Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/537

 ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS 523

employed in manufacturing industries were females above fifteen years of age ; f in 1870 they constituted 15.76 per cent, of the total number employed ; in 1880 they were 19.45 per cent, and in 1890 they were 17.94 per cent. The relation, therefore, to the total number employed was quite stationary at the last three federal censuses and was only about 2 per cent, in 1879 over what it was 1870 and nearly 3 per cent, relatively less than in 1860. The women are therefore not crowding upon the men in mechanical industries.

In 1860 the manufacturing returns fully included the large factories in which the women formed a large proportion of the operatives, but failed to include carpenters, painters, and those employed in similar trades. In 1870 this was true to a less extent and a smaller proportion of women is shown. At the census of 1890, besides a very complete enumeration of trades in which men are almost exclusively employed, there are also included 461,009 employers, officers, and clerks, a class not pre- viously fully included, less than I per cent, of whom are women. General Walker in the census of 1870 estimated that there were over 500,000 employes omitted that should have been included ; the class omitted he also declares were almost exclusively men. If we add these 500,000 men to the number of employes of the census of 1870 we find the percentage of females at that census to be 12.67 instead of 16.76 of the total operatives.

The number of women employed in manufacturing industries as given in Colonel Wright's article is: 1860, 270,897; 1870, 323,770: 1880,531,639; 1890,845,428. This shows an increase since 1870 of 160 per cent., but as census statistics show since 1880 a decrease of 60,727 in the number of children employed, Colonel Wright concludes that women are taking the place of the children and " are not crowding upon the men." As there was an increase in this decade of 313,879 in the number of women the figures do not seem to justify Colonel Wright's con-

1 This is an error. The census of i860 reports the average number of hands as 1,31 1,246; males, 1,040,349 ; females, 270,897. The number of females above fifteen years of age is not reported. The number of females reported therefore includes female children.

The census of 1870 correctly quotes the census of i860, but the tenth and eleventh censuses both falsify it, and the eleventh census gives the erroneous percent- ages quoted right.