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 IRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 
GIFT 
 HIM 1O 1914 
 
 REPORT OF THE 
 
 fry 
 
 Social Survey Committee 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Consumers 9 League of Oregon 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Wages, Hours and Conditions of Work and Cost and Standard of 
 
 Living of Women Wage Earners in Oregon with 
 
 Special Reference to Portland 
 
 PORTLAND, OREGON 
 
 January, 1913 
 
REPORT OF THE 
 
 Social Survey Committee 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Consumers' League of Oregon 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Wages, Hours and Conditions of Work and Cost and Standard of 
 
 Living of Women Wage Earners in Oregon with 
 
 Special Reference to Portland 
 
 PORTIAND, ORtGON 
 January, 1913 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 
 SOCIAL SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE 
 CONSUMERS' LEAGUE OF OREGON 
 
 Rev. Edwin V. O'Hara, Chairman. 
 
 Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull, Secretary. 
 
 Miss Mabel Weidler, Treasurer. 
 
 W. B. Ayer. 
 
 A. E. Wood 
 
 C. F. Caufield 
 
 Dr. C. H. Chapman 
 
 Miss Lucia B. Harriman 
 
 Mrs. H. R. Talbot, President Consumers' League. 
 
 Legal Advisors 
 
 John M. Gearin. D. Solis Cohen 
 
 Director of Survey. 
 
 Miss Caroline J. Gleason. 
 
 OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE 
 
 CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 
 
 OF OREGON 
 
 President 
 
 Mrs. Henry Russell Talbot. 
 
 Vice-Presidents 
 
 First Vice- President Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull 
 
 Second Vice-President Mrs. Elmer Colwell 
 
 Third Vice-President Mrs. B. M. Lombard 
 
 Honorary Vice-Presidents. 
 
 Mr. D. Solis Cohen . Mrs. James Laidlaw 
 
 Mrs. H.-W.. Corbet^/ ; /'* : . 1 . Mr. Marshall N. Dana 
 Mrs. T. ; Eliot '.:*' . . Dr. A. A. Morrison 
 
 Dr. C. H. Chapman.;*/. : ; ;;. m j Rev. H. J. McDevitt 
 Dr. wiHiJuft" Jv5s"ter *' Mrs. R. B. Wilson 
 
 Mr. Arthur Wood 
 
 Corresponding Secretary Miss K. L. Trevett 
 
 Treasurer Miss Cora Pattee 
 
 Recording Secretary Mrs. William P. Gannett 
 
 Directors 
 
 Mrs. W. B. Ayer Miss Caroline J. Gleason 
 
 Mrs. Chas. Basey Mrs. Thos. Scott Brooke 
 
 Mrs. Frank J. Durham Mrs. Elsie Wallace Moore 
 
 Mrs. William Warrens 
 
Social Welfare Snnvv 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Social Survey Committee 2 
 
 Officers of the Consumers' League 2 
 
 Table of Contents 3 
 
 Statistical Tables 4 
 
 Report of Survey Committee 5 
 
 Opinion of the Attorney-General . . 7 
 
 Minimum Wage Legislation Elsewhere 10 
 
 Draft of the Proposed Bill 13 
 
 Report of the Director of the Survey ...... 18-72 
 
 Introduction 18 
 
 Wages, Hours and Unemployment 25-45 
 
 Retail Stores 25 
 
 Five and Ten Cent Stores 29 
 
 Factories 31 
 
 Laundries 35 
 
 Office Help 36 
 
 Moving Picture Show Cashiers 39 
 
 Printing Trades . . . ' 39 
 
 Telephone Operators 41 
 
 Hotels and Restaurants .42 
 
 Hairdressers, Dressmakers 44 
 
 Milliners; Cleaning and Dyeing . . . . .45 
 
 Conditions of Labor . . . ... . . . 46-57 
 
 Light and Ventilation 46 
 
 Too Great Heat in Laundries . . . . . .47 
 
 Nauseating and Other Odors 48 
 
 Poor Arrangement in Work Rooms . . . . .50 
 
 Lack of Sanitary Plumbing 52 
 
 Noise from Machinery 53 
 
 Nervous Strain in Telephone System . . . .55 
 Conclusion 56 
 
 Cost of Living 57-67 
 
 Room-rent 57 
 
 Rooms and Board .... . : . . 60 
 
 Carfare 61 
 
 Clothing 62 
 
 Laundry . . .64 
 
 Doctor and Dentist Bills 65 
 
 Lodge and Church Dues . 66 
 
 Recreation and Vacation 66 
 
 Education and Reading . 67 
 
 Summary . . . 67 
 
 Personal Stories . . . . 68 
 
 Appendix Welfare Legislation 73 
 
 285685 
 
4.'!.; ,a! Welfare Survey. 
 
 LIST OF TABLES 
 
 1 Occupational Distribution of Workers in Portland. 
 
 2 Summary of Cost of Living in Portland. 
 
 3 Summary of Cost of Living Outside of Portland. 
 
 A Summary of Wages in Portland. 
 
 5 Wage Information Outside of Portland. 
 
 6 Department Stores; Number and Percent, Wage Schedules. 
 
 7 Department Stores ; Cumulative Number and Percent. 
 
 8 5c, lOc & 15c Stores; Wages. 
 
 9 Factory; Number and Percent Wage Schedules. 
 10 Factory; Cumulative Number and Percent. 
 11 Factories in Portland Reporting Wage Schedules. 
 12 Laundry; Markers, Starch Room, etc. 
 13 Laundry; Number, Percent, Wage. 
 14 Laundry; Cumulative Number, Percent. 
 15 Office Help; Number, Percent, Wage. 
 16 Office Help; Cumulative Number. 
 17 Stenographer; Number, Percent, Wage. 
 18 Stenographer; Cumulative Number, Percent. 
 19 Printing Trades; Number, Percent, Wage. 
 20 Printing Trades ; Cumulative Number and Percent. 
 21 Telephone Operators; Number, Percent. 
 22 Telephone Operators ; Cumulative Number, Percent. 
 23 Hotels and Restaurants; Number, Percent, Wage. 
 24 Hotels, Restaurants ; Cumulative Number. 
 25 Miscellaneous; Wage Schedules. 
 
 26 List of 105 Rooms for Rent in Portland. A, B, and C. 
 27 Classified Cost of Living; Average Spent on Room and Board. 
 28 Average Annual Sum Spent on Clothing. 
 29 Estimated Cost of Clothing at Low Market Prices. 
 30 Estimated Cost of Clothing, Serviceable. 
 31 Average Annual Sum Spent on Laundry. 
 32 Average Annual Sum Spent on Doctors' and Dentists' Bills. 
 33 Average Annual Sum Spent on Carfare. 
 34 Average Annual Sum Spent on Church and Lodge Dues. 
 35 Average Annual Sum Spent on Education and Reading. 
 
 36 Average Annual Sum Spent on Recreation and Vacation. 
 
 37 Summary of Cost of Decent Living for One Year. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 REPORT OF SURVEY COMMITTEE 
 
 To the Officers and Directors of the Consumers' League of 
 Oregon : 
 
 The Social Survey Committee of the Consumers' League 
 herewith respectfully submits its report on Welfare Legisla- 
 tion for Women and Minors in Oregon. Your Committee be- 
 gan its investigation for this Report early in August 1912. 
 The generosity of a number of public-spirited citizens made 
 it possible to engage a trained investigator to take charge of 
 the inquiry into the wages, hours, conditions of labor and 
 standards of living of women wage-earners in various indus- 
 tries of the State with special reference to Portland. Miss Caro- 
 line J. Gleason of Minneapolis, Minn., was made Director of the 
 Survey and it is due to her special knowledge of the condi- 
 tions of women wage-earners as well as to her tireless energy 
 that the Committee is able to present a statistical report on 
 so large a percentage of the women workers in various in- 
 dustries with only five months for the task of organizing, in- 
 vestigating, collating, tabulating and publishing. 
 
 In Portland, the investigators have gathered informa- 
 tion affecting the wages, 'hours or conditions of labor of 7,603 
 women wage-earners. Wage statistics are tabulated for 4,523 
 of this number. In the case of the Department Stores the 
 pay-rolls were placed at our disposal, and hence the wage 
 statistics are exhaustive ; but in other cases where the wage- 
 schedules had to be obtained from individual employes, it was 
 felt that the wage conditions in an establishment could be 
 sufficiently guaged from the reports of a reasonably large 
 percentage of the employes without seeking to get the sched- 
 ule of every employe. 
 
 Outside of Portland wage statistics were gathered for 
 1,133 women wage-earners. The Director of the Survey vis- 
 ited most of the larger centers throughout the State and en- 
 listed the generous co-operation of committees in twenty-five 
 counties of the State. All over the State there was mani- 
 fested the keenest interest in the work of the Consumers' 
 League for this measure for the welfare of women workers. 
 
 In drafting the Bill for an Industrial Welfare Commis- 
 sion, your Committee has had the advantage of the experience 
 of the Commission on Minimum Wage Boards of the Com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts and of the legal advice of ex- 
 Senator John M. Gearin and Mr. D. Solis Cohen, who have 
 given unsparingly of their time. The constitutionality of the 
 measure has been carefully examined by the Attorney-General 
 of Oregon, whose opinion is given herewith. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Social workers from Washington and California have 
 investigated the Bill aird have arranged to have it intro- 
 duced at the coming session of the Legislatures of those 
 States. The passage of the same measure by the three coast 
 states would be a very progressive step in social welfare 
 legislation. The argument for Welfare Legislation for Wom- 
 en and Minors is presented in the address of the Chairman 
 of this Committee at the annual meeting of the Consumers 1 
 League and published as an appendix of this report (also 
 printed separately). 
 
 Principles and Facts. 
 
 The outstanding principles and facts which form the 
 basis of the demand for the proposed legislation are the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 (1) Each industry should provide for the livelihood of 
 the workers employed in it. An industry which does not do 
 so is parasitic. The well-being of society demands that wage- 
 earning women shall not be required to subsidize from their 
 earnings the industry in which they are employed. 
 
 (2) Owing to the lack of organization among women 
 workers and the secrecy with which their wage schedules 
 are guarded, there are absolutely no standards of wages among 
 them. Their wages are determined for the mc^st part by the 
 will of the employer without reference to efficiency or length 
 of service on the part of the worker. This condition is radi- 
 cally unjust. 
 
 (3) The wages paid to women workers in most occu- 
 pations are miserably inadequate to meet the cost of living 
 at the lowest standards consistent with the maintenance of 
 the health and morals of the workers. Nearly three-fifths of the 
 women employed in industries in Portland receive less than 
 $10 a week, which is the minimum weekly wage that ought 
 to be offered to any self-supporting woman wage-earner in 
 this city. 
 
 (4) The present conditions of labor for women in many 
 industries are shown by this report to be gravely detrimental 
 to their health; and since most women wage j earners are po- 
 tential mothers, the future health of the race is menaced by 
 these unsanitary conditions. 
 
 For these reasons vour Committee believes that the pas- 
 sage of the proposed Bill for an Act creating an Industrial 
 Welfare Commission is most important and we strongly re- 
 commend that the Consumers' League urgently petition the 
 Legislature for its enactment. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 SOCIAL SURVEY COMMITTEE. 
 
 Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull, Edwin V. O'Hara, 
 
 Secretary. Chairman 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 OPINION OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 
 
 SALEM, Ore., December 23rd, 1912. 
 
 Chairman Social Survey Committee, Consumers' League of 
 Oregon : 
 
 DEAR SIR: 
 
 I have your favor of the 19th instant, and under sep- 
 arate cover, dratft of a proposed Industrial Welface Com- 
 mission bill, and complying with your request, I beg to 
 say that I have examined the proposed bill with ref- 
 erence to ascertaining so far as I can, whether, if said bill 
 were enacted, it would be subject to the objection that it is 
 unconstitutional in any respect, and after such examination, 
 together with the authorities which I have been able to find 
 bearing upon the subject, am of opinion that it is entirely with- 
 in the authority of the legislative department of the State of 
 Oregon to enact. There are only two points which occur to 
 me which might be raised in objection to the validity of the 
 bill on constitutional grounds, and they are, first: As to 
 whether it comes within the police power of the State, and 
 second : Whether it is a delegation of legislative authority. 
 
 A question ve v y similar to this arose upon the passage of 
 the law limiting the hours of women workers to ten hours 
 per day. and sixty hours per week, and in the case of State 
 against Muller, 48 Ore. 252, the Supreme Court of Oregon 
 sustained that statute as a valid exercise of the police power 
 and as not unduly interfering with the right of women sui 
 juris, to contract, which decision was sustained by the United 
 States Supreme Court where the case was taken on writ of 
 error, which decision is found in 208 U. S., 419. 
 
 In the case of Mutual Loan Company against Martell, 32 
 U. S. Supreme Court Reporter, 74, involving the validity of 
 a statute of Massachusetts which makes invalid against the 
 emplover, assignments of, or orders for wages to be earned in 
 the future, unless recorded, accepted in writing by fhe em- 
 ployer and accompanied by the written consent of the wife of 
 the emplovee. the Court sustained said statute as a valid 
 exercise of police power, and on pas^e 75 discusses the question 
 of what the police power of the State is, and the extent of its 
 authoritv. at considerable length, and closes this branch of 
 the case in the following language : 
 
 "There must, indeed, be a certain freedom of con- 
 tract, and, as there cannot be a precise, verbal ex- 
 pression of the limitations of it, arguments against 
 anv particular limitation mav have plausible strength, 
 and vet many legal restrictions have been and must 
 be put upon such freedom in adapting human laws to 
 
8 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 human conduct and necessities. A too precise reason- 
 ing should not be exercised, and before this court may 
 interfere there must be a clear case of abuse of power. 
 See Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 
 549, 55 L. ed. 328, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 259, where the 
 rig^ht of contract and its limitation by the legislature 
 are fully discussed." 
 
 In the case of Noble State Bank against Haskell and others, 
 219 U. S. 104, 31 Supreme Court 'Reporter, 186, the Court 
 discussing what is a State's police power, uses this language : 
 
 "At least, if we have a case within the reasonable 
 exercise of the police power as above explained, no 
 more need be said. 
 
 It may be said in a general way that the police 
 power extends to all the great public needs. Cam- 
 field v. United States, 167 U. S. 518, 42 L. ed. 260, 17 
 Sup. Ct. Rep. 864. It may be put forth in aid of what 
 is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing mor- 
 ality or strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly 
 and immediately necessary to the public welfare." 
 To the same effect are the decisions of the United States 
 Supreme Court in the case of Laurelhill Cemetery against 
 San Francisco, 216 U. S. 358, Welch against Swasey, 214 U. 
 S. 91, Jacobson against Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, and the 
 dissenting opinion in Loc'hner against New York, 198 U. S. 
 45, as well as the principles laid down in the controlling 
 opinion in that case, although the decision was that the prin- 
 ciples did not apply to the conditions then at issue. 
 
 If the police power extends to all the great public needs, 
 as held by the United States Supreme Court in the cases above 
 cited, and it must be conceded that sufficient earnings to 
 procure a reasonable and comfortable existence, together wit'h 
 some opportunity for rest and recreation, and sanitary, health- 
 ful and moral conditions under which to labor, on behalf of 
 women and minors, are some of the prime and greatest needs 
 of the public, then this proposed bill is certainly well within 
 the police power of the State, and as said in Bank against 
 Haskell, Supra., if we have a case within the reasonable ex- 
 ercise of the police power, as above explained, no more need 
 be said. 
 
 Upon the other point, as to whether the appointment of a 
 commission, and through it of wage boards, or conferences, 
 for the purpose of ascertaining and fixing what are reasonable 
 and necessary minimum wages, maximum hours of labor, and 
 standard conditions for and under which women and children 
 may be allowed to work, I find it established by a multitude 
 of authorities, that while a legislature cannot delegate its 
 authority to make laws, to any other body or authority, but 
 having enacted the law, may delegate to another body or 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 authority, power to determine facts upon which such law 
 shall operate. 
 
 State against Thompson, 160 Missouri, 333, sustaining an 
 act authorizing the State Auditor to exercise his judgment as 
 to the good repute of an applicant for a license for book mak- 
 ing on horse raices ; Lothrop against Stedman, 42 Connecticut, 
 583, sustaining an act providing for the repeal of a charter of 
 an insurance company if a certain event did not occur, and 
 appointing a commissioner to determine whether it occurred. 
 
 In re Locke's Appeal, 72 Pennsylvania State, 498, the Court 
 says : 
 
 "What is more than common to appoint commis- 
 sioners under a law to determine things, upon the 
 decision of which the act is to operate in some way 
 or another." 
 
 and lays down the rule that while the legislature cannot dele- 
 gate its power to make a law, it can make a law delegating 
 its power to determine some fact or state of things, upon 
 which the law makes, or intends to make its own action de- 
 pend. 
 
 It is now well settled, that while the establishing of railroad 
 rates is a legislative function, the determination as to what 
 are reasonable rates and fixing the same, may be delegated to 
 Railroad Commissions and other bodies authorized to deter- 
 mine facts. 
 
 Railroad Commission against Yazoo & Mississippi 
 Valley R. R. Co., 62 Miss. 607; 
 
 Stone against Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 116 U. 
 S. 307; 
 
 Regan against Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. 
 S. 362; 
 
 C. B. & O. R. R. Co., against Jones, 149 111., 378; 
 Beale & Wyman R. R. rate regulation, section 1309; 
 8Cyc., 834; 
 
 Without citing as many more authorities to the same 
 effect which I have consulted on this subject. 
 Therefore in my opinion the act proposed is valid so far 
 as a conflict with 'the constitution. State or National^ is con- 
 cerned, and I am further impressed with the great merit of the 
 object sought to be obtained by this proposed law. If our 
 free institutions are to be maintained, it is of vital importance 
 to protect our citizens, especially those in greatest need of 
 such protection, by furnishing adequate means of livlihood, 
 as well as safe and sanitary conditions under which employ- 
 ment may be pursued. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 A, M. CRAWFORD, 
 IHV-D Attorney General. 
 
10 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION ELSEWHERE. 
 
 As to the operation elsewhere of Minimum Wage legisla- 
 tion, we quote here from the report of the Commission on 
 Minimum Wage Boards of the Commonwealth oi Massachu- 
 setts (1912) : 
 
 "Such a system of (Minimum Wage) legislation has been 
 in operation in the State of Victoria, Australia, since 1896, and 
 in Great Britain since January, 1910. Some form of fixing 
 legal minimum wages is also in operation in the other Aus- 
 tralian states and New Zealand. In Victoria and England the 
 minimum wages are determined by wage boards created for 
 considering the special requirements of the respective indus- 
 tries or trades. 
 
 The Victorian System. 
 
 "In Victoria, at the instance of either employers or em- 
 ployees, or of the minister of labor, the legislature may author- 
 ize the creation of a special board, which is empowered to fix 
 a minimum wage for a given trade. Employers and employees 
 are equally represented upon such a board, and a non-partisan 
 chairman is selected by the two parties at interest, or, if they 
 fail to agree, is then appointed by the minister of labor. The 
 chairman has a casting vote. Determinations, as the decisions 
 of the special boards are called, if accepted by the minister of 
 labor, are published in the Government Gazette and become 
 law for that trade; 'but if the minister of labor considers that 
 a determination may cause injury to the trade, he may sus- 
 pend it for a period of six months, and then send it back to the 
 board for reconsideration. There is also the court of industrial 
 appeals, to which determinations may be referred, and this 
 court has the power to amend or annul a determination. The 
 decision of the court is final, but it may review its own de- 
 cisions. Moreover, the court of appeals is specifically instruct- 
 ed to consider whether a determination has been or may be 
 injurious to a trade, or may limit employment, 'and if of opin- 
 ion that it has had or may have such effect, the court shall 
 make such alterations as in its opinion may be necessary to 
 remove or prevent such effect, and at the same time to secure 
 a living wage to employees.' (Factory and Shops Acts, 1905, 
 No. 1975). The law ignores the possibility of cases in which 
 the maintenance of the trade and payment of a living wage to 
 the employees may be incompatible. These special boards, 
 although authorized to secure a 'living wage' in practice have 
 served rather to formulate common rules for a trade, to bring 
 employees and employers into co-operative relations and to 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 11 
 
 provide suitable machinery for the readjustment of wages and 
 other matters to changing economic conditions. Their flexi- 
 bility in dealing with complex situations is obvious. Few ap- 
 peals have been taken from their decisions to the court of in- 
 dustrial appeals. The claim that the system is not considered 
 antagonistic by propertied interests is borne out by a great 
 weight of testimony. On this point Victor Clark, who visited 
 Victoria in 1903 and 1904 as a representative of the United 
 States Department of Labor, states, 'Propertied interests were 
 not opposed to a statutory minimum wage. . . The better 
 employers rather courted some provision that freed them from 
 the competition of the less scrupulous men of their own class.' 
 (Labor in Australia, pp. 141, 147.) He states further that 11 
 of the 38 special boards then in operation were established 
 upon application of employers. 
 
 "In 1910, 20 new boards were instituted, and at the end of 
 that year 91 industries were under the operation of the act, 
 affecting 5,362 factories, in which 83,053 workers were em- 
 ployed. 
 
 The English System. 
 
 "In England, the industries in which the system may be 
 applied are named by Parliament, but the Board of Trade may 
 provisionally extend the application of the act to other indus- 
 tries, subject to subsequent continuation by Parliament. The 
 wage boards, known as trade boards,, are composed of repre- 
 sentatives of employers and of workers in equal numbers, 
 elected by the respective organizations, and of other members, 
 including the chairman, appointed by the Board of Trade. The 
 determinations of these trade boards are made obligatory by 
 an order of the Board of Trade, but the Board of Trade may 
 suspend the operation of the order. If the order is suspended 
 the trade may after six months again renew its recommenda- 
 tion, and the Board of Trade may then issue an obligatory 
 order or further suspend it. Minimum wage orders determined 
 in this manner apply to both men and women, and they may 
 apply universally to the trades or apply to any special process 
 in the work of the trade, or to any special class of workers in 
 the trade, or to any special area. The act (9, Edward VII, 
 chap. 22), went into effect Jan. 1. 1910, and applied immediate- 
 ly to the trades of wholesale tailoring, box-making, lace-mak- 
 ing and chain-making. The act has not been in operation long 
 enough to judge of its ultimate success, but it was adopted after 
 mature consideration by a select committee, whose laborious 
 investigations included a field study by Ernest Aves, com- 
 missioner of the home office, into the workings of minimum 
 wage regulations, both in Australia and in New Zealand. In 
 the passage of the bill through Parliament it was not made 
 a party or a class measure, and it does not seem to have met 
 
12 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 with any particular opposition from any quarter. In one in- 
 dustry, at least, it has 'been gladly accepted by employers, 
 who even contributed money to enable their employees to 
 organize for the purpose of taking advantage of the act/' 
 
 After a thorough investigation of the needs of the women 
 and minor workers in the Commonwealth, Massachusetts has 
 enacted a law creating a Minimum Wage Commission for the 
 determination of minimum wages of women and minors. The 
 Commission is to undertake its duties July 1 of the current 
 year. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 13 
 
 A BILL 
 
 For an Act to protect the lives, health and morals of 
 women and minor workers, establishing an Industrial Welfare 
 Commission for women and minors, prescribing its powers and 
 duties, and providing for the fixing of minimum wages and 
 maximum hours and standard conditions of labor for such 
 workers, and providing penalties for violations of the Act. 
 
 WHEREAS, The welfare of the State of Oregon demands 
 that women and minors be protected from conditions of labor 
 which have a pernicious effect on their health and morals; 
 and 
 
 WHEREAS, Inadequate wages, unduly long hours and 
 unsanitary conditions of labor exert such pernicious effect, 
 
 THEREFORE, BE IT ENACTED By the People of the 
 State of Oregon, and Be It Enacted by the Legislative As- 
 sembly of the State of Oregon : 
 
 Section 1. It shall be unlawful to employ women or 
 minors in any industry or occupation within the State of Ore- 
 gon for unreasonably long daily hours, or under conditions of 
 labor detrimental to their health or morals; and it shall be 
 unlawful to employ women in any industry within the State 
 of Oregon for wages which are not adequate for their decent 
 maintenance. 
 
