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WOMEN'S BUREAU
••U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

WOMEN

WORK

A CENTURY

OF INDUSTRIAL CHANGE

UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT
OF LABOR
WOIVIEN'S BUREAU
BULLETIN NO. 161

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON 1939
:

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.

Price 15 cents

QO
PUBLIC

B. S. SUPEnl^l-rTflT^CTT

OOCUMEnH ^A/h

151940

JA.i-i

This review of women's progress

was written

industry

originally

in
in

American
1933

Eleanor Nelson, at that time on the staff of the
division of public information of the

The present thorough

Bureau.

Women's

revision as of

early 1939, with a few later references,

work
of

Rebecca Farnham,

public

information.

illustrations but that on

Jean W.
Carrie

Hill;

the

also of the division

The

cover

and

all

page 73 were drawn by

the exception

Ivie, of

Women's

the work of

Bureau.

CONTENTS

Page

Introduction

The coming

Low wages

Women

of the nnachine

for

women

wartime

of opportunities

workers

The opening

Fight for better conditions

Women

and labor laws

The Negro woman worker

The immigrant woman worker

The woman worker today

111

INTRODUCTION

WOMEN
always

were

work 100 years ago.

When

Women

have

century opened it was
within the home that most of them carried on the tasks of
providing food, shelter, and clothing. From dawn to dark
women spun, wove, sewed, cooked, and made butter, cheese,
candles, and countless other everyday articles. Nowadays
more than 10% million women in the United States are workers and most of them have jobs outside their homes. Whereeverthere is work to be done in our vast industrial system the
hands and brains of women aid in doing it.
To tell the story of the changes that have taken place In
women's work during the past 100 years is to tell the story
That women conof the industrial expansion of a nation.
tribute their share to the economic maintenance of themselves or their families is not new. But the fact that women
in increasing numbers have entered factory or store to work
And it is new and characteristic of this
for pay is new.
century that the individuality of women's work, once
expressed in delicately fashioned quilts, smoothly woven
cloth, and well-cooked food, is lost in industry in the
machine labor of making standardized products.
The invention of machines, the growth of a huge industrial
system, the development of a vast frontier land, the duration
an economic history of two
of a Civil and a World War
centuries all these are part of the story of working women.
Running through it all, however, two factors in women's
employment have been consistent an oversupply of women
for the jobs available, and lower wages for women than for

—

worked.

this

—

men;
1

THE COMING OF THE MACHINE
a world of gardening and raising sheep in the back
yard, of grinding flour, of weaving cloth in the "front

INTO

room, "the first machines appeared duringthe late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. Manufacturers with enough
capital to buy machines that were too expensive for individual workers to own began machine production for profit.
This system was to revolutionize our whole manner of life.
Many of the earlier machines did work that had always
been done by women at home spinning, weaving, and sewing. Naturally, manufacturers looking for factory operatives
turned to women. The change from home to factory work
was neither sudden nor complete. While some women were
at work in the early textile mills, in many industries only
one or two Jobs were done in factories at first. The rest of
the product was made by the old hand processes at home.

—

THE COMING OF THE MACHINE
Indeed, women often connbined their household duties with
working for pay at home.
As the invention of machines went on and as factories
grew in size and completeness, work became more and more
concentrated. Instead of doing part-time work at home with
their own makeshift equipment, women spent the entire
day in the factories for wages.
Though the first women to enter factory employment were
simply following their work from home to shop, this was only
a small factor among the forces that were driving women into
industrial employment.
The factory soon showed that it was able to turn out goods
more rapidly, more cheaply, and more efficiently than they
had ever been produced before.
Steam and electricity
succeeded water as the source of power. New machines
were invented that took over the production of an everincreasing variety of goods, and new products were created.
Meanwhile, women turned to factory employment in growing
numbers as it became possible to have a greater variety of
possessions by working for wages than by producing articles
on a handicraft basis.
The factories, located with a view to available power and
future marketing, soon developed communities, and these
attracted other workers in various lines of activity.
As
towns grew in size, many of the older household occupations
became impossible. Sheep could not be raised; dairying
could not be carried on even large vegetable gardens could
not be planted. But in factories there was a growing demand
;

for labor to turn out increasing quantities of food, clothing,

The housewife found it
shoes, soap, and other articles.
cheaper and easier to buy these things from the stores than
to spend many hours makingthem at home. The work necessary to carry on household activities decreased. As a result,
3

WOMEN AT WORK
many women became

surplus labor as far as their relation

was concerned. To these women factory work
offered the means of supporting themselves and of continu-

to the family

ing their contribution to the family income.

The movement was hastened by the fact that men's
wages were not high enough to meet the needs and demands
of the family. To secure a living for the family, the earnings
of women were In many cases an actual necessity.
But the place taken by women in factories has been mainly
the unskilled and lower-paid jobs the skilled and betterpaid occupations have remained largely the stronghold of
men. As the use of machines has progressed, the dividing of
operations has increased tremendously the number of
unskilled and low-paid jobs, and these have fallen to women
much more than to men.
in

;

WOMEN'S OCCUPATIONS
In

1930 there were more than 1^ million

in factories.

tries

—

The majority were

textiles, clothing,

tries In

which no

and food

IN 1930
women employed

their traditional indus-

— but there were few Indus-

women worked. They had been welcomed

in increasing numbers into the new rayon and electrical and
the expanding rubber industries. For two decades they had
been gaining on men in automobile and other metal industries, cigars and tobacco, clay, glass, and stone, besides
leather and shoes, clothing, and food.
The machine changed the lives of many more women than
With mass production
actually went to work in factories.
Goods must
of goods, mass distribution became necessary.
be sold to wholesalers and then to retailers. They must

be transported from factory to warehouse to store. Thus
the need of clerical workers and salespeople grew. With
mass distribution came the widespread use of the telephone

THE COMING OF THE MACHINE
and soon wonnen's deft fingers were welcomed at the telephone switchboard as they had been at the loonn and typeIn 20 years the number of women in clerical occumore than trebled, reaching nearly 2 million in 1930.
The number of women in business and trade doubled, so
that nearly 1 million were working as saleswomen or as
dealers in 1930. The number of women telephone and

writer.

pations

telegraph operators trebled, reaching a quarter of a million.
As machine methods were found superior to home methods
the number of laundry operatives doubled to 160,000.
Likewise, as less eating was done at home and more in restaurants
the number of waitresses almost trebled, reaching 232,000.
Further, as the leisure and wealth of the population increased, more opportunities were opened up in the professions and in domestic and personal service. The number
of women servants rose to over 1 million.
The number of
professional women, especially trained nurses and teachers,
more than doubled, to reach 1)^ million.
Accompanying these great increases was a striking decline
in the number of women employed in agriculture.
With
the movement of population from farm to city the number of
women workers in agriculture decreased by several hundred
thousand. There were great declines also in the numbers
of home dressmakers, milliners, and laundresses.
Much of the increase in certain fields of employment probably was due to the growing proportions of women who were
leaving home to seek work.
In 1870, less than 15 percent
of all women 16 years of age and over were bread winners.
one In every four
In 1930, 25 percent of such women
worked for a living. Today, 1939, the proportion of women
workers Is believed to be still greater because of the large
numbers of women who set out to look for work when their
family breadwinners lost their jobs in the recent depression.

—

LOW WAGES FOR WOMEN
women
industry
history
THE low wages they have been paid. has
the

been darkened by
an industrial system where the profits of the manufacturer depend on low
production costs, the temptation has been to pay the lowest
wages for which it is possible to obtain workers. Because
there have been many thousands more women ready and
eager to work than there have been jobs available, the
woman worker has accepted jobs at almost any wage rather
than be unemployed. This competition has been made
keenerand woman's bargaining power has been made weaker
by the fact that the work she has been given to do could be
done equally well by thousands of other untrained women.
Moreover, when woman first went into factories to work
she was still thought of as a part of a family group whose
main support came from the men of the household father,
husband, or brother. Her wages were looked upon as
of

—

LOW WAGES FOR WOMEN
extra spending nnoney, not as earnings on which she had to
depend for her support. This idea still prevails with nnany
employers and has had much to do with keeping women's
wages at a level below that of men's wages, and even below
the cost of living.

WHY WOMEN MUST WORK
Whatever excuse there may have been in the past for the
women worked chiefly for pin money, today the
wages of most women are as necessary as the wages of most
men. Usually women must depend on their wages for their
own support and often they are responsible as well for the
idea that

entire or partial

support of others.

home more than daughters

Because sons leave

more likely than
boys to assume the financial responsibility of the home.
More than half of all women workers are single (according
to 1930 Census figures), but uncounted numbers have
others to think of besides themselves ^they are helping to
support aged parents or young brothers and sisters. The large
number of women workers who are widowed or divorced
(about 17 in every 100 employed women in 1930) and
those separated from their husbands, legally or by desertion, are in many cases responsible for the support of their
children.
Of the married women workers living with their
husbands, a not inconsiderable number are the major
breadwinners of their households owing to the fact that
their husbands are unemployed, many of them disabled for
work.
Less than 30 percent of all women workers are married.
The very occupations at which most of these women are
employed domestic and personal service, agriculture, factory labor
indicate that usually they are working from
dire necessity, because their husbands are disabled or cando, girls are

—

—
—

WOMEN AT WORK
For that group whose husbands are worknot find jobs.
ing, the wife's earnings are usually a very poor supplennent
to the family income and one that should not be necessary.
It is unfortunate, but true, that in most cases these wives
work because their husbands' wages are too low to shelter,
feed, and clothe the family at a reasonable standard of

decency.

Even at the peak of prosperity in 1929 the average family
America had only about three-fourths of the income
necessary to provide the minimum of adequate living. Of
in

wage-earners' families not on relief in 1935-36, only
two-thirds had enough income to meet minimum living
In 1935-36, according to the National Rerequirements.
sources Committee, 27 in every 100 families in the United
States had less than $750 a year to live on, and 42 in 100
had less than $1,000. Only 35 in every 100 families had
With earnings so inadequate, more
as much as $1,500.

city

and more members of such households must seek employment, accepting any wage that will help to build up the
family income to a decent level.
It is largely because of the inadequacy of men's earnings
in modern times, when most workers have no land nor
home industry to supplement wages, that the proportion of
married women workers increased from 13.9 percent of all
women workers in 1890 to 28.9 percent of all in 1930.

WAGES BELOW LIVING COSTS
Whereas a man's wages usually are too low to support a
woman's wages usually are inadequate even for
her own support and they are doubly or trebly inadequate
when she has dependents. Cost-of-living studies made in

family, a

various parts of the country indicate that a woman living
alone needs from $18 to $23 a week to support herself in
8

LOW WAGES FOR WOMEN
health and decency.
The amount is not nnuch less if she
lives with a family.
Yet it was found by the National
Industrial Conference Board in September 1938 that women's wages in 25 manufacturing industries averaged only
$16.22 a week for more than 34 hours' work.
Much lower figures were found for certain industries by
the Women's Bureau in March 1938 in leading industrial
States (and even these figures probably exceed the average
wage level, because they are based on data from the larger
and better-organized firms). When women averaged at
least 36 hours of work a week, their average wages were
less than $1 3 In cotton dresses, less than $14 in laundries and
dyeing and cleaning, less than $15 in boots and shoes, and
less than $16 in bakery products, cotton small wares, and
drug preparations.

Short time brought earnings

still

lower

other industries.

They averaged $11 in cotton goods and knit cloth with a
30-hour week; and $12 in knit underwear, men's cotton
garments and work clothing, and shirts and collars, with
workweeks averaging 29 to 32 hours. Between $12 and
$14 were the average weekly earnings in silk and rayon,
candy, men's furnishings, radios and phonographs, paper
boxes, cigars and cigarettes, and glass manufacture. Women
worked an average of 30 to 34 hours a week for these wages.
Particularly low earnings are found in certain manufac"turing industries.
One out of four of the women in knitunderwear factories in 1937 received less than $10 a week.
The same was true of one out of three in seamless hosiery
and men's work clothing and one out of two In work shirts.
One out of five candy workers in a northern State earned
less

than $8.

Lower still,

of course, are the

workers on farms and

wages

of the 2 million

women

domestic and personal service.

