HD UC-NRLF OF The Industrial Condition OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU A Social Study BY FRANCES BLASCOER (FORMERLY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, NEW YORK CITY.) Special Investigator for the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home for Young Women and Girls Honolulu Social Survey FIRST STUDY HONOLULU, NOVEMBER, 1912 GIFT, OF * The Industrial Condition OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU A Social Study BY FRANCES BLASCOER (FORMERLY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, NEW YORK CITY.) Special Investigator for the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home for Young Women and Girls Honolulu Social Survey FIRST STUDY HONOLULU, NOVEMBER, 1912 > i. GEO. W. SMITH, Hox. WM. L. WHITNEY, Chairman of the Executive Committee. Secretary. HONOLULU SOCIAL SURVEY 1912 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF TIIK KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS. Vol. I. Industrial Condition of Women and Girls. Frances Blascoer. Vol. II. Dependent Children Frances Blascoer Vol. III. The Social Evil James A. Rath Vol. IV. Housing Conditions James A. Rath Vol. V. Family Budgets - James A. Rath EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. Mrs. Frances M. Swanzey .Chairman Committee on Industrial Conditions Mrs. Walter F. Dillingham Committee on Dependent Children Mr. John K. Gait The Social Evil Mr. George R. Carter Housing Conditions Miss Louise Gulick Family Budgets ]^OTE: Volumes Xos. I. and II. now ready. Xos. III., IV., and V. will appear later. PREFACE preparing to submit the results of the five-months' sur- vey of Honolulu's industrial conditions as they affect women and girls, the definition of a pessimist: one who has just met an optimist, has more than once floated warningly through my mind. In the face of such a warning it is perhaps with mixed feel- ings one confesses to a conviction that much may be done to solve the problems of the community. Workrooms are not overcrowded; the air and light are al- ways good ; there is no highspeed machinery ; no processes dan- gerous to life and limb are unguarded ; fines and penalties are unknown ; shop girls work only eight hours a day, have an annual vacation with full pay for two w r eeks in most shops and of at least one week in all; clerks, stenographers and teachers may well feel that they have found here their earthly paradise both as regards hours and salaries. As in other tropical communities, the struggle for existence is not agonizing. Even on kona days, throughout which all Honolulu wilts, night brings relief. The meanest tenement in Kakaako is swept by the cool trade winds that come down over the cloud-capped heights of Tantalus during the greater part of the year ; and there is no dread of the coming of winter. Kamaainas say that the aloha of the spirits of departed Ha- waiians who were in life gentle, generous to a fault, loving- flowers and music, but caring most of all for their island home forever guards their former haunts and exhorts all evil. Honolulu itself tempts one: the Pacific ocean at the water- front, changing from emerald to purple and sapphire, with the violet glow over all which transfers itself at sunset to the slopes of the grey-green hills backing the city; and between, the bun- galow and cottage dotted city itself, most of its squares built up solidly with tiny dwellings surrounded by scarlet and pink flowered hibiscus hedges and shaded by feathery-leaved alga- THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF robas, cocoanut and date palms and multi-colored flowering trees; with ferns and vines everywhere. One must look hard and often at the rectangular and unor- namental tenement blocks which obtrude themselves indiscrim- inately from Kalihi-kai to Waikiki, before one remembers the law of supply and demand which is, alas, still in force al- though increasingly hard-pressed by public opinion, minimum wage-boards and the Industrial Workers of the World. Before considering the supply and demand, however, I wish to express to the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home my keen appreciation of the opportunity to make the survey; espe- cially in view of the fact that this work involved a consider- able enlargement of the plan they originally had in mind when I was asked to come here. Conditions so clearly indicated the necessity for a comprehensive constructive social program that while a much more detailed piece of work might have been done in the industrial field, I question whether such detail would have developed anything more salient or pertinent than has been shown. Since progressive thinkers agree that preventive measures make far more surely for social betterment than anything cor- rective which has yet been evolved, I have endeavored to gather together the measures which have been successfully placed in operation in other communities and to present to you for con- sideration such of them as fit your needs and conditions. Three representative bodies engaged in social research : the Bureau of Municipal Research, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Consumer's League, all of Xew York City cover practically the entire field and are always at the service of those who wish information or advice. More personal service is needed everywhere in Honolulu. The best program possible to formulate soon becomes useless anywhere if carried on by unthinking, unprogressive, however well-intentioned methods. I wish to cordially thank the members of the Executive Com- mittee and of the sub-committees of the Survey, and not the \YOMEX AND GlELS IN HOXOLULU. least the wage-earners of the community for the help and en- couragement I have had. In spite of queries which briefness of time allotted to the study made it necessary at times to make directly of the latter, I have been received with the utmost good will and helpfulness by workers of all nationalities. I am especially indebted to the books of Miss Josephine Gold- mark, Fatigue and Efficiency; and of Miss Elizabeth Beardsley Butler, Women and the Trades, for valuable information and suggestion. ^To one interested in the welfare of wage-earners can fail to have his vision widened and clarified by these two pieces of work, prepared with infinite devotion and infinite care in the service of humanity both employing and employed. TILE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION or 1 FOREWORD There is a world movement in uplift work for women. Along with the rest of the world Hawaii is awaking to this call. In all lines of endeavor there must be a working plan. But first must be facts "writ large" and plain. In view of this interest and the desire to do a vital work for the wage-earning girls and women of Honolulu, the Trustees of Kaiulani Home se- cured the services of a trained investigator, Miss Frances E. Blascoer of New York City, to make a study of industrial con- ditions among the working girls of Honolulu and to present a plan for the organization of a Vocational Bureau here in the islands. With the coming of Miss Blascoer the vision grew; a social survey was attempted, a survey which should be the means of presenting to citizens and social workers the real state of in- dustrial and housing conditions; the character of the amuse- ments offered to our community; facts anent dependent chil- dren ; facts concerning the devastation of the social evil. Keligious, moral, intellectual, professional and vocational ed- ucation; community hygiene; sanitary regulations; the beauti- fying of Honolulu ; all these demand the concerted action of women and men. And then, too, there is the "call of the chil- dren" that comes with such strength of appeal from the find- ings of the Juvenile Court. The dependent child must be con- sidered. The crimes that imperil the virtue of unprotected little girls must not be hidden. The fact must be faced of the incursion of Hawaii by large numbers of unmarried men and the accompanying menace to young women. Unquestionably, the conditions under which girls and women work should be known by the public. Churches, associations, clubs, individual philanthropists, should have accurate knowledge of social conditions; that pau- perizing may be avoided and that the waste of duplication in charitable work may be avoided. Undoubtedly more light is WOMEX AXD GlBLS IN HoXOLULU. needed for the conduct of benevolent enterprises, perhaps not more giving, but more "efficient giving." Miss Blascoer's report on the industrial conditions of women and girls, it is believed, will prove a basis for the working out of many programs for community betterment. May it prove rich in suggestion to the women of Honolulu. May all put shoulder to shoulder in the task of solving the industrial prob- lem of the girls and women in our midst, and may it give to those who earnestly seek, a mission, a vision of great oppor- tunities. To those who give and to those who receive, may there result a meeting, not at the "crossroads" of mistrust and suspicion, but on the "main traveled thoroughfare" which leads to mutual helpfulness. Hasten the day of its arriving ! IDA M. POPE, President, Board of Trustees of Kaiulani Home. 10 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS The Industrial Committee of the Social Survey is composed of the following members : Bishop Restarick, Miss Ida M. Pope, Father Stephen, Dr. Dor emus Scudder, Professor Edgar Wood, Mrs. May Wilcox, President A. F. Griffiths, Miss Kemp (who takes Miss Boshers place), Mrs. Walter F. Frear, Mrs. Frederick J. Lowrey, Miss Louise Gulick, Miss Nora Sturgeon, Mrs. Francis M. Swanzy, Chairman. Its mission of inquiry into the condition of working girls and women in Honolulu has been conducted by three sub-com- mittees, viz. (1) On Conditions in Homes. (2) On Conditions of Work. (3) On Conditions of Recreations and Amusements. The first work done was in the way of inquiry into certain individual cases presented by Miss Blascoer ; this brought help- ful results. A seamstress inquiry was made by Mesdames Frear, Low r rey, Wilcox and Swanzy, in which 250 circulars were sent out. The various responses emphasize strongly the need of a training school for unskilled workers in this line. A stenographer and typewriter inquiry was conducted by Pro- fessor Wood, assisted by Messrs. George R. Carter, Walter Dil- lingham, A. F. Judd, G. P. Wilder