 Section 2. There is hereby created a Commission to be 
 known as the "Industrial Welfare Commission for the State 
 of Oregon," to establish such standards of hours of employ- 
 ment and conditions of labor for women and minors employed 
 within the State of Oregon as shall be held hereunder reason- 
 able and not detrimental to their health or morals, and such 
 standards of wages as shall be adequate for the decent main- 
 tenance of women. 
 
 Section 3. Said Commission shall be composed of five 
 persons, three of whom shall be appointed by the Governor, 
 as follows : The first appointment shall be made within 
 thirty days after this Act takes effect ; one for the term ending 
 January 1, 1914; one for the term ending January 1, 1915, and 
 one for the term ending January 1, 1916; provided, however, 
 that at the expiration of their respective terms, their successors 
 shall be appointed by the Governor to serve a full term of 
 three years. Any vacancies shall be filled by the Governor 
 for the unexpired portion of the term in which the vacancy 
 shalt occur. The Commissioner of Labor Statistics and In- 
 spector of Factories and Workshops shall be ex-officio a mem- 
 ber of the Commission. The Secretary of the Child Labor 
 
14 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Commission of Oregon shall be ex-officio a member of said 
 Commission. Three members of the Commission shall con- 
 stitute a quorum at all regular meetings and public hearings. 
 
 Section 4. The members of said Commission shall draw 
 no salaries. The Commission may employ a Secretary whose 
 salary shall be paid out of the monies hereinafter appropriated. 
 All claims for expenses incurred by the Commission shall, 
 after approval by the Commission, be passed to the Secretary 
 of State for audit and payment. 
 
 Section 5. It shall be the duty of the Commission to 
 ascertain the wages and hours of labor and conditions of labor 
 of women and minors in the various occupations, trades and 
 industries in which said women and minors are employed in 
 the State of Oregon. To this end, said Commission shall have 
 full power and authority to call for statements and examine, 
 either through its members or other authorized representatives, 
 all books, payrolls or other records of all persons, firms and 
 corporations employing females or minors as to any matters 
 that would have a bearing upon the questions of wages or 
 hours of labor or conditions of labor of said employes. 
 
 Section 6. Every .employer of women and minors shall 
 keep a register of the names of all women and minors em- 
 ployed by him, and shall on request permit the Commission 
 or any of its members or authorized representatives to in- 
 spect such register. For the purposes of this Act, a minor is 
 defined to be a person of either sex under the age of eighteen 
 (18) years. 
 
 Section 7. The Commission may specify times to hold 
 public hearings, at which times employers, employes or 
 other interested persons may appear and give testimony as 
 to the matter under consideration. The Commission shall 
 have power to subpoena witnesses, and to administer oaths. 
 All witnesses subpoenaed by the Commission shall be paid 
 the same mileage and per diem allowed by law for witnesses 
 before the Circuit Court in civil cases. 
 
 Section 8. If, after investigation, the Commission is 
 of opinion that in any occupation, trade or industry, the 
 wages paid to fernale employes are inadequate to supply the 
 necessary cost of living and to maintain the workers in 
 health, or that the hours or conditions of labor are preju- 
 dicial to the health or morals of the workers, the Commission 
 is empowered to call a Conference composed of an equal num- 
 ber of representatives of employers and employes in the oc- 
 cupation, trade or industry in question, together with one or 
 more disinterested persons representing the public, but "the 
 representatives of the public shall not exceed the number of 
 representatives of either of the other parties; and a member of 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 15 
 
 the Commission shall be a member of such conference and 
 Chairman thereof. The Commission shall make rules and 
 regulations governing the selection of representatives and the 
 mode of procedure of said conference, and shall exercise ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction over all questions arising as to the validity 
 of the procedure and of the recommendations of said confer- 
 ence. On request of the Commission, it shall be the duty of 
 the Conference to recommend to the Commission an estimate 
 of the minimum wage adequate in the occupation or industry 
 in question to supply the necessary cost of living, and to 
 maintain the workers in health ; to report on the number of 
 hours of work per day consistent with the health of the work- 
 ers, and to recommend standards of conditions of labor de- 
 manded by the health and morals of the employes. In de- 
 termining questions arising in different localities throughout 
 the state the Conferences may consider the different condi- 
 tions as factors in reaching conclusions, and the Commission 
 may in its judgment formulate different rules in different 
 localities based upon said consideration. The findings and 
 recommendations of the Conference shall be made a matter 
 of record for the use of the Commission. 
 
 Section 9. Upon the receipt of such recommendations 
 from a Conference, the Commission shall review the. same and 
 may approve any or all of such recommendations, or it may 
 disapprove any or all of them and recommit the subject or 
 the recommendations disapproved of, to the same or a new 
 Conference. After such approval of the recommendation of 
 a Conference, the Commission shall issue an obligatory order 
 to be effective in sixty days from the date of said order, spe- 
 cifying the minimum wage for women in the occupation, trade 
 or industry affected, the maximum hours, provided that the 
 hours specified shall not be more than the legal maximum for 
 women in Oregon, and the standard conditions of labor for 
 said women ; and after such order is effective, it shall be un- 
 lawful for any employer in said occupation, trade or industry 
 to employ women over eighteen (18) years of age for less 
 than the rate of wages or more than the maximum hours speci- 
 fied, or under conditions of labor prohibited for women so 
 employed. The Commission shall send by mail so far as 
 practicable to each employer in the occupation in question a 
 copy of the order, and each such employer shall be required to 
 post a copy of said order in each building in which women 
 affected by the order are employed. 
 
 Section 10. For any occupation, trade or industry, in 
 which a minimum time rate only has been established, the 
 Commission, through its Secretary, may issue to a woman 
 physically defective or crippled by age or otherwise, a special 
 license authorizing the employment of such license for a wage 
 
16 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 less than the legal minimum wage; and the Commission shall 
 fix the minimum wage for said woman. 
 
 Section 11. The Commission may at any time inquire 
 into wages, hours and conditions of labor of minors, em- 
 ployed in any occupation in the state, and may determine 
 wages, hours and conditions of labor suitable in the case of 
 minors. When the Commission has made such determination 
 in the case of minors, it may proceed to issue an obligatory 
 order in the manner provided for in Section 9 of this Act, 
 and after such order is effective, it shall be unlawful for anv 
 employer in said occupation to employ a minor for less wages 
 or more hours than is specified for minors in said occupation^ 
 or under conditions of labor prohibited by the Commission 
 for said minors in its order. 
 
 Section 12. Upon the request of the Commission the 
 Commissioner of Labor Statistics shall furnish to the Com- 
 mission such statistics as the Commission may require. 
 
 Section 13. Any employer who discharges, or in any 
 other manner discriminates against any employe because 
 such employe has testified or is about to testify, or because 
 such employer believes that said employe may testify in any 
 investigation or proceedings relative to the enforcement of 
 this Act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon 
 conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of from Twenty- 
 five Dollars ($25.00) to One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) for 
 each such misdemeanor. 
 
 Section 14. Any person employing a woman or minor 
 for whom a minimum wage or maximum hours or standard 
 condition of labor have been specified, at less than said mini- 
 mum wage, or for more than the specified maximum hours, 
 or under conditions of labor prohibited by the order of the 
 Commission ; or violating any other of the provisions of this 
 Act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon 
 conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not less than 
 Twenty-five Dollars ($25.00) or more than One Hundred 
 Dollars ($100.00) or by imprisonment in the County Jail for 
 not less than ten (10) days, nor more than three (3) months. 
 Justice courts shall have jurisdiction of all violations of this 
 Act. 
 
 Section 15. If any female employe shall receive less than 
 the legal minimum wage in any occupation for which a mini- 
 mum wage has been determined by the Commission, she shall 
 be entitled to recover in a civil action the full amount of her 
 minimum wage as herein provided for, together with costs 
 and attorney's fees to be fixed by the court, notwithstanding 
 any agreement to work for such lesser wage. In such action, 
 however, the employer shall be credited with any wages which 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 17 
 
 have been paid upon account, whether in cash or otherwise. 
 
 Section 16. All questions of fact arising under this 
 Act shall be determined by the Commission, and there shall 
 be no appeal from its decision, but there shall be a right of 
 appeal to the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon on ques- 
 tions of law. 
 
 Section 17. The Commission shall bi-ennially make 
 a report to the Governor ar.cl State Legislature of its investi- 
 gations and proceedings. 
 
 Section 18. There is hereby appropriated annually 
 out of any monies of the State Treasury not otherwise ap- 
 propriated, the sum of Three Thousand, Five Hundred Dol- 
 lars ($3,500.00), or as much thereof as may be necessary to 
 meet the expenses of the Commission. 
 
18 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 
 OF THE SURVEY 
 
 To the Social Survey Committee : 
 
 I herewith submit the report of the investigation into the 
 wages, hours, conditions of labor and cost and standards of 
 living of women workers in Oregon. Acknowledgment is 
 due to the Chairman of the Survey Committee, Rev. E. V. 
 O'Hara, for his constant advice and aid in carrying out the 
 work; to Mr. O. P. Hoff, State Labor Commissioner, and to 
 Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull, Secretary Child Labor Commission. 
 for many valuable suggestions, to the manufacturers and mer- 
 chants who have opened their shops and payrolls to us for 
 inspection. The director was assisted in the field work by 
 Daisy M. Eager, Mrs. Wm. P. Gannett and Grace G. Collins. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 CAROLINE J. GLEASOX, 
 
 Director of Survey. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 Purpose of Investigation. 
 
 The purpose of the investigation was to secure accurate 
 data (1) as to the wages paid in all lines of work to self- 
 supporting women in this State, (2) as to the cost of living 
 in Portland and the smaller towns of the state, with a view to 
 determining whether wage-earning women are receiving a 
 wage that permits them to live so as to preserve their health 
 and their morals, and to save against future needs ; (3) as to 
 conditions which would affect the health or morals of the 
 workers. 
 
 A hostile attitude has never been assumed by the in- 
 vestigators towards the management of any establishments. 
 They report details of conditions that are not good, or which 
 are remarkably bad. Where conditions have been found re- 
 markably good, mention has gladly 'been made of them. Yet 
 a state of affairs should rightly not exist in which an employer 
 who paid his employes a living wage, who kept his shop 
 in a clean, healthful condition, should feel that he was acting 
 in an exceptionally commendable way. A sanitary shop and 
 a living wage ought to be not the exception but the rule a 
 standard, the opposite of which would call for general dis- 
 approval. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Procedure of Investigation. 
 
 \o attempt was made to canvas every female worker 
 in the various industries for cost of living schedules, nor to 
 gather complete wage schedules from all industries in the 
 state. A number that would accurately represent the wage 
 and cost of living situations was all that was deemed neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Four lines were followed in gathering information : 
 
 1. Cards, one of which is reproduced below, were 
 distributed among women workers, and when filled were col- 
 lected by investigators. To reach workers, no distinction 
 was made in establishments. A list of different industries 
 employing women was drawn up and every house on the list 
 visited. Over 2,000 cards were distributed; 509 were collected 
 in Portland. Workers were approached at lunch and closing 
 hour and in their homes. The director has no hesitancy in 
 presenting information gathered from cards as accurate. 
 
 MINIMUM WAGE INVESTIGATION 
 
 1. WHAT kind of ESTABLISHMENT are you working 
 in? . 
 
 2. WHAT is your work 
 
 3. WAGES Week or Month 
 
 4. HOURS employed Day or Week. 
 
 5. LIVING at Home? (Yes or No) 
 
 6. VACATION with pay? 
 
 7. HOW long with firm? 
 
 8. FIRST wage here? 
 
 COST OF LIVING 
 
 1. HOUSE or Room rent, per year 
 
 2. FOOD, per year 
 
 3. CLOTHING, per year 
 
 4. CARFARE, per year 
 
 5. LAUNDRY, per year 
 
 6. DOCTOR Bills, per year 
 
 7. CHURCH Dues, per year 
 
 8. LODGE Dues, per year 
 
 9. EDUCATION, per year (books, newspapers, etc) 
 
 10. RECREATION, including vacation, per year 
 
 NOTE. On reverse side of card, give all other items of 
 expense that you deem proper, or information concerning 
 working conditions. 
 
 2. A second method was to solicit wage schedules from 
 employers and to ask their views on the labor conditions of 
 
20 
 
 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 female employes and their opinion as to the feasibility of the 
 proposed bill. 
 
 3. A third line pursued was that of engaging to work in 
 different establishments, in order to obtain first-hand informa- 
 tion as to conditions and to corroborate both employers' and 
 employes' reports. The investigators worked as employes in 
 12 factories. 
 
 4. A fourth line pursued was that of visiting boarding 
 and rooming-houses and private families who advertised room 
 and board, in all sections of the city, to discover the actual 
 cost of food and lodging; (b) of visiting department stores 
 for the lowest and average prices on articles of wear; (c) The 
 director of the investigation went to southern, western and 
 eastern sections of the state, visiting in all 14 towns, organiz- 
 ing sub-committees to gather wage statistics and collecting 
 information herself on wages, conditions of labor and cost of 
 living. The result is that information has been gained about 
 39 occupations employing women, and 8,736 women workers, 
 7,603 of these being in Portland, 1,133 outside. 
 
 Below in Table 1 is given a list of the industries investi- 
 gated in Portland and the number of workers employed in 
 each. 
 
 TABLE 1. 
 
 Occupational Distribution of 7603 Women Workers in Portland employed in 
 39 occupations investigated in regard to wages, hours, conditions of work and cost 
 and standards of living. 
 
 Bag Factories . . . 137 
 
 Broom and Basket 43 
 
 Can Factories 65 
 
 Canning Factories 100 
 
 Chewing Gum Factories 80 
 
 Cigar Box Factories 3 
 
 Clothing Factories 218 
 
 Candy Factories 212 
 
 Cordage Factories 16 
 
 Creameries 17 
 
 Curled Hair Factories 2 
 
 Flour Mills 8 
 
 Furriers 
 
 Mattress Factories 12 
 
 Meat Packers 12 
 
 Paper Box Factories 63 
 
 Packing 106 
 
 Prune Canneries 35 
 
 Pickle Factories 16 
 
 Shoe Factories 2 
 
 Soap Factories 2 
 
 Tobacco Factories 
 
 Tent and Awning Factories 
 
 Mohair and Woolen Mills 99 
 
 Factory Total 1306 
 
 COST OF LIVING. 
 
 The investigators have come to the conclusion that m 
 Portland $10 a week is the least on which the average, girl 
 can support herself decently. Facts which led to this con- 
 clusion were drawn from the testimony of the girls through 
 the 509 schedules detailing their living expenses. Certain m- 
 
 Cleaning and Dyeing 57 
 
 Department Stores , . . . .2281 
 
 Druggists (wholesale) 102 
 
 Dry Goods (wholesale) 125 
 
 Electric Co 314 
 
 Five and Ten Cent Stores 120 
 
 Grocers (wholesale) 73 
 
 Hairdressing 15 
 
 Laundries 2 
 
 Offices (general) 800 
 
 Printing and Stationery 2 
 
 Stenographers 985 
 
 Publishing 
 
 Restaurants and Hotels 3 
 
 Telephone 570 
 
 Total 6297 
 
 Factories 13 1 
 
 Total 7603 
 
Social Welfare Survey. ' 21 
 
 dustries demand higher standards of living than others; also 
 a young woman's condition as to whether she is living at 
 home or is a girl "adrift" influences her cost of living. 
 
 The term "adrift," used in connection with the woman 
 not living at home, may need some explanation. The appli- 
 cation of the word is that given by the Federal Investigators 
 in their Report on Women and Child Wage Earners in the 
 U. S., Vol. V, "Women in Stores and Factories/' It is meant 
 to cover all cases of the girl "practically without a home." 
 Those who are living in rooming and boarding-houses and 
 entirely dependent on their own earnings, are undoubtedly 
 "adrift." The question arises over those who, though living 
 with a parent or other near relatives, are depended upon for 
 care and support. An example quoted by the Federal report 
 is thai of a girl supporting an invalid father by her income 
 and caring also for the house : "Not absolutely but practically 
 without *a home, as her father is neither physically nor men- 
 tally able to sustain her in time of need or restrain her in time 
 of temptation." The widow or deserted woman with de- 
 pendent children is another example of a woman "adrift." 
 This investigation .came across women difficult to classify, 
 and for purposes of simplicity adopted this description. 
 
 Table 2 below gives the average annual wage and ex- 
 pense of the 509 women interviewed in Portland, classified 
 according to industry and whether they were living at home 
 or adrift. The saving or deficit is also indicated, showing the 
 amount of outside help required for the girl's support. 
 
 It will be observed that the average girl in every occu- 
 pation, except office work, receives wages which are inadequate 
 for her support, and consequently would face the end of the 
 year in debt if she does not receive assistance from her family 
 or some outside source. This shows the extent to which in- 
 dustries employing women are parasitic in character. 
 
 TABLE 2. 
 
 Average Annual Wage and Expense of 509 Women Wage Earners in Portland, 
 classified by occupation and as to living at Home or Adrift: 
 
 LAUNDRY. 
 
 No. Average Annual Wage. Expense. Deficit. Saving. 
 
 9 At Home $423.00 $474.45 $ 51.45 
 
 27 Adrift 464.00 475.05 11.05 
 
 FACTORY. 
 
 82 At Home 416.92 426.98 10.06 
 
 18 Adrift 395.00 438.83 43.83 
 
 OFFI.CE. 
 
 57 At Home . ... 542.14 599.50 57.36 
 
 31 Adrift 692.90 617.07 $75.83 
 
 DEPARTMENT STORES. 
 
 81 At Home 459.50 605.36 145.86 
 
 35 Adrift 480.57 572.42 91.85 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 99 At Home 440.24 539.29 99.05 
 
 70 Adrift . 458.71 526.68 67.97 
 
22 
 
 ' Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Out of 127 persons who offered information, other than 
 the schedules called for, 70 stated that they could not live on 
 their salaries if they did not receive outside help;; 22 had to 
 help support families that ranged from 4 to 9 persons; 15 
 others said they had children to support ; 62 claimed to receive 
 assistance from home. The wage ranged from $2.50 to $12 
 per week. 
 
 Table 3 shows what is the average cost of living for 101 
 young women in the state at large. The evidence is practically 
 the same as that from Portland. Outside it amounts to $9.82 
 a week, or $42.55 a month. In some towns the actual cost <>i" 
 living would be slightly lower on account of lack of car service. 
 
 TABLE 3. 
 
 Average amount spent annually by 101 women wage earners in miscellaneous 
 occupations in Oregon (outside Portland). Information obtained from Ashland, 
 Baker, Eugene, Forest Grove, LaGrande, Medford, Oregon City, Pendleton, Salem 
 and Vale: 
 
 Room and Board $278.62 
 
 Clothing 137.50 
 
 Laundry 16.00 
 
 Carfare 21.00 
 
 Doctor and Dentist 18.00 
 
 Church and Lodge 12.52 
 
 Reading 6.54 
 
 Recreation 20.50 
 
 Total 
 
 $9.82 a week; $42.55 a month. 
 
 .$510.68 
 
 WAGES. 
 
 Table 4 below shows that out of 3.217 wage schedules, 
 1920 were under $10 a week. A median average was struck 
 for 1,306 additional workers in 53 factories. The median 
 wage here was $8.20 a week, which means that 50 per cent 
 were receiving less than $8.20 a week, 50 per cent more. To 
 the 1920. receiving less than $10 a week, we can add 50 per 
 cent of 1,306, or 653, making a total of 2,573 out of 4,523, or 
 over one-half, receiving less than $10 a week. The lowest 
 wage reported was that of a millinery apprentice earning $1.50 
 a week ; the highest, that of a stenographer earning $35 a 
 week. TABLE 4. 
 
 Summary of Weekly Wages of Women Employes in Portland: 
 
 OCCUPATION 
 
 .0 
 
 & 
 
 H 
 
 Number 
 over $10 
 
 1 
 
 1! 
 
 V 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 ll 
 
 Derarttnent Stores 
 
 1211 
 
 867 
 
 2078 
 
 58 2 
 
 41 7 
 
 Factories 
 
 319 
 
 108 
 
 427 
 
 74 7 
 
 25 3 
 
 Hotels and Restaurants 
 
 105 
 
 108 
 
 213 
 
 49 2 
 
 50 8 
 
 Laundries 
 
 130 
 
 10 
 
 140 
 
 92 6 
 
 7 4 
 
 Office Help (not including stenographers) . 
 
 59 
 
 67 
 
 126 
 
 46 4 
 
 53 6 
 
 Stenographers 
 
 19 
 
 66 
 
 85 
 
 22 4 
 
 77 5 
 
 Printino- Trades 
 
 32 
 
 25 
 
 57 
 
 56 1 
 
 43 8 
 
 Telephone Operators 
 
 25 
 
 26 
 
 52 
 
 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 39 
 
 48 7 
 
 51 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 1920 1297 3217 59.6 40.4 
 
 /* dditional report of 53 factories representing 21 industries; 1306 women em- 
 ployed; lowest wage reported, $3 a week; median wage, $8.20 a week. 
 
 Total number of wage schedules of women employes in Portland received and 
 classified: 4,523. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 23 
 
 Table 5 shows the average wage paid in different lines of 
 work outside of Portland. 26 towns, with 1,133 women wage- 
 earners, are represented. The lowest wage is that offered in 
 hotels and restaurants, where 18 women earned on an average 
 of $31.65 a month. Next are 22 telephone operators earning 
 an average of $33.07 a month. Individual schedules reported 
 an operator's wage in several of the towns as $20 a month. 
 Stenographers earn the largest sums; next to them, with a 
 difference of $11 a month, are retail stores and laundries. 
 
 TABLE 5. 
 
 Wage Information for 1133 Women Wage Earners in Oregon (Outside of Portland). 
 (Wage information was received from the following towns and cities: Albany, 
 Ashland, Astoria, Baker, Cottage Grove, Dallas, Enterprise, Eugene, Forest Grove, 
 Ihx.d River, Grants Pass, LaGrande, McMinnville, Medford, Oregon City, Pen- 
 dleton, Roseburg, Salem, Springfield, Stockton, The Dalles, Union and Vale.) 
 
 No. of Employes. Industry, Average Monthly Wage. 
 
 88 Canneries $35.00 
 
 6 Condensed Milk 38.00 
 
 280 Woolen Mills 37.50 
 
 18 Hotels and Restaurants 31.65 
 
 518 Laundries 39.50 
 
 45 Office Help 35.50 
 
 140 v . . Retail Stores 39.21 
 
 16 Stenographers 50.00 
 
 22 Telephone Operators 33 07 
 
 CONDITIONS OF LABOR. 
 
 In smaller towns, one frequently finds an attitude of fra- 
 ternalism between employer and employe which makes for 
 consideration on both sides. Some lines of work, such as retail 
 stores, though they may demand much at one time of day, 
 have decidedly lessened strain at others. Because of a smaller 
 number of workers to an establishment, ventilation and light 
 are often good. In Portland, working conditions cannot be 
 described as a whole as very good, fair or poor. Some estab- 
 lishments were found which could be placed on a "white 
 list." Other are unspeakably bad. The chapter which de- 
 scribes these in detail shows, as does the chapter on wages, 
 the need of legislation to preserve the health and morals of 
 the workers. 
 
 During the investigation, several phases of the female 
 labor problem have been brought out constantly. One of 
 these is in regard to the efficiency of the workers. One fact 
 that was clearly demonstrated is that efficiency is certainly not 
 the standard according to which the majority of workers are 
 paid. This was evidenced (1) by the dismissal of highly paid, 
 experienced employes and the employment of young, inexpe- 
 rienced substitutes ; (2) by the reduction of rates on piece- 
 work when employes had reached a certain earning capacity; 
 (3) by the fact brought out again and again, that though em- 
 ployes were retained for years of service, though their effi- 
 ciency increased with time, they found it an impossibility to 
 
24 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 keep their position and bring their wages above a certain low 
 figure. 
 