WOMEN

WORK

As for white collar workers, most of them, particularly in
and stores, cannot expect much greater earnings than

offices

factory workers.
of 100 or even 75 years
would appear that great advances have been

Compare today's wages with those
ago and

A century ago, it is estimated, women's earnings
branches of business averaged less than 37}^ cents for
Men at that time earned about
a day of 12 or more hours.
Even lower wages were reported for women
$1.50 a day.
in New York during the Civil War period, when they were
paid $2 a week or about 33 cents for a day of 1 to 16 hours.
But though wages have increased in the century, so has
Some idea of how inadequate women's
the cost of living.
wages are today may be had by comparing the New York
average weekly wage of about $17 for women factory and
laundry workers in 1937 with the cost of an adequate minimum budget for a girl or woman living alone in New York
This cost was found to be $22.93 a
State in that year.
week, the average figure obtained by the State department
of labor after pricing in representative cities and towns of
the State all the items considered essential for adequate
maintenance and protection of health. For rent, food, and
clothing alone the cost was $15.66; in other words, the
average working woman in New York in 1937 had only $1.34
left each week after she had paid for her room rent, food,
and clothing. Even if she lived with others she needed a
wage of $13.15 a week for these first essentials, which left
her only $3.85 a week for savings and insurance vacations
doctor and dentist; laundry and clothing repair; carfare;
education and recreation; and a hundred and one other
made.
in all

;

demands.
Recent studies show that a girl living alone in Connecticut needs between $18 and $20 a week; in Colorado she
10

LOW WAGES FOR WOMEN
needs $18.77 if she eats in restaurants and $17.31 if she
cooks her own meals.
In Utah her cost of living is $17.77;
in Arizona $19.85; in Pennsylvania $21.05; in the District
of Columbia $21.51; in New Jersey $22.07; and in New

York

much

as $22.93.

WOMEN'S WAGES LOWER THAN MEN'S
Women's low wages cause suffering to them and their
dependents. This is bad enough, but perhaps worse still is
the effect such a wage level has on men's wage standards
and on the whole standard of living of the country. A lower
wage level for one group of workers always threatens to
undermine the standards of the group with the higher wage
level.
The effect is the same whether the wage differential
is

between

The sex

localities, races, or sexes.

country is very marked.
York, and Ohio from 1923
or 1924 to 1935 or 1936 show that throughout the period
in all three States women's average weekly earnings in
manufacturing were only from 52 to 63 percent of those
differential

Figures collected

Illinois,

this

New

men.

Consistently lower earnings for women than for men are
found in clerical, trade, and domestic-service occupations,
and even in professional service.
Though it is true that the difference between men's and
women's wages may be explained usually by the difference
in the character of their work, the very fact that women are
confined to the less skilled and hence the lower-paid jobs
in an industry is in line with a tendency of employers to use
women as a low-paid reserve, always threatening to undermine men's wage standards. This is clear from the fact
that, even when women work at the same jobs, as a rule
they receive less pay than men.
11

WOMEN
And so

a vicious circle

WORK

set up.

Unemployment

or low

wages of men make it necessary for their wives, mothers,
and daughters to go to work. But the even lower wages that
women accept under this necessity cause employers to consider ways in which they can employ more women and fewer
men, by introducing machinery that will reduce the amount
of skill required of the worker.
As more men are discharged,
more women are forced to enter the market. Those women
who have jobs feel that they must hold on to them at any
wage if they do not want to lose them to the great reserve

women waiting at the factory gate. Faced with this
constant threat to their jobs, largely unorganized, practically unskilled, and victims of a tradition that places less
value on women's work than on men's, women workers have
been able to do little toward removing the unfair differentials that exist both to their disadvantage and to that of men
workers.

force of

SWEATSHOP AND HOME-WORK WAGES
Even the usual factory wages are not low enough to suit
employers. To get an advantage over their competitors,
some manufacturers move to out-of-the-way communities,
where legal safeguards are lacking or not enforced, and
establish a "sweatshop."
Or they send work out to be done
in homes where the worker must pay for the rent, heat, and
light.
These practices increase in depression periods when
workers can be induced to work for any price, and usually it
all^

women who

are the victims.

A sweatshop generally is thought of as a small factory
working at standards far below average in the industry,
combining the lowest wages with the longest hours and the
At one time the typical sweatpoorest working conditions.
shop was a clothing factory in a New York tenement, oper12

LOW WAGES FOR WOMEN
ated for the manufacturer by a contractor. Today the
organized garnnent workers of New York have practically
done away with such conditions, but sweatshops are still to
be found hidden away in small towns or other places where
manufacturers think they can escape unions and labor laws.
It is in rural areas or city slums that industrial home work
Women with little or no industrial experience,
flourishes.
isolated from other workers, and hence with little idea
of the true value of their labor, toil endless hours in their
homes under the poor light that they can afford, making
orfinishing garments, knitting or embroidering, carding buttons or pins, making toys, garters, cheap jewelry, lamp
shades, flowers, powder puffs, etc. These women may have
to put in 12 or 14 hours of work, by day and night, just as
women did in the past century, and their week's earnings
are likely to be as little as the $2 of 100 years ago.
Federal and State Governments, together with good employers and organized workers, have recently been attempting to end such shameful conditions as substandard
wages, sex differentials, sweatshops, and industrial home
work. The Federal Government in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established minimum wages in interstate
industries, whether the work is performed in factory or at
home. The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act of 1936
regulates the wages and hours of employees on Government
contracts of a specified amount, and outlaws industrial
home work on such contracts. In both these acts the Federal Government provides equal pay for men and women
doing the same work.
In addition, 26 States (including
Maine, with a law for the fish-packing and fish-processing
industry only), the District of Columbia, Alaska, and Puerto
Rico have passed minimum-wage laws for women, and 17
States have laws regulating or prohibiting industrial home
work.
167176°

WOMEN

WORK

No law has been devised, however, to prevent the indirect
wage-cut resulting fronn the speed-up or stretch-out, that is,
the practice of increasing the amount of work that must be
performed in a given period of time. As new systems are
devised for increasing the work load without increasing the
hourly rate, workers have only their unions or an awakened
public conscience to save them from the strain and overfatigue that such speed-up systems can cause.
Since 1936 organized labor has reached out into more and

more woman-employing industries and won agreements
wages for women. Some unions have

that provide higher

Insisted upon "equal pay for equal work."
So long as the workers, who largely make up the buying

power of the Nation, are not paid sufficient wages to buy
back the goods they produce, our industrial system based on
production for profit cannot operate successfully, and periodic depressions with widespread suffering are the inevitable
result.

WOMEN WORKERS

WARTIME

occupations
THE entrance of wonnen upwage-earningWar and
was trennendously speeded
by the
into

Civil

the

World War. With the departure of men for the front,
wonnen moved into their places in factories and offices.
The Nation's work and the new industries created by the
war had to be carried on, and women were given the chance
and occupations never before open to them.
women played during the World War we
have a dramatic picture. The war itself wrenched the whole
industrial machine.
In the quick shift from peace to war
status women as well as men were rapidly absorbed by the
iron and steel mills, metal factories and foundries ;they were
practically drafted to make munitions and other war supAerial warfare created a new industry, in which
plies.
women were indispensable, and it expanded the industries

to enter trades

Of the

that

role that

made the

materials necessary for aircraft manufacture.
15

WOMEN AT WORK
Meanwhile the army of 4,000,000 men had to be fed and
clothed, and in addition the Nation's industries had to continue to supply the needs of the people at home.
In the wartime crisis women's industrial employment
took two new and definite paths: First, into the war munitions industries, where high wages were being paid and
where a greater degree of skill was required, went large
numbers of women already trained in industry; throughout
the war employers testified to the greater value of the women
with previous experience in factories. Second, as the drafts
took more men to the front, another class of women went
into the old woman-employing manufactures of these, many
had previously been at work in agriculture, in domestic or
personal service, or had never before worked for pay.
As a special emergency measure, under the war-labor administration in Washington, there was set up in 1918 a
Woman in Industry Service, whose duty it was to set standards for the employment of women in war work. Such an
agency had long been the desire of progressive people interested in women workers, but not until the war focused the
attention of the public on the importance of women's work
was it achieved.
;

NEW JOB OPPORTUNITIES OPENED
The labor shortage created by the war gave more women
than ever before in the history of the country the opportunity
to enter factory work.
By throwing open to them the iron
and steel mills, sheet-metal plants, lumber mills, chemical,
automobile, and electrical-supply factories, it broadened
their industrial horizon.

Many of these war jobs for women, it is true, were of a
monotonous, unskilled type, such as tending automatic
machines, or turning out, assembling, or inspecting dupli16

WOMEN WORKERS

WARTIME

cated parts, hundreds of thousands a day, at great speed.
But the shortage of labor also cleared the way to many of the
skilled occupations and key positions in industry.
In the
iron and steel nnills and other metal industries, for example,
it opened to women the machine shop and the tool room.
In
other industries, too, women were given work requiring

judgment, skill, and precision.
Moreover, the experience of women even in the warsupply industries was to be of peace time value to them.
For in factories making shells, guns, and other munitions
women were handling the same kinds of machines and tools
as were used by the women who made automobiles, motorcycles, electrical apparatus, and agricultural implements.
In the furniture and veneer factories the same kind of work
went into peace products as went into airplane parts, munitions and tool boxes, or wheels for artillery trucks.
The wartime increase among women workers was not
limited to the factories.
Thousands more women than
ever before became nurses, both at home and overseas.
From 1910 to 1920 women school teachers increased in

numbers by one-third. The number of women telegraph
operators doubled.
The entrance of women into office
work as stenographers and typists, clerks, and bookkeepers
and cashiers was spectacular, their numbers increasing by
over 800,000.
With the surge of women into the newer
occupations during the war period came a large decrease
in two of their old lines
and personal service.

work

— agriculture and

domestic

GAINS FROM WAR EXPERIENCE
Would women remain

as workers when the war ended?
people thought this question would be answered by
the return of women to their homes or their old occupations.

Many

WOMEN AT WORK
numbers must have returned to their old occuwe know that by 1930 there were 2% million
more women at work than when the 1920 census was

And

large

pations.

But

taken, Immediately after the war.
While some of the most dramatic features of women's
war work have disappeared, the field of their employment
has been widely and permanently expanded. The woman
Women in
streetcar conductor has practically vanished.
overalls turning out shells and guns are, happily, a thing
of the past, but from 1920 to 1930 the number of women
operatives in plants making electrical machinery, apparatus,
and supplies increased by 18,000, the- number in plants
making chemicals and allied products by 9,700, and the
number in automobile factories by more than 6,000.
The war proved that women could do work that no one
had ever believed they could do, But it did more. Their
substitution for men in carrying through a national emergency broke down many prejudices against their working
and changed ideas as to the types of work they should do.
What women could do properly and do well in wartime
became easier for them to do in a time of peace.
Among the permanent wartime gains made by women
workers is the Women's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, which grew out of the Woman in Industry Service of the war labor administration. The
function of the Women's Bureau is to "formulate standards
and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning
women, improve their working conditions, increase their
efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable

employment."
The Bureau investigates and reports to the Department
all matters relating to the employment of women in industry.
It is a fact-finding agency whose duty It is to study

WOMEN WORKERS

WARTIME

the problems and conditions of women workers, to decide
by scientific research and investigation the best standards
for their employment, and to make public its findings and
conclusions.
Its research bulletins and other published
material on women's working conditions are used by
legislators, labor unions, employers, and economists as a
guide in obtaining better standards of employment for

women.

THE OPENING OF OPPORTUNITIES
hand to
THE change fromwoman's machine manufacture not only
economic place
society but
revolutionized
in

Many customs
her social status.
and prejudices were based on the fact that, in the old days,
women's work was that of providing food, shelter, and
Social standards
clothing for the family within the home.
for the behavior of women in regard to work were limited
For these
to the household duties of wife and mother.
duties education was not considered necessary, and a
century ago only a single college, Oberlin, in Ohio, was open
Affairs outside their homes were not considered
to women.
the concern of women. They were not allowed to vote and
could take no part in legislative matters.
Against this social code came the impact of the machine.
As soon as women entered factory employment their social
At once they had
horizon was immeasurably broadened.
made profound changes

THE OPENING OF OPPORTUNITIES
work under circumstances over which they had no control.
hours were too long or conditions too hard, their only
remedy lay in organizing and bringing their case to the

to
If

attention of the employer through collective bargaining or
the strike, or to the attention of the public through campaigns for corrective labor legislation.
But both these
courses involved meetings, speaking on platforms, and
parading activities that were not only unusual but absolutely scandalous for women of their day.
Meanwhile, as the wage-earning woman became an
accepted part of our industrial life, it was natural that the
more intelligent and ambitious women should turn toward
the professions and the opportunities of education.
Many
of these women were not wage earners but had been freed
by machine production from long hours of work within the
home, and with more leisure were becoming actively interested in the events of the day.
Even here tradition and prejudice stood in woman's
way Insisting that her place was in the home, and not
in college, on the lecture platform, or in public life.
During the century women have carried on a struggle to
break down these prejudices. The scenes and issues of
the feminist movement have varied, but the driving force
It has been an
behind the movement has been unaltered.
effort on the part of women to adjust public opinion to their
changed economic status an effort to have equal opportunities with men in making a contribution to society outside
the home, whether in industry, in the professions, or in
public life.
Though aided in their fight by the economic
forces that were driving them, and by social changes that
did much to break down old traditions, the gains that
women have made have been the result of hard-won battles
against hostile and bitter public opinion.

