CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

How many of the girls employed in stores, mills, and manufacturing establishments, and other employments of like grade, are practically without homes in the large cities and dependent for a living upon their own earnings? What are the average earnings of such women? How do these earnings compare with the general wage level for all women in the same employments? In particular, how do they compare with the wage level of women who live at home or with relatives? What are these self-supporting women paying for the principal and current necessaries of life, and how do these expenditures compare with the drain upon the earnings of the girl who lives at home? In a word, what are the living conditions of this group of self-supporting women?

To answer these and immediately related questions, an investigation was made in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Inquiries were made by agents of the Bureau of Labor of wage-earning women, of their employers, and of many other persons. From these sources much detailed information was secured. The number of wage-earning women visited in these cities for the purposes of this study was 8,475. From 7,893 of them pertinent detailed information was secured.

INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS INCLUDED.

As has been indicated, the investigation was limited to wageearning women employed in stores, mills, manufacturing establishments, and other like employments. The great army of stenographers, bookkeepers, general office work girls, teachers, trained nurses, etc., are not included. It is particularly important to keep this fact in mind when considering the service rendered the "working girl" by the various branches of the Young Women's Christian Association and other similar organizations maintaining working women's homes and other agencies for the improvement of the condition of women wage earners.

There were two reasons for limiting the investigation to the women engaged in factory and trade activities. In the first place, the qualifications for employment, while not uniform, are still within such

range as to make it possible to reduce both the industrial and home data, as well as the living conditions, to common terms. The waitresses, who are here included, are to some extent an exception, and for that reason have been treated separately so far as their wage and cost of living are concerned. The second reason for limiting the inquiry was that the problems of living, while perhaps no more serious in many aspects, were more apparent among this class of wage-earners, and as the investigation could not extend over all selfsupporting women the office and professional women were excluded. Figures compiled from state labor bureau reports and from the Federal census of manufactures for 1905 show that the total number of women employed in stores, mills, factories, and other similar establishments in the seven cities named is over 400,000. If the Bureau's method of selecting lists for the investigation was correct and the data sufficient in quantity-and the reader will have an opportunity to judge the number of these women practically without homes in the selected cities varies from 3,000 to 25,000, and aggregates approximately 65,000, or 16 per cent of the whole num ber employed.

It is not safe, however, to draw any conclusions as to the economic conditions of the 84 per cent living at home until the reader has studied the summary tables and individual tabulation sheets, which show what proportion of these women with homes pay their entire earnings to the support of the family.

DEFINITION OF WOMEN ADRIFT OR WITHOUT HOMES.

In the initial question the phrase "practically without homes" has been used advisedly, for early in the investigation what had seemed a simple classification became a vexing problem. When is a girl selfsupporting and "practically" without a home? There was no doubt about the status of women and girls in boarding and lodging houses, nor about the status of those boarding in private families. In the results of the investigation these constitute the ample majority of the whole group classified among those "practically without homes." But just at what stage in the dissolution of the home a girl becomes "practically without a home" was the difficult problem that demanded solution before the investigation could proceed. The problem was made more difficult by the fact that there was a moral as well as a material importance in the question of a home and home influence for the young woman forced to earn her own living. Keeping both of these factors in mind the specific questions to be answered were these: Is a girl wage-earner without a home when she has lost her mother? She may have a father keeping a watchful eye upon her and well able to care for her in time of need; or if her father is in needy circumstances there may still be sufficient solidarity in the

family group to make a mooring for her and keep her out of the class of women practically without homes.

Is she without a home when she has lost her father? The income of the family may be such (even though that income is confined solely to the earnings of the working members) as to permit the mother to remain in the home and perform the duties of a mother-look after the comfort, health, and moral welfare of her children. The spirit of the investigation was to exclude from the class of girls whom we have termed "adrift" those women wage-earners who have at least one of the essentials of home. A number of cases from the schedules will serve to illustrate the principle of classification, and to throw into relief what has been regarded as the "essentials of a home" for the purposes of this investigation.

Alice and Julia M.-one in a store, the other in a telephone exchange are the sole support of themselves, their mother, and an invalid sister. The income of the family is such that the mother can stay at home, look after the invalid sister, and care for the comfort, health, and moral welfare of the wage-earning daughters. She is so circumstanced that she can make a home for them. It is necessary for both girls to work, but either might be disabled for a time without being thrown upon public charity or upon the mercy of strangers. These girls have been regarded as having one of the essentials of a home, a mother (or other woman of the family effectively taking the place of mother) who can keep out of the wage-earning ranks and in the ranks of the housekeeper and home maker.

Another example: Katie A. works in a department store and earns $6.50 a week; her mother is dead, she lives with her father, and while paying $5 a week for her room and board, is nevertheless not entirely dependent upon her earnings, in that her father is, in the last analysis, her support and would care for her in case of illness and lack of employment; furthermore he is an efficient social protector. Katie has been considered as having one of the essentials of a home.

