ntly clear. What is the way out of the unstandardized and
unsatisfactory conditions obtaining for multitudes of women workers?
Legislation is undoubtedly one way out. Trade organization is undoubtedly
one way out. But legislation is ineffectual unless it is strongly backed
by conscientious inspection and powerful enforcement. In the great
garment-trade strikes in New York, in spite of their victories, the trade
orders have gone in such numbers to other cities that neither the spirit
of the shirt-waist makers' strike nor the wisdom of the Cloak Makers'
Preferential Union Agreement have since availed to provide sufficient
employment for the workers. Further, neither legislation nor trade
organization are permanently valuable unless they are informed by justice
and understanding. In the same manner, unless it is informed by these
qualities, the new plan of management outlined in the last chapter is
incapable of any lasting and far-reaching industrial deliverance. But it
provides a way out, hitherto untried. With an account of this way as it
appears to-day our book ends, as a testimony to living facts can only
end, not with the hard-and-fast wall of dogma, but with an open door.

EDITH WYATT.

CHICAGO, March 19, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK SALESWOMEN

CHAPTER II
THE SHIRT-WAIST MAKERS' STRIKE

CHAPTER III
THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS.
(UNSKILLED AND SEASONAL WORK)

CHAPTER IV
THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS.
(MONOTONY AND FATIGUE IN SPEEDING)

CHAPTER V
THE CLOAK MAKERS' STRIKE AND THE PREFERENTIAL UNION SHOP

CHAPTER VI
WOMEN LAUNDRY WORKERS IN NEW YORK

CHAPTER VII
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS APPLIED TO WOMEN'S WORK

CHAPTER I

THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK SALESWOMEN

I

One of the most significant features of the common history of this
generation is the fact that nearly six million women are now gainfully
employed in this country. From time immemorial, women have, indeed,
worked, so that it is not quite as if an entire sex, living at ease at
home heretofore, had suddenly been thrown into an unwonted activity, as
many quoters of the census seem to believe. For the domestic labor in
which women have always engaged may be as severe and prolonged as
commercial labor. But not until recently have women