THE SEWING-MACHINE IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 483 



elations of destitution and misery among seamstresses. Hood's ' Song 

 of the Sliirt ' expressed the public feeling. Needlewomen's Aid Asso- 

 ciations were started, but wliolly failed to lessen the evil. , . . The 

 appearance of the seioing-machine changed all this. Shirts were made 

 more rapidly and more cheaply than before, but the workwomen were 

 better paid and did not work so many hours. The hours of labor fell, 

 indeed, from eighteen hours a day to eleven or twelve." 



The demand for hand-labor increased, because, while the machine 

 did the heavy mechanical part of the work, the cutting out and prepa- 

 ration of the materials rendered necessary more " hands," and a su- 

 perior aptitude and intelligence. The workers also became to a large 

 extent the owners of the machines worked by them at home; and as 

 the slavery and degradation of the needle became almost abolished, 

 crowds of young women were attached to machine-working by the 

 short hours and the high wages. It is this diversion of female labor 

 which lies at the root of the scarcity of domestic servants, and the ex- 

 traordinary rise in the wages given to such servants. 



Improvements in the machine enabled it to be applied to boots, 

 shoes, harness, and most articles made of leather. In November, 

 1857, a machine of this kind was introduced at Northampton, and im- 

 mediately led to organized opposition by the Crispins of that centre 

 of the shoe-trade. This opposition was more or less successful until 

 February, 1859, when the manufacturers of Northampton and Stafford 

 formed themselves into a league, and announced that they were pre- 

 pared to compel the use of the machines in spite of the opposition of 

 the men. A strike ensued. The men were defeated; and the ma- 

 chines very rapidly revolutionized the whole industry of boot and 

 shoe making. Mr. Plummer says : " With the termination of the strike 

 the operatives became eager to possess machines of their own, and in 

 a short time there were few of the better class of workmen who were 

 not proprietors of one machine or more. These were worked by the 

 female members of their own families, or by women engaged for the 

 purpose." The machines put an end to the more dangerous and un- 

 healthy process of the work. Employers fitted up commodious fac- 

 tories supplied with machines, and hence has arisen the present factory 

 system in the boot and shoe trade, a system as beneficial to the male 

 and female workers as to the capitalists. It is estimated that now at 

 least one-half of the Northampton employers have risen by means of 

 machine-industry from the position of workmen. 



Cheapness, rapidity of production, and excellence, led to a vastly 

 increased demand for boots and shoes. Wages were raised ; the work 

 was easier; and the buildings in which it was carried on were vastly 

 improved. In Leicester, in 1820, there were 150 operative shoe- 

 makers; in 1851 there were 1,3*75; in 1861, the machine having ap- 

 peared, there were 2,315 ; and in 1871 there were 5,703, or nearly four 

 times as many as at the ante-machine date of 1851, 



