Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/715

REVIEWS 701 extremely varied—while the National Typographical Union has been distinctly hostile to the employment of women in printing, the Cigarmakers' International Union as far back as 1867 altered its constitution so as to make women eligible to membership.

Less varied has been the almost universal difficulty encountered by women in learning through apprenticeship the elements of the occupations in which they have engaged; in the colonial period, "the girl's indenture, unlike that of the boy, failed to specify that she was to be taught a trade"; in the manufacture of boots and shoes, women were confined to parts of the work "for which little or no skill was required and for which they were never apprenticed; the men knew the whole trade and had been rigidly held down to a long period of training"; in cigar-making, employers think they find that boys are more profitable apprentices, and this inability of women to learn all parts of the trade through apprenticeship leaves an "aristocracy of male workers at the head"; in printing, "they continue to be greatly handicapped by having no way of learning the trade properly."

These are but a few of the interesting and suggestive points brought out by Miss Abbott in her valuable investigation. She has thrown down the gauntlet to every a priori generalizer in regard to women in industry and it is indeed a rash person who will take it up.

Miss Abbott has been less happy in her appreciation of the measure of interest to be expected from her readers in the tools of her investigation. Even the general reader today asks for full knowledge in regard to the sources used that led to the conclusions stated in the text. This information must come from the footnotes and the bibliography. If these sources are not given in full in the footnotes—an inconvenient method since it involves unnecessary repetition—the reader naturally turns to the bibliography for the full title and description of every work cited. Unfortunately for those who wish to test the conclusions reached, and also for those who may wish, under the inspiration of her guidance, to follow in the paths of investigation opened up by her, neither footnotes nor bibliography can be depended on for help. Works are repeatedly cited in the footnotes that are not given in the bibliography and the reader does not know from Miss Abbott either the size of the work, or the time and place of its appearance. "Higginson" (p. 14) leads neither to a footnote nor to the