a majority. Women have become autocrats or
rivals. A phrase which I heard often repeated at the factory speaks by
itself for a condition: "She must be married, because she don't work."
And another phrase pronounced repeatedly by the younger girls: "I
don't have to work; my father gives me all the money I need, but not
all the money I _want_. I like to be independent and spend my money as
I please."

[Footnote 1: George Engelman, M.D., "The Increasing Sterility of
American Women," from the Journal of the American Medical
Association, October 5, 1901.]

What are the conclusions to be drawn? The American-born girl is an
egoist. Her whole effort (and she makes and sustains one in the life of
mill drudgery) is for herself. She works for luxury until the day when a
proper husband presents himself. Then, she stops working and lets him
toil for both, with the hope that the budget shall not be diminished by
increasing family demands.

In those cases where the woman continues to work after marriage, she
chooses invariably a kind of occupation which is inconsistent with
child-bearing. She returns to the mill with her husband. There were a
number of married couples at the knitting factory at Perry. They
boarded, like the rest of us. I never saw a baby nor heard of a baby
while I was in the town.

I can think of no better way to present this love of luxury, this
triumph of individualism, this passion for independence than to
continue my account of the daily life at Perry.

On Saturday night we drew our pay and got out at half-past four. This
extra hour and a half was not given to us; we had saved it up by
beginning each day at fifteen minutes before seven. In reality we worked
ten and a quarter hours five days in the week in order to work eight and
a half on the sixth.

By five o'clock on Saturdays the village street was animated with
shoppers--the stores were crowded. At supper each girl had a collection
of purchases to show: stockings, lace, fancy buckles, velvet ribbons,
elaborate hairpins. Many of them, when their board was paid, had less
than a dollar left of the five or six it had taken them a week to earn.

"I am not working to save," was the claim of one girl for all. "I'm
working for pleasure."

This same girl called me into her room one evening when she was packing
to move to another boarding-house where were more young men and better
food. I watched her as she put her things into the trunk. She had a
quan