Part 6

A gatherer, who had had long experience, “made a fuss” when the gathering machine was introduced, and was given an opportunity to operate it at a wage of eighteen dollars, the regular rate paid to men for this work. Young girls were employed to fill the boxes. The other gatherers were obliged to learn other processes in this establishment or seek work elsewhere.

The important fact common to these stories is that there was no systematic effort to prevent the maladjustment which was due not to the inefficiency of the workers but to change in industrial organization. The displaced employes had not been in a position accurately to foresee these changes; the appearance of the machine in the workroom was usually their first warning that they must seek other occupations. Time was lost in the effort to make the required readjustments. It does not appear that this loss of time was a necessary evil. On the other hand, it is evident that solutions were possible, and that the suffering of the workers was due to the fact that readjustments were matters of chance rather than forethought.

There is another fact, almost as important as the introduction of machinery, and that is the failure to introduce it. Of the 306 binderies visited in the course of this investigation, including temporary departments of printing offices, lithographing establishments and other branches of the industry, there were only nine in which no handworkers were employed.

In 234 some machine was used. In 66 no machines were used. In 6 the use of machines was not ascertained. In 20 a gathering machine was found. In 269 no gathering machine was found. In 17 the use of a gathering machine was not ascertained. In 112 a folding machine was found. In 181 no folding machine was found. In 13 the use of a folding machine was not ascertained.

Several employers discussed the use of machinery and gave their reasons for not introducing it. Small firms could not run the risk of investing capital in machines which might change soon again. It was better to be a specialist in one process and give out part of the work to other establishments. Others did not have large enough orders to keep a machine for one process in motion all day. High rents prevented others from providing larger space for machinery. Others were inert. As long as there were girls willing to take low wages for handwork, it was just as well to continue in the old way.

This failure to introduce machines brings about a diversity in methods which is very confusing to the worker. It prevents the establishment of a standard and makes necessary a different bargain in each factory. “You see every bindery is a little different,” said one woman; “when you go to a new place you never can tell what it will be like.” In so far as machines compel uniformity, they help to standardize both processes and conditions of work.

The way in which machinery breaks up a trade into establishments making a specialty of one branch of work has been noted. The other form of specialization is illustrated in the case of employes who practise only one process in the workroom. This sort of specialization does not seem to be inevitable. In a bindery in New York where there were machines for every process, “all round” workers were in demand, and those who could turn from one process to another were not laid off. But, however great may be the demand for employes experienced in more than one line of work, it is the tendency of machinery to force a worker to practise only one. If you are a piece-worker, to lose practise means to lose wages. On the other hand, the machine will not yield its maximum profit unless it be kept in constant operation. Thus while general practise in all branches of the trade brings to the worker the desirable power of adjustment to changing conditions, nevertheless the employer’s wish to keep his machines in motion, and the piece worker’s eagerness not to lose the speed which comes from constant practise, both tend to organize the bindery force in separate departments, whose workers are not interchangeable. The same demand of the machine, that it be fed with enough work to keep it in constant motion, forces the employer either to specialize in one department, or to secure more orders and to enlarge his establishment.

It is obvious that the larger the establishment, the more successful will be the attempt to keep every machine in motion throughout the working day. The feeder of the machine will then have little opportunity to practise other processes. “Establishments are now so large that a woman learns only one process,” said one superintendent; “for example, she becomes a sewer and does nothing but that.” In the light of this fact, the census figures showing the size of establishments are significant. In New York State in 1905, 53.9% of the total number of wage earners were employed in 26 binderies, 8.6% of the total number of establishments in the trade. There were 6 more binderies counted in New York State in 1905 than in 1900 (304 in 1905, 298 in 1900) while wage earners increased 11.6% or 832 in number.