and W. H. Baird, tempo- rary members of the Sub-committee on Conditions of Work and constituting a representative group of business men espe- cially interested. Perhaps the most interesting as well as most WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 11 valuable inquiry was that into the social activities of the com- munity, its Recreations and Amusements. President Griffiths prepared a list of the Public Amusements and, assisted by some twenty-six persons, undertook the investigation of the theatres, moving picture shows, dance halls, and parks. Mrs. Frear per- sonally made a most exhaustive inquiry into the social activi- ties of the many Churches of Honolulu, and Misses Bosher and Kemp did the same for the Schools; Miss Gulick did the work for the Missions and Settlements, Mrs. Lowrey for the several Miscellaneous Associations, while Mrs. Swanzy collected information regarding the fifty-odd Lodges and Fraternal Or- ganizations. Meetings of the Committee and the Sub-committees were held during the months of July, August, September, and Oc- tober; the last, of the committee as a whole, was w r ell attended and the discussion in connection with the outline of a construc- tive program kindly given by Miss Blascoer proved highly profitable. The reports of the sub-committees have been turned in to Miss Blascoer, whose digest of conditions she presents to your Board. A slight sketch of the reaction of this industrial inquiry on the persons who took part in it may, however, be of interest. Without exception the effect of this work has been most stimulating and beneficial, so that it may safely be said that whatever the final outcome to the community of the Social Survey, each individual of this committee has been helped to a better knowledge of existing conditions and to a broader out- look on life. Especially for the lay members windows have been opened in various directions. May I quote an opinion or two? One says: "This inquiry has aroused interest. We have learned how other people's work runs along the same lines as ours ; there has been too much of 'going it alone. 7 " An- other: "It has been a decided help and stirred interest and work; it has promoted discussion and information generally." The School inquiry, which elicited a very generous and valu- able response, in several cases of. public school teachers proved a direct stimulus and assistance in affording opportune sugges- 12 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION or tion for ways of recreation and amusement ; while the fact that an extensive work is done by the Lodges and Fraternal Organ- izations was made evident by that inquiry a work that is kindly as well rs charitable, a work that is conducive to the development of friendly feeling and good will towards men. The social activities of these societies also cover a large field. The Church inquiry showed that an astonishing amount is done among some of our Honolulu congregations for the welfare and wholesome amusement of young people and adults ,and the Church of Latter Day Saints may be cited as particularly active in looking after its people on week-da^s as well as Sun- days. One of our women members states that she finds her per- sonal interest in the welfare of working girls greatly broad- ened and now has a better idea of the needs of girl s from poor homes, particularly those who have had few opportunities. Tn connection with the work of the Industrial Committee several Amusement Circles for girls have been started in different parts of town by Miss Xora Sturgeon and a band of volunteer help- ers, and interest in this line of effort has been directly incited among others who Avere drawn into the detail of investigation. Finally, Dr. Scudder says that he has been thinking along these lines for twenty years and feels that this industrial in- quiry will be of immense value in bringing to the notice of many who are also interested, a tangible plan of action as the result of knowledge of conditions. He intends sneaking on the necessity for child labor laws, to be enacted by the next Legis- lature, so that the deplorable conditions existing in other coun- tries need never be known here, and he will endeavor to enlist the sympathy and influence of his congregation. His own in- terest has been quickened, and he believes that the Kaiulani Home Board should be heartily congratulated on having been the means of instigating an inquiry which it is hoped will crys- tallize into some definite and concerted program for the bet- terment of social and industrial conditions in Hawaii nei. JrLJE JCDD SWANZY, October 29, 191*2. Chairman. WOMEX AXD GlRLS IX HoXOLULU. 13 GENERAL STATEMENT To TIIK BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE KAIULAXI HOME,, AXD MEMBERS OF THE CITIZENS' COMMITTEE OF THE HO- NOLULU SOCIAL SURVEY. In this crossroads community of Honolulu a community where defying Kipling, not only the East and West, but also the North and South meet (and like one another) there are almost as many races and admixtures represented as a man has fingers and toes. A girl born of a mother Avhose blood is half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese, and of a Norwegian father, works side by side on the one hand with a Korean maiden and on the other with a young woman who is negro-American through one parent and German-Hawaiian through another. The daughter of a Portuguese-Japanese mother and an American father school- mates with the child of a Basuto woman and an Englishman; while side by side Portuguese, Porto Rican, Japanese, Hawai- ian, Filipino and Negro, with all these and other inter-racial variations, eat their lunches side by side in the pineapple can- neries and laundries. Schools, athletic teams and other ac- tivities show the same racial composition. And quite as assorted as the blood is apt to be the mode of life, dress and thought of this polyglot population. One sees a Chinese woman in her charming native costume of brocaded silk, her 'hair carefully pomaded and profusely ornamented, while her feet (not by any means the "golden-lilies" so rapidly passing into oblivion) of the small-footed Chinese are encased in silk hose and patent leather pumps. Furthermore, she leads by the hand a small daughter in full American panoply, not omitting the butterfly bow of ribbon in her hair. If followed to her home she will be found eating her bowl of rice or stewed mushrooms with a spoon, instead of the historic chop-sticks, her children doing the same or more likely making their fingers do duty. 14 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION or Or, one meets a Japanese man, smiling with affectionate fatuity at the infant he carries in his arms; his own kimonoed and sandalled person topped with a regulation Panama hat. Or again, one attends a suffrage meeting with the audience made up of Hawaiian, Chinese and women of other national- ities, and listens to the familiar appeals for equal pay for equal work; amendments to the property laws; reduction of infant mortality; more schools. And so on, until one is per- meated with a fine glow of wonder at the universality of it all, the "getting together" which is the surest promise of world peace, however much one may from an aesthetic standpoint regret certain of the departures. Then, too, the workrooms, public utilities, public amuse- ments (and very generally acquaintances 'and friendships) untrammeled by racial boundaries, cause one to wonder anew not alone at the ease with which Honolulu has dispensed with those boundaries but also at the fact that in this year of our Lord they still prevail in the caste-ridden communities of the mainland. One says prevail rather than exist advisedly, be- cause race prejudice undoubtedly exists in Honolulu, and is openly expressed. Thus far, however, the women and girls of Honolulu are unhampered in their opportunities, and no man's right to decent public courtesy is violated by race feel- ing. An Hawaiian incompetent is equally liable to be replaced with a Portuguese, a Chinese, a Japanese, or what not. Certain of the minor industries employ no Japanese or Chinese help, fearing that a knowledge of processes will lead to "unfair competition" ; but on the other hand shops manned by the Orientals in these very same industries are springing up all over the city. And not only do they spring up, but one finds they usually stay. Honolulu, in its industrial development, will need to con- sider the two-fold life, as it were, of the normal and the tourist population. The small shop, along various lines described more in detail under constructive suggestions, seems in fact the best means of taking care of the workers who might be WOMEX AXD GlELS IX HoXOLULU. 15 trained in the needle trades an dother kindred occupations, and for whom there is no opportunity to secure stenographic positions, or for clerical or shop work. For the unskilled worker, Dr. E. V. Wilcox of the Federal Agricultural Experiment Station, who is the sponsor for the algaroba industry is said to see the same chance in a probable kukui-nut industry. Dr. AVilcox is quoted in the morning paper as follows : "Hawaii once did a big business in the exportation of kukui oil/ 7 he says, "the old customs records of the fifties show r that as high as ten thousand gallons were exported some years. Kukui oil is a valuable paint oil, being better than the best linseed and worth here as a sub- stitute for linseed at least a dollar a gallon. The cake, after the oil has been expressed, is a valuable fertilizing product. i% I am working now to see what percentage of oil can be extracted from the nut commercially and also getting figures on the cost of gathering, manufacturing and such. To put the kukui industry on its feet, all it needs is for someone to go into the business with capital enough to buy the entire crop and to install machinery to crush and press it. There are thousands of tons of kukui all over the mountains and the gathering of these will give work to the same class of poeple as have found the algaroba bean picking such a godsend. In Hawaii alone we use a great deal of paint oil and there should be ready market here. Hawaii imported fifty thousand gallons of linseed oil in the last fiscal year. If we could have substituted kukui oil, the Territory would have fifty thousand dollars more in circulation, for last year alone, much of it in circulation among the very poor." Various