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ç) » LJ A/OJû q U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR JAMES J. DAVIS, Secretary CHILDREN'S BUREAU GRACE ABBOTT. Chief INDUSTRIAL-.HOME WORK OF CHILDREN A STUDY MADE IN PROVIDENCE, PAWTUCKET, AND CENTRAL FALLS, R. I. « Bureau Publication N o . 100 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1922 S6P. 7 s itfor FRASER Digitized https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis its Ioo https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis CONTENTÉS, Page. Letter of transmittal-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 Introduction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ■ ! . 7 Summary of findings— ---------------------:_1---------------------------------------------------------11 The child workers and their families------------------------- ------------------------------ -— 15-27 Number, sex, and age o f child workers------------ ------------------------------ 1!-------- 15 16 N ationality________________ —------------------------------------------------— ------------------Living conditions---------------------18 Economic status of families------------------------------ — — ----------------------------- 19-21 Occupations and earnings of fathers------------------------------------------------19 Home ownership and rents paid-------1-------------------------- --------------------20 Families known to social agencies— ----------------------------------------------21 Motivés for beginning home work------------------------------------------------------------21 Motives for stopping home work----------.---------------------------------------------LI— 24 Occupations and working conditions of children------------------------------------------- 28-40 Principal kinds of work---------- -------------------------------------------28-38 29 Carding snaps------------------------------ 1----------------------------------- -------------------Stringing ta g s -------------------------------------------30 Thread drawing on lace__--------------- -------------------- ----------------------- 1— 31 Linking and wiring rosary beads-----------------------------------------------------32 Setting ‘stones---------- ------------------------------------— -----------------------------------34 Carding shoe buttons-------- ----------------------------------------------------------------35 Finishing underwear — ------------------------------------ ------------------ ------------, 35 Carding jew elry ------------------»----------------- :---------- ----------------------------------36 Putting together chain fasteners--------------------------------------- ---------------36 Assembling military buttons-------------------------------------------------------------37 W ork on Government contracts----------------------------------------------------37 Presswork_____________________________________________________________ 38 Conditions of work------------------------------38-40 Workrooms___________________________________________________________ 38 Time of working---------------------------------------------------------------------------------39 Testimony concerning physical injuries from home work--------------------40 Earnings of home workers--------------------- ---------:-------------------------------------------------41-50 Maximum hourly earnings of children-----------------------------------------------------41 Maximum hourly earnings of adults— -----------------------------------------------------42 Maximum hourly earnings o f groups -------------------------------------------------------43 Group earnings for periods other than an hour---------------------------------------44 Annual earnings of families-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- 45-48 Number of months o f work during the year---------------------------------46 Number of workers in families---------------------------------------------------------46 Illustrative examples of family earnings-------------- ---------------------1=__ 47 Home work as a means of supplementing family income-_____________ 48 3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 4 CONTENTS, Page. Social aspects of home work-----------------------------------------------------------------------------51-57 Home work and child-labor standards_________________________________ _ 5 1 -5 “ 51 State compulsory education law------------------------------------------------------State and Federal child-labor laws— _____________________________ 52 State law limiting hours o f labor_______________________ ____________ 53 State workmen’s compensation law__________________._____ ._________ 53 Factory work in the schools----------------------------------------------------------------------53 Retardation among child workers--------|____ - ___________________________ 55 56 Possible dangers to health of the community_______________ ____________ Industrial aspects of home work— •----------------------------------------------------- ---------58-72 Industries using the home-work system_________________________________ 58 Principal kinds of home work------------------------------------------------------------------59 Distribution of home work----------------:----------------------- ---------- ----------------------61-66 Number of home workers------------------------------------------------------------------61 ' Seasonal and irregular nature of work--------------------------------------------61 Methods of obtaining home workers----------------foL__________.________ 62 Checking up the work distributed_____________________________ ______ 63 63 Place and method of payment— -----------------------------------------------------The contract system---------------------------1------- -------------- -----------_________ 63 Manufacturers’ attitude toward home work of children________________ 66 Manufacturers’ reasons for using the home-work system__________ .___ 67 Manufacturers’ testimony on probable effects o f prohibition of home work_______________________________________ ______________ — ------------ ___ 70 Appendix----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- -------- 73-76 Industries and population of Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls_________________ ____ ___________ ___________________________ ________ 7a Products of home work__________________________________ ___ _____________ 74 The school canvass____________________ ______________ I________________ ,____ 75 General tables----------------------------------------------- _— __________________________ _____ 77 ILLU STR A TIO N S. Faces page. One o f the home workers___________ _________________________________________ Thread drawing on lace_________ _____ _________ ____ T __________ __________ 32 Linking and wiring rosary beads____________________________________________ https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 7 33 L E T T E R OF T R A N S M IT T A L . U n it e d S tates D e p a r t m e n t of L abor, C h i l d r e n ’s B ureau, Washing ton, September 22,1921. S i r : I transmit herewith a report on industrial home work of chil dren, the results of a study made in Providence, Pawtucket, and Cen tral Falls, R. I. The investigation was planned and directed by Miss Emma Duke. Mr. Harry Viteles had the immediate direction of the field work, and the material was analyzed and prepared for publica tion by Mr. Viteles and Miss Eloise Shellabarger. Home work and the disorganization of the home which it has meant have been the subject of investigation for approximately the last century. It would probably find few defenders as a scientific method o f production. Rhode Island had no regulation o f home work at the time this investigation was made. The experience o f its neighbors, Massachusetts and New York, in licensing and inspecting tenementhouse work indicates that elimination rather than regulation is neces sary for the protection o f the children and the public health. That this can be done with few business losses in this district in Rhode Island is indicated by the testimony of manufacturers who were usin«the home-work system, and that in the long run its elimination will reduce the problems of poverty, for which it now seems palliative, charity workers are generally agreed. Respectfully submitted. G r a c e A b b o t t , Chief. Hon. J a m e s J . D a v i s , Sewetary o f Labor, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis >TL https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis mm ■M ■N Hi mmmm ONE OF T H E H O M E W O R K E R S . https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis W INDUSTRIAL HOME W O R K OF CHILDREN. IN TRO D UCTION . Industrial home work of children in Rhode Island was brought to the attention o f the Children’s Bureau through the reports of inspec tors charged with the enforcement of the Federal child-labor law of 1916.1 The inspectors merely reported that a considerable amount of factory work was being done at home by children. The Rhode Island child-labor law did not apply to work done in homes, nor did the State laws relating to hours of labor and working conditions in gen eral. In the absence, then, o f any regulatory legislation whatsoever the present study was undertaken to determine the extent o f indus trial home work among children in Rhode Island in 1918 and the industrial and social conditions under which it was carried on. Providence was selected for the inquiry because o f its large number o f establishments manufacturing cheap and medium grade jewelry, an industry known to be a distributor of home work. The near-by cities of Pawtucket and Central Falls were included in the study because Pawtucket was known as a center for the manufacture of lace, cotton small wares, hosiery, and knit goods, all industries probably distributing home work, and because Central Falls, virtu ally a corner o f Pawtucket, was found to be the home of many o f Pawtucket’s industrial workers. Furthermore, the three cities formed a convenient unit for study because of their nearness to each other and their good interurban transportation service. The three cities covered at the time o f this study an area o f 28.5 square miles and were estimated to have had in 1916 a combined population of 326,703, about one-third o f which was foreign born.2 1 This is not the law im posing a tax upon the products o f child labor which went into effect Apr. 25, 1919, and which is enforced by the Bureau o f Internal Revenue, but the earlier law regulating interstate and foreign commerce in the products o f child labor w hich was enforced, under the direction o f a board consisting o f the Secretary o f Labor, the Secretary o f Commerce, and the A ttorney General, by the Children’s Bureau o f the United States Department o f Labor. This law, which went into effect Sept. 1, 1917 was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in June, 1918.’ This study covers the calendar year 1918. 2 F or more detailed inform ation concerning the industries and population o f the three cities see Appendix, p. 73. 7 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 8 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. Information concerning the extent of home work and the identity o f the workers was obtained principally through a canvass o f the schools.3 The names and addresses were obtained of all children in , the public and parochial schools who said that factory work had been done in their homes during the year 1918. The homes o f all these children were visited in order to ascertain whether home work had actually been done $nd, if so, for how long a period. In 4,075 cases the children themselves were found to have been engaged in such work during 1918, while in a larger number of .cases work was done in the homes by other members of the family. In the course of these visits to the homes of school children, and of interviews with school authorities, social workers, and manufacturers, the names o f more children were secured, and after visits to these other homes the names of 981 additional child workers were included. Combin ing the numbers obtained from these sources, it was found that in the three cities at least 5,006 children under 16 years of age had done home work in 1918. Detailed information was obtained, however, for only the 2,338 children, representing 1,042 families, who had been engaged in home work for 30 days or more during 1918 and who had received compen sation for their work. O f the other 2,668 children who were found to have done home work, 2,590 had worked for less than 30 days, 78 had worked for 30 days or more but had received no compensation, many o f them assisting with home work at the house o f a playmate or a contractor and receiving only some candy or perhaps a penny or two for their services, so they were not included in the study. This report is in the main based upon the material secured from the parents o f the children and the children themselves. It has both the strength and the weakness of such material. It was, however, supplemented by information secured from manufacturers who gave out home work, from contractors, and from social workers, teachers, and others. The names of 258 manufacturing establishments that distributed home work were obtained from the following sources: Home work ers, contractors, school authorities, social workers, the reports of Federal factory inspectors, and advertisements for home workers in the local newspapers. A ll these manufacturers were interviewed; and for 153 of them, who had made during 1918 a regular practice o f giving out home work, detailed schedules were taken. Contractors who acted as intermediaries between producers and home workers were found to be an important link in the home-work system. The names of 123 such contractors were obtained from the' following sources: Home workers, manufacturers, school authorities* social workers, the reports o f Federal factory inspectors, and adver* For a detailed description o f the school canvass see Appendix, p. 75. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis INTR ODU CTIO N'. 9 tisements for home workers. The inquiry included, however, only ■fche contractors who were found to have given out home work in 1918 during a period o f 30 days or more and to have paid home workers lower rates than they received from the manufacturers. Finally, about 100 social workers, school authorities, and other persons active in social and civic organizations were interviewed with regard to home work. Whether the amount of home work done in the three cities in 1918 could be considered fairly typical of normal years or whether it was either greatly increased or greatly decreased by war condi tions is obviously an important consideration in interpreting the results of this study. Every manufacturer was questioned, therefore, as to the effect of the war on the amount of home work distributed, with special reference to the year 1918. Replies to this question were received from 151 manufacturers, of whom 8 had established their factories directly or indirectly as a result o f the war and 2 others had gone into business after the war began. O f the re mainder, 57 reported that the war had, no effect, while 28 reported that it had decreased and 56 that it had increased the amount of home work they distributed. The increases, however, were stated to have taken place for the most part prior to 1918. Even the firms which reported a general increase due to the war stated that in the last year o f the war the amount o f home work was decreased because limitations on the amount o f raw materials allotted to nonessential industries were enforced by the Government and were not removed until too late for the filling of Christmas orders.* Most o f the per sons other than manufacturers who were consulted were also of the opinion that less home work was distributed in 1918 than in 1917 and previous years.5 Moreover, the information which was readily avail* This was one o f the principal reasons given by the producers who reported that the war had decreased the amount o f home work distributed. Other reasons given fo r su ch ’ decreases w e re : (1 ) Change in products, e. g „ when a lace factory took up the manufa ctu ie o f bandages and g a u z e ; (2 ) dependence on foreign sources for materials, e. g., rosary beads from A ustria and bristles fo r jew elers’ brushes from R u ssia; (3 ) new styles, such as the vogue fo r m ilitary laced boots, which hurt the business o f button fa ctorie s; and (4 ) larger earnings o f men, which did away with the necessity for additional earnings by their wives and fam ilies. The principal reason given fo r the statement that the war had increased the amount o f home work distributed was that it had stopped the im portation o f certain products, such as celluloid dice lind dominoes and cheap beads. These articles were custom arily given out to home workers, and the Increase in the demand fo r their m anufacture in this country increased the distribution o f home work. Another fa cto r mentioned was the demand for flag jew elry and service pins upon the entrance o f this country into the war. The flags were painted and the stars on service pins cemented by home workers. s They assigned the following reasons: (1 ) Women could secure more profitable employ-•ment in the war industries; (2 ) the jewelry industry lost many factory employees to i the essential industries, and with the consequent decrease in production less home work was available; (3 ) the supply of raw materials was limited in the case of nonessential industries; and (4 ) the working people were receiving sufficient incomes to support their families without resorting to home work. 74429°— 22— 2 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 10 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. able at the time of the study concerning the relative amount of home work given out in the early months of 1919 tended to show that more work was distributed in that year than in the corresponding period o f 1918. It seems safe to conclude, therefore, that the amount o f home work done in 1918 was not greater than normal. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis %) SU M M A R Y OF FIN D IN G S. |, tit) V * y y > ri ¡y T* 1 y ■f ï % y O f the children 5 to 15 years o f age, inclusive, in Providence, Paw tucket, and Central Falls in 1918, at least 4,933, or T.6 per cent, were found to have done more or less industrial home work during that year. O f the total number under the age o f 16 years engaged in home work (5,006), 69 per cent lived in Providence, but the percentage of home workers relative to the total child population 5 to 15 years of age was higher both in Pawtucket (8.7 per cent) and in Central Falls (9.6 per cent) than in Providence (7.3 per cent). The group o f 5,006 child home workers under 16 years of age discovered in the course of this study probably does not include all children in the area who did home work on factory products. O f the 5,006 child home workers, 2,338—966 boys and 1,372 girls— had been engaged on home work for 30 days or more during 1918 and had received compensation for their services. Thus, at least 3.5 per cent o f the children 5 to 15 years o f age in these three cities were seriously affected by the industrial home-work system. O f these 2,338 children, for all o f whom detailed information was secured, 4.1 per cent were under 6 years of age; 45.7 per cent were under 11 ; and 86.2 per cent were under 14. Almost one-third of the children had foreign-born fathers, repre senting 24 nationalities. More than two-fifths of the foreign-born fathers were Italian and nearly one-fifth were French Canadian. The fathers o f these home-working children were employed in vari ous industries ; the largest group in any one industry, comprising almost one-fifth o f the fathers, worked in the iron and steel indus tries. More than half the 1,042 scheduled families reported the yearly earnings o f the father as between $650 and $1,250. In one-tenth of the families the father was dead, had deserted the family, or was unemployed all the year; in almost one-ninth his earnings were less than $650; and in only about one-sixth were his earnings $1,250 or over. ' Home work was not restricted to the poorer districts, substantial numbers o f cases being reported from every ward in each o f the three cities. The largest numbers o f child workers, however, lived, in the Italian district and in the jewelry manufacturing center of , 11 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 12 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. Providence, and in narrow streets and alleys between the main thoroughfares o f Pawtucket and Central Falls. More than one-fifth o f the families owned their own homes; 36 per cent paid $12.50 to $20 a month rent, and 35 per cent paid $7.50 to $12.50.' Nearly half, 45 per cent, lived in overcrowded conditions. Almost one-fourth o f the families were known to social agencies. O f the 2,338 children who had worked more than 30 days and had received compensation, 22 per cent stated that they began home work for the direct purpose o f adding to the family income. In addition, nearly one-third reported that they began work to help other mem bers o f the family, Imitation of friends and neighbors and desire to earn spending money or money for war funds were other motives. Some parents used home work to keep their children busy and out o f mischief. More than half the scheduled children had stopped home work before the end o f 1918, because o f poor pay, interference with school work, or tediousness o f the work, or for other reasons. A whole family usually stopped home work at the same time, just as it began and worked as a unit. The character o f home work as a family occupation rather than as one in which individuals worked inde pendently is shown by the fact that in more than 75 per cent o f the families studied, persons over 16 years o f age, usually the fathers'" and mothers as well as the children, were engaged in the work. The children worked on about 100 varieties o f factory work, dis tributed by 21 industries. The principal home occupations of chil dren, in the order o f their importance, were carding snaps (dress fasteners), stringing tags, drawing threads on lace, linking and wiring beads, setting stones, working on military buttons, carding shoe ‘buttons, finishing underwear, carding jewelry, and putting to gether chain fasteners. This work consisted o f very simple processes constantly repeated. Ninety-one children, however, worked on ma chines. The family kitchen was the children’s workroom in more than four-fifths o f the houses visited. In many cases the lighting was very poor. More than four-fifths— 1,963—of the children worked in the evening after supper, and 1,860 of these also worked at some other period during the day. Eyestrain from home work was reported by 117 children. Many other children complained o f sores, callouses, and blisters caused by their work. Some o f the teachers reported that child home workers came to school tired and listless. In occupations where presses were used, accidents, chiefly the bruising or cutting of fingers, . were frequent. Almost half the 956 children who reported the maximum amount which they could earn in an hour stated that, working at top speed, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SUM M ARY OF FINDINGS. 