STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 



485 



Fig. 63. — Chicago Telephone Company, 

 lating plant. 



Plan of venti- 



ventilating" system, I visited the operating room of the Chicago Tele- 

 phone Company in the seventh story of a Iniilding on Washington 

 street, where a similai system has been going on for three years. 

 It was put in because dust 

 was injurious to the electric 

 contact. 1 found there 120 

 women crowded closely in a 

 relatively small room where 

 daj" and night they do nothing 

 but make and break connec- 

 tions, a slavery indeed. " The 

 ventilation, however, had not 

 been operating for a fortnight, 

 as a wing to the building was 

 under construction and the 

 windows were open, so that 

 the noise of the street was 

 very anno3'ing. I learned that 

 the women who had complained 

 of the ventilation S3'stem since 

 its installation three years before, had during this fortnight when it 

 was not working, wished for its restoration. This reminded me of 

 the experience which I had in the Dresden Museum twenty -five years 



ago, when the hot w^ater heat- 



ing plant was installed there. 

 The emploj-ees complained 

 that they were accustomed 

 to heating by stoves and 

 charged their indisposition 

 and illness to the new system 

 of heating. It was only the 

 novelty of the method and 

 their own prejudice that set 

 them against it, as in Chicago, 

 wdiere, however, after experi- 

 ence it became evident that 

 the new arrangement was the 

 l)etter. It will, therefore, 

 be retained by the telephone 

 company. In figs. 61-641 give 

 the plan adopted for the installation of the apparatus, w^hich was given 

 me by the chief engineer of the company, who explained the matter 

 to me with the courtesv which is evervwhere shown in the United 



Pig. 64. — Chicago Telephone Company, 

 lating plant. 



Plan of vontl- 



" They receive from $30 to $65 a month. 



