Young Working Girls.
[Labor]. Addams, Jane, Introduction. Woods, Robert A. and Albert J. Kennedy, ed. Young Working Girls. A summary of evidence from two thousand social workers. Edited for the National Federation of Settlements. With an introduction by Jane Addams, Its First President. Boston: The Riverside Press Cambridge…New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, (1913).
8vo.; contemporary ownership signature on front endpaper; dark red cloth, stamped in gilt; light wear to extremities.
First edition. In her brief foreword, Addams emphasizes that although the study is focused on young girls working in the most crowded sectors of cities and in the least skilled industries, it is still significant for “the young girl is quite as sensitive when she is rudely jostled in noisy tenement houses and factories as she is when she is sheltered in the silence of woods and country lanes.” Young girls, she continues, are especially vulnerable to exploitation due to their “standards of romance as old as the world.”
Woods and Kennedy detail the moral plight of working girls resulting from the “deficiency of family life” in working class families. Based on the evidence gathered from reports of hundreds of social workers, this summary surmises that poor living conditions and the stress of poverty can lead to moral laxness in children from homes with two working parents.
Work schedules during daylight hours force young women to take their recreation in the evenings, which results in “bad emotional habits” and a fierce desire for a “share in the profusion of pleasure” which is “everywhere on sale.” It is natural for young women to become conscious of their sex at a certain age, but dangerous when this newfound consciousness develops in the work environment, before the young woman has learned to “weigh and judge” and not just be led into “various adventures with members of the other sex.” Woods and Kennedy outline how women can be morally redeemed through character-building “constructive recreation” and an avoidance of certain industries which have proven to be especially detrimental to the development of young girls.
The bottom line, according to the authors, is that equality of women in the workplace has had many moral repercussions, and therefore, it is crucial that society protect the newest members of its labor force and ensure that morality is not compromised by the freedom gained from earning a living wage.
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