Specialization shows itself in another way, namely, in an inability to turn from one kind of product to another. There is a large bindery in New York where several periodicals are bound. A girl employed there complained of the irregularity of her work. “It seems pretty hard on a girl,” she said, “to have to stay home two days in the week and then have to work so hard the other days.” Her employment was due to the different methods of binding different periodicals. Two weekly magazines were brought to the bindery on Tuesday and must be mailed on Thursday. Hand folders and wirestitchers were needed to bind them. An engineer’s magazine must be bound between Tuesday and Friday. The work on this was hand folding, gathering by machine, and sewing by machine, instead of wirestitching. Another publication was brought from the printer on Friday and issued on Monday. It was folded by machine and wirestitched. On Friday evening and Saturday there was no work for a hand folder or an operator of the sewing machine. Wednesday was the busiest day in the bindery; two magazines must be completed for the mailers on Thursday. Overtime was usual on that day. This girl could fold by hand, fill the gathering machine and operate the sewing machine. She worked from Tuesday to Friday. The issues of the magazine had been smaller than usual and her earnings were reduced. She reported that at hand folding, if there were plenty of work, she could earn seventy-five cents or a dollar a day. For filling the gathering machine the rate was eighteen cents an hour or one dollar fifty-three cents a day. But there had been so little work that her earnings in the past three weeks had been:

January 4th-10th, $3.19; January 11th-17th, $7.75; January 18th-26th, $3.21.

If she had been steadily employed, she could have earned five or six dollars a week as a hand folder, or nine dollars and nine cents for filling the gathering machine. “There isn’t much chance for a sewer any more in magazine binderies,” she said; “you know nearly all the magazines used to be sewed, but now they are wirestitched.”

When different kinds of orders demand different processes, the specialist must be prepared to face not only change in machinery, but change in the size or character of her employer’s orders. This sort of change may affect the organization of the workroom. Recently a magazine, which had been gathered by machine, was enlarged by doubling the size of its pages. Thereafter a force of inserters was employed, and there was no work for gatherers. It may affect the process and its demands on the worker. In one bindery a little girl was employed to cut off books for one machine, earning four dollars. “I can keep up with the machine when the books are the right size,” she said; “but it’s awful when they’re thin.” It may affect wages. One girl who had been employed to operate the sewing machine in the book department was transferred to the magazine department where her work was to look over sheets folded by machine and to fill the boxes of the gathering machine. Her pay was reduced from ten dollars to a wage varying from five to seven dollars according to the kind of work assigned to her. This transfer from work on one product to another requiring different processes was due to the fact that much of the book work formerly done by this firm was withdrawn by a large publishing house which had recently organized its own bindery.

If we trace the history of the folding machine or the gathering machine we find that with the development of automatic feeding devices the tendency is to dispense with the work of women and to employ men to care for the machines. It is not a displacement of women by men; it is rather the substitution of rubber fingers or other automatic feeders for women’s hands, and as a result a reorganization of the force.

What then is the meaning of the census figures which tell us that in 1870 30% of the bookbinders were women and 70% were men, while in 1900, 51.6% were women and 48.4% were men? In the absence of any data as to the number employed in different branches of the trade in 1870 and in 1900, the answer must be in part merely hypothetical. Judging by present tendencies in the trade the cause of change in the proportion of men and women would appear to be twofold. It has been pointed out that the share of women in hand binding is relatively small, that they do only the folding, gathering and sewing, and that the numerous processes of forwarding and finishing are usually in the hands of men. Hence in the early days of the trade, when hand binderies predominated, men were in the majority. In the development of the industry two important changes have taken place. With the introduction of machinery, many processes of forwarding and finishing were omitted, while others were combined in one simple operation. At the same time there was a great increase in the production of pamphlets, which need only to be folded, gathered, stitched and covered. The first decreased the relative number of men needed in edition binderies; the second increased the demand for the processes always performed by women. Thus it would appear that without any shifting of the line between men’s work and women’s work, the proportion of women steadily increased between 1870 and 1900.

If during the three decades between 1870 and 1900 there was a struggle between men and women and a transfer of processes to women, it seems to have left no trace on present trade conditions. The instances of this kind of transfer are so scattered as to seem the exceptions that prove the rule. The possibility of carrying on more processes than their present share in the trade does not appear to be a burning question among the women. One employer, in charge of an edition bindery, said that the issue had never been raised. “The women would just say, ‘It’s men’s work.’” One girl, who had fed a ruling machine, work requiring no skill, was asked if she had ever wished to learn to operate the machine. “Oh, no,” she said; “ruling is gentlemen’s work. There are no lady rulers. The gentlemen have their hands in the ink pots all day, and no lady wants to get her hands inked like that.” “A woman can learn to feed the ruling machine in a day,” said another; “she doesn’t need to bother with managing it.” “The smell of the glue is awful,” said another, speaking of covering; “it’s men’s work.” Another, describing a machine which could fold, gather and insert, said, “It’s men’s work,” although each one of these processes formerly had belonged to women.