business men have suggested the need for a paper box factory; and it does not seem unlikely that such an estab- lishment will soon be added to the industries giving employ- 16 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF ment to unskilled labor. A silk mill is rumored, but nothing definite can be learned concerning the reality of the rumor. There is no doubt of the healthy prosperity and progressive spirit of the city; but those interested in the development of Honolulu in its broader sense will find it necessary to consider the questions of public health involved in long working hours for women and girls, and in the labor of children; questions of public intelligence and citizenship bound up with the estab- lishment of night schools and public recreation centers of public morals as related to more opportunity, better wages, and better training to be wives and mothers, rather than sub- jection by unemployment, less than a living wage, and neglect to the temptations held forth by soldier, tourist and citizen. AND (jrlKLS IN HONOLULU. CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS It is only five years ago since the Pittsburgh Survey com- menced the investigation which was the first exhaustive at- tempt to interpret an industrial community to employers oi labor, as well as to the community at large; and since the publication of Miss Butler's Women and the Trades in 1909 the first of the six volumes of the Survey to appear more than one city has made inquiry into the conditions under which the women and girls of the community were earning their livelihood. Notable among these inquirers have been those made by the Women's City Club of Chicago, under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation; by the Kansas "City Board of Public Welfare, which began in February, 1911, and is still in process ; and by the Russell Sage Foundation for Birmingham, Ala., the latter being a reportorial survey rather than the intensive investigation made in Pittsburg. Five years before any of these surveys were undertaken, however, a committee composed of sociologists, economists, philanthropists and educators not only made a special investi- gation of the workrooms of New York City, but reached con- clusions which concretely express at any rate the salient-points brought out by every survey which has since been made: (1) that wages of unskilled labor were declining and in most cases insufficient to maintain the worker according to the mini- mum community standard of living; (2) that while there were in many directions good opportunities' for skilled labor, the supply was inadequate; (3) that the condition of the young, inexpert working girls must be ameliaroated by : the opening of training classes for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers; and later experience has shown, (4) that a vocational bureau established in connection with the public schools tends to help girls make the most of their equipment and guides them away from the occupations which do not offer the right sort of opportunity. The survey in Honolulu confirms the conclusions reached 18 TlIE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF in other communities only partially. Here the wages of un- skilled labor are advancing, although they are still insufficient to maintain the worker according to the minimum community standard of living, for the reason that the only occupation in which any number of unskilled girls and women are at present employed, i. e. the canneries, affords them employment during only four months of the year. The second finding, that while there are in many directions good opportunity for skilled labor the supply is inadequate, is true here only partially. There are only two occupations, that of seamstress and that of stenographer which offer opportunity to any number, and in each there is every indication that at least fifty more ex- perienced workers could be used without crowding the present workers.. The third finding, that the condition of young, in- expert working girls must be ameliorated by the opening of training classes for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers, applies unqualifiedly in Honolulu; but their condition must be ameliorated in a number of other ways as well. Honolulu is faced, in fact, with the unique problem of evolving new enterprises to take care of its women and girl workers, in addition to creating the machinery for dealing with those now in existence according to the most progressive methods in operation elsewhere. Fortunately the survey has uncovered community needs un- filled, as well as suggested avenues of employment which there is every reason to believe could be made profitable with in- telligent management ; and with this in mind, together with the possibilities of creating other preventive and educational social machinery, the following suggestions are made : !MUSLIN UNDERWEAR FACTORY. A factory for the manufacture of muslin underwear, sheets, pillow cases, mosquito nets, starting with not more than ten employes. A canvass of the five leading dry-goods shops showed that there is undoubtedly a market for a sufficient amount of under- \YOMEX AXD GIRLS ix HONOLULU. 19 wear alone to keep a factory busy at least six months in the year. This is especially true since the pake shops making these articles are finding it difficult to obtain help, the Chinese boys preferring to go into the mercantile shops and factories. A number of small Japanese shops for the manufacture of shirts and shirt-waists are finding their work profitable ; but the manu- facture of underwear requires organizing and concentrating. In addition to the dry-goods shops in the regular shopping district, a cheaper grade of underwear could be sold to the shops in the Oriental section of the city, which now carry a regular line of American underwear at prices considerably above those asked on the mainland. For instance, a night- gown selling at $1.00 in San Francisco brings $1.35 or even $1.50 here. Such an establishment should be managed by two trained people ; one combining the office detail and selling end with the help of a stenographer and bookkeeper ; the other designing and cutting, and in charge of employing and directing the working force. For the latter position it might be possible to secure a \voman ; but someone with training and practical experience in the underwear business would be indispensable. Managers of the dry-goods establishments in Honolulu say that if the raw materials were purchased direct from the factory, they believe the enterprise would be successful. A few well-made, well-cut articles to start with would be more desirable than a great variety, they say. A display room to which the community might be invited, would be desirable, and would tend to create a demand for the articles made. It has also been suggested in connection with such a factory that unfinished overalls in large quantities 10,000 dozen- could be had for finishing from San Francisco, where there is difficulty under the new eight-hour law in getting the work done. This class of work is, however, usually the poorest paid of any of the home industries, and the matter should be care- fully looked into. The present demand (yearly) in the five establishments canvassed is as follows: 20 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF CC 2 "o LU co d d ** -tj d QC ' 2 a LU O o S Q. CO I 'o? a 02 T3 d Q 3 3 fi TJ --j LU 2 0) CO ^ (0 < I Q 1 I O o> o5 O CO O ft CO I ^> o3 O> 0> CC r< f-i [H D 0. 3 If ctf a a a LU o ,d q-i M *-i ft 0) 0) c^ ft* a d ri d d LU tf o o O ? -10. 0) o> o> . o> eg a? I* < co o a O) a 'co "3 'to "3 c 'co "o 'o G *? 'cQ CO CO ^ * aooo / UV3MI: 02 02 0) p N CO 1 S ? CO CO CO o" CO CO o" 2 CO N '02 "3 CO CO ~ <" LU cc ^ D Q c ^> Li -2 zl N rrj Q) O o t>> 'O 03 1 i - o o o o o o o o u. N ,^ id OS CO c a ^ co' 06 i i CO C<1 OO T-l * ^ SH CO 3 fl CO 02 02 h m j o NH EH 02 CO 0) 03 2 > en to the air on all four sides, however, the fumes do not accumulate, though they are in evidence to a slight degree near the machines when they are in operation. Finally such pieces as require mending or darnino- go to a woman usually an elderly person who is regularly employed for this purpose, and who receives $4.50 a week in all the laundries. The workers are of all ages, conditions and races. The visits were made at the time of year when the laun- dries were least busy, and the race proportion among the women workers was as follows: Portuguese 90 Hawaiians 25 Filipinos 10 Chinese 2 Porto Rican 1 Japanese 1 129 The one Japanese had been adopted when a baby by a white family, and had been "raised white." No Japanese are em- ployed in any of the laundries, because of the fear of cut prices if processes are learned ; but, on the other hand, there are in- numerable Chinese and Japanese laundries throughout the city, the Bureau of Licenses having a record of 232 which are being operated without the license showing inspection by the Board of Health, required from the other laundries. Most of these are said to be conducted by Japanese women, who collect laun- dry from individual customers, hiring other Japanese women to do the work. But although there is a record of their exist- TO THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF ence, numerous trips through the tenement blocks failed to disclose any of them in operation. Laundry managers say they find efficient workers among all nationalities, and that the grade of help is slowly improving. One manager says there is a great deal of jealousy between the different race's on the score of advancement. It was difficult to find any prevailing characteristics among the workers. Several worked because their husbands earned insufficient salaries to provide a "good home." Three worked because they said it improved their health ! The majority of Portuguese, however, either said they were helping to buv homes ,or were members of large families, in eight instances having no support from their father, either through illness or death. The Filipinos and Porto Ricans spoke no English and it Nvas impossible to talk with them. One Portuguese lady thought I was collecting for a church and immediately took out her pocket-book, searching through many petticoats to find it, Here, as in the canneries, there was general good spirit among the employes, even the girls shaking out the sheets and table- cloths for the mangles