—

;

WOMEN

WORK

WOMEN EMERGE INTO PUBLIC

LIFE

The struggle began simply with women's attempt to
organize, hold meetings, and speak on the lecture platform
But that
for whatever cause they were interested in.
women should speak or appear on a platform, whether to
improve working conditions, to protest against slavery, or
to fight for temperance, was a cause of extreme public inIn 1837 Independence Hall in Philadelphia was
dignation.
set on fire while Angelina Grimke was speaking, the mob
incensed partly because the speaker was a woman and
Persisting in
partly because she spoke against slavery.
the face of this hostile public opinion, the early women
speakers were shamed and ridiculed not only by men but
by their

sisters.

women went on, soon centering around the
The
struggle to obtain the vote, since this would help in the adThe first public meeting to discuss
justing of other wrongs.
the political rights of women was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y.,
in 1848, but the suffrage fight began in earnest with the
forming of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869,
which elected Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president and
Susan B. Anthony as chairman of the executive committee.
In 1878 the first suffrage amendment was introduced into
fight of

House of Representatives and its wording
was never changed from that time until it was passed and

the United States

made into a law that enfranchised women in 1920. The
Mass
closing scenes of the fight for suffrage were dramatic.
meetings were held throughout the country, accompanied by
A pilgrimage was made to
spectacular street parades.
Washington, and women suffragists picketing with banners
in the Nation's Capital were arrested and carried off in the
"Black Maria"

to the police station.
22

THE OPENING OF OPPORTUNITIES

COLLEGES OPENED TO WOMEN
The success of the feminist movement can be measured
more terms than the obtaining of the vote, important as
was that step. It can be measured in the opening of educain

tional

opportunities to

women and

their occupational

advancement.

When Oberlin College was established in 1833 on a coeducational plan it was the first school in the world to offer a
In 1848 Dr. Elizabeth Blackcollege education to women.
well was graduated in medicine at Geneva, N. Y., the first
woman physician in the world. During her 3 years of study
women at her boarding house refused to speak to her,
and meeting her on the streets drew aside their skirts in

the

contempt.

Today many women's

colleges of the highest standing

have been established. State universities and law and
medical schools have opened their doors to women.
Duringf
the decade 1920 to 1930 the number of professional women
increased by 48 percent, reaching a total of more than
1,400,000, only 50,000 short of the number of professional
Three-fifths of the professional women are school
teachers and another fifth are trained nurses, the latter an

men.

occupation entered by many women in the World War.
But
the numbers of women college presidents and professors;
librarians; authors, editors, and reporters; and lawyers and
judges professions more recently opened to women practically doubled from 1920 to 1930 and represent real occupational gains for women.

—

WOMEN

—

GOVERNMENT SERVICE

Nowhere perhaps has the advancement of women been
shown than in the service of the United States Gov-

better

WOMEN

WORK

of the few women employed before the
Clara Barton, who in the early fifties worked
in the Patent Office. She was dismissed because of her outspokenness in denouncing slavery. In 1862 the Treasurer
of the United States, Gen. Francis E. Spinner, appointed
Jennie Douglas to cut and trim paper currency, work then
done by hand and entirely by men. Spinner later remarked
that Miss Douglas' first day's work "settled the matter in
her behalf and in woman's favor."
Shortly after, women
were introduced into the dead-letter office of the Postal
Service, where they opened and returned letters, soon
Many years passed, however, and
doubling men's output.
much legislation had to be enacted sanctioning women's
employment before it was made compulsory in 1919 that all
competitive examinations should be open to women and men
From then on women became a really important facalike.
In 1923 the Classification
tor in the Government service.
Act provided, for the Federal Departments in Washington,
that men and women should be paid the same rates for the

ernment.
Civil

Here one

War was

same work.
Today men

still outnumber women on Uncle Sam's pay
and prejudice still stands in the way of appointments
and promotions being made solely on the basis of fitness for
In December 1932 an Executive Order of President
the job.
Hoover stipulated that appointing officers could no longer
specify either sex as preferred, and that appointments must
go to the persons highest on the register unless the work

roll,

was unsuited to their
women's opportunities

actually

sex.

ther

for

This order failed to fur-

employment, and

was

later rescinded.
In 1932 Section 213 of the Economy Act became law and
operated for a time as another factor to retard women's progSection 213 required that in making
ress in public service.

THE OPENING OF OPPORTUNITIES
employment, those persons who had husband or wife also employed in the Government should be
In practice this law worked to the disadvanthe first to go.
lay-offs in Federal

tage of low-paid women in the Government service. When
it was a choice of giving up either a husband's or a wife's
salary, naturally in most instances the family preferred to do
without the woman's smaller earnings. Women's organizations and unions of Government employees led a campaign
for the repeal of Section 213 and in 1937 it was removed
from the statute books. But the 5-year existence of this
section had set a precedent that persisted in some Government departments, making it difficult for married women to

Though it was shown that much injustice and litany economy resulted fronn Section 21 3, in a number of
States and localities campaigns still are conducted against
the employment of married women in public service.^ Where
such a policy is established, it inevitably works to the disadvantage of all women workers, married or single.
In June 1938 about
166,000 women, in contrast to
686,000 men, were on the Federal pay roll. Stenographers
and clerks made up the great majority of these women, but
get Jobs.

tle

many held professional positions, such as librarian, scientist,
economist, business or medical specialist, legal assistant, and
many others held important administrative and executive
positions.

WOMEN
The change

reflected in the

POLITICAL POSTS

public attitude toward women's abilities is
of women in public life today.
With

number

the appointment of Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor,
for the first time in history a woman is serving as a member
1

this bulletin

is in

press,

word

conn'es that the

has declared such discrimination unconstitutional.

Supreme Court

Massachusetts

WOMEN AT WORK
of the Cabinet.

from 1933

Ruth Bryan Owen, minister to Dennnark
was the first woman to represent the
Another historic landa foreign court.

to 1936,

United States at

mark was passed in November 1932, when Hattie W. Caraway was elected to the United States Senate by the State of
Arkansas.
In 1938 there were six women in the United States Congress, including Senator Caraway and five Representatives.
Florence J. Harriman was serving as Minister to Norway.
Two women judges, Florence E. Allen and Genevieve R.
Cline, were presiding over Federal courts, and one woman
was serving as a United States consul. In the States 140
women were representing the people in the legislative halls.
Many more women had posts in city or town governments
and a very considerable number held county offices.
In 1939 there were 5 women in the Congress, and in the
The number of States
State legislatures there were 127.
with women legislators was 9 less than in 1938.
This apparent setback represents a trend over the past
decade. The decline in number of women in elective offices
since 1929 probably reflects in part a subsiding from the first
flush of enthusiasm that followed the granting of suffrage to

women.
The elections

of 1938 were marked by the placing in office
the first Negro woman legislator, Crystal Bird Fauset, who
in her triumph at the Philadelphia polls in November 1938
overcame the double handicap of sex and race.
Many inequalities remain. For example, in only 24 States
But while woman today still has
can women serve on Juries.
a footing far from equal with that of man, whether in industry,
in the professions, or in government, intelligent and welldirected effort has advanced her a long way toward her goal
of standing side by side with him as citizen and worker.
of

FIGHT FOR BETTER CONDITIONS
THROUGHOUT our industrial history

low wages and long
too frequently by employers
increase profits.
For this reason
in
their efforts to
workers have been forced into labor unions to protect themUnited by their mutual desire to improve their
selves.
laboring conditions, workers in a trade or industry have
joined together in organizations, and through collective
bargaining and the strike have fought for higher wages,
shorter hours, and better working conditions.
Women early became active in the labor movement. In
1825 the tailoresses of New York formed a union and struck

hours have been used

for higher wages, but the first

known

strike of

women

in this

1824 at Pawtucket, R. I., when "female
weavers" struck with the men against a reduction of wages
and an increase in hours. Throughout the thirties there were
country occurred

WOMEN

WORK

strikes of tailoresses, seamstresses, cotton-mill workers, and

other groups in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and
elsewhere. The most dramatic of these early strikes was
that of the Lowell, Mass., cotton-mill women in 1834, when
at the signal of a waved poke bonnet they marched out 2,000
strong in protest against a wage cut of from 12 to 25 percent.
On the second day of the strike they issued a proclamation
closing with these lines:
Let oppression shrug her shoulders
And a haughty tyrant frown,
And little upstart Ignorance
In mockery look down.
Yet
value not the feeble threats
Of Tories in disguise,
While the flag of Independence
O'er our noble Nation flies.
I

During the forties and fifties, women's organization was
most effective in labor-reform associations of Lowell and
Fall River, Mass., Manchester and Dover, N. H., and New
York and Philadelphia. These associations, composed
chiefly of textile-mill girls, also included capmakers, shoemakers, tailoresses, and seamstresses. Though somewhat
humanitarian in spirit and laying special stress on educational
activities, through strikes they were able to raise wages and
shorten the workday, and they carried on successful agitation
Outstanding here was the Lowell
for protective legislation.
Female Labor Reform Association, which under the leadership of Sarah Bagley secured the signatures of thousands of
factory operatives, petitioning the legislature for a 10-hour
In the first Government labor investigation In this
day.
country it sent delegates to urge the question before
a

legislative

committee

the

1845.
28

statehouse at

Boston

FIGHT FOR BETTER CONDITIONS

WOMEN ENTER ESTABLISHED UNIONS
time women generally were organized separately
During the next 20 years this continued to be
the case, as women formed their own local unions of the
Laundresses, capmakers, printers, burvarious trades.
nishers, textile workers, umbrella sewers, seamstresses,
tailoresses, shoe workers, and cigar makers were so organIn 1869 women boasted their first national organizaized.
tion
^the Daughters of St. Crispin, a union of women shoe
workers comprising two or three dozen local lodges scattered
In 1867
across the country from Maine to California.
women cigar makers were admitted to the cigar makers'
union, which up to then had consisted only of men, and in
1869 women printers were admitted for the first time to the
All this

from men.

—

typographical union.
Not until the organization of the Knights of Labor, however, which dominated the trade-union scene through the
eighties

and

nineties,

was any

real effort

made

encourage

the organization of women on an equal footing and with
By then the necessity of organizing
equal power with men.
women workers had come to be recognized by men unionists.

With division of labor, women who traditionally worked for
low wages were coming into industry in growing numbers.
Men unionists were forced to realize that as long as manufacturers could turn to a cheap supply of women laborers,

who
own

could be used to displace them or to break strikes, their
Even more complicating was
security was threatened.
the fact that recent invaders were their own wives, sisters,
and daughters. Clearly, an injury to one was the concern
of all.
In the preamble to its constitution, adopted in
January 1878, one of the principal objects of the Knights
was stated to be, "To secure for both sexes equal pay for
equal work."
It was not until 1881 that women definitely
157176°— 39

WOMEN

WORK

were admitted to the union. By 1886 the number of women
members was estimated at about 50,000, but from then on
a steady decline occurred as the Knights of Labor waned
in

influence.

From the

disruption of the Knights of Labor (about 1890)
1936 the history of women in trade unions in the
United States was largely the history of women in the
various national organizations or local unions affiliated with
This
the American Federation of Labor, organized in 1881.
body early put itself on record as recognizing theadvisaof organizing women, and in
bility
in fact, the necessity
1890 the first woman delegate was sent to the national
convention of the Federation from the clerks' union in
until

—

Findlay, Ohio.

NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE
To assist in organizing women into unions, the National
Women's Trade Union League was formed in 1903. Patterned on the Women's Trade Union League of Great
Britain, its purpose was to unite in one national organization
working women, whether already in unions or not, together
with sympathizers of the movement outside the actual

labor ranks.

The first large strike in which the league took part was
that of the Ladies' Waist Makers Union in New York City
From every
in 1909, involving 30,000 or more women.
waist-making factory in New York and Brooklyn girls
poured forth, until 75 percent of all workers in the trade
During the first 2 weeks from 1 ,000
had answered the call.
to 1,500 women a day joined the strikers.
Besides taking part in specific labor struggles, the league,
because its membership has included many influential women outside the actual labor ranks, has been able to publicize
30

FIGHT FOR BETTER CONDITIONS
trade-union fights and to draw on the active support and
When organization
cooperation of women's organizations.
has seenned too slow to free women from intolerable working conditions, the league has fought for legislation for their
It has aided much in bringing to women workprotection.
ers the realization that the suffrage movement was part of
their struggle and that in the vote they have a valuable
tool with which to better their condition.
Outstanding accomplishments of the league outside the
field of organizing have been the following: To ask for the
Federal inquiry, authorized by the Congress in 1907, into
the condition of woman and child wage earners; to lead in
the endeavor to establish within the Department of Labor
a women's division under a woman chief to urge the importance of declaring standards for women's work in wartime
to send two of its members to the Peace Conference at Versailles to present its reconstruction program; backed by
the working women of Great Britain and France, to call the
;

first

International

Congress

support strongly the

movement

Working Women; and to
and

for workers' education

training.