 Other facts that seemed to account for inefficiency lay 
 in the unpleasant and sometimes degrading and difficult sur- 
 roundings in which the work had to be done. 
 
 Lack of training undoubtedly has much to do with in- 
 efficiency. This is a burden which must be assumed by so- 
 ciety at large and disposed of by some kind of industrial train- 
 ing for girls as well as for boys. Until education of this sort 
 is compulsory, some of the evils of low efficiency will remain. 
 
 Another cause of inefficiency, however, must be attributed 
 to the careless standards of employers. If cheap help is em- 
 ployed, cheap work must be expected. Inexperienced workers 
 see loose methods of work permitted and are content to go 
 on in the way they have begun. A concrete example of this 
 is in the office work. Girls of 16, 17 and 18 years spend six 
 weeks or two months in a short course in a business college. 
 At the end of that time, they are ready for work. As might 
 be expected, they are slow, uneven writers ; they hire out to 
 a firm where many technical terms entirely unknown to 
 them are used. If their spelling is even good to begin with, 
 it stands a test here to which it has not been subjected, and 
 fails. Even though an attempt is made by the stenographers 
 to "make good" in this work, progress is retarded by the lack 
 of preparation. Girls state that large firms employing a num- 
 ber of office employes permit shoddy work to go through, 
 and practically spoil a young stenographer for future high 
 grade work. If employers insisted that their office help had 
 a minimum amount of elementary schooling and an approved 
 business training, then started them at $40 a month, instead 
 of $20 and $25, the girl and the firm would profit in the end. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The investigation has proved beyond a doubt that a large 
 majority of self-supporting women in the state are earning 
 less than it costs them to live decently ; that many are re- 
 ceiving subsidiary help from their homes, which thus con- 
 tribute to the profits of their employers ; that those who do 
 not receive assistance from relatives are breaking down in 
 health from lack of proper nourishing food and comfortable 
 lodging quarters, or are supplementing their wages by money 
 received from immoral living. That even in places where 
 living Wages are paid, workshops are in such unsanitary condi- 
 tion that immediate changes are necessary ; that in certain in- 
 dustries hours of labor are prejudicial to the health of the 
 workers. For the remedying of these evils, proper legislation 
 seems to be the only means. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 25 
 
 WAGES, HOURS, UNEMPLOYMENT 
 
 RETAIL STORES. 
 Beginning Wages in Department Stores. 
 
 Table 6 shows that the beginning weekly wage in De- 
 partment Stores in Portland is $3.00. Only two girls are 
 registered at this sum, but the number receiving $4 calls for 
 more attention. Fifty young women, or 2.4 per cent, are 
 earning a sum that would pay only for a decent room and 
 carfare. Nearly ten times that number, or 489 (Table 7), 
 are working for less than $1 for each day of the week. 
 
 TABLE 6. 
 
 Number and Per Cent, of 2078 Women Workers in Portland Department Stores 
 classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 s* 
 
 Number . 
 Per Cent 
 
 2 | 50 
 .09 | 2.40 
 
 138 | 313 
 6.63 |15.05 
 
 1* 
 
 145 
 6.97 
 
 331 
 15.92 
 
 232 
 11.15 
 
 505 
 25.25 
 
 326 
 15.68 
 
 36 |2078 
 1.73 | 100 
 
 TABLE 7. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 2078 Women Workers in Portland Department 
 Stores, Classified by Earnings. 
 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 
 | 
 
 8 
 
 TJ 
 C 
 
 y 
 
 TJ 
 
 C 
 
 V 
 
 c 
 
 i 
 
 T3 
 
 C 
 
 V 
 
 "O 
 
 | 
 
 2 
 H 
 
 
 
 t> 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 Number 
 
 2 
 
 38 
 
 176 
 
 489 
 
 634 
 
 965 
 
 1211 
 
 867 
 
 2078 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 .09 
 
 2.49 
 
 9.12 
 
 24.17 
 
 | 31.14 
 
 | 47.06 
 
 58.21 
 
 41.79 
 
 100 
 
 Girls earning $3 and $4 a week are given that sum because 
 they are "young." \Yc expect to find them running errands 
 and acting as cash girls. We discover them in steady posi- 
 tions as clerks and in the office. Six dollars a week is the 
 wage most frequently offered an applicant for a clerk's posi- 
 tion. Wrappers receive between $25 and $30 a month. The 
 position carries a certain amount of responsibility, as the 
 wrappers must measure every yard of goods passing through 
 their hands, or in the case of single articles, compare the price 
 tag and the clerk's slip to see that the sums are correct. Such 
 positions' offer very little hope of advancement. Ten dollars 
 is the maximum wage that the majority of clerks can hope to 
 attain to. That this is a hope for the majority and a realiza- 
 tion for a minority, is shown in Table 7, which indicates that 
 1,211 women wage earners in department stores are earning 
 under $10. The 867 who are earning $10 and over are rna-'e 
 up of a few clerks, the highest paid office help and heads of 
 departments. 
 
26 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Complaint Against Their Wage System. 
 
 One of the greatest complaints to be found with the large 
 department store management is that as far as anyone can 
 find out, they have no system of advancement of employes. 
 Amount of sales, increase or decrease, is watched, to be sure, 
 but apparently only to dismiss the employe if he or she does 
 not come up to a certain standard. When the regulation of 
 wages is left to the head of each department, the demand 
 that the returns from the department be kept at 'a certain 
 figure is likely to result (for men and women alike) in the 
 dismissal of competent, high-paid clerks, or reduction of their 
 wages. The basis of advance seems to 'be personal aggres- 
 siveness, and this is testified to over and over again by the 
 girls. 
 
 Secrecy of Wage Rates. 
 
 A rule existing, written or unwritten, in all the larger 
 stores, is that the girls must not tell others what wage they 
 are getting. Divulging this information has resulted in in- 
 stant dismissal. One firm goes so far as to require a signed 
 promise from the girl that she will not tell any other employe 
 her wage. The following is quoted from the firm's application 
 blank : 
 
 "(Unless you can answer 'yes' to these questions, do not 
 place your application with us) : 
 
 "1. I will consider it my duty to report in writing or 
 otherwise to the Superintendent i any act or conduct of my 
 fellow employes that I believe to be against the interest of 
 the business. 
 
 "2. My engagement can be terminated any hour or day 
 at the option of.. , I being at liberty to do likewise. 
 
 "3. I agree to keep my salary confidential. 
 
 "I have answered the above questions in the affirmative 
 (yes) without reservation, and agree, if engaged, to conform 
 to the rules of the house." 
 
 Another existing rule that works hardships on employes 
 is that goods under-charged, mis-measured, wrongly addressed 
 and lost, must be paid for. One is ready to acknowledge that 
 with a large number of employes, some system must be 
 adopted whereby the more irresponsible ones will feel the 
 necessity of being careful. But with responsible work should 
 go a corresponding wage which would enable a worker to 
 pay for a possibly accidental mistake, without having to incur 
 a debt for it. 
 
 An observer is inclined to think that the secrecy of wage 
 scales is due to inability to explain individual large sales with 
 low wage, or long service with persisting low wage ; or knowl- 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 27 
 
 edge of the cost of living and a lower-than-cost-of-living 
 wage. Even one who has experienced incompetent service 
 in retail stores is loath to admit that out of 2,000 young 
 women, over half of them are so inefficient that they do not 
 deserve to receive what it reasonably costs them to live. In- 
 stances are at hand of girls who have been started at $17 per 
 month at work that required intelligence and application, and 
 at the end of two years were receiveing only $20; of girls who 
 started at $7 per week and at the end of 9 years were receiving 
 $13. Department stores are known to have a waiting list. Fe- 
 male help is not so scarce that a girl who cannot make herself 
 worth more than $5.00 per week after two years' experience, 
 is worth bothering with on the payroll. The same can be said 
 of a clerk who with nine years' experience behind her is 
 worth only $2.08 per day. 
 
 A fallacy maintained by the managers and used as an 
 excuse for their low wage scales is that girls who live at home 
 do not need as much money as girls who are boarding. Many 
 go so far as to require that a girl be living at home before 
 they will employ her. The argument against this is that the 
 girl at home surely eats three meals a day, as the girl adrift 
 is suposed to do, and food for the former costs as much as 
 for the latter. If she is receiving only enough to pay for her 
 clothing, who pays for her food and laundry? If her 
 parents or her guardians do, are they not contributing just 
 that much toward the revenues of the store? and if she is a 
 "charity girl," who pays for her lunches with the loss of her 
 virtue, can she not hold the department store more heavily 
 her debtor than do the parents of the virtuous girl? Table 
 2 on page -- shows that the average wage of the girl adrift 
 is $21 a year more than the average wage of the girl living 
 at home, but the same table also shows that the girl adrift 
 has an annual deficit of $91.85 and no home to rely upon for 
 payment of it. $145.86 is the annual deficit the department 
 store girl at home would have to face, did she pay room and 
 board fees, as does the girl adrift. 
 
 Wages in the State at Large. 
 
 Wages in retail stores outside of Portland average higher 
 for the large majority, 'but do not reach the maximum paid 
 here. Out of 14 towns reporting on this industry, only one 
 has a wage of $6, or less, a week. The highest paid is $50. 
 The average paid in the other twelve towns is $39.20. Table 
 5, page -- shows the average wage paid in the different in- 
 dustries in all towns outside of Portland. 
 
 Hours. 
 
 It is a pleasure to record that since this investigation 
 began, one of the large department stores of Portland has 
 announced an eight-hour day for its employes. 
 
28 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 In all but one of the department stores in Portland the 
 girls "ring in" at eight o'clock. In Xo. 1, an SVj-hour day 
 was given as a Christmas present to the employes. Here a 
 45-minute lunch hour is allowed, and in return for the sacri- 
 ficed 15 minutes, the employes of one year or 'more are iven 
 a week's vacation with pay. The firm can, even with this 
 arrangement, save more than they pay out in vacation money. 
 Besides this, many girls work less than a year, and though 
 they give up the fifteen minutes of lunch hour for nine months, 
 get nothing for it. However, this firm's example of 8 hours 
 is much to be commended, since some of its competitors are 
 still open 10 hours. Firm Xo. 2 not long ago began closing at 
 5:45 p. m., but at the same time took 15 minutes from the 
 lunch hour. This firm does not open the store to the cus- 
 tomers at present till 8:30 a. m., though the girls are required 
 to be on duty at 8. To the clerks, this is very little relief 
 as the trade the first hour after opening is so light that there 
 is small difficulty in arranging stock. The third large firm 
 has always opposed any policy that seemed to aim at real 
 improvement in the condition of its employes. It still main- 
 tains a full 10-hour day with an hour for lunch. On Satur- 
 days, the employes work in broken shifts, an arrangement 
 that betides ill for the girl living too far from home to return 
 there betwee : n shifts. It has persisted in Saturday afternoon 
 and evening work during the summer when its competitors 
 announced that thev were willing to close if No. 3 would. 
 Firm Xo. 1 stayed closed Saturday evenings for a year longer 
 than 2 and 3 did when the experiment was tried several years 
 ago, and eventually g^iven up. A fourth store during the past 
 summer closed on Thursday afternoon each week. 
 
 Saturday Evening Closing. 
 
 Saturdav evening closing has been introduced to such 
 an extent in eastern cities without harm to the owners' 
 profits that it has been agitated here. Though the girls do 
 not work more than ten hours on Saturday, the time off dur- 
 ing the day means very little in the way of rest or accom- 
 plishment, while the added expense of the Saturday night meal 
 and during Christmas week of the six extra suppers down- 
 town is complained of loudly. Xo instances have been re- 
 ported of "lunch money" being given to skirls when kept down- 
 town for night work, or of $1 or $1.25 being added to the 
 Christmas week's wa^e. The evils of night work appeared 
 particularly grave during the holiday season just closed, when 
 some of the girls thought it necessary to take opiates to main- 
 tain their strength for their work. 
 
 Overtime. 
 
 "Broken shifts" mentioned earlier is the arrangement sub- 
 stituted for overtime. Yet overtime still exists in department 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 29 
 
 stores to a certain extent. Previous to Christmas, when the 
 season for decorating was at hand, girls were asked whether 
 they would "like" to come back on Sunday and work. Know- 
 ing what refusal meant, they dared not "dislike" it. In some 
 cases, when brought back on a Sunday, the doors were locked, 
 and they were thus prevented from going home when they 
 wished. During Christmas week girls in mail order and Dther 
 departments worked as much as an hour overtime. Such a 
 thing as overtime pay in these cases is unknown. 
 
 Unemployment. 
 
 Periodic rush seasons come in the Christmas holidays 
 and in the before-Easter and spring season. After Christmas a 
 large percentage of the force in the large stores is laid off. As a 
 general rule, the clerks expect dismissal to be on the basis 
 ot length of service, but they claim that they can never be 
 certain of their positions even though employed for two years. 
 One concrete instance was that of a girl in service for a year. 
 A friend of the head of a department was put on for the 
 Christinas rush; at the end of the holidays the new girl was 
 given a permanent position, the old one laid off, the reason 
 assigned being that she would not be needed in the dull sea- 
 son. Her mother was ill and dependent on her, and the girl 
 was in hard straits for work. A friend, hearing of this, in- 
 terceded and after a month's unemployment, she was taken 
 back. She did not blame the managers for this, saying that 
 they knew nothing of it, but held the head of the department 
 responsible. 
 
 Hours Outside of Portland. 
 
 ( Hitside of Portland, the standard of hours is a more le- 
 nient one. Some firms do not maintain the full ten hours, 
 but even where they do, the work is usually much lighter. 
 Fewer customers, more opportunity to rest, less open sur- 
 veillance and a feeling of friendliness between employer and 
 employe make the limit of the law less a burden. 
 
 Five, Ten and Fifteen Cent Stores. 
 
 Though many of the statements made about wages, 
 hours, conditions of employment in department stores apply 
 to the 5c, lOc and 15c stores as well, their wages here as a 
 whole are so miserable, their attempt to trade on the "youth 
 and consequent cheapness" (see note at bottom of page) of 
 the girls so open, that their system needs a special word. 
 
 Below in Table 8 is given specific data concerning wage 
 and length of time with firm of 13 girls in the 5c, lOc and 15c 
 stores in Portland. This indicates that $4 a week is a begin- 
 
 * "An ugly item in recent finance is the circular by the Woolworth Company 
 (United 5c and lOc Stores), notifying subscribers that the investment would be 
 profitable because of the small wages paid to clerks by reason of their youth and 
 consequent cheapness." Mrs. Florence Kelley. 
 
30 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 ning and long continued wage, $6 being about the happiest 
 maximum that an applicant can expect. Local superintend- 
 ents are controlled entirely by the eastern board of directors, 
 but even the former realize the sham ef illness of the policy 
 of the latter. A superintendent of one of the large 5c and lOc 
 stores in the state made a statement which he said could be 
 used for publication. He was not able to give the wage sched- 
 ule without the consent of the owners ; for this, eastern head- 
 quarters would have to be communicated with. He himself 
 is in sympathy with Wage Legislation and declares that the 
 syndicate which he represents will never raise the scale un- 
 less compelled to by law. At the annual convention at San 
 Francisco he took the floor and made a plea for an increase 
 in wages for women, which was endorsed by all the other 
 managers. The board of directors simply laughed them down. 
 He says that he employs only girls who live at home, be- 
 cause he knows the wages paid are not sufficient to support 
 them otherwise. Investigation, however, showed some of the 
 employes living "adrift." Their wages are regulated by a' cer- 
 tain percentage of the sales set aside for the purpose. The 
 board of directors does not care whether the superintendent 
 spends that amount for 50 or 150 girls, but he must take care 
 of the public and get results. 
 
 TABLE 8. 
 
 Wage Information Given by 13 Girls Working in Five and Ten Cent Stores. 
 
 Number receiving $4.00 a week 4 
 
 Number receiving 4.50 a week 7 
 
 Number receiving 5.00 a week 1 
 
 Number receiving 6.00 a week 1 
 
 Total 13 
 
 No. First Wage. ' Time with Firm Present Wage 
 
 1 $4.00 1 month $4.00 
 
 2 4.00 1 month 4.00 
 
 3 4.00 2 months 4.00 
 
 4 4.00 6 months 4.00 
 
 5 4.00 3 months 4.50 
 
 6 4.00 6 months 4.50 
 
 7 4.00 2 months 5.00 
 
 8 4.50 2 months 4.50 
 
 9 4.50 4 months 4.50 
 
 10 4.50 2 months 4.50 
 
 11 4.50 1 week 4.50 
 
 12 4.50 2 months 4.50 
 
 13 6.00 2 months 6.00 
 
 Comments. "I have only money enough, after paying carfare, to pay for my 
 clothing." "Mother helps me." "My salary is so small that I have to work for 
 my room and board after working ten hours in the store. Sunday I wash and iron 
 for the people I live with. My folks cannot help me." "Two children to support." 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 31 
 
 FACTORIES. 
 Beginning Wages. 
 
 From $3.00 to $6.00 per week is offered beginners in fac- 
 tories. Bag factories offer $4.00, candy factories $5.00, woolen 
 mills $6.00. Girls starting at $4.00 per week are kept on this 
 rate for ten days or two weeks, when they are put on piece 
 work. Clothing and shoe factories offer $1.00 per day each. 
 Bookbinderies, which are unionized, pay $6.00 per week to 
 beginners ; tent and awning factories $1.25 per day. Canneries 
 start workers in immediately on piece work, which in the 
 busy season for 12 or 16 hours daily work nets a woman from 
 $3 to $5 per week. At the opening of the season, when fruit is 
 not abundant, stemming strawberries is paid for at the rate of 
 18 cents a crate of 24 boxes ; stemming cherries at 14 cents 
 per bushel. When fruit piled in and workers were in 
 demand, 24 cents a crate of 24 boxes and 22 cents a bushel 
 for cherries were offered. Tobacco factories also pay beginners 
 by piece rate system. Stripping tobacco at 5 cents a pound 
 nets a beginner here from 20 cents to 45 cents per day. 
 Tobacco is so very light in weight that it fakes many leaves 
 to make a pound. 
 
 Wages in Factories. 
 
 TABLE 9. 
 Weekly Wage Schedule of 427 Women Factory Workers in Portland. 
 
 u, 
 o 
 
 *1 
 
 *! 
 
 38 
 
 si 
 
 S 
 
 - 
 * 
 
 s 
 
 Number 
 Per Cent. . . 
 
 6 
 
 1.4 
 
 25 
 5.8 
 
 58 
 13.5 
 
 56 
 13.1 
 
 61 
 14.2 
 
 51 
 11.9 
 
 62 | 
 14.5 I 
 
 58 
 13.5 
 
 42 | 
 9.8 | 
 
 1.8 
 
 427 
 100 
 
 Table 9, above, shows in detail the weekly wage of 427 
 factory girls in Portland. We find here that women are 
 working for $3.00 per week. From Table 10, showing the 
 cumulative number and per cent of workers with their re- 
 spective wage, we learn that 145 women, or one-third of the 
 entire number investigated are earning under $7.00, while 
 nearly one-half get less than $8.00 per week. 
 
 TABLE 10. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 427 Women Factory Employes in Portland 
 classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 S 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 in 
 
 k, 
 
 b 
 
 b 
 
 ti 
 
 i 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 T3 
 
 *O 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 *o 
 
 ri 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 C 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 
 c 
 
 B 
 
 H 
 
 e 
 
 
 L^ 
 
 
 D 
 
 > 
 
 
 D 
 
 tD 
 
 ^ 
 
 tJ 
 
 
 
 
 Number 
 
 6 
 
 31 
 
 89 
 
 145 
 
 206 
 
 257 
 
 319 
 
 108 
 
 427 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 1.4 
 
 7.2 
 
 20.8 
 
 33.9 
 
 48.1 
 
 60.1 
 
 74.7 
 
 25.3 
 
 100 
 
32 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Maximum Wage. 
 
 Forty-five cents a day is an impossible wage. Six dollars 
 or $7.50 per week may be unquestioned where it is maintained 
 merely as apprentice's wages and dispensed with when the 
 girl has learned to work, but apparently several years oi 
 service count lor no more than an apprentice's hours. In Table 
 10 above we find that out of 427 factory women in Portland, 
 74.7 per cent, or three-fourths, are earning less than $10.00 
 a week; 13.5 per cent are earning $10, whi-le 11.6 per cent 
 are earning over $12, but less than $20 a week. 50 women 
 out of 427 are represented by 11.6 per cent. The wages of 
 $12, but less than $20, represent in some cases the result 
 of 18 years work at an industry. They are the maximum 
 that these women may expect to earn. One fact that is re- 
 sponsible for this stationary maximum wage is that when a 
 piece worker begins to 'accumulate speed, the prices of work 
 are cut, and she finds herself set back a year as far as her 
 earning power is concerned. 
 
 The director of the investigation and one of her investi- 
 gators, in order to learn the truth as to wages, conditions 
 of labor, efficiency of workers, and causes of inefficiency, 
 have during the investigation worked in ten different facto^ 
 ries. In one of the paper box factories where she applied, 
 an investigator started at $4 per week. She stayed three days 
 only, but during that time, kept account of what 'her earnings 
 would have been had she been working on piece rates. In 
 order to be fair to the factory management, she worked her 
 very hardest and wasted no time. She discovered that the 
 first day she would have earned 78 cents, second day 68 cents 
 and the third day 58 cents. She felt that though new to the 
 work, she should have been able to earn a good wage, as 
 she brought a higher degree of training and adaptability than 
 did some of the unschooled workers. One reason for her 
 decrease in wage was that the first day's work would have 
 been paid at the rate of 10 cents per 100 pieces and required 
 three handlings. It was unskilled, but needed a little care. 
 The second day's work required the same number of hand- 
 lings, was paid at the same rate, but required twice the time 
 to bring the supplies and dispose of them, and much dexterity 
 in handling materials. The third day's work required nine 
 handlings, and was paid for at the rate of 15 cents per 100, 
 three times as -much work, with only 50 per cent more 
 compensation. To one of the girls who had worked 
 there a year, the remark was made that it would take a long 
 time to earn 15 cents at the third class of work, and she an- 
 swered, "Oh, you can make absolutely nothing on that." One 
 young woman, who had spent four years in this trade, who 
 had a mother and younger sisters dependent upon her, and 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 33 
 
 was an earnest, quiet worker, was able to make between $9 
 and $10 only, even in the busy season. This, she maintained, 
 was because such inefficient help was employed in the pre- 
 paring room that rough, uneven work was done, and pre- 
 vented the skilled help from working as swiftly as they could 
 if careful work were put into the foundation of the boxes. 
 To the investigator, it seemed that so unpromising was the 
 wage, so wearisome and exhausting the work and the effort to 
 make a few cents, that one need not be surprised if the girls 
 take no pride in what they accomplish, are careless and indif- 
 ferent as to the work they do, so long as it can pass the fore- 
 man. Poor conditions of workrooms are also responsible for 
 shiftlessness, but this will be shown later. 
 
 TABLE 11. 
 Factories in Portland Reporting Wage Schedules of Women Workers. 
 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 & 
 
 
 s 
 
 w 
 
 "O 
 
 rt 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 l! 
 
 ^ >> 
 
 It 
 
 
 1 
 
 d 
 
 w 
 
 ji> 
 
 ^U 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 Number 
 
 53 
 
 21 
 
 1306 
 
 $3.00 
 
 $8.20 
 
 Hours. 
 
 Strict enforcement of the 10-hour day, 60-hour week fe- 
 male labor law has done away with much of the overtime 
 work that previously existed. The problem is solved in some 
 places now by working a night shift in the Christmas and 
 spring rush seasons. Some managers still prefer to run the 
 risk of being caught at permitting or forcing overtime work 
 and being made to pay the penalty. 
 