13 they could not earn as much as 5 cents, while 45 reported an earn ing capacity o f less than 1 cent an hour. More than one-fourth, 29 per cent, could earn from 5 to 10 cents an hour; 9 per cent could earn from 10 to 15 cents; 9 per cent could earn 15 to 25 cents; and only 3 per cent could earn 25 cents or more. Family groups were the customary working units, and hourly earn ings were obtained for 136 o f these groups. The average earnings per group were a little over 11 cents an hour, and the average earn ings per person, for the 469 home workers in the 136 groups, were a little over 3 cents an hour. O f the 928 families reporting total yearly earnings from home work, only 4 per cent earned more than $200; 89 per cent earned less than $100; and nearly three-fifths less than $25. The average annual earnings o f these families were $48.17. It was reported that the standards set up by the State o f Rhode Island for school children and children working in factories were violated by home-working children in the following cases: Children of school age remained at home for extended periods or for a day now and then to do home work, contrary to the compulsory education law of Rhode Island; children under 14 did factory work at home, though the law prohibited them from working in factories; ywomen and minors under 16 employed in factories did overtime work at home contrary to the spirit o f the law limiting hours of w ork; and children injured in the course o f home work were deprived o f com pensation under the workmen’s compensation law. School officials, social workers, and persons other than manufac turers who were interviewed in regard to industrial home work o f children, had little information on the subject and attached small importance to it. The public schools countenanced home work to the extent o f permitting children to do it in school as manual training work or to earn money for various “ drives.” It was found that almost three-tenths of the home-working children between 9 and 13 years of age who reported their school grades were retarded, one-tenth of them being 2 or more years below what is com monly accepted as the standard for their ages. Retardation was more noticeable among the older children, as the percentages in creased steadily with each year o f age, from 15.6 per cent at 9 years to 43 per cent at 13 years. A possible danger to the health o f the community was found in the fact that large numbers o f families reported the performance o f home work while members o f the family were ill with infectious dis eases. In some cases the sick persons took part in the work. Twenty-one industries o f Providence and Pawtucket used home work as a part o f their system o f production. O f these the jewelry industry was by far the most prominent; of the 153 firms which made https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 14 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OE CHILDREN. a regular practice of distributing home work, 91 were jewelry estab lishments. The 158 manufacturers distributed home work directly to at least 2,019 persons. Those who received the work either took it to their homes, where perhaps several members of the family took part in it, or, if they were contractors, redistributed it to a large number of families. Forty-seven contractors who were interviewed distributed work to 1,203 persons, representing probably as many families. Five chief reasons were assigned by the producers for the home work system : Shortage of factory labor ; high cost of factory produc tion ; seasonal nature of the industry ; custom ; and assistance to needy families. Unwillingness to pay factory wages or to incur additional overhead expense appeared to be an underlying motive in connection with all the reasons given. A minority of the manufacturers, among whom lace manufacturers were prominent, said that the abolition of home work would ruin their business. Others reported that the prohibition of home work would mean paying more for labor, pro viding additional factory room and hiring extra help during the rush seasons, but that they could make the adjustments if every other pro ducer were obliged to do the same. It is significant that 92 manufac turers, or three-fifths o f the 153, among them some of the larger dis tributors, said that if home work were prohibited they could adjust their business to the situation. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis T H E C H IL D W O R K E R S AN D T H E IR F A M IL IE S . NUMBER, SEX, AND AGE OF CHILD WORKERS. •In Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls at least 5,006 chil dren under 16 years of age were engaged in industrial home work at some time during the year 1918. This number does not include all child workers in this district, but covers only those cases which were obtained from the school canvass and from the other sources already mentioned. Only 2,338 children were found, however, who were engaged in home work for more than 30 days during the year and received compensation. For the purpose o f this study schedules were taken only for these 2,338 children, of whom 966 were boys and 1,372 girls. In the majority of these cases home work was not done continuously or regularly, but was begun, dropped, and re sumed for varying periods.0 The total child population, aged 5 to 15, inclusive, in the three cities in 1918, as shown in Table I, was 64,498. Allowing for the small percentage of home workers who were under 5 years o f age, it is found that the child workers constituted at least 7.6 per cent of the child population aged 5 to 15, inclusive. This table shows further that 3.5 per cent o f the children o f this age group in the three cities were engaged in home work for 30 days or more and received compensation for their services during 1918. T able I.— Home work in 1918, Toy city ; children under 16 years of age. Children engaged in home work in 1918 while under 16 years of age. City. Total. Children 5 to 15 years of age, inclusive. Engaged in home work in 1918. Total as enumer ated in For 30 school days or more and censuses, receiving January, 1919.1 compen sation. Fot 30 days or more and receiv ing compensa tion. Total. Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent. All cities............................ 5,006 2,338 64,498 2 4,933 7.6 2,265 3.5 Providence................................. Pawtucket.................................. Central Falls............................... 3,447 1,046 . 513 1,539 524 275 47,068 12,061 5,369 3,395 1,032 506» 7.2 8.6 9.4 1,487 510 268 3.2 4.2 5.0 1 Reports of the supervisors of the school censuses, Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls, Januarv 1919. i j, 2 The sum of the children 5 to 15 years of age Dec. 31, 1918, who were scheduled and the chil dren not scheduled who reported home work of less than 30 days or without compensation during 1918 while under 16 years of age. . ° Providence was the home of 69 per cent o f all the children who ij^-reported home work in 1918 ; 21 per cent of the child home workers ^ ^ liv e d in Pawtucket; and 10 per cent lived in Central Falls. How ever, the percentage o f child workers in comparison with the total 6 See pp. 46-61. Ì https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 15 16 INDUSTRIAL home work oe c h il d r e n . child population was higher in Central Falls and Pawtucket than in Providence. Table I I gives the percentages of school children reporting home work in 1918, by age. The proportions increased slightly for the older children, rising to a maximum at 13. T able II.— Home work in 1918, by age; children under 16 years of age. Age, December, 1918. Children reporting home work in 1918. Children enumer Per cent ated in of chil Per cent school censuses, Number. dren of distri specified bution. 1919. age enu merated. All ages....................................... — .............................- 64,498 2,338 64,498 6,581 6,368 6,229 6,174 5,932 5,947 5,853 5,737 5,359 5,338 4,980 39 2,265 56 108 141 209 242 274 322 315 310 191 97 32 2 100.0 3.5 .1 1.7 2.3 3.4 4.1 4.6 5.5 5.5 5.8 3.6 1.9 1.7 98.3 2.4 4.6 6.0 8.9 10.4 11.7, 13.8 13.5 13.3 8.2 4.1 1.4 .1 i All these children did home work in 1918 while still under 16 years of age; they are here classified, how ever, by their ages as of December, 1918, for purposes of comparison with the school census of approximately this date. O f the 2,336 children whose ages were reported, 95, or 4.1 per cent, were under 6 years of age; 1,069, or 45.7 per cent, were under 11; and 2,016, or 86.3 per cent, were under 14. A considerable proportion of the older children had begun work at very early ages. In the majority o f cases, however, the work was not pursued over a period of years but was dropped within a year or two of the time when it was taken up. Thus, of 310 children 13 years old at the time of the inquiry, 87 had commenced home work since passing their thirteenth birthdays and 143 more in the preced ing year. The average time for this group which elapsed between commencing home work and December, 1918, may be estimated at 1 year and 3 months.7 NATIONALITY. The 2,338 children considered in this inquiry came from 1,042 families. Nearly three-fourths of them, as shown in Table II I, had foreign-born fathers, representing 24 nationalities. More than twofifths o f the foreign-bom fathers were Italians and nearly one-fifth were French Canadians. Next in numbers were Polish, Irish, Russian Jewish, English, and Portuguese. * See General Table 1, p. 77. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis B THE T able C H IL D W ORKERS AKT) T H E I R 17 F A M IL IE S . III.— Nationality of fathers of children reporting home work in 1918. Fathers of children reporting home work in .1918. Nationality. Number. Total............................................. Native white............................. Foreign-born white............... : ___ Italian................................... French Canadian......................... Polish............................................... Irish........................................... English and Scotch......................... Russian Jewish................................ Portuguese............................................. German..................................... All other i ........................................... Colored2........: .................................... Not reported....................................... Per cent distri bution. 1,042 100.0 287 742 332 128 59 56 37 33 23 16 58 11 2 27.5 71.3 31.9 12.3 5,7 5.4 3.6 3.2 2.2 1.5 5.6 1.1 .2 100.0 44.7 17.3 8.0 7.5 5.0 4.4 3.1 2.2 7.8 i Includes 10 Syrian, 9 Greek, 9 Serbian and Croatian, 8 Armenian, 7 Swedish, 4 Russian, 3 French 2 Lithuanian, 1 Ruthenian, 1 Norwegian, 1 Belgian, 1 Rumanian, 1 Danish, and 1 Finnish. * Includes 4 Portuguese Negro. While 71.3 per cent o f the fathers of children reporting home work were foreign-born white, Table IV shows that o f the males 21 years o f age and over in Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls only 49.5 per cent were foreign-born white. This would indicate that the tendency to have children do home work was stronger among the foreign-born than among the native white population. T able IV.— Color and nativity of males 21 years of age and over, Providence. Pawtucket, and Central Falls, 1910.1 Males 21 years and over. Color and nativity. Number. Total................................................ ............. Native white.............................................. Foreign-born white....................................... Colored....................................................... Per cent distri bution. 90,455. 100.0 43,563 44,777 2,115 48.2 49.5 2.3 1 Compiled from Thirteenth Census, Vol, i n , Population, pp, 630 and 632. The distribution of nationalities among the foreign-born white fathers o f children reporting home work was found to be very d if ferent from the distribution o f nationalities in the total foreign white population o f the three cities. For the foreign-born fathers o f work ing children the percentages of Italians and French Canadians were 44.7 and 17.3, respectively, while these nationalities formed only 17.2 per cent and 11.9 per cent, respectively, of the total foreign-born white 74429°—22-----3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 18 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. population. The opposite tendency was noted for English and Scotch and for Irish ; the foreign-born fathers of working children included 5 per cent o f English and Scotch and 7.5 per cent of Irish, while these nationalities formed 20.5 per cent and 19.5 per cent, respectively, o f the total white population. The percentages for German and Portuguese showed only slight differences.8 O f the 2,338 children reporting home work, 2,186, or more than nine-tenths, were native born and only 151 were foreign born; 23 o f the native-born children were colored. There was only one case where nativity was not reported. LIVING CONDITIONS. Home work was not confined to the poorer districts, since sub stantial numbers of home workers were found in every ward of all three cities.9 In Providence a large majority of the child home workers lived in the Italian quarter and in the district in which the business and manufacturing o f the city were centered. The houses, for the most part frame tenements housing from two to six families, were built close to the street and near together, leaving very little space in which children could play. Many of the houses were built on narrow passageways which were not accepted as streets by the city. The owners o f property on these passageways had to provide the sewage connection with the city system, a plan which, as a report on housing in Providence points out, might give rise to faulty and insufficient waste disposal.10 Some o f the houses seemed badly neglected and were in poor repair. The individual tenements were reached through long, dark halls, frequently dirty, with narrow, steep stairs. The rooms in .the tenements were usually clean, but apparently the halls were nobody’s concern. The rooms were usually light and some times sunny, and very few really dark rooms were found. Gas was used for lighting. In Pawtucket and Central Falls the home workers lived for the most part on narrow streets, alleys, and little twisting lanes which lacked sidewalks and were muddy and unsightly. Flagrantly bad housing was encountered in a number of instances. Rooms without windows and insanitary toilets serving several families were found. Some o f the houses had inside plumbing and some had outside privies. Many were in bad repair, the plaster peeling off in the hallways, the steps leading to the upper floors broken. A few fami• See also General Table 2, Appendix, p. 78. 9 See General Table 3, Appendix, p. 78. » Ihlder, John : The Hous'es of Providence, p. 48. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Providence, 1916. TH E CHILD WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES. 19 lies lived in houses in which the absence of doors between the rooms made privacy impossible. Endless rows of two, three, and six family tenements gave both cities an uninviting appearance. In more than 70 per cent of the families studied there were 6 or more persons in the household, while the majority o f the dwellings contained 4 or 5 rooms. I f the rooms had been evenly distributed among all the families there would have been 1.4 persons per room. Actually, however, 182 families were living under more comfortable conditions, with less than 1 person to a room ; 391 families had 1 but less than 1^ persons per room; 74 had 1£ persons per room; 179 families had more than 1£ but less than 2 persons per room; and 213 had 2 or more persons per room.11 In 3 cases the number of rooms - was not reported. Frequently the larger families were crowded into the more restricted quarters. According to Dr. Chapin’s standard,12 that more than 1£ persons per room constitutes overcrowding, 36 per cent o f the families studied were living in overcrowded conditions. ' ECONOMIC STATUS OF FAMILIES. Occupations and earnings o f fathers. In about one-tenth of the 1,042 families the father was dead, or had deserted the family, or was out of work all the year. The remaining 936 fathers were employed in various industries; 187, or one-fifth, in iron and steel industries, and 164, more than one-sixth, in textile industries. The number employed in jewelry factories (62) was very nearly the same as that in the building trades (64) or in public service (56).13 A number of fathers owned the stores they worked in, and three o f those reporting jewelry work owned the establishments. In three-fifths of the families for whom earnings were reported the yearly earnifigs o f the father were between $650 and $1,250, and within this group the largest number, 239, earned between $850 and $1,050. About one-sixth o f the fathers earned $1,250 or more; a little more than one-tenth earned less than $650; while in about onetenth of the cases the father was dead, had deserted the family, or was out ,of work during the entire year. The earnings are given in more detail in Table V. 11 See General Table 4, Appendix, p. 79. 12 Chapin, Robert Coit : The Standard of Living Among Workingmen’s Families in New York City, p. 80. Russell Sage Foundation, 1909. 18 See General Table 5, Appendix, p. 79. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 20 INDUSTRIAL HOM E W ORK OF CHILDREN, T a b u s Y . — Earnings of father in 1 y e a r ; families reporting home work in 1918. Families reporting home woi k in 1918. Earnings of father in 1 year. Per cent distribu tion. Number. 1,042 100.0 39 33 41 169 239 167 82 60 24 106 82 3.7 3.2 3.9 16.2 22.9 16.0 7.9 5.8 2.3 10.2 7.9 $450 to $549.................................................................................................................. $550 to $649.................................................................................................................. $650 to $849.................................................................................................................. $850 to $1,049................................................................................................................ $1,050 to ¿1,249......................................................................................................... $1j250 to $1^449 ........................................................................................................... $1^450 to $l'849......................................................................... ..................... - ........... Earnings not reported................................................................................................. Home ownership and rents paid. More than one-fifth of the 1,042 families owned their homes. Over one-third, 36 per cent, paid between $12.50 and $20 a month rent, while 35 per cent paid between $T.50 and $12.50. Only 30 families paid a monthly rent o f $20 or more. The detailed figures, with the number o f rooms occupied, are given in Table VT. T a b l e V I .— H om e ownership and monthly rental by number of rooms m dwell ing ; families reporting home work in 1918. Families reporting home work in 1918. Number of rooms in dwelling. Total. Tenure and monthly rental of home. 2 7 8 9 10 82 318 333 158. 77 3 4 5 6 12 14 Not 15 report ed. ff- cent Num Per distri ber. bution. All tenures................. 1,042 100.0 44 14 6 2 1 Total owned........................ 214 20.5 .7 40 66 37 28 22 5 5 1 1 Owned........................... Owned (buying!............ 195 19 18.7 1.8 7 35 5 56 10 37 26 2 20 2 5 5 1 1 2 __ __ ____ Total rented......................... 821 78.8 3 75 277 264 121 48 21 9 $5, under $7.50............... $7.50, under $10............. $10, under $12.50....___ $12.50, under $15............ $15, under $20................ $20, under $25................ $25, under $35................ $35 and over.......... Rent free....................... Amount not reported... 40 126 240 107 179 19 10 1 3 6 3.8 12.1 23.0 18.9 17.2 1. 8 3 18 12 34 46 13 101 7 74 1 41 4 4 7 3 2 1 1 1 2 5 Boarding.............................. Tenure not reported............ https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 6 1 1.0 1 3 .6 1 3 1 1 1 2 33 87 68 65 4 2 4 8 24 32 47 3 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 1 5 10 11 16 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 21 TH E CHILD WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES. Families known to social agencies. It was found that 252, or about one-fourth, of the 1,042 families included in the study were known to social agencies in Providence or Pawtucket. However, only a few o f these families had received any material assistance, either in cash or supplies, during 1918. MOTIVES FOR BEGINNING HOME WORK. In considering the motives for beginning home work, it should be borne in mind that the reasons given are those stated by the parents for their children, and are not, strictly speaking, children’s reasons. T a b l e V I I .— Reason for commencing home work by age at commencing; children reporting home work in 1918. Children reporting home work in 1918 who commenced at specified age. Under 6 years. Total. Reasons assigned for child’s commencing home work. Not reported.............. 10 years, but under 14. 14 years, but under 16. Age Per Per Per Per Per not re cent Num cent cent Num cent ported Num cent Num Num disdis ber. dis dis dis ber. tribuber. tribu tribu ber. tribu ber. tribu - tion. tion. tion. tion. tion. Ailreasons.; . . . 2,338 To relieve actual family need............. To buy books and clothes,................... To supplement family income............... To buy war savings certificates or bonds. To earn spending money..................... To help other home workers in family. . . To keep child out of mischief................... Because friends or neighbors worked... 6 years, but under 10. 100.0 203 100.0 897 100.0 .1,088 100.0 120 100.0 30 412 17.6 37 18.2 156 17.4 188 17.3 23 19.2 8 140 6.0 11 5.4 57 6.4 63 5.8 7 5.8 2 103 4.4 2 1.0 36 4.0 55 5.1 ’ 7 5.8 3 "5 3.2 15 1.7 58 5.3 2 1.7 . 278 11.9 7 3.4 96 10.7 150 13.8 22 18.3 3 f36 31.5 123 60.6 336 37.5 229 21.0 36 30.0 12 187 8.0 11 5.4 78 8.7 91 8.4 6 5.0 1 362 33 12 15.5 1.4 0.5 9 3 4.4 1.5 106 12 5 11.8 1.3 0.6 233 14 7 21.4 1.3 0.6 13 4 10.8 3.3 1 On the other hand, some children were attracted by the work, thought it would be “ fun,” and coaxed their parents into letting them help. A mother who worked on a press rolling the edges of snaps sAid that her 13-year-old boy began the work because “ he couldn’t resist running the press.” “ The child gets mad if we don’t let her work,” said another mother, referring to her little girl who began work at the age of 5. , Eking out insufficient family incomes was the definite purpose in the cases o f 655 children, 28 per cent of all those scheduled. For 412 o f these children, representing 165 families, actual “ family need ” was reported as the reason for beginning work. “ We didn’t have https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 22 INDUSTRIAL HOM E W ORK OF CHILDREN. enough money with just one man working,” and “ We had to do any thing to get a bite o f bread,” were mothers’ comments. In one case | the family needed all the money they could earn, as there were 9 children, the oldest 15 years old, and also a dependent grandmother. Home work was taken up by 140 children in order to earn money for their own books or clothes. In some families it appeared to be a tradition that children should pay for these things. “ To keep them in clothes, especially shoes,” was the reason one mother gave for her children’s home work. One woman made her children work for the first time to buy one of them a graduation dress, while another’s pur pose was to be able to dress her children as well as the others in the neighborhood. There were 103 children in 52 families who began home work, not because the family was in actual need, but to make possible the purchase of “ extras.” One mother of five said, “ I make the children string tags; sometimes they cry and want to go out. I can save the money earned and buy something.” Another woman “ liked to have money of her own,” so she had her little boy help her wire rosary beads. Still another mother said she “ needed false teeth and thought the children might just as well help to buy them.” Nearly one-third o f the children scheduled, as shown in Table V II, j« worked to help others in the family who were already engaged in home work. In many such instances the children were unwilling participants in the w ork; their mothers complained that the children hated their tasks and made every excuse to evade them. Sometimes mothers coaxed their children to help^ with the work by promises of spending money or Christmas presents. In the cases of 362 children, or 16 per cent o f those scheduled, home work was begun because of the example set by friends or neigh bors. The fact that “ the children across the street strung tags” influenced some mothers to send their children for tags. In certain streets home work was almost a universal occupation, and when a new family moved into the district the children would take up the work either in imitation o f their playmates or at the suggestion of their.parents. One little girl played with a contractor’s daughter and became so interested in the work she saw that she secured some for herself. Very often the work provided an excuse for social gather ings o f the children of a neighborhood. In pleasant weather they would congregate on the steps o f one of the workers’ homes and sing and work. Sometimes children would help their friends without receiving any pay. Some o f the parents did not know that their children did home work, and when told o f it they would say, “ I suppose all the children were going for tags so they went too.” Desire for spending money influenced 278 children to begin home work. Most o f these children took up the work voluntarily, but in https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis THE C H IL D W ORKERS AND T H E IR F A M IL IE S . 