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STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE LIBRARY
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
BULLETIN OF THE WOMEN’S BUREAU,

NO. 89

THE INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE
OF WOMEN WORKERS AT THE
SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 to 1930

5L




[Public—No.

259—66th

Congress]

[H. R. 13229]
AN ACT To establish in the Department of Labor a bureau to be known as the
Women’s Bureau

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be
established in the Department of Labor a bureau to be known as the
Women’s Bureau.
Sec. 2. That the said bureau shall be in charge of a director, a
woman, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate, who shall receive an annual compensation of
$5,000. It shall be the duty of said bureau to formulate standards
and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women,
improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and ad­
vance their opportunities for profitable employment. The said
bureau shall have authority to investigate and report to the said
department upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of women in
industry. The director of said bureau may from time to time pub­
lish the results of these investigations in such a manner and to such
extent as the Secretary of Labor may prescribe.
Sec. 3. That there shall be in said bureau an assistant director, to
be appointed by the Secretary of Labor, who shall receive an annual
compensation of $3,500 and shall perform such duties as shall be
prescribed by the director and approved by the Secretary of Labor.
Sec. 4. That there is hereby authorized to be employed by said
bureau a chief clerk and such special agents, assistants, clerks, and
other employees at such rates of compensation and in such numbers
as Congress may from time to time provide by appropriations.
Sec. 5. That the Secretary of Labor is hereby directed to furnish
sufficient quarters, office furniture, and equipment for the work of
this bureau.
Sec. 6. That this act shall take effect and be in force from and
after its passage.
Approved, June 5, 1920. '




STATE

teachers college library

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
W. N. doak, Secretary

WOMEN’S BUREAU
MARY ANDERSON, Director

BULLETIN OF THE WOMEN’S BUREAU, No. 89

THE INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE
OF WOMEN WORKERS AT THE
SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 to 1930
BY

GLADYS L. PALMER, Ph. D.

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1931

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




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Price 20 cents

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CONTENTS
Page

Letter of transmittal
Foreword
V1I
Part I.—Purpose of the study
Part II.—Background experience of summer-school students___________
Part III.—General characteristics of the women students at the summer
schools________________________________________________
Geographical distribution
12
Nativity _
Age-................................. ............................. ............ .....................I-IIIIIIII
Marital status
13
Occupational classification
13
Union membership
14
Weekly wage rates on last job
15
Part IV.—The experience in industry of summer-school students_______
Age at entrance into industry
17
Years in industry
17
Industrial experience
18
Reasons for leaving jobs
18
Typical job histories
19
Clothing trades
19
Miscellaneous trades
21
Textile trades
23
Domestic and personal service
24
Part V.—Working and living conditions in the previous year__________
Summary
25
Full-time and part-time employment and unemployment___________
Overtime
27
Hours of work
27
Earnings
27
Deductions from pay
29
Income from sources other than wages
29
Amounts borrowed
30
Savings and insurance
30
Share in family support
31
Appendixes:
A. Tables_____________________
B. Form of questionnaire
59
Table

1
3
U
12
13

17

25
26

35

APPENDIX TABLES

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.

Geographic distribution of students, by school—3-year totals-_
Nativity, by school—3-year totals
35
Country of birth of foreign born, by school—3-year totals____
Age, by school—3-year totals
36
Marital status, by year—four schools combined______________
Industry in last regular job, by school—3-year totals_________
Union membership, by school and year!______________________
Weekly wage rate on last job, by school and school year______
Age at entering industry, by school—3-year totals____________
Years in industry, by school and year
41
Number of jobs held, by school and year____________________
Cause of leaving job, by year—four schools combined________
Part-time employment in previous year, by school and school
year__________
XIV. Extent of unemployment in previous year, by major cause—
3-year totals, four schools combined
45




V

hi

35
36
37
37
38
39
40
42
43
44

IV

CONTENTS
Table

Tagfi

XV. Major cause of unemployment in previous year, by school
year—four schools combined
46
XVI. Number of weeks of overtime work in previous year, by school
year—four schools combined
46
XVII. Daily hours of work in previous year, by school and school year__
XVIII. Duration of lunch period in previous year—3-year totals, four
schools combined
48
XIX. Earnings in previous year, by school and school year_________
XX. Earnings in previous year, by industry and school-—3-year
totals
50
XXI. Earnings in previous year, by number of full-time weeks
worked—3-year totals, four schools combined______________
XXII. Deductions from pay in previous year, by school and school
year
53
XXIII. Money from sources other than wages in previous year, by
school year—four schools combined
54
XXIV. Amount borrowed in previous year, by school year—four
schools combined..
54
XXV. Savings in previous year, by school and school year__________
XXVI. Amount paid in insurance premiums in previous year, by school
year—four schools combined
56
XXVII. Living condition and family responsibility in previous year,
by school and school year
57
XXVIII. Percentage of earnings contributed to family support in pre­
vious year, by school and school year_____________________

47
49

52

55

58

ILLUSTRATIONS
A unit group on the campus, Bryn Mawr Summer School, 1930... Frontispiece
Seaming in a shirt factoryfacing
17
Topping in a hosiery millfacing
24
Winding in a cotton millfacing
25




LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
United States Department of Labor,
Women’s Bureau,

Washington, June 10, 1931.
I have the honor to submit herewith a report on the industrial
experience of women students at the four summer schools for women
in industry—at Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Wisconsin, and the Southern
School in North Carolina—prepared by Dr. Gladys L. Palmer, under
the direction of the Affiliated Summer Schools for Women Workers
in Industry.
The report constitutes an account of the work history and economic
status of 609 women whose presence at the summer schools in itself
testifies to their having experiences, and perhaps personalities, of
more than ordinary interest. A considerable number were foreignborn garment workers in New York City; another group were southern
textile workers. Thus the report is recognized as covering one phase
of the bureau’s many-sided interests and a phase not easily covered
in any other way.
Respectfully submitted.
Mary Anderson, Director.
Hon. W. N. Doak,
Secretary oj Labor.
Sir:




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FOREWORD

During the changes characteristic of its growth, industrial society
has continually endeavored to analyze the workings of its own intricate
mechanisms and to gage its performance in terms of human values.
This task of self-analysis, by whatever name we may call it, is urgent
and essential if the members of industrial society are to learn to
control intelligently the system of which they are a part. Workers’
education plays a significant role in this continuous process of re­
search. The value of this experimental study of the industrial
experience of a small group of women workers must be judged in
terms of its usefulness to the educational process in the partici­
pating schools no less than by its contribution to our knowledge of
the workers’ lives and of their economic and social status.
The following monograph furnishes little basis for broad generaliza­
tion. To understand the mechanisms of modem economic life
requires investigation on a much broader scale into the technical
workings and interrelations of organized institutions—of shops,
factories, farms, markets, and financial institutions—of large industrial
groups, of whole industries, and of the State itself in its economic
aspects._ For this task there are required the mass measurements and
descriptions made possible by the statistical method and the broad
generalizations of economic theory. Economic statistics is making
gradual progress toward the more adequate measurement of the
trends and mass movements which alternately disturb and restore
the “economic balance,” frequently bringing to naught many hardwon achievements and well-laid plans. In studying the problems
of labor, statistical tools have been employed on a large scale in the
accumulation of vast stores of data on wages, hours, employment,
costs and standards of living, and industrial relations. The scientific
use of this information is making us increasingly aware of the rate and
direction of the changes to which we must adjust. As the quality
of information improves, there is reason to believe that in striving
for control we may in part be able to anticipate these industrial
changes.
_ Yet it seems clear that an evaluation of the technical efficiency of
industrialism must be supplemented by analysis in terms of human
values. These values can not be determined exclusively by inference
from mass statistics. _ The attempt to discover the human significance
of modem economic institutions does not end with census volumes,
with tabular reports, or with statistical compilations. The meaning
of individual experience is largely lost in the midst of the artificial
constructs of averages and aggregates. A more intimate type of
examination and portrayal of individual behavior is needed to supple­
ment researches into broad economic and social movements. Yet
nothing in social science is more elusive than the experience of the




vn

VIII

FOREWORD

individual. Clearly this experience is both unique and typical. To
bridge the gap between these two is always difficult; we fall into error
when the unique is lost in the typical, and likewise when it is confused
with the typical.
_
_
_
Detailed studies of the individual experience of industrial workers
are few in number.1 The problems in such studies are those of the
psychologist and sociologist as well as of the economist. An inter­
esting psychological approach has been made recently by Hersey in
an intimate study of the work experience of a group of Pennsylvania
shopmen.2 The present monograph on workers' experiences is one
of the growing group of studies which illuminate and correct our
impressions of mass movements.
_
This study was proposed and carried through for both pedagogical
and scientific reasons by the cooperating industrial summer schools.
It was initiated in 1928 by the economics faculty of the Bryn
Mawr Summer School in recognition of the need by both instructors
and students for more intimate and systematic knowledge of the
experience of the industrial women composing the summer-school
group. After the preliminary schedule was developed by the in­
structors and tested out in the classes, the Wisconsin, Barnard, and
Southern Summer School groups agreed, to participate in the venture
as an interschool project. It is not claimed that the data represent
anything beyond the experience of the particular group of workers
studied. The reader can scarcely examine these materials, however,
without obtaining a more vivid picture of the meaning of industrial
employment in the lives of tlie girls whose experiences.are recorded.
Many of the questions touched are in the twilight zone in which little
or nothing is known. The data in this study are strongly colored
by the subjective, but this very quality lends a special significance
to the testimony presented.
<
The summer-school study is of some importance as a methodological
experiment, although this phase of the project has not been stressed in
the present manuscript. The questionnaire was revised repeatedly
during its use for three successive years by the summer-school econom­
ics faculties, and there is available a substantial body of information
regarding the relative precision of the questions asked. Each schedule
was filled out in a personal interview or in a small group conference.
The instructors enjoyed unique personal contacts with the students,
and the check-ups on the reliability of memories and inaccuracies of
verbal statements furnished excellent opportunity for determining the
value of information obtained in this manner. It is to be hoped that
further analysis of the methodology of such studies will be made in
order to generalize the experience of various investigations. Com­
1 A recent detailed study of the individual and family experience of workers was undertaken by Dr.
Ewan Clague for the Yalo Institute of Human Relations. For a partial report in advance of a forthcoming
bulletin, see Clague and Couper, “The Readjustment of Workers Displaced by Plant Shutdowns,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XLV, up. 309-346, February, 1931. For reports on similar studies
concerned principally with the unemployed, Isador Rubin, “The Absorption of the Unemployed by
American Industry,” Brookings Institution Pamphlet Series, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1929, and Robert J. Myers,
“Occupational Readjustment of Displaced Skilled Workmen,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol.
XXXVII, No. 4, pp. 473-490, August, 1929. Numerous studies of unemployed groups during the past
year have made use of questionnaires comparable in many respects with the summer-school schedule.
An interesting collection of individual-experience records has been brought together under the auspices
of the National Federation of Settlements in “ Case Studies of Unemployment," edited by Marion Elderton, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1931.
s See Rex B. Hersey’s forthcoming book to be published by the Industrial Research Department, Whar­
ton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. See also Hersey’s various articles,
including “Cycles in Workers' Efforts and Emotions,” Engineers and Engineering, Vol. XLVI, July,
1929, No. 7, pp. 162-166, and “A Monotonous Job in an Emotional Crisis,” Personnel Journal, Vol. IX, No.
4, December, 1930, pp. 290-296.




FOREWORD

DC

parisons of questionnaire and interview experience among groups of
workers selected in other ways should be made.3 It would be in­
teresting to try a similar schedule among the more random selection
of workers in an operating shop or factory, or among a group of the
unemployed.
So far as I know, this study represents the first experiment in this
country with this type of questionnaire as an integral part of an
instructional plan in workers’ education. Direct participation in the
fact-finding process emphasized to each student how untrustworthy
the individual’s untutored perception of her own experience is likely
to be. Each student compared her recollections of her own experience
with the assembled memories of the group, and the sharp distinction
between belief and impression on the one hand and verifiable fact on
the other was brought out in bold relief in the discussion sections.
Difficulties in verification of impressions emphasized the relativity of
facts themselves.
The participating schools and the many persons who shared in this
study are deeply indebted to Doctor Palmer and to her associates for
their efforts in the preparation of the following report. The sponsor­
ing committee and the administrative staff of the affiliated summer
schools regard the present monograph in some measure as a progress
report on the continuing research efforts of the schools. Although the
scientific value of the conclusions reached is limited by the small size
and special character of the group of workers studied, there is strong
agreement among the economics staffs of the several schools that the
venture has been well justified from the educational point of view.
Meredith B. Givens,
Chairman of Subcommittee Sponsoring this Study,
Educational Council, Affiliated Summer Schools.
Social Science Research Council,
230 Park Avenue, New York City, July, 1931.
3 Methodologically this study and many of its findings may be compared with various well-planned
community labor surveys. For a good example, see * ‘A Community Labor Survey," University of Illinois
Bulletin, Vol. XXVIII, No. 24, February, 1931. See also a study of ‘' The Occupational Experience of One
Ilundred Unemployed Persons in Bloomington," College of Commerce and Finance, Indiana University,
July, 1931, and a forthcoming report by Charlotte Carr covering the experience of a representative group of
unemployed to be published by the Charity Organization Society of New York City.







■:,v=. ■
A UNIT GROUP ON THE CAMPUS, BRYN MAWR SUMMER SCHOOL, 1930

THE INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE OF
WOMEN WORKERS AT THE SUM­
MER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930
Part I.—PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 1

Few studies have been made of workers’ industrial experience over
a period of years, probably because the material is difficult to obtain
and even more difficult to interpret. The way was pointed to the
possibilities of studying the trade experience of women workers in
the summer schools by Dr. Amy Hewes in an analysis of the job
histories of 97 students at the Bryn Mawr Summer School in 1925.1
2
The present study has been undertaken with two purposes in mind:
First, to assist the teachers of the summer schools in understanding
the background experience of the students with whom they are work­
ing and thus to adapt their program and teaching methods to the
problems at hand; and second, to build up a body of information
concerning the trade experience of a selected group of women workers
from the important women’s trades and from all parts of the country.
It may be interesting to note that a similar analysis of industrial
experience on a more elaborate scale is used by teachers of workers’
classes in the Academy of Labor at Frankfort, Germany, as a basis
for planning the entire curriculum and activities of worker-students.
In line with other groups experimenting with modern educational
methods, the summer schools have attempted to group students in
terms of their industrial experience, to develop classes, forums, and
dramatic work around projects of special interest arising out of that
experience, and to link the work of the schools with the activities and
opportunities available in the communities from which students come
and to which they return. Such a program requires a continuous
analysis of the problems of women workers in industry and the rela­
tion of those problems to their background experience
The statistical sample, so to speak, was set by the admissions com­
mittees of the four summer schools for industrial workers covered in
this study: The Bryn Mawr Summer School at Bryn Mawr College,
the Barnard Summer School at Barnard College, the Wisconsin
Summer School at the University of Wisconsin, and the Southern
Summer School at Arden, N. C. The schools recruit students from
1 This study is essentially a joint product. It was sponsored by the educational department of the
Affiliated Summer Schools and the members of the economics faculties at all the summer schools for workers
in industry. I am indebted to Dr. Meredith B. Givens, of the Social Science Research Council, who
proposed the study, and to Miss Hilda W. Smith, director, and Miss Eleanor Coit, educational secretary,
of the Affiliated Summer Schools for Women in Industry at 218 Madison Avenue, New York City. I
am also indebted to Miss Ernestine Friedmann, Dr. Alice Shoemaker, Dr. Theresa Wolfson, Mrs. Louise
Leonard McLaren, and Dr. Lois MacDonald, of the Affiliated and Southern Summer Schools, for their
interest and cooperation.
The assistants at the 1930 Bryn Mawr summer school helped in preparing the schedules for statistical
analysis. I am especially indebted to Miss Halo Chadwick, Miss Elizabeth Bruce, and Miss Helen
Herrmann for the major work of compilation of tables, and to Mrs. George Hourwich for assistance in pre­
paring the material for publication.— Gladys L. Palmer.
2 Hewes, Amy. Changing Jobs. U. S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Bui. 54, 1926.




1

2

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

all the women’s industrial occupations and to a smaller extent from
domestic service, trade, clerical work, and other lines of employ­
ment. Students must have shown some qualities of leadership and
interest in workers’ education or other community activities to be
sponsored as candidates by local committees. The schools attempt
to get a wide range of occupations, nationalities, trade-union or
other community organization affiliations, and political opinions.
Scholarships are raised to help to cover the expenses of students
while at the schools, but practically all the workers must sacrifice
earnings while they are there, and a significant number of them have
to lose their jobs and often experience some difficulty in getting other
jobs when they return. On_the whole, therefore, the group studied
is a selected but widely varied group of women workers who have
shown an intelligent interest in their own economic problems.
There were, in all, 609 students at the four summer schools whose
interest and cooperation made this study possible. They ransacked
their memories to bring to light what they could of interest on the
questions asked. Workers are not given to the keeping of records,
so a high degree of precision is not attained in the schedules. No
check-up through pay-roll figures or other records was possible.
Although an effort was made to secure uniformity of interpretation,
each year and from year to year, faculty changes naturally caused
some differences in this, respect. The study, therefore, is not pre­
sented as a statistical picture of exactly what happened in all the
details of the lives of 609 industrial workers but as a general view
of working conditions and experience—or what is equally important,
the workers’ mental picture of that experience—for as interesting a
group of 609 women workers as ever could be brought together.




Part II.—BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE OF SUMMER-SCHOOL
STUDENTS

The story of the development of summer schools for women
workers has been told elsewhere,3 but a brief statement of the sec­
tional, occupational, and nationality differences found in the four
summer schools studied will aid in an understanding of the back­
ground experience of these women workers and of the larger groups
they represent.
The Barnard Summer School is a nonresident school, drawing its
students entirely from the metropolitan area of New York City.
The needle trades furnish a majority of the workers at Barnard,
together with a group of workers from scattered miscellaneous trades.
Almost all the Barnard students are foreign bom or of foreign
parentage, and they constitute a special teaching problem from the
point of view of language handicap. The trade-union and political
affiliations of this largely Russian Jewish group and its breadth of
industrial experience abroad as well as in this country add unique
problems to classroom work. Possibly no group of women workers
in American industry more clearly illustrates the influence of child­
hood backgrounds and emotional experiences on later industrial
activity and attitudes.
Excerpts from two autobiographies are quoted here to aid in an
understanding of the psychology of this large group of women
workers who have come from eastern European countries.4 The
first draws an interesting contrast between two Russian groups:
When I was a child my parents lived in a small village in Russia. As a rule the
Jews of old Russia did not mingle with Gentile people. But I, a child full of play
and with no other playmates, became attached to a peasant family who had five
children.
This family lived in a house consisting of one room with an earthen floor and
with an oven dug out of the ground. They used to sleep all together on piles
of hay spread out on the ground. Their food consisted of boiled cabbage with
black bread and a lot of onions.
Now, although I did not get any luxuries in my home, yet we lived in a 3-room
apartment and had furniture and better food. Nevertheless, I spent all my
time with my peasant friends. My parents, being religious, did not like this
idea at all, yet they tolerated it.
What I liked most about this family was the freedom they gave their children.
For instance, the children could go around barefoot, and my friend, Marutka,
used to wear just a half skirt without a shirt or blouse. Her brothers wore just
pants and no shirts. I, like all children, was foolish and envied them so.
3 Smith, Hilda W., Women Workers at the Bryn Mawr Summer School, published by the Affiliated
Summer Schools and the American Association for Adult Education, 1929; Eager Feet, Journal of Adult
Education, October, 1930; The Bryn Mawr Summer School of 1929, American Federationist, September,
1929. Hill, Helen D., The Effect of the Bryn Mawr Summer School as Measured in the Activities of its
Students, published by Affiliated Summer Schools and American Association for Adult Education, 1929.
Friedmann, Ernestine L., Our City Has Its Own Summer School for Workers, American Federationist,
November, 1930. Schwartztrauber, E. E., A Workers* Summer School (Wisconsin), The American
Teacher, November, 1930. Herstein, Lillian, The Significance ofthe Southern Summer School for Women
Workers in the Workers’ Education Movement, The American Teacher, January, 1931; Bonner, Marion,
Behind the Southern Textile Strikes, The Nation, Oct. 2, 1929; Coit, Eleanor G.* Industry Goes to
School, The Woman’s Press, December, 1929; Six Little Schools at Bryn Mawr, The American Teacher,
February, 1931.
4 “ Misery Awakened Me/’ Barnard Record, 1930. “ My Childhood,” Bryn Mawr Outcrop, 1929.