Today the National Women's Trade Union League and
branches have an important function in serving as a
unifying force among the various unions to which its memThe league has helped also to consolidate
bers belong.
the great gains made in the organization of women since
1933.
its local

GROWTH OF UNIONS DURING

N. R. A.

National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was passed
time when labor organization was at a low ebb because
As the wheels of
of the 3)^ years of severe depression.
industry were set moving again, workers rushed to join

The

at a

WOMEN

WORK

The depression had taught thenn that withtrade unions.
out strong organization they were helpless in the face of
wage cuts, lengthened hours, and unemployment. Also,
they were given courage to organize by Section 7(a) of the
N. 1. R. A., which gave workers a Federal guarantee of the
The N. R. A.^ codes further
right to collective bargaining.
stimulated workers to join unions. They saw that employers' associations were well represented at code hearings, whereas the workers' side of the story was often
inadequately presented in industries which were not well
organized.
In 1933 and 1934, to protect the standards won under the
N. R. A., workers engaged in tremendous strikes, including
the San Francisco general strike, the dress strike, and the
great textile strike of 1934, in which women took a promiAbout 285,000 women went on strike in 1933
nent part.
and 328,000 in 1934, according to estimates of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, as compared with less than 60,000 in
any of the 6 years immediately preceding. For the first
time workers in important mass-production industries, inWomen
cluding rubber and automobiles, began to organize.
were becoming increasingly important here, as well as in
radio and light metal industries where also unions were
Unfortunately, many of these new unions
rapidly formed.
were company-dominated and proved useless in winning
better conditions for the workers.
By 1935, however, at the end of the N. R. A. period,
nearly two-thirds of the workers in men's and women's
So were between
clothing were under union contracts.
one-fourth and one-half of the workers in hosiery and boots
and shoes. The extent of collective bargaining in these
and other key industries had doubled in 2 years' time.
<

National Recovery Administration.

FIGHT FOR BETTER CONDITIONS
After the N. R. A. ceased to operate, many of the gains
nnade during the previous 2 years were lost temporarily.
New unions fell apart and new membership gains in the old
unions were lost. With them went many of the standards
Hours were lengthened,
that had existed underthe N. R. A.
wages were lowered, child labor again was on the upgrade.
But the workers and the people as a whole had had a taste
of what conditions might be if government and organized
In 1936
labor worked together to raise working standards.
there began new organizational campaigns and a new series
of governmental labor measures that led in 1937 and 1938
to an expansion of collective bargaining unequaled in the
history of the United States.

1936

BEGINS NEW ERA FOR LABOR

In November 1935 a movement was begun to organize
the mass-production industries on industrial lines, as opposed
to the craft lines formerly in general favor; that is, to organize all workers in such industries as automobiles, steel,
rubber, and textiles into one big union for each industry,
instead of having machinists in one union, weavers in
another, bookkeepers in another, cleaners in another, and
In the organizational campaign beginning in 1936,
so on.
special appeals were made to the unskilled, semiskilled,
and white-collar workers, groups in whose ranks the greatest
numbers of women workers are to be found, and women in
increasing numbers were brought into unions.
The organizational drives were stimulated in April 1937
by the decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
This act guaranteed workers the right
to organize and bargain collectively through unions of their
own choice, but it was much stronger than Section 7(a) of
33

WOMEN AT WORK
the National Industrial Recovery Act which had nnade the
For example, the setting up of company
sanne guarantee.
unions to represent workers, as was done in the days of

was made illegal. Those employers who did not
new act, and who had ignored it pending a decision
constitutionality, had to abide by it, now that it was

N. R. A.,
like the

on its
declared the law of the land, and recognize the workers'
own unions. Thus the workers not only were given courage
to organize, as they had been under the N. R. A., but were
assured of help through the National Labor Relations
Board in establishing strong effective unions free of outside

Another barrier that had held women back from
influence.
organization was broken down.
No figure even approximating the number of women
Automobiles, steel,
organized in this drive is available.
rubber, and textiles were organized; electrical, radio,
metal, and chemical industries hotel and restaurant workers,
bakery and confectionery workers, and retail clerks; these
and clothing workers continued to make gains throughout
;

the period.
Under various auspices nonfactory workers were organized during the 1936-38 period as they had never been
Office and professional workers had seen in the
before.
depression years that their white collars were no protection
against wage cuts and unemployment and that it was as
necessary for them to band together to protect their interests as it was for manual workers.
Laundry workers, sugar-beet toppers, nut pickers, tobacco
stemmers, shellfish workers, and many other low-paid
Even housegroups gained the courage to form unions.
hold employees got together here and there in little independent groups, resolved to end the long hours, low pay,
and lack of standards endured by the "servant in the
34

FIGHT FOR BETTER CONDITION
house." The unemployed and the W. P. A. workers, far
from being left out of this picture, formed one of the strongest labor organizations in the country, which was able to
voice effectively the great need of the unemployed for jobs
and relief.
The union organizational drive was accompanied by
many strikes, in which women played their part. In the
huge struggles in rubber, automobiles, and steel in 1936
and 1937, either as strikers themselves or as the wives
and daughters of strikers, women picketed, helped in
"sit-downs," provided relief kitchens. Again they were
prominent in the strikes of radio, silk, shoe, hosiery, chainstore, department-store, hotel, and other workers in the
years from 1936 into 1939.

WOMEN'S GAINS FROM ORGANIZATION
What have women gained

in this fight for better condiIn a large part of
Shorter hours, for one thing.
the women's garment industry they have won the 35-hour
Rarely now do organized factory workers
5-day week.
have to work more than 40 hours a week for a full week's
Again, through unions women have raised their wages
pay.
or resisted wage cuts as they were unable to do before.
They have won additional rest periods, vacations with
pay, a guaranty of so much work per day, week, or year,
and security through seniority rights.
Some unions have been able to go beyond job questions
and have helped their members to solve other living problems.
The international Ladies' Garment Workers' Union,
perhaps better than any other, has shown what unions
can do after they have won good wages and short hours for
This union has established
the workers in an industry.
a summer camp for its members, set up schools and classes

tions?

WOMEN

WORK

all kinds of subjects from dancing to economics, provided health services, discovered talented actors and
actresses among the garment workers and sent them out
"on the road" to entertain the country with a brilliant
Other unions ^the Amalgamated Clothing
musical show.
Workers and the American Federation of Hosiery Workers
have found ways to provide good low-cost housing for their
members. Unions are helping to establish better minimumwage rates under State laws and are responsible for many
of the labor laws that help all workers to improve their

—

conditions.

reliable estimate

available today as to the

number

women in unions, for few unions keep separate records
In spite of great gains,
of men and women members.
however, it is clear that too few women as yet have the

Beginnings have been
every woman-employing industry, but the problem
of organizing the great numbers of household and agricultural workers, scattered and isolated as most of them are,
In other industries old traditional attiis not yet solved.
tudes still hold many women back from joining unions.
In years gone by, women did not look upon themselves
as permanent industrial workers, and they bore many
hardships in industry in the expectation that some day
they would marry and leave the ranks of working women.
But for a long time it has been increasingly clear that women,
whether married or single, are a permanent part of the
Through organization they
world's industrial machinery.
may enjoy more of the fruits of modern industry and contribute their share in shaping the destinies of this country
by helping to formulate the policies of government.

advantage of union membership.

made

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
go hand in
the benefit of
workers in this country have come in waves, usually coinciding with heightened activity of organized labor, though
public-spirited citizens not directly associated with labor
have played a very important part. Workers win good
laws through the strength of their organization, and in
The
turn good laws help workers to build their unions.
struggle of workers for equal rights with property owners,
the struggle for better working conditions, for better security
and opportunity, may be read in musty lawbooks in the
legal libraries of the Nation.
An example is the period from 1867 to the 1890's when
labor was strongly organized, first in the 8-hour leagues and
later in the Knights of Labor.
Law after law was passed
for the protection of the workers, though some never

IABOR

hand.

organization and
History shows

labor

that

legislation

laws

for

WOMEN AT WORK
or later were repealed.
Among them
State 8-hour-day law (Illinois, 1867) applying
to men as well as to women and never enforced; the first
enforceable hour law for women workers (Massachusetts,
1879); the first wage-collection law (Massachusetts, 1879);
the first State law requiring seats for salesgirls (New York,
1881); the first State law legalizing trade unions (New
Jersey, 1883); the first antisweatshop law (New York,
1885), prohibiting the manufacture of tobacco products in
the tenements of large cities; the first law prohibiting
yellow-dog contracts (New York, 1887); the first law prohibiting the employment of women at night (Massachusetts,
1890); the first law requiring factories to report accidents
(Massachusetts, 1886); and the first law providing guards
around factory machinery (Massachusetts, 1877).
It was
also in this period that the first Government labor-research
bureaus were set up at the demand of organized labor.
Massachusetts established the first such bureau in 1869
and the United States Bureau of Labor was created in
1884.
Today much of the history of labor legislation is summed
up in three great labor laws enacted by the United States
Congress in the past few years and accompanied by similar
action in the States.
The National Labor Relations Act
of 1935 helps to iron out the inequalities between worker
and employer by guaranteeing labor the right to organize
and protecting it in exercising that right. The Fair Labor
Standards Act of 1938 safeguards conditions in interstate
industries by outlawing child labor and establishing Federal
responsibility for Nation-wide wage and hour standards.
The Social Security Act of 1935 provides security through
unemployment insurance and old-age pensions.

became

effective

were the

How

first

did these laws

come

into being?
38

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
LAWS FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS
Behind the National Labor Relations Act are nearly 150
years

struggle

for

labor's

bargaining

rights.

the

early 1800's, before propertyless workers, men or women,
North or South, had the right to vote, workers were arrested

under the conspiracy laws when they organized for higher
wages or shorter hours. One of the workers' first tasks,
therefore, after working men won the right to vote, was to
get laws passed that would make trade unions legal and
It was
not until
not a "conspiracy" against the State.
after the great wave of organization and strikes for the
8-hour day, following the Civil War, that workers were
After
able to get trade unions legalized in any State.

New Jersey adopted, in 1883, the first State law legalizing
trade unions, several other States passed similar laws.
But the battle for the right to organize was not won, by
any means. Various other methods of breaking strikes and
One method was the infighting the unions were found.
junction, a court order that placed workers in contempt of
court if they struck, picketed, helped strikers, or did anything
Another method was the
the judge told them not to do.
"yellow-dog contract," which applicants could be required
to sign before being given a job, agreeing not to join a union
while in that employment.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act
also was used against unions.
Other devices used were
company unions, strong-arm men hired to break strikes,
labor spies, and so on.
The workers spent years trying to get laws passed that
would make these anti-union practices illegal. Beginning
in New York in 1887 they were able to get 13 States to pass
laws against the yellow-dog contract, but in 1915 these laws
were overruled by the United States Supreme Court. The
struggle for anti-injunction laws and for laws exempting
39

WOMEN

WORK

unions from the anti-trust act met with even less success.
In 1931 and 1932, however, workers began to make some
headway in winning legal guarantees of their right to
The Norris-LaGuardia Act, passed in 1932,
organize.
proved an effective weapon against the injunction as issued
by Federal courts and also limited the use of the yellow-dog
In 1931 Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had passed
contract.
similar laws applying to actions of State courts, and after
the Federal act was adopted several more States enacted
such laws.
In 1933 another great step forward was taken when the
National Industrial Recovery Act, in Section (7a), for the first
time formulated as a universal and peacetime public
policy the right of the workers to organize and bargain colBut it prolectively through unions of their own choice.
vided inadequate machinery to enforce this right, and of
course was outlawed when the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional in 1935.
In 1936 a Federal law was passed, making it a felony for
employers to transport across State lines men who would
In 1937 three States
interfere with peaceful picketing.
passed laws against strikebreakers: Massachusetts by providing for control of the use of private police and detectives
in strikes; Pennsylvania by regulating the appointment of
deputy sheriffs and prohibiting the payment or arming of
police or sheriffs out of private funds; and Utah by prohibiting local peace officers from deputizing private em-

ployees for strike duty.
In 1937, after nearly 150 years of struggle, the workers
finally won support of all branches of the Federal Government ^the President, the Congress, and the Supreme
Court in their fight for the right to organize freely and
effectively for the improvement of their conditions.
In

—
—

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
April 1937 the Wagner-Connery National Labor Relations
Act of 1935 was declared by the United States Supreme
Court to be in accordance with the Constitution. This act
not only upheld collective bargaining as a public policy, as
the N. R. A. had done, but it provided sole bargaining rights
for the union chosen by the nnajority of the workers; it furnished nneans by which the workers could choose their bargaining agency; and it outlawed the connpany union and
nnany of the old devices that had been used to break bona
fide labor organizations.
After the National Labor Relations Act was declared constitutional, a nunnber of State governments passed similar
laws to apply to intrastate industries not covered by the
By 1938, five States Massachusetts, New
Federal law.
York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin
had "little
Wagner Acts" guaranteeing employees the right of selforganization and collective bargaining in intrastate indus-

—

tries.

