Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/363

Rh he was receiving only thirty-seven cents for work for which she had formerly been paid seventy-five cents,

The old system was not of course swept out of existence all at once, and the introduction in 1862 of the wonderful McKay machine for sewing uppers to soles greatly accelerated the movement toward the concentration of the industry in factories, and other inventions and improvements between 1860 and 1870 gave it further impetus.

The McKay machine was introduced at a time when the industry was losing men on account of the war, and was said to do the work of the shoemakers who had gone to the front. This work of sewing uppers and soles together had always been done by men, but in the early experiments with the machine women seem to have been tried as operators. One instance is given of a woman in Haverhill who for three years earned about eighteen dollars a week at the McKay machine shortly after its introduction. The machine was, however, at first run by foot-power, and operating it must have been heavy work. But the installation of power was not long delayed, and during this same decade other improvements and inventions added new machines driven by power to those already in use.

The factory system found its earliest and most complete development in Lynn. A report of the State Bureau of Labor in 1872, in giving an account of the shoebinders, said that in Lynn work in all departments was largely done by machinery, and that each workman carried on one special process. At this time the work was confined to two seasons, each lasting about seventeen weeks. Women were given two to four days' work a