3

4

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

One day the girl, Marutka, got sick. Now when a child was sick in my family
we used to have doctors and medicines and my parents would be up nights,
whereas there the mother and father went to work in the fields early in the
morning and left that poor friend of mine alone without any medicine, baths, or
food until she died of neglect. The loss of my friend, Marutka, made me
miserable, and in my misery I despised the ignorance of those free peasants.

The second makes equally clear the differences in character and
temperament within a family:
I was bom in Kalarash, Bessarabia, which was then one of the Russian States,
in the house of a middle-class family. My parents were comparatively comfort­
able.
We were 8 children—1 boy and 7 girls, of whom I am the fifth.
My father was a very tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, stern man. I re­
member whenever some of our neighbors’ children and ourselves would play in
our house when my father was away, our childish little voices could be heard all
over the house. My mother, who was quite a young woman, helped us with our
games. Also my father’s mother, wrho lived with us and was rather old but
very good natured and humorous, would tell us tales which were very amusing,
but when father was at home we were restricted. He thought on different lines.
He trained us to respect our elders, especially our parents. His way of teaching
made us fear him.
Not so my mother. She was very young, and beautiful in soul as well as in
body. She was not very religious, but fine in character. Whenever father
would scold us she would leave the room, for she could not stand his severity.
He had quite a large business, which he practically conducted alone. When he
came home after a bad day’s business, he always yelled and scolded us for every
little offense. When I grew older, it dawned on me that business troubles must
have been the cause of my father’s strictness.
He was a very religious, learned, orthodox man, who had peculiar ideas. He
believed in educating boys, and since he had an education he gave all that was in
his power to my brother. My older sisters received a very limited education.
My younger sisters, who did not come to America, were given a fairly good
education, whereas I received next to nothing, because of conditions that arose
then.
.
My father’s sisters had emigrated to America long before. When they learned
of certain discriminations in Russia, they asked father to come to America.
Since he had very little money left, he decided to send three of his older children.
He could not think of parting with his only son, who was older than I. I, there­
fore, was the victim. I say the victim, because it robbed me of my childhood,
which had a tremendous effect on my life.
Denial as a child had filled me with slow accumulating rage. Later discipline
in the shop had found me utterly intractable. I never formed any personal
bonds with humanity in particular. I had grown into a solitary being. The
spontaneous expressions of self that bind men into a solidarity of common under­
standing and hope were locked away. I never offered, nor apparently returned,
any marks of sympathy. I rarely expressed anything except occasional irre­
pressible scorn, lashing at individuals or acts that conspicuously displeased me.
This had occurred more than once, whenever I found myself among a group of
people. However, now that I am at my full matured age, this feeling recurs
against my will.

The Southern Summer School, on the other hand, draws its students
exclusively from the Southern States, and all but a few of these are
native born of native parentage. They work for the most part in
the textile industry, and they receive low pay and have the
longest hours of all the groups studied. Their industrial experience
records are unusually interesting, for many of them went to work
while very young at low wages, and their maximum earnings after
years of experience are below the average in the older industrialized
communities where more job opportunities obtain. There is no
language handicap at the Southern Summer School, but the wide
difference in point of view between the workers from such metro­
politan centers as Richmond and Baltimore, with their varied social
and economic opportunities, and the workers from isolated mill



STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE LIBRARY
EXPERIENCE OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

5

villages constitutes a special problem. The southern workers come
predominantly from isolated rural communities. A picture of the
difficulties under which some of them grew from childhood to enter
industry is given in the following autobiographical sketch:6
I was bom on a farm in western North Carolina. We raised corn, potatoes,
cane, and tobacco. We also had lots of hay to take care of. My two older
sisters married and my two older brothers got jobs and left home to make wages.
That left just my younger sister and me out of a family of eight large enough to
work. My mother’s health failed her and so my sister and I had most of the
housework to do and to help father on the outside. We got up at 3.30 or 4
o’clock every morning to get the housework done, the cows milked, and the
chickens fed, to get to the field early. We would hoe corn all day long, come
home at night and help mother get supper, and very often she would have beans
picked or apples gathered so we could string beans after supper or peel apples to
dry. I have helped father saw wood time after time and I have driven his team
of horses day after day, hauling rock, hay, corn, and other things. After we
got our crop planted father would get a job somewhere and he would tell us what
he wanted done. So mother, sister, and I would do the work.

The Wisconsin Summer School draws students from the Middle
West; the majority are native born of native or foreign parentage.
Almost half of the women students at Wisconsin work in occupations
in the miscellaneous trades, and almost one-fourth are in the clothing
trades. Their experience in industry has usually been shorter and
less varied and they have entered industry at a later age than students
from the other schools. They form a small but active industriallyminded community in the larger summer session of the University
of Wisconsin. Like many of the southern workers they, too, have
recently come from rural communities and have a background ex­
perience that is different from that of workers in the older industrial
and metropolitan centers. The poverty of many rural communities
may be fundamentally the same, but a western frontier farm offers
some interesting differences from those of the small upland farms of
the South.6
I was born on a farm near Pine City, Minn. My parents are both Swedish.
They came to the United States and bought 80 acres of unbroken land in the
northern part of Minnesota, which then was a vast wilderness with the Indians
roving through the woods. My father cleared enough land to build a log cabin.
In this work my mother helped him. It was necessary for him to earn money to
pay for land and improvements; so he left home and obtained employment on
one of the railroads which were being built throughout the country. This left
my mother alone, without friends or neighbors, excepting the Indians. By hard
work and perseverance my parents now have a comfortable farm home.
My education was very limited. I attended the district school until I com­
pleted the seventh grade. At the close of school I obtained employment at a
hotel as waitress. This was new and interesting to a young girl from the country.
I made new friends and came in contact with different kinds of people. I recall
my overwhelming joy and pride when I received my first check of $20 for one
month’s wages. I remained in this employment for one year. Then I ventured
to St. Paul, where employment was more available.
For five years I drifted from one occupation to another, but never felt satisfied.
One day I read an advertisement in the newspaper, reading as follows: “Will
teach beginners to operate power machine.” I applied for the position and was
accepted. At first I found the work very difficult, but as the days went by, I
became more capable of handling the work and controlling my machine. I was
soon taught how to make pockets, which is one of the most complicated oper­
ations on the coat. I took a great interest in my work and learned the different
models very rapidly. I found the work I enjoyed, and I have been employed
at this trade for eight years. But I find that my lack of education has put me at a
‘ Southern Summer School Scrapbook, 1929.
•‘ ‘ My Autobiography,” Wisconsin Script, 1929.




6

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

disadvantage, both in my work and in my play. My aim now is to pick up my
studies where I left them 12 years ago and continue my education.

While the experiences of foreign-born workers abroad and in this
country are often the same, some differences arise when one com­
pares the record of the Scandinavian groups who predominate in the
Middle West with the eastern and southern European groups found
in a community like New York City:7
My childhood was spent in a community in Milwaukee which was known for
many years as Holland Hill. The inhabitants who had settled here had come to
America from the Netherlands under practically the same circumstances as
rny grandfather and his family. My grandparents, not unlike many of their
friends, owned a comfortable little home, a big garden, and some livestock, in a
section of the Netherlands known as Zeeland. They were quite prosperous and
happy.
One day my grandfather received a letter from his brother, who had journeyed
to America a few months before. He wrote glowingly of the prosperity awaiting
the immigrant in the “land of promise.” Immediately a great unrest and a
desire to emigrate to this new country of opportunity seized my grandfather
and some of his friends and they formed immediate plans for departure.
My grandmother was not easily reconciled to the breaking up of her comfortable
home, and protested vigorously, but to no avail—grandfather was adamant.
So the property and livestock were sold, rare pictures which had been in the family
for years were auctioned off to the highest bidder, locks of my grandmother's
heavy, dark hair were cut off and sold, and even the gold clasps on her Sunday
mantle had to be parted with. In Holland, a woman’s station in life is determined
jay the fastenings on her cloak. If she is poor, these may be only ribbons; if she
is in ordinary circumstances, the clasps may be brass or gold plated; but my
grandmother had accumulated some worldly store, and so hers were gold set with
garnets. She was very proud of them and it almost broke her heart to sell them,
but even they had to go to get money for the new venture.
After three weeks on the ocean, and one week by rail from New York, grand­
father and his friends, with their wives and families, arrived in Milwaukee, city
of opportunities. The only opportunities for the accumulation of huge fortunes,
however, were the jobs of sewer digging in the summer and wood cutting in the
winter. Indeed, grandmother soon decided that America was the land of—
promises.
They lived with friends on Holland Hill for a short time, and then rented a
small cottage, which was nothing like their old home in Holland. Meanwhile,
their resources dwindled rapidly, and soon they were merely existing “from hand
to mouth.” But in the summers they saved a little money and preserved food
and meat to tide them over the coming winter. In a few years the demand for
work improved; men went into carpentry and sod laying, worked in the railroad
yards, and went into various otlier trades. Working and home conditions
improved generally and the future looked brighter than it had since their arrival.
The little group of Hollanders decided that they would remain in the new
country and began to establish their community institutions. They organized
the Presbyterian Dutch Reformed Church and it immediately became the center
of interest. Services were held five times on Sunday, the longest one lasting about
two and a half hours. As soon as the children were able to talk they were taken
to church and literally grew up under the wing of Gabriel. All this proved
irksome to most of the small devotees who had to sit through these long services
under the vigilant eyes of their elders; in summer they shifted perspiringly within
the narrow confines of the seat, and in winter they huddled together with a hot
brick at their feet to keep warm.
Meanwhile, the community prospered very slowly. The children went out to
work as soon as they were old enough to do so. I remember my mother telling
me that she went to work at 13 in a tailor shop, working from 7 in the morning
until 6 at night.
The years have brought many changes. The Hollanders have gradually
ventured beyond the confines of the Hill; to some degree the people have inter­
married and moved away. Homes have deteriorated and families have moved
to houses where there are modern conveniences. A few families still remain,
but Holland Hill is no more, and many people do not even know where it was.
The little “wooden shoe district” of Milwaukee is gone forever.
* “ Holland Hill,” Wisconsin Script, 1928.




EXPERIENCE OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

7

These three workers’ summer schools serve particular communities
or sections of the country, while the Bryn Mawr Summer School
recruits students from all geographical sections of the country. It
also brings students from abroad on foreign scholarships to exchange
industrial experience and philosophy. Almost half of the Bryn Mawr
group are foreign born. Somewhat more than half work in the needle
trades. Less than one-fourth of the group are in the miscellaneous
trades. In a sense, the Bryn Mawr group presents a composite pic­
ture of American women workers in industry, since it draws from such
a variety of nationalities and trades and so many industrial com­
munities. Wages, hours, and other conditions of employment for the
Bryn Mawr students tend to be average in comparison with the other
summer-schools studied. Many of the workers at Bryn Mawr as
well as at the other schools have had interesting trade experience in
some of the most critical economic situations where women have
worked. Since the Bryn Mawr school aims to recruit half of its
students from the organized trades, it has a wide representation from
all the trade-unions in which women are active members. This makes
for an interesting exchange of industrial and trade-union experience.
All the sectional and nationality backgrounds found in the other
schools are represented at Bryn Mawr. A group not illustrated be­
fore is especially typical of the eastern part of the country, the New
England textile workers, whose trade experience may be illustrated
in the following excerpts from autobiographical material:8
I got my first job when I was 14, in a Rhode Island silk mill once reputed to be
the largest under one roof in the world. I was very proud to be working and con­
tributing $7.50 to the family income, for that was hastening the time when my
mother, who was weaving in a cotton mill, could stay at home. I enjoyed my
work as a quiller (making filling for the weavers) and remember how I used to
hurry to fill as many boxes as the other girls. I also remember that I early
learned to be frightened by anyone in a supervisory capacity and was appalled at
haying to use a toilet which exposed one's feet and legs to every passer-by.
A new department was being installed and I was sent to work there. Here I
learned to reel silk into skeins and found it difficult but enjoyed the easier dis­
cipline. For about nine months I worked here, then leftjvhen my mother decided
to teach me to weave.
Young boys and girls under 15 were not allowed to weave, so I, not yet being
15, was put to filling batteries; that is, putting bobbins in an automatic device at
one side of the loom which feeds them into the shuttle as it empties. The weave
shop was very large, which gave me a feeling of being lost, at first; the noise was
tremendous, but I soon became accustomed to that. I enjoyed the jolly “comraderie” of the older weavers and made many friends among the younger ones
Then after five weeks “standing in” with my mother, I became eligible for
looms of my own.
It was during those first few weeks of weaving that I learned, unconsciously,
what skill meant. To do this job well, I must work hard, conscientiously, and
be very painstaking. I envied the apparent ease with which the older women
weavers did their work and wondered if I would ever attain that stage.
Many things I accepted unquestioningly as part of the job: The long work
week (54 hours); the faulty humidifiers, which often threw off sprays of water
instead of steamj the blower” used to remove the lint which collected like snow
on and under the looms. The English and Belgian weavers seemed to be immune
from the evil effects of these things, perhaps through generations of factory
workers before them, but the Italians often seemed languid and wan-faced, and
the Gorman woman who worked next to me complained that the humidifier
made her shoulder ache, and often with an angry gesture she shut it off.
My mother had learned of the better working conditions in the silk industry;
wages were higher, hours shorter, and the jobs were cleaner. After two years of
“My Autobiography.”

Byrn Mawr. 1928.

63263°—31------2




8

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

work in the woolen mill, I left with no regrets when the opportunity came to
learn silk weaving. Because the industry is newer, sanitary conditions are usu­
ally better, and by far the largest majority of silk mills run only 48-hour shifts.
After learning that I must acquire a delicate and lighter touch necessary in han­
dling silk than in cotton and something of the complicated mechanism of the silk
loom, I was put to run two looms, then three. Here I worked for six years, al­
ways conscious that I must acquire, and always striving for, greater skill, not so
much because I wanted to become skilled, but because there was a constant
demand on the part of the management for the elimination of imperfections.
It was here I was working when I took my first summer off to attend Bryn
Mawr Summer School. Since my health was not good, upon returning I decided
that I would look for an easier job. I applied at the employment offieeof a great
cotton mill and after having my eyes examined and found good was given a job
in the spinning room at $12.50 a week. Knowing the wages were much less than
I had received for weaving, I thought the work would be less fatiguing and less
exacting. I had great difficulty in learning to keep a small leather pad in place
over my right knee, this being used to protect the knee when it was brought into
position to stop the spindles spinning at a rate of 8,000 revolutions a minute,
in order to piece the broken ends. Within a few days I was able to run three sides;
these being near the door, I was instructed to keep them well cleaned in order to
make a good impression upon visitors entering the room for the first time. After
four weeks of this work I decided that it was just as strenuous, if not more so,
than silk weaving and the compensation far too small, so I gave up the job. _
Through my studies in economics at Bryn Mawr I had become interested in
discovering for myself just what conditions in Rhode Island industries were, so
while I was unsettled I thought I would try night work. I applied at the office
of a silk plant, one of the large factories on the river bank, which ran three and
four shifts, for a job on the night shift. I was informed that they employed no
women at night, but was offered a job on the afternoon shift. This meant work­
ing from 3 in the afternoon to 11 at night, on Saturday nights till 12. This I
did for one year.
_
_
It was a joyous thing to have my mornings free. I learned to swim, I worked
in the garden, and did many other things I had always wanted to do. Then
thinking this time too precious to spend on such trivialities I spent my morning
hours in school for a few months. I found, however, that in order to keep fit
and well I must live a very regular life, also that one loses contact with one’s
friends and that there is little or no social life. Absences were allowed occa­
sionally but these gotten with difficulty, for too frequent absences from this
shift would break down the discipline, resulting in too large a labor turnover.
Sanitary conditions were good: White-tiled lavatories with hot water, weaveshop floors washed at least once a week, machinery kept clean, and a cafeteria
where hot food could bejaought; no interval provided while eating it, however.
What of the workers? The majority were Polish and French Canadians, with a
goodly number of Syrians—a typical silk-mill crowd. The men, mostly married,
seemed indifferent as to what hours they worked as long as they made a^ fairly
decent wage. And the women—Mary, who worked next to me, said: “Workin’
dis way, I can do my wash and sew for my kids.” Her husband had only one
eye, was unskilled, and was unable to find a job. He cared for the children
while she worked “afternoons.” Several widowed mothers found this shift con­
venient. Usually the children “stayed with the lady downstairs” or were “old
enough to take care of themselves.” A little widowed Polish mother very
proudly one night showed me a photograph of her daughter who was attending
high school. I never saw a more woe-begone face than hers when one day she
passed my looms on her way to the first-aid room. She had been hit in the
chest with a flying shuttle. “What was she thinking? Perhaps what so many
workers often think with terror. “Suppose some day something happens to
disable me permanently, so that I can not work any more, what shall I do?”
The courage and patience of these women is great to stand these hours day after
day and year after year. When a year later I was offered a job on the day
shift, I took it gladly.
_
After working some months on the day shift, running four looms, the mill
closed for a 2-week period. When the workers went for their wages, a notice
was posted on the door to the effect that workers desiring a job after that period
must reapply to the employment manager. This meant the “stretch-out”
system, only the most efficient workers would be given employment on six looms,
whereas formerly they had run only four. There was much talk against this
and much harsh criticism, but the system was being introduced into other shops
and the workers thought it useless to make a formal protest. Gradually the




EXPERIENCE OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

9

shop resumed the 3-shift schedule, with the 1,000 looms running with a dimin­
ished labor force.
The first few days under this system I remember very clearly. One day I
had mastered those six looms and I stood for a moment watching them run. All
in good order, all running smoothly. At a moment such as this there is a rhythm
to the clattering thunder of a thousand looms that is music to a weaver’s ears.
As I stood listening, watching, I became conscious that my body was wet with
perspiration, every muscle taut, every pulse beating hard, and my heart pound­
ing within my breast. I felt for a moment that I wanted to shriek and make
my voice heard above the clattering thunder. A suggestion of a thought—“I
can’t stand this long”—but my mind does not dwell on it for my trained eye went
instinctively back to the loom where I saw work to be done. And so it was day
after day, a constant effort to master the machine.
Perfect cloth was not demanded at first under this new system, but as the
weavers became more accustomed to operating more looms the managers became
more exacting until perfect cloth was demanded constantly. Weavers were fined
for imperfections, often they were told not to report for work for one day, two
days, and sometimes more, this being the manager’s method of teaching the
weavers to be more careful. Oftentimes the imperfections were not the fault of
the weavers but of the loom—but this was not always taken into consideration.
Fines and lay-offs were imposed just the same and weavers were often fired.
For two years I worked under this strain (as did every other worker) of fear
of being laid off, fear of losing my job, and the constant physical effort necessary
to keep the looms running. Finally, having difficulty with two of my looms,
which caused imperfections for which I was repeatedly blamed, I told the fore­
man that I had done my best and could do no better and “walked out.”
I soon found employment in a small shop, where I am still employed. There
were then 10 other weavers, each operating four looms. Recently several new
looms have been installed and now 4 of the 10 weavers are operating five looms
each. My work pleased my new employer and his appreciation stimulated an
effort on my part to always do my best. Nevertheless, the story is the same in
every silk shop to-day. The workers are constantly beset with fears of the
“stretch-out” system, wage cuts, and the ever-present demand for perfection
and production. Each realizes that eventually some of their number will have
to go—all will have to concede to the demands of the industry. On the out­
skirts of the town, the clatter of the fifty-odd looms of this little factory lustily
echo the roar of the machines in the factories on the river bank: “Industry is
all important, Production is all important, Production, Production!”