23 some cases the suggestion came from the parents. “ M ovies” and sweets were the usual objects for which the money was spent. One 9-year-old boy finished underwear and packed knitting needles for 11 months in order to buy some pigeons. Producers recognized this motive and in some instances declared frankly that they were able to pay rates for home work which were incommensurate with the labor expended on it because children would do the work “ to make a little spending money.” Keeping the children “ busy,” “ off the streets,” or “ out o f mis chief ” were the motives for home work reported by the parents of 187 children included in the study. The theory that children “ should work while they are young so they will get used to working” was frequently encountered among the parents. The lack o f playgrounds other than crowded streets sometimes led parents to have their chil dren begin home work. “ In the district where we live,” said one father, “ the children have to be kept off the streets.” Others had a more utilitarian motive in keeping their children in the house. One mother made her two boys assemble celluloid novelty chains every day after school, during vacation, and every night from 7.30 to 9.30 because she thought they might better be at home helping out the family than “ roaming the streets and wearing out their shoes.” In a family o f six which in 1918 had an income of more than $2,000 the father had his boy and girl wire rosary beads for six months because, as he expressed it, “ keep a kid at home, save shoe leather, make better manners.” A stepmother found it difficult to manage the children because “ they would fight so,*’ and the father advised that they should be kept busy at something. Accordingly the stepmother got some home work for them. The desire to contribute to war funds influenced 75 children to begin home work. A good many other children not scheduled started home work to pay a war pledge, but dropped it before the end o f 30 days because o f the poor pay. In connection with the Victory Boys and Girls movement, school children were requested to pledge $5 earned by their own labors. Some o f the children said that the teacher suggested they should earn it by carding snaps, while in other cases they reported that the teacher made them all work in school for a while to earn money for war savings stamps. Insufficient family income, while reported as the paramount cause for home work in the cases of only 28 per cent o f the children, obviously was a contributing or dominant factor in many cases where other reasons were given. I f the children started work to help others in the family, the motive o f adding to the income was present in many cases with the parents if not with the children; if they imitated friends or neighbors it was often the earnings rather than https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 24 IN D U S T R IA L HOME WORK O F C H IL D R E N . companionship or the work itself which attracted them; if they desired spending money it was often because the family income would not permit them to have it otherwise; if the parents wanted to keep the children off the streets they may likewise have wanted to save shoes and clothing and to have the children “ help out ” ; if the teach ers asked children to earn money for war funds it was usually because many children could not have contributed without earning the money themselves. The reasons that have been given for children doing home work indicate in large measure the motives of the adult home workers in these families. However, in the conversations with mothers some comments were evoked which afford interesting side lights on the home-work system. Some mothers who complained bitterly about the poor pay, saying “ It’s a shame to make people string tags for noth ing,” still continued the work. The simple fact was that it filled up leisure time for which they knew no other use. “ I don’t have to string tags, I only want to pass the time away,” or “ I like to work on thread drawing because it gives me something to do,” or “ I like the pretty colored beads. I wish I could just sit down and string them all day long ” • —were some of the comments. The work became a habit and wa^ missed when it was not in the house. “ Feels lonesome with out the lace,” said one woman. Frequently home work served as an occupation at social gatherings. One night some parents were invited out to play whist and the mother slipped her pliers into her pocket as she left the house. Soon she became tired o f playing cards and took out her pliers and helped her hostess link chains. One woman said that often when neighbors came in to call they would all gather around a table and card snaps or string tags. A t a birthday party in this family the whole company worked on snaps. Desire for independence was another motive. One mother said that she did home work because her husband’s pay was not sufficient ' to support the family. When asked if she would stop home work if her husband’s earnings were increased she hesitated and then said: “ No; I wouldn’t promise that. I like to have my own money. I like the work and would rather have $50 earned By myself than $100 saved out o f my husband’s pay.” Another woman, when telling why she did home work, said, “ When a few extra pennies are needed I don’t like to go every time to my husband and ask him for the money.” The majority o f mothers, however, went on with home work without reasoning much about it and with the general idea o f “ helping out ” in making the family living. MOTIVES FOR STOPPING HOME WORK. O f the 2,338 children scheduled, 1,318, or more than half, accord ing to Table V III, had stopped home work before December, 1918. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 25 TH E CHILD WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES. T a b l e V III. — Reason for stopping home w ork; children reporting home work in 1918. Children who reported home work in 1918. Reason for stopping home work. Number. Per cent distribu tion. 2,338 1,020 1,318 299 19 514 363 28 25 64 25 9 267 149 27 -52 23 16 182 30 7 100.0 22.7 1.5 39.0 27.5 2.1 1.9 4.9 1.9 .7 20.3 11.3 2.0 3.9 1.7 1.2 13.8 2.3 Poor pay was the reason most frequently given for discontinuing home work. More than one-fourth, 363, o f the 1,318 children under consideration stopped the work on this account. “ Much work, no pay,” expressed a common opinion regarding the carding of snaps and shoe buttons. Some workers discontinued carding snaps and linking rosary beads because they could scarcely make enough money to pay for the gas burned while they worked at night. “ My husband kept telling me, ‘ You are using up gaslight, and all for nothing; you’ll ruin your eyesight, and that will be all you’ll get,’ ” said one woman in explaining why her family stopped the work. A widow said, “ The price o f gas went up and the rate o f pay didn’t, so we quit carding snaps.” One family had stopped working on neck laces because, as the father put it, for a week o f hard work they got “ nothing except hurta eyes.” Work on presses was sometimes dis continued for similar reasons. “ When you have given 144 kicks for half a cent it seems ridiculous,” said one woman. “ The machine wrecks the home,” another woman declared. “ Somebody had to sit at the press every minute from 6 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night to make anything. It’s wicked to work so hard for so little money; it’s slavery. Nobody who could do anything else would do it. I would never have the machine in the house again.” Another woman suggested that home workers should strike for higher pay. Most of the children who were not included in the study because they had worked for less than 30 days in 1918 had discontinued work because they found, after trying it for a week or two, that it did not pay. 74429°—22----- 4 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis WORK OF C H IL D R E N . Some children had stopped after several years’ experience. Some o f the parents said they could not understand why the State per mitted such work to continue. More than one-fifth, 299, of the children stopping home work did so because no more work could be obtained. Either the manufacturer had no more of a particular type o f work to distribute or the workers were not able to secure any more because they had not done the work properly or in sufficiently large quantities. The large number o f applicants for chain fasteners resulted in some o f the children being laid off. Home work on glove fasteners was discontinued be cause a new machine was installed in the factory which could do the work more quickly and more efficiently. There was a rush among home workers for the presses used in assembling military buttons, and the manufacturer removed the presses from homes where little work was completed. One little girl returned 3,000 tags to a factory, and the person distributing them told her that they were “ no good ” and would neither pay her for them nor let her have any more. Interference with school work was the reason given by nearly oneseventh o f the children who stopped home work. In some cases the parents had realized immediately upon the opening of school in September that the home work must be discontinued; in other instances the children tried to do both lessons and factory work/ after school hours and in the evening and fell behind in their classes. Sometimes the parents did not know of this until they were notified by the teachers. More than one-ninth, 149, o f those under consideration stopped home work because tending the sick or household duties left no time for factory work at home. Sixty-four children refused to continue home work because they were “ tired of it.” Typical reports in these cases were, “ The chil dren thought separating lace was fun at first, but they soon found it tedious and had to be compelled to do it,” and “ Mary brought some tags to string because the other girls were doing it, but she does them now only when I make her.” Several persons testified that work on lace was very disagreeable in the summer time because of the odor. “ The child got sick of lace because it was dirty and had a peculiar odor,” said one mother. Injurious or disagreeable work was reported as the cause of stop ping in 28 cases. In certain cases the connection of home work with injurious effects was fancied rather than real; for example, one whole * family stopped thread drawing on lace because the mother was sure that one o f the children had “ caught ringworm ” from the lace. In some families the mother thought the work made the children nerv ous. I f any member of the family was injured in the course of home https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis r* HOME . IN D U S T R IA L Agf* 26 THE C H IL D W ORKERS AHD T H E IR F A M IL IE S . 27 work, the whole family usually gave up the work. “ John cracked his finger nail in the press and had to go to the doctor; he wouldn’t work any more and neither would the rest o f the family,” said a mother. Another child injured her hand in a press and narrowly escaped having two fingers amputated, with the result that nobody in her f amily ever touched home work again. In the cases of 27 children parents forbade the continuation o f home work. In some instances the parents feared to have their chil dren go after the work. One 10-year-old boy had to cross the rail road track on his way to the mills and the father said to the mother, “ I f my boy is killed on the tracks, I ’ll kill you.” A belief that the children were defrauded by the contractor of their rightful earnings was the cause o f stopping work in 25 cases. One worker said there was no use in complaining to the contractor about the cheating, because “ if you said anything, they skinned you more,” so this whole family stopped the carding of snaps. Just as one member o f the family often influenced the others to begin home work, so the action of one worker often led a whole family to abandon it. Sometimes the mother who went for the work obtained employment at the mill or decided that home work inter fered too much with her household duties. Sometimes the father left the factory from which he had been accustomed to bring work home. Throughout the investigation it was obvious that home work was a family matter rather than one in which children or individuals acted independently. In 750 families among the 1,042 considered, the father or mother or both participated in the home work, and in 807 families, or more than 75 per cent of those studied, persons over 1C years o f age, as well as the children, were engaged in the work. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis OCCUPATIONS AN D W O R K IN G CONDITIONS OF C H ILD R E N . PRINCIPAL KINDS OF WORK. The 2,338 children did home work which ranged in difficulty from putting snaps through holes in cards to soldering jewelry and manipu lating presses. On some kinds of work there were several processes, and the smaller children performed only the simpler operations. Nearly four-fifths o f the children, 1,848, did only one kind of work; nearly one-fifth, 430, did two kinds; 36 were engaged on three varie ties ; and 24 reported four, five, or six different varieties. In Providence almost all the home work done by children was on jewelry. Carding snaps,14 linking and wiring rosary beads, setting stones, carding jewelry, putting together chain fasteners, and making military buttons were the chief kinds of work done. In Pawtucket stringing tags, drawing threads on lace, and finishing underwear were the leading varieties of work done by children. Children’s home work in Central Falls was confined practically to stringing tags and drawing threads on lace. The principal kinds o f home work done by the children and the number o f children engaged in each irind are shown in Table IX . 4 Kind of work. Carding snaps................. Stringing tags................. Thread drawing on lace. Linking rosary heads— Wiring rosary beads....... Setting stones................. Children engaged in each specified kind of work.1 529 413 408 199 192 127 Kind of work. Children engaged in each specified kind of work. Assembling military buttons— Carding shoe buttons.................. Finishing underwear................... Carding jewelry........................... Putting chain fasteners together. 1Only kinds of work on which at least 50 children were engaged are shown. Children are counted for each kind of work in which they were engaged during 1918. The kinds of work listed in this table were the chief ones in which children were engaged. Other kinds of work done in the homes in which children were engaged or in which they occasionally helped 14 Snaps were given out by jew elry firms. 28 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis rt T a b l e I X .— Kind of home w ork; children reporting each specified kind in 191S. OCCUPATIONS AND W ORKING CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN. • 29 the older members o f the family included the follow ing: Assembling cartridge clips; assembling adapter plugs; fusing copper terminals; assembling ribbon watch bracelet's; linking cuff links; stringing up or wiring jewelry for electroplating; pairing and packing shoe laces; pasting velvet on parts of jewelry boxes; assembling jewelers’ brushes; assembling novelty chains and bracelets; pinning up jew elry; soldering jewelry ; linking chains; hitching up jewelry; making paper products, including ice-cream boxes and paper toys; and shelling peanuts.15 Carding snaps. The knobs on the snaps were put through holes in the cards and the tops o f the snaps were snapped on these knobs. The cards of snaps were then ready for sale. The number of snaps on each card was one or two dozen. Sometimes there were complaints that pressing the top o f the snap on the knob hurt the children’s tender thumbs. One mother said, “ Big holes in the card and little snaps make hands sore and are hard to do, because when you’ve got the bottoms all in and then try to put the tops on they all spill out.” In some families the workers, not excepting the youngest, stood up to card snaps. Three manufacturers distributed carding to be done in the homes, but the great bulk o f this work was given out by one establishment. A contractor for this establishment said that she distributed snaps to 40 families in 1918. One contractor from whom a large number of children secured work said that she distributed the work to children living in her neighborhood, but that she would not give out work to any child whose mother did not first come to her and sign a statement that she (the mother) would be responsible for the work. The snaps were given out in boxes or baskets which were weighed be fore being distributed. They had to be returned in the same re ceptacles and were then weighed again. The contractor allowed for a little loss in weight, but beyond this allowance she refused to pay for missing snaps. Soiled or spoiled cards were not paid for, and the snaps on these were kept by the contractor, who had them recarded. Many complaints were made about one of the snap contractors. A frequent accusation was that “ she fixed the scale, weighed the snaps, said a lot were missing, and wouldn’t pay.” Work was not always to be secured when the children called for it. One mother said that her children went for snaps daily, and that often they had to call three or four times before they could get any. They were obliged to return the work at 6 o’clock the next morning. Some children said they stopped carding snaps because the contractor treated them “ roughly.” This contractor reported that she received 1 cent a gross from the manu“ See Appendix, p. 74. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 30 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OE CHILDREN. facturer and paid all home workers a flat rate of half a cent for card ing a gross o f snaps. The home workers, on the other hand, fre quently asserted that they received only one-quarter, one-third, or one-sixth of a cent per gross. Nearly one-fourth, 23 per cent, o f the children scheduled carded snaps. These 529 children—217 boys and 312 girls—all lived in Providence and constituted slightly over one-third of the children scheduled in that city. Forty of the children engaged in this work were under 6 years o f age. One mother said that her little boy of 4 learned how to card snaps when the family was working, and that he was “ crazy to do more.” Most o f the very young children would only put the knobs of the snaps through the holes in the cards and the older workers would snap the tops on. One little girl not quite 3 years old was found using a clothespin to press the tops o f the snaps on, to keep from hurting her fingers. The mother said that this child never worked more than a few minutes at a time. More than nine-tenths, or 482, o f the children working on snaps were under 14 years o f age, and more than half, or 289, were under 11. Stringing tags. Pieces of string were run through the holes in the tags and then tied. There were various kinds o f stringing, (1) single knot at the end o f the string on a slipknot at the hole o f the tag; (2) double knot— that is, one at the end o f the string and another at the hole o f the tag; (3) double stringing, which necessitated double knotting; (4) bob stringing—the attachment of a bob at the end of the string before it was tied. Sometimes the tags had to be bunched before they were returned. This meant that the tags were strung, knotted, 50 or 100 put on a needle or hairpin, both ends tied, and the ends of string carefully clipped without cutting the knots. The home workers reported receiving from 1 cent to 28 cents per 1,000 tags strung, while the manufacturers reported paying 10 to 30 cents per 1,000. Bunching was included under stringing. I f the tags were punched by the home workers, 8 cents extra per 1,000 was paid. I f the tags had to be kept in consecutive order, an additional sum was paid. One large printing establishment, the chief product o f which was tags, distributed almost all the tags on which children were found working. This producer stated that nearly all the tags manufactured were sent to the homes to be strung. Stringing tags for his factory, he said, was done by hand because very few machines adapted to the purpose were on the market. He thought that some companies had machines to string the various sizes o f tags, but that these machines were covered by patents. His company had installed one machine for stringing tags, but it could string only one size o f tags, without https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis OCCUPATIONS AND WORKING CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN. 31 metal edges or metal eyelets. Moreover, the same number o f workers was not required every day. Some days 20 were needed, while on other days 50 or 100 were required; hence work was given out to be done in homes. This establishment distributed the tags to the children at the factory. “ A man is on duty from 7 to 8 o’clock in the morning to distribute the work, and after school is another busy period,” said a member o f the company. “ The children apply for work every day and sometimes the same children come twice in the same day.” The tags were distributed in boxes o f 1,000, and the strings in bundles o f i00. They were packed in telescope bags. Stringing tags was done by 413 children, or 18 per cent o f all those scheduled; 169 boys and 244 girls. In Pawtucket 213 children did this work, while in Central Falls 156, or more than half the child home workers, were so engaged. In Providence only 44 children did tag stringing. Twenty-three children, or 5.6 per cent o f those who reported stringing tags, were under 6 years o f age. The younger children, as a rule, only put the strings through the holes, after which older children tied the knots. More than four-fifths o f the children engaged in this work were under 14, and about half were under 11. Thread drawing on lace. A breadth o f lace consisting o f a number of bands or insertions was given to the home worker. The threads holding the bands or insertions together were drawn out by the home worker in order to separate them. This was done by taking hold o f one end o f the thread with the fingers, or a hairpin, a needle, or scissors. The nar rower the lace, the more bands in a piece. A piece sometimes con tained as many as 292 bands. The rates varied with the number of bands that made up the piece. Pieces containing 61 bands or under were paid for at the rate o f 4£ cents per 100 yards; pieces o f over 61 bands were paid for at the rate o f 4 cents per 100 yards. The following is a sample computation: Number bands breadth (291 threads)________________ •____________________ Number yards length of each band______________________________________ ~ Total number yards of bands______________________________ ;_________ _ _ Number threads separating every two bands_____________________ ________ Total number of yards done_________________ ______:_______________________ Rate paid per 100 yards_______________ <____ l _______________________________ Amount home worker receives for the piece of lace which is made up of 292 bands 18 yards long____ _____________________________ _______________ 292 ^ g 256 ’ 2 ^0 512 0 4 2q48 Because o f the varying rates for thread drawing on lace and the different methods o f computing payments many workers did not know just how their payments were reckoned. Many o f the state- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 32 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. ments concerning rates for this kind of work were exceedingly vague, and showed how advantage might be taken of those who were un familiar with the methods of computing their earnings. A frequent reply was that they were paid “ so much for so much.” Others were paid for “ bundles completed,” but did not know how many yards were in the bundles. In some instances the children returned the finished work to the mill and took “ whatever they gave them ” with out asking the rates. Sometimes a contractor refused to tell the rates, but one mother thought they were paid 1 cent a row; the length of the rows varied. From the reports of those interviewed it wals found that the lace mills varied in their methods o f payment. One mother said that at the mill “ you had to take what they gave you,” and so she was unable to judge whether or not she was paid fairly. At another mill, on the other hand, a slip which gave the number o f bands and the number of threads was handed the wrorker before she was paid, and she could see for herself what the cashier should pay her. The manufacturing establishments reported paying from 3 to 5 cents per 100 yards for thread drawing on lace. The rates reported for the children for this unit varied from 1 to 8 cents. Some mothers said they were paid by the lot, from $2.70 to $5 per lot; some by the piece, from 1 cent to 2^ cents per piece ; others by the yard or by every 12 yards. Several reported $3.65 per web as the rate and unit o f pay. Lace was distributed directly from the mill to the workers and also through contractors. More than one-sixth, or 408, of the 2,338 children scheduled were engaged in thread drawing on lace. O f this number 171 were boys and 237 were girls. Only a little over 2 per cent of all those sched uled in Providence reported thread drawing. In Pawtucket, on the other hand, where several lace mills were situated, and in the ad joining city of Central Falls, about 40 per cent o f the children scheduled worked on lace. O f the 408 children engaged in thread drawing on lace, 351 were under 14; of these only 9 were under 6 and 162 were under 11 years o f age. The fact that thread drawing on lace was perhaps more difficult than either carding snaps or stringing tags, and that there was more danger of injury to the material, as well as the fact that the material was more valuable, probably accounts for the smaller percentage of very young children engaged in this work. Linking and wiring rosary beads. By means o f pliers the 59 beads constituting a rosary were linked or attached to each other. Sometimes the beads were already wired when given out, and sometimes the wiring was done in the homes. