The Industrial Condition of Women and Girls in Honolulu: a Social Study

Part 1

The Industrial Condition OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU

A Social Study

FRANCES BLASCOER

(FORMERLY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE. NEW YORK CITY.)

Special Investigator for the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home for Young Women and Girls

Honolulu Social Survey

FIRST STUDY

HONOLULU, NOVEMBER, 1912

MR. GEO. W. SMITH, Chairman of the Executive Committee.

HON. WM. L. WHITNEY, Secretary.

HONOLULU SOCIAL SURVEY 1912

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS.

Vol. I. Industrial Condition of Women and Girls Frances Blascoer Vol. II. Dependent Children Frances Blascoer Vol. III. The Social Evil James A. Rath Vol. IV. Housing Conditions James A. Rath Vol. V. Family Budgets James A. Rath

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

Mrs. Frances M. Swanzey Chairman Committee on Industrial Conditions Mrs. Walter F. Dillingham Committee on Dependent Children Mr. John R. Galt The Social Evil Mr. George R. Carter Housing Conditions Miss Louise Gulick Family Budgets

NOTE:—Volumes Nos. I. and II. now ready. Nos. III., IV., and V. will appear later.

PREFACE

In preparing to submit the results of the five-months’ survey of Honolulu’s industrial conditions as they affect women and girls, the definition of a pessimist:—one who has just met an optimist,—has more than once floated warningly through my mind.

In the face of such a warning it is perhaps with mixed feelings one confesses to a conviction that much may be done to solve the problems of the community.

Workrooms are not overcrowded; the air and light are always good; there is no highspeed machinery; no processes dangerous to life and limb are unguarded; fines and penalties are unknown; shop girls work only eight hours a day, have an annual vacation with full pay for two weeks in most shops and of at least one week in all; clerks, stenographers and teachers may well feel that they have found here their earthly paradise both as regards hours and salaries.

As in other tropical communities, the struggle for existence is not agonizing. Even on kona days, throughout which all Honolulu wilts, night brings relief. The meanest tenement in Kakaako is swept by the cool trade winds that come down over the cloud-capped heights of Tantalus during the greater part of the year; and there is no dread of the coming of winter.

Kamaainas say that the aloha of the spirits of departed Hawaiians—who were in life gentle, generous to a fault, loving flowers and music, but caring most of all for their island home—forever guards their former haunts and exhorts all evil.

Honolulu itself tempts one: the Pacific ocean at the waterfront, changing from emerald to purple and sapphire, with the violet glow over all which transfers itself at sunset to the slopes of the grey-green hills backing the city; and between, the bungalow and cottage dotted city itself; most of its squares built up solidly with tiny dwellings surrounded by scarlet and pink flowered hibiscus hedges and shaded by feathery-leaved algarobas, cocoanut and date palms and multi-colored flowering trees; with ferns and vines everywhere.

One must look hard and often at the rectangular and unornamental tenement blocks which obtrude themselves indiscriminately from Kalihi-kai to Waikiki, before one remembers the law of supply and demand which is, alas, still in force although increasingly hard-pressed by public opinion, minimum wage-boards and the Industrial Workers of the World.

Before considering the supply and demand, however, I wish to express to the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home my keen appreciation of the opportunity to make the survey; especially in view of the fact that this work involved a considerable enlargement of the plan they originally had in mind when I was asked to come here. Conditions so clearly indicated the necessity for a comprehensive constructive social program that while a much more detailed piece of work might have been done in the industrial field, I question whether such detail would have developed anything more salient or pertinent than has been shown.

Since progressive thinkers agree that preventive measures make far more surely for social betterment than anything corrective which has yet been evolved, I have endeavored to gather together the measures which have been successfully placed in operation in other communities and to present to you for consideration such of them as fit your needs and conditions.

Three representative bodies engaged in social research: the Bureau of Municipal Research, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Consumer’s League,—all of New York City—cover practically the entire field and are always at the service of those who wish information or advice.

More personal service is needed everywhere in Honolulu. The best program possible to formulate soon becomes useless anywhere if carried on by unthinking, unprogressive, however well-intentioned methods.

Part 2

I wish to cordially thank the members of the Executive Committee and of the sub-committees of the Survey, and not the least the wage-earners of the community for the help and encouragement I have had. In spite of queries which briefness of time allotted to the study made it necessary at times to make directly of the latter, I have been received with the utmost good will and helpfulness by workers of all nationalities.