Part III.—GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WOMEN
STUDENTS AT THE SUMMER SCHOOLS9

Although the workers who attend the summer schools are a selected
group of relatively mature and experienced industrial workers who
have shown qualities of leadership in their home communities, their
problems are typical of the problems of women workers in the country
as a whole. A wide geographical distribution is found in the student
group, although practically half of them come from the older indus­
trialized communities in the New England and Middle Atlantic
States. Over two-thirds of the students are foreign born or of
foreign extraction. Only a small percentage of the group studied are
married, but this is due to the fact that married women workers
often are not in a position to attend workers’ classes rather than to
any discrimination by the schools against married workers.
The schools were established, first of all, to offer educational
opportunities to workers in industry, and they have included only
small groups of workers in the occupations in domestic and personal
service, clerical work, and other employment. It is not surprising to
find, therefore, that about nine-tenths of the entire group are in
manufacturing industries, and over one-half of these are employed in
the clothing trades. The range in occupations in the four different
schools reflects interesting differences in the localization of industry
and the rapid industrialization of parts of the South and West.
About two-fifths of the students reporting in this study are union
members, a proportion much higher than that found' for women
workers in the country as a whole. This is a result of conscious policy
in the admission of applicants to the schools.
In general, the group may be said to be composed of experienced
workers, since the average (median) for the group is 8 years in
industry, and probably half of them would be classified, on the basis
of wage rates, as semiskilled or skilled. The workers studied aver­
aged more than 4 jobs each, in a range of from 1 to 30 jobs. A signifi­
cant number of girls reported “too many jobs to count.” They had
left their jobs for a variety of reasons, chief among which were low
wages or long hours, and lay-offs on account of slack work. Almost
half of them had entered industry before they were 16 years of age.
No study of their schooling is available except for the Bryn Mawr
Summer School students. Of this group, from two-thirds to fourfifths of the students in the years 1928, 1929, and 1930 had had no
American high-school training.
Every conceivable permutation in job history in women’s trades is
represented in this group, from the girl who started to work in Russia
at 10 years of age without the opportunity of any schooling, and who
has now become an expert sample maker at a high wage, to the south­
ern textile worker who has been on the same job in a cotton mill for
» The male contingent at Wisconsin and the foreign students coming to Byrn Mawr Summer School <
special scholarships have been excluded from this study.




11

12

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

six years, who went to work at $3.50 a week and after years of experi­
ence makes $10 or $12. There is the older girl who has never lost her
Lancashire brogue and who has spent a lifetime in cotton weaving in
England and New England; she is a union weaver, as her father and
mother were before her. Nor is there lacking the “flapper,” of
native-born or foreign parents, probably not a union member, but
with knowledge through her experience of a variety of different shops
and trades where she has worked. There are some workers like the
girl who has packed cigars in the same factory for 14 years, and others
who have had “too many jobs to count.” The workers’ own story
of lives spent in industry is still to be told. Perhaps the pages that
follow will help to create the picture.
Geographical distribution.

The summer schools for women workers in industry tend to recruit
students from industrial centers where workers’ education is already a
functioning part of community activities. The Bryn Mawr school is
organized to receive students from all over the country. Barnard, as
a nonresident school, accepts students only from New York City and
near-by communities. Wisconsin draws from the Middle West
heavily, because of its location, and the Southern Summer School
accepts students only from the Southern States. Almost half of the
group studied (Table I, p. 35) are from the New England and Middle
Atlantic States. The Middle West contributes 28.5 per cent of the
total number of students, the Pacific Coast 2.2 per cent, and the
Southern States 19.4 per cent. Thus a wide geographic distribution
of typical industrial communities where women work in large numbers
is represented in this study. The Northeastern States are more
heavily represented in this analysis than is the country as a whole,
because of the more widely developed interest in workers’ education
in this section of the country and the chance location of the first
summer school at Bryn Mawr.10 * *
Nativity.

The students at the summer schools are predominantly of foreign
birth or foreign extraction. Of the total group, 43.6 per cent are for­
eign born and 24.1 per cent are native born of foreign parentage; less
than one-third (32.3 per cent) are native born of native parentage.
(Table II.) Sectional differences are interestingly shown in the fact
that the Southern Summer School reported only 3 students of foreign
birth or foreign parentage, and Barnard reported only 5 students of
native parentage in the three years covered by the study. The ma­
jority of the foreign-born students attended summer school at Bryn
Mawr and Barnard. Almost two-thirds of these came from Russia
and Poland. (Table III.) The proportion of foreign-bom women
among the summer-school students is larger than among women
workers in the country as a whole.11 This probably is due to the fact
that the schools recruit from trades and sections of the country where
io According to the 1920 census figures for these States, all women 16 years of age and over gainfully
occupied were distributed in these groups as follows: New England, 6.9 per cent; Middle Atlantic, 25.1 per
cent; Middle West, 26.4 per cent; Pacific, 4.6 per cent; and South, 20 per cent. Thus, of the large groups,
the South is represented in the schools in almost exact proportion, the so-called Middle vv est Has a little
larger per cent in the schools than in all employments, and New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, as is
natural from the location of the two largest schools, are much more than proportionately represented.
See U. S. Bureau of the Census. Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870 to 1920, by Joseph A. BUI.
Monograph IX. 1929. p. 230.
,
,
• +v. tt •+ a q+
u In 1920 only 13.4 per cent of the gainfully-employed women 16 years of age and over m the United states
were foreign-born white.—Ibid., p. 106.




GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN STUDENTS

13

foreign-born women predominate, or organizations in which members
of this group are especially active. The schools also offer special teach­
ing facilities for the language-handicapped student and thus attract a
large number of applicants who are foreign born. To some extent this
difference represents a difference in the psychology of the native-born
and foreign women workers with regard to activity and interest in
their own economic problems, for the American worker is more opti­
mistic than is the foreign worker, and frequently is less interested in
problems of industry.
Age.

The policies of the four schools differ slightly with respect to the
age at which applicants are accepted. In general, preference is given
to students ranging from 18 to 35 years of age. Exceptions are made,
however, to this general policy. As a result, there are no students
under 17 years of age, and over half (51.2 per cent) are 18 and under
25.12 The median age is 24.6 years, the students at Barnard being
older (with the median about 26) and those at Wisconsin younger
(with the median under 23). (Table IV.) This means that the stu­
dents at the summer schools would appear to be a relatively mature
and experienced group of women workers at the probable height of
their earning power in industry.
Marital status.

The data on the marital, status of summer-school students (Table
\) do not give a complete picture. On some of the early test schedules
the question was omitted, and on others sufficiently detailed informa­
tion was not obtained.. There was also, at first, a feeling among the
students that there might be some discrimination against married
women in the schools, and the question was not answered frankly.
This is reflected in the large.number of “unknown” in 1928 and 1929,
and therefore the apparent increase in the number of married women
in 1930 does not represent a real increase but rather greater accuracy
and frankness in answering the question. It would be safe to assume
that the figures for 1930 are more typical than are those for other
years, and that therefore about 14 per cent of the summer-school
students are married.13
Occupational classification.

. It has been the policy of the summer schools to accept primarily
industrial workers, and therefore the occupational classification is not
typical of the distribution of women wage earners as a whole, although
it is typical of the manufacturing industries in which women work.14
Of the summer students, 87 per cent are in the manufacturing and
mechanical industries, 6.1 per cent in domestic and personal service,
and the others in trade, transportation, clerical work, and professional
work. The professional workers, and to some extent these others, are
not typical of the schools nor of industrial workers in general. They
have been admitted because of their work in connection with the
labor movement.
'i39'Lper cent°f
women 16 years of age and over gainfully employed in the United States in 1920 were
under 25 years of age.—Ibid., p. 67.
“ IPl920i
Per “ent of the gainfully-occupied women 16 years of age and over in the United States were
married.—Ibid., p. 75.
14 In 1920, 22.5 per cent of all gainfully-employed women 16 years of age and over in the United States
worked in manufacturing and mechanical industries, 10.5 per cent in trade and transportation, and 26 2 Der
cent m domestic and personal service—Ibid., pp. 188-190.




14

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Forty-seven per cent of the total group, and well over half of the
manufacturing group, are in the clothing trades (Table VI), including
the making of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and underwear
(except knit goods), millinery, and a variety of other goods. Over
one-half (51.4 per cent) of the clothing group work on women’s cloth­
ing, with dresses predominating, and over one-fourth (26.2 per cent)
work in the men’s clothing division of the trade. Nearly one-fifth of
the clothing group (18.9 per cent) work in millinery.
The textile industries are represented by almost 16 per cent of the
students, who make silk, cotton, rayon, and wool goods, knit goods,
and hosiery, with cotton and hosiery manufacture predominating.
The miscellaneous trades, comprising 24 per cent of the students,
cover a wide range of occupations in the metal, paper, printing and
publishing, leather, food, tobacco, chemical, and novelty industries.
One-fourth of the students in this group work in the metal trades.
The occupations in the miscellaneous trades range from linotype oper­
ating to pretzel making, from artificial fish-bait manufacturing to
cigar making, from assembling Ford parts to painting lamp shades.
There is considerable variation in the distribution of occupations in
the different schools, a distribution that reflects sectional differences in
industrial localization and development. The Bryn Mawr Summer
School, which draws students from all parts of the country, had onehalf of its students for the three years combined from the clothing
trades and almost one-quarter from the miscellaneous trades. At
Barnard almost three-fourths of the students came from the clothing
trades, about 14 per cent were from the miscellaneous trades, and
less than 2 per cent from textiles. Wisconsin, since it draws students
primarily from the Middle West, had 44 per cent of its students from
the miscellaneous trades and less than 24 per cent from the clothing
trades. The Southern Summer School, as might be expected, drew
almost one-half its workers from the textile trades, one-fourth from
the clothing trades (mostly the manufacture of cheap grades of work
clothing), and about 14 per cent from the miscellaneous trades.
Union membership.

It has been the policy of the summer schools to recruit their students
from various community organizations interested in workers’ prob­
lems, such as the trade unions and industrial clubs of the Young
Women’s Christian Association. Bryn Mawr is the only school that
consciously attempts to have a half-and-half division between union
and nonunion workers. Most of the trade unions in the women’s
trades are represented in this study. (Table VII.) Of the total group
reporting, 39.3 per cent are union members. The “unknown” in this
case probably do not belong to unions, which would make the propor­
tion of union membership lower. Even allowing for this, the propor­
tion of union members in the summer schools is considerably higher
than among women workers as a whole, as a result of the recruiting
policy of the schools.15
_
_
There is a higher percentage of union membership among the
students at Bryn Mawr and Barnard, near the older and more highly
15 It is estimated that in 1927 about 3 per cent of all women workers in the country were organized.^ The
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers, and the United
Garment Workers of America are the three unions having the largest woman membership.—T. Wolfson,
in “Women in the Modern World,” Annals of the American Academy, May, 1929, pp. 120-122.




GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN STUDENTS

15

organized clothing markets in eastern cities, than among the students
from the more recently industrialized communities, though the South
follows closely. No attempt has been made to compare union and
nonunion conditions in different trades, because the cases are too few
to make valid comparisons, but this type of comparative analysis is
very much needed for the women’s trades.
Weekly wage rates on last job.

Wage rates are summarized here not to give a picture of earnings
but to give some indication of the general level of skill of the group
studied. In more than half the cases they represent average earnings
for piecework. The median wage rate—half receiving more and half
less—for all students from 1928 through 1930 is $21.38. By years, the
medians show interesting variation: For 1928 the median is $21.67,
for 1929 it is $23.15, and 1930 has the lowest of all, $20.15. (Table
VIII.) These medians are higher than those of any general studies
of industrial women’s wage rates because of the selected character of
the group.16 The wage group occurring most frequently is the $18$18.99 modal group.
If half the students reporting received more than $21.38 a week on
full-time work, it seems fair to assume that they are semiskilled or
skilled workers. The range of wage rates for the entire group is wide,
from $8 to $75 a week, but neither extreme is typical and probably
the designer, who received $75 a week, should be excluded from con­
sideration. The other skilled workers, receiving from $22 to $52 a
week, are more typical of the summer schools’ student groups. Many
of them are employed as operators, finishers, and sample makers in
the organized clothing markets. Some are in custom-dressmaking
establishments, and others are in the printing and metal trades.
At the other end of the scale, in the groups receiving from $8 to
$12 a week, are the unskilled operators or semiskilled and skilled work­
ers in low-wage communities. Here are found paper-box and laundry
work, machine operating on overalls in nonunion centers, and hosiery
looping, rayon reeling, and cotton spinning and weaving in com­
munities paying lower rates. Girls from the textile mills of Marion,
N. C., and Elizabethton, Tenn., reported some of the lowest wage
rates of all, and these frequently represented their maximum rates,
after years of industrial experience. In the low-wage group are found
also waitresses and domestic workers, who received some additional
compensation in board or board and room.
A comparison of range of wage rates by school will show that the
Wisconsin and Southern girls from the miscellaneous trades and
textiles are in the lower wage groups, and the organized garment and
clothing workers at Barnard and Bryn Mawr, largely from metropoli­
tan centers, raise the levels considerably for those two schools. Only
4 out of 85 students at the Southern Summer School in three years
reported a wage rate of over $25 a week. The highest of these ($35)
was received by a hairdresser, hardly typical of southern industry in
w The highest median earnings reported in the studies of the Women’s Bureau of the United States
Department of Labor are $16.85 (Rhode Island, 1920) and $16.50 (Flint, Mich., 1925).—Bui. 58, p. 22, and
Bui. 67, p. 19.
Weekly earnings for women in New York State factories for October, 1930, were reported as averaging
$18.47 ($22.28 in New York City and $14.37 in remainder of State).-—New York State Industrial Bulletin,
November, 1930, p. 43.




16

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

general. It should be added that many of the southern students at
the schools live in cotton-mill villages, where they receive house rent,
fuel, and light at what is claimed to be reduced cost.
One point needs emphasis in the discussion of wage rates. For most
of the workers reporting, the wage rates given are maximum full­
time wage rates, although few of them enjoyed full-time employment.
Students on piecework (more than half of the total) reported an aver­
age of their earnings. Keference to the tables on earnings XIX to XXI
will give a more accurate picture of the wages of the summer-school
students.







I'jr

SEAMING IN A SHIRT FACTORY
Boom, well lighted and ventilated, but chairs not adjustable.

Part IV.—THE EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRY OF SUMMERSCHOOL STUDENTS

The experience in industry of the women workers at the summer
schools is the most interesting part of their record. An attempt was
made to secure information on the age at which they entered industry,
the number of years of industrial experience they had had, the number
and kinds of jobs held, beginning and quitting wage rates, and reasons
for leaving jobs. Much of this material is difficult to interpret, be­
cause the students were depending on their memories and were often
inaccurate or insufficiently detailed in recording their job histories.
The detailed data on job histories will be used for more extensive
analysis at another time, and only the more general tables and a few
typical or especially interesting job histories will be presented here.
Sixteen duplicate or partially duplicate records have been identified
in this analysis of industrial experience. These belong to second-year
students who returned to the same school or who went to another one
of the four studied during the 3-year period in which the information
has been collected. There is no reason to believe that these duplications
give any bias to the data, since they take the place of other first-year
or second-year applicants representing the same variety of trades in
the same or similar sections of the country, having, in other words,
the same industrial experience.
Age at entrance into industry.

Almost half (47.1 per cent) of the students reporting age at the
summer schools entered industry before they were 16 (Table IX),
although there are sectional differences relative to this point that are
of interest. Only 28.1 per cent of the students at Wisconsin entered
industry before 16 years of age, while almost half or slightly more than
half of the students at the other three schools began working before
they were 16. Over 5 per cent of the group of students reporting age
began work before they were 13 years of age. Those who reported
beginning work under 10 years of age were all born in eastern European
countries, but the majority of those who started work from 10 to 15
years of age were born in this country, many of them in the Southern
States. The higher educational requirements and better legal protec­
tion against child labor in some of the Western States may be reflected
in the small proportion of Wisconsin students who began work before
16 years of age.
Years in industry.

The students in the summer schools are, as might be expected, an
experienced group of industrial workers. They have had on the aver­
age (median) 8 years of industrial work—one-half of those reporting
working a longer period, ranging as high as 32 years, and one-half
working from 1 to 7 years (Table X). In terms of percentages, 30
per cent have worked 1 to 5 years, 37 per cent 6 to 10 years, 19 per cent
11 to 15 years, and 12 per cent 16 years and over. This record includes
working experience in the United States only (where this fact was




17

18

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

indicated). There are a number of foreign-born students at Bryn.
Mawr and Barnard who worked before coming to this country.
Interesting sectional differences appear if one compares the per­
centage of students in the four schools who have had less than six
years’ industrial experience. At Barnard a little over one-fifth of the
students and at Bryn Mawr almost one-fourth have worked less
than six years, while at the Southern Summer School a little over
two-fifths have worked less than six years and at Wisconsin almost
one-half of the entire group have worked this shorter period. Again
students from the more recently industrialized sections of the country
report a shorter industrial experience, although all schools report a
few cases with work experience of 21 to 32 years.
Industrial experience.

The number of jobs held by students at the summer schools varies
considerably among trades, sections of the country, and individuals.
Twenty-seven students reported “too many jobs to count.” These
girls worked for the most part in the clothing trades—in dresses, mil­
linery, men’s clothing, neckwear—and one was a textile weaver. A
few took jobs “to investigate conditions,” but in general the short
seasons of the clothing trades led to an attempt to get a different job
with the hope that this would be more permanent. Excluding 28
students who held an indefinite number of jobs (see footnote 2 of
Table XI), there were 2,671 jobs reported by 581 students, or an
average of 4.6 jobs per student, with a range of from 1 to 30 jobs.17
Interesting sectional differences appear in the comparison of the
tables for Barnard and Bryn Mawr on the one hand and Wisconsin
and the Southern Summer School on the other hand. A larger pro­
portion of western and southern students have held few jobs, partly
because they work in trades other than clothing, where job changes
are less frequent, and partly because there are fewer job opportunities
in these more recently industrialized sections of the country. The
larger number of jobs per worker is found among the Bryn Mawr and
Barnard students.
Reasons for leaving jobs.

