Women Wage-Earners eBook

Helen Stuart Campbell
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 208 pages of information about Women Wage-Earners.

Women Wage-Earners eBook

Helen Stuart Campbell
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 208 pages of information about Women Wage-Earners.

Recapitulation.
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============
| Boston. |Other parts of mass.| Other states.
|----------------+--------------------+----------------
| Number|Average | Number | Average | Number| Average
| | Weekly | | Weekly | | Weekly
| |Earnings| | Earnings | |Earnings
|-------+--------+---------+----------+-------+--------
Government and | | | | | | professional | 7 | $5 57 | 5 | $6 40 | 10 | $6 28 Domestic and | | | | | | personal office | 178 | 5 94 | 27 | 5 33 | 21 | 4 69 Trade and | | | | | | transportation | 221 | 5 00 | 4 | 9 25 | 4 | 7 25 Manufactures and | | | | | | mechanical | | | | | | industries | 1,293 | 6 22 | 72 | 7 06 | 49 | 7 58
|-------+--------+---------+----------+-------+--------
All occupations | 1,699 | $6 03 | 108 | $6 68 | 84 | $6 69 =======================================
=================================

The commissioners of the New York State Bureau of Labor followed a slightly different method.  The returns are no less minute, but are given under the heading of each trade, two hundred and forty-seven of which were investigated.  The wages of workwomen for the entire year run from $3.50 to $4 a week, the general average not being given, though later returns make it $5.85.  This is, however, for skilled labor; and as a vast proportion of women workers in New York City are engaged in sewing, the poorest paid of all industries, we must accept the first figures as nearer the truth.  An expert on shirts receives as high as $12 a week, in some cases $15; but in slop work, and under the sweating-system, wages fall to $2.50 or $3 per week, and at times less.  Mr. Peck found cloakmakers working on the most expensive and perfectly finished garments for 40 cents a day, a full day’s pay being from 50 to 60 cents.[23] In other cases a day’s work brought in but 25 cents, and seventeen overalls of blue denim gave a return of 75 cents.  Two and a half cents each is paid for the making of boys’ gingham waists, with trimming on neck and sleeves, including the button-holes; and the women who made these sat sixteen hours at the sewing-machine, with a result of 25 cents.[24]

This was for irregular work.  Women employed on clothing in general, working for reputable firms, receive from $4.50 to $6 per week.  In the tobacco manufacture, in which great numbers are employed, $9 is the lowest actual earnings, and $20 the highest per week.  In cigarettes, the pay ranges from $4 to $15 per week.  In dry-goods, with ten divisions of employment,—­cashiers, bundle-girls, saleswomen, floor-walkers, seamstresses, cloakmakers, cash-girls, stock-girls, milliners, and sewing-girls,—­the lowest sum per week is $1.50, paid to cash-girls, and the highest paid to floor-walkers, $16.  On the east side of the city, shop girls receive often as low as $3 per week; in a few cases specified, $2.50 per week.[25]

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Women Wage-Earners from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.