Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/370

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

individual factories the actual number of men and women em- ployed today in the different processes. Such factory records are furnished us, without prejudice of choice, in one of the special reports of the commissioner of labor. While collected for another purpose, they show clearly what the division of labor between men and women is at the present time.

NUMBER OF MEN AND WOMEN EMPLOYED IN TWO SHOE FACTORIES IN 1904*

Union Factory

Non-Union Factory

Males

Females

Males

Females

Cutting-room, upper stock and trimming. . Cutting-room, sole stock and trimming. . . . Fitting and stitching-room

239 148

lOI

620

141

98

5

IS

351

35

205 176 117 807 132 no

10

25

309

Gang or bottoming-rooms

Finishing-rooms

4

Dressing-rooms

52

Total

1,347

406

1,547

400

♦From Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner 0} Labor, "Regiilation and Restriction of Output" (1904), pp. 592. S93-

An examination of these factory records shows that the large proportion of women employees — 86 per cent, in one estab- lishment, and yy per cent, in the other — are still engaged in the work of sewing uppers, which, although done with power machines, is essentially the same process which was carried on in the old days in fishermen's cottages and in village homes.

Moreover, it should be noted that work which was so exclu- sively done by women in the period preceding the establishment of the factory system is now shared with men. In one estab- lishment 27 per cent, of the employees in the fitting- and stitch- ing-room were men, and in the other 22 per cent, were men. It is, of course, also significant that 14 per cent, of the women in one factory, and 23 per cent, in the other, are engaged in other processes which were formerly carried on almost wholly by men. It seems clear, however, that the radical changes of the last twenty-five years in the place and the method of work have altered only very slightly the old line of division between