5o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



TKADE UNIONISM VERSUS WELFARE WORK 



FOR WOMEN 



Bx ANNIE MARION MACLEAN, Ph.D 



CHICAGO 



PERHAPS the most popular phase of philanthropic endeavor at the 

 present time is that which deals with the improvement of indus- 

 trial conditions for women. That their lot is unduly hard is evidenced 

 by the facts of the case. Women have always worked and are therefore 

 no innovation in industrial life ; yet the spectacle of their toiling in ever- 

 increasing thousands in this country has stirred alike alarmists and 

 reformers, and they have given publicity to hardships always endured 

 by the workers, but hitherto undreamed of by the more favored members 

 of society. Eight millions of women are now engaged in gainful occu- 

 pations and the great majority of them are under twenty-four years 

 of age. 



The youthfulness of so large a number of women makes its own 

 appeal for sympathy, even though it is not powerful to bring about 

 more equitable arrangements in industry. Society, it would seem, is 

 usually lavish with sympathy, but niggardly with justice. But of late 

 we have become obsessed with the idea of meting out justice to the un- 

 born. The inevitable outcome of this, of course, must be fair treatment 

 to the potential mothers. In so far as it results in sane activity in their 

 behalf well and good. Four millions of the eight classed as women in 

 gainful occupations are industrial wage earners, a group sufficiently 

 large to leave its impress on the health and morals of the future. 



It can not be denied that modern methods of industry tend to push 

 oppressively hard upon unskilled young women, who have neither 

 ability nor training to enable them to engage in interesting tasks. They 

 are often forced into the most monotonous kinds of labor, where they are 

 poorly paid and obliged to work at nerve-destroying speed. A dawn- 

 ing interest in public health has focused attention upon the physical 

 effects of such toil, and it has also, coupled with certain moral condi- 

 tions, led to the important investigations into industrial conditions for 

 women that have been carried on during the past few years. People 

 who, a decade or two ago, neither knew nor cared how or where their 

 clothes or food were made, or by whom, now exhibit a lively interest in 

 these matters. It is an awakening of social conscience that omens well 

 for the worker. But even an awakened community works slowly in the 

 matter of reforms. It takes a long time to enact and enforce desirable 

 legislation. In the interim something must be done. Much in fact has 