Nor do employers appear to have given much thought to the question. One, an “art binder,” said that the work of women was restricted only by the trade union, and that they were capable of doing men’s work. He added, however, that a woman would find it difficult to do the work fast enough to make it profitable. Another, the superintendent of an edition bindery, said that the work of women was restricted by capacity, not by the rule of any organization; they would not have strength to handle the machines which the men operate. Another, a “job binder,” said that he employed women for temporary work only, because they were not strong enough to lift books and be “generally useful.” “If you employ a woman, you can’t give her anything but sewing,” said another job binder; “while a man can turn his hand to other things.”

But the superintendent of a magazine bindery said that there was no process in his workroom which could not be done by women. “I could put a girl to work operating the cutting machine,” he said, “if I paid her eighteen dollars a week. I could have a woman tend the large folding machines if I paid the union scale. I don’t know why I don’t, except that I don’t see any good reason why I should.”

In the course of the inquiry, there have been more numerous instances of the transfer of women’s work to men and boys. Men have been found operating folding machines and sewing machines, feeding the ruling machines and folding and sewing by hand. Boys have been found emptying boxes of the folding machine, sewing by hand, cleaning off the books after they have been stamped, and operating the wirestitching machine. The development of automatic feeding devices for the folding machine and the invention of gathering machines and covering machines have caused these processes to be transferred to men in many binderies. Indeed, the census of 1905 showed that in the five years since 1900 the number of bindery women had not increased so rapidly as the number of men, and that women no longer outnumbered men.

A woman who had fed a point folding machine and was displaced by the “automatic” tended by a man, remarked, “A man is paid according to what he knows, and not according to what he does.” It is certainly true that the tender of a large complex machine, with all the devices for feeding itself, must be one who knows rather than one who does. Women, without mechanical training, have small chance of adjusting themselves to new occupations.

In view of these changes, the future of women’s work in binderies is hard to predict. In art binding a few well-educated women have proved themselves capable of performing every process from the folding of the sheets to the tooling of the cover. There would seem to be an opportunity for growth in this branch of the trade, and it is the opinion of some binders that women could be trained to carry on this work in all its departments. In machine binderies it would seem to be largely the lack of mechanical skill, or of opportunity to acquire it, which prevents women’s adjusting themselves to new inventions.

The bookbinding trade is not an example of extraordinary industrial evils. Its significance is to be found rather in its illustration of the common lot of women in many occupations. It is not alone in binderies that conditions of industry change rapidly; that machines cause a reorganization of work and then give place to new inventions and new conditions; that speed seems to be the most essential requirement; that women work exhaustingly long hours in the busy season; that specialization appears inevitable, although the continual repetition of one process weakens the power of adjustment which is most needed in a changing environment; that irregularity of employment means loss of all or part of the wages in the dull season; and that the income at best is scarcely sufficient for self support. The experiences of bindery girls illustrate these conditions, yet they also point to several possible methods of improvement.

The encouraging facts in connection with women’s work in binderies in New York are, first, that the state has already begun a policy of deliberate intervention. It has prohibited the employment of children under fourteen years of age. It has safeguarded them between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, limiting their working hours to eight in a day. It has made increasingly strict demands regarding the sanitary conditions of factories. It has recognized the principle of limiting the hours of labor of women, however faulty its provision may be for this purpose.

Second, there is a growing interest in industrial education in public schools.

Third, more than twelve hundred bindery women in New York are members of the women’s local of the bookbinders’ union, while a league of employers has been formed to deal collectively with the union and thus to “abolish in the bindery trade the system of making individual labor contracts, and to introduce the more equitable system of forming collective labor contracts.”

The bindery girls’ experiences indicate that in so far as adaptation to change is a matter of chance, women are not profiting by changes or gaining new opportunities. On the contrary their standard of living is menaced by uncertainty. The danger to be feared is the danger of neglect. The remedy would seem to be the substitution of forethought for chance, the safeguarding of minimum standards by education, organization and legislation.

FOOTNOTES:

This article is based on a chapter of a report not yet published on women’s work in binderies in New York. It is the result of an investigation carried on for the Alliance Employment Bureau of New York from the autumn of 1907 until the spring of 1909. Every bindery in the borough of Manhattan was visited, and 205 women employed in the trade were interviewed at their homes or in the office of the bureau.

U. S. Census, 1900. Occupations, pp. LII, CXXXVI.