Woman under socialism Part 18

In 1882, there were to every 1,000 persons engaged in industry 176 women; in commerce and transportation, 190; in agriculture, 312.

In 1892, the number of women, employed in the factories of Germany, were of the following ages:

Number Age. Employed.

12-14 3,897 14-16 68,735 16-21 223,538 Over 21 337,499 Besides (for Reuss younger line without designation of ages) 6,197 ------- 639,866

In the Kingdom of Saxony, notedly the most industrial portion of Germany, the number of working-women employed in the factories was:--

Year. 16 Years and Over. 12 to 16.

1883 72,716 8,477 1892 110,555 13,333 ------- ------- Increase 37,839 4,856 52 per cent. 57 per cent.

As a result of the new factory regulations, which limited the hours of female labor, between the ages of 14 to 16, to 10 a day, and wholly forbade factory work to children of school age, the number of working-women between the ages of 14 to 16 sank to 6,763, and of girls between the ages of 12 to 14, sank by 6,334. The strongest increase in the number of working-women, as far as we are informed, took place in the tobacco industry of Baden. According to the reports of the Baden Factory Inspector, Dr. Woerishoffer, the number of persons engaged in the said industry and their subdivisions by s.e.xes; was as follows:

Total Number Year. Employed. Males. Females.

1882 12,192 5,193 6,999 1892 24,056 7,932 16,124 ------ ----- ------ Increase 11,864 2,739 9,125 or 52.8 or 130 per cent. per cent.

This increase in the number of female tobacco workers, denotes the sharpening compet.i.tive struggle, that has developed during the last ten years in the German tobacco as well as many other industries, and which compels the ever intenser engagement of the cheaper labor of woman.

And, as in the rest of Germany, so likewise in Baden the industrial development in general shows a larger increase of female than of male workers. Within a year, it recorded the following changes:--

Year. Males. Females.

1892 79,218 35,598 1893 84,470 38,557 ------ ------ Increase 5,252 2,959 or 6.6 or 8.3 per cent. per cent.

Of the working-women over 16 years of age, 28.27 were married. In the large ammunition factory at Spandau, there were, in 1893, 3,000 women out of a total of 3,700 employes.

As in England, in Germany also, female labor is paid worse than male.

According to the report of the Leipsic Chamber of Commerce for the year 1888, the weekly wage for equal hours were:--

Males. Females.

Industries. Marks. Marks.

Lace manufacture 20 --35 7 --15 Cloth glove manufacture 12 --30 6 --25 Linen and jute weaving 12 --27 5 --10 Wool-carding 15 --27 7.20--10.20 Sugar refinery 10.50--31 7.50--10 Leather and leather goods 12 --28 7 --18 Chemicals 8.50--25 7.50--10 Rubber fabrics 9 --28 6 --17 One factory of paper lanterns 16 --22 7.50--10

In an investigation of the wages earned by the factory hands of Mannheim in 1893, Dr. Woerishoffer divided the weekly earnings into three cla.s.ses: one, the lowest, in which the wages reached 15 marks; one from 15 to 24; and the last and highest in which wages exceeded 24 marks.

According to this subdivision, wages in Mannheim presented the following picture:--

Low. Medium. High.

Both s.e.xes 29.8 per cent. 49.8 per cent. 20.4 per cent.

Males 20.9 per cent. 56.2 per cent. 22.9 per cent.

Females 99.2 per cent. 0.7 per cent. 0.1 per cent.

The working-women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They received per week:--

Percentage Marks. of Females.

Under 5 4.62 5--6 5.47 6--8 43.96 8--10 27.45 10--12 12.38 12--15 5.38 Over 15 0.74

In the Thuringer Wald district, in 1891, the workingmen engaged in the slate works received 2.10 marks a day; the women 0.70. In the spinning establishments, the men received 2 marks, the women from 0.90 to 1 mark.

Worst of all are the earnings in the tenement industry, for men as well as for women, but for the women it is still more miserable than for the men. In this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on, they transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating system is generally in vogue, _i. e._, work given out by middlemen (contractors) who, in recompense for their irksome labor of superintendence, keep to themselves a large part of the wages paid by the princ.i.p.al. Under this system, women are also expected to submit to indignities of other nature.

How miserably female labor is paid in the tenement industries, the following figures on Berlin conditions may indicate. Men's colored s.h.i.+rts, paid for in 1889 with from 2 marks to 2.50, the employer got in 1893 for 1 mark 50 pfennig. A seamstress of average skill must work from early till late if she means to make from 6 to 8 of these s.h.i.+rts. Her earnings for the week are 4 or 5 marks. An ap.r.o.n-maker earns from 2 marks 50 pfennig to 5 marks a week; a necktie-maker, 5 to 6 marks; a skilled blouse-maker, 6 marks; a very skilled female operator on boys'

clothing, 8 to 9 marks; an expert jacket-maker, 5 to 6 marks. A very swift seamstress on men's s.h.i.+rts may, in the good season, and working from 5 in the morning to 10 at night, make as much as 12 marks.