 Some of the factories blow the work Whistle at 7 :00 
 o'clock a. m., but the majority employing women do not start 
 before 7 :30. An hour for lunch is granted. Factories start- 
 ing at 7 :30 close at 5 :30. Fifteen minutes for cleaning work- 
 rooms is often given just before closing time, but in those 
 establishments where less than a 60-hour per week schedule 
 is maintained, employes use part of Saturday afternoon for 
 sweeping floors and scrubbing work tables. 
 
 Fruit and vegetable canneries are probably the most flag- 
 rant violators of the labor law, both as to length of hours ^of 
 women's work and age of children permitted to work. The child 
 labor law forbids employment of children under 16, even dur- 
 ing the vacation months without a permit, and under no cir- 
 cumstances is a permit given to a child under 12 years of age. 
 Yet investigators working in the canneries in the summer of 
 1912 saw children under 11 years of age with their parents, 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 and sometimes unaccompanied, work more than the ten hours 
 a day allowed an adult. Canneries are open at 6 o'clock 
 a. m. They close at 10:30 p. m. One-half hour is permitted 
 at noon for lunch. Employes are threatened with loss of work 
 if they stop for an evening lunch, and because this threat doeo 
 not always keep them in, the entrance doors are sometimes 
 locked at 6 o'clock. Children of 12 and 13 employed in the 
 factories have been seen crying in the evening because they 
 were too tired to work, yet could not get home on account of 
 locked doors. Overtime is paid in the cannery at the regular 
 piece rates. At the close of the season, old men and women 
 who could not work elsewhere were kept on peeling apples 
 for 2 cents a pan, and this in an unheated, fog-laden, damp 
 cement-floored workroom. Earlier in the season the rate had 
 been 3 cents a pan ! 
 
 Unemployment. 
 
 The rush season for bag and paper box, candy and fur 
 factories comes just before Christmas. Paper box and candy 
 establishments are busy again from February to Easter, when 
 the clothing season begins to "swing in full." Canneries main- 
 tain only a six months' season from June until December. 
 
 The problem of unemployment which is suggested by the 
 mention of "rush" and "dull" seasons is a serious one to the 
 workers. Practically three-fourths of the wage-earning women 
 of the state have to reckon on a period of unemployment 
 which must be prepared for "somehow or other." Industries 
 such as the canneries are known to be open for only a few 
 months. They employ in part a class of women, often 
 mothers of households, who do not work away from home 
 the other six months of the year, or if they do, engage for 
 "day work," but to them the money that they can earn during 
 these summer months means much toward the winter fuel and 
 winter clothes of children. They employ, too, girls who may 
 have been dismissed from a trade starting on its quiet season. 
 Sometimes they have been out of work for one or two months, 
 trying to get work somewhere else, but dependent on this 
 when June comes. 
 
 In such trades as the clothing, shoe, candy and can mak- 
 ing industries, which run all year, the applicant is always 
 hoping for an opportunity to "make good" to the extent that 
 she will be kept on when the dull season 'arrives. To her un- 
 employment means a serious evil. Her wages during em- 
 ployment do not keep her well housed and clothed. How can 
 she save for the day when she will be out of work? Figures 
 of the number employed in the two seasons in a few of the 
 trades show the extent of the problem. Clothing factories 
 hiring 300 and 150 dismiss 200 and 100 respectively in the dull 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 35 
 
 season. Three other factories of different work employing 
 150, 80 and 20 respectively in the busy season dismiss 115, 60 
 and 15 in the dull season. Unemployment in other trades will 
 be noted when they are described. 
 
 LAUNDRIES. 
 Wages. 
 
 Laundry work has the name of being one of the best 
 paid lines requiring chiefly hand work. In reality, it is one 
 of the poorest. The minimum wage is $1.25 a day, but the 
 maximum is $2.00, above which even the most skilled seldom 
 go. Below is a typical wage schedule: 
 
 TABLE 12. 
 
 Markers $1.50 per day. 
 
 Starch Room 15c and 17*c to 20c per hour. 
 
 Manglers $1.35 to $1.50 per day. 
 
 Folders $1.25 to $1.35 per day. 
 
 Stackers $1.25 to $1.35 per day. 
 
 Body Manglers $1.75 to $2.00 per day. 
 
 Ironers $1.50 to $2.00 per day. 
 
 TABLE 13. 
 
 Weekly Wage Schedules of Women Workers in Portland. 
 Laundries. 140 Women Employes. 
 
 
 fl 
 
 l{ 
 
 s s 
 
 - V. 
 
 V 
 
 g 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 n 
 V 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 o| 
 
 .0** 
 
 si 
 
 J2 
 
 re 
 
 O 
 
 
 29 
 
 38 
 
 41 
 
 22 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 140 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 20.6 
 
 27.1 
 
 29.2 
 
 15.7 
 
 | 4.3 
 
 2.8 
 
 100 
 
 TABLE 14. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 140 Women Employed in Portland Laundries, 
 classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 ,_, 
 
 
 t& 
 
 | 
 
 
 u 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 "c 
 
 T3 
 
 a 
 
 t> 
 
 > 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 5 
 
 tJ 
 
 O 
 
 
 MutnhAr 
 
 29 
 
 67 
 
 108 
 
 130 
 
 10 
 
 140 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 20.6 
 
 47.7 
 
 76.9 
 
 92.6 
 
 7.4 
 
 100 
 
 Table 13 shows the weekly wage schedule of 140 women 
 workers in Portland. From this it appears that though man- 
 agers announce their minimum as that given above, $1.25 per 
 day, there are 29 laundry workers in Portland Who are earning 
 only $1 a day. None reported earning $15 a week. Those 
 earning $12 per week are l-35th of the whole number; those 
 earning $10 are l-23rd of the 140. Table 14 shows the cumu- 
 lative number earning under $10. 130 out of the 140 women 
 interviewed, are earning less than it costs them to live. (See 
 Cost of Living Tables). 
 
36 
 
 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Hours. 
 
 Out of 19 laundries investigated in Portland, but two re- 
 ported a day less than 9 hours ; the remainder vary between 
 that and 10 hours. 
 
 Overtime. 
 
 Overtime is paid for at the rate of from 10 cents to 12^2 
 cents an hour. Beginning in May and continuing through 
 the summer, laundries work to almost their full capacity. In 
 the warmest months, overtime from one-half to three hours 
 a day is exacted. As one woman remarked, "The exhaustion 
 of overtime is not worth the 10 to 20 cents mere carfare 
 that we earn." Like the factories and department stores, 
 the laundries lay off a large percentage of their help during 
 the dull season. The experienced ironers may find it possible 
 to do family washing by the day, but for the more unskilled 
 workers the problem of being out of work in the winter time 
 is a serious one. 
 
 Wages Outside of Portland. 
 
 Wages in laundries throughout the state so very nearly 
 approach the wage in Portland that scarcely any comment 
 is needed. Table 5 shows that the average wage per month 
 of 518 women working in laundries outside of Portland is 
 $39.50. The hardships of the work diminish slightly with the 
 volume of it. 
 
 Hours Outside of Portland. 
 
 Of 32 laundries outside of Portland investigated as to 
 hours of work, 2 reported an 8-hour day; 12 a 9-hour day, 
 and 15 -a full 10-hour day. Some of those who maintain a 
 9-hour schedule are competing with others who maintain 
 a 9%-hour day. 
 
 OFFICE HELP. 
 Wages. 
 
 Beginners' Wages. For an occupation that calls tor a 
 more mature worker than some of the confessedly low-paid 
 industries, 'and for one that demands brain rather than brawn, 
 office work offers astonishingly small wages. In this investi- 
 gation, those who did stenographic and bookkeeping work 
 were not separated from those who did stenographic work 
 only, for the reason that where a stenographer has books to 
 keep they are usually simple and easy. Those classed as 
 
 TABLE 15. 
 
 Weekly Wage Schedules of Women Workers in Portland. 
 Office Help (not including Stenographers) 126 employes. 
 
 s* 
 
 
 2- 
 * 
 
 s 
 
 Number | 3 | 13 | 7 
 
 Per Cent | 2.3 | 10.2 | 5.5 
 
 25 
 
 19.7 
 
 11 
 
 8.7 
 
 20 
 15.8 
 
 24 
 18.3 
 
 18 
 14.2 
 
 5 
 3.9 
 
 126 
 100 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 37 
 
 general office help included filers, billers, stock girls, desk 
 clerks and cashiers. The lowest wage indicated in Table 15 
 is $5 per week. Record on hand tells of a girl who started 
 for $17 per month, and at the end of two years had been ad- 
 vanced to $20 per month. Twenty-five dollars per month is 
 a frequent offer to coptometer, billing and filing clerks, but 
 $30 and $35 are also met with. 
 
 TABLE 16. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of Women Employes in offices (not including 
 Stenographers in Portland, classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 & 
 
 ft 
 
 s 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 fc 
 
 u 
 
 V 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 3 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 *o 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 p; 
 
 
 E 
 
 M 
 
 
 D 
 
 
 D 
 
 3 
 
 p 
 
 o 
 
 
 Number 
 
 3 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 48 
 
 59 
 
 67 
 
 126 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 2.3 
 
 12.5 
 
 18.0 
 
 37.7 
 
 46.4 
 
 53.6 
 
 100 
 
 Stenographers, it may be noted. Table 17, start out at as 
 low a figure as do the billers, filers and cashiers, who may ob- 
 tain a position without a business course training, but stenog- 
 raphers advance more quickly and at. a higher rate of pay. 
 Cumulative Table 16 shows that out of 126 general office em- 
 ployes 59, or nearly one-half, are earning under $10; 67 slightly 
 more than one-half, are earning over $10. Ta ; ble 18 shows 
 that out of 85 stenographers, 19, or less than one-fourth, are 
 earning under $10; 66, or nearly three-fourths, are earning 
 over $10 per week. Below $10 per week and above $10 per 
 week is made the point of comparison in this line of work, as 
 in all others, but on account of the higher standard of living 
 which an office employe must maintain to hold her position, 
 it is a question as to whether the living wage for those in this 
 line of work should not be more than $10 per week. 
 
 TABLE 17. 
 
 Weekly Wage Schedules of Women Workers in Portland. 
 Stenographers. 85 Women Employes. 
 
 
 3* 
 
 a u 
 
 V 
 
 *! 
 
 ts w 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 ^W 
 
 c 
 
 3 
 
 s s 
 
 :i 
 s 
 
 3W- 
 .0 ^ 
 
 o>'D 
 a* c 
 
 P 
 
 IS 
 
 o v 
 
 S*o 
 
 ~ 
 
 +2 
 
 J3** 
 
 al 
 * 
 
 J* 
 
 s'l 
 
 * 
 
 I 
 
 V 
 
 (5 
 
 Totals 
 
 Number 
 
 l 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 1 4 
 
 1 7 
 
 4 
 
 17 
 
 | 39 
 
 1 6 
 
 85 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 l.l 
 
 2.3 
 
 5.8 
 
 '4.6 
 
 1 8.1 
 
 4.6 
 
 19.8 
 
 | 45.6 
 
 '| 7.0 
 
 100 
 
 TABLE 18. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 85 Women Stenographers in Portland classified 
 
 by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 | 
 I 
 
 | 
 
 o 
 c 
 
 LI 
 
 6 
 c 
 c 
 
 V 
 
 t3 
 C 
 
 V 
 
 "O 
 
 X 
 
 1 
 
 
 e 
 
 p 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 O 
 
 
 Number 
 
 I 
 
 3 | 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 66 
 
 85 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 1.1 
 
 3.5 | 
 
 9.3 
 
 14.0 
 
 22.4 
 
 72.5 
 
 100 
 
38 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Firms which offer a low beginning wage are the smaller 
 law and real estate offices, some physicions, specialized retail 
 stores and large corporations which, though they pay maxi- 
 mum wages, also offer the very minimum, and wholesale 
 houses, not manufacturers. Classification of business houses 
 according to the line of work, for salaries paid office help, is 
 difficult, because the wage frequently depends on the character 
 of the head of the firm, and not on the nature of the work. 
 Among the small law 'a;nd real estate firms, where $30 and $35 
 a month is a common beginning wage, employers say that 
 the work is so light that the girl does not earn more. Because 
 of the low wage they offer, they are willing to take students 
 fresh from business colleges, and give them more time and pa- 
 tience than they would if the applicant were experienced. Fre- 
 quently she is given permission to take in outside work. An 
 income so earned is uncertain and variable. 
 
 Maximum Wages. 
 
 Some firms adopt a maximum wage and refuse to go 
 higher, regardless of the ability of the applicant. "Start at $40, 
 raise to $45, the most we will pay. If you want to earn more, 
 don't come here," was the statement of the manager of a retail 
 firm carrying a special line of goods, recognized as the best of 
 its class in the city. Others adopt a bullying attitude, which 
 is very effective, especially in the case of a timid girl away 
 from home. One ambitious girl, who is able to hold a good 
 position, and will not be content with less than she can earn, 
 was heard to say, "So-and-so has worked for that firm (whole- 
 sale hardware) for three years, and she is getting only $50. 
 She is a hard worker, too, but she is scared to death of that 
 man, scared to ask for a raise, and scared to leave. Th^y treat 
 the girls too mean for 'anything." 
 
 Other employers declare that efficient help is scarce ; that 
 they would gladly advance a young woman to a good position 
 and good wages if they could get one who would take an inte- 
 rest in the business. This is very often true, but it is also 
 true that employers themselves are partially reponsible for the 
 inefficients filling their stenographic positions today. 
 
 An average maximum for general office work is $50 a 
 month. Five out of 126 young women in Portland, or l-25th, 
 are receiving over $20 a week. The average maximum for 
 stenographers and bookkeepers is $65 or $70 a month. Those 
 who receive more than $20 a week are out of the ordinary 
 in their line of work, or combine with it private, secretarial or 
 confidential clerk's ability. 
 
 Hours. 
 
 Eightv-eight persons from the total 211 office workers re- 
 ported on hours of work. Sixteen, or not quite one-fifth, work 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 39 
 
 less than eight per clay. Twenty-eight, or nearly one-third, 
 work between eight and nine hours ; thirty-nine, or nearly one- 
 half, between nine and ten hours. Five girls record working 
 overtime. Single firms are usually considerate about overtime 
 pay, at least in the form of lunch money. 
 
 Unemployment. 
 
 In offices, work has none of the irregularity of mercantile 
 and manufacturing establishments. The summer vacation and 
 post-holiday seasons are recognized as the time when changes 
 are likely to be made. In the coast cities, however, first-class 
 stenographers from the East find it difficult to get work, and 
 the supply is usually greater than the demand. 
 
 Outside of Portland. Wages. 
 
 Forty-five women doing general office work throughout the 
 state averaged $35.50 a month. Sixteen stenographers aver- 
 age $50 a month, which indicates that the wage schedule is 
 practically the same as Portland's. The situation is a little bet- 
 ter in those sections of the state where the cost of living is 
 lower than it is in Portland. 
 
 Moving Picture Show Cashiers. 
 
 The cashiers of the moving picture shows, who have been 
 classified with office help, call for special mention o>n account 
 of their hours of work. This industry escapes the restrictions 
 of the Female Labor Law, because it cannot be classed as a 
 "manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile industry." Hence 
 cashiers often work over ten hours a day for seven days a 
 week. Hours of work range from 11 A. M. till IIP. M. One 
 girl stated that this was an advantage for her, because she 
 could not afiford three meals a day and by staying in bed in 
 the morning she was not likely to miss her breakfast. The 
 wage offers little compensation. The lowest wage reported 
 was $6 a week. The highest was $12. Of 14 women inter- 
 viewed, 13 were receiving under $10 a week. 
 
 PRINTING TRADES. 
 Wages. 
 
 Portland has 42 printing shops, all of which recognize the 
 union. Sixty-five women earn their living in these shops, 
 binding pamphlets and books. When the union was estab- 
 lished," a minimum wage of $6 a week was asked for each 
 apprentice. The ruleS existing now are that she may be kept 
 at this wage for six months, when, if proficient, she is to be 
 advanced to $6.50 per week. At the end of the year she will 
 receive a further advance of 50c per week. If she is a slow 
 girl, the employer may keep her at $6 per week for a year, 
 when he is 'required to pay her $7, if he expects to retain 
 
40 
 
 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 her. At the end of two years she is earning $8, and at the 
 end of three years must be paid $9 a week. This is as 
 far as the union demands go in regard to wages. While an 
 apprentice, a worker is employed chiefly at pamphlet binding. 
 Blankbook work considered skilled is the aim of 'all girls. 
 
 Maximum Wages. 
 
 After several more years of service, a woman may reach 
 the sum of $10 per week, but this is the maximum for a great 
 majority. Length of service, which should count for some- 
 thing, helps not at all in increasing wages, so say the work- 
 ers. Bookbinding is one of the trades at which women work 
 for many years, many leaving it only to get married. Fre- 
 quently they return to it later in life. In the printing- trade 
 in Portland, embracing typists, copy-readers and bookbinders, 
 Table 20 shows that of 57 investigated, 32 are earning under 
 $10, nine are earning over* $12. The remaining 16 are earn- 
 ing between $10 and $12. Of these 16 two women are earning 
 $11 per week, who have been at the trade for 11 years. Of the 
 nine earning between $12 and $20, six are typists, three are 
 foreladies earning $12, $13 and $15 a week. No bookbinder, 
 though she stayed at the trade 18 years, was ever known to 
 earn over $15 per week. 
 
 TABLE 19. 
 
 Weekly Wage Schedules of Women Workers in Portland. 
 Printing Trades. 57 Women Employes. 
 
 
 * 
 
 3** 
 
 *a 
 
 
 
 *2 
 
 s2 
 
 S g 
 
 w 
 
 
 *| 
 
 fc 
 
 U 
 V 
 
 V 
 
 u 
 
 o w 
 
 <SJ * 
 
 VD W 
 
 $ 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 S 'O 
 
 
 ""O 
 
 g* 
 
 
 ** 
 
 e j- 
 
 <c 
 
 ** 
 
 *^ 3 
 
 s 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 4 
 
 14 
 
 1 3 
 
 1 16 
 
 ie 
 
 IA 
 
 57 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 | 19.2 
 
 7.0 
 
 24.5 
 
 | 5.2 
 
 | 28.0 
 
 8.7 
 
 7.0 
 
 100 
 
 Hours Overtime. 
 
 Besides a minimum apprentice wage, another advantage that 
 the union has secured is the 8-hour day. The busy season be- 
 gins in August and, reaches its height before the Christmas 
 holidays. There is very little overtime, but this is paid for by 
 time-and-a-half rates. No vacation with pay is ever given. If 
 an employe cares to take a vacation during the quiet season, 
 she is permitted to do so. 
 
 TABLE 20. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 57 Women Employes in the Printing Trades 
 in Portland, classified according to weekly earnings. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 M 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 TJ 
 
 is 
 
 "B 
 
 V 
 
 0) 
 
 
 
 S3 
 
 1 
 
 
 C 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 
 
 Number 
 
 1 U 
 
 15 
 
 1 29 
 
 132 
 
 25 
 
 57 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 | 19.2 
 
 26.3 
 
 1 50.8 
 
 56.1 
 
 43.8 
 
 100 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 41 
 
 TELEPHONE COMPANIES. 
 Wages. 
 
 Telephone operating, like bookbinding, has a decided ap- 
 prenticeship. "$1 a day paid while learning" is the advertise- 
 ment of the company. Beginners are instructed from charts, 
 typewritten instructions, and by means of dummy switch- 
 boards for four weeks before they are started to work at a 
 
 TABLE 21. 
 
 Weekly Wage Schedule of Women Workers in Portland. 
 Telephone Operators. 52 Women Employes. 
 
 
 
 
 Number . 
 Per Cent. 
 
 9 | 5 
 17.2 I 9.6 
 
 71 5 | 11 | 10 
 13.4 I 9.6 | 21.1 | 19.2 
 
 5 
 9.6 
 
 52 
 100 
 
 "live" board. For six weeks they are considered useless, and 
 only after four months are they able to handle the board 
 without criticism. After four months the beginner's wage is 
 increased lOc per day ; if she wishes, she may work ten hours, 
 and earn more that way. Table 21 shows in detail the weekly 
 wage of 52 of the operators. Table 22 shows that of these 
 52, just one-half are earning under $10 per week, and one-half 
 $10 or over. 
 
 TABLE 22. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of 52 Women Telephone Operators in Portland 
 classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 
 
 & 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 y 
 
 w 
 
 o 
 
 G 
 
 c 
 
 T3 
 
 C 
 
 V 
 
 o 
 
 k 
 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 S3 
 
 & 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 52 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 17.2 
 
 26.8 
 
 |0.3 
 
 50. 
 
 50. 
 
 100 
 
 At the end of the year, the maximum wage for operators 
 varies between $1.80 and $2.00 a day. Beginners are usually 
 given the "broken shifts," but in order to induce older em- 
 ployees to take these unpopular shifts, 15c to 30c per day ad- 
 ditional was offered to them for doing it. Operators seldom 
 rise above $2.00 a day on regular pay. Supervisors are paid 
 $2.25 to $2.50 per day. Clerical! employes are paid $50 to $55 
 per month. If supervisors lose a day, they are docked ; clerical 
 help is not. Salaries of single positions, such as toll operators, 
 school principal and other better paid workers, were not ob- 
 tained. 
 
 Hours. 
 
 The Bell Telephone Company has inaugurated an eight- 
 hour day, broken at intervals of two hours by 15-minute rest 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 periods. In another part of this report (Conditions of Labor), 
 is given a physician's opinion as to limit of hours for telephone 
 work. 
 
 Operators work in three shifts; one comes on at 4 P. M. 
 and works till 10 P. M. Second shift comes at 10 P. M., works 
 till 6 A. M. The third shift, which comes on at this last hour, 
 begins the " broken shift", which means that the operators are 
 on duty for a few hours, when they are lafid off till late after- 
 noon or early evening work. The understanding exists to the 
 effects that "old" girls shall have the privilege of "straight 
 time." Mention was made above of the increased wage as an 
 inducement to more experienced girls to take "broken shift" 
 work. In small offices, the girls have a six-day relief, but in 
 those carrying mainy subscribers, a 15-day relief. 
 
 Unemployment. 
 
 One arrangement the Portland branch has made which is 
 to be highly commended is that of paying an employe who has 
 been with the Company for a certain length of time wages for 
 three months, if she should be ill that long. On the other 
 hand, the girl who may miss work for a day or two through ill- 
 ness is permitted to work 1Q hours -ai day until she has made up 
 lost time ; thus she avoids being "docked." Vacations are 
 taken without pay. 
 
 Welfare Work. 
 
 The Company has provided an excellent lunch-room, with 
 matron in charge, where a substantial warm lunch is served at 
 cost to the employes. Rest rooms are provided where opera- 
 tors may lie down or read .during the rest period or when off 
 duty. 
 
 Outside of Portland. Wages. 
 
 Beginning wages outside of Portland are lower than in 
 this city. Returns from 33 girls in five different towns show 
 the minimum wage to be $20 a month, the maximum $43.65, 
 the average $33.07. 
 
 HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS. 
 
 Chambermaids and Waitresses. 
 
 Wages. 
 
 Hotels and Restaurants stand third highest on the list of 
 industries for paying a large percentage of employes a living 
 wage. This is because chambermaids frequently are given 
 a room where they work, and waitresses board free of charge. 
 The lowest wage reported for a chambermaid is $6 a week. 
 For $25 a month, not including her room, a chambermaid is 
 required to do 30 rooms and the halls. Amount of work for 
 wage varies here, as in all trades, depending upon the nature 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 43 
 
 of the employer. Some men consider 25 rooms and halls a 
 good day's work; others pay less and insist on 35 rooms. 
 