the most tiring work of all doing it with much chattering and gossip. It must be because so much of the work is done in the fresh air that one sees little of the strained, tired expression of the mainland industrial worker. Several of the women stated that they had varicose ulcers on their legs, but none of these had been working in the laundry for a sufficiently long period to make this work the cause of the trouble. The laundries are all prosperous and growing, their man- agers say, most of the work coming from the steamers and trans- ports constantly touching at Honolulu. No previous training is required or wished, each laundry having its own way of doing its work and preferring to teach its own employes. There should be employment for from twenty-five to thirty girls in this work within the next year; but a ten-hour day rigid law and better wages are needed here. WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. THE CANNERIES The Fourth Report of the Department of Commerce and Labor on Hawaii (Bulletin JSTo. 94, May, 1911) sums up the possibilities of industry in the islands as a whole as follows (1) page 674: "The Territory possesses no mineral or fuel de- posits, and this, together with the remoteness from markets, prevents diversified industries. A small amount of subsistence farming, followed principally by natives and orientals, and the production of staple export crops, like sugar, have hitherto been the prin- cipal occupations of the people." To this should also be added the product of the pineapple canneries, which, strangely enough, is omitted entirely from the report, although increasing in value and importance by leaps and bounds. This omission may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the bulletin issued in May was compiled before the canning season commenced, which is not usually until June 1st, lasting this year until October 5th. In the past ten years the value of the pineapple exports increased from $3,948 to $1,229,647, almost 400%,* and the growth of this year's busi- ness over last may be gauged from the fact that while one estab- lishment employed a maximum of 215 women and girls last year, this year they report 450 employed during their heaviest time. Then, too, while last year 60% of the entire "nack" was reported as being taken care of in three weeks, this year there were only six or seven half-day shut downs during the four months of the season. ^Bulletin of the Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910; page 11. 72 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF The manufacturers' problem in Honolulu is uncomplicated by the variety of processes and products of the mainland can- nery. The only product with which they have to deal is the pineapple, as against spinach, berries of all varieties, cherries, peas, wax beans, tomatoes, pears, peaches, apples, beets and finally oysters in Maryland; asparagus, strawberries, peas, gooseberries, cherries, currants, beans, blackberries, apricots, greengages, plums,peaches, pears, tomatoes, grapes and quinces in California ; while Pittsburgh, Pa., cans berries, fruits, beans, corn, peas and tomatoes, as well as pickles and molasses. After the overripe fruit is eliminated there is little or no waste in canning pineapple. As the boxes are taken from the freight cars into the factory, the "pines, "as they are usually termed, are stripped of their green ends by the trimmers, and these ends are planted for the rattoon crop. The pineapple yields two crops, requiring, like sugar, eighteen months to ma- ture the first crop, the second, or rattoon, crop being ready for harvest in twelve months. Sometimes the trimming is done before the fruit is shipped from the plantations, in which case it is ready when received at the cannery for the coring and peeling machine. This machine is operated by men, and calls for considerable sureness of eye to secure the largest number of perfect pineapples for slicing. If the fruit is at all soft, however, it is split into two and sometimes three parts in this process, and is then used for grated pineapple, which is also made of the slices too imperfect for canning, the odds and ends from the slicing machine, and the fruit which still adheres to the peeling. These are accumulated in tubs, taken to the screen- ing machine, which reduces it to the consistency of the grated pineapple, used principally at soda fountains. The grated pulp is received in a wooden vat running the length of the screen, and is conducted automatically from this vat into tubs. From these tubs the pulp is poured in bulk into cooking vats, where it is mixed with the sweetening syrup. From the cooking vats it is automatically fed into large cans, gallon or half-gallon, these cans in turn being automatically sealed and 'OMEN AXD UlRLS IN HONOLULU. into a cooling bath, after which they are sent to the label- ing room. After the pineapples are peeled and cored they go through a second trimming process with a pruning knife, by means of which all the "eyes' 7 and small pieces of peeling are removed. They are then placed in the slicing machine, from which the slices are automatically deposited onto a traveling web band about ten inches wide, moving at a medium rate of speed along the centre of the packing tables, which are about thirty feet long. On each side of the moving web are wooden shelves, the one immediately in front of the packer being used as a sorting tray. On the shelf back of the web are arranged the trays of empty cans, each tray stamped with the grade of fruit it is to hold. Above this shelf is a second one, on which are empty trays to receive the cans of fruit as they are packed. As soon as a tray is filled with a dozen cans, it is taken away by a man to be filled with syrup and cooked. As the sliced pineapple is deposited onto the traveling web, the girl next to the slicing machine, usually an experienced and efficient worker, selects the most perfect slices those hav- ing no flaws or imperfect edges, and whitest in color. The next worker selects the next grade, and so on down the table, the residue, unsuitable for canning, going into the pulp tub. When she has a sufficient number of slices of the proper grade, she makes a mound of them, turns an empty can down over the mound, slips it off the sorting tray and places it right side up on the tray for filled cans. After the cans have been filled with the sliced pineapple and syrup, they are taken to another machine which automatically places the cover on the can and seals it. The sealed cans are then taken on a tray to the cooking vat, where they are lowered in boiling water onto a slowly moving platform, which carries them, submerged, through the water for just a sufficient length of time, gauged automatically, to cook the fruit. The tray of cans is then raised, again auto- THE INDUSTEIAL CONDITION OF matically, onto a continuation of the moving 1 platform, which immerses them in a cold bath, in which thev are kept for a sufficient length of time to cool them. The cans are then sent to the labeling room, where they receive their various brands, according to grade and to the customers for whom they are intended. All machinery is geared at a low rate of speed; the only process which holds any menace is the peeling and coring ma- chine, which must have the careful attention of the operator to keep his fingers from the knives. The cores, which formerly were thrown out with the waste, are now also sliced into inch lengths, cooked, canned and sold to confectioners, who coat them with chocolate and sell them as pineapple candies. As these cores have about as much taste as juicy wood, it is at least a question how much of pineapple the ultimate consumer is favored with. The women workers in the canneries are divided into four classes: trimmers, packers, labelers and miscellaneous, the lat- ter doing duty at the slicing machine, the pulp troughs and in packing the cores. The new workers are usually started at trimming and at packing cores, the youngest ones performing the latter work or tending the slicing machines. All of this work is done in a sitting position in one of the canneries ; but the other two establishments have no seats for any of their employes. At the packing table, however, the workers stand shoulder to shoulder, sometimes in the height of the season as closely packed as they can work; ordinarily, however, there is ample room for each individual. At one cannery there are seats back of the packers, but they are so arranged that it is impossible to do more than lean back against them for a moment or two, and even this throws an additional strain on the workers' feet, which it is necessary to brace against the floor or the frame- work of the fruit table. Work commences at seven o'clock in the morning, and on days when the cannery runs full time the official closing time WOMEN AND GIKLS ix HONOLULU. 75 is half -past five; but in only one cannery did the employes state that there was an earlier closing time than six o'clock. Half an hour is allowed for lunch, this being divided between two shifts from noon until one o'clock. The normal working day is therefore eleven or eleven and one-half hours long, as in the factory world it is the custom to close half an hour earlier when the lunch hour is shortened to half an hour.* JSTo skill is required by any of the processes; but the pack- ers must exercise good judgment in selecting slices of the proper grade, else cans marked to contain the best fruit may receive inferior contents and vice versa. The forewomen, of whom there is one at each table in two of the canneries, are respon- sible for the "pack," as it is called. If the manager, in in- specting the cans, which he does haphazard, finds careless pack- ing coming frequently from any table, the forewoman is de- posed ; but there are no fines and no penalties, for the reason that it .is impossible to locate the packer responsible for the work. Sometimes two or three are engaged in packing the same grade of slices at the same table. One cannery reports employing no forewoman because of the unwillingness on the part of any of the women workers to assume this responsibility. The wages paid as reported by employers vary from five and six cents an hour, paid workers under sixteen years of age, to fifteen cents an hour paid to forewomen. As a result, girls who commence working at twelve years of age and are experienced and efficient workers, receive less wages than an older girl in her first season. The highest rate per hour paid to any but forewomen is ten cents, and the lowest paid to workers over sixteen years of age is seven and one-half cents an hour. One cannery reports paying for eleven hours if the employes work ten hours. Overtime is paid for at the regular *Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley; Women and the Trades, page 311. 