HOUR AND WAGE LAWS
An almost

equally long and stormy history

behind the

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, with its minimum-wage,
maximum-hour, and child-labor provisions. Women are

prominent in this chapter of labor-law history,
because for many years most protective legislation applied
only to women and children.
Men were excluded from such
For one thing, men unionists
laws for various reasons.
found that they could win better conditions for themselves
through union activity than they could through labor laws.
For another thing, resistance to labor laws had the support
particularly

of a large part of the public so far as protection for

men was

concerned, because it was felt that men should be able to
take care of themselves without the aid of laws. There was
41

WOMEN
some

WORK

in the early nineteenth century
unorganized and were slaving 11,
12, and 13 hours a day, while many men had won for themselves the 10-hour day through union activity.

truth

women were

this,

for

practically

The public attitude was reflected in court decisions. On
numerous occasions protective labor legislation applying to
men was found to violate the constitutional right of freedom
For women and minors, however, such legiswas ruled constitutional in a number of instances
because it was for the "protection and betterment of the

of contract.
lation

public health, morals, peace, and welfare."
The earliest efforts for hour legislation,

not limited to women and minors.
1840's labor organizations sought

Back

however, were

the 1830's and
maximum-hour laws for
in

The first 10-hour law,
workers, men and women.
passed in New Hampshire in 1847, applied to both sexes.
But this was a poor law, worded in such a way that it could
The same was true of five other State
not be enforced.
10-hour laws for private employment passed during the
Again in the wave of labor activity during
next 5 years.
the Civil War period several State hour laws for both men
and women were passed, this time for the 8-hour day, and
they too could not be enforced. The National Labor Union
in 1867 declared that such laws were mere "frauds on the
For many years after this, organized labor
laboring class."
abandoned legislation as a means of getting the universal
8-hour day and turned its attention to strikes instead.
The first enforceable hour law, passed in Massachusetts
Thereafter
in 1879, applied only to women and children.
for more than 30 years the hour laws passed in the various
States for the protection of the worker in private employment generally excluded men. (In public employment, or

all

where the public safety was involved, as
42

transportation

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
and mining, hour laws were adopted for men.) After the
Supreme Court upheld the Oregon 10-hour law for women in
1908 and the California 8-hour law for women in 1915, all
doubt was removed as to the constitutionality of such laws
for women, and the movement for their enactment was
speeded up in the States. The constitutionality of a 10-hour
law for men was not established until 1917, and the 8-hour
law for men in general factory employment has never been
upheld.
N. R. A. in 1933-35, hours of both men and
regulated by code, but the Supreme Court outlawed the National Industrial Recovery Act as infringing on
the constitutional right of freedom of contract.
A 44-hourweek law for men, women, and minors, adopted in Pennsylvania in 1937, likewise was ruled out by the Supreme Court,
though there was no opposition to a similar law applying
only to women and minors.
Only when the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act was
passed in 1938 did it appear that maximum-hour legislation
ipor men had become acceptable to the public.
Seven months
after the act had gone into effect no question of its constituThis law, however, unlike State
tionality had yet arisen.
hour laws, does not set an absolute limit to hours of work,
but discourages long workweeks by requiring overtime pay.

Under the

women were

The

history

minimum-wage

legislation

prior to

the

Labor Standards Act shows the same
public attitude toward the relative needs of men and women

enactment

of the Fair

for protective

All State minimum-wage
when Massachusetts passed the

labor legislation.

laws, enacted from 1912,

law, up to 1937, were limited to women and minors,
and no attempt was made to pass such legislation for men.
Even so, minimum-wage laws met with considerable
resistance.
Of the 13 States besides the District of Colum-

first

WOMEN

WORK

and Puerto Rico which had passed such laws from 1912
two quickly repealed them and with few exceptions
the others were slow to enforce them and wage rates set
were low.
In 1923 the minimum-wage movement was dealt a severe
blow when the United States Supreme Court declared the
District of Columbia law unconstitutional in its application
bla

to 1923,

women

much labor legislation
the right of freedom of
contract.
Acting on this decision, four States declared their
minimum-wage laws unconstitutional and another later
When the depression began in 1929,
repealed its law.
only eight States had minimum-wage laws for women on
their statute books and these in most cases were weak and
poorly enforced.
to

for the

same reason

had been outlawed

—

that so

violated

But minimum-wage legislation, like maximum-hour legiswas an essential part of the recovery program of the
Federal Administration beginning in 1933.
Something had
to be done to reduce unemployment and stop the toboggan
States were urged to adopt minimumdescent of wages.
wage laws and seven did so in the first half of 1933. Then
came the N. R. A., to raise wages as well as to shorten hours
After 2 years in which the country graduof employment.
ally lifted itself out of the depression, the N. R. A. was outlawed by the Supreme Court; and in 1936, when the New
York minimum-wage law of 1933 was declared unconstitutional, it appeared that the new gains in State minimumwage legislation might be lost.
Workers
This setback, however, was of brief duration.
had gained new power in 1936 and were unwilling to return
Progressive sentiment throughout
to the old conditions.
In March 1937 it
the country was strong and crystallized.
was reflected in the decision of the Supreme Court that
lation,

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
declared the Washington State nninimunn-wage law constiand reversed the 1923 decision on the District of

tutional

Columbia

From that month onward, minimum-wage
grew apace. States went into action immedi-

law.

legislation

new laws, or to revive or strengthen their old
laws, to provide for better enforcement, or to establish higher

ately to enact

wage

rates.

From March 1937

to the effective date of the

Fair Labor Standards Act, 16 jurisdictions

—

14 States, the
Columbia, and Puerto Rico enacted, revived,
revised, or for the first time made efforts to enforce their
minimum-wage laws. Rates as high as $18 a week were
for the first time ordered under State law.
Hour laws also were improved after the N. R. A. showed
the advantage of shorter workweeks.
In the years following
1933 State after State amended its hour laws or passed new
ones reducing the number of hours that women (and in
some cases men) might work, and including more occupations under the law.
In many cases these new hour regulations merely put into legal form the conditions that had

—

District of

already
fact in

come
many

to exist, for the shorter

workweek became a

large sections of industry after the N.

showed that business could be conducted

R. A.

efficiently on a

40-hour schedule. The unions, too, played a large part in
this when, chiefly to relieve unemployment, they insisted on
the 40-hour, 36-hour, and even 35-hour week, and set up
the 30-hour week as their goal.
The depression was showing more and more people that
there are great economic forces that no individual can
master alone, and that low wages and long hours of work
only prolong depression and unemployment.
It
became
clear that society must protect all its workers, men, women,
and children. In 1937 Oklahoma passed a minimum-wage
and maximum-hour law for men as well as for women and
167176°—39

WOMEN AT WORK
minors.
In 1938 this Oklahoma law was reviewed by a
Federal District Court which found that the law was in
accord with the Federal Constitution, though the orders
issued under it as applying to men and minors were invalid
In his decision, later upheld
because of defective wording.
by the State Supreme Court, the judge declared
"Logical reason cannot suggest that the liberties of men
to manage their own affairs and contracts is any more sacred
than the rights of women, nor that the general health and
morals, as affected by conditions of labor of men, are any
less a proper subject for the exercise of the police power of
the State than that of women."
:

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT
In 1938 the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act was passed,
which sets for all workers in interstate industry a wage
below which no one may be paid and a workweek beyond
which no one may be employed. The day seemed to be
approaching when men and women would stand together
alike under labor laws.
The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect
For the first year it provides for interOctober 24, 1938.
state industries a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour and
overtime pay of one and one-half times the usual rate for
work beyond 44 hours. For the second year, beginning
October 24, 1939, it provides a minimum wage of 30 cents
and overtime beyond 42 hours. In 1940 the standard workweek is reduced to 40 hours, and in 1945 the minimum wage
becomes 40 cents, with exceptions at the order of the
Administrator.
A minimum wage of as much as 40 cents
an hour may be set at any time before 1945, however, in
industries that have been studied by industry committees
and found capable of paying such a wage without causing

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
undue unemployment or disruption of business.
also outlaws child labor in interstate industries.

The Federal
in this

act

changed the whole legislative picture
sets a precedent for States to enact, for
industries, minimum-wage and maximum-hour
act has

country.

intrastate

The

laws applying to

men

as well as to

women and

minors.

The numerous State laws applying only to women and minors
now seem like stepping stones to a broad platform of wage
and hour

legislation for

all

workers

industry.

STATE HOUR AND WAGE LAWS
but five States (Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and
Virginia)
have maximum-hour laws for women.
of these have high standards, such as 40 hours in
South Carolina textiles, 44 hours in almost all Oregon and
Pennsylvania industries, and 45 hours in manufacturing in
Ohio.
Other laws are very limited in their benefits. Examples of these are the Georgia law that restricts the workweek to 60 hours in textile mills the 60-hour laws of Maryland and Mississippi; the laws providing the 12-hour day
in certain South Carolina industries; and in one or many
industries, the 11 -hour day in Texas, the 10>^-hour day in
Tennessee, the 10%-hour day in New Hampshire, and the
10-hour day in Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland,
Mississippi, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Only 22 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico
have the 48-hour week or better.
Most of these provide
the 8-hour day, but some permit 8K, 9, or even 10 hours.
Only South Carolina has the 5-day week (in textiles).
Pennsylvania has the 5K-day week and 19 States and the
District of Columbia have laws providing the 6-day week.
For some occupations in all States there are no legal
limitations whatsoever to the hours that women may work.
All

West
Some

;

WOMEN

WORK

Generally agriculture and household service are exempted
from State laws, as they are from the Federal Fair Labor
Standards Act. Special exemptions of other occupations
are made in some laws, particularly canneries and public
both large woman-employing industries.
State minimum-wage laws for women exist in 26 States
(including Maine, where the law applies only to fish-packing
and processing), Alaska, the District of Columbia, and Puerto
utilities,

Rico.
In effect, these now supplement the Fair Labor
Standards Act by providing standards for service industries
and some others not covered by the Federal Act. Their
chief importance, however, lies in these two matters: They

provide, in the great majority of cases, higher wage rates
than the 25-cent rate of the Federal law, and they comprise

—
—

body of legislation for women which its constitutionality
having been affirmed by the courts will remain in effect
even should such laws for men be found unconstitutional.
Many of these laws and the high rates established under
them have grown out of the same awakened labor activity
that is reflected in the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the
National Labor Relations Act, and the other great labor laws
of the past few years.
a

OTHER PROTECTIVE LABOR LAWS
One

Labor Standthe Public Contracts Act of 1936, which prohibits, for workers engaged on Federal contracts amounting to more than $10,000, hours in excess of 40 a week and
8 a day without overtime pay, and wages less than the preThis act, estimated to affect
vailing minimum wages.
about 1,150,000 workers directly and many more indirectly
because of its influence on industry, was designed to do
away with the former Government policy of placing orders
of the precedents for the Federal Fair

ards Act

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
with the lowest bidder without regard to the wages and
No wage rate established under this
hours in his plant.
act for various woman-employing industries has been lower
than 31)^ cents an hour or $12.50 a week for experienced
unhandicapped workers. Women must be paid the same
rates as men for the same work.
Still another minimum-wage law is the Sugar Act of 1937,
which requires sugar-beet and sugar-cane growers to maintain certain labor standards before they can qualify for Fed-

payments.
Other protective labor legislation enacted in the States
for women workers includes industrial home-work laws,
and laws providing seats for women workers, lunch and rest
periods, and Saturday rest.
Seventeen States have laws regulating the practice by
manufacturers of distributing work to be done in the home
eral benefit

(See chapter on Low Wages for
instead of the factory.
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the
Public Contracts Act of 1936 limit the practice of industrial
home work, either by insisting that minimum wages be paid
to home workers or by prohibiting home work altogether.
All States but Mississippi have laws requiring seating

Women.) Both the

accommodations for women workers. Twenty-two States,
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine
Islands have laws providing time off during the workday for
rest or lunch.

now considered

that laws prohibiting the employment
certain occupations, once thought of as protective legislation, should be restricted to occupations that are
known, from scientific study, to be especially harmful to
It is

women

women. Seventeen States have laws prohibiting women
from working in mines. Five States regulate the employment of women in core rooms, and six do not permit women
49

WOMEN AT WORK
employed in occupations in which they have to lift or
Six States and the Philippine Islands
carry heavy weights.
have laws prohibiting the employment of women for from
4 weeks to 5 months before and after childbirth, but these
laws do not provide any substitute method by which the
woman may support herself during such period. Sixteen
States prohibit women from working at night, at least in
The original night-work law (Massacertain occupations.

to be

was designed to limit overtime in textile
and was known as an "overtime law." Though other
methods have been found for limiting overtime, night work
should be restricted for both men and women because of its
disruption of normal living and its bad physical effects.
In many other ways women workers are now safeguarded
Difficulties in collecting wages from unscrupulous
by law.
employers are met in several States by wage-collection laws
authorizing public officials to accept assignment of wage
claims and collect for claimants through suit in civil courts.

chusetts, 1890)
mills,

Protection against

accidents, disease, industrial poisons,
is provided through a variety of
of them won only after struggle and loss of
fire,

and insanitary conditions
labor laws,

some

life.

