Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/380

376 must attend, and the speed at which the machines are driven are constantly being increased. Coupled with piece-work wages, the "speeding up" results in a nervous tension and strain almost wholly lacking in the domestic system.

Although a woman might work for long hours at home, she could stop when it was necessary to attend to her natural bodily needs. In the factory she has not that freedom, and the result is a whole train of ills.

As a quadruped the female suffered little handicap because of the functions peculiar to sex, except when actually carrying or nursing the young. But after mankind had learned to stand erect, her support was far from ideal. The bones of the ankle and feet are too small to sustain great weight. A woman's knee is not so well adapted as a man's to form part of a sustaining column. The muscles of the leg, too, have a shorter purchase than a man's, hence the leverage between the trunk and the extremities is less. The strain of support is transferred to the back. Thus any work which requires long standing for a woman is injurious. All the pressure of the body's weight is brought to bear upon a portion where the sex organs and others are crowded together, and produces a dragging feeling above and about the hips. Women performing such work are especially liable to congestion of all the organs enclosed by the hip bones, because standing and the habit of resting on one leg only, causes a narrowing of the hips. This narrowing is especially apt to occur because the greater proportion of women workers are too young to have become securely and permanently established physiologically before going to work. The average age for men at work is between 25 and 30, whereas the average age for women is between 16 and 20. In 1900 49.3 per cent. of the women were under 25 years of age. In the silk, knitting and hosiery mills there are as many girls between 16 and 20 years as all women over 21 years. By far the greater number of girls do not break down while they are at work, but after leaving the work for matrimony the deformities caused by the work become apparent. Specifically the uterus is very apt to be crowded out of place, or to be congested. Menstruation is made irregular and difficult. Factory women frequently stand at their work to within a few hours before giving birth to a child, with the result of premature labor. Miscarriages occur oftener among factory wives than in the general population. It is more frequently necessary to use instruments in childbirth among such women.

The mill hands are not the only women who suffer from long standing. The girl clerks in department stores are subject to the same conditions. Although 37 states require seats to be placed for clerks, there is no law enforcing their use. Many stores have a rule that clerks must stand at all times, because they look less alert when seated. Clerks on the first floor are seldom allowed to sit down. When sitting is permitted at all, the number of seats is inadequate for the sales force. In