The 100 employees who were questioned, particularly in reference to their hours when the busy season was at its height, furnish the basis of this report. In the consideration of any extended hours of labor the time worked on Saturday must be borne in mind, since for 90 per cent of the employees reporting the total hours per week of 6 days do not average 10 hours per day. Of the 13 establishments visited, 7 report practically a half day on Saturday, 4 of these having a 5-hour day and the remainder having 51, 51, and 53, respectively. Three factories reported the work for Saturday as extending over 71, 81, and 9 hours, respectively. The three reporting 91, 12, and 121, respectively, each had a retail store in connection with the factory. The total hours worked per week as secured from the individual employees varied from 42 to 67, inclusive. The following table shows the per cent of women reporting in each of the five selected groups of hours:

At first glance this table seems to indicate that but a small percentage of the 100 women worked more than 10 hours a day. With the exception of the first group, the hours do not show an excess of 60, which might indicate a 10-hour day. But as Saturday is frequently a 5-hour day, the working day of the women in the clothing industry can not be divided into six even sections. If the 5 hours for Saturday be subtracted, all the women who worked more than 55 hours, i. e., 34 per cent, had some days of more than 10 hours in the remaining 5 days.

The work is not regular for all workers, even in the busy seasonsone day may be long and the next one short. In the midst of a great rush employees may be suddenly reduced to idleness because the work is held up somewhere in the course of its manufacture.

Of the 100 women reporting, 65 per cent were time workers and 35 per cent were pieceworkers. With the exception of 3 individuals, the highest earnings were made by the pieceworkers. The individual tabulations show, however, that the highest earnings do not accompany the longest hours. The earnings of the women pieceworkers in the clothing industry are dependent as much upon the piece rate, the speed and skill of the worker, the character and quality of the work and its regular supply as upon the number of working hours.

The piece rate varies according to the character of the work. If the material is of inferior grade the rate is low; if the work required. is merely preparation work, such as sewing up seams or making small sections of the garment, the rate is likewise low. The worker in both these instances must do a large quantity of work to make what she considers a fair wage. Where a woman is expert either on hand or machine work, and sufficient work of high grade is available, she has no difficulty in bringing her weekly earnings in the busy season to $15 or more. All the employees know that the pressure of work can last but a short time and, regardless of their own physical discomforts, are anxious to secure all the work they can handle.

In factories of moderate size the woman who can make the complete garment, particularly cloaks or skirts, receives the highest rates and is given every opportunity to make what she can during the rush season. She is especially valuable to her employer because, aside from her skill and speed in given occupations, she saves him the expense of "extra" hands who could do merely the simplest forms of preparatory or finishing work. The rates paid these expert workers were the highest reported. One woman who made the whole cloak, except putting in the lining, said that she averaged from 30 to 50 cents per hour, and that her earnings were $18 for a week of 57 hours.

An interesting fact revealed by the accompanying tabulations of busy season hours and earnings is that the highest earnings do not necessarily accompany the longest hours. For example, a comparison of skirt makers shows that Operator No. 5 on the individual tabulations, who stated that she could make 40 cents per hour, reported only $18, although she worked 61 hours in the week, while No. 92, who made 35 cents per hour, earned $17.40-60 cents less than No. 5, though she worked a week of but 49 hours. It should be borne in mind that this difference in the earnings of workers apparently of the same grade may be due as much to the irregularity of the supply of work as to a difference in the speed of the workers.

Some operators qualified their report as to earnings per hour by saying that if the work were steady they could always make as much as they reported, but often they were delayed because garments were sent elsewhere to be embroidered and the operator had to await the return of the goods. When these garments were returned there would be a great rush to get them finished, and the earnings could be expected to rise to $18 or $20 per week. In such a period long hours are likely to occur.

The following table shows the hours classified according to the earnings of one week in the busy season of 1909:

One woman here reported $27.37, maximum earnings of all reporting.
One woman here reported $21.60, maximum earnings of skirt makers reporting.

The normal hours, according to the establishment reports, ranged from a week of 62 hours to one of 50 hours. Both employers and employees reported that in the dull season the hours per day and days per week were most irregular. Some of the women stated that while they might report every day unless specially notified not to do so, they frequently had only a half day's work or less. In the tabulations the estimated normal earnings are based more on the hours for a regular week as reported by the women who were at work in the clothing industry in 1909 than on amount of work or any special pressure of work. The estimates probably err therefore in being too high, even for the normal hours as reported, and do not, of course, in any sense indicate the actual income of the workers for any considerable portion of the year. They but serve to throw light on the working hours in clothing establishments covered by this investigation, compared with the hours and earnings in other selected industries included in this report.

