III.

DETAILED REPORTS BY INDUSTRIES.

1. WEARING APPAREL.

BY MARGARET S. DISMORR.

A. Introductory.

The scope of home work, once a complete industrial system in itself, has been continuously narrowed and restricted in the manufacture of wearing apparel. Since the introduction of power machinery, specialization has invaded the field of the home worker, and her work is confined more and more to the mere finishing and manipulating of machine products which were once entirely the product of the home. Instead of the homestitched shirt of Thomas Hood's day, we now know only the factory product; but the home worker still turns the collar and cuffs and occasionally makes the buttonholes. Instead of home-knit sweaters and hose and underwear, we have machine-knit garments from the factory, but many of these garments are still home-finished. The factory shoe has all but superseded the home product, but the bow on the shoe and the beading on the slipper are still made at home almost without exception in Massachusetts.

The mechanical inventions which threatened to take production out of the home have, by their very deficiencies, created many new kinds of home work; but the home worker is not solely an improver of machine products. Any process requiring little skill or supervision and a minimum of mechanical which does not involve the use of valuable or bulky materials, may usually be found in the home. Some of the processes which possess. all of these characteristics, and therefore commend themselves perfectly to home work, are: Reeling straw braid, making shoe bows, and knotting fringe for dress trimmings.

power,

Manufacturers of wearing apparel secure workers in three ways: By advertisement, through personal acquaintance and the application of the women themselves for the work, and through agents.

Newspaper advertisements such as the following may be found in the Sunday editions of the Boston newspapers:

Such advertisements attract numbers of applicants, but many are untried workers and this entails loss of time and materials until the more desultory and the less efficient have been weeded out. Occasionally an attempt is made to discourage those workers who are suspected of coming from dirty homes or of trying to live upon their home work earnings. This is easily effected by ordering them to apply to the State Board of Labor and Industries for a license, reducing the rate of pay, giving them a less profitable kind of work, or simply refusing to employ them.

The method of securing home workers used by factories in small towns and country districts is a very simple one. The work is at first given only to the manufacturer's family and then to other persons connected with the factory. If it proves satisfactory they are allowed to show their friends how to do it and the circle of home workers widens. Soon it becomes a matter of common knowledge among the neighbors that the knitting mill or the shirt shop is giving out work, and the applications for it are numer ous. Simultaneously, the rates of payment go down. Home work once started in a small community may, in the course of a generation or two. become an established custom so that country factories are able to cling to it when those in larger centers have long since adopted more modern methods. Securing home workers through agents or contractors is a de velopment of the preceding method.

The prominence of the home worker in almost every industry connected with the manufacture of wearing apparel appears to be due in part to its seasonal character. The manner in which the workers adjust themselves to industrial seasons is particularly noticeable in their relations to such variable industries as the manufacture of straw hats, hand-knit goods,

women's neckwear, and men's coats and pants. Pay-rolls of factories in these industries show relatively greater fluctuation in the total amount paid to home workers month by month than in the amount paid to factory workers, and similarly the number of outworkers varies through the year more than the number in the factory. Many manufacturers give up home work entirely during the dull season, which may last from a few weeks to six months, a fact often mentioned by them in support of the statement that home workers never try to live on their earnings.

Home work, then, is largely confined to the simpler processes and is most general in the seasonal industries; but it is not confined to any particular grade or kind of article. It is hardly possible to walk down the aisles of any department store without seeing ample evidence of the home worker's activity. The embroidered baby-clothes sold at a first-class store are as likely to have come from the hands of a home worker as the cheapest neckwear on the bargain counter, and the consumer can not avoid homework products by paying reasonably high or even extravagant prices. On the whole, however, there is less home work in connection with custommade than with ready-made clothing, and with men's than with women's and children's garments.

The relation of home work to factory work varies widely in the different establishments studied. Many manufacturers have all their work done in homes and have no factory or only such rooms as are necessary for preparing and inspecting the work done outside; they often use home, office, or store for this purpose. Others have home work upon a small proportion of their product only, most of it being factory-made; some send out all of their product to home workers for some minor process, as in the case of shirt manufacturers; others again have home work and factory work in connection with the same process. This last combination sometimes indicates a transitional stage between home and factory where the machine process is gradually superseding hand work, but more usually it is due to lack of space for a full number of inside workers at the busy season or to the use of inside workers as sample makers whose product is copied by home workers.