Millinery workers, who can copy patterns independently, make 30 marks a month. Quick trimmers, with years of experience, earn from 50 to 60 marks a month during the season. The season usually lasts five months.

An umbrella-maker, working twelve hours a day, makes 6 to 7 marks. Such starvation wages force the working-women into prost.i.tution: even with the very plainest wants, no working-women can live in Berlin on less than 8 or 9 marks a week.

According to a statistical report on wages, ordered by the Chamber of Commerce of Reichenberg for its own district, 91 per cent. of all the working-women came under the wage category of from 2 to 5 guilders a week. Upon the enforcement in Austria of the law on sick insurance, the authorities discovered that in 116 districts (21.6 per cent. of all) the working-women earned at most 30 kreuzer a day, 90 guilders a year; and in 428 districts (78.4 per cent. of the total) from 30 to 50 kreuzer, or from 90 to 150 guilders a year. The young working-women, under 16 years of age, earned in 173 districts (30.9 per cent.) 20 kreuzer a day at the most, or at the most 60 guilders a year; and in 387 districts (69.1 per cent.) from 20 to 30 kreuzer, or from 60 to 90 guilders a year.

Similar differences between the wages of male and female labor exist in all countries on earth. According to the report on Russian industry at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, a workingman made in cotton weaving 66 marks a month, a working-woman 18; a male cotton spinner 66 marks, a female 14. In the lace industry men earned up to 130 marks, women 26; in cloth manufacture, with the power loom, a working man made 90 marks, a working-woman 26 a month.

These facts show that woman is increasingly torn from family life by modern developments. Marriage and the family, in the bourgeois sense, are undermined by this development, and dissolved. From the view point afforded by this fact also, it is an absurdity to direct women to a domestic life. That can be done only by such people, who thoughtlessly walk the path of life; who fail to see the facts that shape themselves all around, or do not wish to see them, because they have an interest in plying the trade of optimism. Facts furnish a very different picture from that presented by such gentlemen.

In a large number of industries women are employed exclusively; in a larger number they const.i.tute the majority; and in most of the others women are more or less numerously found. Their number steadily increases, and they crowd into ever newer occupations, that they had not previously engaged in. Finally, the working-woman is not merely paid worse than the working man; where she does as much as a man, her hours are, on an average, longer.

The German factory ordinances of the year 1891 fixed a maximum of eleven hours for adult working-women. The same is, however, broken through by a ma.s.s of exceptions that the authorities are allowed to make. Nightwork also is forbidden for working-women in factories, but here also the Government can make exceptions in favor of factories where work is continuous, or for special seasons; in sugar refineries, for instance.

German legislation has not yet been able to rise to the height of really effective measures for the protection of working-women; consequently, these are exploited by inhumanly long hours, and physically wrecked in the small factories, especially in the tenement house industry. Their exploitation is made all the easier to the employer through the circ.u.mstance that, until now, a small minority excepted, the women have not realized that, the same as the men, they must organize in their trades, and, there where also men are employed, they must organize jointly with them, in order to conquer for themselves better conditions of work. The ever stronger influx of women in industrial pursuits affects, however, not those occupations only that their correspondingly weaker physique especially fits them for, but it affects also all occupations in which the modern system of exploitation believes it can, with their aid, knock off larger profits. Under this latter head belong both the physically exhausting and the most disagreeable and dangerous occupations. Thus the fantastic pretence of seeing in woman only a tender, finely-strung being, such as poets and writers of fiction love to depict for the delectation of men, a being, that, if it exists at all exists only as an exception, is again reduced to its true value.