LAWS TO MEET UNEMPLOYMENT
contrast with the long and varied history of protective
1935 repreThis is
sents a fairly new development in this country.
In

legislation for workers, the Social Security Act of

because in former depressions unemployment disappeared
few years as new frontiers were opened up or wars or
new industries absorbed the unemployed. But the depression that began in 1929 found all frontiers closed, no new
areas to develop, and no new industries ready for expanafter a

sion.

Even before the depression,
50

a period of prosperity,

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
to 2,000,000 were unemployed. As the depression years continued, with large numbers unemployed
and with technology finding new ways of cutting labor requirements, it became clear that unless hours could be
greatly shortened and purchasing power greatly increased,
unemployment would be a permanent problem in the United
States and must be met with permanent programs.

from 1,500,000

The Federal Wagner- Peyser Act of 1933 was one of the
meet the unemployment prob-

earliest national attempts to

lem on a permanent basis.
States

Employment Service

This act reorganized the United
the Department of Labor and

provided for a Nation-wide network of State public employ-

ment services affiliated with the United States Employment Service and operating according to Federal standards,
with the aid of Federal funds.

As the result

of this act as

well as of the Social Security Act, which enlarged the func-

Employment Service, all 48 States now have
employment agencies.
The emergency relief acts of 1933, 1934, 1935, and subsequent years attempted to cope with the unemployment
problem on an emergency basis through the Civil Works
Administration, Emergency Relief Administration, Federal
Surplus Commodities Corporation, and others. These relief

tions of the

free public

1935 to the separation of direct relief from
of the theory that the
Federal Government should provide Jobs for all unemployed
who could work, while the States and communities, with
Federal assistance, should provide for those who could not
work. This theory found expression in several Federal
agencies, the Works Progress Administration, the National
Youth Administration, the Public Works Administration,
and the farm loan program of the Farm Security Administration, all of which were designed to put the unemployed back

programs

work

led in

relief

and the establishment

WOMEN AT WORK
and in the relief benefits of the Social Security Act,
which provided Federal contributions to State plans for the

to work,

—

assistance of some of those who could not work ^the aged,
the mothers of young children, and the blind.
All these measures attempted to meet only the existing
unemployment problem. Much more important and farreaching were those sections of the Social Security Act that
provided means of meeting future unemployment the
unemployment-insurance and old-age-pensions provisions of
the act.

—

UNEIVIPLOYIVIENT

INSURANCE

Unemployment insurance was well established in Europe
long before there was any active effort to introduce it in the
Not until 1916 in Massachusetts was an
United States.
unemployment insurance bill introduced into a State legisNo such bill became law in any
lature in this country.
State until Wisconsin took the pioneer step in 1932.
In 1935 the Social Security Act, encouraging all States to
pass such unemployment insurance laws, was passed by
Congress, and in 1937 its constitutionality was confirmed by
the Supreme Court. The act provides for a Federal tax on
employers' pay rolls that will be largely refunded if the
employer contributes to a State unemployment insurance
system approved by the Federal Social Security Board.
If no contributions are made to a State system, however, the
Federal Government keeps the entire amount of the emThe act
ployers' tax and the State gets no benefit from it.
also provides that the Federal Government pay the administrative costs of State unemployment insurance systems.
Under this double inducement the States rapidly passed
unemployment insurance laws, until by July 1937 all States,
the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii, and the District of
52

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
Columbia had set up approved systems, and, the Social
Security Board estimates, nearly 21,000,000 workers were
covered by unemployment insurance.
Payments to newly unemployed workers began in Wisconsin in 1936 and in 21 other States and the District of
Columbia in January 1938. At the end of 1938, 29 States
were paying out-of-work benefits and they were to become
payable by July 1939 in all the remaining States.
Most
State laws provide that the rate of compensation shall be
50 percent of wages up to a maximum of $15 a week, and
usually with a minimum limit of $5 to $8 a week.
In most
cases the number of weeks for which compensation may be
received is 15, though the range in the different States is
from as few as 12 to as many as 20. Waiting periods of
from 2 to 3 weeks after the worker loses his job, before he
can get insurance, are provided in most laws. Checks paid
out in December 1938 to nearly a million individuals averaged
$1 1 a week for total unemployment, $5 for partial unemployment.
Generally the workers employed in very small establishments are not covered by the law, and in some cases highersalaried people are not benefited.

certain large groups are

exempted

In practically all

States

among

others,

including,

agricultural labor, household employees,

ployees, and workers
nonprofit institutions.

Government em-

employed by charitable and other

While providing unemployment insurance, the Social
Security Act also makes provision for hastening the reemployment of the unemployed. To obtain insurance payments
a worker must register with the State public employment
agency affiliated with the United States Employment Service.
Thus the Social Security Act has provided for the United
States a system by which the number of unemployed may be
53

WOMEN

WORK

ascertained with reasonable accuracy and imnnediate efforts
can be made to place the workers in jobs.

OLD-AGE INSURANCE
The old-age insurance system set up by the Social Security
Act provides another means of reducing unemployment,
since it gives inducements to older workers to retire and
By September
guarantees a small income for their old age.
1938, all States had passed old-age insurance laws in conformity with the Social Security Act, and more than 40,000,000
workers had

social

nified that they

half of the

new

security account

were applicants

numbers which

sig-

About oneyears 1936-37

for insurance.

applicants during the fiscal

and 1937-38 were women.
Pension

benefits

are

provided through

pay-roll

tax

matched by an income tax paid by the worker. Monthly
payments ranging from $10 to $85, depending on wages,
to workers who retire at 65 years of age or older will begin
in January 1942 and will continue for the rest of the workers'
lives.
Excluded from the old-age pension system are agricultural and household workers, Government employees, and

some other

groups.

RELIEF, AND HEALTH SECURITY
Besides protecting unemployed and retired workers, the
Social Security Act carried a step farther the great relief system established in this country since 1933. Direct relief for

theunemployed, provided by the Federal Governmentthrough
the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, ended in 1935,
Under the Social Security Act as amended by Congress in August 1939, insurance
benefits are extended to tlie dependent children and the aged wives or widows of insured
workers, or to dependent parents of workers who die leaving no widow or dependent
child.
Paynnents are to begin on January 1, 1940.
1

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
and State and local relief systems took its place. These were
supplemented by the Social Security Act through Old-Age
Assistance, Aid to Dependent Children, and Aid to the Blind.
Old-Age Assistance, unlike old-age pensions, is a system
of direct relief to the aged, provided through State public
welfare departments under systems approved by the Social
State contributions to the fund are matched
Security Board.
by Federal grants up to $15 a month for persons 65 years of
age and over not in institutions.* By September 1938 all
States had set up such assistance, and 1 ,700,000 aged persons
were receiving grants averaging about $19 a month.
Aid to Dependent Children, under systems approved by the
Social Security Board, had been established in 40 States by
August 1938 and was providing about 246,000 mothers or
other near relatives with monthly cash payments for the care
In September 1938 the amounts
of dependent children.
averaged almost $32 a family, of which the Federal Government paid one-third. 3 While some States had had "mothers'
aid" for more than 20 years, the Social Security Act brought
wider scope and higher standards and benefits to this type

of assistance.

Aid to the Blind in August 1938 was being furnished
through the Social Security Act in 40 States.
In September
42,000 needy blind received an average of about $23, the
Federal Government paying one-half.
Better health services for mothers and children were provided by the Social Security Act, which authorized Federal
aid to States that wished to establish such services.
Like» Under the Social Security Act as amended by Congress in August 1939, the Federal
1940, will match expenditures for Old-Age Assistance
Government, beginning January
1

up to $20 a month.
3 Under the Social Security Act as amended by Congress in August 1939, the Federal
Government, beginning January 1, 1940, will pay one-half of the expenditures for Aid
Dependent Children, but not more than $9 per month for the first child and $6 for

each additional child

a family.

WOMEN AT WORK
expanded the vocational rehabilitation program
established by the Federal Government in 1920 under the
Through this program Federal money
Office of Education.
is made available to States for training disabled workers in
some trade by which they can help to support themselves.
With the Social Security Act came greater interest in
other forms of worker insurance, including compensation
for industrial accidents and occupational and industrial
n recent years several of the 46 States with workdisease.
men's compensation laws (which date from 1910, when New
York passed the first such law of general application) have
widened their coverage or increased their benefits. As a
result of recent legislation, 21 States, the District of Columbia, and 3 Territories were compensating for occupational
disease in 1938.
Such laws serve a double purpose in some States, not only
assuring the workers of some income when they become disabled but safeguarding them against accident or disease to a
certain extent, and in a number of States providing means of
Unfortunately, as in the
rehabilitation for the disabled.
case of many other labor laws, large groups of workers, such
as household employees and agricultural laborers, are not
covered.
wise, the act

THE NEW OUTLOOK ON LABOR LAWS
the years 1935 to 1938 labor legislation came to have
meaning in America, branching out from wages
and hours into the vast field of social welfare. A new housing program was expanded under the United States Housing
Act and the enabling acts passed in 33 States by the end of
A new national health program was being planned.
1938.
In all these, the greater share of the benefits would go to
workers, especially women workers.
In

a broader

WOMEN AND LABOR LAWS
Prior to
But a law is only as good as its enforcement.
about 1911, State labor laws were poorly enforced. After
the nnodern type of enforcement agency was introduced
(Wisconsin's was the first, in 1911), the situation improved,
but even with the best administration today much responsibility for labor-law enforcement depends on the workers
themselves and on other groups of the interested public.
Both workers and consumers must be ever vigilant to report
violations of the law and ever ready to cooperate with administrative staffs that are working sincerely for high standards
of labor-law administration.

THE NEGRO WOMAN WORKER

WOMEN workers

in general have been restricted by lack
opportunities for employnnent, by long hours, low
wages, and harmful working conditions, but among them are
groups upon whom these hardships have fallen with double

These women are the latest comers into industry
are opened only the lowest paid Jobs that more experienced workers have vacated in favor of something better.
Negro women came late into the job market, and in addiTheir
tion they bore the handicap of race discrimination.
origin placed a stigma on their capabilities and they were
White men and
considered unfit for factory or skilled work.
severity.

whom

women,

partly because of this and partly because they
resented the competition of cheap Negro labor, were unwilling to be engaged on the same work processes with them.
To the Negro women, therefore, have fallen the more
menial, lower paid, heavier, and more hazardous jobs.

THE NEGRO WOMAN WORKER
Their story has been one of meeting, enduring, and in part
overconning these difficulties.
Previously to the Civil War few Negroes were employed in
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. As unpaid labor
in the South, where more than nine-tenths of the Negro population of the United States was to be found, they had worked
on plantations raising cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, and
hemp; or had done the household service of maids, cooks,
washwomen, and seamstresses. Some Negroes had gained
industrial experience in cotton, tobacco, and bagging factories, in iron furnaces and charcoal plants, but their numbers were small, as the industrial development of the South
was almost negligible at that time.
After the Civil War, white women entered industry in increasing numbers, but manufacturing was still closed to
Negro women. Their employment continued to be limited
almost entirely to farm work and domestic and personal
a condition that continued down through the years.
service
As late as 1910, 95 percent of all Negro women workers were
in these occupations.
Up to the time of the World War the
only manufacturing industry to employ any large number of
Negro women was the making of cigars and cigarettes.
With the shortage of labor created by the World War, the
opportunity came for Negro women to join the growing army
They entered in large
of American women in industry.
numbers those occupations that white women were leaving
In other cases Negro women
as new opportunities opened;
The
filled the places of men who had gone to the front.

—

greatest gains were made in textile and clothing factories,
food industries, tobacco factories, and wood-products manufacture.

The war

industries, too, recruited

Negro

women

the making of shells, gas masks, and parts of airplanes.
The Census of 1920, taken immediately after the war period,
in

WOMEN

WORK

showed that Negro women in the manufacturing and meIn the
chanical industries had increased by over one-half.
professions (as teachers), in office work, and as salesgirls,
Negro women also found new work opportunities during the
war.

men from

the front and the end of the
these gains were lost, especially in
According to the Census of 1930, however,
manufacturing.
the number of Negro women had continued to increase in
While
trade, professional service, and clerical occupations.
small numerically, these increases in white-collar occupations
represent real achievement in the occupational progress of

With the return

labor shortage,

many

Negro women.
In

1930, almost 2,000,000 Negro women
making up about one-sixth

employment,

were
of

gainful

the

entire

woman

Practically two in every
labor force of the Nation.
five Negro women and girls 10 years old and over worked for
a living, in contrast to only one out of five white women and
One reason for the higher proportion of workers
girls.
among Negro women lies, of course, in the lower wages
paid to Negro labor, whether men or women, and the need
for more persons in a family to bolster the inadequate

income.