Although more than 2,700 jobs have been held by workers at the
summer schools, only 1,988 reasons for leaving jobs were given.
More reasons were reported by students in the years 1928 and 1930
than in 1929. (Table XII.) The reasons given are the workers’ own
explanations as to why they left their jobs. In spite of inevitable
rationalizing, these reasons may furnish explanations of labor turn­
over at least as adequate as those that emanate from factory person­
nel offices. There may be, however, a tendency to minimize the
number of discharges, since only 41 of the 1,988 reasons are so called.
Only seven students reported specifically that they were displaced
by the introduction of machinery, including one “movie organist”
who lost her job when the “talkies” came in. This does not represent
a complete picture of the situation, however, because most of the
students work in the clothing and textile trades, where changes of
process or style, rather than the introduction of machinery as such,
have displaced workers. The “stretch-out system” in textiles,
changes in style in millinery and such garments as beaded and em*7 No attempt was made to distinguish between regular and temporary or irregular jobs, because in most
cases workers took the temporary jobs hoping that they would be permanent, and were laid off or left
because of bad conditions.




EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRY OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

19

broidered dresses, and rearrangements in the processes of work prob­
ably account for considerable job insecurity—recorded under lay-offs.
Lay-offs and slack or seasonal work account for more than 19
per cent of the reasons for leaving jobs. As one girl reported it, “I
was given more vacation than I could afford.” Low wages and long
hours are the cause in 20.3 per cent of the cases. Combining dislike
of work, “better job elsewhere,” and unhealthful or disagreeable
working conditions, it is found that this group accounts for about
17.4 per cent of the total number of reasons for leaving jobs. Dis­
agreements or “arguments with the boss” over rates or overtime
work and personal differences account for 64 reports of job shift.
Among these are recorded such illuminating statements as “the boss
got fresh,” “the boss tried to cheat me out of my pay,” and “we had
a mean boss.”
It is interesting to see that in 110 cases of labor turnover the plant
moved or was burned or the business failed. This figure may be
high because of the large number of small shops, requiring little capi­
tal, that are characteristic of many of the clothing trades. Change
of residence of the worker herself or of her family accounts for 122 job
shifts. Losing one’s job for union activity, union politics, or because
one wanted to get work in a union shop was reported in 66 instances,
and strikes and lockouts necessitated job changes in 90 instances.
Illness was reported as the cause of 80 job shifts.
The reports of leaving job “to go to school” refer in most cases to
workers’ schools such as those under consideration. Many girls
had their jobs held for them, but in about one-sixth of the total num­
ber of reported cases jobs were not held and students had to give
them up in order to attend a workers’ summer school.
In Doctor Hewes’ study of the industrial experience of 97 students
attending the Bryn Mawr Summer School in 1925, it was found that
lay-offs were a more frequent cause of change in the garment indus­
try than were wages and hours together, although they were equally
important in the case of textiles. She also found that more than
half of the group studied had held their jobs on an average less than
two years, and that garment workers, in contrast with textile workers,
for example, were “conspicuous as a group of short-job workers.”18
The short duration of jobs for workers in the school as a whole is
probably explained by the preponderance of clothing workers in the
group. Although the clothing trades have been notorious for short
jobs and highly seasonal work, a special study of the effects of this
characteristic problem on the industrial experience of such an im­
portant group of women workers is needed.
Typical job histories.

As one associates with workers or teaches workers’ classes, certain
nationality groups, types of temperament, or attitudes of mind tend
to become identified with specific economic situations or occupations.
The following case histories have been chosen on a purely subjective
estimate of what constitute typical case histories, in the absence of
any scientific criterion for making such a selection. They have been
checked by the opinions of faculty members in the various schools.
Clothing trades.-—In the clothing trades there are at least two
fairly well-defined types of Jewish and Italian women workers. One
is Hewes, Amy. Changing Jobs. U. S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Bui. 64, 1926, pp.
6 and 10.




20

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

type is ambitious to succeed, and if she can not become a “boss” she
hopes, to become at least a sample maker or a designer. The other
type is socially-minded, with a radical economic philosophy that
makes her strongly class-conscious and a good union lighter. She
makes sweeping condemnation of all “bosses”; all working condi­
tions are “terrible”; usually she is willing to have an argument with
the boss over a vital issue at the risk of being discharged. Both may
be excellent workers from the point of view of skill and speed; both
may be excellent union members, at least for a period. Both types
are to some extent the result of religious and social prejudices and the
economic conditions in the industries in which they work.
As an example of the first type may be cited a worker on women’s
dresses who started in 1912, at the age of 12 years, as a trimmer on
men’s shirts at $2.50 a week. Except for two jobs as a cash girl
and sales clerk in a store, she has stayed in the needle trades, holding
10 jobs in all. She was promoted rapidly during the war period,
when she made her highest wages, and is now a designer of women’s
dresses, earning $75 a week. Although her wage rate is not typical,
her psychological attitude represents a well-defined type. Another
worker of the same type has had 20 years’ experience in the neck­
wear trade. She started at $1.25 a week at a job that she left because
she was “overworked and underpaid.” Since then she has been a
finisher and end turner on neckwear, instructor, inspector, and fore­
woman, averaging $30 a week when she works full time. In the year
immediately before her first summer-school work she had been em­
ployed 25 weeks full.time and 13 weeks part time and was out of
work 14 weeks. This worker has been the main support of her
family for many years and has helped to give her brother a college
education and professional training.
The other type may be represented by an operator on men’s cloth­
ing who started in 1908 at $1 a week, probably the current rate for
“greenhorns ” who had just come to this country. She has had 13 jobs
in 21 years, and all of these have been in men’s clothing except one
attempt at selling in a store. Her wages averaged less than $5 a week
until 1911, and less than $20 a week until 1917. Since that time she
has averaged $33 a week, a condition that illustrates the results of
trade-unionism in the men’s clothing industry. She too suffers from
irregular work. In the year before her summer-school experience she
had had 32 weeks of full-time work and 10 weeks of part-time work
and had been out of work 8 weeks and on strike 2 weeks.
These three girls came from metropolitan areas of the East, but
a like case may be cited for a garment worker in a mid-western city.
She started at millinery in 1909, at $3.50 a week, and tried several
other trades. She was a sales clerk, she worked in a canning fac­
tory, she assembled Ford parts, then she became a pocket maker on
cloaks and in 1923 an operator on dresses, making the whole garment.
She left some of the jobs because of low wages, wage cuts, or unfair
division of work. As the union developed in her industry, she be­
came an active member and was twice discharged from her jobs for
union activity. In the year before she entered summer school she
was on strike 23 weeks, and permanently impaired her health on the
picket line in a very cold winter. She is now blacklisted and may
never be able to get work again in her market. Another worker
started in the paper-box industry and had held 11 jobs in as many
years. She left her first job to learn a trade and went into the chil


STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE LIBRARY
EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRY OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

21

dren’s dress industry. She has been an examiner, a button sewer,
an operator, and a novelty stitcher, with occasional jobs at packing
biscuits and acting as a cashier and waitress in a restaurant to fill in
the dull seasons in clothing. The reasons she cited for leaving jobs
were lack of work, wage cuts, and “end of season.” In the year
before she entered summer-school she had worked full time 20 weeks
and part time 16 weeks, and had been unemployed 16 weeks.
_
In a sense, these five cases, that in some respects might be dupli­
cated again and again in the schools, depict not only the history of
interesting individuals but the history of their trades. The clothing
trades in 1909, when many of these girls started to work, were char­
acterized by sweatshop conditions of the worst kind. It has been
only in recent years and after prolonged struggle that the trade unions
in the needle trades have been able to secure a living wage and decent
working conditions, and the matter of short seasons and irregular
work and income still appears to be an unsolved economic problem
in the trade. The story of the origin of the movement to better
conditions in the garment trades is well told in the trade history of
a girl who came to America in 1909 and went to work in a dress shop
where her sister had been working for three years.
The shop was small and dingy. We had to work the whole day by electric
light. The front part of the shop was the office, on the other side stood the
cutting tables, and the operators, finishers, and pressers were cramped in the
middle of the shop. We worked 59 hours a week. I do not care to describe the
impression that the old sweatshop made on children of that age. (She was 15
at that time.)
A meeting was"called to organize the industry, and I was inspired by the group
of young people I saw, determined to win for themselves and their fellow workers
a better living and a more respectable position in the industry. * * * For
years after that I could not pass that street without getting a thrill. At that
very meeting plans for the general strike of the ladies’ waist and dress industry
were laid. We were so few in numbers that each and every one of us was an
important member of the organization. We practically had no experience at
all. Even our leaders were for the most part on the battlefield for the first time.
In a very short time our strike machinery was in full speed, and the winter of
1909 saw the most successful strike of the workers in the dress industry. * * *
The response was overwhelming; the first couple of days saw the entire trade
practically at a standstill. * * * Thus I was privileged to participate in
and witness the birth of the Ladies’ Waist and Dressmakers’ Union in the city
of New York.

Miscellaneous trades.—The typical worker in the miscellaneous
trades is the young “flapper” type or the restless American-born
girl seeking variety of location or occupation. She is likely to be
fairly independent and to move on if she does not like the boss or the
work. She will “try anything once.” The job story is the same,
although the local setting may vary. There is the girl who started
in leather goods in a large eastern city in 1915 at $3 a week. She has
had 9 jobs in 13 years, in as many industries—the needle trades,
department store, a printing press, a munitions factory, a steel
mill, an upholstery shop, and radio and other metal-goods manu­
facture. She was paid her highest wages during the war, and now
averages $30 a week. Another worker started stamping linings in
a mid-western shoe factory in 1908 at $3.50 a week. She has had
11 jobs during the 21 years of varied industrial experience. She
found the shoe factory “tiresome” and left to clerk in a store, and
went back to the shoe factory later. Then she was in a cigar factory
for over 6 years, but found herself affected by nicotine. After this
she tried housework and then department-store work. Later



22

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

she went back to domestic work and then department-store work.
Again she tried domestic service and left to take a business-college
course. _ After trying office work for a few months, she went back to
domestic service. During this long period she has never made more
than $17 a week and usually she has averaged between $5 and $10.
Another mid-western girl has worked almost wholly in the metal
trades. She started in 1915 as a punch-press operator at $8, but she
“had a mean boss and got mad and quit.” Then she did grinding
and press feeding, but was laid off. Next she tried battery assembly
but “didn’t like the work.” Then she worked on chain assembly
but she “got into a jam over working overtime and quit.” Later
she _ worked _ as a time clerk but had to leave on account of illness.
While working as a hosiery looper she went out on strike on account
of a wage cut and lost her job. Since then she has made Christmas
wreaths, sold drugs, operated a drill press, and inspected metal goods.
In all, she has had 13 jobs in 15 years and has averaged about $15 a
week. She has made $25 at times.
The greatest variety was found in the industrial history of a
woman who held 30 jobs, all in different trades, over a period of 20
years. To mention but a few: She had started as an errand girl,
then worked as a hosiery looper, she had packed candy and tin cans,
worked in a bakery shop, and made powder in a munitions factory
during the war. Most of these jobs she left because she “didn’t like
them” or they “didn’t pay enough.” She was a street-car “conduc­
tor tte” but gave that up because it was too cold. She had worked
on dolls, electric ball bearings, victrolas, neckwear, and chemicals.
She had made $23 a week during the war, but otherwise averaged
from $15 to $18. Her feeling about these jobs was that if she “liked
the crowd” she would like the work, otherwise not.
The miscellaneous trades pay low wages relative to other trades
except for special semiskilled or skilled operations. Speed or dex­
terity are to some extent transferable from one industry to another.
If you can assemble Ford parts, you probably can assemble radio or
victrola parts or pack candy. So if you are a girl who likes to see
the world, you will not “join the Navy” but will pick up a job in
the miscellaneous trades. The choice of the first job frequently is
accidental, depending upon the location of the girl in a 1-industry
town or a metropolitan center. Many girls choose their first jobs
from the occupation that has the current reputation of paying well.
Once started, it is hard to move out and learn a trade at the bottom
of the scale, and the large number of experienced workers available
in the skilled trades makes it difficult for an inexperienced worker to
get a start.
The number of workers in the miscellaneous trades is affected, too,
by general industrial changes that are eliminating quality products
and skilled processes. Of what use is it to learn a trade if, at best, it
may serve you only 10 years and possibly less? One student at the
summer schools found upon two occasions that she had acquired a
skill that later was eliminated from the industry by style changes in
women’s garments. She was forced to drift from occupation to occu­
pation in the miscellaneous trades, after leaving the skilled trades in
the clothing industry, and philosophically summarized her experience
in her trade history thus:
Essentially my experience in the industry is that of hosts of other women and
girls. Undoubtedly this constantly varying means of earning my livelihood did



EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRY OF SUMMER-SCHOOL STUDENTS

23

not contribute much toward my material growth. Yet I question the possibility
of my being any better off had I managed to adhere to one particular trade.
Personally, I sometimes feel that this has been a blessing in disguise, for it accorded
me the opportunity of viewing life from various angles, at least as far as the worker
is concerned.
■

Textile trades.—The textile workers, either because their working
conditions make them so or because they choose that work by reason
of temperament, are less restless and more patient than the worker
on radio parts, for example, and less intense emotionally than the
garment worker. They are not fatalistic about changing things.
This is not because their working conditions are better than those in
other trades, for this and other studies confirm the general opinion
that, on the whole, textile workers receive less pay and have a longer
week than do many other workers. Many textile workers, both
North and South, live in 1-industry towns and are influenced by
the tradition of families working in the mill. They are frequently
isolated from contacts with other workers and other industrial condi­
tions. The more prosperous branches of the textile industry, hosiery
and silk mills, have offered opportunity for the ambitious skilled
worker. Some cotton and woolen mills, on the contrary, have not
conformed to the accepted standards of better wages and working
conditions in this country.
One southern textile worker started by helping her mother as a
cotton winder at 10 years of age but was forced out when a childlabor law was passed. Later she tried housework, clerking in stores
(two), restaurant work, and hosiery seaming and looping, and she was
a warper in a silk mill when she entered summer school. In all,
she had had 9 jobs in 12 years, ranging from $10 to $30 after 1917.
Another southern textile worker had had 4 jobs as a cotton spooler in
6 years, starting at $6 a week in 1923. The highest she had ever
made was $16, and she averaged $10.50 a week for 64 hours of work
in the year before entering summer school. Twice she left jobs
because she “didn’t like night work,” and once she was “discharged
for taking three weeks’ vacation.” Possibly more typical of southern
cotton-mill workers is the girl who had held 9 jobs at spinning or
spooling cotton yarn in 6 years. She had started work at 11 years
of age, and had made $8 on her first job and $10 on her last job. The
highest wage she had ever made was $13. She had “moved” from
every job except one. Moving about from mill village to mill village
is typical of certain cotton-mill workers in the South. All three of
these girls worked an 11-hour or 12-hour day the year before they
entered summer school.
Two textile workers described the jobs they held before going to
the Southern Summer School in these words:19
In the Georgia cotton mill where I work the conditions are not good. The
average wage is about $12 a week for 60 hours a week. We do not have any
seats where I work. I don’t think they have any in the other departments. We
have running water in the toilets but do not have any rest room. The ventila­
tion is good in some departments but some are very hot. We have a swimming
pool, theater, two churches. The company pays part of the minister’s salary.
We also have a grammar school. After a child has finished grammar school he
can go to high school without paying tuition if he lives in the village. You can
have insurance if you want it. You have to pay 60 cents a month and the com­
pany has to pay the balance. The Bedaux system (task and bonus) is causing11
11 Southern Summer School Scrapbook, 1929.

63263°—31----- 3




24

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

trouble now. People don’t want to work so hard for such low wages. The com­
pany is also having trouble with the United Textile Workers. The employer is
firing all the employees he finds belonging to the union.
In the rayon mill where I work the wages are low. When I began to work I
made $8.96 a week. I worked for three weeks and then was put on piecework.
Then my wages were increased to $10.08 a -week with what I made on premium
work, which was not very much, for the rate was low and I could not make much
more than my day’s work. We had to lace 60 reels a day for $1.80. For all over
60 reels laced we received 3 cents a reel. It kept mo very busy to get 60. I
work from 7 in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon. I work six hours on
Saturday.
My work is very tiresome because I have to stand up all the time and have
very little time for moving around. We can go to the wash room twice a day,
once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We have very good sanitary con­
ditions but there is something in the air that makes the girls faint.

Hosiery workers, both North and South, have had a somewhat
different type of experience because their industry has been prosper­
ous in recent years. One western girl had had 9 jobs in 7 years,
starting in underwear in 1923 at $5.50 a week. She had left 8 of
them for better jobs, and in the year before she entered summer school
she was making $24 a week as a forelady in a western hosiery mill.
Another hosiery worker had started working summers at doffing yam
and malting paper boxes, for $5 a week. She learned hosiery topping,
beginning at $3 a week, and had had 10 regular jobs in a period of 14
years. At one time she had been out on strike for a year and a half,
during which she picked up 6 odd jobs in as many trades instead of
taking strike benefits. Before entering summer school she averaged
$30 a week, with full-time employment in a union mill, as a topper on
fine grades of full-fashioned hosiery.
_
Domestic and personal service.—The job histories of two girls of
Scandinavian extraction are chosen as typical of certain of the work­
ers’ problems in household employment, although this important
group of women workers has smaller representation in the schools,
and less is known about their working conditions despite their numeri­
cal importance for women wage earners as a whole. One girl had had
15 years’ experience as a household employee, holding 6 jobs in all,
as a nursemaid, housekeeper, and cook. She left the first job she
had at $3 a week “to get better wages.” The second and third jobs
paid $4 and $6, but she “wanted a change.” The other jobs she left
because she could get better wages. In the year before entering
summer school she had made $11 a week (in addition to room and
board). Her hours were reported as “unlimited,” with a lunch
period of 15 minutes. Another general household worker had
started work in summers in a canning factory. Her first job as a
household employee had paid $5 a week. After 8 years of experience
she was making $12 a week (in addition to room and board), and was
on duty from 6.45 in the morning to 7 in the evening. She had left
two of the jobs because of not getting a raise in wages or because she
“did not like the small town.”
Both of these job histories illustrate the problem of long hours as
it affects working conditions in household employment. More data
are needed, however, on the results of long experience in this field of
employment and the general problem of employer-employee rela­
tionships in the household.20
20 The National Committee on Employer-Employee Relationships in the Home has recently been organ­
ized to consider problems in this field. A Philadelphia study by Aniey E. Watson is shortly to be published
by the Women’s Bureau.




Topping

in a

Hosiery Mill

An unusually good work room, with excellent nat ural light, slat shades to prevent glare, window
boards for ventilation without draft, localized and adjustable artificial light, and adjustable
chairs.







—

II'■ CM
Pi, **, * \
V**V J , J

vV

Winding in a Cotton Mill
Light walls and ceiling, natural ventilation and light, clear aisles; a walking job, but there should be seats for occasional use.

Part V.—WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE
PREVIOUS YEAR
Summary.

