considers the returns
imperfect, great difficulty having been experienced in securing them.
The average weekly wage is given as $5.17. Expenses are carefully
analyzed, and there is a report of the remarks of employers, as well as
from a number of those employed.

In the report from Iowa for 1887, Commissioner Hutchins laments that so
few women have been willing to fill out blanks of returns. The wage
returns given range from $3.75 to $9. The report for 1889 makes mention
of continued difficulties in securing returns, and gives the annual
earnings of women as from $100 to $440. The tables include cost of
living and many other essential particulars.

Wisconsin, in the report for 1884, has a chapter on working-girls. It
gives the average weekly income in personal services as $5.25; in
trade, $4.18; in manufactures, $5.22, and the general average for the
year as $5.17.

Minnesota, whose first report, under the supervision of Commissioner
John Lamb, appeared in 1888 for the years 1887 and 1888, found little or
no room for statistics, but included a chapter on working-women, with a
few admirable tables of age, nativity, home and working conditions, etc.
Minute inquiry was made as to cost of living, clothing, etc.; and the
results form a chapter of painful interest, that on domestic service
being equally suggestive. Clothing, as usual, represents the lowest
average wage, $3.66 per week, the highest being $8.50, and the general
average a trifle over $6.

Michigan, in 1890, under its labor commissioner, Mr. Henry A. Robinson,
added to the list one of the most thorough studies yet made of general
conditions. The agents of the bureau, trained for the work, made
personal visits to working-women and girls to the number of 13,436, this
representing one hundred and thirty-seven distinct industries and three
hundred and seventy-eight occupations. The blanks prepared for filling
out contained one hundred and twenty-nine questions, classified as
follows: Social, 28; industrial, 12; hours of labor, 14; economic, 54;
sanitary, 21, with seven others as to dress, societies, church
attendance, with remarks and suggestions from the workers themselves. As
usual, in such cases, employers here and there objected to any
investigation, fearing labor organizations were at the bottom of it; but
the majority allowed free examination. The report is very full, and
gives a clear and full view of the individual lives of this body of
women workers. Th