THE CORSET INDUSTRY.

The business of making corsets is a fair illustration of a "level industry" throughout the year. It is also a good example of a lowpaying industry, as the tabulation of the hours and earnings of

individual employees for a single week given at the end of this article will show. It should be borne in mind, however, in comparing these earnings with those in some of the industries of a more seasonal nature, that the women engaged in making corsets have steadier employment. The difference in yearly earnings in all probability is not so great as the difference in their weekly earnings would suggest.

The work of making corsets is highly organized, and division of labor is carried to such an extent as to leave each worker but a simple task. Neither is there anything in the nature of the occupations to render the accompanying tabulation of hours and earnings more or less significant than their number would indicate. The most striking feature in the tabulation is the great number of women whose weekly earnings are below $6-both in the column for earnings during busy seasons and for normal rate of pay. As the hours rarely exceed 60 per week, the slightly increased activity in the fall and spring would express itself in a higher working pressure, and consequently more pay for those working on the piece-rate basis. The time workers do not get extra pay even for the occasional overtime. Of those reporting normal weekly earnings, over 60 per cent fail to make as much as $6 a week, and over 40 per cent earn less than $6 even during the busiest season. On the other hand, they rarely have such extremely dull seasons, or seasons when there is no work at all, as the employees in other industries encounter.

NEIGHBORHOOD DEPARTMENT AND SMALL RETAIL STORES.

The hours of work here recorded are for women working in the neighborhood department and small retail dry-goods stores of Chicago. Such stores are located in districts several miles to the south, west, and north of the large department stores on State street. These districts are thickly settled by foreigners, where the women shop with shawls over their heads and negotiate purchases in their native language.

The general conditions and the working hours for the women. employed in the large downtown stores have been comprehensively studied in other investigations of the Bureau of Labor (") and have changed so little that no study of them was made in connection with the present investigation. Since mercantile establishments are not included under the 10-hour law in Illinois, there are no restrictions on the number of hours which women may be called upon to work in these establishments. For the downtown stores the regular hours are from 8 o'clock in the morning until 6 in the evening, with three-quarters of an hour for luncheon. These hours may be shortened a half

a Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States: Vol. V, Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories. 1910. (61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 645.)

hour either in the morning or evening for a part of the employees, but the normal hours for all are either 8, 83, 9, 94, or 94 hours each day. Speaking of the wage-earning women in the stores in 1908 and 1909 the report on wage-earning women in stores, factories, mills, etc., already referred to, says:

* *

In addition to the regular hours of work, nearly all women are required to do "overtime work" in busy seasons, such as Christmas, before special sales in their departments, and when inventory is taken. A woman in charge of the section may have to remain frequently after the store is closed. * In 60 per cent of the cases, however, the "overtime work" is done within a period of from 1 to 3 weeks before Christmas. Some of the stores are open every night (except Sunday night) from 10 days to 2 weeks before the holidays. In these stores the girls generally work at night for a week to prepare for the rush. In cases where the girls remain until 10.30 p. m., 11 p. m., or midnight, an effort is sometimes made to relieve the strain by allowing them to report from one-half hour to 1 hours late the next day. This does not always happen, however. Even in the stores that are closed to patrons after 5.30 p. m. the girls do overtime work at this season. The chief hardship of this extra work arises from the necessity of standing throughout such a long day-11 or 12 hours, and in extreme cases, even 14 hours. More than one woman reported spending all of Christmas day in bed as a result. Supper, or supper money, ranging from 25 to 50 cents if she is a saleswoman, is the usual compensation for overtime work. In the alteration and millinery departments, where overtime work is required for from 4 to 6 weeks in busy seasons, a regular rate per hour, sometimes higher than the schedule rate, is paid. In one store a "gift" of $5 is given at Christmas to all employees who have worked in the establishment a year or longer. If, however, a girl loses 1 day of the week preceding Christmas, the "gift" is not forthcoming.

Such slight changes as have been made since the writing of the above report are in the line of greater concessions as to the time girls must report for duty in the morning when they have worked more than the normal number of hours the preceding day.

Basing the estimate on the number of women employed in the establishments covered by this report and the number of listed firms of similar character and size, there are approximately 10,000 saleswomen in the neighborhood department and retail dry-goods stores of Chicago. In other words, about two-fifths of Chicago's retail-store women work under conditions differing materially from the conditions surrounding the 15,000 women employed in the downtown department stores.

The normal hours of work per day and per week and the hours during the busy season in each of the 11 stores included in the investigation are shown in the following table.