In addition to general data on industrial experience, the students at
the summer schools were asked to give detailed information about
their working and living conditions in the year (beginning in June)
prior to their entering school. Questions were asked on the amount
of full-time and part-time employment, the extent and causes of unem­
ployment, hours of work, earnings and savings, and contribution to
family support.
Although tire years covered by this study were, in general, years of
business prosperity, women workers at the summer schools have suf­
fered in considerable measure from part-time employment and unem­
ployment. In the year before entering school a small but significant
group had no full-time employment and were out of work or on part­
time work the whole of the year. Only 36 per cent of the entire group
reporting worked more than 40 weeks full time during the year
reported upon. Although there was considerable unemployment and
part-time employment reported, there was also an average (median) of
as much as five weeks’ overtime worked by the students during the
year. . Some evidence of the effects of business depression in the year
1930, in contrast with the other two years, is shown in the drop of
about $100 in average (median) annual earnings for this year.
The majority of the students (77 per cent) were in employment
having a workday of 9 or 10 hours, including the lunch period, and
a small but significant group of workers were employed on longer
shifts. Since 68 per cent of the workers had an over-alf day of 9 hours
or less, and more than half of the workers had at least an hour for
lunch and 44 per cent had 30 or 45 minutes, it seems safe to assume
that roughly two-thirds of the entire number had actual working
hours not in excess of 8% and probably 8 or less. This again is an
unusual condition and undoubtedly due to the large numbers in
the clothing industry.
The earnings figures are interesting because they reflect sectional
variations in income as well as trade and employment conditions.
For the three years combined, the median of the year’s earnings figures
is $838 in a range from $157 to $2,270. The modal group is the $800
to $899 group and the arithmetic average is $881.97. One-fourth of
the entire group studied received less than $643, and three-fourths
received less than $1,061 in the year. Although these figures are
higher than those found in many studies of a less select group of
women workers, they are very low in terms of the standard of living
this group is anxious to maintain. The median of the year’s earnings
of the New York City students at Barnard was highest ($913), that at
Bryn Mawr next highest ($852), that at Wisconsin next ($850), and
that at the Southern Summer School lowest ($688). Considerable
variation was found also among occupations; the clothing-trades
workers had the highest and the textile workers the lowest average
earnings.




25

26

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Almost four-fifths of the workers reporting on this subject had no
other source of income than wages. Slightly over one-fifth received
small amounts through extra work, sickness or accident compensation,
strike benefits, and in other sundry ways. Almost one-half of the
students were able to save during the year for which they were report­
ing, the average (median) amount saved being $71.81. Over one-half
of the group, however, were unable to save, and almost one-fourth had
to borrow in amounts that ranged from $1 to $500. The median
amount borrowed was $80 and the borrowings thus tended to offset
the savings. Insurance was carried by over three-fifths of the group
studied. A majority of the workers (69.5 per cent) lived at home and
about four-fifths of these contributed to the family support. Of
those reporting on percentage of earnings contributed, nine-tenths con­
tributed definite amounts and only one-tenth made no contribution.
Because the figures on full-time employment and earnings are for the
most part estimates not based on accurate records, and because a
smaller number of students have answered these questions, no exten­
sive statistical analysis of these data has been attempted. The other
data, although not so fully answered as the questions on age and
nativity, are relatively accurate.
In the two years (1929 and 1930) for which it was possible to secure
accurate information on this point, 74 students had worked on more
than one job during the 12 months for which they were reporting.
Twenty-four of these had worked in more than one industry.
Full-time and part-time employment and unemployment.

The years covered by this study, from June, 1927, to June, 1930,
were, in general, years of business prosperity. The data available on
unemployment and irregular employment should, therefore, be
useful in giving a picture of regularity or irregularity of work for
women workers in prosperous times. Practically full-time employ­
ment (49 to 52 weeks) was enjoyed by 17.8 per cent of the entire
group reporting on this point. (Table XXI.) Although the students
in this particular group are from all parts of the country, the highest
percentage of full-time employment during the year is found among
Wisconsin students and the lowest percentage among those at Bar­
nard. It is probable that the preponderance of clothing workers at
Barnard Summer School accounts for this difference.
Thirty-six per cent of the entire group reporting worked over 40
weeks full time, and 60 per cent worked more than 28 weeks full time
during the year. At the other end of the scale, 13.2 per cent of the
group reporting had less than 13 weeks of full-time work during the
year.
In the three years studied, 37 per cent of all the students reporting
on part-time employment in 12 months had no part-time work, but
a few (1.3 per cent) were on part-time work practically the entire
year. (Table XIII.) These came from all sections of the country.
About one-fourth of all reported part-time employment lasting 17
weeks or more.
The figures on unemployment (Table XIV) show' that 17.5 per cent
of the entire group reporting had suffered no unemployment during
the year. Of those reporting number of weeks of unemployment,
71.2 per cent were unemployed less than 13 weeks and slightly over
half (51.8 per cent) were unemployed less than 9 weeks. At the other



WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN PREVIOUS YEAR

27

end of the scale, a small group of girls were unemployed the entire
year. Students reported unemployment by cause, and the tabula­
tions of the major causes of unemployment (Tables XIV and XV)
show that lack of work was responsible for most of the unemployment
in half of the cases reporting (51.6 per cent). Vacations without pay
were the major cause for a little over one-sixth of the group reporting,
and the remainder indicated that their unemployment was primarily
due to personal illness, strikes or lockouts, and other causes.
Workers who indicated that lack of work was the major cause of
idleness were unemployed from 1 to 40 weeks during the year, although
the majority (61.5 per cent) were unemployed less than 13 weeks.
Workers who stated that vacations without pay were the major
cause of their unemployment obviously were not out of work for a
long period; the majority of these were unemployed less than 4 weeks.
Illness was associated with total unemployment that extended from
1 to 48 weeks. Strikes as a major cause of unemployment also were
associated with a total unemployment that extended from 5 to 48
weeks.
Overtime.

About 60 per cent of the students reporting on this subject worked
some overtime during the year. (Table XVI.) Half of these worked
overtime for less than 5.3 weeks. The students who reported working
overtime from 42 to 52 weeks in the year were employed in laundries,
beauty parlors, and a southern cotton mill.
Hours of work.

The questions on hours of work asked for daily hours including the
lunch-hour period, with a separate question for the length of the
lunch period. More than half of the students reporting on daily
hours had an over-all, including lunch period, of nine hours, and an
additional 16 per cent had shorter hours than that. (Table XVII.)
The lunch period was one hour in half the cases reported, and it
was at least half an hour in almost all the other cases. (Table XVIII.)
Correlating such lunch periods with an over-all of nine hours or less
for the majority of the students indicates that actual working hours
not in excess of eight or eight and a half a day were the rule. This
uncommon condition, due to the overweighting in the clothing indus­
try, is further evidence of the select character of the group studied.
In addition to the women reporting daily hours, a few reported
irregular hours or were unemployed. The 39 cases of shifts of 11
hours and over were in textiles, clothing, and domestic service, 1
of the last named being the child’s nurse who reported her hours as
24; they were found in largest numbers among the students at the
Southern Summer School and at Bryn Mawr. Few long shifts were
found at Barnard or at Wisconsin.21
Earnings.

Most workers do not keep a record of years earnings, and the
estimates tabulated here, even when made with expert assistance,
have not the same significance as pay-roll figures. (Table XIX.)
For the 3 years combined, the median of the earnings figures for the
21 In surveys by the Women’s Bureau of 2,599 establishments, employing more than 233,000 women, the
daily hours were 8 or less in 533 establishments, affecting nearly 49,000 women, or 21 per cent of the total.
An additional 24 per cent had a day of over 8 and under 9 hours.
These figures are exclusive of lunch
period.—U. S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Bui. 65, 1928, p. 24.




28

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

12 months prior to entering summer school was $838, in a wide range
from $157 to $2,270. One-fourth of the workers reporting received
less than $644 in the year, one-half received less than $838, and threefourths received less than $1,061. The arithmetic average for the
entire group reporting is $881.97. When one bears in mind that
these figures represent the average earnings for an older and experi­
enced group of women workers who receive more than women workers
usually get, their significance becomes more apparent.22 There was
some variation in the average earnings for the three years studied,
as might be expected; the median rose from $861 in 1928 to $887 in
1929 and dropped to $793 in 1930—a drop of almost $100.
Interesting sectional differences appear in the variation among the
schools in year’s earnings (Table XX). Barnard had the highest
average (median) earnings, $913, Bryn Mawr and Wisconsin the next
highest, $852 and $850, respectively, and the Southern Summer
School the lowest median, $688. The earnings of students at Bryn
Mawr and Barnard ranged over the widest scale, including some of
the lowest and some of the highest paid workers in the entire group.
Forty-eight per cent of Barnard students and about 55 per cent of
Bryn Mawr and Wisconsin students earned less than $900 in the year.
In the highest range of earnings ($1,700 to $2,300) are found 5.7 per
cent of Barnard students and 2.3 per cent of Bryn Mawr and Wis­
consin students. The students at the Southern Summer School,
however, are concentrated in the lower earnings levels. Over onefourth (27.6 per cent) received less than $500 in the year and prac­
tically nine-tenths (89.7 per cent) received less than $900. Only one
Southern Summer School student reported an income of over $1,200.
In some cases, low earnings were reported bv students who had
been ill or out on strike a larger part of the year previous to entering
summer school. Other low earnings were the result of lack of full­
time employment in the better-paid trades, or regular earnings in the
low-wage trades and sections of the country. Correlation of earn­
ings with amount of full-time employment (Table XXI) shows how
necessary it is in many cases for women to work full time to receive
earnings that at best are inadequate. Sixteen per cent of the group
earning less than $900 worked practically full time (49 to 52 weeks)
throughout the year. There might be expected a higher degree of
correlation between low earnings and undertime employment and
high earnings and full-time employment. Two factors tend to offset
this association. One is the presence of a large number of workers
from low-wage communities who have to work full time to make
even low earnings, and the other is the large percentage of garment
workers who receive fairly high rates of pay but seldom work more
than 40 weeks even in the more prosperous years. Year’s earnings
above $1,500 were reported by operators on pocketbooks, garments,
and men’s clothing, operators and trimmers on neckwear, a sample
maker on dresses, a multiplex operator, a furniture decorator, a
drawer-in (textiles), and a weaver in silk goods. It is interesting to
note that clothing-trades workers were among the lowest and among
the highest earnings groups, depending on the amount of full-time
employment they had had.
22 The highest median year’s earnings reported in the studies of the Women’s Bureau of the U. S. Depart
ment of Labor is $829 (Rhode Island, 1920). Bui. 21, p. 36.




29

WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN PREVIOUS TEAR

, Earnings by major industrial groupings for the three years com­
bined show interesting variations. (Table XX.) Although the
range of earnings in the needle trades is very wide, the highest median
earnings of $888 is found here. Clothing-trades workers in the sec­
tions represented at Bryn Mawr and Barnard had higher earnings
than those at Wisconsin and the Southern Summer School. The
scattered individuals in trade, transportation, clerical work, and pro­
fessional work had the next highest median earnings, $842, but the,
number of cases in this group and in the group of domestic and per­
sonal service workers is too small to warrant generalization. Twentyeight domestic and personal service workers averaged $757 in year’s
earnings for the period studied. This figure does not take into
account the additional compensation in room and board that usually
accompanies household work, nor the meals in hotel and restaurant
work. The lowest average year’s earnings are found in the textile
industries, with a median of $745. In this group the higher earnings
are found in hosiery, silk, and rayon manufacture, and the lower
earnings in the operations on cotton products.23 Taking $900 as a
dividing point near both median and mean of the earnings figures,
it is found that 51.6 per cent of all the clothing workers, 62.4 per cent
of all workers in the miscellaneous trades, and 64.4 per cent of all
textile workers received less than $900 a year. The highest earnings
($1,700 to $2,300) were made by 4 per cent of the clothing workers,
slightly over 1 per cent of the textile workers, and less than 1 per
cent of the workers from the miscellaneous trades.
Almost one-fourth of the entire group of workers at the summer
schools did not answer the question as to year’s earnings or stated
that their earnings were too irregular to estimate. In many occupa­
tions, uncertainty as to the year’s income probably is as disturbing a
feature of women’s work as are low rates. When it is realized that
these income figures are characteristic of a selected group of experi­
enced women workers, at the probable height of their earning power,
one questions what share of industrial prosperity is enjoyed by
women workers in industry.
Deductions from pay.

'

Deductions from pay were reported bv more than one-fifth (22.4
Per cent) of the group answering this question. (Table XXII.)
Such deductions ranged from a few cents to $138, but more than onehalf were for amounts of less than $8. More than one cause for
deduction was given in some cases, and 107 causes were given for a
total of 95 deductions. In about one-half of the cases cited, the
deductions were made for insurance or employee-benefit schemes.
Fines for tardiness or poor work were next in importance. The highest
deductions from pay (over $25) were made for the purchase of com­
pany stock, insurance, or savings funds. One student reported fines
for tardiness totaling as high as $21.
Income from sources other than wages.

An attempt was made to secure data on sources of income in addition
to wages. This question was answered by more than 60 per cent of
^era,ee
earnings (1925) for women workers in the clothing trades as ranging
from $593 to $963, m textiles from $771 to $974, in miscellaneous trades from $540 (glass) to $1,033 (printing
^publishing, book and job) .—Earnings of Factory Workers, 1899 to 1927, Census Monograph X, 1929




30

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

the entire group studied. One-fifth of these reported having such
other income; four-fifths reported that they had no source of income
other than their wages. (Table XXIII.) The 81 students reporting
specific amounts of additional income received from $1 to $450, half
receiving more and half less than $76.79. A wide variety of sources
of extra income is found. To some extent this represents savings or
borrowings, and in a few cases it is rent and interest on investments.
Six students received strike benefits; one sold cake; one did extra
work in a tea room; another did extra work for her union. Others
received gifts, among which wedding gifts were prominent. Several
married students had roomers. A number of workers received extra
income from unemployment and sickness insurance or from accident
compensation. In addition to the group reporting amounts, there
were 27 students who reported help of indefinite value, such as main­
tenance from family when out of work or help from brothers or other
relatives.
Amounts borrowed.

On the 1929 and 1930 schedules a question was asked concerning
amounts borrowed during the year. (Table XXIV.) Over threefourths of the students answering the question reported that they had
borrowed nothing. The 22 per cent who had resorted to borrowing
reported amounts that ranged from $1 to $500. The average (median)
amount was $80, but six students had borrowed from $300 to $500.
Savings and insurance.

More than half of the students reporting on savings during the year
had saved nothing. About 45 per cent had saved, in amounts ranging
from $1 to $700. Half of these had saved more and half less than $72.
(Table XXV.) Of those saving nothing there were larger proportions
in Barnard and the Southern school than in Bryn Mawr or Wisconsin.
With two exceptions, the 21 Southern Summer School students who
had saved reported amounts under $80.
An illustration of the selective character of the group is that there
were several married women workers who reported savings of $300 or
more, two of them specifically reporting that they had saved all their
earnings. One of the latter was a Southern student who had saved
$500. This is an uncommon condition among employed married
women.
Among the trades represented in the high-savings group (over $300)
were printing, domestic and personal service, men’s clothing, women’s
clothing, millinery, silk twisting, and telephone operating. One girl
had saved $300 “to get married,” another saved $700 to help to pay
for the “white elephant” (her house). Many of these larger amounts
appear to have been saved for specific purposes, to meet the high cost
of living or of marrying, and can in no way be considered typical of
the savings of the average worker in the schools. The group reporting
the highest savings is partly offset by the group that borrowed in
equally large amounts.
Insurance was carried by about 64 per cent of the students reporting
on this point, of whom four-fifths paid premiums of less than $50 a
year. The median amount paid in premiums was $25.35. (Table
XXVI.)




WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN PREVIOUS YEAR

31

Share in family support.

The majority of the workers at the summer schools (almost 70 per
cent of those reporting definitely on this subject) live at home or with
relatives, and of these almost four-fifths contribute to the family
support. (Tables XXVII and XXVIII.) The proportion of earn­
ings thus contributed varies. Naturally, those who do not live at
home pay less than those who do. Many do not pay regular and
definite amounts to their families but “help pay bills,” “help brother
through college,” or “support daughter.” A large group of foreignbom workers send money to the old country to help their families.
In any case, the amounts contributed are dependent on earnings and
are paid “when working,” or “when I have the money.” Of the 459
students reporting specifically on this question, almost 90 per cent
contributed something regularly to the family support.24 Of the group
making regular contributions, 22.9 per cent contributed all their
earnings and 33.4 per cent contributed half or more than half of their
earnings.25
The group studied obviously has few or no workers who are so
burdened with financial responsibilities that they are not able to take
some time off for educational activities, but it has few workers who
do not assume some share of family support in addition to individual
support. If criticism of the pin-money fallacy of women’s employ­
ment needs any further evidence, these data from a selected and rela­
tively highly paid group of women workers should be useful.
M Not including irregular and indefinite amounts.

hi D^i,rKlfb2KStildi?,rby va™“s groups,These1888 tothat 53.2the shareof the women studied contributed
from
1923, of
of women in family support, have
b7 ‘k? Women’s Bureau.
show
per cent
nothdne —P?r
fr0ntri™tei1 part,of thelr earuiugs> and 9.3 per cent contributed
notmng. United States Department of Labor. Women s Bureau Bui. 75, 1929, p. 12.

63263°—31-







Appendix A—TABLES
Appendix B—FORM OF QUESTIONNAIRE




33




APPENDIX A—TABLES
Table

I.—Geographic distribution of students, by school—S-year totals
4 schools combined

State of residence
Number Per cent
Total......................... ............................. .

Bryn
Mawr

Barnard

277

6
Reporting................................................. .........

609

Wiscon­
Southern
sin

3

603

100.0

34
25
9

28.5

Wisconsin................. ...........................

13
7
6

2.2

Washington____________________

117
2
11
5
11
30
2
14
1
41

19.4

1

0

85

2

44.1

172
6
50
9
1
21
24
2
23
1
35

116

5.6

266
7
202
57

131

Massachusetts

New York
Middle West........................ ...................
Indiana________ _____ _. .

Ohio_____

South__________ ____ ___ _______ ___
Alabama_______ _____ __________

Texas...........................................

._

Canada.. ___________________ _____

Table

274

131

114

131

1
2

84

25
9
7
70
55
6
38
2

12

3

1
18

12

11
35

Y

6

3
*>
6
8
1
13

28

1

II.—Nativity, by school—S-year totals
4 schools
combined

Bryn Mawr

Barnard

Wisconsin

Southern

Nativity
Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Total......... ................ .........

609

277

Unknown...................................

8
601

100.0

271

100.0

194

32.3

67

24.7

52

.8. 7

16

5.9

93

15.5

63

23. 2

262

43.6

125

46. 1

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

6

Reporting........ ................ ..........

Num­
ber

Native born of native parentage____ _____ ______
Native born, one foreign
pareut-.___ ...
Native born, two foreign
parents
Foreign born of foreign
parentage____ _____ ___




131

131

85

100.0

115

100.0

84

100.0

5

3.8

41

35.7

81

96.4

4

3.1

30

26. 1

2

2.4

10

7. 6

20

17. 4

112

85.6

24

20.9

1

1.2

35

36

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930
Table

III.—Country of birth of foreign born, by school—3-year totals
4 schools
combined

Country of birth

Total...........................................................................

262

Bryn
Mawr

Barnard Wisconsin Southern

125

112

2
Reporting__________ _________________ __________

Galicia..................................................... ................. .

