Employment of Women in the Clothing Trade, The.
[Labor]. Willett, Mabel Hurd, Ph.D. The Employment of Women in the Clothing Trade. Studies in history, economics, and public law. Edited by the faculty of Political Science of Columbia University. New York / London: Columbia University Press (The Macmillan Company, Agents) / P.S. King and Son, 1902.
8vo.; sewn wrappers; cloth tape spine.
In her preface to this journal issue, Willett states that her goal in presenting the results of her study is “to reveal special economic and social facts and relations, not to establish or defend any particular methods of regulation.” How the labor of women should be regulated or restricted is not a debate to which Willett wishes to add her voice. Rather, she wants to present her observations regarding women’s labor in order to objectively document what sort of work women are doing within the clothing industry, and how trade unions and labor legislation have effected that work in recent years. Hurd gives special attention to the differences between women who work in factories and shops (the unskilled / skilled factory employees) and women who work from their homes (home finishers), addressing the problem of how to legislate labor for both groups.
However, despite Willett’s claim to impartiality, her study concludes by considering the potential consequences of the United Garments Workers efforts to abolish the employment of home finishers, clearly coming down on the side of home workers. Such an act would compel many home workers to give up their jobs, she feels, in favor of family and other domestic duties. Though it is true that women who work from their homes are harder to organize and protect under the same laws that are enforced in shops and factories, and though their product is more difficult to regulate, their labor is still valuable and it is possible to guard the interests of employers and the purchasers of the goods in question without suppressing work opportunities for “industrious wives and mothers.”
Willett looks up in standard references under neither “Hurd,” perhaps her maiden name, nor Willett.
(#5479)
Print Inquire
