Rev. Joseph Cook's Lecture on "Sex in Industry."

Your daughter is not at the looms, but her grand-daughter may be. Pace thoughtfully to and fro in the city slums, for your descendants may live there. In a republic, without the law of primogeniture or any artificial rank, personal position depends on personal effort. In America the children of Lazarus may rise to the position of Dives, and those of Dives may sink to the level of Lazarus; and, therefore, in America, neither Lazarus nor Dives can understand himself until the two have changed eyes. Under republican institutions the interests of the rich man are every man's interests, and the interests of the poor man are every man's also. Such is the mobility of American society that the cause of the working-girl is the cause of the parlour on Fifth Avenue; the cause of the poorest shop-boy is the cause of the millionaire; the cause of the woman behind the whirring wheels of trade, labouring under unspeakable circumstances and bringing into the world offspring tired from birth, is the cause of the most luxurious household that to-day kneels about any family altar on Beacon Street, or of late lifted up thanksgiving in any happy New England home.

I did not see the battle of Gettysburg, but I have seen the rank grass above the graves of those who fell there. I keep on my table a couple of paper-weights brought from what is called the wheat-field at Gettysburg, where men were found killed with the bayonet—a rare occurrence even in a great battle. My most vivid impressions of the carnage at Gettysburg came from the heavy growths I have seen above burial trenches in the meadows and from what I read there on the tombstones. We have all heard how a three-miles front of Artillery cannonaded another three-miles front, and how the rebel battle line, four miles long, charged on foot across the fruitful plain, and sunk great parts of it into the earth on the passage. Where the graves lie thickest we must take our position, if we would understand what Gettysburg was; and so, if in the carnage—for there is no other word to describe what is taking place—if, in the carnage occurring among young women and middle-aged women along an industrial battle line extending from St. Petersburg to San Francisco, to say page 26 nothing of barbaric lines where woman is as yet only an animal, we would understand what the danger is, we must take our position above her graves. We must stand at the trenches where she is buried six deep sometimes. They tell me that after Antietam a great trench was opened in the corn-field, and ruddy youth and stalwart manhood thrown in ten and fifteen deep and covered with earth four feet deep; and that, weeks after, when spectators passed by, the earth was seen to rise and fall every now and then in places, billowing up and down with a bubbling motion under the action of utterly unreportable circumstances beneath the surface. Now, I am no agitator and no alarmist. I cannot open all that festers in manufacturing centres in the Old World and begins to fester in the New, for you would not bear a frank discussion of it; but I can bring you to these industrial burial trenches.

What are some of the rank grasses above the graves? What are some of the inscriptions on the tombstones of female operative populations?

Then here is a report by Mr. Mundella, introducing Von Plener's history of English factory legislation.^* Frenchmen are remarkable for exact military statistics. Napoleon taught them how to keep good tables on the origin and fate of soldiers. France lately drew 10,000 conscripts from ten agricultural departments. The number rejected was 4,000. She drew 10,000 conscripts from ten industrial and factory departments; the number rejected was 9,900. There is an industrial battle-trench, and whoever will put his ear on the ground above what is buried in it will find processes going on beneath the surface that cannot be publicly described. In the department of the Marne and the lower Seine and the Eure —essentially manufacturing districts—against 10,500 adjudged to be fit for service—the number rejected was 14,000. If this is what happens to men, with their superior strength, what happens to women and girls, who constitute more than half of the modem operatives in textile factories?

Well, but this is France, you say. Facts like these, you think, can be gathered only from Europe. But I hold in my hand a report of your Massachusetts Bureau of Health, and I find in it an able document on the political economy of manufacturing towns, written by Dr. Edward Jarvis, of this commonwealth.

I shall trouble you to listen while I read the inscription on this Massachusetts tombstone. Or, rather, it is not a tombstone; it is only what I saw at Gettysburg again and again—a rude, frail, memorial tablet simply, and the word "unknown" written across it. Who can tell the names of those beneath this burial

^* P. 116.

page 27 service? In another generation they may be of your own blood. "In Massachusetts, during the seven years from 1865 to 1871, 72,700," says Dr. Jarvis, "died in their working period. In the fulness of life and the fulness of health they would have opportunity of labouring for themselves, their families, and the public in all three million six hundred thousand years. But the total of their labours amounts only to one million six hundred thousand years, leaving a loss of a million nine hundred thousand years by their premature deaths."

A million nine hundred thousand years of labour lost in Massachusetts between 1865 and 1871 by the premature deaths of 72,000 in their working period! "This was an average annual loss of 276,000 years of service! Thus it appears," continues this official document, "that in Massachusetts—one of the most favoured states of this country and of the world—those who died within seven years had contributed to the public support less than half, or only 46 per cent, of what is done in the best conditions of life."^*

Does the earth rise and fall above this slaughter-trench?

Would you have me suggest what I would have done? There has lately been called into Heaven a brave physician from this city, who dared discuss Sex in Education.^† His robe has fallen on many a physician now turning his attention to Sex in Industry.^‡ If I must uncover a little of what lies beneath this heaving surface, I shall do so by suggesting swiftly the change I demand; and not I only, but the medical profession at large, the best manufacturers themselves, and, more than all, the natural laws of the Supreme Powers, who are not elective and whose enactments are not likely to be repealed.

