

of the most successful portions of the legislation of this country.

(Page 1038.)

112
Report of the British Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1902.

The work

of endeavoring to administer the regulation as to

period of employment in (laundries)

when work

extremely disheartening

carried on in spurts, the shamefully long hours,

straining endurance to the utmost, alternating with days of idleness

;

the worker cannot be expected to develop any qualities but

those of the casual laborer.

(Page 174.)

113

CONCLUSION

submit that in view of the facts above set forth
legislative action extending over a period of more
than sixty years in the leading countries of Europe, and
in twenty of our States, it cannot be said that the Legis-

and of

lature of

Oregon had no reasonable ground

for believing

that the public health, safety, or welfare did not require a
legal limitation on women's work in manufacturing and

mechanical establishments and laundries to ten hours in
one day.
See Holden

Hardy, 169 U.

LOUIS

366, 895, 397.

BRANDEIS,

Counsel for State of Oregon.

Boston, Jarmary, 1908.

CURT MULLER,

In Error to

Plaintiff in Error,

THE SUPREME COURT

OF
I

THE STATE OF OREGON

FEBKUAET

THE STATE OF OREGON
24,1908

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion

February

of the Court.

19, 1903, the legislature of the State of

Oregon passed an

Laws, 1903, p. 148) the
words
" Sec. 1. That no female (shall) be employed in any
mechanical establishment, or factory, or laundry in this
State more than ten hours during any one day. The hours
of work may be so arranged as to permit the employment
of females at any time so that they shall not work more
than ten hours during the twenty-four hours of any one
first

act (Session

section of. which

in these

day."
Section 3 made a violation of the provisions of the prior
sections a misdemeanor, subject to a fine of not less than
$10 nor more than $25. On September 18, 1905, an information was filed in the Circuit Court of the State for the
county of Multnomah, charging that the defendant " on
the 4th day of September, a. d. 1905, in the county of
Multnomah and State of Oregon, then and there being the

owner of a laundry, known as the Grand Laundry, in the
and the employer of females therein, did

city of Portland,

then and there unlawfully permit and suffer one Joe Haselboek, he, the said Joe Haselbock, then and there being an
overseer, superintendent and agent of said Curt Muller, in
the said Grand Laundry, to require a female, to wit, one
Mrs. E. Gotcher, to work more than ten hours in said
Laundry on said 4th day of September, a. d. 1905, contrary
to the statutes in such cases,made and provided, and against
the peace and dignity of the State of Oregon."
trial resulted in a verdict against the defendant,

was sentenced

pay a

fine of $10.

who
The Supreme Court

of the State affirmed the conviction (48 Ore. 252), where-

upon the case was brought here on writ of error.
The single question is the constitutionality of the statute
under which the defendant was convicted so far as it affects
the work of a female in a laundry. That it does not conflict
with any provisions of the State constitution is settled by
the decision of the Supreme Court of the State. The contentions of the defendant,

now

plaintiff in error, are thus

stated in his brief
" (1) Because the statute attempts to prevent persons,
sui juris, from making their own contracts,, and thus violates the provisions of the

Fourteenth Amendment, as

follows

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'
"
(2) Because the statute does not apply equally to all
persons similarly situated, and is class legislation.
" (3)

The statute is not a valid exercise of the police
power. The kinds of work prescribed are not unlawful,
nor are they declared to be immoral or dangerous to the
pubhc health; nor can such a law be sustained on the
ground that it is designed to protect women on account of
their sex.
There is no necessary or reasonable connection

between the limitation prescribed by the act and the pubhc
health, safety, or welfare."
It is the law of Oregon that

women, whether married or
have equal contractual and personal rights with
men. As said by Chief Justice Wolverton, in First National Bank v. Leonard, 36 Ore. 390, 396, after a review of
single,

the various statutes of the State upon the subject:
"
may therefore say with perfect confidence that,
with these three sections upon the statute book, the wife can

not only with her separate property, acquired from
whatever source, in the same manner as her husband can
with property belonging to him, but that she may make
contracts and incur liabilities, and the same may be enforced against her, the same as if she were a feme sole.
deal,