Table

24

1

1

2

260

125

110

24

2
1
13
1
2
3
1
1
1
1
13
2
8
1
5
2
6
4
5
1
47
6
126
1
1
3
1
2

1

1
1
6

1

6

1
1

1
2
1

1

1

1

1
10

3
2
2

3
4
2
4
4
4

3
1

1
2
1
1
26
5
51

16
1
63
1

5
12
1

3
1
2

IV.—Age, by school—3-year totals
4 schools combined
Bryn
Mawr

Age (in years)

Barnard Wisconsin Southern

Number Per cent
609

277

131

116

23

18

2

3

259

129

113

85

2
5
9
7
9
11
8
14
11
9
11
5
8
4

1
11
10
14
10
13
8
7
13
3
2
3
2
3
2
3

8
6
5
7
5
3
9
12
4
6
3

3
2
1
2
2
1

1
1
2

586
17
18____________ ___________ _________
19 ...
20
21............................................................ .......
22_______________________________
23
24.......................... ................................ .
25
26
27.............................................................. .
28__________ ____ __________________
29
30
31______________________ _____ _____
32
33
34
35
36..................................................................
37______________ ________ ________ —_
38___
39....
40_____________ _____ ______________
42........
45
51_______________ _____ _____ _____ _




9
20
32
51
43
53
58
43
55
44
26
22
19
25
21
20
7
8
5
5
8
2
2
4
2
1
1

100.0
10.4

42.3

28.3

13.8

3.8

1.4

1
12
21
21
28
30
16
24
24
12
8
10
8
13
12
3
4
3
5
1
1
2

5

1
1
1
1

85

2
6
2
1
1
1

i
i
2

37

APPENDIX A—TABLES
Table V.—Marital status, by year 1—four schools combined
3-year total
Marital status

1928
Number

1929

Per cent

1930

609

Reporting........ ...................... ...................................... ...

160

228

79

26

51

221
2

134

177

219

6

9
168

31
188

530

100.0

46
484

Married 3........................ ........................... .................
Not married 4_________ ____ ______________ __

8.7
91.3

128

1
2
3 The larger number of married in 1930 question.
accuracy and frankness in answering thereflects not so much a change in the policy of the schools as greater
4 “Not married” includes six cases in 1930 and at least two in 1929 who were widowed or divorced.
The question on marital status
widowed, or divorced?” in 1930. was “Are you married?” in 1928 and 1929 and “Are you married, single,

Includes 19 schedules from Bryn Mawr, 1928, on
on which the question was answered indefinitely. which the question was not asked, and many schedules

Table

VI.—Industry in last regular job, by school—3-year totals1
4 schools
combined

Bryn Mawr

Barnard

Wisconsin

Southern

Industry
Num­ Per Num­ Per Num­ Per Num­ Per Num­ Per
ber cent
ber
ber
cent
ber
ber
cent
cent
cent
Total........... ............................
All manufacturing..............................
Men’s clothing..............................
Suits and coats_____ _____
Other i_______ _____ _____

609 100.0
530 87.0
75 12.3
35
16
24

277 100.0
247 89.2
38 13.7
22
2
14

131 100.0
116 88.5
8
6.1
3
5

147
115
20
12

24.1

67
53
9
5

24.2

67
55
7
5

51.1

Children’s dresses and suits. _.
Millinery___ _________ ___

10
54

1.6
8.9

5
31

1.8
11.2

4
17

3.1
13.0

Textiles_______________ ______
Cotton---------------------------Rayon......................................
Silk
Hosiery-------------- -----------Knit goods.
Other 3

97
28
14
10
24
10
11

15.9

40

14.4

2

1.5

Miscellaneous
Food____________________

147
13

24.1

Metal
Paper
Printing and publishing___
Tobacco. ______
______
Other*.....................................

37
12
14

Domestic and personal service.........
Housework____ _________ ____
Restaurants__________ ______
Laundries....................... ...............
Other 8______________________

37
14
9

11
11

6.1

8
6
12

8
2

66
6
4

23.8

2.0
1.3
3.3
.3

6.0

13.7

6.1

2
2
8
1

.7
.7
2.9
.4

7

7.1

13

11.2

5.3

1. 2

42
22

49.4

5 2

51

4
44.0

22
7
3
1
13

10

17
5
4
5
3

6

17.6

1

6

12
1

1

9

12

14.1

1

7.8

4

4.7

3

3! 5

3

1 Shirts and neckwear.
2 Suits, coats, fur, and embroidering.
3 Wool, jute, thread, and quilts.
4 Chemicals, pianos, buttons, novelties, and optical instruments.
6 Beauty parlor, child’s nurse, and not reported.
« Factory inspector and chorus girl.




18
2

100.0

2

1
1

15
4
9
5
23

49

20

7
7

6

5
8
8
4
9

85
76
15
3

3

Women’s clothing........................
Dresses. _
...
Underwear ... _________
Other 2...... ..............................

Trade..................... ...............................
Transportation__________ ________
Clerical.. _____________________ _
Professional 8_

116 100.0
91 78.4
14 12. 1
7

i

.8

6
1

4.6

.8

7.8
3

2.6

38

Table VII.— Union membershipby school and year

Union membership
Num­
ber
Total............................................

Per
cent

1928
4
schools Bryn
com­ Mawr
bined

1929

Bar­
nard

Wis­
con­
sin

4
South­ schools Bryn
ern
com­ Mawr
bined

1930

Bar­
nard

Wis­
con­
sin

4
South­ schools Bryn
ern
com­ Mawr
bined

Bar­
nard

Wis­
con­
sin

South­
ern

26

609

160

85

39

12

24

228

94

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

52

8

1

4

1

2

26

8

1

10

7

18

5

4

9

Reporting.. _______________ ____

557

100.0

152

84

35

11

22

202

86

46

42

28

203

93

41

43

26

Union members_____________
Not union members

219
338

39.3
60.7

54
98

33
51

15
20

1
10

5
17

79
123

31
55

29
17

7
35

12
16

86
117

42
51

21
20

12
31

11
15

i Union membership recorded for last job only, thus excluding many students who had formerly been union members but were not union members at the time of the last job
held before entering summer school. This is not a record of union shops, since some union members worked in nonunion shops.
UNIONS REPRESENTED IN SCHOOLS
Clothing:
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Cloth Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers’ International Union.
International Fur Workers’ Union of the United States and Canada.
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union.
Neckwear Workers.
United Garment Workers of America.
United Hatters of North America.
Textile:
American Federation of Full-fashioned Hosiery Workers.
United Textile Workers of America.
Weavers’ Union.




Miscellaneous:
Boot and Shoe Workers’ Union.
Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ International Alliance and Bartenders’ Interna­
tional League of America.
International Brotherhood of Bookbinders.
International Typographical Union of North America.
Laundry Workers’ International Union.
Pocketbook Workers’ Union.
Tobacco Workers’ International Union.
Clerical:
Bookkeepers, Stenographers, Typists, and Assistants.
Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks.

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

3-year total—
4 schools com­
bined

Table VIII.—Weekly wage rate on last job,1 by school and school year
1928

3-year total—
4 schools
combined
4 schools

Amount
Num­
ber
Total...............................
Unknown1 ..................
2.....

$8 to $9.99 _.........................
$10 to $11.99.......................
$12 to $13.99
$14 to $15.99
$16 to $17.99........................
$18 to $19.99
$20 to $21.99
$22 to $23.99_______ ____
$24 to $25.99
$26 to $27.99.....................
$28 to $29.99
$30 to $31.99____________
$32 to $33.99
$34 to $35.99....................
$36 to $37.99.........................
$38 to $39.99
$40 to $41.99
$42 to $43.99____________
$44 to $45.99____________
$50 to $51.99........................
$75.........................................

Per
cent

Num­
ber

609

Bar­
nard

consin

85

39

12

160

15

Per
cent

Bryn
Mawr

1

594
8
28
28
67
57
64
65
41
55
21
19
51
21
37
2
6
4
3
10
6
1

Median....................................... $21. 38

159

100.0
} 6.1 f
l
} 16.0 f
l
1 20.4 i
r
} 17.8
} 12.8
i 11.8

J

9.8
1 1.3
1 1.2
j

1
6
8
14
14
19
f 21
l
7
f 20
l
3
/
2
l 18
/
6
l
9
f..........
1_____
{

100.0

85

38

} 4.4 {..........
1 13.8 r
l
} 20.8 f
!
1 17.6 f
1
1 14.5 f
l
1 12.6 /
l
1 9.4 f
l

i 1 1.9

4
8
8
n
11
6
8
2
2
U
4
6

7
2
3
2

1
2
1

4
1

Bar­
nard

228

94

47

4

24

221

2
3

1
4
3
3
5
3
3

1

2

3
13
9
21
23
16
18
13
20
8
11
21
11
20
2
6
2

12
2
1
3

1
3
4
1
9
1

Bryn
Mawr

7

24

1

6 | 5.0
1f
2
2.9
l.........
$21. 67

4 schools
South­
ern Num­ Per
ber
cent

1930

90

100.0
f
} 7.2 {

3
9
10
8
9
3
12
6
6
9
5
5

j
/
/ ,9
1 i 1.8 c
J
2
\
1

2

$23.15

{

1

52

35

47

1
1
3
4
1
5
6
5
10
2
6
1
2

49
3
4
6
6
7
5
4
4
1
5
1
4

Bryn
Mawr

Bar­
nard

consin

South­
ern

26

221

98

45

52

7

3

.2

| 13.6 f
1
} 17.6 f
l
1 14.0 f
l
1 12.7 f
l
j 14 5 /
l
V14. 0 f
l
1 3.6 r

4 schools
Wis- South­
conern Num­ Per
sin
ber
cent

1

2

4

97

43

48

26

1
2
3
9
7
7
7
4
4

1
1
3
4
3
6
3
2
1
2

35

214

100.0

3
8
2
5
8
1
3
3

4
9
11
32
20
29
26
21
15
10
6
12
4
8

} 6.1

1
1

f

2

l
} 20.1 f
l
J 22.9 f
l
/
22.0 l
1 11.7 f
l
i 8.4 I

5
4
13
9
12
6
12
7
6
8

} 5.6 f
l

2
3

f
(
[
J

1
2
1

J

‘9
2 1
3 \ 2.3
2

1
1
6
1
4
10
3
3
2
1
3
5

1
1
2

APPENDIX A---- TABLES

Reporting3...............................
*

1929

1
1
1

$20.15

1 Wage rate at quitting last job. This is usually a full-time wage rate. Students on piecework (more than half of the total) reported an average of their earnings. If the report
for the last job was not available, the median of the highest and lowest weekly earnings in the previous year was used.
2Includes 1 student who apparently was working for her family, and reported “no wages,” and 5 unemployed students.
3 One student in the $20-$21 group reported board and room in addition, 1 in the $14-$15 group reported lunch in addition, and 2 in the $10-$11 group reported respectively 3
meals and 1 meal per day, in addition.




00
CO

40

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930
Table

IX.—Age at entering industry, by school—3-year totalsi
4 schools
combined

Bryn Mawr

Barnard

Wisconsin

Southern

Age at entering industry
(in years)
Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

609

Reporting............................... .

277

131

116

27

23

1

Per
cent

2

Num­
ber

Per
cent

85
1

582

100.0

254

100.0

130

100.0

114

100.0

84

100.0

Under 13 *
33
13 to 15
241
16 to 18
242
19 to 21__________ _______
51
22 to 24
13
28 to 30...................... ............
1
31 to 33____________
__
1

5.7
41.4
41.6
8.8
2.2
.2
.2

14
120
100
15
5

5.5
47.2
39.4
5.9
2.0

10
54
48
16
2

7.7
41.5
36.9
12.3
1.5

3
29
64
14
4

2.6
25.4
56.1
12.3
3.5

6
38
30
6
2
1
1

7.1
45.2
35.7
7. 1
2.4
1. 2
1.2

i Includes 1 woman in Bryn Mawr, 2 in Barnaid, and 1 in Wisconsin who reported having begun work
for wages before 10 years of age.




Table X.— Years in industry/ by school and year
4 schools com­
bined—3-year
total

Southern

Wisconsin

Barnard

Bryn Mawr

Years in industry
Num­
ber
Total.........................................................-

609

Reporting............... ......... ................................... .

608

3-year
total

1928

1929

1930

3-year
total

1928

1929

1930

3-year
total

1928

1929

1930

3-year
total

1928

1929

277

Per
cent

85

94

98

131

39

47

45

116

12

52

52

85

24

35

26

276

84

94

98

131

39

47

45

116

12

52

52

85

24

35

26

1

3

1
8
8
11
17
4
9
3
4
3
4
3
3
7
2
2
1
4
1

6
7
5
14
10
8
5
9
5
15
8
8
8
5
4
1

2
2
4
2
3
3
5
1

1
2
1
3
1
3
1
6
2
5
1
4
4
4
2
3
2

7
15
12
12
10
14
6
7
7
6
4
1
4
2
1
4

1
3
1
2
2

2
6
5
4
6
9
1
5
2
3
1
1
2
1
1
1

4
6
6
6
2
5
5
2
4
2
3

2
17
8
5
3
5
9
5
4
5
4
4

2
1
2
4

13
5

2
1
1

3
1
1
1
2
3
1
2
2
1
2

1
1
6

1
1
2

4

1930

1

6 .
_______ ___________ _
7
_________
_____________
8 __________ ________ ...
______
9
10
12

__________ _______________

30.4

37.7

■ 19.7

9.2

1
5
5
30
25
27
37
17
19
15
13
10
8
10
13
10
5
8
2

2
1
10
11
6
11
6
3
3
5
4
2
2
6
2
4
1

3
3
12
6
10
9
7
7
9
4
3
2
5
4
3
1
2
2

2
22

5
1
1
1
1
1
1

1
1
1

2
6
2
2
3
1
1

3
1
2
1
8
4
1
3
4
2
5
2
2
3
1
1
1

1
1
1

1
1

1

2
2
4
1

2
3

1
1
1
1

1

3

1

1
1
1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1
1

3.0

1

1
2
3
2
1
2
1

1

1
1

1

1

• If the years in the job history reported did not tally with the difference between the age at entering industry and present age, the latter figure was tabulated, as more accurateOnly years in industry in the United States were counted. Many students at Barnard and Bryn Mawr reported industrial experience abroad, in addition.




A PPEN D IX A— TABLES

2__________ __________
3___________ ____ _____________ ______
4

13
44
31
54
43
60
62
37
35
35
26
30
20
21
23
25
9
10
2
10

100.0

H—1

Table XI.—Number of jobs held,1 by school and year

Total...............................................

1...........................................................
2_____________ ____ ___________
3
4
5___________ ______ _______ ___
6
7
8________________ ____________
9_____ _______________________
10
11____________________________
12
13__________________________ _
14_________________ _____ _____
15______ _______________ ______
16______ ______________________
17__________________ _______ _
18_______________ _______ _____
20.........................................................
21........................................................
25.........................................................
30.:.............. ................ .....................

Barnard

2,671

1928

1929

1930

277

85

94

98

16

609
28

Reporting...... ..........................................

Bryn Mawr

4

9

3

3-year
total

Wisconsin

Southern

1928

1929

1930

3-year
total

1928

1929

1930

3-year
total

1928

1929

131

39

47

45

116

12

52

52

85

24

35

26

10

3

1

6

2

1930

2

100.0

581
74
96
98
90
57
52
27
19
21
9
10
8 \
7
2
3
1
2
1
1 }
1
1
1

2,671

261

81

85

95

121

36

46

39

114

12

52

50

85

24

35

26

12.7
16.5
16.9
15.5
9.8
9.0
4.6
3.3
3.6

74
192
294
360
285
312
189
152
189
90
110
96
91
28
45
16
34
18
20
21
25
30

25
35
41
40
27
27
17
10
11
7
5
5
3
1
2
1
1

2
12
11
16
6
10
9
1
4
3
1
2
1

13
11
17
12
8
3
3
4
4
2
2
2
1

4
3
13
13
7
2

4
3
3
3
8
7
4
2

22
33
16
18
6
8
1
2
4

2
4
4

13
15
6
7
2
5

7
14
6
11
4
2
1

18
18
20
11
2
5
3
4
3

5
5
4
4
1
1
2
1

10
9
8
2

3
4
8
5

1
1

3

2

2
1

1

1

1
1

9
10
21
21
22
12
6
3
3
2
2
2
3
1
1

1
4
5
5
7
3
2
1

1

10
12
13
12
13
14
5
5
3
2
2
1
1
1

1
1
1

1

6.2

1 12
-3 f
l
.2
.2

1

1
1
1

1
2
1
3

3
1
1

2
1
1

1
1

1
1
1
1

3
1
1

1
1
1
1
1

1
1

1 A record of all jobs of which a report was made.
2 Excluding 28 students holding an indefinite number of jobs (more than 4 each), the average number of jobs per student is 4.6.
s Twenty-seven of these reported four and more jobs, saying that they had held too many to count. The other, in one of the printing trades, reported that she had worked at
her trade 17 years but did not give a record of jobs held.




WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO , 1930

Number of jobs per student

4 schools com­
bined—3-year Total
jobs
total
held
by 581
stu­
Num­ Per dents 1 3-year
2 total
ber
cent

to

43

APPENDIX A—TABLES
Table XII.—Cause of leaving job, by year—four schools combined
3-year total

1928

1929

1930

Cause
Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

All causes........ ........................... .............. ... 1,988
Low wages, long hours
Lay-off, slack or seasonal work (temporary
job)-----------------------------------------------------Discharged ___________________________
Strike or lockout.. _ _________________
Business failed, moved, burned__________
Introduction of machinery___
Dislike of management, “ disagreements with
boss’'______ ___________________
Dislike of work, better job elsewhere
Unhealthful, disagreeable working conditions.
Illness_______ _______________________
To go to school____ _____
Change of residence (family or individual)___
Marriage and family
Union activity, union politics, to get into
union shop
Other reasons (including multiple)........ ...........




Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

100.0

689

100.0

485

100.0

814

100.0

404

20.3

163

23.7

87

17.9

154

18.9

380
41
90
110
7

19.1
2.1
4.5
5.5
.4

127
8
30
36
1

18.4
1.2
4.4
5.2
.1

97
13
28
25
4

20.0
2.7
5.8
6.2
.8

156
20
32
49
2

19.2
2.5
3.9
6.0
.2

64
186
159
80
132
122
23

3.2
9.4
8.0
4.0
6.6
6.1
1.2

22
40
52
33
50
49
1

3.2
5.8
7.5
4.8
7.3
7.1
.1

14
31
44
24
24
35
3

2.9
6.4
9.1
4.9
4.9
7.2
.6

28
115
63
23
58
38
19

3.4
14.1
7.7
2.8
7.1
4.7
2.3

66
124

3.3
6.2

19
58

2.8
8.4

24
32

4.9
6.6

23
34

2.8
4.2

44

Table XIII.—Part-time employment in previous year,1 by school and school year

Number of part-time weeks
worked

combined

Num­
ber

Per
cent

4 schools
combined
Num­
ber

609

Bryn Bar­
Mawr nard

85

1

53

0............................................
1 to 4._________________
5 to 8____ _____________
9 to 12................................ .
13 to 16_______ _______
17 to 20
21 to 24________________
25 to 28 ___________
29 to 32
_________ _
33 to 36________________
37 to 40
41 to 44
45 to 48
49 to 52..................................