Dr. Clarke writes: "There is an establishment in Boston, owned and carried on by a man, in which ten or a dozen girls are constantly employed. Each of them is given and is required to take a vacation of three days every four weeks. It is scarcely necessary to say that their sanitary condition is exceptionally good and that the aggregate total amount of work which the owner obtains is greater than that when persistent attendanae and labour are required."

This, in brief, is what I want, and what the medical experts want; what your Board of Health wants, and what I believe the Supreme Powers want and ultimately will have. Until they

^* Fifth Report of Mass Board of Health.

^† See Prof. E. H. Clarke's remarkable monograph on that subject, Boston, 1875; also T. A. Gorton, M.D., "Principles of Mental Hygiene;" Henry Maudsley, M.D., "Sex in Mind and Education."

^‡ See Dr. Ames's suggestive work with this title, Boston, 1875.

page 28 obtain it these slaughter-trenches are to be filled, not by the agency of Supreme Powers, but by your legislation.

Standing yet at the side of these heaving sods on the wide industrial battle-field, I beg you to follow me along a line of propositions intended to emphasize the seriousness which comes to us as we study the rising and falling of this burial surface.

1. The mortality among girls increases between fourteen and eighteen, and among men between twenty-one and twenty-six.

This is a law for the two sexes wholly aside from any result of their occupations. How strong are your daughters to be when they go into this industrial contest? They are a part of a battle-front extending all the way from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Seas. It appears that they must march out upon the Gettysburg charge at about the time when their strength is most uncertain. The mortality of young persons of the female sex increases between fourteen and eighteen, when boys are toughest. In the yet sparsely-settled United States you have two hundred thousand girls under fifteen in this battle-front. You have two million females in your industries, and of these two hundred thousand are girls. Most of this number ought to be called children. By a child I mean any one under fourteen; by a young person any one between fourteen and eighteen; by a woman a female over eighteen. Experts of the first rank tell us that a great physiological law is violated in the age at which we admit girls who are children to work behind the looms. There is no prospect that this violated natural law will be repealed. In almost entire disregard of notorious physiological facts, you are sending girls more frequently than boys into many forms of manufactures. You require almost the same amount of physical strain from each, and often pay the girl not more than half of what you pay the boy. Is there any meanness in that? I have an indignation that cannot be expressed when I think of the physical limitations of woman, and of the manner in which she is obliged, when standing alone in the world, to strain all her strength to obtain half a man gets for the same labour.

2. The strength of the female is to that of the male as 16 to 26.

That is Dr. Draper's opinion.^* There are various judgments on this point; that is about the average estimate. Woman's muscles contract with less energy and are more easily wearied than those of man. Peculiarity of construction in the bones of the pelvis and chest give rise in woman to characteristic methods of walking and movement of the arm in attempting to throw a stone. We understand perfectly that in the foreground of this charging host the female operative has a strength only as 16

^* "Human Physiology," p. 546.

page 29 compared with 26 on the part of the male, and that the sickly period, from fourteen to eighteen, is a weight on this small strength; and yet we expect that these weaker soldiers in the industrial army will, in some sense, keep step with the strongest. The natural law violated here is not likely to he repealed.

3. The change of insects from the primary to the perfect or imago state is not a greater one than occurs in both sexes between the ages of twelve and sixteen, but earlier in most cases with the female than the male.

At the side of these burial-trenches you will allow me to mention, although I may not discuss, certain natural laws holy as the fire of Sinai.

4. By fixed natural law there exists on the part of woman, as there does not on the part of man, a necessity or need of a periodic rest.

5. On the part of the married woman, it is evident that the laws of health forbid, at certain definite periods, severe mental or physical labour.

6. As those laws of health for the two sexes differ and are not likely to be repealed, it is the wisdom of legislation to make its enactments coincide with those of the Supreme Powers.

And now what would I have?

7. As in France, a council of salubrity, so public discussion in this country, and commissions of inquiry, and advice of experts, and all the light we can obtain from every quarter, and not merely mediæval custom, should determine what employments are suited to women.

8. No woman should be engaged in employment unsuited to her sex and declared to be so by the council of salubrity.

9. No girl under fifteen should be employed in any of the occupations thus permitted to women.

10. Undoubtedly the human race would be the gainer if we did not employ a girl under eighteen in factory labour, unless by special permission from a surgeon.

11. In all employments opened to woman or considered advisable for her she should be permitted a periodic absence, without pecuniary loss.

Thank God that, without my uncovering this slaughter-trench, you understand what is beneath its surface. This proposition has been officially defended by your Massachusetts Labour Bureau, which has made a series of investigations of unequalled value as to the special effects of certain forms of employment on female health.^*

12. Additional vacations should be the right of women em-

^* See Report for 1875, Part II, especially pp. 70, 71, 76, and 111.

page 30 ployed in occupations requiring a high degree of mental and physical exertion.