There is now no residuum of civil disability resting upon
her which is not recognized as existing against the husband.
The current runs steadily and strongly in the direction of
the emancipation of the wife, and the policy, as disclosed
by aU recent legislation upon the subject in this State, is
to place her upon the same footing as if she were a feme
not only with respect to her separate property, but as
make binding contracts and the most
natural corollary to the situation is that the remedies for
the enforcement of liabilities incurred are made co-extensive
and co-equal with such enlarged conditions."
It thus appears that, putting to one side the elective
franchise, in the matter of personal and contractual rights
they stand on the same plane as the other sex. Their rights
in these respects can no more be infringed than the equal
held in Lochner v. New York,
rights of their brothers.
198 U. S. 45, that a law providing that no laborer shall be
required or permitted to work in bakeries more than sixty
hours in a week or ten hours in a day was not as to men a
legitimate exercise of the police power of the State, but an
unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary interference with
sole,
it

affects her right to

;

the right

and

liberty of the individual to contract in rela-

tion to his labor,

and

as such

was

in conflict with,

and void

That

under, the Federal Constitution.

decision

invoked

by plaintiff in error as decisive of the question before us.
But this assumes that the difference between the sexes does
not justify a different rule respecting a restriction of the
hours of labor.
In patent cases counsel are apt to open the argument
with a discussion of the state of the art. It may not be
amiss, in the present case, before examining the constitutional question, to notice the course of legislation as well
as expressions of opinion from other than judicial sources.
In the brief filed by Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, for the defendant in error, is a very copious collection of all these matters,
an epitome of which is found in the margin.*
While there have been but few decisions bearing directly
*

The following

upon the hours

Laws

legislation of the States

of labor that

1902, chap. 106, sec. 24

p. 73;

may be
;

Louisiana, 1886, Rev.

restriction in some form
women: Massachusetts,

impose

required of

or another

1874, Rev.

Rhode Island, 1885, Acts and Resolves 1902, chap. 994,
Laws 1904, vol. i, sec. 4, p. 989; Connecticut, 1887,

Stat, revision 1902, sec. 4691; Maine, 1887, Rev. Stat. 1903, chap. 40, sec. 48;
Hampshire, 1887, Laws 1907, chap. 94, p. 95 Maryland, 1888, Pub. Gen. Laws
1903, art. 100, sec. 1; Virginia, 1890, Code 1904, tit. 51 a, chap. 178 a, sec. 3657 b;
Pennsylvania, 1897, Laws 1905, No. 226, p. 352; New York, 1899, Laws 1907, chap.
507, sec. 77, subdiv. 3, p. 1078; Nebraska, 1899, Comp. Stat. 1905, sec. 7955, p. 1986;
Washington, Stat. 1901, chap. 68, sec. 1, p. 118; Colorado, Acts 1903, chap. 138,
New Jersey, 1892, Gen. Stat. 1895, p. 2350, sees. 66 and 67 Oklahoma,
sec. 3, p. 310
1890, Rev. Stat. 1903, chap. 25, art. 58, sec. 729; North Dakota, 1877, Rev. Code
1905, sec. 9440; South Dakota, 1877, Rev. Code (Penal Code, sec. 764), p. 1185;
Wisconsin, 1867, Code 1898, sec. 1728; South Carolina, Acts 1907, No. 233.
In foreign legislation Mr. Brandeis calls attention to these statutes: Great Britain,
1844, Law 1901, 1 Edw. VIL chap. 22; France, 1848, Act Nov. 2, 1892, and March 30,

Gen.

New

;

1900; Switzerland, Canton of Glarus, 1848, Federal Law 1877, art. 2, sec. 1 ;. Austria,
1855, Acts 1897, art. 96 a, sees. 1 to 3; Holland, 1889, art. 5, sec. 1; Italy, June 19,
1902, art. 7; Germany, I^aws 1891.
Then follow extracts from over ninety reports 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 discussed 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 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 reduction of the working day to ten hours
(a) the physical organization ot woman, (b) her maternal
functions, (c) the rearing and education of the children, (d) the maintenance of the
are all so impoitant and so far-reaching that the need for such reduction
home
need hardly be discussed."

—

upon

the question, the following sustain the constitution-

ality of such legislation

Co., 125 Mass. 383;

Commonwealth v. Hamilton Mfg.

Wenham

v. State, 65 Neb. 394, 400,
State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602 Commonwealth
V. Beatty, 15 Pa. Sup. Ct. 5, 17; against them in the case
of Ritchie v. People, 155 111. 98.