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 32-1 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis T H R E A D D R A W IN G ON LACE. 32-2 L IN K I N G AND W I R I N G ROSARY BEADS. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis OCCUPATIONS AND WORKING CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN. 33 In addition to ordinary linking, the hearts or centers and crucifixes were sometimes linked to the rosary. Before the chains or rosaries were returned to the factory the crucifixes were wrapped in tissue paper. A screw wedged into the upper part o f the opening o f a clothespin served as the mechanism for opening and closing the link. The worker, after pinching the link with the pliers, applied it to the groove in the head o f the screw. With a twist o f the pliers the link was closed or opened. A screw in a table, or a second pair of pliers, was occasionally substituted for the clothespin with the screw. A manufacturer said he paid, from 21 to 75 cents a dozen rosaries. The rate varied with the quality of the product. In some instances a contractor acted as the medium of distribution and had to make her profits. A woman who distributed the linking o f rosary beads to 50 home workers said that a few years before she had received 30 cents a dozen and paid the home workers 25 cents a dozen, but the rate gradually fell to 15 cents, which was the rate at the time this study was made. In wiring rosary beads a short wire with a hook at one end was run through the bead, and the other end o f this wire was bent with a pair o f pliers to form a hook or link like the first. The unit o f pay in most cases was the “ mess,” consisting o f 1,000 or 1,200 beads. The rates reported by the home workers varied from 15 to 40 cents per mess, as compared with 20 to 38 cents reported by the manufacturer and contractor. Work on rosary beads was distributed both directly and through contractors. A manufacturer who gave out a large amount of wiring and linking employed six contractors, and only in exceptional cases distributed work directly to home workers. Wiring or linking rosary beads was reported by 391 children, or more than one-sixth o f those scheduled; 126 of them were boys and 265 girls; 199 were engaged in linking and 192 in wiring. A ll but 13 o f the children working on rosaries lived in Providence, where the jewelry firms manufacturing ecclesiastical goods were situated; 4 children in Pawtucket and 9 in Central Falls reported work on rosaries. There were also 2 children in Providence and 3 in Paw tucket who both wired and linked rosary beads. As in thread drawing on lace, the number of children under 6 engaged in linking or wiring rosary beads was negligible. A child under 6 is far too young to handle pliers with any dexterity. The 7 young children found working on rosaries did not use the pliers. In the case o f linking, these children linked the beads together with their hands, and then another member of the family tightened the link with the pliers, while in wiring the little children, put the wire through the bead and another worker made the loop. Less than 74429°—22----- 5 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 34 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. half the children engaged on rosary beads, or 167, were under 11 years o f age, 343 were under 14, and only 48 were 14 or over. Setting stones. A number o f processes or different kinds o f setting were included under the general head of stone setting. In block settings the stone was held in place by means of glue or cement, and the cup in which the stone was placed was pressed over it with a stone setter or with pliers. The stone setter usually used by the children was a flattened nail like a screwdriver. Manufacturers said they paid 25 to 75 cents per gross o f stones. In beaded stone setting the stone was placed in a hole bored into the metal and the metal was then pushed tight against the stone by drilling four little beads around the hole. The manufacturer paid 7 to 50 cents per gross o f stones. Two kinds o f setting were included under soft point setting. In cup setting the stone was set in a cup-shaped setting, and the prongs were bent over it with a stone setter or with pliers. The rate o f pay generally reported was 8 cents per gross of stones. In Swiss setting the stone was set into a cavity formed by long prongs, and these prongs were then bent over the stone with a stone setter or with pliers. It took skill to place the stone accurately in this setting, as there was no cup. Rates o f from 15 to 25 cents per gross o f stones were generally reported for this work. In the process known as star cutting the star was cut with a cutter which also made prongs. A hole was then drilled with a pump drill for the stone, which was picked up by means of wax on the end o f a point and placed in this hole. The prongs were then bent over the stone to hold it in place. The producer said he paid 1^ cents per stone for this work. In stone setting on celluloid articles the stones were sometimes cemented into holes already drilled in the celluloid articles. Another method consisted o f first cementing tiny gold rings on the celluloid article and then placing the stones inside the rings. When hard stones were to be set the celluloid articles were sometimes heated on small electric stoves. The warmth melted the celluloid sufficiently to make the stones stick without an application o f cement. Five cents per gross of stones was the rate reported by the manufacturer. In pasting stones or pearls cement was first applied with a brush on the article and the pearls or stones were then put on the article. Ten cents per gross of pearls was the rate paid. In pasting stones or pearls in earrings the pearl or piece of jet was adjusted on the cup of the earring with a layer o f paste. The hole in the stone or jet fitted over a protruding piece in the cup of the earring. The rates reported by the manufacturing establishments https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis OCCUPATIONS AND W ORKING CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN. 35 varied from 3 cents to $2.16, while those reported by the home workers varied from 2 to 35 cents per gross of stones. Contractors, as well as manufacturers, distributed stone setting to the children. One mother stated that her daughter learned the trade o f stone setting at the shop of a contractor. The girl worked for two weeks without pay in order to recompense the contractor for teach ing her the trade ; she then taught her brother what she had learned. Since manufacturers and contractors were almost unanimous in stating that stone setting was done only by adults, it was surprising to find 127 children, 46 boys and 81 girls, engaged in the less diffi cult varieties o f this work. A ll these children lived in Providence. Five children under 6 years o f age were engaged in stone setting, but as in the other more difficult kinds of work these children performed only part o f the process. They placed the stone in the setting and some older member of the family turned down the prongs. O f the children engaged in this work 109 were under 14 and 53 were under 11. Carding shoe buttons. Shoe buttons were carded before they were lacquered. The shanks o f the buttons were pushed through perforations in a card. The most common units of pay reported by the home workers were the great gross and the card o f 444 buttons. The producers said they paid 8 cents a great gross, while the home workers reported that they received from one-fifth o f a cent to 1 cent a great gross. The con tractors paying by the card o f 444 buttons gave from i\ to 2J cents per card as the rate, while the rate for this unit reported by the chil dren was from three-quarters o f a cent to 2 cents. Shoe buttons were given out both directly by manufacturing estab lishments and indirectly through contractors. The carding was done by 76 children, all living in Providence, 31 boys and 45 girls. Five o f them were under 6 years o f age, 44 were under 11, and 69 were under 14. Finishing underwear. Under finishing underwear the following processes were included : Trimming, i. e., fastening or tying the ends o f the threads and cut ting the loose ends; running ribbon around the necks o f garments and tying it in bows; buttoning or pinning the garment, as the case, might require; smoothing the garments; folding the sleeves; tying the garments into bundles o f one dozen, and tying tickets to each dozen. One o f the manufacturers interviewed said that this work was done in the homes because “ it is tedious work and the girls in the https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 36 INDUSTRIAL HOM E W ORK OE CHILDREN. factory don’t like to do it.” This establishment employed 230 people in the factory and distributed work to 110 home workers. It had been giving out homework for 11 years. About half the work it gave ■ out in 1918 was on Navy underwear. One manufacturer reported that he paid from 6 to 15 cents a dozen for finishing, depending upon the size and style of underwear, while the rates reported by the home workers ranged from 2 to 18 cents a dozen. Finishing underwear was done by 72 children, 28 boys and 44 girls; 70 of them lived in Pawtucket, and 1 each in Providence and Central Falls. Only 1 child was reported as being under 6. Twenty-seven were (under 11 and 58 under 14. The percentage o f children 14 to 16 years of age was larger in underwear finishing than in any other of the principal kinds of children’s home work. Carding jewelry. The finished products were placed on cards ; the pin stems o f the jewelry were pushed through the cardboard; in some cases tissue paper was wrapped around the cards and in some the jewelry was packed in boxes after it was carded. Only the cheaper jewelry was carded in the homes. The worker was paid by the gross o f articles or cards, and, when payment was made in terms of the latter, usually more than one piece of jewelry was placed on a card. The producers reported pay ing 4 to 30 cents a gross ; the home workers said they received from 2 to 16 cents a gross. For carding and packing jewelry the home workers said they were paid from 2 to 20 cents for each gross o f articles. Jewelry was carded by 60 children, 25 boys and 35 girls, all living in Providence. One child was less than 6 years old, 27 were under 11, and 51 were under 14. In a great many cases contractors were the medium o f distribution for this work. P utting together chain fasteners. The spring o f the clasp was slipped into the socket or barrel part. Sometimes an additional process was done at home—that of open ing the spring o f the clasp with a penknife to make it ready to be slipped into the socket. All the home workers reported receiving 1 cent a gross for putting together chain clasps. The manufacturers said they paid from 1£ to 2^ cents a gross. For opening the spring, the manufacturers reported that they paid 2 cents extra per gross. Work on chain fasteners was done by 51 children, 26 boys and 25 girls; 45 o f tnem lived in Providence and ù in Pawtucket. Four o f these children were under 6 years o f age, 24 were under 11, and 43 were under 14. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis o c c u p a t io n s An d w o r k in g c o n d it io n s of c h il d r e n . 37 Assem bling m ilitary buttons. Assembling or rolling the edge o f military buttons, consisted in fastening the fronts over the backs. The parts were first fitted to gether and arranged in rows on a small narrow board. By means of a foot press, the parts were then joined together by rolling the edges o f the fronts over the backs. The eyes or holes were made in the back o f the buttons also by means o f a light foot press. The producer reported that he paid 4| cents per gross for assem bling or rolling the edges o f military buttons, while the home work ers reported S and 4 cents a gross. For “ swedging” the eyes, the rate o f 4 cents a gross was reported by producers and home workers. Military buttons were distributed both directly and through con tractors. W ork on military buttons was done by 86 children, 45 boys and 41 girls. The majority of these children worked only on the prelimi nary operation o f fitting the buttons together and arranging them on boards, while the others used foot presses for rolling the edges or u swedging ” the eyes. A ll the children working on military buttons, lived in Providence. Four o f them were under 6, 44 were under 11, and 74 were under 14. W o rk on Government contracts. During 1918 an abnormal situation existed in that some of the home work was done on distinctly war products, which were manu factured by certain Providence firms on direct or indirect contracts with the Government. Work on these war products was done by 129 children, or 5.5 per cent o f those included in the study. A ll these children lived in Providence* ^ Cartridge clips were assembled by 19 children. Into the base of each clip was slipped a spring that was to hold the five shells o f each group in place until they were forced into the rifle magazine. The contractor received 35 cents per 1,000 plus a $1 bonus on every 50,000 completed, while the home workers received 25 cents per 1,000. One contractor distributed all this work for a local firm engaged in the manufacture o f ammunition. The manager of this firm, when questioned as to why he had work done outside, said: “ The War Department urged speeding up. It was a matter o f winning the w ar; that’s the size o f it.” One child was engaged in assembling the adapter plugs which were used to prevent moisture from coming into contact, with the shell. He said he received 13 cents per 100 plugs, while the manufacturer reported paying $1.90 per keg o f 1,500 plugs. Two children reported that they worked on fusing copper terminals for the Navy Department. The contractor who gave out the copper terminals to 20 families said that she had received instructions from https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 38 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. the manufacturer not to permit any children to work on them. She made a house-to-house canvass every two weeks and sometimes every week, without previous warning to the workers, and i f she found any children working she cut off the work from that family. Presswork. Ninety-one children worked on seven processes which required the use of machines. Two o f these processes, rolling the edges and “ swedging ” the eyes of military buttons, have been mentioned pre viously (see p. 37). Cutting holes in snaps, making knobs on snaps, rolling edges on snaps, assembling collar buttons, and looping hosiery were the others. A ll this work was done on foot presses except the looping o f hosiery. O f the children who worked on presses, 32 were under 11 years o f age; 1 of these was only 4, and 2 were 6; 75 were under 14 years of age and 16 were over 14. , CONDITIONS OF WORK. W orkroom s. The family kitchen was the children’s workroom in the great ma jority of cases. More than four-fifths, or 853, o f the 1,042 families interviewed carried on their home work in this room. In some cases these kitchens were in basements. In 57 instances the dining room was used for work, in 30 the living room, and in 9 a bedroom. Home work was done by 40 families in rooms which served two other pur poses besides that of workshop; 21 families worked in combination kitchen-bedrooms, 10 in kitchen-living rooms, and 9 in kitchen-dining rooms. In some houses the same room was used for kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and workshop. In one case a dark closet off the kitchen was the workroom, while in other instances pantries, garages, storerooms, cellars, or sheds in the back yard were utilized. In one instance a number o f children in a neighborhood used a shed as a workroom for two hours every evening during a period of two months. They worked on the floor, by the light of a kerosene lamp. Lighting was poor in many o f the workrooms visited. Some rooms were dark in bright midday, the only light being a small gas jet in the ceiling very high above the heads of the workers. In some o f the houses there was no gas or electricity and the children worked by the light of kerosene lamps. One family was found stringing tags in a kitchen which was very dirty and had no windows. The workers depended for their light and air upon the windows o f the adjoining room. In the matter o f cleanliness and order there were evidences of extreme neglect in some o f the houses visited, but the conditions found in the majority o f houses were reported by the agents as good. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis OCCUPATIONS AND WORKING CONDITIONS OP CHILDREN. 39 Time o f working. The great majority of the children, 1,963 out o f the 2,338, or 84 per cent, reported, according to Table X , that they worked in the evening after supper. Even of the children under 6 years of age 71, or threefourths, worked in the evening. O f the 1,963 night workers, 1,860 did home .work also at some period during the day, usually in the afternoon after school hours, while only 103 did night work exclu sively. On the other hand, 373 reported that they worked only in the daytime, and 106 that they worked only during the summer vaca tion. Even during school hours, however, the children were not always free from home work; some of the teachers reported that pupils brought snaps to card or beads to string during recess. T a b l e X . — E ven in g w ork, b y a g e ; children reporting hom e w ork in 1918. Children reporting home work in 1918. Age of child. Total. Reporting evening Reporting no even work. ing work. Time not reported. Number. Percent.1 Number. Per cent.1 AIL ages___ 2,338 1,963 84.0 Under 6 years... 6 years................ 7 years................ 8 years................. 9 years................. 10 years............... 11 y ea rs............. 12 years___ ____ 13 years............... 14 years............... 15 years............... 16 years............... Age not reported 95 108 141 209 242 274 322 315 310 191 97 32 2 71 85 123 180 199 228 274 268 261 161 83 28 74.7 78.7 87.2 24.2 21.3 86.1 13.9 17.8 16.8 14.9 14.9 15.8 15.7 13.4 82.2 83.2 85.1 85.1 84.2 84.3 85.6 373 16.0 12.8 2 1 Not shown where base is less than 50. As to the hours o f night work, it will be o f interest to note the schedules reported for a few o f the children: A child 14 years o f age worked on stringing tags four nights a week until 11 o’clock, December and January. A child 11 years o f age worked on tags from 6 to 10 p. m. and sometimes to 11 or 12, to finish work so it could be returned the next day, January to September. A child 8 years o f age worked on stringing tags from 6 to 10 p. m. and sometimes until 11 or 12, January to September. A child 7 years o f age worked on tags from 5.30 to 9 p. m. (sometimes she fell asleep in her chair before 9 p. m.) four or five nights a week, September to December. Some o f the mothers said that the children sometimes fell asleep at their work. “ A ------ often works on carding jewelry until very https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 40 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. late at night,” commented one mother, “ but S------ goes to sleep on them and we put her to bed.” ’ In homes where presses were used accidents were frequent, both to the persons working on them and to children playing with the presses. Fingers were crushed, cut or bruised in the presses, and in some cases children had the ends o f their fingers cut off. Loss o f finger nails, and running needles and dies through fingers, were also reported. O f the children considered in this study 20 had regular employ ment for 8 or 10 hours a day. On their return from the store or fac tory they ate their suppers and then started home work, often con tinuing it until a late hour of the night. TESTIMONY CONCERNING PHYSICAL INJURIES FROM HOME WORK. Many complaints were made by workers concerning the injurious physical effects o f home work. Eyestrain was reported for 117 chil dren during the year covered by the inquiry, and in numerous in stances the workers stated that they had to begin wearing glasses as a result o f carding snaps, linking and wiring rosary beads, string ing tags, and setting stones. One mother said that after her little girl had painted flags for 10 or 15 minutes she would complain that they “ began to walk.” Carding snaps made sores and blisters on fingers, and the pliers used in linking beads also caused blisters and callouses. Inexperienced workers at thread drawing on lace often cut their fingers on the threads. Some o f the teachers who were interviewed had observed signs of fatigue in certain children which they attributed to home work. An ex-principal said that home workers came to school in the morn ing tired and listless. He said he had also observed a lack o f proper physical development which he traced to the performance of home work after school and late at night. Another teacher said she knew o f cases where children were allowed no playtime at all and worked until late at night, and that these children came to school utterly exhausted. Another teacher reported that children came to school worn out because the whole family got up at 5 o’clock in the morn ing to do home work after working late the night before. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis E A R N IN G S OF H OM E W O R K E R S . MAXIMUM HOURLY EARNINGS OF CHILDREN. Information concerning hourly earnings could be obtained for only 956 children, or a little more than two-fifths of the 2,338 in cluded in the study. The estimates o f earnings for a given period o f time were computed by the agents from statements made by the parents or older children; only cases in which a fair degree o f accu racy was attainable were considered. In other cases information was not available for a number o f reasons, the chief o f which were: (1) In a great many instances the child worked as a member o f a team with other members of the family; (2) some children never ^worked continuously for an hour; (3) some workers and parents had never thought o f home work in terms o f time spent and conse quently could not make accurate estimates. The estimates obtained did not represent the average hourly earning power o f the individu als in question, but rather the amounts which they could earn by working at full speed for an hour; such amounts might actually have been earned only once or on a very few occasions. Hence the designation “ maximum hourly earnings ” has been used. A maximum earning capacity o f less than 1 cent an hour was re ported, as shown in Table X I , by 45 children; 13 o f these children could earn only half a cent an hour, while 32 could earn larger frac tions o f a cent. More than half the 956 children reported maximum earnings of less than 5 cents an hour; nearly four-fifths o f them re ported less than 10 cents; about nine-tenths reported less than 15 cents; while only 3 per cent could earn 25 cents or more an hour. T able X I .— M a xim u m h ou rly earnings b y a g e ; children reporting hom e w ork in 1918. Children o: specified ages, December, 1918, reporting home work. 6 years, under Total. 11 years, under 14. 14 years, under Maximum hourly earnings. Num ber. Under Per 6 years. cent distri bution. Num ber. \ i ) Per cent' Num ber. distri bution. Total............................. 956 100.0 15 315 100.0 462 Less than 1 cent.................... 1 cent, less than 5.................. 5 cents, less than 10............... 10 cents, less than 15.............. 15 cents, less than 20.............. 20 cents and over................... 45 438 276 84 51 162 4.7 45.8 28.9 8.8 5.3 6.5 7 6 24 184 75 18 7 7 7.6 58.4 23.8 5.7 2.2 2.2 12 204 146 39 25 36 2 Per Num cent ber. distri bution. 100.0 2.6' 44.2 31.6 8.4 5.4 7.8 Per cent distri bution 164 100.1 2 44 55 25 19 19 1.2 26.8 33.5 15.2 11.6 11.5 i Includes 34, 20 cents but less than 25; 7, 25 cents but less than 30; 13, 30 cents but less than 40; 3, 40 cents but less than 50; 2, 50 cents; 2, 60 cents, and 1, $1 an hour. 41 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 42 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. A relatively larger number of reports o f maximum hourly earnings was obtained from the older children than from the younger ones. Table X I shows also that in general the older children were able to earn more than the younger ones. The three kinds o f work on which the largest numbers of children were engaged—snap carding, tag stringing, and thread drawing— were also the kinds at which they could earn the least. Almost all the children who reported maximum earnings o f less than 1 cent an hour were engaged in these three kinds of work, while o f the children so engaged three-fourths o f those reporting failed to earn as much as 5 cents an hour. Even at stone setting, one o f the more profitable kinds o f work, more than 63 per cent o f the children reporting earned less than 10 cents an hour; while at jewelry carding, for which the highest earnings were reported, 53 per cent o f those reporting failed to earn as much as 10 cents an hour. Children’s earnings for the 11 kinds o f work on which most o f them were engaged are given in Table X I I . T a b l e X I I .— Maximum hourly earnings, by kind of home w o r k ; children report ing maximum hourly earnings from home work in 1918. Children engaged in each specified kind of work. Children reporting specified maximum hourly earnings. Less than 5 cents. Kind of work. Total. 5 cents, less than 10. 10 cents and over. Total. Carding snaps......... .............. Stringing tags. . . .................. Thread drawing on lace...... . Linking rosary beads............ Wiring rosary beads............. Setting stones........................ Assembling military buttons. Carding shoe buttons............ ’Finishing underwear............ Carding jewelry..................... Putting chain fasteners to gether................................ Number. Per cent.1 Number. Per cent.1 Number. 81.2 81.1 57.0 40.2 23 25 40 56 42 18 2 7 11 8 15.4 14.3 35.1 50.0 5 8 9 11 7 21 3 1 5 7 529 413 408 199 192 127 82 76 72 60 149 175 114 112 70 57 10 29 20 15 121 142 65 45 21 18 5 21 4 51 12 5 3 4 Maxi mum hourly earn ings Per not re cent.1 ported. 3.4 4.6 ’ 7.9 9.8 380 238 294 87 122 70 72 47 52 45 39 1 Not shown where base is less than 100. MAXIMUM HOURLY EARNINGS OF ADULTS. The maximum hourly earning power of adult home workers was not one o f the subjects of inquiry in this study, but since informa tion on this subject was obtained in 82 instances it is o f interest to compare the earning power o f these adults with that o f the children. Many o f the adults for whom information’ was obtained were en gaged on typical children’s occupations—drawing threads on lace, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis EARNINGS OF HOM E WORKERS. 43 linking rosary beads, finishing underwear, carding snaps, stringing tags, carding jewelry, assembling military buttons, setting stones, and wiring rosary beads. Adults had a considerably higher earning power than children. Only 17 per cent o f the adults reported that they could earn less than 5 cents an hour, as compared with 51 per cent o f the children, while an earning power o f 20 cents or more an hour was reported by 30 per cent o f the adults, as compared with only 7 per cent of the children. MAXIMUM HOURLY EARNINGS OF GROUPS. One o f the reasons for failure to secure more estimates of children’s maximum hourly earnings was that.the children very often worked with other members o f the family: In fact, the family group was the customary working unit. Estimates of maximum hourly earn ings were obtained for 136 such groups. The same kinds o f home work were found to predominate among the families reporting group earnings as among the children alone. Carding snaps was the occupation o f 49 families reporting group earnings. In this occupation the maximum earnings per group per hour in the majority o f cases fell between 5 and 8 cents, while the 202 persons in the 49 groups could earn in one hour $3.03, an average per person per hour o f less than 2 cents. Group earnings for stringing tags were analyzed for 33 families. The maximum earnings per hour, in the majority of cases, fell be tween 8 and 19 cents, while the 147 persons composing the 33 groups could earn $4.28, a little less than 3 cents an hour per worker. Averages were computed for 27 families reporting thread drawing on lace. The 96 persons in these 27 families could earn $3.29 in one hour, or a little over 3 cents per person. Seventeen families reported hourly earnings for linking rosary beads. In an hour the 54 home workers in these groups could earn $2.59, an average of less than 5 cents an hour per worker. Wiring rosary beads was even less profitable. At this 15 families consist ing of 48 persons could earn $2.01 in an hour, or a little over 4 cents per person. Fifteen groups, reported finishing underwear. The 54 persons in these groups could make $2.76 an hour, a little over 5 cents per person. Earnings for stone setting were a trifle higher. In the majority o f cases the maximum hourly earnings were from 10 to 13 cents, and the 46 persons comprising 15 groups could earn about 7-| cents an hour. The summary for the groups engaged on the seven kinds o f work enumerated is given in Table X I I I . https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 44 INDUSTRIAL H OM E WORK OF CHILDREN. T a b l e X I I I .— Monthly hourly earnings by number in group; groups reporting home work in 7 kinds of work in 1918. Number of home workers in group. Total................................................................... ' 9 ..................................................................................................... Total of Average Average maxi maxi of maxi Number Number mum mum mum of of home earnings hourly earnings groups. workers. earnings in an in an per hour. hour. person. 136 469 15.21 0 .1 1 39 78 4.77 .1 2 .06 38 14 6 4 152 70 36 28 4.27 1.07 .47 .73 .u .08 .08 .18 .03 .02 .01 .03 35. 4 ......................................................................................... 0.03 It should be noted that the average maximum earnings per hour per person for the groups o f two, three, and four persons each were higher than those for the groups o f five and six workers, and that, in spite o f the higher earning power o f adults, the m a x im u m earnings in these mixed groups averaged practically as low as those o f children working alone. Only the groups o f two home workers each, includ ing 78, or about one-sixth o f the 469 persons in all the groups, could earn as much as 5 cents an hour per person. GROUP EARNINGS FOR PERIODS OTHER THAN AN HOUR. Since the hour was an arbitrary unit selected for the purposes of the study, and the hourly earnings given represent maximum rather than average earnings, it will be illuminating to cite a few typical instances o f earnings reported by workers during longer periods. A family o f six reported carding snaps one day from 4 in the afternoon until supper and then again after supper until 11 p. m. They completed 50 gross o f snaps and earned 50 cents, an average per person o f less than 9 cents for an afternoon and evening o f work. Another family o f five reported carding snaps every evening, some working until 8 p. m., others until midnight or later. Four workers reported carding 10 gross o f snaps one evening and earning 5 cents. Complaints o f the poor rates were general. One worker said, “ When you stop all you got is a stiff neck and a half a cent a gross.” Five persons, stringing tags all one evening, earned 20 cents, while another group o f five working all day earned only 12 cents. Two groups o f four each worked all one day, and in one case the earnings were 24 cents and in the other 36 cents, an average per person per day in the one case o f 6 and in the other of 9 cents. A third group o f four working all day and all evening finished only 1,000 tags, for which they received 10 cents. Three workers strung enough tags in 3 hours to net them 8 cents, while another group o f two earned 12 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 45 EARNINGS OF HOM E WORKERS. cents in the same period o f time. The highest earnings reported were for a group of two who worked one day and one evening and made $1.18, 59 cents per person. Two other groups o f two persons each worked two days and each completed 1,000 tags, for which they received 10 and 12 cents respectively. The rates for stringing tags were commonly called “ starvation pay.” At thread drawing on lace, five persons working one evening made 14 cents; two groups o f four each working one evening made 12 and 15 cents, respectively; while a group o f three working until midnight one night earned 20 cents. Seven persons working for an afternoon and evening at putting together chain fasteners earned 50 cents, while 8 persons working one day made 25 cents. ANNUAL EARNINGS OF FAMILIES. Annual earnings from home work were reported for families, since pay for this work was given not to each individual worker but to one member o f the family, who took the responsibility for the work done by the family. Only in the cases where there was only one home worker in a family were individual annual earnings reported. The total yearly earnings from home work in 1918 o f all the famivlies reporting are given in Table X IV . T able XIV .— Total family earnings from home work in 1918; families reporting total earnings. Families reporting total earnings. Total earnings in 1918 from home work. i 1 Total Per cent Number. distribu tion. »928 100.0 527 148 147 69 37 56.8 15.9 15.8 7.4 4.0 earnings from home work in 1918 were not reported for 114 of the total of 1,042 families studied. According to this table more than half (56.8 per cent) o f the 928 families which reported total family earnings from home work for the year earned less than $25, while 7.4 per cent earned between $100 and. $200, and only 4 per cent earned $200 or over. From these figures it is evident how small a percentage o f the families were able to raise their income in any appreciable degree by their earnings from home work. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 46 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. Number o f months o f work during the year. Annual earnings from home work do not in most cases, o f course, represent returns from steady employment throughout the year. The seasonal and irregular character o f home work appeared more clearly in the reports o f home workers than in those o f manufactur ing establishments. Only one-tenth of the families reporting did home work during 12 months o f the year, slightly more than onethird had work in the house for as much as six months o f the year, more than two-fifths of them had home work for three months or less, while nearly one-fourth had it for two months or less. The de tailed figures are given in Table X V . T able X V . — Number of calendar months in which home work was done; families reporting home work in 1918. Families reporting home work in 1918. * Number of calendar months in which home work was done in 1918. Per cent Number. distribu tion. Total 1 month........ 2 months...... 3 months___ 4 months----5 months___ 6 months___ 7 m onths..... ¿months___ 9 months----10 months__ 11 months... 12 months__ Not reported. 1,042 100.0 1 243 204 133 71 77 59 35 40 33 20 109 17 0.1 23.3 19.6 12.8 6.8 7.4 5.7 3.4 3.8 3.2 1.9 10.5 1.6 O f the 243 families having work in the house for only 2 months 142, or more than half, earned less than $10 and only 1 earned $100 or more. O f the 204 families which did home work for 3 months 100 earned less than $10, and only 4 earned $100 or more. O f the 77 families having work in the house 6 months, over half earned $25 or more and 8 earned $100 or more, while of the 33 families which worked for 10 months, 7 earned less than $25 and 11 earned $100 or more. O f the 109 families which reported home work throughout the year, 4 earned less than $10, 10 earned from $10 to $24, 13 earned from $25 to $49, 24 earned from $50 to $99, 26 earned from $100 to $199, 10 earned from $200 to $299, 4 earned from $300 to $399, 1 earned between $400 and $500, and 2 earned $500 and over. Number o f workers in fam ilies. The number o f workers in the families, another factor affecting earnings, is shown in Table X V I. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 47 EARNINGS OF HOME WORKERS. T a b l e X Y I . — Number of home workers in family, families reporting home work in 1918. ' Families reporting home work in 1918. Number of home workers in family. Per cent Number. distribu tion. 1,042 100.0 76 249 276 222 113 65 41 7.3 23.9 26.5 21.3 10.8 6.2 3.9 1 Includes 10 fam ilies with 8 home workers, 1 with 9, and 1 with 12. O f the 76 home workers who worked alone— all children, since only families in which there was a child worker were included in the study—51 per cent earned less than $5 a year, 68 per cent earned less than $10, and only two earned $50 or over. O f the 249 groups of 2 workers each, 35 per cent earned less than $10, 50 per cent earned less than $20, and 22 per cent earned $50 or over. Groups of 5 to 8 home workers earned in some instances less than $10 and in a few instances they earned $500 or more. Illustrative examples o f fam ily earnings. Illustrative examples o f family earnings during the year are given in this section. It must be borne in mind that many of the children worked in snatches rather than steadily, but the time devoted to the work and therefore lost for purposes o f recreation or rest, as set over against the returns received, is important. Two children did stone setting, for which they were paid from 4 to 8 cents per gross o f stones. They worked after school, during the vacation period, and about three evenings a week, for a period o f 12 months. The maximum amount earned during one week was 75 cents, and during the year they earned $14. Two other children wired and capped rosary beads for 11 months and carded shoe buttons for 1 month. They worked after school and during vacation, and in the evening until 9.30 and sometimes, when there were rush orders, until 11.30. Their maximum weekly earn ings were $1, and their total earnings for the year were $10, an average of less than 10 cents a week apiece. A mother and two children, one of whom was engaged in regular employment all day, worked at thread drawing on lace. One o f the children worked before school and during most of the day when there was no school, and the mother and sister helped her in the evenings. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 48 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. The earnings for the nine months during which the work was con stantly in the house were $18. Four workers, two children and their parents, assembled rosaries at 45 cents a dozen for 12 months. The children worked after school and during vacation. In the evenings after supper they were assisted by their parents until 9 o’clock. Their earnings for the year were $117, less than $2.50 per month per person. The mother said: “ Rosary beads are interesting. I figure like this: I have two chil dren and would rather be at home to get them something to eat at meal time. Only trouble with that work is that you have to stay right with it all the time or you won’t make anything.” Five home workers carded snaps and worked on military buttons during a period o f five months, with total earnings o f $11. The home work was done not only after school, but in ,the evenings for three o f the five months. Three school children and three adults who worked in a jewelry establishment during the day, worked in the evenings for two and a half hours for six months putting together chain fasteners and setting stones. Their total earnings for the six months were $22.79. Another family o f seven workers wired rosary beads at 16 cents per 1,20,0 and carded snaps at one-half to threefourths cent per gross. They worked during seven months and earned $115. One family o f five, frequently assisted by an aunt and a cousin, earned $621 in 1918, working the entire year. During six months the father had no other employment but home work. Six kinds o f work were done—carding shoe buttons, carding snaps, putting together chain fasteners, linking cuff buttons, assembling military buttons, and setting stones. A t one time two presses were in the house, which were used in the work on military buttons. HOME WORK AS A MEANS OF SUPPLEMENTING FAMILY INCOME. The fact that the family income from other sources was insufficient was reported by 217 families as the reason for doing home work. In these cases, where the economic incentive to work was strongest, it is important to consider how much the families were able to earn. In the 165 families reporting “ family need ” as the motive for doing the work, the average yearly earnings from home work were $80.17, as compared with an average o f $48.17 for all families report ing annual earnings. The comparatively high average o f this group is due to the inclusion o f a few cases with very high earnings; for example, one case o f yearly earnings o f $789 raises the average for the 165 cases by $4.78. The median earnings for. this group are found to be slightly under $50, as compared with a median of slightly under $25 for all families reporting earnings. In a number https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis EARNINGS OE HOME WORKERS. 49 o f these cases the father was dead or had deserted the family. One widow did home work for an entire year, being assisted in the evenings by her two daughters. The mother said she frequently sat up almost all night at the work, and that it “ nearly put her eyes out.” The earnings of this family from home work during the year were $182. Another widow worked on rosary beads and stone setting for two months and was assisted by her four children. She said they worked every night until 10. In the two months they earned $44.44. Three little girls started thread drawing on lace because “ father was ill and couldn’t work much, and all the children had to help support the family.” The girls worked after school and were assisted by their parents in the evenings. The mother stated that for several weeks she and the father worked all night two or three times a week. During eight months the total earnings o f the family from this work on lace were $69. Three other children started home work because the family “ didn’t have enough money with only on3 man working.” They carded shoe buttons and mili tary buttons and wired rosary beads. The work was in the house for 10 months, and the total earnings were $15. Another family worked at pairing, labeling, and packing shoe laces. The father was not well enough to go out and he and the mother and two sons, 18 and 14 years o f age, spent 8 hours a day at the work for 7 nAonths. Two other children assisted in the eve nings. During the 11 months in which the work was in the house the earnings of the family were $789. These relatively high earn ings were possible only through the full-time work o f the father and two sons o f school age. In 52 cases families reported that, while there was no actual “ family need,” they did home work in order to supplement the family income. The average earnings of these families from home work during 1918 were $64.72, or $16.55 higher than the average for all families reporting. A family of 12 was dependent upon 2 wage earners whose total income from regular employment in 1918 was $1,562. The mother secured some lace and made her 5 children work on it. The 6 home workers, working every day during school vacation and three nights a week from 7 to 9 o’clock, earned $32. The earnings o f the father o f another family of 4 were $942, and the mother, with the assistance o f her two boys, earned $325 doing thread drawing and scalloping on lace, bringing the family income up to $1,267. Another mother and two children working on military buttons for 9 months earned $276, and in this way increased thA total income of the family o f 6 from $910 to $1,186. The earnings o f these two families were exceptional. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 50 IN D U S T R IA L HOME WORK OF C H IL D R E N . Five home workers, three of them children, worked at hitching and pinning up jewelry in the evenings during a period o f six months. Their total earnings were $33, increasing the family in come from $575 to $608. The extent to which the father’s earnings in all the families sched uled were supplemented by earnings from home work is indicated in Table X V II. T a b l e X V II . — Fam ily earnings from home work, hy father's earnings in 1 y e a r ; families reporting home work in 1918. Families earning specified amounts from home work in a year. Less than $5. Father’s earnings in 1 year. $5, less than $10. $10,less than $25. $25, less than $100. $100 and over. Earnings not reported. Total. Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per Num Per ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. Total............ 1,042 173 16.6 152 14.6 202 19.4 295 28.3 106 10.2 114 10.9 No earnings........... Under $650............ $650 to $1,250......... $1,250 and, over___ Earnings not reported................. 106 113 575 166 22 23 87 33 20.8 20.4 15.1 19.9 13 19 78 32 12.3 16.8 13.6 19.3 21 15 118 35 19.8 13.3 20.5 21.1 27 39 172 39 25.5 34.5 29.9 23.5 11 6 65 18 10.4 5.3 11.3 10.8 12 11 55 9 11.3 9.7 9.6 5.4 82 8 9.8 10 12.2 13 15.9 18 22.0 6 7.3 27 32.9 I f the median earnings from home work are computed for each of the groups classified by fathers’ earnings, it appears that the lowest groups have slightly higher median earnings than the two upper groups. This confirms the statement made above, that the families reporting family need as the reason for taking up home work tended to earn slightly more from such work than other families. The table also brings out clearly that in a great proportion of families, even where family need existed, the earnings from home work formed no considerable addition to the family income. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SO CIAL A SP E C TS O F H OM E W O R K . HOME WORK AND CHILD-LABOR STANDARDS. State compulsory education law. The compulsory education law o f Rhode Island16 required all children between 7 and 16 years o f age to attend school during the entire school term, with the following exceptions: (1) Children be tween 14 and 16 years of age who were “ lawfully employed at labor, or at service, or engaged in business;” (2) children who had com pleted the first eight grades; (3) children whose physical or mental condition made attendance inexpedient or impracticable; (4) chil dren who were not provided with suitable clothing, and whose parents were unable to furnish such clothing for them; and (5) children excluded from school “ by virtue o f some general law or regulation.” The law also required a certificate for every child between 14 and 16 years o f age employed in any factory, manufacturing, or business establishment.17 Fifteen children 7 years o f age and over included in the study had never attended school. Some of these children were supposed by their families to be mentally defective, but no record was found to show that they had been excused from school attendance. Other children had left school to work, but no records could be found of their ever having taken out employment certificates. Still others had received employment certificates, but either had never been em ployed or had left their positions to work at home. A few children who had obtained special permission to leave school temporarily, in some cases because o f illness in the family, had remained away per manently and were doing home work. In one case two boys were excused from school with the recommendation that they be admitted to special classes, but their parents kept them at home to help in pairing and packing shoe laces. Several school principals who had charge of large numbers of children who did home work said that this work kept children from school. “ We have run across several instances where children stayed away from school because of home work,” remarked one principal. He said that the attendance at his school was poorer than that at any i* General Laws, Rhode Island, 1909, ch. 72, sec. 1, as amended by Acts of 1917, ch. 1492. 17 General Laws, Rhode Island, 1909, ch. 78, sec. 1, as amended by Acts of 1916, eh. 1378. 61 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 52 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. other school in the city, and he attributed this fact to one o f two conditions: Ignorance o f the school laws on the part o f the parents; or the large amount o f factory work done at home by the children. One superintendent of schools said that a former truant officer complained about the children staying away from school to do industrial work in the home. A principal stated that children were constantly staying at home to help their mothers, and he was under the impression that they might really be helping at home work. The head of a school in the heart of the home-work district said that children were kept at home to work or were sent to school late after calling at the factory for work, and that this fact constituted the chief evil o f the home work system. State and Federal child-labor laws. The Rhode Island child-labor law 18 required that no child under 14 years o f age should be employed in any factory, manufacturing, or business establishment, while the Federal law 19 provided “ That no producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for ship ment in interstate or foreign commerce * * * any article or commodity the product o f any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, situated in the United States, in which within thirty days prior to the removal o f such product there from children under the age o f fourteen years have been employed or permitted to work, or children between the ages o f fourteen years and sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work more than eight hours in any day, or more than six days in any week, or after the hour o f seven o’clock postmeridian, or before the hour of six o’clock antemeridian.” Altogether, 2,016, or 86.2 per cent, o f the home workers included in this study were under 14 years of age. Workers, manufacturers, and other citizens frequently declared that home work was a means of “ getting around ” the child-labor laws. One o f the manufacturers stated the situation plainly, from his point o f view, when he said: “ The ablest time in a child’s life is from 12 to 14; the fingers are nimble and quick to catch on. The Government steps in and says the child can’t work in the factory under 14; ergo, home work. Able, healthy girls from 14 up want to work and need the money. Government steps in and says they can’t work more than 8 hours; again home work is forced upon the manufacturer. The Government does not seem to see the point of view of business or labor.” On the other hand, some manufacturers deplored the evasion o f child-labor laws. 18 General Laws, Rhode Island, 1909, ch. 78, sec. 1, as amended by A cts of 1916, ch. 1378. 19 This law went into effect Sept. 1, 1917, and was declared unconstitutional June 3, Hence it was in effect during only 5 o f the 12 m onths covered by this study. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HOM E W ORK. 53 State law lim iting hours o f labor. * K > r Under the Rhode Island law women and minors under 16 years of age were not permitted to work more than 54 hours a week or 10 hours a day in any factory, manufacturing, mechanical, business, or mercantile establishment.20 Manufacturers who gave out home work to their women and minor factory employees were deliberately thwarting the purpose o f this law. One o f the manufacturers said : “ This is the way we beat the law. We have a slack season in our industry, and when there is a rush period—that is, the regular season—the girls like to take work home. They can’t work overtime in the factory.” Some manu facturers opposed overtime work in evasion o f the law, and one of them said : “ I would like to see home work prohibited. Eight hours a day is enough for all people. Women should take care o f their homes and children and should certainly not do home work.” State workmen’s compensation law. Under the Rhode Island law 21 factory workers were compensated for injuries received in the course of their duties, but no such pro tection was accorded to home workers. Hence producers could lessen their expenditures for insurance and medical services by the use of the home-work system. As already stated, foot presses were often ^‘ installed in the homes and operated by children, and home workers reported frequent accidents from these presses. Injuries received in the performance o f industrial work in the home were not covered by the Rhode Island workmen’s compensation law. FACTORY WORK IN THE SCHOOLS. It was found that in a number of instances factory work was done by children either in the classrooms o f the public schools or in the homes at the suggestion o f teachers. During the school canvass agents o f the Children’s Bureau, when visiting classrooms in various schools, saw the children in the special classes carding snaps and stringing rosary beads during the school session. When questioned about this the supervisor o f special classes in one o f the cities said that the appropriation for manual training work in these classes had been cut and the teachers were put on their own resources to obtain materials. In this predicament some teachers had resorted to factory work. The supervisor said, however, that she disapproved the prac tice, and in a case reported to her a short time before had forbidden • j^ its continuance. Two teachers of special classes reported that they -----.---- --------------------------------- —--------- ^ — 20 General Laws, Rhode Island, 1909, ch. 249, sec. 22, as amended by A cts of 1915, ch. 1218. 21 Rhode Island, Acts of 1912, ch. 831, as amended by A cts of 1913, ch. 936 and 937, by Acts of 1915, ch. 1268, and by A cts of 1917, ch. 1534. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 54 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. had permitted their pupils to card snaps for a period each day dur ing the Red Cross drive in the spring o f 1918. One o f these teachers said that most of the children attending the school in which she' taught worked on either snaps or rosary beads, and that she thought in general it was a good practice. “ Children should be kept off the streets, and that can’t be done unless there is some occupation pro vided for them in their homes,” she said. “ There is no danger of children being overworked in this district; the trouble is they are all too lazy.” She thought it especially important that the feeble minded children in the special classes should be kept busy every minute o f the day. Other teachers reported that they had kept children after school to do factory work in order to raise money for various war funds. In one case the childen worked on chain fasteners for 15 minutes after school each day, while stories were read aloud to them. One hundred children working 15 minutes three afternoons a week—that is, for a total o f 45 minutes—could do 50 gross of the fasteners and earn $1 each week, a rate per child o f 1£ cents an hour. Another teacher suggested to her pupils that each one should work 15 minutes a day on snaps in order to earn 10 or 15 cents a week toward the payment of their pledges. She put on the blackboard the name o f a contractor who gave out snaps and rosary beads, so that the children would know where to go for the work. This teacher said, nevertheless, that in some cases the effects o f home work had seemed to her detri mental. The superintendent of schools in this city said that the teachers had been under great pressure to obtain funds, so that he did not greatly blame them for resorting to these methods, but that he did not think in future he would permit factory work in connec tion with the schools. In another instance tags were strung after school hours in a sev enth-grade classroom for one week before the Christmas holidays in order to raise money for an entertainment to which each room was expected to contribute $5. The work was wholly voluntary. Twenty children could do 5,000 tags in an hour and a half by divid ing the process. Some of them got the strings ready, others put them through the tags and tied them, and still others bunched the tags. Yet with this efficient procedure the 20 children could earn only 60 cents in the hour and a half. In still another case a former school principal said that one class had worked for 15 minutes each day at stringing tags and the money earned (which usually amounted to $3 or $4 a week) was contributed to the Red Cross or for the relief o f European war orphans. He said he introduced factory work into the school because the other schools in the city were doing it. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 55 SOCIAL ASPECTS OE HOME W ORK. RETARDATION AMONG CHILD WORKERS. Almost three-tenths of the home-working children between 9 and 13 years old who reported their school grades, as shown in Table X V II I, were retarded, one-tenth of them being two or more grades below the very conservative standard adopted as a measure of retar dation at their various ages.22 T able XVIII — Retardation, by a ge; children 9 to 13 years of age reporting home w ork in 1918.1 Children aged 9 to 13 years whose grades were reported. Retarded. Normal. Age. Total. Num ber. Total, 9 to 13 years — 9 years.................................... 10 years................................. 11 years................................. 12 years.................................. 13 years.................................. 2 years or over. Total. Per cent. Num ber. Per cent. 1 year. Num ber. Per cent. Num ber. Per cent. 1,359 389 28.6 145 10.7 244 18.0 744 54.7 231 258 301 290 279 36 49 86 98 120 15.6 19.0 28.6 33.8 43.0 5 10 29 40 61 2.2 3.9 9.6 13.8 21.9 31 39 57 58 59 13.4 15.1 18.9 20.0 21.1 146 168 167 137 126 63.2 65 1 55.5 47.2 45 2 Children aged 9 to 13 years whose grades were reported—Continued. Children aged 9 to 13 years whose grades were not reported. Advanced. Age. Over 1 year. Total. Num ber. Total, 9 to 13 years----9 years.................................... 10 years.......................... ....... 11 years.................................. 12 years................................. 13 years........................... . .. 226 49 41 48 55 33 Per cent. Num ber. Per cent. In In un 2 years or over. graded special Not re classes. classes. ported. Num ber. Per cent. 16.6 179 13.2 47 3.5 56 29 17 21.2 15.9 15.9 19.0 11.8 37 31 40 42 29 16.0 12.0 13.3 14.5 10.4 12 10 8 13 4 5.2 3.9 2.7 4.5 1.4 3 6 12 15 20 2 4 8 6 9 e 5 1 4 2 1 A child was considered to be retarded who at 9 years of age had not completed the second grade, at 10 the third grade at 11 the fourth grade, at 12 the fifth grade, and at 13 the sixth grade. The ages shown arc the ages as of December, 1918;, — in classifying the ,children as arctneages-----------------Mffil— „ . IB,., , to retardation, their ages are estimated as of the end of the school year, when they completed their grades. The percentage of retarded children was least, less than one-fifth, among the 9-year-old children, increasing with each year of age until at 13 years more than two-fifths of all the child home workers who reported their grades were found to be retarded, over half of them two or more years. 32 The standard of retardation adopted was as fo llo w s : Children were considered to be retarded who at 9 years of age had not completed the second grade, at 10 the third grade, at 11 the fourth grade, a t 12 the fifth grade, and at 13 the sixth grade. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 56 INDUSTRIAL HOME W ORK OF CHILDREN. To what extent, if any, home work was a factor in producing re tardation, it is impossible to determine. A low standard o f living and non-English-speaking parentage were no doubt in many cases causes o f slow progress in school. The increase in the amount o f retardation with each year o f age may have been due partly to the fact that the, children of less than normal mentality do not reach the limit o f their capacity to learn during the earlier years of their school life, and so do not influence retardation figures so strikingly as in later years. It may be, how ever, that the increase was a direct result o f home work, since on the one hand <the older children probably did a greater amount of home work than the younger ones, and, on the other hand, these older children were often expected to do more or less home studying, which was impossible if they were burdened with industrial work after the school day was over. While an hour or two a day spent at work need not in itself seri ously interfere with a child’s success in school, it is certain that periods of work after school or in the evening, or both, leave little or no time or inclination either for home study or for proper rest and recreation. Under these circumstances it is not to be expected that children will appear in the schoolroom alert and refreshed, ready and able to get the most out o f the instruction furnished. POSSIBLE DANGERS TO HEALTH OF THE COMMUNITY. Many o f the persons interviewed who opposed home work did so upon the ground that it endangered the health o f the community be cause it was sometimes carried on in homes inhere there was con tagious disease. The canvass on this point was not complete, since at the beginning o f the study the families were not questioned about sickness; but after about one-fifth of the schedules had been taken every family interviewed was asked whether factory work was in the home at any time when a member of the family was siek and, if so, whether the sick person worked on it during his illness or while con valescing. I f the family was known to the District Nursing Associa tion or the Society for Organizing Charity the records of these agencies were consulted to ascertain, if possible, what was the physi cian’s diagnosis o f the case in question. It is sufficient for the pur pose o f this report merely to give instances o f home work being done in homes where there was contagious disease, without taking up the question as to whether or not disease can be transmitted from one person to another by means o f goods manufactured in homes where such disease is present. Influenza was stated to have been present in the homes o f 91 fami lies while work was being done. In some cases the patients worked https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HOME W ORK. 57 during illness or convalescence. Every member o f one family had had influenza, and all had strung tags during their illness. In another home, where the whole family was ill, lace was in the home during the entire time, and “ they would take it up as they felt better.” How ever, all lace coming from homes where there was influenza was disin fected at the factory. Among the other diseases reported by the families studied were pneumonia, mumps, typhoid fever, measles, whooping cough, tonsi litis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and syphilis. The Rhode Island State Board o f Health considered most o f these diseases communicable and dangerous to the public health,22® and in most of them quarantine was required. In every instance the work was in the house at the time o f the illness and in some cases it was being done by the person affected. One woman said that her three children carded and packed jewelry all the time they were ill with measles. Children who were kept out o f school because they had whooping cough did tag stringing and thread drawing on lace at home. In other instances children with eruptions on their faces were found doing home work. In addition to 7 cases in which tuberculosis was reported by the families, there were found on the records of social agencies reports of 12 other cases of this disease in the families included in the study. A mother who worked every day at putting screws in earrings and link ing chain fasteners had been ill since 1913 and was known as a tuber culosis case. In another family where the mother, father, and two children carded snaps and strung tags, the father and one child were recorded as positive cases of tuberculosis, while the diagnosis recorded for the other child was “ suspected T. B.” Another man who was un able to do any outside work and who was reported as in the last stages of tuberculosis, did work on lace as his sole means o f supporting his family. Along with the possibility, which these instances demonstrate, that any product made in a Rhode Island home might have been handled by a person so seriously diseased as to be excluded from a factory, it is important to consider the way in which some o f the products are used by the consumers. Such objects as beads, chains, rings, and toys are continually handled and are sometimes put in the mouth, especially by children. The assembling o f these articles by home workers, as well as the making of ice-cre'am boxes and the shelling of peanuts, was probably a menace to the public health. 220 See General Laws, Rhode Island, 1909, cb. 110, as amended by A cts of 1913, ch. 939, and by A cts of 1917, ch. 1 5 2 0 ; Reports of State Board of Health of Rhode Island. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis IN D U S T R IA L A SP E C TS OF HOM E W O R K . The home work o f children in Rhode Island was only part o f a labor system which affected individuals o f all ages and both sexes. Up to this point the discussion has related almost entirely to home work from the point o f view of the workers—especially the children— engaged in it, but any consideration of the subject must also take into account the standpoint of the manufacturer as well as of the worker. It is necessary, therefore, to take up briefly such questions as : What industries used the home work system, manufacturers-’ reasons for the use o f the system, methods of obtaining home workers, the actual distribution o f home work, methods o f payment, and the contract system. INDUSTRIES USING THE HOME-WORK SYSTEM. Industries which lend themselves to the system o f home work are those which utilize a large amount of hand labor in the production of small and inexpensive wares. Home work is possible when articles or material in quantity can conveniently be distributed from the fac tory to the homes and worked on by hand or with the aid only of hand tools or small machines; where the product is inexpensive, also, the. manufacturer can let work go outside the factory without great risk o f financial loss through spoilage or loss of the goods distributed. Proc esses requiring large machinery and the working o f heavy and bulky materials must be carried on in the factory, and in the case of expen sive materials the manufacturer naturally does not wish to assume the risks involved in sending such work outside the plant. In this study the jewelry industry was found to be the largest dis tributor o f home work. This industry might not at first thought seem to be distinguished by cheapness of product. However, a great vol ume o f cheap articles is placed on the market each year. Provi dence is the chief jewelry manufacturing center in the United States,28 producing 25.8 per cent of all the jewelry manufactured in this country. In 1914 jewelry was second in importance among the industries o f Providence; 277 jewelry establishments were in business in the city, employing 8,479 persons; and the value of the product was 23 U. S. Bureau u f the Census, A bstract o f the Census o f M anufacturers, 1914, p. 270. 58 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 59 INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF HOME WORK. $20,934,000.24 O f the 153 establishments covered by this inquiry 93, or more than three-fifths, were jewelry establishments and all but 3 o f them were in Providence. The lace industry, another large distributor of home work, is cen tered in the adjoining city of Pawtucket, which is one of the most important lace manufacturing cities in the country.24 Other home work industries were-divided between the two cities. Table X I X shows the industries found distributing home work and the location o f the establishments studied. T a b l e X I X .— Industry and location; establishments which reported distributing home work in 19IS. Establishments. Industry.1 Total. Provi dence. Paw tucket. 153 130 23 93 22 9 6 5 2 9 3 26 8 7 4 2 5 90 9 4 3 13 5 6 2 3 2 7 3 21 6 5 4 2 4 2 5 2 2 1 i For detailed description of kinds of work included in each classification, see pp. 28-33. No attempt was made to determine, by means of a direct survey of all the manufacturing establishments in the territory covered, the total number distributing home work. The 153 establishments cov ered by the inquiry were discovered through the home workers and contractors who received work from them, through the reports of Federal child-labor law inspectors, and through advertisements for home workers in the local newspapers. These 153 establishments made a regular practice of distributing home work in 1918, and they are probably fairly representative of concerns giving home work to children or to families in which children worked. PRINCIPAL KINDS OF HOME WORK. An analysis of the data obtained shows that 142 different kinds o f vrork were distributed by the 153 manufacturers who were ques tioned. Even this does not represent all of the varieties given out, as some of those who were engaged in the manufacture o f cheap jewelry or novelties had no record of all the kinds of work given 24 See Industries of Providence and Pawtucket, Appendix, p. 73. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 60 IN D U S T R IA L HOME WORK OF C H IL D R E N . out during the year. In the cheap jewelry and novelty industries each season brings with it new styles, and some process of nearly all these is done in homes. The fact that 153 manufacturers distrib uted as many as 142 different kinds of work is explained by the ab sence o f standard methods in manufacturing these products. A process in the manufacture of a service pin, for instance, which one manufacturer would have completed inside his plant, another sent out to the homes. Again, some processes could be done by press or by hand and the method used varied with the different manufactur ers, depending largely upon the size o f the establishment. T able X X . — Establishments distributing and children engaged in specified kinds of home work in 1918. Kind of home work. Estab lish Children engaged ments distribut in each ing each specified specified kind of home kind of work. home work.1 ' 34 12 10 9 9 9 7 7 7 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 127 ■ 31 6 60 9 5 12 199 14 413 192 19 6 14 17 408 529 11 51 34 1 Not shown if less than 3 establishments reported distributing the specified kind of home work, nor unless children in the study were reported engaged in it. Each establishment counted for each kind of home work distributed. Table X X gives the number of establishments distributing speci fied kinds o f home work, and also the number o f children engaged in each, specified kind. In considering this table it should be borne in mind that the establishments varied greatly in size and that 5 or 10 small concerns combined may not have distributed as much work as 1 large establishment. Thus a large number of establishments giving out a certain kind of work does not indicate a correspondingly large number of children employed. (Cf. Table I X .) For example, 34, or 22 per cent, of the 153 establishments gave out stone setting, and only 127, or 5.4 per cent, of the 2,338 children did this kind of work; while on the other hand 3 of the 153 establishments, only 2 per cent, gave out snaps to be carded, and this work was done by 529, or 22.6 per cent, o f the children scheduled. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF HOME WORK. 61 DISTRIBUTION OF HOME WORK. Number o f home workers. The number of persons to whom home work was directly dis tributed by these establishments was at least 2,019. This figure does not represent the number o f home workers actually engaged in work on material given out by these shops. Whole families com monly worked on the material given out to one individual, and in many cases the individuals receiving the work were contractors, whose business it was to distribute the work to others, some o f them having a clientele o f 100 or more workers, who in turn distributed it to their families. The distribution o f home work was not confined to the small shops. While 52 o f the establishments distributing home work employed less than 20 factory workers each, and 37 employed from 20 to 50 workers in the shop, 30 employed from 50 to 100 inside workers and 32 employed 100 or more inside workers. Some of the larger estab lishments, employing more than 100 factory workers, reported the largest numbers o f home workers.25 Seasonal and irregular nature o f work. More than half the jewelry establishments reported some distri bution of home work during the entire year, but more than one-third of them distributed it during six months or less. O f the establish ments manufacturing cotton small wares and paper goods, only onethird distributed home work throughout the year. H alf the lace factories reported distribution during 12 months. O f the manufac turers as a whole, a majority reported some distribution throughout the year. The busiest season in the jewelry industry, according to the re ports o f various manufacturers, was about one month before Easter and in the fall from September to December. Most of the producers reported distributing the largest amounts of home work during these months. Eosary beads were distributed for linking and wiring to a greater extent during the month before Easter and in November and December than at any other time o f the year. However, the manufacturing establishments that made a practice of having all the wiring and linking done at home distributed some work through out the year to keep the workers from drifting to other employment. Home work provided the manufacturers with a temporary supply of labor during the busy season, and it was also called on for the filling o f rush orders which might come in at any season of the year. 28 See General Table 6, Appendix, p. 80. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 62 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. Table X X I shows the number o f months during which the various industries gave out home work, according to the number of estab lishments distributing it. T a b l e X X I .— Number of months in which home w ork was distributed, by in dustry ; establishments which reported distributing home work in 1918. Methods o f obtaining home workers. Many o f the manufacturers depended largely upon applicants for their supply of home workers. Thirty-eight producers secured a sufficient number of workers in this way and never resorted to any other method o f obtaining them. They said they could always count upon a certain number of women who were prepared to accept work which they could do at home in their spare moments. Some pro ducers stated that they always had many more applicants than they could supply with work. In some cases a certain amount of skill was required on the part of applicants. This was true particularly o f the establishments which used relatively expensive materials, and where the manufactured article had to come up to a standard of good workmanship. For instance, in the embroidery of' silk hosiery the applicants had to present proof o f experience before work was given to them. In 74 o f the 153 establishments home work was given out to the factory employees. The following reasons were given for the pref erence for inside workers: (1) The work required'skill gained by previous experience; (2) the work was on solid gold jewelry which could not be intrusted to unknown persons; and (3) through close touch with the workers home work could be hurried up. In selecting home workers from inside help,, preference was given to those having large families who would help with the work. Some manufacturers stated that it was definitely against their policy to give out home work to inside employees for the reason that factory work suffered after the workers had worked at night. Twenty-five manufacturers stated that they were in the habit of advertising to secure an adequate supply of home workers. Ten https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF HOME WORK. 63 manufacturers depended upon soliciting for part o f their supply of home workers. They would either write to former employees or send out one or two o f their employees or contractors to ask friends to begin home work. Twenty-six manufacturers distributed part of their home work through contractors, and seven of these depended wholly upon contractors for their labor supply. Checking up the work distributed. Most o f the manufacturers weighed, measured, examined, or counted all the work when distributed and returned. Twelve manu facturers said they took no precautionary measures. They either trusted the workers'to return the goods or considered the work not worth the trouble o f checking up. Only 24 of the 153 manufacturers made deductions for loss or spoilage. O f these, 16 made cash de ductions, 4 had the work done over, and 4 used, both methods. Place and method o f payment. O f the 153 manufacturers, 133 paid the home workers at the fac tory, 6 paid at the homes, and 13 paid either at the factory or at the homes. The home workers were paid every week by 111 pro ducers, while 26 other producers paid them at the completion of every job. Six producers used both methods o f payment. In one instance the manufacturer paid home workers twice a week. It must be borne in mind that contractors, who were reported by manu facturers as home workers, after being paid by the manufacturers for the work they turned in, had their own methods o f paying the persons to whom they distributed work. These methods are described on page 64. The contract system . A contractor, as defined for the purpose o f the present study, was a person who obtained work from manufacturers or manufacturing establishments and redistributed it to persons other than his own family. The contract system, besides being an interesting link in the home-work system, is important for the purposes of this study because the kinds of work in which children were engaged in the greatest numbers were largely distributed by contractors. Forty-seven contractors who gave out work for 30 days or more in 1918 and who paid lower rates to the home workers than they received from the manufacturers are considered here. Eighteen other con tractors who distributed work during 1918 were excluded from con sideration, 1 because he gave inadequate information, 8 because they distributed work for less than 30 days, and 9 because they stated that they paid the home workers the same rates that they received from the manufacturers. The motive o f the latter group was given as u charity,” or to obtain help in completing work within a speci- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 64 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. tied time. There was difficulty in arriving at an accurate estimate of the extent of the contracting system, because persons reported as contractors often denied being in the business or refused to give information. O f the 47 contractors, 19 reported distribution o f work to less than 10 home workers each, 18 reported 10 to 24 home workers, 1 reported 25, 1 reported 38, 2 reported 40, 2 reported 50, and 4 reported 100, 101, 175, and 210, respectively. The last 4, reaching 100 or more persons each, distributed the linking and wiring of rosary beads and thread drawing on lace. The maximum number o f persons to whom the 47 contractors gave out home work in 1918 was 1,203. A large proportion o f these per sons redistributed the work to their families, while a few o f them acted as subcontractors, distributing the work outside their families. The 47 contractors, o f whom 41 lived in Providence and 6 in Paw tucket, distributed 34 kinds of work. Twenty-eight gave out jewelry work, including snaps; 5 gave out celluloid novelties; and 3, lace. Twenty contractors distributed work throughout the entire year, 11 distributed it during 3 months or less, 4 during 4 months, 3 during 5 months, and 2 during 6 months. The methods used by contractors to secure home workers were similar to those adopted by the manufacturers. Employment of applicants, advertising, and personal solicitation were the most com mon methods reported. In the main, the contractors said they had little difficulty in obtaining the required number o f workers, and some contractors reported more applicants than they had work for. Just as certain establishments became well known as distributors of home work, so certain persons became recognized as the distributing agents for particular kinds o f work. Contractors frequently were known to the workers not by their names but as “ the snap woman,” “ the lady with the beads on T------ street,” or “ the lace man.” O f the 47 contractors, 39 had the home workers call at their homes for their pay, 3 sent the money to the workers’ homes, and 3 utilized both methods o f payment.26 Thirty-two contractors paid their work ers every week, 8 paid on the return of every job, 2 paid by either the job or week, and 5 had no definite time o f payment. Thirty-nine contractors said that they made no deductions from the home workers’ pay for delivery, collections, loss, or spoilage. They said they made it a policy to pay even when the work was im-* perfect, to preserve their reputation for fair dealing. On this point, however, the testimony of the contractors was at times contradicted by that of the home workers with whom they had dealings. Two contractors did not report definitely on this point. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 65 IHDTJSTRIAL ASPECTS OE HOME WORK. As to the profitableness of contracting, two kinds o f evidence were obtained, the contractors’ statements of their weekly earnings and the comparative rates received by contractors from the producers and paid by them to home workers. Only a few statements as to weekly earnings could be obtained. A contractor distributing work to 10 persons said he made $9 a week. Another said he made $50 in 9 months giving out work to 15 or 20 persons. One woman said she made from $7 to $9 a week, while an other stated that her husband made $36 in 3 weeks. A man who distributed cartridge clips said he earned $45 a week, but that half this sum went toward the upkeep o f the truck used in delivery. Table X X I I shows that the contractors’ profits exceeded 20 per cent for most kinds of work, though in man}' cases this was not en tirely clear, as the contractor bore the cost of loss or spoilage. This is significant as showing the rate o f profit which went to the contractor rather than that the contractor received any large sums. T a b l e X X I I . — Comparison of rates of pay received and paid by contractors distributing home work, according to kind of work, 1918. Rates of*pay reported by contractors. Kind of work. Assembling cartridge clips, per 1,000............................................ Assembling celluloid novelty chains or bracelets: Per gross of links..................................................................... Per piece................................................................................... Assembling novelty shoe buttons, per gross-----: ........................ Assembling toys, per gross............................................................ Carding shoe buttons, per card of 444........................................... Carding snaps, per gross................................................................ Enameling or hand painting dots on dice, per gross................... Fusing copper terminals, per gross............................................... Linking and putting chain fasteners on necklaces, per gross...... Linking rosary beads, per dozen chains...................................... Painting (soft enameling) jewelry (includes service pins, flags, and patriotic fobs), per gross — , ............................................. Pinning up jewelry, per gross....................................................... Putting screws in earrings, per gross............................................ Setting stones (includes pasting pearls and stones), per gross of Stringing up slicker hooks (not for electroplating), per gross....... Thread drawing on lace, per 100 yards......................................... Wiring and capping rosary beads, per mess1.............................. Wiring rosary beads, per mess1.................................................... Received from manufacturers. Paid to home workers. Lowest. Highest. Lowest. $0.35 $0.35 $0.25 Highest. $0.25 .10 .01i .06 .18 .02 .01 .50 .04 .15 .18 .12 •01i .08 .18 .03 .02 1.00 .04 .15 .21 .07 .01i .06 .14 01| .00i .30 .03 .12 .15 .10 •01i .06 .14 .02* .01 .72 .03 .12 .18 .36 .07 . 02} .7X2 .07 .04J .50 .05 . 02$ .60 .05 04 .04 .02 .06 .30 .21 .20 .02 .06 .40 .23 02 .01 .04 .27 .16 .19 .01 .05 .37 .20 1A “ mess” was composed sometimes of 1,000 and sometimes of 1,200 beads. The majority o f manufacturers did not look with favor upon the contract system. On the other hand, the 26 producers who availed themselves of the services o f contractors reported four distinct ad vantages o f the system: (1) Convenience in distributing work; (2) centering o f responsibility for loss, spoilage, and return of work https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 66 in d u s t r ia l h o m e w ork oe c h il d r e n . on time; (3) shifting to the contractor o f responsibility for using child labor and for paying low rates; and (4) increase in labor sup ply* since workers at a distance would call at a neighbor’s house for work when they would not come to the factory for it. A number of manufacturers opposed the contract system because they consid^ ered it unfair to the workers, while others stated that they had found that it increased the cost o f production. MANUFACTURERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. The attitude o f the manufacturers regarding the use o f children on home work varied. There were manufacturers who, though they were opposed to the employment of children on the factory work distributed to homes, said that they could not control the situation. The president of a jewelry establishment which distributed home work to a number of workers said: “ I gave out an order forbidding the employment o f children, but it was difficult to enforce. An in spector could have caught me almost any moment. I stopped chil dren from working whenever I came across any.” In several instances the press was taken out of the home and more work refused when children under 14 were found engaged on presses making military buttons. One mother said: “ Boss c#me in and found my boy working on the press. He said, ‘ No more work; boy not 14.’ I said, ‘ Take press out,’ so he took the press out of the house.” One establishment attempted to prevent the use of children by refusing to give work to families where they knew that children would be employed. Another made all children who applied for home work bring notes from their parents stating that they (the parents) were responsible for the work. Other producers were more interested in having the work done than in who did it and dis claimed knowledge as to who was engaged on the work. Among the latter was the owner of a jewelry establishment who refused to give any data as to the rates paid for work given out or as to the number o f home workers employed. He said, “ Children engaged in home work? Well, this is none of my business; doesn’t interest me. All I care about is to have the work returned and satisfactorily com pleted.” An official of another jewelry establishment which dis tributed home work said that his employees took the work home at night once in a while and the company did not object. He did not care who did it, or where it was done, provided the employees re turned it completed. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OE HOME WORK. 67 On the other hand, some manufacturers freely and frankly ad mitted that children worked on the goods they distributed. The owner of a jewelry establishment which has its snaps carded in the homes said : “ A ll my home workers are children from 7 to 14 years of age who are glad to make a little spending money. I wouldn’t give the work out to anyone but children, as the rate of pay is too low.” A manufacturer who distributed the stringing o f tags said he gave this work to children “ to keep them busy and teach them habits of industry.” A representative o f a jewelry manufacturing firm which gave out home work said: “ When the man went to deliver the work in his automobile, the children literally swarmed about him. One night after school there were 200 children at the factory for chain-clasp work. Children can do it quicker than adults. A child 3 years old can do it at home.” The producers who commented on the use o f child labor on home work invariably told the agents that it was not usual to distribute directly to the children. In most cases, the names of the children would not appear on the pay roll. I f any names were carried by the firm, they were those o f the parents. MANUFACTURERS’ REASONS FOR USING THE HOME-WORK SYSTEM. To determine the reasons for using the home-work system, every producer interviewed was askéd why he distributed home work. It was sometimes difficult for those interviewed to answer specifically, because, in many instances, more than one motive was involved. As a rule, however, the producers were able to state definitely their rea sons for using the system. Five chief reasons were'reported by the 153 producers. Shortage o f labor was the explanation most often giyen. The next most fre quent explanation was saving in cost o f production, either because home workers received lower wages than factory workers, or because o f the elimination of overhead expenses—rent, light, heat, insurance, etc. The need for temporary help for seasonal or rush work was the third reason. Giving out home work was simply a custom, accord ing to the statement o f other manufacturers, while a number as serted that they were actuated chiefly by motives of charity. The reasons for the use of home work are shown in Table X X I I I , accord ing to industry and the number of manufacturers reporting each. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 68 INDUSTRIAL home work of c h il d r e n . T a b l e X X I I I .— Reason assigned for use of home-work system, by industry ; establishments which reported distributing home work in 1918. Establishments reporting specified reason for use of home-work system. Industry. Total. Shortage of labor. Saving in cost. Seasonal or rush Custom. work. Motives of charity. All other reasons. All industries.................... 153 57 41 127 12 11 5 Jewelry products........................ Textile products......................... Paper products and printing__ Food products.................. ......... Miscellaneous.............................. . 93 22 9 3 26 38 8 i 2 8 23 7 3 18 5 4 i 7 1 1 2 2 2 2 i 8 3 1 5 1Includes 10 establishments where special novelties were manufactured and 6 cases where special rush orders for contract articles were being filled. An analysis of the statements made by the 57 manufacturers who resorted to home work because of the shortage o f labor shows that the saving in cost was an additional consideration in some cases. Such comments as the following were made: “ The girls working in the jewelry industry left for higher wages in the ammunition fac tory,” and “ When I can get employees they are girls new from the munitions works, who insist on the munition wages even when learn ing. I can’t afford to give what they ask, so I get the work done outside.” Among the 41 manufacturers who gave saving in cost of produc tion as the primary reason for distributing home work were included 21 who assigned saving in cost of labor as the principal reason and 20 who said that their chief motive was to reduce overhead expenses. Some o f those in the latter group paid the same rates to inside and outside employees, figuring that the saving on light, rent, and in surance was worth while. Many in the former group candidly re marked that they were persuaded to distribute home work partly by the presence of a group of workers who were willing to take it, irre spective of whether or not a living wage was paid. Typical com ments were: “ People depending upon home-work earnings for a living don’t do this work. It is pin-money work.’’ “ People do it for the movies, not because of necessity.” One jewelry manufacturer stated the comparative cost of inside and outside labor as follow s: “ I f we had the work on chain fasteners done inside, the labor would cost us 6 or 7 cents per gross compared with 1£ cents per gross when done outside. The labor on carding of snaps if done inside would cost 10 cents per gross, as compared with 2 cents outside.” Since inside workers were usually paid time rates, while home workers were paid piece rates, it was difficult to calculate the com parative cost o f inside and outside labor. This was done, however, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF HOM E WORK. 69 in a few cases. A jewelry firm paid its home workers 11 c e n ts g r o s s for setting stones. Inside employees doing the same work received $12 for a 48-hour week. The owner, who said that a daily record was kept o f the amount of stone setting completed inside, thought that the average worker could finish 12 gross in an 8f-hour day, making the labor cost inside about 18 cents a gross, while that out side was 11 cents a gross. Home workers for one shop got 75 cents a dozen for wiring and linking rosary beads, while the labor cost inside was 80 cents to $1.20 per dozen, since the factory workers were paid $2.40 a day and could do from 2 to 3 dozen a day. Another firm paid home workers 25 cents to 30 cents a dozen for linking rosaries, while the factory work ers, according to the superintendent, received 50 cents a dozen. For carding kettle-cover knobs one firm paid comparative rates o f 7 cents a gross outside and 8 cents a gross inside. A celluloid novelty firm paid its home workers 50 cents a gross for cementing flowers on cellu loid pins, while the inside workers were paid from $9 to $12 a week (for a 54-hour week) for the same work. A factory worker com pleted one-third of a gross an hour, making the labor cost 51 cents to 66 cents a gross. Twenty-seven of the 153 manufacturers gave as their primary rea son for the use of home work the fact that it enabled them to fill seasonal or rush orders without engaging extra factory help. Home workers provided the producer with a supply o f labor which for the most part could be “ hired and fired ” at will. One jewelry manufac turer said: “ Home work is an easy way of expanding and contracting labor forces rapidly. Inside workers can not be laid o ff; they have to be paid in slack as well as in busy seasons.” Home work also enabled manufacturers to experiment on novelties and specialties without a large investment or additional overhead expense. In the cheap jewelry trade novelties are continually spring ing up. Manufacturers can not tell in advance how great the demand for the new product will be, and do not wish to divert their employees from regular lines o f production, but by the use of home work they can get orders filled as they come in. For example, there was a sud den great demand for “ victory necklaces ” in 1919, and manufactur ers said they would not have been able to fill the orders without re course to home work. They did not utilize their regular employees on this work, and hired no additional factory help. The economic motive was very evident in the cases o f the 125 pro ducers who gave shortage o f labor, saving in cost o f production, and seasonal or rush work as the reasons for the distribution o f home work. They effected savings by paying lower rates to home workers https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 70 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. than they were obliged to pay to their factory help, by avoiding addi tional overhead expenses, and by eliminating the necessity of engag ing extra factory help during the rush seasons. Those manufacturers who asserted that they gave out home work because it was the custom either of the firm or o f the industry, or who said that they were actuated by motives o f charity, sometimes gave as secondary motives the saving o f factory space, the filling of rush orders, etc. “ Home work is an advantage to everyone,” said one o f them. “ It gets orders filled and it helps the people who do the work.” From the data presented, it seems that savings in cost entered into all the motives for the distribution of home work. Ninety-one, or nearly three-fifths, of the manufacturers who distributed home work in 1918 said that they experienced no disadvantages from the pro cedure. Sixty-two firms reported inconvenience, such as delay, trouble giving out the work, and inferior quality of the goods pro duced. However, it was evident that these disadvantages did not outweigh the economic advantages o f the home-work system. MANUFACTURERS’ TESTIMONY ON PROBABLE EFFECTS OF PROHIBITION OF HOME WORK. Each producer was asked what would be the probable effect on his business if home work were prohibited. As a rule they welcomed this opportunity to express their views and were candid in their com ments. Fifty-seven o f the 153 manufacturers said that their business would be affected by the prohibition of home work. The estimated effect in these cases varied from “ complete wrecking of the business” to “ only a slight effect which could be adjusted with a few changes.” Ninety-two manufacturers said that the prohibition of home work would have no effect on their business because the necessary readjust ments could be made very easily. Among this latter group a number remarked, “ I don’t care what restrictions are made as long as we have the same chance as other manufacturers.” The information regarding estimated effects of the prohibition of home work is given in Table X X I V . https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 71 INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF HOME WORK. T able X X I Y . Effect of prohibition of home work, by industry ; establishments which reported distributing home work in 1918. Establishments distributing home work in 1918. Probable effect of prohibition of home work. Industry. Total. Some injurious effect. No in jurious effect. Not reported. All industries..................... Jewelry products................. Textile products.............. Cotton small wares........ Lace.................... Knit goods...................... Other................. Paper products and printing......... Food products............... Miscellaneous............... Novelties and toys......... Brushes and buttons_____ Hardware and sporting goods.. . . Articles of war origin............ All other....... ............... 93 9 9 1 9 1 7 4 2 3 1 It is noteworthy that in the jewelry industry, the largest distributor o f home work, exactly one-third of the firms reported that pro hibition of home work would injure their business. The lace industry stood out most prominently against the prohibition of home work, five o f the six factories reporting that readjustments could be ac complished only at the cost of injury to the business. Among the producers reporting that prohibition would have a serious effect was an officer in a large jewelry firm, who said : “ When there is extra work to be done we can not get trained workers to come in, and it doesn t pay to train them for so short a time, whereas there are plenty of trained home workers available.” A firm manufactur ing rosaries reported that'the prohibition of home work would mean a reduction of about 70 per cent in production during the busy season. Another jewelry firm’s’ representative reported: “ It would put me out of business. We would have to get new workers and enlarge our factory.” An official of a lace mill which distributed its thread drawing to a number of home workers said: “ W e couldn’t do business without home work. We couldn’t get the help and would need too much space. I f home work were discontinued, we might as well box our machinery and send it back to England.” On the other hand, some o f the producers reporting that their business would be affected said that they would be able to make the necessary adjustments, such as paying more for labor, providing additional factory room, and hiring extra help during the rush sea sons. They reported that certain cheap products would be elimi nated. For example, in the case o f one establishment manufacturing https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 72 INDUSTRIAL HOM E WORK OF CHILDREN. a fairly high grade of jewelry, cheap bracelets were made outside as a side line. “ We couldn’t bother with those cheap things in the shop ; we would have to stop making them,” said the secretary of the company. The owner of a concern manufacturing ecclesiastical jewelry said: “ It is only cheap rosaries that are made outside. We couldn’t afford to pay the higher wages necessary if all were done inside. We would have to stop making the cheap ones.” Many manufacturers of the cheap articles on which much home work was done agreed that readjustments would not be difficult if all were “ in the same boat.” “ I have never figured out whether or not it would be possible to dispense with home work,” said the owner of a novelty firm, “ but I wouldn’t want to do anything others were not doing.’'5 Among the 92 manufacturing establishments reporting that the prohibition o f home work would have no effect on their business was a celluloid.novelty concern employing a large number of persons both inside and outside. The owner said that the elimination of home work would have no effect on his business, since he had adequate space to do the work inside. The owner of a jewelry establishment which had many home workers said that the prohibition of home work would not affect producers seriously, although it would be difficult to get workers for short periods. The fact that a large majority of manufacturers reported that prohibition of home work would not harm their business, and that this majority included some of the larger distributors o f home work, was one o f the most significant findings of the study. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis A P P E N D IX , INDUSTRIES AND POPULATION OF PROVIDENCE, PAWTUCKET, AND CENTRAL FALLS. Providence is the most important jewelry manufacturing center in the United States^ producing 25.8 per cent o f all the jewelry manu factured in this country.1 Its nearest rivals are New York, produc ing 25.3 per cent of the total; Newark, N. J., producing 13.8 per cent; and Attleboro, Mass., producing 10.3 per cent. The principal industries o f Providence are shown in the following statement: Principal industries, Providence, B . I., 1914.1 Principal industries. Number ofestab lish ments. Value of product. Wage earners (average number). 18 $20,847,000 277 20.934.000 98 11.192.000 10 2.451.000 3.337.000 109 Foundry and machine-shop products2........................................................ Cotton goods, including small wares............................................................ 8,792 8,479 6,549 1,625 1,150 1 TJ. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Manufactures, 1914, vol. 1, p. 1389. 2Includes automobile repairing; engines, steam, gas, and water; gas machines and gas and water meters; hardware; plumbers’ supplies, not elsewhere specified; steam fittings and steam and hot-water heating apparatus; and structural-iron work, not made in steel works or rolling mills. >Includes bookbinding and blank-hook making, and engraving, steel and copper plate, including plate printing. The chief industries of Pawtucket are as follows : Principal industries, Pawtucket, R. I., 191J^a Principal industries. Number of estab lish ments. Cotton goods, including cotton small wares b ............................................... Foundry and machine-shop products c........................................................ Hosiery"and knit goods...'. .1 .............................................................................. Jewelry................................................... ....................................................... Printing and publishing d .............................................................................. Value of product. Wage earners (average number). 26 $13,461,000 2.815.000 21 1.107.000 3 557,000 9 12 436,000 7,396 1,671 523 280 147 a U. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Manufactures, 1914, vol. 2, p. 1389. 6 Includes cotton lace. c Includes hardware. d Includes bookbinding and blank-hook making. 1U. S. Bureau of the Census, Abstract of the Census of Manufacturers, 1914, p. 270. 73 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 74 in d u s t r ia l home work of c h il d r e n . Central Falls has practically no industries o f its own, but is a residence district for the industrial workers of Pawtucket. Providence covers 18.28 square miles2 and has a population of 235,555, o f which about two-thirds are native born.3 Pawtucket has an area of 8.94 square miles2 and a population of 62,260.3 Here also about two-thirds are native born.3 Central Falls, with an area of 1.27 square miles 2 and a population of 23,936,3 has a slightly higher percentage of foreign born than .the other two cities.3 PRODUCTS OF HOME WORK. Following is a partial list of articles in the manufacture of which one or more processes were done in homes by children or adults or both. Children were found to be engaged in work on all the articles mentioned, though in the main body of the report emphasis has necessarily been placed on the kinds o f work in which large numbers of children were engaged. Jewelry products on which home work was done included pins, chains, rosary and other beads, bracelets, rings, mesh bags, lockets, military and religious medals, earrings, cuff links and cuff buttons, barettes, including hair ribbon barettes, fancy hairpins, watch fobs, watch charms, ribbon and metal watch bracelets, and snaps foi fastening dresses and gloves. Shoe laces, suspenders, and shoe bows were the cotton small wares chiefly worked on in the homes; while lace insertions, edgings, and veils were sent out to the homes by the lace industry. Tags of the many kinds demanded for marking articles for sale were important products o f the printing industry which were worker on in homes. Labels constituted another product o f the printing in dustry involving home-work processes. Paper boxes designed to contain various articles, from jewelry to ice cream; picture frames, coin holders and pocketbook linings; comb cases, hand-painted cards, and confetti were home-work products of the paper-goods industry. Under the head of novelty products o f home work came celluloid beads, chains, and bracelets ; celluloid soap boxes and picture frames, dice ; shoe buckles and other steel buckles. Toys which were worked on in the homes included horns, rattles, paper hats, toy soldiers and toy watches, and whistles. Knit goods included hosiery, which was finished and embroidered in the homes; and underwear, on which crocheting was done. Some of these establishments sent out yarn to be untangled. The hardware industry sent out knives to be as sembled and kettle-cover knobs for carding. Sporting goods were represented by fishing tackle to be wound and assembled. Confe^ > Figures furnished by the geographer of the U. S. Census Bureau, 8 Population estimated for July 1, 1918, on the basis of the 1910 and 1920 censuses, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis A P P E N D IX . 75 tionery establishments sent out peanuts to be shelled and blanched in the homes. Other articles which were worked on in the homes were safety pins, shoe buttons, surgical needles, knitting needles, map pins, shoe daubers (for putting blacking on Shoes), clamps for fruit jars, handpainted china plates, packages o f towels and soap for vending ma chines, cloth bags for hot-water bottles and for watches, velvet pads for the display of jewelry, and jewelers’ brushes. Products of dis tinct war origin, some of which were manufactured by the jewelry industry, were military buttons, adapter plugs, cartridge clips, flag pins and service pins, military picture frames, and spools for soldiers’ kits. THE SCHOOL CANVASS. The superintendents of schools in the three cities covered by the investigation were first interviewed, the purposes of the study ex plained, and permission obtained to visit every public school. The priests in charge of parishes were similarly interviewed and per mission obtained to visit the parochial schools. The agents then visited the schools. In each case the purpose of the study was first explained in detail to the principal. Then the agents went into every classroom and explained to teachers and pupils the purpose o f the study and the meaning of the term “ home work.” It was found necessary to be very explicit in the latter regard; otherwise the chil dren would report dish washing, knitting, etc., as home work. Va rious kinds of home work, as stringing beads, fastening jewelry, folding underwear, were described to aid the children in understand ing the sort o f thing that was meant. Then the children were asked to hold up their hands if any home work had been done at their homes in 1918. Those that held up their hands were given cards on which they filled out the following form : Name of child....................................... Boy or girl............................................ Grade.. Parent’s name....................................... Address................................................. Kind of home work.............................. Name of school..................................... Name of teacher................................... In the elementary classes the agents or the teachers filled out the cards for the children. The schools were visited by wards. The types o f schools visited were as follow s: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 76 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF . CHILDREN. Schools of Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls. Type of school. Total. Provi dence. Paw tucket. Central Falls. All schools...........................................................?................ 1151 106 29 16 Public grammar.............................................................................. Public primary.......................................................................; — Public nigh school.......................................................................... Parochial grammar......................................................................... Parochial grammar and high school.............................................. 36 87 6 16 6 18 73 4 10 1 14 9 1 2 3 4 5 i 4 2 * None of the kindergartens was included, and some of the first grades were omitted. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis GENERAL TABLES. G e n e r a l T a b l e 1. — Age at commencing home work, by age in December, 1918; children reporting home work in 1918. Children reporting home work in 1918. Age at commencing home work. Age in December, 1918. Total. Under 3 years. 2,338 10 4 13 22 56 108 141 209 242 274 322 315 310 191 97 32 2 4 5 1 27 8 15 “ T 2 4 years. 54 •7 31 8 2 3 2 1 5 years. 112 21 64 12 4 1 3 3 1 2 1 6 years. 152 30 75 26 5 5 4 2 2 3 7 years. 213 46 116 24 13 9 2 2 1 8 years. 250 57 120 40 19 5 3 5 1 9 years. 282 86 132 381 13 9 3 1 10 years. 307 77 159 41 19 8 3 11 years. 311 86 168 44 ,7 6 12 years. 270 13 years. 200 14 years. 84 15 Age not years. reported. 36 ' 30 2 4 6 2 4 4 3 83 143 87 33 95 33 10 -------- IT 45 i 2 --------- F GENERAL TABLES, All children..... ......... Under 3 years................. 3 years.................................. 4 years................... 5 years................................ 6 years................................. 7 years.................... 8 years.................................. 9 years......................... 10 years............................. 11 years................................ 12 years....................... ........ 13 years................................ 14 years................................ 16 years................................ 16 years............................. Age not reported................. 3 years. 1 2 16 20 2 -3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 78 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN. G eneral T able 2 . — Country of birth of foreign white population, Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls, 1910.1 Foreign-b orn white. Country of birth. Per cent Number. distribu tion.2 104,923 100.0 3,029 54 12,490 5,103 21,557 54 546 2,752 718 20,412 18,028 2,317 8,400 4,179 3,005 2,279 2.9 .1 11.9 4.9 20.5 .1 .5 2.6 .7 19.5 17.2 2.2 8.0 4.0 2.9 2.2 1 Compiled from Thirteenth Census, Vol. I l l , pp. 630,632. s Not shown where under one-tenth of 1 per cent. » Includes Turkey in Asia and Turkey in Europe. G e n e r a l T a b l e 3 . — City and ward of residence and length of home w ork ; chil dren 5 to 15 years of age reporting home work in 1918. Children aged 5 to 15, inclusive. Who reported doing home work in 1918. City and ward of residence. enumer ated at school censuses, January, 1919. For 30 days or more with compensation. Total. For less than 30 days without compensation. Number. Per cent. Number.i Per cent. Number. Per cent. 64,498 4,967 7.7 2,299 3.6 2,668 4.1 Providence... 47,068 3,421 7.3 1,513 3.2 „ 1,908 4.1 Ward 1 ... Ward 2 ... Ward 3 ... Ward 4 ... Ward 5 ... Ward 6 ... Ward 7 ... Ward 8 ... Ward 9 ... Ward 10.. 3,349 4,167 7,048 2,525 3,788 4,574 3,270 5,557 7,367 5,423 73 124 276 386 230 268 170 222 1,289 383 2.2 3.0 3.9 15.3 6.1 5.9 5.2 4.0 17.6 7.1 30 49 103 198 96 99 51 94 576 217 .9 1.2 1.5 7.8 2.5 2.2 1.6 1.7 7.8 4.0 43 75 173 188 134 169 119 128 713 166 1.3 1.8 2.5 7.4 3.5 3.7 3.6 2.3 9.7 3.1 Pawtucket... 12,061 1,038 8.6 516 4.3 522 4.3 Ward 1 ... Ward 2 ... Ward 3 ... Ward 4 ... Ward 5... Ward 6... 2,303 2,173 ,2,455 1,836 1,968 1,326 212 179 211 132 209 95 9.2 8.2 8.6 7.2 10.6 7.2 117 95 112 52 103 37 5.1 4.4 4.6 2.8 5.2 2.8 95 84 99 80 106 58 4.1 3.9 4.0 4.4 5.4 * 4.4 Central Falls. 5,369 508 9.5 270 5.0 238 4.4 Ward 1... Ward 2... Ward 3... Ward 4... Ward 5... 902 1,369 620 1,591 887 131 162 42 123 50 14.5 11.8 6.8 7.7 5.6 78 88 18 67 19 8.6 6.4 • 2.9 4.2 2.1 53 74 24 56 31 5.9 5.4 3.9 3.5 3.5 All cities, all wards. i Excludes . 39 children under 5 years of age. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 79 GENERAL TABLES. G eneral T able 4 . — Number of persons in household, by number of rooms in dwelling; families reporting home worJc in 1918.1 Families with child home workers. Number of persons in household. Number of rooms in dwelling. Total. 10 and over.* All dwellings__ Two rooms................. Three rooms.............. . Four rooms................. Five rooms................ . Six rooms.................... Seven room s.. . .......... Eight rooms................ Nine rooms and over2 Not reported............. 39 3 82 318 333 158 77 44 24 3 106 146 169 155 117 116 1 TTÌ 20 36 20 12 1 1Families above heavy line have more than 1£ persons per room. 2Includes 52 cases of 10 persons, 35 of 11,17 of 12, 5 of 13,5 of 14,1 of 16, and 1 of 20 persons. * Includes 14 cases of 9 rooms, 6 cases of 10 rooms, 2 cases of 12 rooms, 1 case of 14 rooms, 1 case of 15 rooms. General T able 5 . — In d u stry; fathers of children reporting home work in 1918. Fathers of children reporting home work in 1918. Industry. Number. Total. Agriculture............................................................... Manufacturing and mechanical industries........ Building and hand trades............................. Chemical and allied industries1................... Clay, glass, and stone industries.................. Clothing industries.......................................... Food and kindred industries........................ Iron and steel industries................................ Liquor and beverage industries................... Lumber and furniture industries................. Metal industries (except iron and steel)2. . Paper and pulp industries............................ Printing and publishing................................ Textile industries..................................... . Other................................................................. Transportation....................................................... Trade........................................................................ Public service.......................................................... Professional service................................................ Domestic and personal service............................. Father’s industry not specified............................ Father dead, deserting, or out of work all year. 1Includes 12 fathers employed in ammunition and 3 in fertilizer manufactories. *Includes 62 fathers employed in jewelry and 2 in watch factories. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Per cent distri bution. ,042 100.0 2 602 64 15 2 19 20 187 7 15 64 5 7 164 33 70 117 56 8■ 52 29 106 0.2 57.8 6.1 1.4 .2 1.8 1.9 17.9 .7 1.4 6.1 .5 .7 15.7 3.2 6.7 11.2 5.4 .8 5.0 2.8 10.2 80 INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK OF CHILDREN G e n e r a l T a b l e 6. — Maximum number of persons to whom home work was directly distributed,1 by number o f employees in fa ctory; establishments which reported distributing home work in 1918. Establishments distributing home work in 1918. To specified maximum number of persons. Number of employ ees in factory. Total........... 5 10 15 20 25 35 50 65 100 200 Not Total, Less but but but but but but but but but re than less less less less less less less less less and port than than than than than than than than than over.2 ed. 5. 200. 80. 50. 65. 35. 20. 25. 10. 15. 37 153 16 9 3 1 Less than 5______ 5 but less than 10___ 10 but less than 20... 20 but less than 3 0 ... 30 but less than 40... 40 but less than 50... 50 but less than 60 ... 60 but less than 70... 70 but less than 80... 80 but less than 90.. 90 but less than 100. 100 but less than 150 150 but less than 200 200 but less than 250 250 but less than 300 300 and over®.......... Not reported........... 5 4 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 3 7 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 2 1 1 2 i 1 *2 « 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 _____ 1 Includes contractors receiving home work for distribution—counted as individual home workers. * 1 case of 210. 82 cases of 300, 1 of 310,1 of 730, and 1 of 850-900. 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