Another illustration and one indicating a further dissolution of the home: Mary E., a woman 28 years of age, is engaged as saleswoman in a department store. Her mother is dead, her father is almost a helpless paralytic. They live in two rooms. Not only are Mary's earnings the sole income, but Mary herself is the caretaker of the "home" and of her invalid father. In the morning she gets her own and her father's breakfast, makes him as comfortable as possible for the morning, works in the store until noon, has an hour to prepare luncheon, and at the close of day hurries back to her duties as housekeeper and nurse. Mary tells you that her "home" is at such and such a number on Blank street. Nevertheless Mary has been regarded as a woman "adrift." She is not absolutely without a home, but she is "practically" without a home. Her father is

neither physically nor mentally able to sustain her in time of need nor to restrain her in time of temptation; nor has she a mother or other woman relative effectively taking a mother's place.

Then the married woman overtaken by domestic misfortune and forced to earn her own living presented another problem. If entirely deserted or if widowed, with no means of support and children dependent upon her, she was clearly in the class of women adrift. But if, on the other hand, some of the children were half grown and earning a little it became necessary to make careful distinction between the woman whose children were as yet liabilities and the woman whose children could fairly be said to constitute an economic asset in the event of her disability.

There were times when classification became exceedingly difficult; when it became almost impossible to say whether the solidarity of the family group-which might ordinarily be regarded as an asset for the woman wage-earner-had not become a liability, because it was extremely difficult to say whether there was any member able to sustain the family group even temporarily in case of her illness. Just over the line of the women classed as adrift is the broad fringe of wage-earning women who are not only the sole means of income for the home, but whose problems of life are so serious as to make their classification among the group of home women seem almost arbitrary. Yet, as has been said, it was necessary to mark, in the process of the disintegration of the home, a stage beyond which women were regarded as practically without homes or "adrift." This term "adrift" will be used throughout the report to designate both the boarding and lodging women wage-earners, as well as those whose so-called homes have become only impeding wreckage.

How many of the "adrift" women visited were of such difficult environment, how many were in lodging and boarding houses, and how many were boarders in private families, together with a statement of earnings and expenditures of each group, are set forth in the report for each city, and the subject is comprehensively treated in detail in connection with the social environment of self-supporting women (Chapter III of this report).

METHOD OF SELECTION OF WOMEN INCLUDED IN THE INVESTIGATION.

To discover from the great army of wage-earning women the number that were adrift was in itself not an easy task. The method at first adopted was to secure from current lists of employees the names and addresses of wage-earning women. Such names were taken at random and in numbers sufficiently large to represent fairly the industries dominant in the city of investigation. Under this method the names and addresses were taken from manufacturing establishments and department stores.

The original lists were divided into groups, the addresses being marked off into districts that were arranged and numbered in such manner as to eliminate waste of time and energy in schedule gathering. The method insured practical freedom from bias, as the personnel of the pay roll was unknown to the agent, and the addresses were as yet without significance either as to the character of the district represented or as to the status of the girl with reference to her living conditions.

The first serious obstacle encountered under this method was the false address. In a great number of cases this false address was due to ignorance or carelessness on the part of the employee. In a singularly large number of cases there was an evident intention in the wrong address. While the motive for falsifying addresses can not with fairness be stated positively, there was a strong evidence in some cases of a desire on the part of the girls to give the numbers of houses of better appearance than those in which they lived or to claim a residence in a district of better standing than that of their own homes. Another influence which should not be ignored was undoubtedly at work. Department store employers openly express a preference for the girls living at home. A girl endeavoring to secure a position and finding herself rejected because she has no home in the city is under strong temptation, when she finds another vacancy, to say that she is living with an aunt or a cousin or even with her parents when she is really dependent on the boarding or lodging houses. She quickly learns, too, to give an address in the home district, rather than in the boarding-house sections.

The Bureau was compelled to depend upon the good faith of employers in giving access to their lists of employees. In some cases the lists, however, proved not to be current, but distinctly out of date— some as old as two or three years. In one instance out of a list of 146 names 131, or nearly 90 per cent, were of no avail in the investigation, either because the addresses were false or because the women had not been at work in the establishment within from 12 months to 2 years before the date of the agent's visit.

Furthermore, there is a singularly individualistic attitude on the part of some of the employers toward the public's desire to know the conditions surrounding the country's wage-earners. They regard their employees' welfare as essentially a "private matter." An official of one of the largest firms in Chicago told the Bureau's agents that the "requirements and wages of their employees was a personal affair, and that they did not consider such matters any concern of the public."

In some instances the reasons for granting the Bureau's request for pay-roll data seem to have been weighty enough to prevent an absolute refusal, but not to prevent the presentation of biased informa