 TABLE 23. 
 Hotels and Restaurants. 213 Women Employes. 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 **** 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 Number I 1 
 
 Per Cent I .46 
 
 8 
 
 3.7 
 
 19 
 8.9 
 
 74 
 34.7 
 
 100 
 46.9 
 
 .46 
 
 213 
 100 
 
 Maximum wages for chambermaids amount to $12 per week. 
 When this wage is paid, the woman receiving it is in charge 
 of the linen closet or may exercise some of the duties of a 
 housekeeper. $10 a week is a more frequent "high" wage. 
 To earn this, a woman must be very quick, very clean, and 
 of long experience. Chambermaids make a small amount 
 from tips, but not nearly as much as waitresses. Waitresses 
 do not work for less than $6 a week as a beginning wage. $8 
 with board is an average wage ; $12 and $15 a week is met with, 
 but again it is in the case of a woman who is head waitress. 
 Tips vary in amount with the personality of the girl. No 
 place was found in Portland where they are forbidden. One 
 firm combining restaurant service and the selling of creamery 
 products pays all its waitresses at least $9 a week and gives 
 them their meals. Exceptions to this are a couple of girls 
 who work short hours at their own request. 
 
 Hours. 
 
 Chambermaids in many cases have an 8-'hour day. Work 
 starts at 7 or 7:30 a. m., and is usually finished by 3 p. m. 
 As restaurants are open till midnight, two shifts of workers 
 are needed. Hours range from 6 a. m. to 4 p. m., and from 
 4 p. m. to midnight. Both lines of work are popular with 
 women ; hotel work because the work is through in the middle 
 of the afternoon ; restaurant work because women are con- 
 tinually meeting new people. Both lines of work are hard, 
 the latter sometimes injuriously so on account of carrying 
 the heavy trays. 
 
 TABLE 24. 
 
 Cumulative Number and Per Cent, of Women Workers in Hotels and Restaurants 
 classified by weekly earnings. 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 * 
 
 & 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 Lt 
 V 
 
 T3 
 
 a 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 C 
 
 
 
 t> 
 
 S3 
 
 13 
 
 D 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 31 
 
 105 
 
 108 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 .46 
 
 4.2 
 
 5.6 
 
 14.5 
 
 49.2 
 
 50.8 
 
 Table 24 shows that of 213 girls interviewed, 105 are re- 
 ceiving under $10; 108 are receiving $10 or over. 
 
44 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRADES. 
 
 Wages. Hours. 
 
 Hairdressers. 
 
 Girls desiring to learn this trade have two opportunities 
 open to them. They may work for four months without pay, 
 as apprentices, or they may pay $25 to learn the trade, spend- 
 ing six weeks at it, and have the promise of a position 
 at $7 per week at the end of that time. Girls serving without 
 pay are kept at cleaning and preparing combings for switches 
 the larger part of the time. The hair is in all stages of mussi- 
 ness, and handling it is very disagreeable work. Apprentices 
 are paid $6 per week. Gradually they learn to give shampoos, 
 manicures and to dre'ss hair. Girls who have worked at this 
 trade say there is no reason at all for being kept three or four 
 months on combings for switches, as the work is absolutely 
 unskilled and one knows how to do it after a few days. The 
 most experienced girls earn $15 per week. Many who are 
 proficient cannot get more than $10. Department stores 
 insist on experience and start girls at $6 per week unless they 
 are able to handle hairdressing as well as manicuring. Girls 
 who work up a trade independently make good money. The 
 hours for those employed in the shops vary between nine 
 and ten per day. 
 
 Janitress Work. 
 
 This is a line of work that is laborious from its very na- 
 ture. It is exhausting also because of the night hours and the 
 broken days. The wages range from $7 to $10 per week. The 
 hours are difficult to state. Some women come at 6 o'clock 
 in the evening and work until 9 or 10 o'clock, or until mid- 
 night. Those working only three or four hours in the evening 
 must come back early in the morning. 
 
 Dressmaking. 
 
 The investigation did not concern itself with women who 
 sew by the day in families. A woman who is a plain sewer 
 only, can earn $2 a day with at least two meals. Reports were 
 sought from fitters and sewers in department stores and pri- 
 vate shops. $7 and $8 per week are the regular wages for 
 beginners who know how to sew; $10 per week is the wage 
 received by the majority, but first-class fitters and fancy 
 waist-makers receive $12 and $15 per week. In shops where 
 only tailoring is done, th'e tailor-owner doe's the fitting himself. 
 Hours vary between 9 and 10 per day. Most dressmaking 
 s'hops that make fancy gowns for women close for one month, 
 in some cases two months each year. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 45 
 
 Millinery. 
 
 The lowest wage recorded durkg the investigation is that 
 of a millinery apprentice receiving $1.50 per week, and her 
 schedule had the note, "In slack time I am laid off/' Pros- 
 pects in the wholesale houses are not very bright ; $4 per week 
 is a stock girl's wage ; $6 per week is a frequent wage for 
 makers. Trimmers reach $10. A peculiarity in the wholesale 
 millinery work is that every fall, milliners flock from ^mall 
 towns to the larger cities and work for a week or two in the 
 wholesale houses to learn the styles. Calls come in from shops 
 all over the state for new workers. This affords the girl out 
 of work, or the one who may want to change her position, a 
 chance to hear of an opening. This renders conditions very 
 difficult for the girl who works in a wholesale house the year 
 through, as an abundance of help in the rush season keeps 
 her wage continually low. Smaller shops pay trimmers and 
 makers from $10 to $15 per week. Unemployment in this 
 trade for a large share of the workers amounts to at least 
 two months a year. 
 
 Cleaning and Dyeing. 
 
 This line of work might be classed by some with regular 
 laundry work, but it is given separate notice here because 
 the conditions under which the work is done are better, and 
 the wage is frequently higher. Pressers receive from $9 per 
 week to $16 per week; $12 is a more frequent wage. There 
 is some danger to the health of the workers in the room where 
 the cleaning processes are carried on. Hours vary between 
 8 and 9 a day. 
 
 Table 25 shows that of 39 girls interviewed, 19 are re- 
 ceiving less than $10 per week; 20 are receiving over $10. 
 
 TABLE 25. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRADES. 
 Weekly Wage Schedules of Women Workers in Portland. 
 
 OCCUPATION. Demonstrators, Hair Dressers, Cleaning and Dyeing, Millinery and 
 Dressmaking, Janitress. 
 
 ! C* *! -s | o| sl.i-l | 
 ~g ! [ * ~ a ~gj~ 
 
 Number | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 \ 9 \ 2 \ 39 
 
46 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF LABOR 
 
 Factories. Light and Air. 
 
 Fault can not be found with many of the larger plants 
 on the score of lack of window space. Smaller establishments, 
 such as tailoring shops, furriers, and millinery stores, are 
 often located on one or two floors in downtown shops, which 
 have a front facing of not more than twenty feet in width ; in 
 the rear the windows open onto a court, or there may be no 
 windows at all. The front half of the shop is used for show 
 and salesrooms, the rear half curtained or partitioned off for 
 a workroom. The latter is usually so dark that artificial 
 light is needed all the time. Very little fresh air can come 
 in from the rear, and practically none from the front room, 
 which is aired by the coming and going of the customers. 
 Frequently the toilet is placed in the workroom without even 
 a curtain protecting it. In such cases it invariably ventilates 
 into the workroom. In one instance, in a high-priced milli- 
 nery shop, the girls complained a great deal. The health 
 officer had been there, but nothing was done to remedy the 
 condition until one of the girls came down with scarlet lever. 
 Then the toilet was enclosed, and other precautions were 
 taken. In another rear workroom one of the employes had 
 to sit with her back against a "shoe box" toilet door. This 
 girl frequently had "fainting fits." In this same place, a 
 cracked sink, which the owner had attempted to patch up 
 with plaster of paris, allowed the water to drip on the floor. 
 For many months one of the workers, on account of the loca- 
 tion of her work table, had to stand on this wet spot, where 
 the water drained. Eventually, she had to give up her work 
 on account of ill health and went to the country to recover. 
 In the same place, until this spring, the employes drank from 
 a galvanized pail with a wooden cover. 
 
 Other firms of this class, such as tailors and milliners, 
 sometimes have the entire floor for show and fitting rooms, 
 and use a balcony for a workroom. As this is usually built in at 
 the front of the store, the light is very good <and the air also 
 when the transoms are built to be opened ; but they are very 
 congested as workrooms, and crowd the workers up against 
 one another. Sometimes the ceilings are so low that a girl can 
 scarcely stand up straight in the workroom. 
 
 Lack of Heat. 
 
 A question which is most important during the winter 
 months is that of heat. In some factories no heat at all is 
 provided, or tiny wood stoves supply inadequate heat. What 
 the effect of sitting in a cold workroom for ten hours a day, 
 perhaps after she has walked from home in the rain for lack 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 47 
 
 of carfare, - - what effect this has immediately on a young 
 woman's work and on her health for the long future Is too 
 evident to need further words. 
 
 Conditions Affecting the Efficiency of the Worker. 
 
 Along with the question of sufficient space in which to 
 work, good light and fresh air to keep her 'alert, and a 
 reasonably warm workroom, comes the question concerning 
 the nature of the work itself and its effect on the efficiency 
 of the worker. Several conditions may affect the thorough- 
 ness and rapidity of a worker. First, she may work where 
 the heat from stoves or machines is far beyond what the 
 human frame is designed to meet. Second, she may have to 
 handle materials that give off nauseating, acid, or other over- 
 powering odors, or much dust and dirt. Third, the arrange- 
 ment of the workroom may be such that she has to spend 
 valuable time collecting materials for work, .when a little 
 forethought on the part of the manager would make her earn- 
 ing ability a few cents greater. 
 
 Laundries. Too Great Heat. 
 
 Laundries probably demand the most from the workers 
 on this score. It does not matter whether an employe is 
 engaged in the handling of hot clothes, or managing the 
 mangier or body ironer ; she works in an overheated and fre- 
 quently steam-laden atmosphere. The washing machines on 
 the first floor, and all the rooms above suffer in consequence. 
 Sometimes the boards of the floor are too hot for comfortable 
 standing. Besides the discomfort of the heat, the work is very 
 laborious, and 9 l /2 hours at it demand more energy than can 
 be regained in the same length of time of rest. In summer- 
 time, conditions are particularly terrific. In one laundry, 
 where the temperature sometimes reached 135 degrees, six 
 girls fainted at work within three weeks. One was in bed 
 several days as a result. The usual custom is to take the 
 girls out of doors, leave them there until they revive, when 
 they come back to work. Some laundries have fans which 
 help to keep the air in circulation, and some have awnings, 
 but one or two. have neither, and the managers refuse to add 
 them. Even those which have the fans have not, in many 
 cases, a sufficient number. Most of the work has to be done 
 standing. The women complain that its hardships would not 
 be as great if a large enough force of workers was maintained ; 
 that lack of a larger force is due to deliberate refusal on the 
 part of managers to hire sufficient help. As a general rule, 
 laundrymen are unable to hire the number of workers they 
 need, but men who refuse awnings or fans when the tempera- 
 ture of the workroom is 135 degrees are capable of keeping 
 too few workers and of driving the ones on hand to the utmost. 
 
48 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 That laundry workers, as a class, are known by their haggard 
 faces and dragging bodies is not to be wondered at. 
 
 Among the 30 power laundries in Portland mention is 
 gladly made of 3 that can be put on a "white list" in recogni- 
 tion of the managers' efforts to have clean up-to-date arrange- 
 ments and to make conditions as tolerable as possible for em- 
 ployees. Such men deplore the hardships of the work and 
 state that they will gladly co-operate with any movement that 
 aims to better conditions. 
 
 Candy and Biscuit Factories. 
 
 Candy and biscuit factories have the same problem of 
 work associated with constant heat, but to not nearly so 
 disastrous a degree as the laundries. Here, again, the ovens 
 and candy pots are sometimes on the lower floors, and send 
 their volumes of heat through all the other workrooms. Some- 
 times the vats are on an upper or top floor, and then the gen- 
 eral body of workers do not suffer as much. French cream 
 dippers work over a kettle which sets in a steam table, in 
 which the water is always kept hot. Chocolate dippers heat 
 their chocolate slabs on a hot marble plate. Air in these 
 rooms is frequently foul. Sometimes a foreman claims that 
 the workers may have all the fresh air they wish but keep 
 the windows closed of their own accord. The workers say 
 that fresh air, as they get it, means cold air, which means 
 the ruin of their work. What is needed is a proper ventilating 
 device. 
 
 Nauseating and Other Odors. 
 
 Match Factories. The use of white phosphorus in match- 
 making has recently been forbidden by law, but there are still 
 unpleasant phases in the industry. In one factory visited, 
 two women in a basement workroom were tipping matches 
 in a sulphur-laden atmosphere. A Chinaman was tending a 
 pot of sulphur on a stove nearby. The investigator could 
 scarcely endure the fumes, and asked the foreman why the 
 windows were all closed. He said that the women were re- 
 sponsible, since they wished it so. The women were asked the 
 same question, and answered that they could not have the 
 windows open, as the sulphur would be cooled and they could 
 not tip the matches. Yet for want of a simple ventilating de- 
 vice, they are permitted to work until their health prematurely 
 fails,, and they are cast on society to be cared for. 
 
 Can Factories. In can factories a room known as the 
 japan room is another disease breeder. In one factory, of two 
 girls who formerly worked in this room, one died of tubercu- 
 losis, the other gave up her position recently because she has 
 it. The testimony of the girls that the fumes in the japan room 
 affect their health is borne out by testimony of the Federal Re- 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 49 
 
 port, Vol. V. (Report on Condition of Woman and Child 
 Wage Earners in the United States. Women in Department 
 Stores and Factories, etc.) : Fresh air, when it means un- 
 warmed air, cannot be admitted for the reason given in two 
 previous cases. 
 
 Paper Box Factories. In paper box factories, certain 
 kinds of hand-pasting require the workers to have a fresh sup- 
 ply of warmed, thin glue on hand. The long work tables 
 have three iron pots, each divided into two even sections, and 
 set into the table; one in the middle, and one at each end. 
 A gas flame is kept burning under them all the time they 
 are in use. In one half of the pot are the glue flakes with a 
 little water. This melts into the thick, liquid glue, which is 
 used to replenish the other section of thinner glue, kept by 
 the girl at the right consistency for her work. From the pot 
 is rising constantly a nauseating, warm, fish-glue odor. "How 
 do you stand it?" was asked an older worker by an appren- 
 tice. Shrugging her shoulders, the other answered, "Oh. you 
 get used to it ; it made me sick at first." They get used to it, 
 as the bent twig does by growing into a crooked three. They 
 get used to it, as did one worker of four years' experience, 
 who had to stop eventually for six months on account of 
 stomach trouble. She is the daughter of a widowed mother, 
 and is assisting in the support of two young sisters. She 
 could scarcely afford to be ill. 
 
 Meat Packing. Meat packers, as is well known, make 
 many by-products out of what would be waste material. One 
 of these is glue. In the room where the glue vats are and 
 women work, the stench is unbearable, yet they eat their 
 lunches there. Similar conditions exist in the sausage room, 
 where women work also. Even a foreman, who is an em- 
 ploye of several years' standing, said casually that the glue 
 room was one to which he had never been able to get ac- 
 customed. 
 
 Laundries. Markers of soiled clothes in laundries com- 
 plain of two hardships in their work. First they are com- 
 pelled to stand all day, bending their bodies as they pick the 
 clothes from the piles at their feet and ink the laundry mark 
 on them. "Broken" backs and swollen feet for the first three 
 months are the result. The second hardship is the nausea 
 caused by the odors coming from clothes in every degree and 
 kind of dirt. One girl, a stenographer, recently from the East, 
 but greatly in need of work, applied at the laundry, and be- 
 cause of her training, was put at marking. "I stood it for 
 two hours," she said ; "how they stand it all the time, I don't 
 know. The girl next to me said that she suffered much on 
 account of her back and feet at first, but now she is used to 
 it, and those dirty clothes ! the smell is awful !" 
 
50 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Following are further notes taken from the reports of 
 investigators : 
 
 Factory 1. The room where the girls worked was heated 
 with one tiny stove. The window could not be opened be- 
 cause the room would be too cold. They have to inhale the 
 odor of strong tobacco, which is very nauseating. While I 
 worked there, several girls came to apply for work, but left 
 when they saw the condition of the workroom, which was very 
 dirty, and had no place in it for the gorls to sit down while 
 working. The girls are paid 5 cents per pound for stripping 
 the stem out of the tobacco leaf; as tobacco is very light, it 
 takes a great quantity to make a pound, and by working just 
 as hard as they possibly can, they cannot expect to strip 
 more than 4 pounds in a day a wage of 20 cents to 25 cents 
 per day. Some beginners manage to make 45 cents a day, 
 but working up to a better w r age is very slow work. 
 
 Factory 2. Material used here very oily. Smell of 
 leather noticeable but not nauseating. No windows open. 
 General effect of place was rough. No place for a girl ; too 
 dirty. 
 
 Factory 3. Only one sink here and that not clean. Much 
 bespattered with glue. At closing time, girls required to 
 clean their machines, but first heated the water in pails on 
 a wood-stove in an adjoining room. Small dressing room, 
 where girls change from street garb to working clothes. This 
 filthy and ill-smelling, partially due to untidiness of girls 
 themselves. Toilet here very dirty and apparently never 
 clean. Unlike others, however, it did not open into the work- 
 room. Workroom on second floor, reached by dark, screened 
 stairways. 
 
 Factory 4. Owner a poor manager ; doesn't keep up 
 material to work with, so workmen have to be on duty from 
 19 to 24 hours without sleep, then are laid off for a couple 
 of days for want of material. There has been no toilet for 
 women, but superintendent is putting one in now. 
 
 As I walked up two flights of stairs, I noticed the thick 
 dust in the air from feathers and found it very smothering. 
 Men's section so full of dust, I could not see across the room. 
 Women's section not so bad, but still far from good. Room 
 where men worked heated by a stove; did not see any in 
 women's workroom. 
 
 Poor Arrangements Diminish Earning Capacity. 
 
 Besides the foregoing physical hindrances to the develop- 
 ment of continued efficient workers, there are obstacles of 
 arrangement which waste time for them and count up seri- 
 ously when employes are working on piece rates. In one 
 paper box factory the women and girls bring their own ma- 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 51 
 
 terials from the stock and remove the finished product. This 
 means that though paid 10 cents per 100 for making boxes, 
 pasting labels, "lacing" boxes, covering them, etc., they put 
 in time as messenger or supply boy, for which they receive 
 nothing. This would not call for complaint if it meant a 
 very little loss of time, but it does not. In one case, one kind 
 of material was kept in a corner of the room obstructed by 
 a belt on a staying machine. To get to the stock, the worker 
 had to pass under this moving belt, dangerously low. Time 
 was lost in avoiding it. For the same kind of work other 
 materials were in another room. Disposition of these boxes 
 was simple, as they were thrown into a barrel. Labelled 
 boxes, ready for lidding, had to be piled tier upon tier on the 
 work table and carried away. The more tiers a worker could 
 carry, the more time she saved, but because the boxes were 
 very light, there was danger, with a big pile of tiers, of having 
 the whole pile come tumbling down. Then they must all be 
 picked up and replied. Even experienced workers, who were 
 supposed to have acquired the knack of piling securely and 
 carrying away safely, lost time when through some slight 
 jerking of the body, the whole load tumbled down. In much 
 of the simple pasting, hot water is needed all the time to keep 
 brushes, glue boards and tables clean, label cloths damp, etc. 
 In one factory, the sinks are equipped only with cold water 
 faucets. The method of obtaining the necessary warm water 
 is this : a three-gallon pail is half filled with cold water drawn 
 from the faucet over one sink in a dark corner of the room ; 
 this is carried into the adjoining box-cutting room, between 
 machines and over a floor littered with pasteboard and papers. 
 Progress is necessarily a little slow. Attached to one wall 
 of the room is one of the filthiest sinks imaginable. It is 
 matched only by the sink from which the water was drawn. 
 Coming up from behind this second sink in the cutting room 
 is a steam pipe about four feet high, which turns down into 
 a horseshoe shape. A steam jet is on top of the bend. To 
 get "warmed" water, the girls must hang their pails on this 
 steam jet, which is hotter than the hands can bear, turn 
 on the steam and let it roar into the cold water until it is 
 sufficiently hot. Meanwhile the girl, especially if she is a 
 small one^, meets with several difficulties. She must lift the 
 pail and hang it on the steam wheel, but she must avoid 
 hitting the turned down portion of the pipe; she might spill 
 some water, and as the sink below is already filled to the 
 brimming point and covered with a thick scum of glue, addi- 
 tional water would mean a disastrous overflow. Yet the 
 steam-pipe is too hot to touch and she likes to be careful 
 not to burn her hands. When the steam is turned on, it rushes 
 into the water with such an ominous boiling sound that a 
 new girl fears for the outcome. With the condensed steam, 
 
52 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 the pail is heavier to lift over the steam wheel and down 
 than it was to lift up, but after at least five minutes wasted 
 in this fashion, she can go back to her work with the neces- 
 sary hot water. This process may have to be gone through 
 three or four times a day in certain kinds of work. The sinks 
 on the other floors were not as dirty as on this one, but no- 
 where in sight was there a hot water faucet, and how to draw 
 steam from some of the other pipes seemed to be even a 
 deeper problem. 
 
 Decreased Earnings in the Canneries on Account of Materials. 
 
 In the canneries, women and older girls complained that 
 children under twelve and thirteen, employed here in open 
 violation of the law, were shown the preference in the giving 
 out of the fruit. The children were given the most perfect 
 fruit, which meant less handling in sorting and picking, and 
 therefore, quicker money, though the older women needed 
 their wages badly. 
 
 Sanitary Plumbing in Factories. 
 
 Office buildings, department stores and telephone com- 
 panies are the best equipped, as regards washrooms and 
 toilets. These are given space apart from the main workroom. 
 In factories and laundries, however, in the majority of cases, 
 the women's toilet is built in the workroom proper and stands 
 projected like a long shoe box six feet high on end, and un- 
 covered. It ventilates, therefore, right into the workroom. 
 In some instances, the interiors were clean, in others filthy. 
 The crudest arrangement found for women was in a factory 
 on the river front, where the river washes up under the floors 
 of the building. Here the toilet is nothing more than a seat 
 built over the river, which does the scavenging. If it sweeps 
 up and out, well and good ; if it is quiet, the unpleasant odor 
 hovering around that part of the building is only a little more 
 noticeable. Sinks in some places are also disreputable. In 
 one factory it is nothing more than a wodden trough. Here 
 lately the girls have been given individual hand-basins In 
 another place, that where the steam-pipe heats the cold water, 
 one sink with the cold water faucet hung in a corner between 
 the toilet and the wall. This corner, about 6 by 6 feet, un- 
 curtained, served as a dressing room for the girls, who changed 
 their dresses morning and evening. It was too dark to dis- 
 tinguish objects without the aid of a small electric bulb, which 
 was nearly always turned off. When the investigator started 
 to work 'one morning, the sink, undrained, was half full of 
 water. At five-thirty that evening it was running over, and 
 the girls who kept their hats and clothes in the corner were 
 paddling around in the water, trying to be ready to leave 
 when the last whistle would blow. A dirty roller bath towel 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 53 
 
 hung next to the sink, but no soap was provided. Girls who 
 have not brought cups from home, put their mouths to the 
 faucet for a drink. The sink overflowed because the girls 
 washed glue, as best they could, from their hands with cold 
 water, and emptied their pails of steam-warmed water, vvhich 
 carried a quantity of glue, after brushes, boards and tables 
 had been washed. The result was inevitable. Sinks into 
 which a quantity of glue is poured each day can not easily be 
 kept drained, but such drainage is possible and necessary. A 
 janitor's service might be called for as well as better plumbing. 
 Here, as in other factories, the girls are required, and rightly 
 so, to keep their work tables clean, but in the fifteen minutes 
 given at the end of the day for glue-scraping, etc., they are 
 required to sweep the workroom floors. There seems to be 
 no system about this. An "old" girl may call to a younger 
 girl to do it, and in some haphazard fashion, the younger girl 
 gets it done. Not all girls in dirty work places would keep 
 them clean if they were given them clean. There are women 
 workers who are naturally shiftless and untidy, but it is 
 nevertheless an employer's duty to do his share to maintain 
 a higher standard of neatness, a'nd not assist in further de- 
 moralization of his employes. Filthy, untidy workshops breed 
 contempt for the management and the work. 
 