Facts are obstinate things, and it is only they that concern us. They alone preserve us from false conclusions, and sentimental twaddle. These facts teach us that to-day we find women engaged in the following occupations, among others:--in cotton, linen and woolen weaving; in cloth and flannel making; in mechanical spinning, calico printing and dyeing; in steel pen and pin making; in the preparation of sugar, chocolate and cocoa; in manufacturing paper and bronzes; in making gla.s.s and porcelain and in gla.s.s painting; in the manufacture of faience, majolica and earthen ware; in making ink and preparing paints; making twine and paper bags; in preparing hops and manure and chemical disinfectants; in spinning and weaving silk and ribbons; in making soap, candles and rubber goods; in wadding and mat making; in carpet weaving; portfolio and cardboard making; in making lace and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and embroidering; making wall-paper, shoes and leather goods; in refining oil and lard and preparing chemicals of all sorts; in making jewelry and galvanoplastic goods; in the preparation of rags and refuse and bast; in wood carving, xylography and stone coloring; in straw hat making and cleaning; in making crockery, cigars and tobacco products; in making lime and gelatine fabrics; in making shoes; in furriery; in hat making; in making toys; in the flax, shoddy and hair industries; in watchmaking and housepainting; in the making of spring beds, pencils and wafers; in making looking-gla.s.ses, matches and gunpowder preparations; in dipping phosphorus match-sticks and preparing a.r.s.enic; in the tinning of iron; in the delicacy trade; in book printing and composition; in the preparation of precious stones; in lithography, photography, chromo-lithography and metachromotype, and also in the founding of types; in tile making, iron founding and in the preparation of metals generally; in the construction of houses and railroads; in electrical works; in book-binding, wood-carving and joining; in the making of footwear and clothing; file making; the making of knives and bra.s.s goods; in manufacturing combs, b.u.t.tons, gold thread and gas implements; in the making of tanned goods and trunks; in making starch and chicory preparations; in metallurgy, wood-planing, umbrella making and fish manufacturing; the preservation of fruit, vegetables and meat; in the making of china b.u.t.tons and fur goods; in mining above ground--in Belgium also underground after the women are 21 years old; in the natural oil and wax production; in slate making and stone breaking; in marble and granite polis.h.i.+ng; in making cement; the transportation of barges and ca.n.a.l boats. Also in the wide field of horticulture, agriculture and cattle-breeding, and all that is therewith connected.

Lastly, in the various industries in which they have long been considered to have the right of way: in the making of linen and woman's clothing, in the several branches of fas.h.i.+on, also as saleswomen, and more recently as clerks, teachers, kindergarten trainers, writers, artists of all sorts. Thousands upon thousands of women of the middle cla.s.s are being utilized as slaves in the shops and in the markets, and are thereby withdrawn from all domestic functions, the training of children in particular. Finally, there is one occupation to be mentioned, in which young, especially pretty, girls are ever more in demand, to the great injury of their physical and moral development: it is the occupation in public resorts of all sorts as bar-maids, singers, dancers, etc., to attract men in quest of pleasure. This is a field in which impropriety runs riot, and the holders of white slaves lead the wildest orgies.

Among the occupations mentioned, not a few are most dangerous.

Dangerous, for instance, are the sulphuric and alkaline gases in the manufacturing and cleaning of straw hats; so is the inhalation of chlorine gases in the bleaching of vegetable materials; the danger of poisoning is imminent in the manufacture of colored paper, colored wafers and artificial flowers; in the preparation of metachromotype, poisons and chemicals; in the painting of leaden soldiers and leaden toys. The on-laying of looking-gla.s.ses with quicksilver is simply deadly to the fruit of pregnant women. If, of the live-births in Prussia, 22 per cent. on an average die during the first year, there die, according to Dr. Hirt, 65 per cent. of the live-births of female on-layers of quicksilver, 55 per cent. of those of female gla.s.s-polishers, 40 per cent. of those of female lead-makers. In 1890, out of 78 lying-in women, who had been occupied in the type foundries of the district of Wiesbaden, only 37 had a normal delivery. Furthermore, according to Dr.

Hirt, the manufacture of colored paper and artificial flowers, the so-called powdering of Brussels lace with white lead, the preparation of decalcomania pictures, the on-laying of mirrors, the manufacture of rubber goods, in short, all occupations at which the working-women are exposed to the inhalation of carbonic acid gases, are especially dangerous from the second half of pregnancy onward. Highly dangerous is also the manufacture of phosphorus matches and work in the shoddy mills.

According to the report of the Baden Trades Inspector for 1893, the yearly average of premature births with women engaged in industry rose from 1,039 in the years 1882-1886, to 1,244 in the years 1887-1891. The number of births that had to be aided by an operation averaged for the period of 1882-1886 the figures of 1,118 a year, and for the period of 1886-1891 it averaged 1,385. Facts much graver than any of these would come to light if similar investigations were held also in the more industrially developed countries and provinces of Germany. As a rule the Inspectors are satisfied with stating in their reports: "No specially injurious effects were discovered in the employment of women in the factories." How could they discover any, with their short visits and without drawing upon medical advice? That, moreover, there are great dangers to life and limb, especially in the textile industry, in the manufacture of explosives and in work with agricultural machinery, is an established fact. Even a glance at the above and quite incomplete list will tell every reader that a large number of these occupations are among the hardest and most exhausting even to men. Let people say as they please, this work or that is not suitable for woman; what boots the objection if no other and more suitable occupation is furnished her?

Among the branches of industry, or special occupations in the same, that Dr. Hirt[127] considers girls should not be at all employed in, by reason of the danger to health, especially with an eye to their s.e.xual functions, are: The preparation of bronze colors, of velvet and glazed paper, hat making, gla.s.s grinding, lithography, flax combing, horsehair twisting, fustian pulling, iron tinning, and work in the flax and shoddy mill.