Home workers constituted over four-tenths of the total number of persons employed by 57 wearing apparel factories reporting on this point, but received only one-tenth of the total amount paid in wages. This shows beyond question the incidental character of home-work earnings. Home workers do not earn and usually do not attempt to earn a living wage.

Most of the home work on wearing apparel is distributed directly to the workers. Usually they or their children call at the office, store, or

factory from which the work is given out, but in some cases, where materials are exceptionally bulky, the factory sends a team to deliver and collect work at regular intervals. Indirect distribution, through contractors, middlemen, or agents, is the usual method when the home workers live in country districts or at a distance from the factory, when they are immigrants and can not be communicated with except through one of their own race, or when the work-materials are of some value and personal oversight is necessary to prevent loss or theft on the part of the workers. The following groups of wearing apparel industries are treated in this report:

Hosiery and Machine-knit Goods,

Suspenders, Garters, and Elastic Woven Goods,

Other Wearing Apparel - Gloves, Straw Hats, and Hand-knit Goods,

There appears to be but little home work on corsets and ostrich feathers found in Massachusetts. Four corset makers were interviewed, two of whom had never employed home workers, one used to employ them at stitching but has now given up the system, and one reported home work of a very occasional nature, the boning of a cheap grade of corset. The regular home work on corsets seems to be confined to making garters, which is not done directly for corset makers but for the garter manufacturers who supply them. The two ostrich feather shops reported no regular home work, but occasionally knotting willow plumes was done at home by their inside workers.

The men's clothing industry of Massachusetts centers in Boston, where 169 of the 174 establishments visited are situated.1 The remaining five are in Springfield and North Brookfield.

The large manufacturers of Boston are mostly on Washington Street and in the wholesale district, while their contract tailors are to be found

The Bureau of Statistics in its Report on the Statistics of Manufacturers for 1912 presented returns for 158 manufacturers of men's clothing in Boston. The difference between this figure and that given above is due in large part to the inclusion in the present study of a greater number of small custom establishments.

in the tenement district of the North End surrounded by their labor force. Only four of the large firms do the actual tailoring of the garments on their own premises, and three of these give out home work on ready-made pants. The others subdivide the work on coats, vests, and pants among contract tailors, to whom they send the cut-out garments to be made up at a stated price a dozen. Thus, each manufacturer has usually at least one coat maker, vest maker, and pants maker, and these tailors do all the work except designing, cutting, and trimming.

Practically all of the contract tailors for whom addresses were obtainable were visited, but the constant shifting of such small establishments made them hard to trace. Many had closed their shops on account of a labor disturbance. Eighty-six were interviewed, 36 of whom gave out home work. Very few of these kept complete pay-rolls and addresses of home workers. Thirty-nine whose shops were closed could not be traced. In addition, 16 shops engaged in the manufacture of knee-pants, overalls, and other tailored garments were visited. From only two of these was home work given out. The heads of the establishments visited were mainly Russian Jews, a few were American or British, and the remainder mostly Italian.

Home work was found to be general in the manufacture of ready-made pants. It was occasionally found on coats and custom pants. No home work on vests, overalls, or knee-pants was found, but two overall manufacturers employed home workers on heavy shirts and sailor blouses. In general, there is less home work on custom than on ready-made garments.

Home work on coats is confined to the making of buttonholes and is only used to supplement the work of shop employees at exceptionally busy times. The home workers are paid at the same rate as inside workers, three cents a hole being the rate of payment for holes which a quick worker is said to make at the rate of one dozen an hour.

Home work on pants consists of finishing, i.e., sewing on 11 buttons, making the upturn at the bottoms, putting on buckles, sewing in stiffening and lining at the waist, and taking out basting threads. When this is done the garments are pressed at the shop and are then ready for sale. Sometimes the home work includes in addition one or more of the following processes: Tacking down pockets, sewing in hanger and manufacturer's label, making five buttonholes, and putting rubber in the upturn at the bottoms. The rate of pay, which is the same for both shop and home workers, varies from 71% to 912 cents a pair; the usual rate is one dollar a dozen or eight cents a pair, the work on a single pair requiring a little over one hour in most cases. Heavy bundles of pants may be seen carried