76 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF rate of pay per hour; and in the case of night work until eight or half -past, the workers interviewed say they either go with- out supper until they return home or else their supper costs them the greater part of what they earn in the three extra hours. One employer says he pays time and a half for overtime, "when he has to," and one gives the employes coffee and sand- wiches for supper when they work later than 7 o'clock. As cof- fee and bread is the almost invariable breakfast and lunch if, indeed, any lunch at all is eaten the effect on the workers' health of this overtime, without food, or with the kind of food available, cannot but be injurious. The cannery owners state that during the heavy season it is necessary to work overtime to take care of the fruit, which de- teriorates rapidly and which cannot be packed in cold storage; that the Federal Experiment Station had found no way to pre- vent waste, once the pineapple is ripe, if it is not canned im- mediately. Sunday work, of which only five days are reported by the three canneries, is, however, devoted to labeling, this being done after the fruit is cooked, canned and ready for shipment, so there could be no question of deterioration here. A similar state of affairs, in regard to overtime work, was found in Cali- fornia canneries. At seven and a half cents an hour a trifle over the average paid all workers (omitting forewomen) it is necessary for a girl working sixty hours a week (and being paid for sixty-six according to the one-hour bonus plan) to earn $4.95. Con- trasted with the average wage earned by employes in the city and country canneries of California, this shows a much lower rate in Honolulu, the California average being $7.92 a week for 63.8 hours' work in the country canneries and $7.21 a week for 57.8 hours' work in the city establishments. (This average also omitted forewomen.)* ^Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 96, September, 1911; page 397. WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 77 The owner of one of the canneries stated that last year the average wage was $3.50 to $4.00, and that some of the em- ployes who had been with them longest earned as high as $10.50 during the heavy season. This year the rate of pay was raised in all the canneries, due, I was told by several of the girls, to "kicks by the Jap women." The only menace to the health of the workers in the pine- apple canneries which might arise from the occupation itself, is the effect of the pineaple juice on the skin. Chemical anal- ysis shows that the acid is so strong, it digests the skin as secre- tions of the alimentary canal digest food. By order of the Health Department, rubber gloves are sup- plied by the companies to the workers handling the fruit; but most of them work barefooted, standing in the drippings from the tables, and their feet were badly eaten by the juice. On taking this up with the authorities, I was told that the reason the rubber gloves were ordered was not because of the probable injury to the workers, but in order to protect the prod- uct from possible contamination. It would be possible to slat the floors where the workers stand, and flush them well with water several times a day. None of the Honolulu canneries give free housing accommo- dations. The work of screening, operating the syrup machines, cook- ing, sealing the cans, as well as peeling and coring, is done by men in all the canneries. 78 THE INDUSTEIAL CONDITION OF Table Showing Length of Season, Time Shut Down During Season; Overtime Run, in Honolulu Canneries in 1912: Lgth of Season. 1 4 months 2 3y 2 months 3 3% months Time Shut Down. Overtime Run. 7 half days. 28 hours Sunday, 24 hours night. I whole, 4 hfdays 30 hours Sunday, 60 hours night. 5 whole, 1 hf day 10 hours Sunday, 53 hours night. Table Showing Wages paid per hour, Season of 1912, in Honolulu Canneries (As of October 1st.) ! H ff IT 1 fa cr Over 16. || Under 16. pr (D < Q 5 fl> a (T II I . 3 fl> >- CO P No. Wa ges. || N6. [Wages P I 1... | $0.09 | $0.08 | $0.08 |$0.08 250 | 100 ..15 | 1 1 2... .15 .10 .07 V 2 .07V 2 85 | II 40 1 1 ..10 .08V 2 II 3... | 47 | $0. 07V 2 || 12 0.06 Total largest number of women employed 651 Total smallest number women employed 142 Total Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians employed 242 in 2 canneries Total Japanese employed 104 in 2 canneries Total Chinese employed 40 in 2 canneries Total Portuguese employed 28 in 2 canneries WOMEN AND GIKLS IN HONOLULU. COST OF LIVING -iiquiry into the cost at which it is possible for a woman or girl to live independently in Honolulu was based on two propo- sitions : First. That she live in the home family of a friend or relative, and pay her quota of expense. Second. That she either board or room in the community. I have given first consideration to the proposition that she live in a family 'because experience has proven that to be the most desirable place for the average working girl. The Children's Aid Society of Boston has set its face against the philanthropic home or hotel for working girls because it fails to give them a background for their future life as wives and mothers. The Clara de Hirsch Home in New York City, a most successful institution, cares for immigrant girls with- out family ties until they may safely become members of the community. As soon as a girl is considered to be earning a sufficient wage and acquainted with the customs of her new environment, she is placed in a private family, these families being carefully selected by the authorities of the Home. Girls who have been committed to Orphan Asylums in their youth are also "bridged over" by residence in this Home, to membership in the normal community. Training in various trades is given. There is a gymnasium, and a varied social program. The girls pay from $3.00 to $6.00 a week, according to earning capacity. In Honolulu I should say such a home would be valuable for girls who, as in New York, have been brought ut> in Or- phan Asylums; for those who are taken away from improper home surroundings by the Courts; and for any other girls with- out family ties who may not be sufficiently well grounded in 80 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF character to live safely in the community. I do not consider, however, that the normal wage-earning girl should be provided for in this way. I am told that native girls who earn fair wages and live in families other than their own, pay $2.50 a week, usually in fish, or poi, or canned goods, rather than in money. I was unable to find any specific girl who is now doing this ; but was told of the practice by women who had known of instances at other times, and whose knowledge of conditions is unquestion- ably accurate. This does not represent the actual value of ac- commodations, however, as will be shown. The working girls I talked with who were not living in their OW T II families were, with the exception of those living in the Kaiulani Home, either with relatives or adopted parents, and were paying no board. Two women occupied tenement rooms, but both were married, and had come to Honolulu from the country for the canning season. Girls who do all their own sewing say their clothing costs them at least $1.25 a week to maintain a sufficiently good ap- pearance to take any part in the social activities of their asso- ciates. This is distributed as follows in a yearly allowance : 3 Hats: 2 for Business, at $2.00 each $4.00 1 for Good wear 4.00 -$ 8.00 4 Dresses for Business, at $2.00 8.00 2 Dresses for Good wear, at $5.00 10.00 4 Pair Shoes, at $3.00 12.00 Underwear 8.00 3 Pairs Silk Gloves for good wear 3.00 1 Dark Skirt for bad weather 2.00 2 Shirt Waists, at 75c 1.50 1 Coat 5.00 1 Umbrella . 1.00 WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 81 2 Pairs Rulbers 1.50 Incidentals, handkerchiefs, collars, sewing materials, etc 5.00 $65.00 The fact that the same wardrobe does duty in Hawaii the year round is a very great saving. The girl who has not been taught to sew (and this girl is in the majority) must allow at least 25c a week additional for clothing. Board, lodging and clothing can therefore be had at $3.75 or $4.00 a week; carfare is 60c; the cheapest lunch, 5c for coffee and rolls, is another 30c, which brings the total cost to $4.65 or $4.90, without any allowance for incidental carfares or amusements. On the other hand living expenses in the community, when reduced to their lowest rate, bring the total expense to $2.00 a week each, provided two girls share a room. I have followed up numerous advertisements in the daily papers, investigated "Furnished room" signs, etc., and found in the first place that no furnished room house will permit cooking to be done in the rooms, and secondly that the lowest rate for a furnished room for two girls was $2.00 a week. If two girls together rented a tenement room at $2.00 a month they would need to buy a bed, dishes and cooking utensils, cost- ing at least $15.00. The cost per week of maintaining such a room would then be for each : Rent $ .25 Fuel and light 25 Food (fruit, poi, coffee, rice, fish, etc.) 1.50 $2.00 I have made a sufficient allowance for food to provide a nourishing diet. After a girl has worked ten or eleven hours, however, I fear the temptation would be either to eat in a cheap restaurant or 82 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION or to neglect cooking a substantial evening meal, especially in the case of the Hawaiian girls, who are prone to omit meals when fatigued unless food is placed before them. In the eating place provided by the Libby, McNeill and Libby Cannery, which serves wholesome, nourishing meals at ten cents each, the girls eat everything placed before them. The sea air blowing through the work-room constantly undoubtedly has its share in creating this appetite. If two girls were to occupy a furnished room and have their meals in restaurant the minimum weekly rate for each would be : Rent of Room .