Using Primary Sources: Industrialization and the Condition of Labor42
9 By the turn of the twentieth century, the American Federation of Labor was the dominant labor union in the country. Its aim was to win gains for skilled workers, who were overwhelmingly white, native-born
males. In this source, one AF of L official discusses the union’s policy toward women workers.
A Union Official Discusses the Impact of Women Workers (1897)
The invasion of the crafts by women has been developing for years amid irritation and injury to the workman. The right of the woman to win hon- est bread is accorded on all sides, but with craftsmen it is an open question whether this manifestation is of a healthy social growth or not.
The rapid displacement of men by women in the factory and workshop has to be met sooner or later, and the question is forcing itself upon the lead- ers and thinkers among the labor organizations of the land.
Is it a pleasing indication of progress to see the father, the brother and the son displaced as the bread winner by the mother, sister and daughter?
Is not this evolutionary backslide, which certainly modernizes the present wage system in vogue, a menace to prosperity—a foe to our civilized preten- sions? . . .
The growing demand for female labor is not founded upon philanthropy, as those who encourage it would have sentimentalists believe; it does not spring from the milk of human kindness. It is an insidious assault upon the home; it is the knife of the assassin, aimed at the family circle—the divine injunction. It debars the man through financial embarrassment from fam- ily responsibility, and physically, mentally and socially excludes the woman equally from nature’s dearest impulse. Is this the demand of civilized prog- ress; is it the desire of Christian dogma? . . .
Capital thrives not upon the peaceful, united, contented family circle; rather are its palaces, pleasures and vices fostered and increased upon the disruption, ruin or abolition of the home, because with its decay and ever glaring privation, manhood loses its dignity, its backbone, its aspirations. . . .
To combat these impertinent inclinations, dangerous to the few, the old and well-tried policy of divide and conquer is invoked, and to our own shame, it must be said, one too often renders blind aid to capital in its war- fare upon us. The employer in the magnanimity of his generosity will give
Source: Edward O’Donnell, “Women as Bread Winners—the Error of the Wage,” American Fed- erationist 4, No. 8 (October 1897). As edited in Eileen Boris and Nelson Lichtenstein, eds., Major Problems in the History of American Worker: Documents and Essays (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1991), pp. 232–234.
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Sources 43
employment to the daughter, while her two brothers are weary because of their daily tramp in quest of work. The father, who has a fair, steady job, sees not the infamous policy back of the flattering propositions. Somebody else’s daughter is called in in the same manner, by and by, and very soon the shop or factory are full of women, while their fathers have the option of work- ing for the same wages or a few cents more, or take their places in the large army of unemployed. . . .
College professors and graduates tell us that this is the natural sequence of industrial development, an integral part of economic claim.
Never was a greater fallacy uttered of more poisonous import. It is false and wholly illogical. The great demand for women and their preference over men does not spring from a desire to elevate humanity; at any rate that is not its trend.
The wholesale employment of women in the various handicrafts must gradually unsex them, as it most assuredly is demoralizing them, or strip- ping them of that modest demeanor that lends a charm to their kind, while it numerically strengthens the multitudinous army of loafers, paupers, tramps and policemen, for no man who desires honest employment, and can secure it, cares to throw his life away upon such a wretched occupation as the latter.
The employment of women in the mechanical departments is encouraged because of its cheapness and easy manipulation, regardless of the conse- quent perils; and for no other reason. The generous sentiment enveloping this inducement is of criminal design, since it comes from a thirst to build riches upon the dismemberment of the family or the hearthstone cruelly dis- honored. . . .
But somebody will say, would you have women pursue lives of shame rather than work? Certainly not; it is to the alarming introduction of women into the mechanical industries, hitherto enjoyed by the sterner sex, at a wage uncommandable by them, that leads so many into that deplorable pursuit.