I am especially indebted to the books of Miss Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency; and of Miss Elizabeth Beardsley Butler, Women and the Trades, for valuable information and suggestion. No one interested in the welfare of wage-earners can fail to have his vision widened and clarified by these two pieces of work, prepared with infinite devotion and infinite care in the service of humanity both employing and employed.

FOREWORD

There is a world movement in uplift work for women. Along with the rest of the world Hawaii is awaking to this call. In all lines of endeavor there must be a working plan. But first must be facts “writ large” and plain. In view of this interest and the desire to do a vital work for the wage-earning girls and women of Honolulu, the Trustees of Kaiulani Home secured the services of a trained investigator, Miss Frances E. Blascoer of New York City, to make a study of industrial conditions among the working girls of Honolulu and to present a plan for the organization of a Vocational Bureau here in the islands.

With the coming of Miss Blascoer the vision grew; a social survey was attempted, a survey which should be the means of presenting to citizens and social workers the real state of industrial and housing conditions; the character of the amusements offered to our community; facts anent dependent children; facts concerning the devastation of the social evil.

Religious, moral, intellectual, professional and vocational education; community hygiene; sanitary regulations; the beautifying of Honolulu; all these demand the concerted action of women and men. And then, too, there is the “call of the children” that comes with such strength of appeal from the findings of the Juvenile Court. The dependent child must be considered. The crimes that imperil the virtue of unprotected little girls must not be hidden. The fact must be faced of the incursion of Hawaii by large numbers of unmarried men and the accompanying menace to young women. Unquestionably, the conditions under which girls and women work should be known by the public.

Churches, associations, clubs, individual philanthropists, should have accurate knowledge of social conditions; that pauperizing may be avoided and that the waste of duplication in charitable work may be avoided. Undoubtedly more light is needed for the conduct of benevolent enterprises, perhaps not more giving, but more “efficient giving.”

Miss Blascoer’s report on the industrial conditions of women and girls, it is believed, will prove a basis for the working out of many programs for community betterment. May it prove rich in suggestion to the women of Honolulu. May all put shoulder to shoulder in the task of solving the industrial problem of the girls and women in our midst, and may it give to those who earnestly seek, a mission, a vision of great opportunities. To those who give and to those who receive, may there result a meeting, not at the “crossroads” of mistrust and suspicion, but on the “main traveled thoroughfare” which leads to mutual helpfulness. Hasten the day of its arriving!

IDA M. POPE, President, Board of Trustees of Kaiulani Home.

TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS

The Industrial Committee of the Social Survey is composed of the following members:—

Bishop Restarick, Miss Ida M. Pope, Father Stephen, Dr. Doremus Scudder, Professor Edgar Wood, Mrs. May Wilcox, President A. F. Griffiths, Miss Kemp (who takes Miss Bosher’s place), Mrs. Walter F. Frear, Mrs. Frederick J. Lowrey, Miss Louise Gulick, Miss Nora Sturgeon, Mrs. Francis M. Swanzy, Chairman.

Its mission of inquiry into the condition of working girls and women in Honolulu has been conducted by three sub-committees, viz.—

(1) On Conditions in Homes. (2) On Conditions of Work. (3) On Conditions of Recreations and Amusements.

The first work done was in the way of inquiry into certain individual cases presented by Miss Blascoer; this brought helpful results. A seamstress inquiry was made by Mesdames Frear, Lowrey, Wilcox and Swanzy, in which 250 circulars were sent out. The various responses emphasize strongly the need of a training school for unskilled workers in this line. A stenographer and typewriter inquiry was conducted by Professor Wood, assisted by Messrs. George R. Carter, Walter Dillingham, A. F. Judd, G. P. Wilder and W. H. Baird, temporary members of the Sub-committee on Conditions of Work and constituting a representative group of business men especially interested. Perhaps the most interesting as well as most valuable inquiry was that into the social activities of the community, its Recreations and Amusements. President Griffiths prepared a list of the Public Amusements and, assisted by some twenty-six persons, undertook the investigation of the theatres, moving picture shows, dance halls, and parks. Mrs. Frear personally made a most exhaustive inquiry into the social activities of the many Churches of Honolulu, and Misses Bosher and Kemp did the same for the Schools; Miss Gulick did the work for the Missions and Settlements, Mrs. Lowrey for the several Miscellaneous Associations, while Mrs. Swanzy collected information regarding the fifty-odd Lodges and Fraternal Organizations.

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