 Fire Escapes. 
 
 The Oregon law calls for adequate fire escapes on build- 
 ings used for industrial purposes. It has not prevented dark 
 stairways in buildings from being completely enclosed. One 
 such is' a staircase that forms an "L" at the bottom. On a 
 bright, sunshiny morning and at noon, the staircase was so 
 dark that goinsr up or coming down, one had to feel her way. 
 At noontime, the smalt electric bulb hanging part way down 
 could not be turned on, and a crowd of girls stumbled their 
 way out. 
 
 A needless exposure to danger is in the heaps of paper 
 cuttings which cover the floors in some of the workrooms 
 in certain lines of work. Lack of janitor service is probably 
 the reason why floors are completely littered and unswept 
 for three days at a time. To drop a lighted match in one of 
 these places would mean instant conflagration. 
 
 Here it is proper to draw an observation concerning the 
 effect of power machine work on the general health of women 
 workers. "The noise is terrific," "the noise from the machines 
 was so loud that we could not attempt to make ourselves 
 heard," are remarks appearing again and again in the investi- 
 gators' reports. Clothing factories and woolen mills take the 
 lead here, but there are few' factories which do ^ not carry 
 machinery of one kind or another. When investigators ex- 
 claimed to a foreman as to the evil effects of the noise of the 
 
54 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 machines, the latter said that at lunch time, when the ma- 
 chinery is shut down, the girls miss its whirr and are anx- 
 ious to have it start up again. He, too, did not feel natural 
 when it was not going. Apropos of this subject, Josephine 
 Goldmark, in her late work on * ''Fatigue and Efficiency," says : 
 "In both the needle and textile trades, which we have taken 
 as types of work involving speed and complexity, fatigue is 
 the more quickly induced by other attendant influences which 
 are common to most machine work. One of these fatiguing 
 influences is the noise of machinery. The fatiguing effect of 
 the roar of shock is chiefly due to its influence upon the facul- 
 ty of attention. Mental fatigue is characterized pre-eminently 
 by a weakening of the powers of attention. . . . There is in at- 
 tention a sensation of effort, and fatigue of attention is in di- 
 rect proportion to the continuance of the efforts and the dif- 
 ficulty of sustaining them. Now under the influence of loud 
 noise, attention is distracted, and the difficulty of sustaining it 
 is increased. Thus it (noise) necessitates a greater exertion 
 of intensity or conscious application, thereby hastening the 
 onset of fatigue of the attention. A quite uncounted strain 
 upon this easily fatigued faculty results among industrial 
 workers such as girl machine operators, when the deafening, 
 intermittent roar of highly speeded machinery adds it quota 
 to the tax of a long day's work. The roar is not even con- 
 tinuous enough to sink into monotony. With each stoppage 
 and starting of the machine, it blurts out regularly. 
 
 "The subject of noise in industrial establishments is 
 usually dismissed with the remark that the workers 'get used 
 to it/ and doubtless in many occupations, the workers them- 
 selves are scarcely or not at all conscious of any increased 
 application on their part due to noise*. But in the main, the 
 process of getting used to it involves precisely that increased 
 intensity of nervous effort. ... which, as we have seen, is 
 most favorable for the approach of exhaustion. . . . Another 
 subtly fatiguing element in machine work is due to its rhythm. 
 It is. apparent that the rhythm of any power-driven machinery 
 is fixed and mechanical, depending upon its construction and 
 its rate of speed. Now, it is true also that human beings tend 
 to work rhythmically, and when the individual's ^ natural 
 swing or rhythmic tendency must be wholly subordinated to 
 the machine's more rapid' mechanical rhythm, fatigue is likely 
 to ensue. . . . The machine sets the tempo, the worker must 
 keep to it. 
 
 Not only is the beat of the machine much more rapid 
 and regular than the more elastic human rhythms; it is often 
 wholly lost in the chaos of different rhythms of the various 
 machines, belts and pulleys in one workroom. The roar and 
 
 * Fatigue and Efficiency, Chap. Ill, p. 68. The New Strain in Industry. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 55 
 
 vibration of machinery tends further to distract any sense 
 of rhythm on the part of the workers." 
 
 TELEPHONE OPERATORS. 
 
 Another industry employing a large number of girls noted 
 for the nervous strain it causes is the telephone system. To 
 the credit of the Telephone Company it can be said that in 
 Portland the operating rooms are well lighted and well ven- 
 tilated. A rest and reading room is provided for the use of 
 the girls while off duty, and a hot, well-cooked lunch is of- 
 fered at cost price. In smaller towns, arrangements are not 
 always adequate. 
 
 The disadvantages of the work are its constant demand 
 for the keen use of eye, ear and arms, and particularly the 
 long 'hours. 
 
 The nature of the work is the same the world over. On 
 entering the exchange room, the first arrangement noticed 
 is something that looks like a blackboard screening three 
 .sides of a long room, marked with alternate rows of small 
 white glass lamp plates and black holes, the latter of which 
 are all numbered. 
 
 The operator is aware of a call by the flash of the signal 
 lamp and the click of the lifted receiver in her ear. She "con- 
 nects up" by inserting one of a pair of brass plugs into the 
 hole beneath the lamp, releases her "listening" key, a lever 
 on the shelf in front of her, and at the same time speaks "Oper- 
 ator" or "Number, please," into her transmitter. While she is 
 receiving the call, she has reached for a plug attached to a 
 cord, corresponding in color to the one in use, and as soon as 
 the number is plain to her, she inserts this plug into the hole 
 the number of which corresponds to that called for, and estab- 
 lishes the connection between the subscribers. Immediately 
 the second subscriber's lamp flashes and continues to glow as 
 first caller's is doing, until the conversation is ended, when 
 botl^ go out. The operator, watching for this, pulls down the 
 cords, which fall back into their respective holes. 
 
 Rut while one conversation is in progress, she may have 
 answered a dozen similar calls, and the switchboard is a tan- 
 ele of green and red cords, bewildering to the uninitiated. 
 The hardship of the work lies in the constant attention that 
 must be kept for incoming calls and for deadened lamps. An 
 incoming call means concentration of energy to satisfy the 
 patron in the shortest possible time, and making a connection 
 does not mean simply the watching, listening and reaching 
 of arms to insert plugs. 
 
 Added to the nervous strain, the operator to reach holes 
 on either side of her freq-uently has to rise to her feet, balanc- 
 ing herself on a round of her chair and stretch over 'her com- 
 panion operator to reach the necessary subscriber. This looks 
 like a difficult, straining task. 
 
56 Socail Welfare Survey. 
 
 The physical effects of the work were brought out strong- 
 ly in Toronto, when a dispute arose between the Bell Tele- 
 phone Company of that city and the operators, concerning 
 the hours of employment. The testimony of physicians 
 called by the Royal Commission to settle the difficulty de- 
 clare that four or five hours work broken by a rest period of 
 one and a half hours should be the maximum. 
 
 The following is quoted from Elizabeth Beardsley But- 
 ler's "Women and the Trades," Chap. 19, p. 289, in which 
 she quotes from the findings of the Royal Commission in 
 Toronto : 
 
 "Dr. Robert Dwyer's testimony in part was as follows : 
 
 "I find the service intense all the time. The telephone com- 
 pany nor the doctors who see the operators do not see the 
 final result ; after these girls have gone on for four or five 
 years and served the company and they get married or for 
 other purposes leave, then they turn out badly in their do- 
 mestic relations. They break down nervously and have nerv- 
 ous children, aid it is a loss to the community.' ' ; 
 
 In order to work the operators up to the highest degree 
 of speed, a record is kept at the different offices, of the aver- 
 age length of time it takes the operators in the exchanges 
 of the cities of Oregon and Washington to make a connection. 
 This record is posted and the attention of the girls called to it. 
 While increase in efficiency is a commendable thing, this sys- 
 tem probably works toward increasing the intensity of the 
 nervous strain upon the operator, who constantly feels that 
 she must further exert herself to come up to a standard. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 The conclusion we wish to draw from this description of 
 the conditions of labor in Portland is that not wages alone, 
 which are insufficient to give the worker a full nourishing 
 meal three times a day, and call for close, unhealthful sleep- 
 ing quarters ; not hours alone whidh strain her to a point of 
 exhaustion to finish the day's demands ; but these two, com- 
 bined with unsanitary, dirty and distasteful conditions under 
 which girls work, are responsible for much of the inefficiency, 
 sickness and degeneracy that is found among women wage- 
 earners. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 57 
 
 COST OF LIVING 
 
 Room and Board. 
 
 Investigators' Testimony. 
 
 In gathering facts as to the cost of living in this state, 
 the director prepared schedules calling for yearly estimates 
 as to the cost of house or room-rent, food, clothing, carfare, 
 laundry bills, doctor bills (including dentistry), church dues, 
 lodge dues, education and recreation including vacation. Two 
 other questions asked in connection with wages, but which 
 threw light on the Cost of Living results, were whether the 
 worker was living at home and whether she received a vaca- 
 tion with pay. From 509 schedules received from Portland, 
 the investigator has become convinced that $10 per week is 
 the minimum on which a self-supporting young woman can 
 maintain herself decently and in health in this city. 
 
 Cost of Room-rent. 
 
 The estimates of the girls and women were not taken as 
 final ; over 100 rooming houses, housekeeping rooms and pri- 
 vate families offering room and board were investigated. The 
 investigators found that while in exceptional instances rooms 
 can be secured for $8 a month, it happens to be with a woman 
 who wants someone for companionship or to assist her with 
 a couple of children in the evening. In the latter case, the 
 cost of the room should be estimated at more than $8 a month. 
 Rooms within walking distance renting for $10 per month 
 are usually attic rooms, low ceilinged, poorly papered, or not 
 papered at all, or with walls covered with faded burlap. A 
 stove heats the room and often the girl has to furnish her 
 own wood. It is hard to make a landlady see that this adds 
 to the cost of the room. In one case of a $10 room, where 
 the necessity of furnishing one's wood was protested against, 
 the housekeeper explained : "But look what you are getting 
 the room for!" This house was within walking distance; the 
 room was on the second floor, but could be reached only by 
 a narrow staircase from the side of the house. The room 
 door was narrow and low ; the bath and toilet were located 
 off the back porch. To reach them, one had to go ^down 
 stairs, out of doors and around to tlie rear. A bath in the 
 winter must 'be a chilly undertaking in this house. This room 
 had two cots, and the ladv furnished a gas plate where the 
 girls could make coffee. It was on the housekeeping order, 
 but could not be put in that class, as the tenant had to furnish 
 dishes, hardware, silver and linen. Rooms at $12 begin to 
 verge on the comfortable state, but one must pay $14 or $15 
 a month to get accommodations that can be called cosy or 
 
58 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 pleasant, and by these the writer does not mean running hot 
 and cold water in the room. Many girls take a roommate and 
 thus reduce their cost of living at the same time that they 
 reduce their opportunity of recuperation. Sometimes they 
 room three together, the better to economize. An example of 
 this is that of three girls living with a woman in a small, 
 crowded flat. The three girls room together in an inside 
 court room and each pays $30 per month for the room, break- 
 fast and dinner. The house is about twenty minutes walking 
 distance from town, and one must walk uphill to reach it. 
 
 Below in Table 26 is given a description of other rooms 
 investigated, with the prices asked. The addresses were 
 taken from the daily papers. Certain localities in the city 
 known to be boarding house sections, others known as private 
 residence sections, where roomers were occasionally taken in, 
 and still others known to offer more homelike accommoda- 
 tions were canvassed. Rooms outside of walking distance 
 are expected to be cheaper, though they are not always found 
 so, because of the additional cost of carfare. 
 
 TABLE 26. 
 A ROOMS ONLY. 
 
 1 1 large room, good ventilation, $12 per month. 
 
 2 1 small room, no heat, no carpet, no running water, $8 per month ; for two 
 
 girls, $10 per month. 
 3 1 small room, 1 small window, single bed, no carpet, $6 per month; no heat, 
 
 no telephone. 
 
 4 1 back room, heated by small stove, $8 per month. 
 5 1 large room, heated by stove, no running water, $16 per month. 
 6 1 large room, 2 windows, heated, $14 per month. 
 7 1 large room, modern conveniences, $16 per month. 
 8 1 small room, modern conveniences, $12.50 per month. 
 9 1 large room, no closets, $16 per month. 
 10 1 small room, 1 window, $12.50 per month. 
 
 11 1 large room, modern conveniences, single bed, $7.50 per month. 
 12 1 small room, sinele bed, 1 small window, no heat, $7.50 per month. 
 13 1 room, second floor, very pleasant, well furnished, outlook on beautiful yard. 
 
 $15 per month; same house, 1 room in attic, 3 windows so high that one had 
 
 to stand on chair to look into yard, bathroom on lower floor, $10 per month. 
 14 1 room on first floor, nicely furnished, but had to go through kitchen to reach 
 
 bathroom off back porch; gaslight. 
 15 Another room, same place, upstairs, entrance from side of house, high narrow 
 
 stairs, small narrow door, gable room, brick chimney passing through center 
 
 of floor, cheap wallpaoer, double cot, stove heat, furnish own wood, could 
 
 have gas-plate for coffee, to reach bathroom on back porch one has to go 
 
 downstairs and out of doors; $10 per month. 
 16 1 room upstairs, dark, good closet space, with gas-plate for coffee, $3.50 per 
 
 week ; without, $3 ; old house, narrow porch. 
 
 17 1 small single room, crowded with bed, chiffoniere, trunk; $10 per month. 
 18 1 single room, side of house, not bright, good closet; $3.50 per week. Hou^e 
 
 attractive exteriorly. 
 
 19 1 large front room with alcove, $20 per month for two persons; stove heat. 
 20 3 rooms, $8 per month. 
 21 2 double rooms, $10 each person. 
 
 22 Rooms with hot and cold water, $3.25 to $5 per week. 
 23 1 room, $14 per month. 
 24 5 rooms, $5 per week. 
 25 1 room, $14 per month. 
 26 5 rooms, $5 per week. 
 27 1 room, no phone, $8. 
 28 1 room, heated by oil stove; bath and electric lights; $8 per month for one; 
 
 $10 per month for two. 
 
 29 1 room, modern conveniences, $10 per month. 
 30 1 room, $14 per month. 
 31 1 room, rather cozy, $12 per month. 
 32 1 room, divided from hall by partition three-fourths way up, hot water heat, 
 
 gaslight; $10 per month. 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 59 
 
 33 Rooms $1 to $3 per week, not cozy and not clean. 
 34 1 large room, $10 per month. 
 35 1 room, $3.75 per week. 
 
 B HOUSEKEEPING ROOMS. 
 
 1 2-room apartment, $15. 
 1 room with gas-plate, $10. 
 3 2 housekeeping suites, attic rooms, walls covered with burlap, electric light, 
 
 stove heat, $12; smaller suite, $10. 
 4 2 housekeeping rooms, 1 downstairs, $20; room upstairs, $21; neither of them 
 
 worth the price. 
 5 Front room, curtains brown with dust, unattractive, gas-plate in alcove, $18; 
 
 not worth it. 
 
 6 2 rooms with public bath, $25; electric light extra charge. 
 
 7 Outside apartments, 2 rooms, $30 ; inside apartment facing untidy house, un- 
 pleasant outlook, $25. 
 
 8 Bedroom and kitchen, $20; gas stove for heating, pay for own heat; this up- 
 stairs. Single room downstairs, furnace heat, $10 for one; $12 for two. 
 9 Small room, no conveniences, $7 per month for one girl; $10 for two. 
 10 Small room, rear, 1 window, $7. 
 11 Front room, $10 per month. 
 12 Rear room, no conveniences, $9 per month. 
 13 Room, modern conveniences, $4.50 per week. 
 14 Large room, modern conveniences, $4 per week. 
 15 Attic room, very small, 1 small window, $2 per week. 
 16 1 small room, $9 per month. 
 
 17 1 room downstairs, modern conveniences, $12 per month. 
 18 1 room with bed, large, modern conveniences, $30 per month. 
 19 1 large room, modern conveniences, $16 per month. 
 20 1 small room, without heat, $2.50 per week; with heat, $3. 
 21 Housekeeping room in basement, large, with kitchenette curtained off, have to 
 
 pay for own heat and electric light; $20 per month. 
 
 J2 1 small room with single bed, no bath, have to heat water on stove ; $6. 
 23 1 large room, 1 window, $12 per month. 
 24 3 rooms, $14 per month. 
 25 1 room with kitchenette, $15 per month. 
 26 2 rooms, modern conveniences; $12 per month. 
 
 27 1 front room, modern conveniences, $12 per month for one; $14 for two. 
 28 Housekeeping room, kitchenette, single bed, room heated by stove, $20. 
 29 1 small room, modern conveniences, kitchenette, heated, $20. 
 30 1 large room, kitchenette, 1 large closet, 20 per month. 
 
 C BOARD AND ROOM WEST SIDE. 
 
 1 Attic room, 1 small window, heated evenings, $28 per month. 
 
 2 1 small room, second floor, $30 per month. 
 
 3 Regular boarding house, cheapest room is $35; rates up to $45 per month. 
 
 4 Nice room, modern conveniences, $37.50 per month. 
 
 5 Large rooms, modern conveniences, cheapest $50 per month. 
 
 6 Small room, not heated, small windows, $24 per month. 
 
 7 Large room, heated, $25 to $30 per month. 
 
 8 Large room, modern conveniences, $27.50 per month. 
 
 9 Large room, modern conveniences, $27 per month. 
 10 Modern conveniences, $40 to $50 per month. 
 11 Rooms and board, $28 to $35 per month. 
 12 $40 to $50 per month. 
 13 $8.50 per week. 
 
 14 Modern conveniences, $9 per week. 
 15 Small, dark room, $7.50 per week. 
 16 Modern conveniences, $25 per month. 
 
 17 Large sunny room, modern conveniences, $30 per month. 
 18 Large room, 3 windows, modern conveniences, $30 per month. 
 19 Modern conveniences, $29 per month. 
 20 1 large room, suitable for two, $35 per month. 
 21 llarge room, modern conveniences, $30; with two meals, $35. 
 22 Two meals, $25. 
 23 Two Meals, $25. 
 24 $5 per week. 
 
 25 $18; second month, $16 (someone for company). 
 26 $25, two meals. 
 27 $25, two meals. 
 28 $30 per month. 
 29 $30 per month; two meals. 
 30 $35 per month. 
 31 $25 per month. 
 32 $25 per month. 
 33 $26 per mo-nth; three meals. 
 
 34 1 upstairs court room, three meals, $30 ; 1 room downstairs parlor room for 
 two, $60 per month. 
 
60 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 SOUTH PORTLAND. 
 
 35 1 small dark room, heated, $7 per week. 
 
 36 Small dark, dirty room, $7 per week for one; $25 per month for two peoole. 
 
 37 $4.50, but room so dirty, poorly ventilated (1 small window), that it was simply 
 
 impossible to live in it. 
 
 38 1 small room, no conveniences, $5 per week. 
 39 1 small room, $5 per week. 
 40 Small rooms, $20 per month. 
 
 Rooms and Board. 
 
 Exceptional families offer room and board for $20 per 
 month. The average cost for three meals per day at a low 
 estimate is $25 oer month, but because of the large number 
 who demand $30, one is much inclined to say that that is 
 nearer the average. Two cheap, charitable boarding houses 
 offer room and board at $4, and from $3.75 to $5 per week re- 
 spectively. Together they can accommodate about eighty 
 girls, an insignificant percentage of those covered by the in- 
 vestigation in Portland. 
 
 Housekeeping Rooms. 
 
 A frequent plan of living is that of a housekeeping system, 
 where the rooms are made to differ from ordinary sleeping 
 rooms by the addition of an oilcloth-covered table, a few cheap 
 cups, saucers and plates, linen, hardware, a gas plate, and 
 once in a while some silver. Sometimes the renter is required 
 to furnish both her silver and hardware. The opportunity to 
 cook her own meals and wash her own dishes may help to 
 keep the domestic feeling alive in the struggling worker, but 
 it does not help her to keep alive the physical strength and 
 moral courage need'ed for persistency in this same struggle. 
 The addition of the hardware poorly concealed and the gas 
 olate only make the room more hideous. Rooms were visited 
 by the investigators renting at $16 and $20 per month that 
 cast a gloom over them when these rooms were considered 
 as a constant habitation, a place to be called home. And in 
 visiting rooms, the investigators, while looking for what an 
 ordinarily well brought up zirl would require in neatness and 
 pleasantness, kent constantlv in mind the fact that most gir.ls 
 do not demand velvet rugs and mahogany furniture as a 
 standard of comfort, so in no case was a room condemned for 
 plain furniture. Rooms mav reasonably be objected to, how- 
 ever, on the score of ragged carpets, dirty or torn curtans, lack 
 of sufficient davlisfh^, closet space, for sagging cots or un- 
 comfortable-looking beds, and for scratched, marred dressers 
 that tilted and wavered for lack of a castor. It was considered 
 a point against them when the householders, though a private 
 family, kept men as well as women roomers, and offered a 
 room with a bath and toilet on the floor above or below. 
 
 Expenditures for Room and Board. 
 
 Facts have< been auoted to show that the least sum for 
 which most wage-earning women can obtain decent rooms in 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 61 
 
 Portland is $10 a month. The lowest for which room and 
 board can be obtained is $25 a month. Table 27 shows the 
 average expenditures, of the girls adrift, for room and board. 
 
 TABLE 27. 
 
 Average Amount Spent on Room and Board Annually by 181 Wage Earning 
 Women in Portland living Adrift, classified by occupations. 
 
 No. Occupation. Annual Room Rent. Cost of Board. Total. 
 
 27 Laundry $62.15 $168.00 $230.15 
 
 18 Factory 73.77 131.73 205.50 
 
 35 Department Stores 118.00 196.25 314.25 
 
 31 Office 128.89 179.51 308.40 
 
 70 Miscellaneous Group 121.04 152.34 273.38 
 
 Laundry Workers. 
 
 Twenty-seven laundry workers average (Table 27) $62.15 
 per year for room rent, or slightly more than $5 per month. 
 Board costs them $14 per month, or less than 50 cents per day. 
 It is impossible to harmonize this with the idea of comfort- 
 able room and sufficient food. If any explanation can be made 
 for the sum, it is that many laundry women adrift live near 
 the laundries, which often are in very undesirable districts. 
 Department Store Employes. 
 
 Department store girls adrift rise nearer to a decent stan- 
 dard when they spend $118 per year, or nearly $10 per month 
 for room rent. Board for them amounts on the average to 
 $196.26, or $16.35 per month, which is 54 cents per day. This 
 is divided between toast and coffe for breakfast, lOc ; for lunch, 
 meat, bread and tea, 15c; or salad, desert and tea, 15c; and 
 for dinner whatever they can manage to order for 25 cents. 
 Picture these menus as a source of energy for ten hours' 
 work in a factory or store, and two or three more hours' work 
 "at home" in the evening. The average spent for one month 
 on both room and board is $26.18, a sum which, it has been 
 shown, will cover the cost of room and board when bargained 
 for at one time. But as accommodations at this price are 
 usually beyond walking distances, many girls prefer to live 
 nearer in and save carfare. That they do so is indicated by 
 Table 33, which shows that the girl at home spends $31.20 
 per month, or 10 cents per day for working days and nothing 
 for extra rides on Sundays or holidays, while the girl adrift 
 spends $23.42, or less than 10 cents per day. As this sum is 
 an average, it means that some girls walk every day to and 
 from work, spending nothing at all, while others ride one or 
 both ways. 
 
 TABLE 33. 
 