-. $1.00 Food .. . 2.50 $3.50 The cheapest rate at which I could find boarding accommo- dations for two girls in a room was $10.00, for a close, hot room in a house which did not seem at all desirable from any point of view. Altogether the best plan which presents itself for providing accommodations is a rooming house making provision for two girls in a room, and having a cafeteria dining room. I should not advise making this a philanthropic venture. It should be not only absolutely self-sustaining, but should be conducted with a view to its making a return of at least 3% on money invested. This is the return made by the Mills Hotels in New York. Emphasis should be laid first on developing enterprises by which self-supporting girls may earn an adequate living, and, secondly, on obtaining a living wage for those engaged in occupations already established, rather than on providing them with a living place at philanthropic rates. Before a girl is encouraged to leave her family and live in any other home it would be well to give a thorough considera- tion to her home problem and determine whether surroundings which at first may seem undesirable cannot in some way be -changed so that family ties need not be broken. Family re- WOMEN AND GlELS IX HONOLULU. 83 sponsibility needs to be strengthened in every way possible among the natives, and if Hawaiian women who have had edu- cational advantages would undertake the home improvement work which has had such beneficial results in the Southern States, much might be accomplished in raising standards of sanitation as well as morals. Whole families still occupy one room for sleeping purposes, and matters of this kind can only be remedied by constant personal effort. Congresses of physi- cians and other bodies assembled to discuss questions of sex morality all agree that little can be accomplished so long as habits of decent privacy are not inculcated. 84 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF HOURS The Territory of Hawaii has as yet no labor laws, and there- fore the hours during which men, women and children work are governed entirely by the will of employers, the workers' own wishes or economic necessities, and in the case of children by the act providing that they shall attend school during ten months in the year until they are fifteen, when they may be released to go to work. Employment in the canneries is by the hour, each employe being given a time card which is punched on coming to work in the morning, on resuming work at noon, and on leaving at night. While the cannery season is short, it is also exacting. In addition to a regular eleven-hour day for four months in the year, a maximum of sixty hours overtime night work and thirty hours of Sunday work was reported by one cannery. Two others report less amounts. One employer said he worked his employes all they would stand for. Weekly pay envelopes show from seventy to eighty hours of work per week, in some cases running as high as eighty-four hours. In California, where the season extended over fourteen weeks, averaging sixty-three hours each, two cannery officials, each in a different cannery, are reported by the investigator of the Department of Com- merce and Labor as volunteering the opinion that "cannery work was so much of a strain that workers were unfit to 'do other work when the cannery season was over/' 1 * Perhaps the women employes in the small Chinese and Japa- nese shops have the longest hours continuously, as these shops open at seven o'clock in the morning and do not close until nine o'clock or later in the evening. The workers in the laundries, who have a regular ten-hour day, perform overtime work until eight or nine o'clock at least ^Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor No. 96. p. 403. WOMEN AND GIKLS ix HONOLULU. 85 wice a week, and during the winter season, when the tourists are most numerous, one laundry manager reported eighty-seven hours overtime in one month. Saturday is a half holiday unless there is a special rush of work. Household servants, here as elsewhere, are among the least considered sufferers from the long day, and although Honolulu mistresses of households call to one's attention the fact that no servants are on duty in the evening, that may be regarded rather as a mitigation of one of the greatest hardships borne by domestic servants, rather than as having a bearing on the gen- eral question of a normal working day. Honolulu is an early riser, and servants come on duty at half-past six. Dinner is not over at the earliest until seven o'clock, which means that the work of the maid who waits on the table continues for at least twelve and one-half hours, and longer if she has any duties after dinner. There are few women cooks, the domestic servants being almost exclusively housemaids, waitresses and nursemaids. Where several maids are employed, each of them has an hour or two of leisure through the day; but in the case of the cook- and-one-maid menage, which is by far the most common, Sun- day afternoon, and occasionally, but by no means universally, an afternoon during the week is given. The long day is a potent factor in the servant problem; and yet the Japanese women, like their sisters in other communities, prefer to go to work at the machines in the little shops. I have talked with as many of them as could understand English, and none would consider going back to housework. On having their attention called to the fact that they were working just as long in the shops they smiled and nodded, saying: "Bimeby not work so long/' which may forecast a similar situation to that brought about by certain of the Chinese huis, who have, notably among the tailors, succeeded in securing an eleven-hour day. It is an undoubted fact that rather than become a household serv- ant at a minimum wage of $4.00 a week and her food, in 86 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF many cases all her living expense, the women work twel i /e and fourteen hours in the shop for from $2.00 to $5.00. Clerks and stenographers have an eight-hour day. Shop girls are on duty from seven-forty-five until five o'clock, with an hour at noon and a Saturday half holiday three months in the 'year. One shop closes on Saturday at one o'clock f^ur months in the year. The shop girls have two weeks' vacation with pay, and all the stores provide seats. Stenographers also have two weeks' vacation with pay, in a great many cases being allowed a three months' vacation every three years. Teachers are on duty from eight-forty-five in the morning until two-fifteen in the afternoon almost an hour and a half less than the regulation time for this work. They have a somewhat longer vacation, too, than elsewhere. In her consideration of hours of work, in " Women and the Trades,"* Miss Butler questions . the length of the working day which may be considered "long." "At present (even) ten hours as the limit of the working day is far from universal," she says. "Should ten hours, however, be set as a permissive standard ? Or should we seek rather to work out, on the basis of health, a lower maximum beyond which no employe may go, and below this maximum set others corresponding to the degree of strain in different industries ? . . . Hours are 'long,' whether the day is eight hours or ten, if the work is continued so long that it causes ill health or interferes with the employes' capacity for recreation." This latter statement is especially interesting in the light of a conversation with the manager of one of the Honolulu canneries. He was asked his opinion of the degree of danger to the cannery women employes from being obliged to go through Iwilei, especially on their way from work in the evening. He said : "After the girls have worked ten or twelve *Pp. 354-5-6. WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 87 hours a day there is not much danger that they will skylark. They are only too glad to get home and to bed." But even though they are too tired to "skylark" they do not go to bed. Here as elsewhere the large majority of women workers have household tasks cooking, washing and ironing to perform both before and after working hours; and many have children to care for. This is especially true of the Ha- waiian, Chinese and Japanese, and I have seen the women standing on first one foot and then the other to relieve the strain as early as nine o'clock in the morning, after a stretch of long hours. Managers of the canneries say that the workers are at liberty to stop work at any hour of the day they wish, as the pay is by the hour. In common practice, however, it is made as dif- ficult as possible to secure an accounting for time excepting at regular periods ; and when work is pressing permission to leave before closing time is refused. Managers themselves say that the habit of going home before closing time or at noon is more common among the younger girls who are working during their school vacation, which occurs almost identically with the canning season, than among the regular workers. The Hawaiian enjoys her work, as she enjoys most of the things she does, and she is as yet too new to industry to show superficially any ill effects of labor. It was not possible, in the three and one-half months of the investigation, to make any study of the effects of work on her health. The experience of the world, however, is more than likely to be the experience of Hawaii. Hours of work and the resulting fatigue strains have been made the subject of a close, scientific investigation, covering a period of five years, by Miss Josephine Goldmark, publication secretary of the National Consumers' League, which has now been published in book form under the title of "Fatigue and Efficiency," and gives the results of the experience of both Europe and America concerning the effects of long hours, 88 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF night work and occupational strains on women workers. Miss Goldmark also gives the substance of four briefs prepared by her under the direction of Mr. Louis D. Brandeis in his suc- cessful defense of various State laws limiting women's hours of labor. Her investigation shows that long hours of work by women, especially if performed in a standing position, mean to the community heightened infant mortality, a falling birth rate, and race degeneration, while to the w r orkers themselves they mean every sort of disorder. In speaking of general injuries to health, Miss Goldmark says : "The fatigue which follows excessive working hours becomes chronic, and results in gen- eral deterioration of health. While it may not result in im- mediate disease, it undermines the whole system by weakness and anaemia/' On the other hand the good effect of short hours is shown by the growth of temperance, and "wherever sufficient time has elapsed since the establishment of the shorter working day, the succeeding generation has shown extraordinary improvement in physique and morals." 