406

;

The

may

;

legislation

and opinions referred

to in the

margin

not be, technically speaking, authorities, and in them
is little or no discussion of the constitutional question presented to us for determination, yet they are significant of
a widespread belief 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. Constitutional questions, it is true, are not settled by even a consensus of present public opinion, for it is the peculiar value
of a written constitution that it places in unchanging form
limitations upon legislative action, and thus gives a permanence and stability to popular government which otherwise would be lacking. At the same time, when a question
of fact is debated and debatable, and the extent to which
a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by the
truth in respect to that fact, a widespread and long
continued belief concerning it is worthy of consideration.
take judicial cognizance of all matters of general
knowledge.
It is undoubtedly true, as more than once declared by
this court, that the general right to contract in relation to
one's business is part of the hberty of the individual, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution; yet it is equally well settled that this liberty is
not absolute and extending to all contracts, and that a State
may, without conflicting with the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, restrict in many respects the individWithout stopping to discuss at
ual's power of contract.
length the extent to which a State may act in this respect,
we refer to the following cases in which the question has

been considered: Allgeyer

Holden

Hardy, -169 U.

Louisiana^ 165

S. 366;

Lochner

S. 578;

New

York,

supra.

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 abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a long time on her feet at work,
repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects
the body, and as healthy mothers are essential 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.
Still again, history discloses the fact that woman has
always been dependent upon man. He established his control at the outset by superior physical strength, and this
control in various forms, with diminishing intensity, has
continued to the present. As minors, though not to the
same extent, she has been looked upon in the courts as needing especial care that her rights may be preserved.1 -Education was long denied her, and while now the doors of the
school-room are opened and her opportunities for acquiring knowledge are great, yet even with that and the consequent increase of capacity for business affairs it is still true
that in the struggle for subsistence she is not an equal competitor with her brother.
Though limitations upon personal and contractual rights may be removed by legislation, there is that in her disposition and habits of life which
will operate against a full assertion of those rights.
She
will still be where some legislation to protect her seems
necessary to secure a real equality of right. Doubtless there

upon

are individual' exceptions, and there are many respects in
which she has an advantage over him; but looking at it
from the viewpoint of the effort to maintain an independent
position in

life,

is not upon an equality.
Differentiated
from the other sex, she is properly placed

she

these matters

herself, and legislation designed for her probe sustained, even when like legislation is not
necessary for men and could not be sustained. It is im-

in a class

may

tection

possible to close one's eyes to the fact that she

still

looks to

her brother and depends upon him. I'^ven though
strictions

political, personal,

all re-

and contractual rights were

taken away, and she stood, so far as statutes are concerned,
upon an absolutely equal plane Avith him, it would still be
true that she is so constituted that she will rest upon and
look to him for protection that her physical structure and
;

—

a proper discharge of her maternal functions
having in
view not merely her own health, but the well-being of the
justify legislation to protect her from the greed as
race
well as the passion of man. | The limitations which this
statute places upon her contractual powers, upon her right
to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor,
are not imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for
the benefit of all. Many words cannot make this plainer.
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 vigorous 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.

We have not referred in this

discussion to the denial of

the elective franchise in the State of

Oregon, for while that

may

disclose a lack of political equality in all things with
her brother, that is not of itself decisive. The reason runs
deeper, and rests in the inherent difference between the two
sexes, and in the different functions in life which they

perform.

For

and without questioning in any respect
Lochner v. New York, we are of the opinion

these reasons,

the decision in

cannot be adjudged that the act in question is in
conflict with the Federal Constitution, so far as it respects
the work of a female in a laundry, and the judgment of the
that

Supreme Court

Oregon is
Affirmed.

[True Copy.

Test:

JAMES

McKENNEY,

Clerk, Supbeme Cotjkt, U.

Date Due

^^DEC 16

'76

MAY 13 '77

KF 3555 A5 B81
|:S;Author

Vol.

Eradeis, Louis Dembitz
Title

Women in industry

Copy

Full text of Women in Industry : Decision of the United States Supreme Court in Curt Muller Vs. State of Oregon, Upholding the Constitutionality of the Oregon Ten Hour Law for Women and Brief for the State of Oregon

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