 Average Sum Spent Annually for Carfare by 509 Women Wage Earners, 
 classified by occupations and on basis of "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 Occupation. Average Annual Carfare At Home. Adrift. 
 
 Laundry $ 27.50 $ 20.80 
 
 Factory 28 - 96 28 - 50 
 
 Department Stores 
 
 Office 31 - 22 25 - 28 
 
 Miscellaneous ' 33.36 24.13 
 
62 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 Office Employes. 
 
 Girls in offices spend more for room rent than girls in 
 department stores, but less for board. Rooms cost them 
 $10.75 per month; board costs nearly $15. Young women in 
 these two classes of work have beem mentioned before as hav- 
 ing practically the same standards of living and the same re- 
 quirements for an attractive appearance. Observations on 
 one apply to the other. Carfarei amounts to almost the same. 
 Office girls living at home spend $31.22 a year, just 18 cents 
 less than department store girls living at home. Office girls 
 adrift spend $25.28, or $1.74 per month more than department 
 store girls adrift, but $6 per month less than office girls at 
 home. 
 
 Miscellaneous Trades. 
 
 As those under this heading are divided between the 
 more poorly and the well-paid trades, the average spent for 
 room and board indicates a good standard, $121.04 per year 
 for room, and $152.34 for board; or, $10 per month for room 
 and $15 for board. Carfare for those living at home is the 
 highest of any group, $33.36 per year. For those adrift, it 
 ranks next to the office employes, or $24.13 per year or $2 per 
 month, which, however, does not permit a ride to and from 
 work for the average girl. 
 
 Board Without Room. 
 
 Meal tickets in private families range from $5.25 per week 
 to $5.95. This is at the rate of 25 cents for each meal, or 25 
 cents for breakfast and lunch, and 35 cents for dinner. Many 
 girls who are rooming, however, confine their breakfast to 
 toast and coffee, lOc; lunch, 15c; and dinner, 15c; but somet- 
 times to 25 or 35 cents. This information, apart from the' evi- 
 dence of the schedules, was obtained by frequenting restau- 
 rants that wage-earning women patronize, and watching their 
 menus and checks. These small sums would not be possible 
 as limits if it were not for charitable organizations and cafe- 
 terias. 
 
 Cost of Clothing. 
 
 Cost of clothing for the average woman working outside 
 of her home would amount to $125 or $150 a year. This is 
 an item which varies noticeably with the occupation. Girls in 
 offices, telephone exchanges and department stores must dress 
 better than those in laundries and factories. The former wear 
 the same dresses at their work through the day, while the 
 laundry and factory employes can come to work in a good suit 
 and change it, on arriving, for a rough working dress. This 
 is one phase of the problem that argues strongly for a com- 
 mission which can regulate the minimum wage according to 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 63 
 
 the demands of the occupation. Table 28 below offers op- 
 portunity for some interesting comments on the variation of 
 cost of clothing with occupation. In three out of five classi- 
 fications, including laundries, factories, department stores, of- 
 fices, and miscellaneous trades, the girl living at home spends 
 more for her clothes than the girl adrift. This is due to the 
 fact that the* girl at home, because her parents furnish her 
 room and board, can afford to spend more. 
 
 TABLE 28. 
 
 Average Amount Spent annually on Clothing by 509 Women Wage Earners in 
 
 Portland, classified by occupation and as to living "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 No. Occupation. Average Annual Expenxe At Home. Adrift. 
 
 36 Laundry $158.00 $157.00 
 
 100 Factory 126.46 140.33 
 
 116 Department Stores 161.36 139.63 
 
 88 Office 183.20 182.66 
 
 169 Miscellaneous Group 138.10 143.52 
 
 In no case is the amount stated an extravagant one; $183 
 a year is the highest sum mentioned, and this is spent by office 
 employes, who are expected to dress not only neatly, but in 
 good style. The office girl adrift spends $1 a year less, show- 
 ing that however she may economize in other ways, she must 
 appear well dressed. Laundry girls at home and adrift spend 
 practically the same those at home $158; those adrift $157. 
 That their cost of clothing is higher than the factory workers, 
 whose average expenditure by the girl at home is $126.46, and 
 for the girl adrift, $140.33, though the two classes of work are 
 ranked the same, may be accounted for by the fact that laun- 
 dry work means much greater wear and tear on clothing than 
 factory work, which while often very dirty, does not require 
 as much moving around and straining of garments. Next to 
 the office girl, for expenditure for wearing apparel, ranks the 
 department store employe. Those living at home spend on 
 an average of $161.36 a year; those a'drift, $139.63, or $21.73 
 less. This means that the girl living at home may not have 
 to burden herself after working hours by making her own 
 clothes. Even if she does, and spends the entire $161.36 in a 
 larger amount of apparel, still she cannot be called an extrava- 
 gant dresser. In the case of the factory girls, those adrift 
 spend $140.33, or $13.87 a year more than the girl at home. 
 The records are of 18 girls adrift and 82 at home, and would 
 tend to show that those at home are relied upon for so much 
 support that what they are able to spend on themselves is 
 below the minimum required. Living at home they are able 
 to save on dressmaking. The group called "miscellaneous" is 
 made up of waitresses, chambermaids, milliners and dress- 
 makers, janitresses, demonstrators and canvassers, cleaners 
 and dyers, hairdressers, photographers, bookbinders, etc. Mis- 
 cellaneous schedules number 169; 70 of these are from girls 
 adrift, 99 from girls living at home. Cost of clothing for the 
 former amounts to $143.52; for those at home, $138.10. The 
 
64 
 
 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 reason for the difference here is the same as that given for 
 the factory girls. When a certain standard of good appear- 
 ance is not demanded, the girls at home tend to economize 
 below the minimum on wearing apparel. 
 
 The minimum average spent by any class for clothes in 
 Table 28 is $126.46. Some schedules reported an expenditure 
 of $50 a year, and one or two went as high as $300 a year. 
 In order to ascertain what is the least sum that a self-support- 
 ing woman can clothe herself for, the following tables have 
 been made out. Table 29 quotes the lowest prices at which any 
 article can be bought. Table 30 shows the least for which an 
 article that has good wearing qualities, and looks well, can 
 be bought, and states what it should cost a young woman 
 to dress decently and attractively. Table 29 is discarded be- 
 cause articles bought at these prices often look shoddy in 
 the beginning and wear out 'twice as fast as a more expensive 
 article. 
 
 TABLE 29. 
 
 1 winter coat $15.00 
 
 1 suit 18.00 
 
 1 extra skirt 5.00 
 
 2 dark waists 4.00 
 
 4 white waists 4.00 
 
 2 dark underskirts 2.00 
 
 4 suits summer underwear.., 2.00 
 
 3 suits winter underwear 
 
 1 dozen pair stockings 
 
 2 pair corsets 
 
 4 corset covers 
 
 li dozen cotton handkerchiefs.. 
 4 pair gloves. . . 
 
 3.00 
 3.00 
 3.00 
 2.00 
 .90 
 4.00 
 
 pair shoes 10.00 
 
 1 pair rubbers 50 
 
 1 Umbrella 1.00 
 
 3 hats 6.00 
 
 1 party dress 10.00 
 
 3 white underskirts 4.50 
 
 2 summer dresses... . 10.00 
 
 $107.90 
 
 TABLE 30. 
 
 1 winter coat $20.00 
 
 1 work suit 20.00 
 
 1 extra skirt 7.50 
 
 1 "best suit 25.00 
 
 2 dark work waists 6.00 
 
 2 dark underskirts 3.00 
 
 4 white waists 10.00 
 
 4 suits summer underwear 4.00 
 
 3 suits winter underwear 6.00 
 
 1 dozen pair stockings 6.00 
 
 2 pair corsets 5.00 
 
 4 corset covers 2.00 
 
 li dpz. handkerchiefs 1.80 
 
 pair gloves 6.00 
 
 pair shoes 16.00 
 
 pair rubbers 75 
 
 umbrella 1.00 
 
 party dress 15.00 
 
 3 white underskirts 6.00 
 
 2 summer dresses 10.00 
 
 4 hats . . 16.00 
 
 $187.05 
 
 Laundry. 
 
 Table 31, which gives expenditures for laundry, offers 
 further opportunity for interesting comparisons. The largest 
 amount spent by any class is $24.28, the average cost a year, 
 or $2.02 a month, the average cost of the department store 
 employe. The smallest amount paid out is the average of 
 the laundry girl adrift: $7.85 a year, or 65 cents a month. 
 Laundries charge from 25 cents to 35 cents for a 
 shirtwaist, and for other pieces accordingly. Two white shirt- 
 waists a week are the least that a young woman can manage 
 on when she wears this style of dress. These alone would 
 amount to 50 cents a week, or $2 a month. The conclusion 
 we may draw is that most girls manage to wear clothes that 
 do not need frequent laundering. For the articles that have 
 to be washed, the little square, which has served as kitchen, 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 65 
 
 diningroom, bedroom and parlor, can now take its turn serv- 
 ing as a washroom. Hence it is that if a girl is fortunate 
 enough to live where electric light is used, and still more for- 
 tunate enough to possess the luxury of an electric iron, she 
 learns that several newspapers spread under a sheet on the 
 rug make a tolerable ironing board. The work must be done 
 on her hands and knees, but the good pennies saved and the 
 pile of fresh clothes are worth the effort. Others have found 
 that windows make good smoothers if handkerchiefs are put 
 on quite wet, rubbed till all the air bubbles are gone and 
 left over night. The hems may be shrunken, but on the whole, 
 this process does very well and does not really show after the 
 handkerchief is crumpled once or twice. 
 
 TABLE 31. 
 
 Average Sum Spent Annually for Laundry by 509 Wage Earning Women, 
 classified by occupation and on basis of "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 Occupation. Annual Cost At Home. Adrift. 
 
 Laundry $ 12.00 $ 7.85 
 
 Factory 8.91 11.80 
 
 Department Store 24.28 1627 
 
 Office 14.35 21.33 
 
 Miscellaneous 23.25 21.48 
 
 Doctor's and Dentist's Bills. 
 
 Amounts both for the girl at home and adrift vary but 
 little in this column. One reason for this is that no matter 
 what the occupation or station, if one's teeth are aching and 
 one's organism rebellious, relief must be sought from the 
 proper person. The highest sum, $37.50 a year, spent by 
 laundry girls adrift, is small. The chapter on Conditions of 
 Labor showed that some kinds of work cause nerve strain 
 and other ills as serious ; the investigation showed the fact 
 that many young women avoid a doctor's care because of the 
 expense, and sometimes because they know that it will mean 
 an order to stop work an order which to them seems impos- 
 sible to fulfill. Medicines and eye-glasses are items which 
 must not be forgotten here. Both are a decided expense, but 
 the latter often means a repeated one on account of breakage. 
 The physician's care which other girls have received is not 
 indicated in the "Doctor's Bills" table, because- many physi- 
 cians make it a rule not to charge girls who are struggling 
 for a living. The same can be said of dentists, and much 
 credit is due men of the profession for their silent but genuine- 
 ly charitable work. 
 
 TABLE 32. 
 
 Average Amount Spent Annually on Doctor's and Dentist's Bills by 509 Wage 
 
 Earning Women in Portland, classified by Occupation and as to living "at home" 
 or "adrift." 
 
 No. Occupation. Average Annual Expense At Home. Adrift. 
 
 36 Laundry $ 16.00 $ 37.50 
 
 100 Factory 27.60 18.40 
 
 116 Department Stores 29.23 23.82 
 
 88 Offices 25.28 
 
 169 Miscellaneous - 27.47 26.52 
 
66 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 It may be to the point to mention here the hospital as- 
 sociations which some firms have inaugurated. In one firm 
 membership was compulsory, with dues of $1 per month. Mem- 
 bers were compelled to consult the Association doctor, whose 
 services were free to them ; private hospital care was obtained 
 for them, sometimes at the rate of $8 per week, sometimes 
 free of charge. Another firm has a space in its application 
 blank where applicants are asked to state whether they are 
 willing to join the association. Applicants for work are not 
 likely to refuse anything within reason, accession to which 
 will get them work. "Junior" employes, by which is meant 
 those earning in the neighborhood of $25 a month, are 
 charged 25 cents a month dues. "Senior" employes, or those 
 earning over $10 a week, are charged 50 cents a month. Bene- 
 fits of membership are $1 a day while out of work. Members 
 may consult their own physicians, though the Association 
 employs one of its own. Consultation with the Association 
 physician is charged for in spite of membership. For this 
 reason the old employes are diffident about belonging. 
 
 Lodges and Church Dues. 
 
 The very small amounts spent in these instances indicate 
 that where retrenchment can be made, it is done. If a regu- 
 lar churchgoer contributes 5 cents per Sunday to the collection 
 box, surely the least that she could do, this would amount to 
 
 TABLE 34. 
 
 Average Sum Spent Annually for Lodge and Church Dues by 509 Wage Earning 
 Women in Portland, classified by occupation and as to living "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 No. Occupation. Average Annual Expense At Home. Adrift. 
 
 36 Laundry $ 6.25 $ 5.25 
 
 100 Factory 9.96 7.40 
 
 116 Department Stores 12.19 9.72 
 
 88 Office 9.13 9.10 
 
 169 Miscellaneous 12.26 7.90 
 
 $2.60 a year. Lodge membership demands from $3 to $5 a 
 year, and others require more.' Yet one group of women, laun- 
 dry workers adrift, spent $5 a year for church and lodge dues. 
 The department store and miscellaneous groups living at home 
 are exceptions in spending $12. The others at home, as well 
 as adrift, do not spend more than $9. 
 
 Recreation and Vacation. 
 
 Maximum average amounts spent for these items amount 
 to $36.62; the minimum amount recorded is $12.50. Of the 
 four specified trades, the three groups of women adrift spend 
 more for recreation and vacation than do the women living 
 at home. This would tend to show that the girl at home can 
 get decent amusement cheaper or else has friends to rely on 
 for her good times. There is not the same temptation for 
 the girl at home to seek fun outside as there is for the girl 
 adrift, whose lonesomeness in her one room drives her inno- 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 67 
 
 cenr.lv to seek diversion that eventually ends disastrously for 
 her. 
 
 TABLE 35. 
 
 Average Sum Spent Annually for Recreation and Vacation by 509 Wage Earning 
 
 Women in Portland, classified by occupation and as to living "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 No. Occupation. Average Annual Expense At Home. Adrift 
 
 36 Laundry $ 18.25 $ 12.50 
 
 100 Factory 12.91 1660 
 
 116 Department Store 21.48 3662 
 
 Office 20.14 3Si78 
 
 Miscellaneous 22.02 20.83 
 
 Education and Reading. 
 
 Sums spent for this purpose indicate that mental recrea- 
 tion or training of any kind is almost entirely lacking among 
 the wage-earning women. Several reasons may be given for 
 this. One is that the great majoritv of them have to leave 
 school before their education is half completed. A second 
 reason is that when they reach home at night they are too 
 tired to read or study music. A third is that they haven't 
 the money to use this way if they wished to. Laundry girls 
 spend the least of any group ; $6.30 for those at home, $4 for 
 those adrift. Factorv g-irls adrift spend the largest sum, but 
 department store girls living at home average about the same. 
 Office girls spend nearly $8 per' year ; less than we might ex- 
 pect from this better trained class. 
 
 TABLE 36. 
 
 Average Sum Spent Annually for Education and Reading by 509 Wage Earning 
 Women in Portland, classified by occupation as to living "at home" or "adrift." 
 
 No. Occupation. Average Annual Expense At Home. Adrift. 
 
 36 Laundry $ 6.30 $ 4.00 
 
 100 Factory 6.68 10.30 
 
 116 Department Store 10.11 6.69 
 
 88 Office 7.78 7.98 
 
 169 Miscellaneous 9.45 8.92 
 
 To summarize the Cost of Living : 
 
 Investigation has shown that $10 a week is the very least 
 on which the average self-suporting woman can live decently 
 and keep herself in health in Portland. This means a steady 
 income of $520 per year. HOW this would have to be spent 
 were women in all cases living as they should, is indicated by 
 the following schedule : 
 
 TABLE 37. 
 
 Per Year. 
 
 Room and Board, $25 per month $300 
 
 Clothing 130 
 
 Laundry Bills 25 
 
 Carfare .' 30 
 
 Doctor's Bills 15 
 
 Lodge and Church Dues 10 
 
 Recreation, including vacation 25 
 
 Education and reading 10 
 
 Total ! $545 
 
 If we- were to omit the sum allowed for recreation, $25 a 
 year, we would bring the actual cost to $520 a year, or $10 -a 
 week, for bare necessities. That a legitimate amount of rec- 
 reation is a necessity to maintain the efficiency of a worker is 
 a theory that some persons insist upon, but which others re- 
 fuse to admit. 
 
68 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 PERSONAL STORIES 
 
 Miss A., a stenographer 19 years old, P/2 years' experi- 
 ence, working in office for $22 a month. A friend happened 
 to invite her to lunch on Saturday. She discovered that Miss 
 A's money had given out the day before ; that she had had 
 no dinner Friday evening, nothing to eat on Saturday, and had 
 expected to have nothing to eat until Monday, when she 
 would receive her next check. 
 
 Miss B works at the 5c, lOc and 15c store, earns $4.50 
 per week. Said that her salary was so small that she has to 
 work for her room and board. Gets up in the morning and 
 gets breakfast before she goes to work , washes dishes when 
 she comes home at night, does family's washing and ironing 
 on Sunday. Her people are unable to help her. 
 
 Miss C works at candy factory. Is living with her mother 
 now. Was rooming with another girl before mother came to 
 city. Said that usually they both had beaus and went out 
 for good times. Chum goes with a m'an now who, Miss C. 
 thinks, pays for her meals and carfare. Chum is earning only 
 $6 per week, but has more money and clothes than she used 
 to. Thinks that she "lives with the man," as she has three 
 meals now also, which she didn't have before. She herself 
 often has offers from men to be "charity girl" in exchange for 
 amusement and meals, but she refuses. States that if she ever 
 gets down and out, she will accept. She says that they tell 
 her when she refuses that they are glad she is a good girl ; 
 they just wanted to find out. Chum can't live at home on 
 account of cruelty of stepfather. Both girls about eighteen 
 years old. 
 
 Miss D. works in candy factory. Says it is dirtier than 
 
 , another noted place. Girls have to go downstairs 
 to toilet and use the same one that the men use. "The dirtiest 
 place I ever worked in." 
 
 Miss E., in alteration room of large store, received $23.50 
 per week. Made all her own clothes, trimmed her own hats, 
 walked to and from work. Spent $320 per year for room and 
 board, $200 for clothes, $35 per year for carfare, $52 per year 
 for laundry, $10 for church dues, $10 for education, etc. Total 
 expenses, $627; total income, $1,175. Is a sensible, elderly 
 girl, an example that even with good management, cost of 
 living, with decent standards can scarcely be brought under 
 $600"per year. 
 
 Miss F., stenographer in law office at $5 per week says, 
 "I did the stenographic work for two offices and that is the 
 reason I quit, as I thought it was too much work for only 
 $20 a month." 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 69 
 
 Miss G., working in government office at $25 per week, 
 spends $192 per year for room rent, $225 for food, $25 for 
 laundry, $25 for carfare, $285 for clothing, $25 for dentistry, 
 $50 for recreation and vacation, $15 for books and newspa- 
 pers. She says : "Expenses shown are actual and based on 
 economy and self-denial. Clothing purchased is worn out in 
 office. No social or evening dresses taken into consideration." 
 
 Miss H. earns $5 per week in candy factory. Was living 
 with mother and so didn't estimate cost of living. Said that 
 she had worked in department store for nine months. Asked 
 for a raise and was told that after Christmas she would get 
 one. After Christmas, she was dismissed. 
 
 Miss I., working in candy factory, $5 per week, states 
 that after standing on her feet for ten hours at her work, 
 she is required to sweep the floor in the evening. Lives with 
 her mother ; says that if she didn't, she could not live on this 
 salary. 
 
 Mrs. XYZ. earns $6 per week doing daywork. Is attempt- 
 ing to support two children. Gets $12 per month from hus- 
 band, who is out on parole. 
 
 Miss J. works in cannery and averages $7.20 per week. 
 Says she was the fastest worker they had, and that the most 
 money she could make per day was $1.20; sometimes 80c, 
 50c and 40c. 
 
 Miss K., also in fruit cannery, earns $5.40 per week. She 
 lives 15 blocks from working place, but walks back and forth 
 as she can't afford to ride. 
 
 Miss L., in same place, states it is harder than any work 
 she has done with less pay; a filthy place. Building is unfit 
 for women to work in. Earns $2.50 per week. 
 
 Miss M., stock girl in tailor shop in suit house, earns $6 
 per week ; lived at home, and paid no room rent or board ; 
 made all own shirtwaists, dresses, underwear ; trimmed hats ; 
 does all her own laundry except collars. Income, $312 per 
 year ; expenses, noon lunches downtown, $62.40 per year ; car- 
 fare, $36; laundry, $6; clothing, $135; recreation, including 
 swimming lessons, $30; church dues, $6; books and newspa- 
 pers, $3. Expenditures, $272.40; income, $312. Note here 
 that this girl does not pay for dressmaking, trimming of hats, 
 laundry, room and board. 
 
 Miss N., working in department store at $7.50 per week, 
 gives a moderate, reasonable list of expenditures. Said that 
 if she didn't have help, she would starve, or what is worse, 
 get her living some other way. 
 
 Mrs. ABC. earns $18 per week in department store ; has 
 a little boy to support. Says that this wouldn't cover her ex- 
 penses if her landlady did not help her take care of her little 
 
70 Social Welfare Survey. 
 
 boy, whom she has to support. Is trying to pay for her own 
 home on the installment plan ; makes all the little boy's clothes 
 at night. 
 
 Mrs O., a girl of 18, works in a 5c, lOc and 15c store; 
 earned $4 at the start, now $6.10; has baby to support; doesn't 
 know where her husband is. Mother takes care of baby, but 
 she boards out ; pays $3 per week for room and board. They 
 have mush and toast for breakfast ; potatoes and gravy, and 
 sometimes meat for dinner ; walks to work every morning, 
 though she lives a long distance from the store ; goes without 
 lunch unless she can hustle a fellow. Girls in store sometimes 
 take up a collection for her. 
 
 Miss P. works in 5c, lOc and 15c store, living at home; 
 earns $4 per week. Says that after paying carfare, she has 
 only money enough to pay for her clothes. 
 
 Girls in same establishment stated that when they went 
 to the head of one department and told him they could not 
 live on $4 a week, knowing that they could not do much better 
 there, he found 'work for two of them outside. 
 
 Miss Q. earns $9 a week in laundry. States that often 
 she goes without evening meal because she can't afford it. 
 
 Mrs. R., janitress, earns $7.50 per week. Has a little girl 
 to support, pays $20 for their room and board ; has $10 left for 
 their clothes and school expenses. 
 
 Mrs. S., working in department store at $45 per month, 
 says ; "I maintain a mother and daughter. I have a large 
 surgery 'bill of over $200, and am unable to pay a cent of it ; 
 had a hard sick spell of 14 weeks, and a year later fell on auto 
 oil on the street and broke my ankle. I never had a vacation 
 with pay in my life ; never was granted a vacation. Had to 
 give up my lodge dues because I could not pay them. I sup- 
 port the three of us on my salary. Have been maintaining 
 a home for seven years ; have spent all I made and am deeply 
 in debt, and work as I may, I cannot get out of debt." 
 
 Mrs. T., an elderly woman canvasser, $1.50 per day, says; 
 "If you do not dress nicely, the firm will not keep you. I am 
 helping to support mv deserted daughter and three grand- 
 children. I receive a little aid from my son." 
 
 Mrs. U., demonstrator, $9 per week, has an income of 
 $468 per year; expenditures, $445.10. She spends $100 on 
 clothing, $283 on room, board and carfare. She says; "You 
 can see by the above figures that one does not have much 
 money left for any vacation. The employers are now expect- 
 ing us to dress better, and are hiring only help which can dress 
 well, and letting the older help out." 
 