4 Several pages of testimony from all over the world are sub- mitted in support of the statement that "even the lightest work becomes totally exhausting when carried on for an excessive length of time." She quotes from Dr. Ludwig Hirt's "The Disease of Working People" : "No attitude of the body is harnv ful in itself; only in prolonging it until it produces harmful results ; all the well-known disturbances, such as varicose veins, etc., etc., arise not through sitting or standing, but through excessively prolonged sitting or standing."' For the protection of their women workers more than thirty American States have enacted laws limiting the hours of em- ployment for women ; but only three States, Massachusetts, Indiana and Xebraska, have passed a law in such form as *"Fatigue and Efficiency," Part II, p. 290. *"Fatigue and Efficiency," Part II, p. 321. WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 89 to make it enforcible. Miss Goldmark defines "the rigid law, which prohibits overtime and night work," as "one which pro- vides fixed boundaries for working hours. It protects women from working after a specified hour at night, and more than a given number of hours by the day or week. The best ex- emplar of this kind of law in the United States is the Massa- chusetts statute which prohibits the employment of women in textile mills more than ten hours in one day, or more than fifty-four hours in one week, or before six o'clock in the morn- ing or after six o'clock in the evening. . . . The law is final. Its provisions are clear cut. Employers, employes and inspectors know without disagreement or argument what con- stitutes a violation. Work continued after the specified closing hour is conclusive evidence of violation." As showing the beneficial effect of shorter hours on output, Miss Goldmark quotes at length from the testimony of various Massachusetts employers of labor. The Treasurer of the At- lantic Mills, in Lawrence, stated : "We saw an improvement in the operatives directly after adopting ten hours. . . . We have had more continuous and uninterrupted work throughout the year than before." The Eeport of the Massachusetts Dis- trict Police states: "One manufacturer stated to me a short time ago that he had run his mill sixty-six hours per week, supposing that by so doing he increased the production nearly one-eleventh, but was persuaded ... to reduce his run- ning time to sixty hours per week, and at the end of six months found that the production of his mill had increased nearly ten per cent, while the quality of work done was more perfect." The entire question of the long day is as yet in its incipiency in Hawaii, and the closing paragraph of Miss Goldmark's preface is peculiarly pertinent. She says: "In the main opposition to laws protecting working women and children has come from the unenlightened employer, who has been blind to his own larger interests and who has always seen in every attempt to protect the workers an interference with business and dividends. To this day it is the short-sighted 90 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF and narrow-minded spirit of money-making that is the most persistent enemy of measures designed to save the workers from exhaustion and to conserve their working capacities. Regular, continuous labor and exertion is as necessary for the worker's health as it is for subsistence, and if legislation regulating the workday had sought to invade legitimate work, it would long ago have defeated its own end. . . . "First the new industry, then exploitation, then the demand for some measure of protection such is the universal story. Nor is this a chance sequence. It is the relentless record of history, the more impressive for its unconscious testimony to a waste of human effort and experience, in retrospect scarcely credible among a thinking people, yet in our very midst per- sisting steadily to this day." Hawaiian employers, most of whom are kamaainas, sin- cerely interested in the welfare of the Hawaiian girls and women, have not given adequate thought to the broader social problems of their employes. Kind treatment, good air and light do much to mitigate matters, but no woman or girl can work standing continuously for ten or more hours a day and retain her health. Nor will she in this way become a home- maker, and an intelligent mother and member of the community. AN ACT RESTRICTING THE HOURS OF LABOR OF WOMEN AND CHIL- DREN UNDER THE AGE OF SIXTEEN YEARS. Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii: SECTION 1. The term "establishment" where used in this Act shall mean any place within this Territory other than where domestic or agricultural labor is employed; where men, women or children are engaged and paid a salary or wages by any per- son, firm or corporation, and where such men, women or chil- dren are employes in the general acceptance of that term. SECTION 2. ~No minor under the age of sixteen years, and no female shall be employed in any establishment for a longer WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 91 period than sixty (60) hours in any one week nor for a longer period than ten (10) hours in any one day. SECTION 3. ~No minor under sixteen years and no female shall be employed or suffered to work in any establishment before the hour of six in the morning, or after the hour of six in the evening. SECTION 4. Retail mercantile establishments shall be ex- empt from the provisions of Sections 2 and 3 hereof during a period of ten days beginning with the fifteenth day of Decem- ber and ending with the twenty-fourth day of the same month. SECTION 5. Any person, firm or corporation violating any provision of this Act shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum not less than One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) or more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) for each day any person is employed, permitted or suffered to work in violation of this Act. SECTION 6. This Act shall be in force and effect from and after the date of its approval. 92 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF WAGES As stated in the report of the Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards (page 8) : "To obtain an accurate view of the condition of labor, so far as women and minors are con- cerned, it is especially of service to obtain, if possible, not only the wage schedules, but the actual weekly and annual variation of these earnings, with ages and experience, irregularity of em- ployment, the economic status of the workers in so far as they are aided by other members of a family group, or by charity, or are themselves called on to support others." For many reasons it was not possible to exactly work out all these details in Honolulu. Information was, as a rule, to be had from the workers only during the lunch hour and after work was finished, and as many of them did not know their street and number, a knowledge of conditions was obtained by visiting in the homes in various parts of the city, both during the day and at night, rather than by following up individual workers. Only five girls could remember what amounts their pay envelopes contained for three consecutive weeks. Then, too, the great majority of women of all nationalities spoke no English. Employers were interested and helpful, and I am indebted to them for much definite information, which was in practi- cally all instances corroborated by the statements of the work- ers themselves ; and it is mainly on employers' information that I have based my statements of wages paid. The workers appear on the pay roll by number, names not being known as a rule, and here again it was impossible to follow up indi- viduals. In general, unskilled w r age-earners are almost without ex- ception aided by other members of a family group or by charity, the latter group including those called on to assist others, and those who low wages force to accept shelter or food, or both, WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 93 either from friends or relatives, or from homes philanthrop- ically provided. As shown in the Cost of Living Schedule, the minimum subsistence cost in Honolulu is $5.00 a week; whereas the wages earned by beginners vary from $2.50 to $3.50 in occu- pations offering employment to only a few workers, to a mini- mum of $4.80 in the canneries; while the majority of laundry workers, with several years' experience, earn only $20.00 a month. The fixing of minimum wages for women and minors other- wise than by the law of supply and demand, or the sense of social responsibility of employers, has been in force in Aus- tralia since 1896, through the operation of a Minimum Wage Board, while England and Massachusetts created such Boards in 1910 and 1912, respectively. The thought of such a Board in Hawaii at the present time may be quite as amusing as the action of the International As- sociation for Labor Legislation (called by the Swiss Federal Council and participated in by official representatives of four- teen European powers) prohibiting night-work for women in Uganda, Ceylon, Fiji Islands, Leeward Islands and Trinidad; yet, as Miss Goldmark says, in commenting on this action: " Experience has taught the wisdom of legislating before in- dustry is present." Industry is, however, present in Hawaii, and its growth has been so rapid that, as stated before, employers have not con- sidered seriously the questions involved in women's work. An employer who was genuinely anxious to do his best for his employes asked me seriously : "What would the girls do with any more money if they had it ?" He was quite willing to con- sider a living wage, and also spoke of profit-sharing with em- ployes. The majority of employers, when spoken to concerning the insufficiency of wages paid, point out