Per
cent

160

5

100.0

206
44
65
54
47
30
21
18
19
7
19
7
7
7

37.4
38.1

16.0

7.3
1.3

39

4 schools
combined
Wis­ South­
consin ern
Num­ Per
ber
cent
12

24

12

228

94
1

2

13

100.0

73

38

12

22

213

63
43.4
13 |
15 [ 33.1
14
6
6 |
9 \ 17.2
6
4
2 1
2
1
2 )
1.4
2

31
7
9
8
2
2
4
1
3
2
1
1
1
1

13
3
3
6
2
2
3
3
1

11
1

8
2
3

88
13
21
24
21
13
6
5
6
2
9
2
2
1

145

2
2
2
2

1
1
1

1930

Bryn Bar­
Mawr nard

2

1

14

551

1929

47

4 schools
combined
Wis­ South­
consin ern Num­ Per
ber
cent
52

35

1

4

221

Bryn Bar­
Mawr nard

98

45

52

1

2

1

26

9

26

5

6

8

7

100.0

89

47

51

26

193

100.0

93

38

43

19

41.3

44
5
8
6
6
6
4
2
2
1
4
1

3
4
5
10
12
5
1
2
4

28
3
5
5
3
1
1
1

13
1
3
3

55
18
29
16
20
11
6
7
9
3
8
4
3
4

28.5

24
10
13
3
13
7
4
3
5
3
3
2
1
2

10
2
6
7
4
3
1
1
2

14
4
6
6
2

7
2
4

1

2
2
1
1

| 37.1
]
| 14.1
j
[ 7.0
.5

1

3
1

1

]
1
2
1

43.0

► 17.1

9.3
2.1

1

8.4 weeks
Median, those with some

i Only those reports were tabulated that tallied to 52 weeks’ record. 24 students worked in more than 1 industry in the year prior to entering summer school.




Wis­ South­
consin ern

1
2
2

1
1
1
2
1

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

1928

3-year total—

Table XIV.—Extent of unemployment in previous year} by major cause—3-year totals, four schools combined
Total

Major cause of unemployment
Num­
ber

Number with weeks of unemployment as specified
Num­ Num­
ber
ber
re­
with porting
no
weeks
unem­ of un- Un­
ploy­
der 5
em­
ment ployment

609

448

556

87
19.4

87

85

82

40

4
10
5
5

1
5
4
5

42
9.4

31
6.9

9
2.0

18
4.0

53

Reporting on cause of unemployment_____

93
20.8

93

100.0

Not reporting on cause of unemployment 2.

139
31.0

5 to 8 9 to 12 13 to 17 to 21 to 25 to 29 to 33 to 37 to 45 to 49 to
20
16
24
28
32
36
40
48
52
weeks weeks
weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks.

543

No unemployment_______
Major cause not separable..
Cause unknown 3_________
Reporting cause of unemployment i
specified.............................................
Lack of work
Vacation without pay
Vacation not reported whether with or with­
out pay 4
Illness, personal or in family 5
Strike or lockout
Other6__________________________________

95

18

95

428
221

76
22

64
24
21

416

127

51.6
17.8

213
74

5.1
15.0
5.6
4.9

22

22

63
24

63
24

1 I

20

20

1 Only periods of 1 week or more counted as unemployment. Vacation or illness with pay not counted as unemployment.
2 Includes a large group of students whose tally of 52 weeks was not accurate.
3 Includes 5 students unemployed all previous year.
4 1928 figures.
6 Includes only 2 cases of illness in family.
6 Includes several cases of students unemployed because attending school.




18

213
74

(See Note 4.)

11

2

2.5

0.4

4
0.9

6

1.3

APPENDIX A— TABLES

Total—Number..
Per cent distribution_____

Num­ Num­
ber
not, ber
re­
re­
porting porting
on ex­
on ex­ tent
Per
tent
cent of un- of unem­
em­ ployploy- ment
ment

46

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Table XV.—Major cause of unemployment in previous year* by school year—four
schools combined
3-year total
Major cause of unemployment

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Num­
ber

1930

1929

1928

Num­
ber

Per
cent

Per
cent

Num­
ber
221

609

160

228

53

14

13

26

556

146

215

195

95
27
6

Not reporting on cause of unemployment2----

Per
cent

26
9
1

35
9
3

34
9
2

Reporting cause of unemployment as
428

100.0

110

100.0

168

100.0

150

100.0

221
98
64
24
21

51.6
22.9
15.0
5.6
4.9

60
22
19
5
4

54.5
20.0
17.3
4.5
3.6

89
40
29
8
2

53.0
23.8
17.3
4.8
1.2

72
36
16
11
15

48.0
24.0
10.7
7.3
10.0

1 Only periods of one week or more counted as unemployment. Vacation or illness with pay not counted
as unemployment. (See Note 4.)
2 Includes a large group of students whose tally of 52 weeks was not accurate.
3 Includes five students unemployed all previous year.
4 In 1928 not reported whether with or without pay.
6 Includes only two cases of illness in family.
6 Includes several cases of students unemployed because attending school.
Table

XVI.—Number of weeks of overtime work in previous year, by school year—
four schools combined
3-year total
Number of weeks of overtime work
Number Per cent
Total.

Unknown l.
’ 151

Reporting.
No overtime.
Overtime 2.

100.0

1 to 2.
3 to 4.
5 to 6.
7 to 8.
9 to 10.
11 to 12.
13 to 14.
15 to 16.
17 to 18.
19 to 20.
21 to 22.
23 to 24.
25 to 26
27 to 28.
42 to 43
44 to 45
46 to 47
48 to
60 to 51
1 “Unknown” includes indefinite answers.
H
2 Overtime worked 42 to 52 weeks in the year was reported by students working in laundries and beauty
parlors, and by two students from a North Carolina cotton mill, who apparently counted their long shift
as “overtime.”




Table XVII.—Daily hours of work in previous year, by school and school year

63263'

C5
CO
to
05

Daily hours (including lunch
period)

CO
H-i
w

3-year total—
4 schools
combined

Num­
ber
Total

Per
cent

1928

1929

4 schools
combined
Num­
ber

Per
cent

Bryn Bar­
Mawr nard

39

2

1

157

83

38

5
2
3

1

573

100.0

156

12

1

100.0

83

f
1 1
r
2 )
[ 19.9
3 \ 15.9
1 _____
21
[ 30 f
86 j
301
52.5
88
56.4
46
24.8
30
19.2
142
13
f
5
27
3
9 | 6.8
i
1
4.5
i
1
..........
1
____

37

12

24

1

225

93

2

218

100.0

90

1
6
4
1

4
7
11
1
1

(____
2 [■ 10.6 1 10
i
21
105
48.2
42
30.3
66
30
18
r
6
5 t 11.0
1

{

i

Bryn
Mawr

Bar­
nard

Wis­ South
con­
era
sin

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

1

1

i The working days of from IX to 14 hours were reported in textiles, clothing, and domestic service.
3 The 24-hour day was reported by a child’s nurse.




47

4 schools
Wis­ South- combined
con­
era
sin
Num­ Per
ber
cent

1

20

7

4

7

2

51

34

201

91

41

45

24

44

24

6
22
16

1
6
13

1
2
1
47

47

2

34

4
4
13
11
2

1
1
35
108
46
4
3

4
41
1
1

1
3
18
22
3

100.0
V

91

r
—T
18.6 1 22
54.3
23.1

52
14

40
1
6
28
3

3

• 4.0
1

26

1

199

)

1
4
29
2
1

94

2
2
3

24

228
3

12

24

Bryn Bar­
Mawr nard

1

APPENDIX A— TABLES

Reporting hours

85

3

583

6
7__________________________
8
9
10
111________ __________ ____
12 i................. .............................
13 i
14 i................................................
24 2___ ,

160

26

Hours unlimited

609

4 schools
Wis­ South- combined
con­
era
sin
Num­ Per
ber
cent

1930

48

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Table

XVIII.—Duration of lunch period in previous year—3-year totals, four
schools combined,
3-year total—4 schools
combined
Duration of lunch period (in minutes)
Number

Per cent

609
18
591
8
583

60 to 74
r*




.

.................................. ............................. ....................................

100.0

3
14
130
131
298
7

.5
2.4
22.3
22.5
51.1
1.2

Table XIX.—Earnings in previous yearj1 by school and school year
1928
3-year
total—1
schools
4
com­ schools Bryn
bined
com­ Mawr
bined

Amount

Total___________

_____

_

609

160

85

Bar­
nard

39

1929
4
Wiscon­ South­ schools Bryn
sin
ern
com­ Mawr
bined
24

228

19

187

1

i
i

3

4

5

143

49

27

16

1

466

111

58

23

11

Median_______ _____

$838

2
2
10
11
7
15
14
16
7
4
6
5
1
2
3
2
1
1
2
$861

1
6
4
3
7
6
9
5
3
3
3
1
1
3
1

Bar­
nard

Wiscon­ South­
sin
ern

94

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

26

72

47

39

29

168

84

36

38

10

41

1

1

6
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1

1

18

1

8
7
5
6
3
1
1
1

3
2
2
3
4
1

1
1
1

8
1

1
2
1

3
1
1

1
1

A PPEN D IX A— TABLES

Unknown 3____________ ______ ___ _____ _

1
7
17
41
30
47
67
61
57
35
26
22
36
8
11
7
4
2
2
2
3

4
Wiscon­ South­ schools Bryn
sin
ern
com­ Mawr
bined

1

12

Reporting
Under $200_______ _ __
$200 to $299_________________
$300 to $399
$400 to $499 3_________
_
$500 to $599
$600 to $699
$700 to $799_______________
$800 to $899
$900 to $999
$1,000 to $1.099_____________ ___ _____
$1,100 to $1,199
$1,200 to $1,299_______ ____ _________
$1,300 to $1,399
$1,400 to $1,499______
$1,500 to $1,599______ ______
$1,600 to $1,699_______
$1,700 to $1,799________
$1,800 to $1,899..............................................
$1,900 to $1,999
$2,000 to $2,099__
$2,200 to $2,299 _____ ________ ___ _

Bar­
nard

1930

1
1

2
$887

$793

i Few students keep accurate records of earnings. About half of the figures given are estimates based on wage rates and number of weeks of full-time and part-time employment.
Many of the “unknown ” are students whose earnings were reported as “too irregular to estimate.” This group also includes 5 girls unemployed during the previous year and
3 girls on strike more than half the year, who did not answer.
3 In the $400 to $499 group there are 2 domestic servants who received board and room in addition to wage and 1 soda-fountain clerk who received board.




O

50

Table XX.—Earnings in -previous year, by industry 1 and school—3-year totals

Millinery

Women’s

Men’s

2

Southern

Bryn Mawr

Barnard

Wisconsin

47

59

6

3

49

28

16

5

1

4
3
7
4
8
16
16
11
12

1
1
3
1
3
8
6
3
7

2
2
4
2
4
7
7
7
4

1
1

3
4
4

2
2
1

1
_

1
1
1

2
6
5

2

22

75

38

8

14

15

4

10

21

10

2

2

7

Unknown ______________________

466

214

106

88

58

225

105

85

23

12

54

28

6

12

Reporting------- --------

7
16
12
23
34
25
24
20

4
6
6
8
10
15
15
9

3
8
6
8
12
10
16
5

3
11
6
8.
11
11
2
1
2

5
7
14
12
20
29
29
23
26
14
12
13
4
4

1
3
6
5
10
15
11
8
15
7
8
5
2
3

1
1
2
2
2
2
3
2
3

1

41
30
47
67
61
57
35

1
1
3
3
5
10
6
6
5
1
3

1
2
3
5
2
4
3
1
2

1
1
1
2
1
1
1

1

------ ------ ---------

AUt.f—---------------------------- -----------------------------

IAJ 'P

'

$500 to $599
$600 to $699_______________________ $700 to $799
$800 to $899
$900 to $999
$1,000 to $1,099
$1,200 to $1,299
$1,300 to $1,399

___________________

22
16

11
6

7
6

4
4

1
H4-

T




$913 $850 $688 $888

1
2
1

1
3

1
1
1
4
4

combined

Southern

combined

1

2
3
5 .
4
7
8
11
13
8
7
3
5
2
1

1

1

1

$867

1

1

3
3

7

1

1
1

1
1

1
1

1

2
1

1

1
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
:$S97

5
2
2

1
—

2
1

1
1

combined

27

11

4

96 .

36

combined

141

61

sc h o o ls

286

27

4

85

28

Wisconsin

116

25

sc h o o ls

131

63

-

ffl

%

2

5

2

2

1
1

1
1

1

1

1

1

2
1

i
l
l
l
l

$930

1

Southern

Wisconsin

115

277

--- 143

sc h o o ls

------------------------

o3
5
6

sc h o o ls

Barnard

1

8

609

combined

Total------

%

sc h o o ls

6

1

Southern

17

3

Wisconsin

31

5

Barnard

54

3

Barnard

6

1

Bryn Mawr

7

8

4

67

20

Southern

67

32

Wisconsin

147

os
a
&
kn
PQ

Barnard

c3
5
6
(H
«

4

Earnings

4

j

Total

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Clothing manufacturing
All industries

Textile manufacturing

$100 to $199................................................. ..............
$200 to $299....____
$300 to $399
$400 to $499_______ ____ ______ _____ _______
$500 to $599_____________ __________________
$600 to $699
$700 to $799
$800 to $899_________ _________ ____________
$900 to $999
$1,000 to $1,099__________ ____ ____________
$1,100 to $1,199........................................................
$1,200 to $1,299________
$1,300 to $1,399____________________________
$1,400 to $1,499
$1,500 to $1,599_____ ______________________
$1,600 to $1,699____________________________
$1,700 to $1,799
$1,800 to $1,899____________________________
$1,900 to $1,999____________________________
$2,000 to $2,099____________________________
$2,200 to $2,299..______ ____________________

8

30

109

50

14

37

1

1

4
3
9
17
17
17
14
5
5
7
2
1
3
3
1

2
2
4
10
11

1
1
2
1
1
1
4
1

8
1
3
2
1

Median___ ____ ______________ _______________

2
7
1
1
5
4
7
2
2

1
2

1
2

1

1

1

5
1
1

1
2
9
2
6
5
1
2
1
1

5
3
1
1
1
2
2

7

9

4

42

13

8

16

5

4

8

4

31

12

3

12

4

8

28

12

1

1

2
6
3

2

1
4
4
1
7

1
3

3

2

1
1
1

1

2
1

1
1
1
1

1
1

1

1

1

1

1
$745

$821

$757

1 In the years 1929 and 1930, 24 students worked in more than one industry. They are classified by industry of latest employment.
2 Includes lOstudents in the manufacture of children’s clothing, not shown separately.




comined

.

4

9

4

combined

4

combined

1
4
17
3
7
10
5
14
3
4
1

Wisconsin

35

Barnard

73

17

37

APPENDIX A— TABLES

Reporting.. .................................................................. .

Bryn Mawr

12

14

sc h o o ls

51

4

Southern

Southern

18

16

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

66

38

Barnard

Barnard

147

12

Bryn Mawr

Bryn Mawr

42

5

sc h o o ls

Southern

13

2

Domestic and personal service Clerical and professional, trade,
transportation

combined

Wisconsin

2

5

4
Total...................................................................

sc h o o ls

Barnard

40

sc h o o ls

97
24

Earnings

Bryn Mawr

Miscellaneous manufacturing

Southern

|

See also footnotes to Table XIX.

Cn

52

Table XXI.—Earnings in previous year,1 by number of full-time weeks worked—3-year totals, four schools combined

Total
Number of full-time weeks worked
Num­
ber
Total......................................... ................

Per
cent

609

__________________________

0 to 4
5 to 8
9 to 12___
13 to 16...........................................................
17 to 20
21 to 24
25 to 28____
29 to 32........... .............................................
33 to 36
37 to 40____
41 to 44_________ ______ -_____ ______
45 to 48__________________ ____ ______
49 to 52____

Per
cent

143

Num­
ber

Per
cent

466

Num­
ber

Per
cent

$500 and under $700 and under $900 and under
$900
$1,100
$700
Num­
ber

Per
cent

Per
cent

Num­
ber

Per
cent

$1,100 and
over
Num­
ber

92

552

100.0

104

100.0

448

100.0

58

100.0

73

100.0

126

100.0

24
16
33
23
40
35
50
49
28
53
40
63
98

4.3
2.9
6.0
4.2
7.2
6.3
9. 1
8.9
5.1
9.6
7.2
11.4
17.8

6
4
8
4
9
3
10
7
7
13
6
7
20

5.8
3.8
7.7
3.8
8.7
2.9
9.6
6.7
6.7
12.5
5.8
6.7
19.2

18
12
25
19
31
32
40
42
21
40
34
56
78

4.0
2.7
5.6
4.2
6.9
7.1
8.9
9.4
4.7
8.9
7.6
12.5
17.4

3
4
10
7
6
2
11
1
1
3
2
5
3

5.2
6.9
17.2
12.1
10.3
3.4
19.0
1.7
1.7
5.2
3.4
8.6
5.2

6
3
4
2
8
5
4
8
4
7
7
5
10

8.2
4.1
5.5
2.7
11.0
6.8
5.5
11.0
5.5
9.6
9.6
6.8
13.7

5
1
7
5
12
9
10
9
4
15
6
14
29

4.0
.8
5.6
4.0
9.5
7.1
7.9
7.1
3.2
11.9
4.8
11.1
23.0

89
2
2
3
4
11
9
8
5
8
4
17
16

Per
cent

103

3

2

4

8

Num­
ber
128

77

66

18

34

52
Reporting

Num­
ber

Under $500

1
100.0
2.2
2.2
3.4
4.5
12.4
10. 1
9.0
5.6
9.0
4.5
19. 1
18.0

2

102

100.0

4
2
2
2
1
5
6
16
7
7
15
15
20

3.9
2.0
2.0
2.0
1.0
4.9
5.9
15.7
6.9
6.9
14.7
14.7
19.6

1 See footnote 1 to Table XIX.
„
2 Includes 48 students at $1,100 and under $1,300, 23 at $1,300 and under $1,500, 18 at $1,500 and under $1,700, 6 at $1,700 and under $ L,900,4 at $1,900 and under $2,100, and 3 at
2,200 and under $2,300.




WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Women who earned—
Total not report Total reporting
ing earnings
earmngs

Table XXII.—Deductions from pay in previous yearby school and school year

Deductions from pay

3-year
total—
4
4
schools schools
Bryn
com­
com­
bined bined Mawr

1928

1929

Bar­
nard

Wis­
consin

4
South­ schools Bryn
ern
com­ Mawr
bined

Bar­
nard

1930

Wis­
consin

4
South­ schools Bryn
com­ Mawr
ern
bined

Bar­
nard

Wis­
consin

South­
ern

26

609

160

85

39

12

24

228

94

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

184

40

16

22

1

1

84

34

30

12

8

60

15

18

21

6

Reporting......................................................... ...

425

120

69

17

11

23

144

60

17

40

27

161

83

27

31

20

No deductions..__________ ________
Amount unknown_______________ _

330
9

94
4

54
3

15
1

8

17

120

49

17

32

22

116

65

22

13

16

86

22

12

1

3

6

24

11

40

17

7
20
7
16
8
4
6
1
4
3
1
1
2
2
2
2

1
6
5
3

3
4
1
3
5
2
1
1
1
1

3
2
1
1
2
1

3

$0.01 to $1.99_______________ _______ _____
$2.00 to $3.99.___
$4.00 to $5.99____ ________ _____ __________
$6.00 to $7.99
$8.00 to $9.99
$10.00 to $11.99___________________ _______
$14.00 to $15.99
$16.00 to $17.99
$18.00 to $19.99____ ______________________
$20.00 to $21.99.._______________ _____ ___
$24.00 to $25.99
$31.00 to $40.99_________________ _________
$41.00 to $50.99______________ ____ ____ _
$51.00 to $60.99
$71.00 to $80.99
$100 and $138-............................................... .

4
4
1

1
1

1
1

2
1
1

1
1

2
1

1
1

1
1

1

1

1
2
1
1
1

1
1

1
1

1

18

1
1

4
1
1
1
1
1
1

APPENDIX A--- TABLES

Total.................... .............................
Unknown____________________ _____ ____

1
1

1

2

1107 causes cited for deductions: Insurance, 47; fines for tardiness, leaving early, and poor work, 26; community chest and hospital funds, 14; union dues and assessments, 9:
materials and company store, 4; gifts, 2; purchase of company stock and savings funds, 5.