 Miss V., general work in hairdressing parlors, says : "I 
 must pay $25 to learn the trade. I have to borrow all this 
 
Social Welfare Survey. 71 
 
 money and pay it back when I am earning. After I finish my 
 trade, I get $7 per week." 
 
 Miss W., manicure in hairdressing parlors, $10 per week, 
 says : "It takes six months of hard work to learn this trade, 
 and then the first wage you earn is $6 per week. I have worked 
 two years, and get $10. If I didn't live at home, I couldn't 
 live on this wage.'' 
 
 Miss X., millinery shop, $12 per week, says : "There are 
 many things I would like to do to improve myself, but my 
 salary only allows me the bare necessities of life." 
 
 Miss Z. works in a laundry at a wage of $9 per week. She 
 states that frequently at the end of the day she is so exhausted 
 that she cannot eat; in one way she is grateful for this weari- 
 ness because she cannot afford three meals a day, and if she 
 were not tired and felt the need of them she would miss them. 
 
Welfare Legislation 
 
 for Women and Minors 
 
 REV. EDWIN V. O'HARA 
 
 Chairman 
 
 Social Survey Committee of the 
 Consumers' League of Oregon 
 
 An Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Consumers' League of 
 
 Oregon, held at the Portland Hotel, Portland, Ore. 
 
 Tuesday, November 19, 1912 
 
PROVISIONS OF THE PROPOSED BILL FOR AN INDUS- 
 TRIAL WELFARE COMMISSION FOR WOMEN AND 
 MINORS IN THE STATE OF OREGON. 
 
 The Governor shall appoint a non-paid Commission of five 
 members, to be known as the Industrial Welfare Commission. 
 
 It shall be the duty of this Commission to ascertain the wages, 
 and hours of labor, and conditions of labor, of women and minors 
 in the various occupations in which they are employed. 
 
 To this end the Commission shall have power to examine a 1 ! 
 pay rolls and records showing wages and hours of labor of women 
 and minors. 
 
 If, after investigation, the Commission considers that in any 
 occupation the wages paid to female employes are less than enough 
 to maintain the worker in health, or that the hours or conditions of 
 labor are prejudicial to the health of the workers, the Commission 
 is empowered to call a Conference of employers and employes in 
 said occupation. 
 
 It shall be the duty of this Conference to report to the Com- 
 mission a statement of the minimum cost of decent living for the 
 women employes, and the number of hours and conditions con- 
 sistent with the health of the worker. 
 
 The Commission shall review these recommendations and ,.iay 
 appiove or disapprove any or all of them. If it approves the recom- 
 mendations of the Conference, it shall give notice of a public hear- 
 ing on same, and after such public hearing may issue an obligatory 
 order, fixing wages and hours, and conditions of labor. 
 
 If the Commission disapproves the recommendations of the 
 Conference, it may re-submit the question to the same or another 
 Conference. 
 
 The wages, hours and conditions of labor of minors may be 
 determined in a similar manner. 
 
 There shall be right of appeal to the Circuit Court should the 
 determinations of the Commission be considered unjust. 
 
1. The responsibility of the State: 
 
 The welfare of society imperatively demands the protection 
 of women and minors from all grave and wide-spread influences 
 which would undermine the health or morals of the former or retard 
 or stunt the natural development of the latter. The physical health 
 and moral character of womanhood are the sine qua non of social 
 progress. The health and morals of the race will not rise above 
 the standards maintained by the mothers of the race. We live in 
 an age which is demanding better conditions for the rearing of 
 children, an age which is seriously discussing radical and revolu- 
 tionary methods to provide that children shall be "well-born." The 
 primary condition of healthy offspring is a healthy motherhood. 
 Likewise the well-being of society involves the protection of grow- 
 ing boys and girls from conditions of life and labor which are 
 prejudicial to their physical, mental and moral development. The 
 men and women of the future who will have to assume the re- 
 sponsibilities of the world's progress are the boys and girls of 
 today. Their health, the training of their minds and the formation 
 of their characters is a matter of such consequence to society that 
 it must take precedence over every commercial consideration. No 
 commonwealth can hope to be perpetuated, not to say make prog- 
 ress, which fails to ward off from its women and children pernicious 
 conditions of living and labor. Hence it is that the state must be 
 held responsible for the enforcement of living wages and reasonable 
 hours and decent conditions for its laboring women and minors. 
 
 2. Insufficient wages a cause of wholesale destitution. 
 
 It has been a popular theory that poverty and its attendant 
 evils were inflicted upon people because of their own faults. There 
 is an element of truth in this view, but social investigators will 
 agree that it explains but a small fraction of the industrial defi- 
 ciency of today. It is acknowledged, too, that there are many per- 
 sons afflicted with some mental defect which renders them industri- 
 ally unfit, but the explanation of the overwhelming problem of de- 
 pendency and delinquency which confronts private and public char- 
 ity, must be wider and deeper. "There is forced upon us," said a well- 
 known speaker at the last National Conference of Charities and Cor- 
 rections. "There is forced upon us the slow, reluctant recognition 
 that there is no more efficient cause of wholesale destitution in the 
 United States than industry.... Insufficient wages underlie a vast 
 proportion of the need for correctional and reformatory work. They 
 entail upon the community child labor, tuberculosis, underfeeding, 
 
lack of refreshing sleep and the consequent nervous breakdown. 
 They underlie industrial employment of mothers whose neglected 
 children consequently fail in health and morals. The children in 
 turn crowd the hospitals, dispensaries, juvenile courts and cus- 
 todial institutions.... Insufficient wages are proof of incompetent 
 management and of the greed of employers. They presuppose the 
 existence in the community of dishonorable earnings by women 
 employes or charitable supplements to honest girls and their fami- 
 lies. Such outside aid must must be permanent and continued." 
 (Mrs. Florence Kelly, General Secretary National Consumers' 
 League). 
 
 3. Parasitic industries subsidized by the poor. 
 
 We often point with pride to the vast amount of charity and 
 philanthropic effort that is lavished on the unfortunate. It would 
 be immensely more to the point to provide a modicum of social 
 justice for the workers, and thus prevent them from becoming ob- 
 jects of charity. In any justly and reasonably organized society, each 
 industry should support the people employed in it. An industry 
 which fails to do so is a parasite upon its employes and their homes. 
 A department store, candy factory, or laundry which pays its young 
 women employes less than they can decently live upon and main- 
 tain themselves in health, is in the class of the parasitic male 
 cirnpeds, which depend for their existence and nourishment upon 
 the females of the same species. Such an industry is subsidized 
 by its employes. A girl who works steadily for ten hours a day 
 for a wage of five dollars a week, and who has to pay nine dollars 
 a week for room, board, carfare, clothing and laundry, is really 
 contributing not less than four dollars a week subsidy to the 
 profits of the business. The problem is, - - where does she get 
 the four dollars? Either her home, her father, mother or brother 
 pays it, or the home gets it from the public or private charity, or 
 it is taken from the earnings of shame. It would seem that if any 
 unprofitable industry is so necessary to society that it must be 
 subsidized, the subsidy should come from other source than the 
 homes of the poor, or the 'earnings of a life of shame. In parasitic 
 industries, the burden is placed upon the shoulders of the very 
 portion of society least capable of bearing it. 
 
 4. The case of the girl at home. 
 
 There is a widespread opinion that a young woman living at 
 home may reasonably be employed at a less wage than her sister, 
 
who is "adrift," that is, one who has only herself to support. This 
 view involves a double fallacy. Even if a girl lives at home, her 
 food has to 'be paid for, and she occupies a room which could 
 otherwise be rented to some girl adrift, and bring into the family 
 exactly the sum paid for a room by the girl adrift. Hence the ex- 
 pense of a girl living at home is not substantially less than that of 
 a girl adrift. And -all reason demands that the industry should bear 
 that expense. Again, the girl adrift has no one but herself to 
 provide for. The girl living at home, on the contrary, seldom goes 
 into industry unless she is forced to support herself, and often 
 contribute to the support of aged parents or other dependent rela,- 
 tives. Yet there are stores which justify the miserable pittance 
 they give their employes on the specious pretext that they 
 only employ girls who live at home, and consequently that no 
 wrong is done. Such stores foster the opinion that a large percent- 
 age of the girls they employ are working only for "pin money," 
 just to keep busy and supply themselves with little luxuries. Every 
 investigation which has been held completely negatives this view. 
 The investigators in Portland have found that only an insignificant 
 fraction of the women workers could afford to live at home without 
 work. And in Milwaukee to instance another typical investiga- 
 tion of 1189 wage-earning girls interviwed, only six were working 
 from choice. 
 
 5. The basis of present wage rates for women. 
 
 "Existing wage rates are unbearable," says the authority al- 
 ready quoted, "because they rest on the economic error that all 
 women wage-earners are supported, at least in part by men ; 
 that every woman has a father, brother, husband, son, or some 
 male relative earning enough money to furnish the bulk of her 
 maintenance, so that she need make merely a contribution. One 
 need not speak in detail of the thousands of widowed mothers with 
 children, of the faithful wives whose husbands are tubercular or 
 are in lunatic asylums or penitentiaries, or disabled by poisons or 
 other industrial injuries.... Women's wages rest on the hypothesis 
 that some contribution comes from elsewhere than themselves. An 
 ugly item in recent finance is the circular issued by the Wool- 
 worth Company (United 5c and lOc Stores), notifying subscribers 
 that the investment would be profitable because of the small wages 
 paid to clerks by reason of their youth and consequent cheapness.... 
 I do not believe that wages are adjusted in innocent ignorance. I 
 believe that it can be said justly that wages in the vast field of 
 
retail trade rest upon knowledge that the payroll is eked out by 
 the social evil." These convictions of the General Secretary of the 
 National Consumers' League are shared by social workers in every 
 large city of the country. 
 
 6. A sin crying to Heaven for vengeance. 
 
 The case of the girl "adrift" merits special consideration. She is 
 a large factor even among the native American population of west- 
 ern cities There are hundreds of girls in Portland who have cut 
 loose from family ties' in the east, hoping to better their economic 
 condition by coming west. Other hundreds are set adrift here by the 
 shipwreck of homes due to intemperance, divorce or destitution 
 of the parents. Scores of these girls are getting five dollars, six dol- 
 lars and seven dollars a week in our retail stores, laundries, offices, 
 and factories. It is unnecessary to argue that no young woman can 
 live decently and maintain herself in health upon so meagre an 
 income. 
 
 It does not follow that all girls adrift who work for these 
 wages are supplementing them by lives of shame. There are scores 
 of girls here who are living in miserable rooms without heat in 
 winter, who do not get a new dress once a year, but make over 
 their old one until it becomes threadbare, and who can afford but 
 two meals a day. These girls are leading virtuous lives, but they 
 are living on the verge of starvation. How long will their health 
 stand the strain? How long will their resolutions of clean living 
 hold out under the temptation? We are horrified at the recital 
 of atrocities in Africa, where natives are forced to work for their 
 masters under the lash. What shall we say of leading citizens of 
 every large American city who gather in dividends from industries 
 that grind down American girls to indecent and starvation wages, 
 and deliberately pile up profits from the earnings of their shame? 
 Is it not written "He that shedeth blood and he that defraudeth 
 the laborer of his hire are brothers. The bread of the needy is the 
 life of the poor; he that defraudeth them thereof is a man of blood." 
 
 7. Every section of the state is vitally concerned. 
 
 Nor should it, be supposed that only the larger cities have an 
 interest in this matter. Even supposing it were true that sufficient 
 wages are being paid in the smaller towns, the question is still of 
 vital concern to them. Girls from every village and hamlet are 
 gravitating to the larger centers. No day passes that does not bring 
 
to Portland its quota of girls from the towns and country dis- 
 tricts of Oregon in search of employment. They arrive here without 
 friends or influence, without the 'home circle on which to fall back, 
 perhaps away from home for the first time. Here they come, bright, 
 eager-faced, light-hearted girls; but unskilled, and totally inexpe- 
 rienced. They find a cheap lodging place and 'begin looking for 
 work. 
 
 The big retail stores, naturally, are the Mecca of their first 
 pilgrimage. They make their way to the superintendent's desk, 
 and are accorded an interview with the wonderful man who has 
 so many positions within his gift. They want work? Yes. They 
 are inexperienced? Yes. Well, there are many applicants and few 
 positions, but he will try them out as inspectors. There are ten 
 hours a day to work, of course, and inspectors must be bright and 
 active and careful not to miss an hour through illness or other 
 cause, or they will be docked, because, you know, the store is under 
 heavy expense and must have strictly business methods. And the 
 wages? Why, twenty dollars a month with the prospect of being 
 raised to twenty-five and even thirty dollars a month in the course 
 of a year or two. This is no imaginary situation. There are in 
 Portland individual establishments which employ from sixty to nine- 
 ty young women inspectors "(wrappers) for these wages. I recall the 
 case of one of these girls, who, after some months at the beginner's 
 wage ($20 per month), asked for a raise in wages, and was given 
 the munificent increase of 50 cents per month ! What a roseate 
 prospect opens out before our new arrival in the world of industry ! 
 Twenty dollars a month to pay for her room, board, clothing, laun- 
 dry and carfare, not to speak of stamps with which to send news 
 of her industrial independence to her home to assure her parents 
 that their misgivings about her success in the metropolis were un- 
 founded. 
 
 buppose our friend goes to a paper box factory and is engaged 
 on piece work. She will stand for ten hours a day over a nause- 
 ating pot of glue and as she goes to her humble lodging at night, 
 trying to get some fresh air into her lungs on the way, she will 
 figure up her profits at from 65 cents to 80 cents. If she applies at 
 a candy factory or a 5c & lOc store, her experience will not be 
 materially different. These are the actual conditions which will 
 confront an inexperienced girl who comes from any part of the 
 state to seek work in Portland. These are actual, not imaginary 
 conditions, for our investigators have not been satisfied with hear- 
 say, but have themselves gone to work in these various industries 
 
under these conditions. It can readily be seen, therefore, that every 
 section of the state is vitally concerned in the wage conditions of 
 the larger centers. 
 
 8. Make freedom of contract an actuality. 
 
 It is urged that any legislation dealing with wages is an in- 
 vasion of the right of free contract. The answer is obvious. Who 
 will talk of a "free contract" when a young woman with no influ- 
 ence and but a few pennies between her and starvation applies for 
 work in one of our large industries? Freedom is the merest fiction 
 in such a case. "The need of the work is so great and the workers 
 are so numerous that employers may dictate their own terms, lim- 
 ited only by their sense of social responsibility and by the restricted 
 competition of other employment opportunities." What the Con- 
 sumers' League is urging is not legislation which will destroy free- 
 dom of contract, but legislation Which will make freedom of con- 
 tract an actuality and not a ghastly mockery, as it is at present. 
 We want wage bargains to be real bargains, based on mutual 
 knowledge of the facts, and not on the necessities and ignorance 
 of the weaker party. 
 
 9. Secrecy about wage schedules; what it evidences. 
 
 One of the striking facts about women's wage schedules is the 
 secrecy which surrounds them. In some cases, the employers im- 
 pose a promise of secrecy. In many cases, he terrorizes the em- 
 ployes by the fear of dismissal should they let their wages become 
 known. To such an extent is this terrorism carried that in certain 
 large retail establishments in this city, girls working in the same 
 department are afraid to tell each other their wages. Such secrecy 
 is an evidence of the conviction on the part of those employers that 
 the public has no business to know anything a'bout their wage 
 scale. It is a further evidence that their wage scales will not bear 
 inspection, and that these firms are perfectly conscious that they 
 would be held up to execration at the bar of public opinion if it 
 were known that they were grinding down their employes to such 
 indecent wages. The time has come when no industry may be per- 
 mitted to lock up its payrolls and imperiously tell the public to 
 mind its own business. The payrolls of industries employing 
 women and minors are emphatically records of public concern, and 
 should be open for inspection just as railroad tariffs are open for 
 inspection. 
 
10. No standards of wages among unorganized workers. 
 
 As a result of this secrecy concerning wage schedules for 
 women employes, it has come to pass that there are absolutely no 
 standards of wages among unorganized women workers. In the 
 words of the report of the Massachusetts Commission on Minimum 
 Wage Boards, "There is a common and widespread, but erroneous 
 view that an economic law by some mysterious process correlates 
 earnings and wages. There is no such law; in fact, in many in- 
 dustries, the wages bear little or no relation to the value or even 
 to the selling price of the workers' output. Wages among the un- 
 organized and lower grades of labor are mainly the result of tradi- 
 tion and of slight competition." The Secretary of that Commis- 
 sion observes, "The books of fifty-seven candy factories, laundries 
 and retail stores were studied by the investigators of. the Commis- 
 sion, and the result showed that no principle nor tendency, either 
 according to the size of the establishments, their location or the 
 class of trade to which they cater, underlay the variation in wage 
 scales. Every employer seemed to pay for his labor what he 
 thought 'it was worth,' a mysterious term that no employer was 
 able to elucidate." (Survey, November 9, 1912). The same is true 
 in Portland. There is the most astonishing variation in wages for 
 the same grade of work. And this, as Miss Dewson, Secretary of 
 the Massachusetts Commission, point out, is the irrefutable reply 
 to the objection that interstate competition makes any local at- 
 tempt to regulate wages impracticable on the ground that it puts 
 an unfair handicap on the local manufacturers. Within the limits 
 of this city may be found numerous cases where two competing 
 concerns pay radically different wages to women employes who 
 produce the same grade of product, and often times the concern 
 paying the higher wage is more prosperous than its competitor. 
 
 11. The Wage Fund fallacy. 
 
 There are those who would discredit any attempt to raise the 
 standard of wages among the poorest paid workers, by the state- 
 ment that any addition to their wages would mean just so much 
 subtracted from the wages of those who are now better paid. This 
 is an attempt to rehabilitate the discredited wage fund theory of 
 the economists of a century ago. According to that theory, the 
 entire sum available for wages, was determinate, and consequently, 
 the increase of the wages of any group of laborers meant the de- 
 crease of wages of some other group. There is no reputable econo- 
 
mist today who holds this theory. It is universally recognized that 
 efficiency in production will in free competition determine the in- 
 crease in the wage scale above the standard of the poorest paid 
 group. Still, those who are opposed to remedial legislation are 
 assiduous in spreading the opinion among the well-paid employes 
 that for reasons of self-interest they should oppose such welfare 
 legislation. Supposing the wage fund theory were sound, which 
 it is not, --it might reasonably be asked whether the dictates of 
 self-interest or those of elemental humanity should be listened to. 
 
 12. The policy of the Consumers' League. 
 
 Regulation of the wages of women in the lowest paid occu- 
 pations would benefit the employes, the employers and the general 
 public. It is demanded as an emergency act to protect the health 
 and morals of women workers ; it will raise the general standard 
 of efficiency in industry. In Victoria, Australia, more than half of 
 the ninety-one wage boards now in existence have been asked for 
 by the employers, who were glad to be rid of incompetent and cut- 
 throat competitors. Finally, the health and morals of society at 
 large demand that poverty shall no longer be a by-product of in- 
 dustry. For this reason, the International Conference of Con- 
 sumers' Leagues, at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1908, in which the 
 representatives of twenty nations participated, laid down the policy 
 for the various national organizations, the policy which the Con- 
 sumers' League of Oregon is now engaged in promoting, and which 
 may be summed up in the principle that a living wage shall be re- 
 garded as a first charge upon industry; that it shall rank with rent 
 and interest and take precedence over profits and dividends. 
 
 13. An Industrial Welfare Commission. 
 
 Your Committee has prepared a preliminary draft of a bill for 
 an Industrial Welfare Commission for women and minors. In the 
 preparation of this bill, your Committee has had the advantage of 
 the experience of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Boards Com- 
 mission, of the Legislative Committee of the National Consumers' 
 League, of the officers of the American Association for Labor Legis- 
 lation, and of scores of the ablest economists, legislators and busi- 
 ness men throughout the country. There was practical unanimity 
 among all these authorities as to the general features of the bill, and 
 these have been incorporated in the present draft. 
 
14. Nothing radical or arbitrary in the bill. 
 
 There is nothing radical or arbitrary about the provisions of 
 the proposed bill. It provides that each industry or occupation 
 shall be considered according to its own needs. The determination 
 of the wages and conditions of labor in each industry is to be made 
 by a conference of employers and employes and representatives of 
 the public. Before such a determination can be made obligatory, 
 a public hearing must be held, at which all difficulties may be pre- 
 sented. Finally, recourse to the courts is provided in case the de- 
 terminations of the Commission are judged to be unjust. The 
 whole procedure is eminently fair, above board and democratic. 
 The reasonableness and justice of the measure are apparent to all. 
 Its constitutionality has been looked into by capable lawyers here 
 and in the eas't who entertain no doubt that the Legislature has 
 full constitutional authority to enact such legislation. 
 
 15. Advantage of the proposed legislation. 
 
 The proposed legislation is therefore recommended for the fol- 
 lowing reasons. (Outlined by the Massachusetts Commission) : 
 
 1. "It would promote the general welfare of the State because 
 it would tend to protect the women workers, and particularly the 
 younger women workers, from the economic distress that leads 
 to impaired health and inefficiency. 
 
 2. It would bring employers to a realization of their public 
 responsibilities, and would result in the best adjustment of the 
 interests of the employment and of the women employes. 
 
 3. It would furnish to the women employes a means of ob- 
 taining the best minimum wages that are consistent with the on- 
 o-oing of the industry without recourse to strikes or industrial dis- 
 turbances. It would be the best means of insuring industrial peace 
 so far as this class of employes is concerned. 
 
 4. It would tend to prevent exploitation of helpless women, 
 an d so far as they are concerned, to do away with "sweating" in our 
 industries. 
 
 5. It would diminish the parasitic character of some indus- 
 tries and lessen the burden now resting on other employments. 
 
 6. It would enable the employers in any occupation to prevent 
 the undercutting of wages by less humane and considerate com- 
 petitors. 
 
7. It would stimulate employers to develop the capacity and 
 efficiency of the less competent workers in order that the wages 
 might not be incommensurate with the services rendered. 
 
 8. It would accordingly tend to induce employers to keep to- 
 gether their trained workers and to avoid so far as possible seasonal 
 fluctuations. 
 
 9. It would tend to heal the sense of grievance in employes, 
 who would become in this manner better informed as to the exigi- 
 ences of their trade, and it would enable them to interpret more 
 intelligently the meaning of the payroll. 
 
 10. It would give the public assurance that these industrial 
 abuses have an effective and available remedy." 
 
 OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 
 
 OF OREGON. 
 
 President: 
 
 Mrs. Henry Russell Talbot. 
 Vice-Presidents: 
 
 First Vice-President Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull 
 
 Second Vice-President Mrs. Elmer Colwell 
 
 Third Vice-President Mrs. B. M. Lombard 
 
 Honorary Vice-Presidents: 
 
 Mr. D. Solis Cohen Mrs. James Laidlaw 
 
 Mrs. H. W. Corbett Mrs. Helen Ladd Corbett 
 
 Mrs. T. L. Eliot Dr. A. A. Morrison 
 
 Dr. C. H. Chapman Mrs. R. B. Wilson 
 
 Prof. Wm. Foster Rev. H. J. McDevitt 
 
 Corresponding Secretary Miss K. L. Trevett 
 
 Treasurer Miss Cora Pattee 
 
 Recording Secretary Mrs. Wm. P. Gannett 
 
 Directors: 
 
 Mrs. W. B. Ayer Mrs. Thos. Scott Brooke 
 
 Mrs. Chas. Basey Miss Caroline J. Gleason 
 
 Mrs! Frank J. Durham Mrs. William Warrens 
 
 Copies of this pamphlet, as well as other 
 
 literature and information concerning the proposed bill for an Industrial Welfare Commission 
 can be had by addressing 
 
 MISS CAROLINE GLEASON, Director Minimum Wage Survey 
 206 Central Building, Portland, Ore. 
 
 Keystone Press 100J Front Street