13. Sanitary supervision of all large factories should, he furnished at the expense of the proprietors.

14. You must allow me to say, and to expand the proposition in a subsequent lecture, that in crowded rooms, where conversation is not interrupted by the noise of machinery, there may be a foul or a clean system of factory management; and that the mingling of the sexes, under careless overseers, and the filling of these rooms with profanity, and, possibly, with obscene conversation, from morning to night is not calculated to improve the moral condition of factory operative populations, containing, it may be, in time to come, your daughters and mine.

15. Married women should not be employed in factories without surgical certificates of fitness for the occupation.

There is a proverb in England to the effect that whoever among the female operatives can manage four looms at once is likely to be wed. "Hoo's a four-loomer, hoo's like to be wed," say the operatives on the banks of those canals in Manchester. I suppose that the concentration of attention required in the women who operate some of our most skilful machines is one source of the breaking down of the female constitution. The physicians tell us that this close mental application at work is exceedingly inimical to female health, especially when the labour must be performed standing. The printer at the case, if a male, stands easily and becomes accustomed to his position; but go into your printing offices and ask whether the sexes are physically equal in the ability to face the compositor's toil. Woman must be seated when she sets type. The general experience is that a woman cannot bear to stand at a machine as long as a man. Even in the schoolroom, speaking to her pupils, the female teacher does well to be seated most of the time. There are deep reasons, not to be discussed here, for giving a periodic rest to female operatives who must have brain in their finger-tips. She who sets the types the most swiftly, or she who manages the telegraph most skilfully may not need more mental concentration than she who manages four looms and is like to be wed. There must be no mistakes in her physical manipulations. There is penalty at once if a single thread breaks. I have seen at Lawrence and at Lowell machines so perfect that if a single thread is broken out of the multitudinous threads they spin they stop, like sensitive things of life, until the thread is mended. She who is a four-loomer must have her mind upon every thread, and this ten or twelve hours a day, and day after day.

Perhaps the summer day is hot, and she is at work under the roof. Perhaps the winter day is cold, and she must live in a page 31 poisonously vitiated hot atmosphere. Some of our factories are models in their sanitary arrangements, but some are not all. Our first-class manufacturing establishments I believe to be the best in the world. The third rate ones are as yet, however, the largest class. I am not assailing capitalists and employers as a mass. The third-rate men among the employers are careless, and have necessitated the factory legislation of the Old World and the New. I have on my side constantly in this discussion of socialism and labour reform the best sentiment of the higher class of manufacturers. It may easily happen that this poor woman works in a third-rate establishment. It may be that she is not allowed proper time for her meals. It may be that this intense mental concentration has no periodic rest. It may be that her own support and that of her family depends upon her steady labour in these unfavourable physical conditions. The result is in seven cases out of ten that she goes into this industrial slaughter-trench before she is fifty. The certainty is, as I have shown you, that in a multitude of cases, so numerous as to be absolutely terrific, the operative populations pass out of the world by premature deaths.

It is said that for every one that dies prematurely there are two sick most of the time. If you take the records I have read to you on these tombstones of the dead ones who have gone under the sod, and multiply their numbers by two, you will obtain the records of the sick ones who lie on the couches of languishing more or less often. I speak, I think, wholly within bounds when I say that the tossing of this earth above the slaughter-trench is not the whole horror. The tossing of the coverlids on beds of pain is another portion of the evil; but the largest horror of all is the coming into the world of populations not capable of sustaining the burdens likely to be put upon them from the very outset. The rising and falling of the coverlids which are spread over the already sick limbs of unborn generations are what sicken me most. I am horrified by this heaving surface of earth above the trench; I am horrified by these sick-beds; but when I think that the citizen is taxed before he is born, and of what Edmund Burke used to say about the object of government being to make strong men and strong women, and good citizens, and to educate them, and that nothing is worth anything in government unless good men and good women are the result; when I think of the effect of these factory abuses upon factory populations, once become hereditary, I look up to Almighty God, and pray Him in the name of His own most holy laws to fasten our eyes upon the slaughter of the innocents. The aged, you say, are not to be pitied, but even the mediaeval baron had pity for his aged and infirm retainers. Middle age, you think, can take care of itself; but what of the unborn, and those that are to come in a long page 32 procession into this serried front of the industrial battle-line in ages yet ahead of us?

Where is the old spirit of New England that looked forward and founded institutions for generations not yet visible on the verge of coming time? Webster's eyes were always fastened on the responsibility of the present to the future. Advance, coming generations! was his perpetual salutation to the ages before him. Where are his successors? Where are the men who, looking on the abuses in industrial populations, dare so reform them as to be able to gaze into the face of God and say: Advance, future generations to better conditions than heathendom gave you and to better than the Old World allowed you. Advance to circumstances in which socialism can seem only a nightmare. Advance to such treatment that you shall yourselves be convinced that Dives and Lazarus, God's hand on the shoulder of the one and His hand on the shoulder of the other, have at last in the history of industry been brought face to face, and, to the profit of both, have changed eyes.