Book Description

Excerpt from Women in Industry in Minnesota in 1918: Field Investigation Carried on by Women in Industry Committee, Council of National Defence and Bureau of Women and Children The vast correspondence carried on in connection with this work brought daily evidence of the enlightening influence that the personal investigation of conditions was having. Selecting at random from the many letters, we may quote the following sentences as characteristic: The work is very interesting and I am grateful for the privilege of assisting. A very important and worthy work, for this is the ideal way of obtaining information first hand and correctly on such matters. I do not wish to give up this public work, and have been too selfish to let any one else do it for you. My, what a lot there is which might be accomplished if everybody lived with the thought of making the best of himself and doing the work for others. The educational value to the women who helped make the survey can not be estimated, but without doubt many women, for the first time, became interested in the working girl and the conditions under which she works. Some learned that we have in Minnesota Child Welfare Boards, and Mothers' Pensions are available under certain conditions in cases where there is need. As the result of investigations, questions came into the bureau of women and children asking what course should be taken when neglected children were discovered, or when hard working, deserving women were found who, in spite of their best efforts, had neither the time nor money to give their children proper care and the necessities of life. Some women were astonished to find that girls in telephone and telegraph establishments in small towns, where we are prone to believe that there are no abuses, were working from 105 to 168 hours per week, and often stayed all night in the exchange, even when it was in an isolated place. From one small town came this revelation: There are at least 30 wo men in the village who go out working by the day hoeing, cutting sugar cane, husking corn, scrubbing, washing, and some even pitch bundles of grain for the threshing machines, These conditions have not been brought about by the war, but rather, I should say, by the liquor evil, for there are a great many widows and women whose husbands drink and do not properly support their families. Some of these women leave small children at home to look after themselves while they go out to work by the day. Others go out just to be earning a little extra money. They have formed sort of a union so there is no cutting down of wages, and I believe they are getting per day this fall, which I am sure they consider good wages for a ten - hour day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.