OCCUPATIONS OPEN TO NEGRO WOMEN
vast majority of Negro women still work in agriculture
domestic and personal service; in fact, 9 of every 10
Negro women workers in 1930 had occupations in these two

The

Most of the half-million Negro
were unpaid family laborers, but
there were many wage workers, too, and a few independent
farmers among them. Of the Negro women in domestic
and personal service, half were workers in private homes
and the others were home laundresses or laundry workers,
fields

women

employment.
agriculture

THE NEGRO WOMAN WORKER
waitresses, charwomen, cleaners, untrained nurses,
wives, beauty operators, elevator tenders, and so on.

mid-

Of the remaining one-tenth of the Negro women workers,
about half were in the census group "manufacturing and
mechanical industries," employed chiefly in tobacco,
clothing (including home dressmaking), food, and textile

The other half, only 5 percent of the total, were
white-collar occupations, that is in trade, clerical work,
transportation and communication, and the professions,
especially school teaching, nursing, and acting.
For Negro women the growing beauty-culture industry
offers occupational advancement, in spite of the long hours
Even work in a
and low wages in Negro beauty shops.
power laundry is progress from working as a wash woman at
home. Factory work is a step ahead of jobs in agriculture
and domestic service. However, studies have shown that
in factories Negro women usually are employed at such
dirty, hot, or heavy jobs as cleaning and sweeping, sorting
old rags or bags, or pressing finished garments.
The opportunity to tend a machine usually is denied the Negro woman.
industries.
in

LOWER WAGES FOR NEGROES
women

general are not permitted to do the more
and therefore are paid less than
men, so Negro women are denied the higher-grade jobs
open to women in factories and consequently are paid less
than white women.
An example of this is found in a study
of the cigar and cigarette industry, which showed that Negro
women averaged $10.10 in cigars and $8 in cigarettes, while
white women averaged $16.30 in cigars and $17.05 in cigaMost Negro women had the disagreeable job of striprettes.
ping the tobacco leaf, while the white women were making
or packing the product.
Just as

skilled jobs

157176°-39-6

factories

WOMEN

WORK

No wage has been considered too low to pay Negro women.
During the depression years there were reports of Negro
women in the South doing a day's washing in return for
lunch and a dress, or doing the week's wash of a family for
50 cents. Average wages of Negro women doing both maid
and laundry work in private homes were reported at $3 a
In 1934 in 26 communities of the South, average
week.
weekly wages of Negro household workers were $6.17 for
Much lower wages,
an average workweek of 66 hours.
ranging down to nothing but clothing or houseroom, have
been reported here and there in recent years.
Worst of all, probably, is the situation of the Negro farm
worker, usually employed on the cotton lands of the South.
At least half of all Negro women farm workers in 1930
received no wage for their labor except as they had a share
For when a man goes to work on a
of the family wage.
southern cotton plantation as a sharecropper or tenant, his
is expected to go to work too, and he contracts
for the labor of his wife and children and all able-bodied
members of his family as much as for his own labor. Yet,
with whole families working in the fields, the average cash
income of southern farmers, white or Negro, in prosperous
1929 was only $186 a year.

whole family

NEGROES' SHARE

PROGRESS

of Negro women of the
is one great need
Even where schools are available in the South their
quality is poor, or the number of weeks that the schools are
Not much education can be secured
open is very limited.
with teachers' salaries at $388 a year, which was the average
paid Negro school teachers in rural schools of 17 States and
in the District of Columbia in 1934.
The unions too have passed the Negroes by to a large

Education

South.

THE NEGRO WOMAN WORKER
and especially the wonnen. This is partly because
Negro women, even more than white, are concentrated in
occupations that are most difficult to organize agriculture
and household service. But even in occupations that are
fairly well organized among white women, Negro women have
shown a tendency to stay out of unions.
Today, however, Negro women are awakening to the need
for organization and white women are coming to realize
that it is better to have Negroes as fellow union members
In recent years there
than as competitors in time of strike.
have been the beginnings of organization among Negro
extent,

—

workers, laundry workers, crab pickers, cotton
and other agricultural workers. Many Negro
garment workers, originally brought into Chicago, New
York, and Philadelphia as strikebreakers, are now organized
in the great garment workers' unions.
The problem of
organizing household workers, at which some effort is being
made in various parts of the country, is to a large extent the
problem of the Negro woman worker.
The depression fell with particular severity on the Negro
worker.
For example, many Negroes in low-paid jobs were
discharged to make room for white workers who in times of
prosperity would not have accepted such work.
In 1935 one
of every four Negro women workers was on relief.
When various measures were set up by the Government
to correct the depression evils, these failed to reach the
Negro woman to the same extent as the white. The Social
Security and Federal Fair Labor Standards Acts, for instance,
exclude the two great occupational fields in which most
Negro women are employed, agriculture and household
service.
Likewise, the State minimum-wage laws help
Negro women less than white women. Though one-fourth
of all Negro women workers live In States with minimum-

tobacco

pickers,

WOMEN AT WORK
laws, under the present limitations of the laws only
However, the
one-tenth of the Negro workers are covered.
application of these laws to the service industries, such as
is reported that
It
laundries, is reaching Negro women.
10,000 Negro laundry workers in New York City alone have
better conditions as the result of the New York laundry
order issued in 1938, which provides an 8-hour day and a
minimum wage of $14 a week. Formerly Negro laundry
workers labored 10 to 14 hours a day for a wage of from

wage

$6 to $10 a week.
Moreover, the Works Progress Administration has helped
the Negro woman worker in certain ways, not only by proWorkviding jobs but through workers' education projects.
ers have been taught how to read and write, others have
The household
learned new skills to help them get jobs.
training projects of the W. P. A., for instance, have enabled
hundreds of unskilled Negro women to qualify for jobs as
trained domestic workers.

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN WORKER
woman
Island — looking beyond
THE immigrantLiberty toatAmerica, the land of promise
the Statue
Ellis

During the past century many
has become an epic figure.
thousands of workers yearly have come to the United States.
The tide of immigration has been full in times of prosperity
and has ebbed in times of depression or war, but throughout
the century the work of the immigrant has gone into the
building of our national life.
In 1930, of

our nearly

11 million

women

workers, a million

and a quarter were foreign-born. Formerly the numbers of
women immigrants were appreciably smaller than the num-^
bers of men, but, with a scarcity of jobs in this country
and a shortage of men in Europe since the war, the last
several years have seen the women immigrants greatly outnumbering the men. Usually they come to join their relatives who have settled and found work in the United States.
65

WOMEN AT WORK
EUROPE ANSWERS DEMAND FOR LABOR
The

history of immigration in this country divides itself

of the "old"
immigration.
Until 1896 the majority of the immigrants were from
northern and western Europe chiefly the United Kingdom,
Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and Switzerland.
Dissatisfied with economic, religious, or political conditions
at home, these people turned to America as a place of
Here in the West land could be had free and
opportunity.
in the industries of the growing cities there was a demand
into

two definite periods, popularly called that

and that

of the

"new"

—

for foreign labor.

As the United States changed from a country characterized
by a simple rural environment to a complex industrial and
urban society, fewer advantages were offered the immigrant
There was no longer a great frontier offering free
workers.
or cheap lands, to be reached by the construction of railways, canals, and highways. The factory smokestacks of
our great industrial cities were beginning to blacken the
skies, and into the foundries, the factories, the sweatshops, and mines went the immigrant workers.
The northern and western Europeans, in whose countries
opportunities had become almost as favorable as those in
But from
the United States, were less tempted to emigrate.
southern and eastern Europe, chiefly Italy, Austria-Hungary,
and Russia, came the unsuccessful and the oppressed, to
whom America offered a "way out."
In 1896 the new immigration from southern and eastern
In 1910 the new conEurope overtook and passed the old.
that had been
stituted more than 70 percent, and the old
now
well over 90 percent of the total from all countries
was less than 20 percent.
The adjustment of the earlier immigrants was not difficult.

—

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN WORKER
Largely from

communities

in Europe, the majority
the United States, settling in colonies
and living much as they had done in Europe. Many of
them speaking English, and the others the more familiar of
the continental languages, they were culturally closely allied
to the American people and easily assimilated.
But the
more recent arrivals, largely unskilled peasants with a rural
social heritage, did not fit so easily into the new life in
America.
From the outset their adjustment to a complex
urban environment was filled with hardship and difficulties.

rural

turned to farming

IMMIGRANTS NO LONGER WELCOMED
At

our welcome to the immigrants was almost un-

first

limited.

were

period

national

building and

But by the time the new immigration had set
in, immigrant labor had begun to be felt as competitive
in the American labor market.
The conviction grew that
the labor market was already overstocked.
In 1882 the
Federal Government assumed control of immigrant regulation.
The first law excluding large groups of immigrants
on the basis of being physically, mentally, or morally unfit
expansion.

was passed.
For

many

been one

years our national immigration problem has

of exclusion, selection,

after a 25-year struggle,

and deportation.

when sentiments

In 1917,

of nationalism

and self-protection had been aroused by the World War,
a severe limitation was set up with the passage of the
immigration law embodying the literacy test, over President
Wilson's veto.
From this time on many Americans wanted
to exclude all further immigration, but this plan was abandoned for the quota acts of 1921 and later years, which
limited the immigration of aliens of any nationality In one
fiscal

year to certain percentages of those already
67

the

WOMENATWORK
United States. The cutting down of this large supply of
cheap labor did much to make permanent the wartime
employment gains of women and encouraged the further
use of their services.
That manufacturers could turn to a continuous supply of
immigrant labor throughout our period of greatest industrial
development did much to accelerate that expansion. A very
large percentage of the new immigration was common
As factories
labor, having no definite occupation or skill.
developed, these men and women fitted into the unskilled
work of industry at low wages. Ignorant of American ways
and lacking factory experience, in each case the most recent
arrivals in the country entered industry at the very lowest
Like the Negro
level, doing the least desirable work.
worker, the immigrant fell heir to only the ragged edges of

employment

opportunities.

1930 there were in the United States 6,139,000 foreignborn white women, of whom 1,156,000 were gainfully
Largely concentrated in the Middle Atlantic
occupied.
In

(two-fifths) of the foreignborn white women were in domestic and personal service.
The next largest proportion, well over one-fourth, were in
Of the latter,
the manufacturing and mechanical industries.
clothing and textiles had the largest proportions, 26 percent
and 23 percent, respectively.

States, the greatest proportion

TYPICAL FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS
An interesting picture of what these women are doing
and how they have found their place in American life has
been given by the Women's Bureau in a study of over
2,000 foreign-born women wage earners in Philadelphia and
These two regions were conthe Lehigh Valley, Pa.
sidered typical communities from the standpoint of the
68

THE IMMIGRANT

WOMAN WORKER

—

foreign-born and their problems
Philadelphia a great city
with many diversified industries and a large proportion of
immigrants, and the Lehigh Valley a locality with a few

predominating industries for women, chiefly cigars and
and with concentrated groups of foreign-born

textiles,

labor.

Less than one-tenth of the women studied were of the
old immigration, the vast majority having come from the
Poland had been
countries south and east of Germany.
the homeland of the largest number, but Austria, Hungary,
Italy, Yugoslavia, Russia, and Czechoslovakia were well
represented.

Philadelphia the leading foreign nationin the Lehigh Valley most of the

was Polish, but
women were German.

ality

The importance

satisfaction as a motive for immigration
fact that "better living"

economic

dis-

was shown by the

was the reason given by

many

women for leaving the old country. The longing
"a nice home" was mentioned frequently. With high

of these

for

hopes and expectations, they had come to America to seek
good jobs. A country of better opportunity, higher standards, less militarism, and more freedom was their goal.
The speed with which they had found jobs on arrival was
astonishing.
The majority were young, nearly three-fifths
being 18 or under when they arrived, and only about onetenth had had any real industrial experience in their native
great majority of the women who reported
in the old country had toiled on farms or in
private homes.
After their arrival here jobs were more
often obtained through the efforts of friends or the blind
workings of chance (three-fourths having secured their
jobs in these ways) than through qualifications of skill and
experience.
Into cigar, clothing, and textile factories large
numbers of them had been drawn, not through special
lands.

The

having worked

WOMEN AT WORK
aptitude for such types of work but through the need to
get a start in the new life, to make sure of a pay envelope,
and to earn a bare livelihood for themselves and their
Only 11 percent gave as a reason for choice of
families.
knew."
job, "trade or work
I

Over

half of

in the same job and
was a case of once a
power-machine operator, always

them had remained

occupation for years.
spinner, weaver, cigar
such a worker.

