Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/361

 WOMEN IN INDUSTRY: BOOTS AND SHOES

347

hammer." ^'^ The increase in proportion of women, therefore, probably did not mean that the kind or the quantity of work done by women had been changed, but merely that one of the proces- ses carried on by men required fewer hands than formerly.^® There had been no change up to this point in the division of labor between men and women.

In comparing the statistics given in the census of 1850 with those from the census of 1860, the results of the introduction of the sewing-machine are seen in the decrease both in the number and in the proportion of women employed. Data are not available for Lynn, but they are given for the United States and the state of Massachusetts,

United States

Massachusetts

1850

i860

1850

i860

Men

72,305 32,949 (31%)

94,515 28,515 (23%)

29,252 22,310 (44%)

Women

Total

105,254

123,029

51,562

The percentage which women formed of all employees de- creased, for the country as a whole, from 31 per cent, in 1850 to 2^ per cent, in i860, and the Census of i860 in commenting upon this change attributed it correctly enough to the increased use of the sewing-machine.^^

The year i860 was a significant one in the industry because of the great shoemakers' strike in Lynn during that year. It was charged that the whole trade was "in an unhealthy con- dition," probably in part because of the necessity of rapid ad- justment to new conditions. The object of the strike was higher wages, and while no attempt can be made here to follow the


 * Twelfth Census Manufactures, III, 755.

"A writer in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine (XXXIII, 126) said, in comment- ing on this increase in the number of women employed, "increased skill and in- telligence have been brought to bear upon the manufacture by which female now accomplishes results greatly surpassing those of male industry in the former period, and also that in the face of a very important rise in hides and other raw materials, and of a large advance in wages."


 * i860 Census of Manufactures, Ixvii.