Or
CO

54

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Table

XXIII.—Money from sources other than wages in previous year, by school
year—four schools combined
3-year
total

Money from other sources

1928

1929

1930

228

50

79

98

110

149

123

301

88

125

88

81

$0.01 to $24.99________________________________________ _____
$25 to $49.99
$50 to $74.99
$75 to $99.99_____________________________ _________________
$100 to $124.99
$125 to $149.99
_______________$150 to $174.99
$200 to $224.99
$225 and over (to $450) _. _ . -----------------------------------

160

382

Reporting amount 1

609
227

Total......................................................................................

22

24

35

14
14
12
7
9
3
7
6
9

4
2
5
1
2

2
7
4
3
3
1
1
2
1

8
5
3
3
4
2
1
2
7

5
2
1

221

i In addition, there were 27 reports of “maintenance” or'1 help ” from family while out of work; indefinite
amounts.
Table

XXIV.—Amount borrowed in previous year, by school year 1—four schools
combined
2-year
total

Amount borrowed

1929

1930

_
- . ................-_____ ______________
.

_____

$70 to $79.99

$150 to $159.99
$200 to $209.99
$400

____. -_________

_________

. _____________________________ ______________
-

_______________________________________
_________ _____ ________________

65

67

163

154

243
4

$30 to $39.99
$40 to $49.99
$50 to $59.99 _

228

317

Reporting amount___“...... .............................................................................

449
132

Total ....................................................... ...................................... ...........

126
2

117
2

70

35

35

2
4
13
2
2
10
1
1
1
1
9

6
1

11
2
1
3

221

2
4
6
1
2
3
1
1
6
3
1
4

7
1
7
1
1
3
3
7
2
1

3

< Question not asked on 1928 schedule. Figures apparently have been estimated, as they tend to cluster
at the round numbers.




Table XXV.—Savings in previous year, by school and school year
3-year
totals —four
schools combined

1930

1929

1928

Amount of savings
Per

160

609

25

159

85
14

Four
Wis- South- schools Bryn
consin
comera bined Mawr

Barnard

39
10

12

24

1

228
84

Barnard

Wisconsin

Four
South- schools Bryn
Mawr
era
combined

Barnard

Wisconsin

Southem

26

94

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

25

34

17

7

50

20

8

15

7

35

28

171

78

37

37

19

Reporting amount
$20 to $39
$40 to $59
$60 to $79.
$100 to $119




450

135

71

29

11

24

144

68

247

Reporting.......................................... ..

13

68

31

22

5

10
1

72

31

3

14

24

107

41

31

20

15

7

6

13

72

37

10

21

4

64

37

6

17

4

1
2

1
2
6
2

4
12
21
7
8
1

2
5
11
3
5

4
1
2

2
6
4
2
1
1

4
2
6
5
2
8

2
1
1

1
2
2

2
1
1

2

1

5
1
3
1

4
1
3
1

4
7
10
9
2
14
1
5
1

4
1
2

2
1

5
2

1
1

5
1
1
2
1

1

1

APPENDIX A— TABLES

Total

schools Bryn
com- Mawr
bined

1

200

100.0

64

38

10
27
50
22
10
23

5.0
13.5
25.0
11.0
5.0
11.5
2.0
7. 5
1.0
1. 5
5.0
.5

2
8
19
6

1
5
10
2

8
3
5

5
2
3

4

4

4. 5

2

1
1

2. 0

1

1
1
1
1

2
10

$72

$70

1
2
1
1

2
1

1
1

2

1

2

2
1

1

1

1
2
1

3
1

1

3
1
1

1

$59

$100

Cn

Ot

56

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

Table

XXVI.—Amount paid in insurance premiums in previous year, by school
year—four schools combined

Amount paid in insurance premiums

Total.

3-year
totals—
four
schools
com­
bined

1928

1929

1930

609

160

228

Unknown____ ______________

214

35

105

74

Reporting____________ _____ _

395

125

123

147

221

Paying no premiums___

141

46

28

67

Reporting amounts paid.

254

79

95

80

$0.01 to $9.99________________
$10 to $19.99_________________
$20 to $29.99______________
$30 to $39.99_________________
$40 to $49.99______________
$50 to $59.99________________
$60 to $69.99____________
$70 to $79.99________________
$80 to $89.99______________
$100 to $109.99__________
$120 to $129.99______________
$140 to $149.99_______________
$160 to $169.99_______________
$220 to $229.99_______________
$250 to $259,99...____________

38
65
45
31
26
21
12
4
2
5
1
1
1
1
1

11
18
13
11
8
8
3
3

12
28
15
15
11
9
2

2

1
1

15
19
17
5
7
4
7
1

Median...........................................

$25.35

$28.10




2

1
1

1
$26.00

$23. 66

Table XXVII.—Living condition and family responsibility in previous year, by school and school year
3-year totals—
4schools com­
bined
Living condition
4

Total------

---------- ------------------ --- - ---

Num­
ber

1928

1929

1930

4
Per schools Bryn Bar­
cent com­ Mawr nard
bined

4
Wis­
con­ South­ schools Bryn Bar­
sin
com­ Mawr nard
ern
bined

4
Wis­ South­ schools Bryn Bar­
con­
com­ Mawr nard
ern
sinbined

160

609

2

94

47

52

3

23

10

11

2

84

36

50

35

24

12

26

221

98

45

52

13

35

228

39

5

1

5

2

208

93

44

47

24

Reporting------- ------------------- -------- ---------------------

568

100.0

155

83

36

12

24

205

Living at home or with relatives.-------------------

395

69.5

111

59

24

8

20

142

60

21

33

28

142

73

22

29

18

117
25

51
9

21

27
6

18
10

114
28

58
15

22

24

10
8

63

24

15

17

7

66

20

22

18

6




82
29

i 313
2 82
173

30.5

43
16

22
2

5
3

12
8

44

24

12

4

4

1 79,2 per cent of those reported as living at home.

2 20.8 per cent of those reported as living at home.

APPENDIX A--- TABLES

5

41

85

Wis­ South­
con­
ern
sin

Or

-a
/

Percentage of earnings contributed to family
support
Num­
ber

Total............... ............... ..............

1928

4
Per schools Bryn Bar­
cent com­ Mawr nard
bined

1929

4
Wis­
South­ schools Bryn
con­
ern
com­ Mawr
sin
bined

1930

Bar­
nard

Wis­ South­ 4
schools Bryn Bar­
con­
ern
com­ Mawr nard
sinbined

Wis­
South­
con­
ern
sin

609

160

85

39

12

24

228

94

47

52

35

221

98

45

52

Indefinite or unknown 2____ ____

150

38

21

12

2

3

39

20

4

10

5

73

25

20

20

8

Reporting____ ______________ ____

459

100.0

122

64

27

10

21

189

74

43

42

30

148

73

25

32

18

49
94
137
179

10. 7
20.5
29.8
39.0

10
26
36
50

13
18
29

4
14
9

3
1
2

6
3
10

24
54
80

13
23
36

15
3
15
10

5
12
16

3
4
18

49

25

6

12

6

Not contributing...........................................
Contributing all earnings 3___
Contributing 50 per cent or more of earnings___
Contributing less than 50 per cent of earnings...

.

26

44

1 Includes board and lodging expenses if living at home or with relatives
j i t-Ir” Jnclu<\es irregular and occasional amounts difficult to estimate as a proportion of earnings, or regular amounts difficult to estimate, such as “support
daughter,
help pay bills.
It also includes a large number of those who answered the question with a check or line, probably making no contribution.
3 Includes girls who gave all but an allowance for lunches and car fare.




WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 192S TO 1930

3-year totals—
4 schools com­
bined

58

Table XXVIII.—Percentage of earnings contributed to family support in previous year,1 by school and school year

APPENDIX B.—FORM OF QUESTIONNAIRE
[FRONT]

SUMMER SCHOOLS FOR WOMEN WORKERS IN INDUSTRY
INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE RECORD
Date............................................
Number____ ____ —...............
1. Residence.......... ..................................................... ........... Name of school............................................. -..........—(City)
(State)
2. Present age 3. How long have you lived in the United States?...-------------------------------------------------(years)
(years)
4. Your birthplace___________ _ 5. Birthplace of father 6. Of mother-------------------------------------------(Country)
(Country)
(Country)
7. Occupation of father...................................... ............ 8. Occupation of mother--------------------- -....................
9. Are you married? Single?....................................... ...................... Widowed or divorced?...............................
10. How old were you when you entered industry?..-------------------------------- ------ -------------------------------(years)
Record of Jobs:
*
Put in the table below a record of all the jobs you have held, even if you can not supply all the details
requested in the columns, in the order in which you have held them, including your first job and
all others up to June, 1930.

Num­
ber

(ID

Give year of—
Process
Industry
or
(12)
operation Begin­ Quit­
(13)
ting
ning
(16)
(14)




Length of
time job
was held
(18)
Yrs. Mos.

State spe­ Wages per week Was
at—
cifically
the
why you
shop
left this
Begin­ Quit- union?
job
(20)
ning
ing
(17)
(18)
(19)

59

Were
you a
union
mem­
ber?
(21)

[BACK]
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYMENT DURING THE
PAST YEAR

FROM JUNE 1, 1929, TO MAY 31,1930
22. During how many weeks of the year were you employed full time?................................................ ..........
23. During how many weeks of the year were you employed only part time?____________________
24. During how many weeks of the year were you entirely out of work on account of—

25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.

(а) Illness or accident (with pay)_________ ______ _________ _____________ _____________
(б) Illness or accident (without pay)___________________________________________ _______
(c) Lack of work_______
(d) Vacation (with pay)_____________________ ______ _____________ 7ir”77I777II7777I7III_I
(e) Vacation (without pay).............. ................... ...............
m Strike__________________-”””””““”“1”
(g) Lockout_____ ____________________________________ _______ _________ _____
_
(h) Other causes________________ _____ ___________ ___________________ ___ ____”..........
If you have been laid off during the year, how much notice have you been given?7777777"
What were the regular opening and closing hours at your last job? On week days _
On Saturdays
IIow much time was allowed for lunch?____________________________________________________
During how many weeks of the year were you paid on a piecework basis?-________ ______________
If you worked some overtime on your last job, at what rate were you paid beyond the regular rate?

During how many weeks of the year did you work some overtime?_________ _____ _
What were your highest full-time weekly earnings during the year?Lowest?
What were your total earnings (without bonus) during the year?___________ _____ _
Did you receive any bonus during the year?.__^...How much?
Have there been deductions from your pay during the year?How much?_______
Why?................. ..................... ............................. ................ ...........
If married, what was your husband's income during the year?__________________ _____ 7
How much money did you receive last year from sources other than wages?__ _____________
From what sources did this extra money come?.......... ..........................................
Did you borrow money last year?If so, how much?7777
Do you live at home?-------—If so, do you pay for board and room?_______ ___________
How much weekly?
How much do you contribute toward the family budget besides board and room?__~_7777..... 11171”!
(Give total amount during the year)
If you do not live at home, what did you pay for room? _(dollars per week)
For board, including lunches?________________ _______(dollars per week)
How much have you saved from your own earnings this year?___________ _____________
How much did you pay out from your own earnings in insurance premiums this year?
What is the principal product of the shop in which you work?___________________ _____
Describe briefly what you do at your present job.
(Use new sheet of paper and attach.)

60




PUBLICATIONS OF THE WOMEN’S BUREAU
[Any of these bulletins still available will be sent free of charge upon request]

*No. 1. Proposed Employment of Women During the War in the Industries of
Niagara Falls, N. Y. 16 pp. 1918.
No. 2. Labor Laws for Women in Industry in Indiana. 29 pp. 1919.
No. 3. Standards for the Employment of Women in Industry. 8 pp. Fourth
ed., 1928.
No. 4. Wages of Candy Makers in Philadelphia in 1919. 46 pp. 1919.
*No. 5. The Eight-Hour Day in Federal and State Legislation. 19 pp. 1919.
No. 6. The Employment of Women in Hazardous Industries in the United
States. 8 pp. 1921.
No. 7. Night-Work Laws in the United States. (1919) 4 pp. 1920.
*No. 8. Women in the Government Service. 37 pp. 1920.
*No. 9. Home Work in Bridgeport, Conn. 35 pp. 1920.
*No. 10. Hours and Conditions of Work for Women in Industry in Virginia.
32 pp. 1920.
No. 11. Women Street Car Conductors and Ticket Agents. 90 pp. 1921.
*No. 12. The New Position of Women in American Industry. 158 pp. 1920.
No. 13. Industrial Opportunities and Training for Women and Girls. 48 pp.
1921.
*No. 14. A Physiological Basis for the Shorter Working Day for Women. 20
pp. 1921.
No. 15. Some Effects of Legislation Limiting Hours of Work for Women. 26
pp. 1921.
No. 16. (See Bulletin 63.)
No. 17. Women’s Wages in Kansas. 104 pp. 1921.
No. 18. Health Problems of Women in Industry. 6 pp. Revised, 1931.
No. 19. Iowa Women in Industry. 73 pp. 1922.
*No. 20. Negro Women in Industry. 65 pp. 1922.
No. 21. Women in Rhode Island Industries. 73 pp. 1922.
*No. 22. Women in Georgia Industries. 89 pp. 1922.
No. 23. The Family Status of Breadwinning Women. 43 pp. 1922.
No. 24. Women in Maryland Industries. 96 pp. 1922.
No. 25. Women in the Candy Industry in Chicago and St. Louis. 72 pp. 1923.
No. 26. Women in Arkansas Industries. 86 pp. 1923.
No. 27. The Occupational Progress of Women. 37 pp. 1922.
No. 28. Women’s Contributions in the Field of Invention. 51 pp. 1923.
No. 29. Women in Kentucky Industries. 114 pp. 1923.
No. 30. The Share of Wage-Earning Women in Family Support. 170 pp. 1923.
No. 31. What Industry Means to Women Workers. 10 pp. 1923.
No. 32. Women in South Carolina Industries. 128 pp. 1923.
No. 33. Proceedings of the Women’s Industrial Conference. 190 pp. 1923.
No. 34. Women in Alabama Industries. 86 pp. 1924.
No. 35. Women in Missouri Industries. 127 pp. 1924.
No. 36. Radio Talks on Women in Industry. 34 pp. 1924.
No. 37. Women in New Jersey Industries. 99 pp. 1924.
No. 38. Married Women in Industry. 8 pp. 1924.
No. 39. Domestic Workers and Their Employment Relations. 87 pp. 1924.
No. 40. (See Bulletin 63.)
No. 41. Family Status of Breadwinning Women in Four Selected Cities. 145
pp. 1925.
No. 42. List of References on Minimum Wage for Women in the United States
and Canada. 42 pp. 1925.
No. 43. Standard and Scheduled Hours of Work for Women in Industry. 68
pp.

1925.

No. 44. Women in Ohio Industries. 137 pp. 1925.
No. 45. Home Environment and Employment Opportunities of Women in
Coal-Mine Workers’ Families. 61 pp. 1925.
No. 46. Facts about Working Women—A Graphic Presentation Based on
Census Statistics. 64 pp. 1925.
No. 47. Women in the Fruit-Growing and Canning Industries in the State of
Washington. 223 pp. 1926.
*No. 48. Women in Oklahoma Industries. 118 pp. 1926.
No. 49. Women Workers and Family Support. 10 pp. 1925.
No. 50. Effects of Applied Research upon the Employment Opportunities of
American Women. 54 pp. 1926.
Supply exhausted.




61

62

WOMEN WORKERS AT SUMMER SCHOOLS, 1928 TO 1930

No. 51. Women in Illinois Industries. 108 pp. 1926.
No. 52. Lost Time and Labor Turnover in Cotton Mills. 203 pp. 1926.
No. 53. The Status of Women in the Government Service in 1925. 103 pp.
1926.
No. 54. Changing Jobs. 12 pp. 1926.
No. 55. Women in Mississippi Industries. 89 pp. 1926.
No. 56. Women in Tennessee Industries. 120 pp. 1927.
No. 57. Women Workers and Industrial Poisons. 5 pp. 1926.
No. 58. Women in Delaware Industries. 156 pp. 1927.
No. 59. Short Talks About Working Women. 24 pp. 1927.
No. 60. Industrial Accidents to Women in New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin
316 pp. 1927.
No. 61. The Development of Minimum-Wage Laws in the United States, 1912
to 1927. 635 pp. 1928.
No. 62. Women’s Employment in Vegetable Canneries in Delaware. ’ 47 pp.
1927.
No. 63. State Laws Affecting Working Women. 51 pp. 1927. (Revision of
Bulletins 16 and 40.)
No. 64. The Employment of Women at Night. 86 pp. 1928.
*No. 65. The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Opportunities of
Women. 498 pp. 1928.
No. 66. History of Labor Legislation for Women in Three States; Chronological
Development of Labor Legislation for Women in the United States.
288 pp. 1929.
No. 67. Women Workers in Flint, Mich. 80 pp. 1929.
No. 68. Summary: The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Oppor­
tunities of Women. (Reprint of Chapter 2 of bulletin 65.) 22 pp.
1928.
No. 69. Causes of Absence for Men and for Women in Four Cotton Mills.
24 pp. 1929.
No. 70. Negro Women in Industry in 15 States. 74 pp. 1929.
No. 71. Selected References on the Health of Women in Industry. 8 pp. 1929.
No. 72. Conditions of Work in Spin Rooms. 41 pp. 1929.
No. 73. Variations in Employment Trends of Wpmen and Men. 143 pp. 1930.
No. 74. The Immigrant Woman and Her Job. 179 pp. 1930.
No. 75. What the Wage-Earning Woman Contributes to Family Support.
21 pp. 1929.
No. 76. Women in 5-and-10-cent Stores and Limited-Price Chain Department
_
Stores. 58 pp. 1930.
No. 77. A Study of Two Groups of Denver Married Women Applying for Jobs.
11 pp. 1929.
No. 78. A Survey of Laundries and Their Women Workers in 23 Cities. 166 pp.
1930.
^
No. 79. Industrial Home Work. 20 pp. 1930.
No. 80. Women in Florida Industries. 115 pp. 1930.
No. 81. Industrial Accidents to Men and Women. 48 pp. 1930.
No. 82. The Employment of Women in the Pineapple Canneries of Hawaii.
30 pp. 1930.
No. 83. Fluctuation of Employment in the Radio Industry. 66 pp. 1931.
No. 84. Fact Finding with the Women’s Bureau. 37 pp. 1931.
No. 85. Wages of Women in 13 States. 213 pp. 1931.
No. 86. Activities of the Women’s Bureau of the United States. 15 pp. 1931.
No. 87. Sanitary Drinking Facilities, with Special Reference to Drinking
Fountains. 28 pp. 1931.
No. 88. The Employment of Women in Slaughtering and M'eat Packing. (In
press.)
No. 89. The Industrial Experience of Women Workers at the Summer Schools,
1928 to 1930. 62 pp. 1931.
No. 90. Oregon Legislation for Women in Industry. 40 pp. 1931.
No. 91. Women in Industry—A Series of Papers' to Aid Study Groups. 79
pp. 1931.
No. 92. Wage—Earning Women and the Industrial Depression of 1930. A
survey of South Bend. (In press.)
Pamphlet. Women’s Place in Industry in 10 Southern States. 14 pp. 1931.
Annual reports of the Director, 1919*, 1920*, 1921*, 1922, 1923, 1924*, 1925,
1926, 1927* 1928*, 1929, 1930, 1931.
Supply exhausted.




o