For these
roller,

The slight degree to which real assimilation had taken
was reflected by the fact that 37 percent of the women
in the study who had been in this country at least 10 years
were unable to speak English. The illiteracy rate was high.

place

About one-sixth
language.
Only 18 had

were unable

read

write

any

naturalized citizens by their own
silk weaver of 48 years who had
recently received her citizenship papers, boasted that she
was "the first lady to get them in Berks County; it was
in the papers about me."
A large proportion of the women (74 percent) were or
had been married, and usually the husband and wife both
were working. Many of the husbands were unskilled wage
earners.
When a girl tells how she left one factory for another
because she could earn 2 cents more per hundred for the
cigars she rolled, the importance of the pay envelope in
the lives of these women is realized.
Wages were very
low and hours were long; 37 percent' of the women in the
Lehigh Valley worked more than 10 hours a day, and in
both sections long hours and overtime were varied with
part time and half-filled pay envelopes.
"Have to like it, it's daily bread," was the attitude of

efforts.

One

become

them, a

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN WORKER
the majority of the women toward their jobs. That the
women fortunate enough to have jobs with good working
conditions appreciated them was indicated by such comments as, "They treat the women nice, no boss holler,
no boss yell" "There is a bench for each loom and a chance
;

to sit."

Despite the failure of these immigrants to find riches or
even the "nice home" of their dreams, and notwithstanding
their struggle to keep a firm foothold in the wage-earning
arena, most of them were glad to be in America.

EFFECTS OF WORLD PROBLEMS
During the depression years many of the foreign-born who
had been induced to come to this country when cheap labor
was needed found themselves unwanted by industry. Large
numbers were deported or returned voluntarily to their
homelands.
In many communities those who had not become American citizens were refused unemployment relief.
Frequently they were barred from receiving old-age assistance under State social security laws, and their employment
on W. P. A. projects was restricted.
As a result of these experiences there was a sharp increase
in the number of foreign-born who sought to become American citizens.
In both the fiscal year ending June 30, 1937,
and that ending June 30, 1938, the number of persons
naturalized was more than 162,000, as compared with less
than 120,000 in each of the years 1933-35. The number
who declared their intention to become citizens doubled
from 1933 to 1937. The Government directly aided this
movement by setting up Americanization classes through the

Works Progress Administration

in cooperation with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States

Department

of Labor.
71

WOMEN

WORK

For a time it appeared that the old "immigrant problem"
Less than 30,000 aliens were
to be a thing of the past.
admitted to this country in 1933 and 1934 as compared with
an average of 266,000 per year in the period 1925 to 1931.
But since then there has been a gradual increase, to 68,000,
the number admitted in 1938. Conditions in Europe indicate
that the number will continue to grow in the next few years.
The new immigrants are most likely to be refugees who
Many
are fleeing political persecution in their homelands.
are persons of education and many were persons of means
before they were forced to abandon their property. Just as
the first immigrants who landed at Jamestown and Plymouth
came here to seek religious and political liberty and founded
a nation; just as the later immigrants sought economic
opportunity and helped to expand a continent; so do these
modern immigrants seeking democracy, peace, and freedom
promise to enrich the cultural life of this country, still a land
of opportunity for the oppressed of many nations.

was

THE WOMAN WORKER TODAY
TODAY,

1939, women workers have new weapons with
which to nneetthe old problems of unemployment and low
wages.
The number of workers organized in federated trade
unions doubled from 1935 to 1938, increasing from under
4,000,000 as reported by the American Federation of Labor
to nearly 8,000,000 as reported by the American Federation
of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations combined.
In addition are many hundreds of thousands of
workers in the Railroad Brotherhoods and independent
in

unions.

The

influence of organized workers in affecting public
had become much greater than indicated by their
Unions had entered fields never before
numerical increase.
touched by organization and often the very fields in which
women are an important part of the labor force.
policy

WOMEN AT WORK
The Government had

set up agencies to insure the workthrough the National Labor Relations
Board; to give the unennployed jobs through the Works
Progress Administration and Public Works Administration,
unemployment insurance through the Social Security program or relief through expanded State systems; to help remove the aged, the handicapped, and the mothers with
dependent children from the labor market through the Social
Security program; to find jobs for the jobless through the
United States Employment Service and cooperating State
services; to insure against a return of sweatshop wages and
hours through the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and new
State minimum-wage and maximum-hour laws for women.
With few exceptions none of these aids was in existence
1929 when the great depression caught the country
in
unprepared.
ers' right to organize

GOVERNMENT AIDS TO WOMEN
Today women workers have the protection of the Government as never before. At one time in 1938 about 372,000

women had W.

P. A. jobs.

Not only did these jobs provide

them with subsistence, but in many cases their jobs were
teaching them new skills that they could use later In private
What is more, their W. P. A. work in most cases
industry.
was providing new and useful services to their communities
or to other people in need of such services throughout the

bedding, and other household goods
workers have been distributed to other
unemployed and to hospitals and institutions for the needy.
The same has been true of foods canned or processed by
W. P. A. workers. Teachers from W. P. A. have brought
the first knowledge of reading and writing to adults who
never had a chance to learn before; nurses and household
Nation.

Clothing,

made by W.

P. A.

THE WOMAN WORKER TODAY
helpers have gone out to give aid in honnes broken by
disease and poverty; players and singers have brought
color and nnusic to people whose lives were dull and drab.
And so the W. P. A. has opened up nnany bright vistas for
the woman worker today.
More than three-fourths of a million aged women were
receiving old-age benefits in 1938 as a result of the Social
Every State in the Union was granting such
Security Act.
assistance by September 1938, with the aid of Federal
Other women, who had become unemployed since
funds.

were receiving unemployment-insurance
the summer of 1938 nearly 250,000 mothers
or other persons with young children to care for were being
paid monthly sums, also under the Social Security program.
The United States Employment Service and its affiliated
State agencies in the calendar year 1938 found 856,000
placements for women. Though in some cases more than
one temporary job went to one woman, in the great majority
of cases each job represented a different woman who was
aided through this free employment-agency service.
Today about 5 million women have the protection of
minimum-wage laws. Federal and State. Approximately 4
million are covered by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Another million and a quarter women are eligible for protection under State minimum-wage laws, though somewhat
less than a million were actually protected by the end of 1938
because of court actions or delays in issuing wage orders
under State laws.
Today hours of work have been so shortened through
government action, as well as through the action of labor
and enlightened employers, that thousands of women in
factories, stores, and offices need work no more than 40 or
48 hours a week to get at least a subsistence.

January

benefits,

1937,

and

WOMEN

WOIVIEN IN

WORK
UNIONS

Today women make

up a large part of the powerful InterLadies' Garment Workers' Union, also of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the United
Garment Workers of America, the United Hatters, Cap, and
Millinery Workers' International Union, the textile workers'
and shoe workers' unions. The recent organization of the
great mass-production industries, such as automobiles and
Even the United Mine
rubber, has reached many women.
Workers Union has women members, recruited from the
national

chemical and cosmetic factories. Canning and packing
workers' unions now claim thousands of women.
Women white-collar workers in increasing numbers are
Actresses on the legitiseeing the value of organization.
mate stage have had a closed shop for many years, and now
newspaper women, social workers, school teachers, and
laboratory technicians are organized in some centers. Unions
of stenographers, bookkeepers, and other office workers are
growing.
In the Government service, especially the Post Office,
a considerable number of both men and women clerks have
Today unions of governbeen organized for some years.
ment employees, in State, county, and municipal service
and in the Federal service, have large numbers of office

workers organized, as well as charwomen, nurses, librarians,
highway laborers, and all the other types of workers that
are in the employ of the government.
Efforts are being made among the most difficult groups
to organize, those in retail stores, hotels and restaurants,
and laundries.
With government and organized labor as her allies the
woman worker today is in a better position than ever before
to win her long struggle for good wages, decent working
76

THE WOMAN WORKER TODAY
conditions, equal opportunities with

men, a secure income,

and the

that

full,

happy, and healthy

life

her birthright

America.

PROBLEMS FACING WOMEN WORKERS
But today this battle is far from won.
Most serious is
the fact that there are more than 3,000,000 unemployed
women in America, and 1,500,000 who have only part-time
employment, according to the National Unemployment

Census
these

November

1937.

husbands or other members
wage.

No one knows how many

women might withdraw from
But

were out

November

of work, these

the labor market

of their families

1937,

when some

had a

8 million

women wanted and needed

their
living

men

jobs.

Many of them faced a grim future, even when prosperity
returned, for probably a third of them had reached an age
at which they were no longer wanted in many occupations.
One-third of the women seeking work at public employment
offices, are 40 years of age or older, the United States Employment Service has found. Those under 65 are too young
to qualify for old-age assistance yet too old to find work
Nowadays, in many industrial occupations a woman
considered too old to get a job at 30, and even at 25 she is
too old to be taken on in certain service occupations.
Though
the older woman worker who belongs to a strong union may
have an advantage over the younger one because she has the
protection of seniority rights in lay-offs and rehiring, if she
loses her job it is most difficult for her to get another in a
easily.
is

new

place of employment.

For the young unemployed girl of today the future is dark
too, for she has no experience to offer in seeking work.
Her
problem is to be able to remain at school and to have practical job training so that when work opportunities do open up
167176°— 39

WOMEN
she

will

home

WORK

have something besides blank years

of idleness at

to qualify her for a position.

Another serious problem that remains today
erally low

wage

level that

still

the gen-

women's occupations
the chapter on Low Wages for

exists in

and that has been described in
Women. Women workers without special training or
can expect to get little more than $1 2 to $1 5 a week.

skill

MILLIONS UNTOUCHED BY PROGRESS
Women

workers must also face the fact that about

2 million

number have been practically untouched by the great
advances made by factory workers, white-collar workers,
and even some of the service workers in recent years. These
of their

and allied occupations and houseThey are the beet and cotton and onion
hold employment.
and berry pickers, the fruit and vegetable packers, the tobacco stemmers, stringers, and strippers, the sharecroppers.
They are the women who cook and scrub, wash and iron,
2 million are in agriculture

homes. These women have been excluded
from the Social Security Act, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and practically all State minimum-wage, maximumhour, and to a large extent workmen's compensation and
Yet their wages are probably the
wage-collection laws.
lowest, their hours the longest, and their work the hardest
and most hazardous of any group of women workers in the
The conditions under which they labor make it
country.
particularly difficult for them to organize to improve their
status, and as a result their union strength is slight.
for pay in private

Many

State

minimum-wage

laws, besides excluding cer-

exempt small towns and

rural areas or
provide for lower rates for such places than for the cities.
They do this in accord with a mistaken notion that it costs
appreciably less to live in a small place than in a large one.

tain industries, also

THE WOMAN WORKER TODAY
22 States there are no mini mum- wage laws whatsoever
women in industries operating largely within the
State and therefore not covered by the Federal Fair Labor
Further, the minimum-wage rates in effect
Standards Act.
The 25-cent minimum in the
are too low in many cases.
Federal Act for the first year of operation is far below any
approved wage standard for American industry, since, with
the 44-hour standard week, it makes possible a weekly wage
In the second year of operation, with a 30-cent
of only $11.
minimum wage and a 42-hour week, the weekly wage will
still be below living costs.
Though rates usually are higher
than this under State minimum-wage laws, there still are
wage rates of $10 to $14 a week under several State laws.
Other States that have established minimum rates of $16 to
$18 a week show that wages more nearly approaching the cost
(Cost-of-living figures, page 8.)
of living can be required.
Long hours of work are not the problem they once were for
women workers, but excessive hours still are reported from
out-of-the-way sections of the country. The Federal Fair
Labor Standards Act, with its provision for a 44-hour standard week in 1938-39, a 42-hour week in 1939-40, and a
40-hour week thereafter, promises to help do away with these
bad hour conditions in manufacturing industries.
But long
hours persist in household employment, agricultural labor,
canneries and packing or processing plants, because even
where a 48-hour week has been introduced under State law
it usually does not apply to such industries.
Throughout the country much remains to be done to
improve the provisions for unemployment relief and social
security.
Unemployment insurance is paid for only limited
periods of unemployment and in many States the benefits are
In

to protect

not

enough

to live on.

State and local relief systems like-

wise do not cover the need.
79

WOMEN AT WORK
Another present-day problem isthe poor health and poor
medical care of the people in the world's richest country.
Every year 14,000 women die from childbirth or pregnancy.
From one-half to two-thirds of these deaths could be prevented if proper care were given to the mothers of America.
About 145,000 infants die before birth or during the first
month after birth, and at least one-third of these deaths
Tuberculosis, cancer, and venereal
could be prevented.
diseases all take an unnecessary toll.
Finally, working women, with all other women, still face a
lingering discrimination against their sex In educational
privileges, in the opportunity to serve in public office, in jury
service, and in exercising many of the other rights and duties
of citizens.
Married women particularly are under attack
in some parts of the country when they seek to function as
workers, especially in the public service.
Thus women workers have a double battle to fight today.
They must strive to maintain and advance fhe position of
their own sex to an equality with the best that men have
attained and at the same time struggle to advance the inIn doing both these things they will
terests of all workers.
help to solve the problems that face the American people and
make this country a better place in which to live and to work.

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