that their employes have homes in which there are other bread-winners ; and that with 94 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF few exceptions they are not entirely dependent on their own efforts. One special group of seven women was analyzed. Each re- ceived a flat wage of $3.00 a week in an occupation requiring no skill, and in which no advance in wages could be received until two years' service had been rendered, when $4.00 was paid. Even here one girl a Japanese who had been em- ployed over two years, had received no advance. Of this group three women were married, one was widowed and three were young girls. One of the married women, whose husband was in jail and who had a three-year-old child the victim of infantile paralysis was receiving her rent from a church society. The woman who was widowed also had her rent paid by a church society. Two of the girls received help from their respective fathers in addition to their living ex- penses, and one woman supported herself and invalid husband on her earnings in this position and in the canneries where she worked during the season with her grandchild, the two earning about $8.00 a week. She was a wiry, industrious Hawaiian woman of about sixty, and it took much persuasion to get her story from her. The Hawaiians are not beggars and few of the old stock have been known to seek alms. The proprietor, on having these facts called to his attention, said that he could hire Chinese boys at $3.00 a week and have the work done more efficiently. Yet even Chinese boys depend- ent on their own efforts cannot subsist decently on $3.00 a week. In her address before the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in Cleveland, held -in June, 1912, Mrs. Flor- ence Kelly, the dean and veritably the mother of industrial in- vestigation, said: a We cannot longer escape the knowledge that there is no more efficient cause of wholesale destitution in the United States than industry. It can be said with truth that poverty is the regular and inevitable by- product of our present industry, as wealth is its nor- WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU. 95 mal product. We carry on our industry to produce wealth, and incidentally we produce wholesale poverty. 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 consequent nervous breakdown. "They underlie industrial employment of mothers, whose neglected children fail in health and morals. The children in turn crowd the juvenile courts and custodial institutions. . . "It behooves us all to put in practice as rapidly as we may some standard of payment for the work- ing people having due relation to the expenditure of life itself, in the service of all, that is made by those who work for wages." A typical example of the spirit being developed among em- ployers by a better knowledge of conditions is cited by Mrs. Kelley : "A leading store in Boston Filene's has for several months maintained a minimum wage of $8.00 a week. For many years this store had employed no one who had not finished the work of the eighth grade of the public schools. It has thus set for the whole country an example of retail trade as a field in which industry can be carried on under all the difficulties entailed by unlimited competition, with profit and success, and without producing poverty as its by- product." In Honolulu working people can live comfortably on low wages, in a greater degree of comfort than in any other com- munity of which I have knowledge, but in practically every family there is more than one wage-earner the wife and chil- dren contributing their quota, however small. 96 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF Only the tenements, the best of which afford no decent pri- vacy to families, are open to the man with a family who earns $1.00 or even $1.50 a day, if he is the sole wage-earner. Your Oriental population is demonstrating its wish for bet- ter standards of living by the avidity with which it is building itself homes and sending its children to school. Its morals will no doubt improve when, as a group of Chi- nese young people said to a Mission class leader, they "have a better example set them by representative white citizens/' I believe that a Commission appointed by the Governor to look into wage conditions in Hawaii, and their relation to the cost of living, would clarify the whole Hawaiian labor situa- tion, both at home and abroad. Such a commission for the study of the wages of women and minors, was created in Massachusetts in 1911, as follows: "Resolved, That the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council, shall appoint a Commisison of five persons, citizens of the Commonwealth, of whom at least one shall be a woman, one shall be a representative of labor, and one shall be a repre- sentative of employers, to study the matter of wages." Its report recommended an Act not only establishing a Mini- mum Wage Board, but also providing for the determination of minimum wages for women and minors. Sections 3 and 4 of this Act provide: "SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the commis- sion to inquire into the wages paid to the female em- ployes in any occupation in the Commonwealth if the commission has reason to believe that the wages paid to a substantial number of such employes are inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and to maintain the worker in health. "SECTION 4. If after such investigation the com- mission is of the opinion that in the occupation in question the wages paid to a substantial number of OMEX AXD GIRLS ix HONOLULU. 97 female employes are inadequate to supply the neces- sary cost of living and to maintain the worker in health, the commission shall establish a wage board, consisting of not less than six representatives of em- ployers in the occupation in question and of an equal number of representatives of the female employes in said occupation and of one or more disinterested per- sons appointed by the commission to represent the public, but the representatives of the public shall not exceed one-half of the number of representatives of either of the other parties. The commission shall des- ignate the chairman from among the representatives of the public, and shall make rules and regulations governing the selection of members and the modes of procedure of the boards, and shall exercise exclusive jurisdiction over all questions arising with reference to the validity of the procedure and of the determina- tion of the boards. The members of wage boards shall be compensated at the same rate as jurors ; they shall be allowed the performance of their duties, these pay- ments to be made from the appropriation for the ex- penses of the commission. " Mrs. Kelly says, concerning it, and I can think of no more fitting close to a report on industrial conditions: "We have never before brought to bear the experi- ence of the people most closely concerned. These are the employers, the workers, the consumers, not the bondholders and stockholders. The employers know, better than any other persons can possibly know, the meaning of the pay-roll in relation to their particular branch of industry. The workers know, as no one else can, what it costs to bring up a family in a par- ticular place in a given year, and what; if anything, can be put away for the future out of a weekly wage. When, therefore, these two participants, and repre- sentatives of the consuming public, pool their know]- 98 THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF edge and correlate the wages with the cost of living in their community, in the full light of publicity, all the available, intimate knowledge and practical ex- perience is brought to bear upon the wage scale thus established. "This is a new extension of democracy into a field of industrial bargaining. It gives the moral and legal support of the State to its weakest economic elements, to the women and children. By thus turning on the light, it makes real, for the first time, that which has by the economists and the courts been assumed to exist, but has not yet existed: equality of the two contracting parties. It gives effect to the will of those who have in the past been mere pawns in the hands of masters who have played the game on terms laid down by themselves alone. It gives votes to women in a field in which women most sorely need them, in the determination of their wages. It tends, for the first time, to substitute justice through self-govern- ment in industry, for charity." Respectfully submitted, FRANCES BLASCOER. AND GlBLS IX HONOLULU. 99 >-- i-> 2o Iff If S3 1|S|||| S P ^ ar P o" 3 * * * ilJ! 3 o> o 3 3 B: P 3 5""*" ^|g! ' CO B 5* O Ci, CO CO CL X P^ g ^ CO O O P a Mi p ^. 3 a P- = 11 p p O CO P*cr II CO a CO =r S nor c/2 73 co 55 1-3 3 o 9 a 3p oR &> rt w> ~- C o o ^5 *H. * 12. S* ^ z ~ ^ * " i- o*' *" 5^" rt- JJ ** x s Qj W P? & 3* ^ O d hd > JQ JfQ M BJ Q o ^j rf- Cn Cn O ^1 O*>J>^C73 O CO i ' O O Cn OCnOCO Number Employed > >> > > > > s> 3 ^B^ ^ ^ ^ , 7 3^7 Lft ^ M ^ ^ ^tt ^ ^ CA ^ Season -! "1 "1 - ' *-l O t- O 00 00 O 1 H ^1 Cn Houis t-H|M (L |_ | CO ^ CO CO 4- OO Per Day o Cn EC -h o O c Cn OJ ^5 i-t- i-t- P 8 i ^ ts ^ 5 13 a O o 5 8 4 o 3" & o" S / / /* ?r i ? O o ^1 o oi o 3" oo p Cn t\3"oo O Cn CO 5 O O CO B "2 M 5'U W K H O P pa P orq-^" P O' ^ d p P S*. ' P H*. ^ 2. P en P w S-' J < - en 2 " OQ W ^^ ^ o Q O M rt flj' * h^ H P-l ^* O ^o : p P p_ y^ , , S" CQ GLOSSARY OF HAWAIIAN TERMS ALOHA Good will ; friendship. KOXA South ; hot. KAMAAIXA Old settlers; long time residents. POPOL.A Wild spinach, valued as a food for its medicinal properties. LEI A garland for the neck or hat made of flowers, shells, seeds, etc. Poi Pounded root of the Taro plant the staple native food. TAPA A stencilled material made by the pounded fibre of a native tree; and formerly used for making the chief article of dress by the natives. LAUJIALA A native shrub, growing ten to fifteen feet in height, with lance-like leaves which when dried are used for mats, baskets, etc. PAPAIA A native fruit, somewhat like a muskmelon. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 50c t>er volume after the third day overdue, increasing to $1.00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in demand may be renewed if application is made before expiration of loan period. JAN 86 1920 UD AUG 7 m 50m-7,'16 402566 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY P&R IFIC