In urging the Bureau of Women in Industry to select this study of Industrial Seating from among the many subjects upon which there were requests for information, I had in mind the situation which for a number of years has seemed to me most unsatisfactory, namely, that while the statute books of many states contain laws requiring the provision of seats for women, there had never been any standardization, either commercial or legal, which made possible the provision of seats which were suitable, adapted to industry and helpful to the worker. Experience in attempting to enforce the laws requiring seats for women, has shown that many of the seats provided in good faith by the manufacturers, actually handicapped the girl in the performance of her work. If she were a piece worker the result was that she pushed the chair aside in order to keep up her production. If she were a time worker, her foreman sooner or later found ways of getting rid of this seat.

On the other hand, there have been many manufacturing processes and many machines at which even the most conscientious factory inspector has held that it was "not practicable" to provide a seat. This was usually because the process required a constant moving of the body from one place to another place.

Another result of this lack of standardization and ingenuity in industrial seating has been the provision of very uncomfortable stools and seats, merely ordered from some traveling salesman, without much thought of the relation which they bore to the anatomy and posture of the worker. Such irregularities as these, however, are to be expected until such time as standards can be intelligently established and maintained by responsible officers of administration.

In this present study, no stone has been left unturned to discover the best that human ingenuity has devised in the way of industrial seating. The relation of posture to health and efficiency has been treated with great care, and I believe with real wisdom. The principle and possibility of seats adapted to machinery and processes is firmly established. It is to be hoped that this report which is so practical in its suggestions, and so clear in its form of presentation, will be of great help to manufacturers in providing suitable and scientific industrial seating, and that it will result in less fatigue, greater comfort, better health, and higher efficiency for the workers whose labor and whose life is so important to this community.

FRANCES PERKINS, Commissioner of New York State Industrial Commission.