In the following trades, young girls should be occupied only when the necessary protective measures (ventilation, etc.) are properly provided for: The manufacture of paper matting, china ware, lead pencils, shot lead, etherial oils, alum, blood-lye, bromium, chinin, soda, paraffin and ultramarine (poisonous) colored paper, wafers that contain poison, metachromotypes, phosphorous matches, Schweinfurt green and artificial flowers. Also in the cutting and sorting of rags, sorting and coloring of tobacco leaf, cotton beating, wool and silk carding, cleaning of bed feathers, sorting pencil hairs, was.h.i.+ng (sulphur) straw hats, vulcanizing and melting rubber, coloring and printing calico, painting lead soldiers, packing snuff, wire netting, on-laying of mirrors, grinding needles and steel pens.

Truly, it is no inspiring sight to see women, and even pregnant ones, at the construction of railroads, pus.h.i.+ng heavily laden wheelbarrows in compet.i.tion with men; or to watch them as helpers, mixing mortar and cement or carrying heavy loads of stone at the construction of houses; or in the coal pits and iron works. All that is womanly is thereby rubbed off from woman, her womanliness is trodden under foot, the same as, conversely, all manly attributes are stripped from the men in hundreds of other occupations. Such are the sequels of social exploitation and of social war. Our corrupt social conditions turn things topsy-turvy.

It is, accordingly, easy to understand that, considering the extent to which female labor now prevails, and threatens to make still further inroads in all fields of productive activity, the men, highly interested in the development, look on with eyes far from friendly, and that here and there the demand is heard for the suppression of female labor and its prohibition by law. Unquestionably, with the extension of female labor, the family life of the working cla.s.s goes ever more to pieces, the dissolution of marriage and the family is a natural result, and immorality, demoralization, degeneration, diseases of all natures and child mortality increase at a shocking pace. According to the statistics of population of the Kingdom of Saxony, child mortality has greatly increased in all those cities that became genuine manufacturing places during the last 25 or 30 years. During the period 1880-1885 there died in the cities of Saxony, on an average, 28.5 per cent. of the live-births during the first year of life. In the period of 1886-1890, 45.0 of the live-births died in Ernsthal during the first year of their lives, 44.5 in Stolling, 40.4 in Zschopau, 38.9 in Lichtenstein, 38.3 in Thum, 38.2 in Meerane, 37.7 in Crimmitschau, 37.2 in Burgstaedt, 37.1 in Werdau, 36.5 in Ehrenfriedersdorf, 35.8 in Chemnitz, 35.5 in Frankenberg, 35.2 in Buchholz, 35.1 in Schneeberg, 34.7 in Lunzenau, 34.6 in Hartha, 34.5 in Geithaim, etc.[128] Worse yet stood things in the majority of the large factory villages, quite a number of whom registered a mortality of 40 to 50 per cent. Yet, all this notwithstanding, the social development, productive of such sad results, is progress,--precisely such progress as the freedom to choose a trade, freedom of emigration, freedom to marry, and the removal of all other barriers, thus promoting the development of capitalism on a large scale, but thereby also giving the death-blow to the middle cla.s.s and preparing its downfall.

The working cla.s.s is not inclined to help the small producer, should he attempt the re-establishment of restrictions to the freedom to choose a trade and of emigration, or the restoration of the guild and corporation restrictions, contemplated with the end in view of artificially keeping dwarf-production alive for a little while longer,--more than that is beyond their power. As little is a return possible to the former state of things with regard to female labor, but that does not exclude stringent laws for the prevention of the excessive exploitation of female and child labor, and of children of school age. In this the interests of the working cla.s.s coincides with the interests of the State, of humanity, in general, and of civilization. When we see the State compelled to lower the minimum requirements for military service--as happened several times during the last decades, the last time in 1893, when the army was to be further increased--and we see such lowering of the minimum requirements resorted to for the reason that, as a result of degenerating effects of our economic system, the number of young men unfit for military service becomes ever larger,--when we see that, then, forsooth, all are interested in protective measures. The ultimate aim must be to remove the ills, that progress--such as machinery, improved means of production and the whole modern system of labor--has called forth, while at the same time causing the enormous advantages, that such progress is instinct with for man, and the still greater advantages it is capable of, to accrue in full measure to all the members of society, by means of a corresponding organization of human labor.[129]

It is an absurdity and a crying wrong that the improvements and conquests of civilization--the collective product of all--accrue to the benefit of those alone who, in virtue of their material power, are able to appropriate them to themselves, while, on the other hand, thousands of diligent workingmen are a.s.sailed with fear and worry when they learn that human genius has made yet another invention able to multiply many fold the product of manual labor, and thereby opening to them the prospect of being thrown as useless and superfluous upon the sidewalks.