174 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
upon their wives and children, who were sometimes forced, 
-especially in the last two years of the war, to seek employment 
in the factories. The commissioners to whom we have just re¬ 
ferred, say “We have been satisfied from our personal observa¬ 
tion, as well as the testimony of those best qualified to judge, 
that eleven hours’ toil each day for six days in each week is 
more than women and children ought to be required to perform. 
We are certain that they cannot do this without impairing, 
sooner or later, their vital powers, and shortening the duration 
of life. We are confident that it is a most uneconomical waste 
of life, which it is the interest of the state to prevent.” 28a The 
commissioners find that 60 per cent of the employees in 65 fac¬ 
tories were women. 28b The appointment of this commission 
shows that the state was beginning to be aroused to the necessity 
for action. .Not until 1874, however, did the agitation bear 
fruit in legislation. In that year the ten-hour law was passed, 
limiting the labor of women, and of children under eighteen 
years of age, to ten hours a day. 29 The law was practically not 
in operation until 1879. 30 
The disproportion of women to men in Massachusetts some¬ 
what affected economic conditions. In 1860 there were 592,- 
25.3 white males in Massachusetts and 629,212 white females. 
In 1865 there were 597,222 white males and 659,642 white 
females. 31 The excess of females over males amounted to 36,- 
959 in 1860, while in 1865 it was 62,420. It had increased 41 
per cent during the war. Governor Andrew notes some of the 
effects of the disproportion. “It disorders the market for labor; 
it reduces women and men to an unnatural competition for em¬ 
ployments fitted for men alone, tends to increase the number of 
both men unable to maintain families, and of women.who must 
maintain themselves unaided.’ ” 32 The competition between 
the sexes for employment tended to lower men’s wages. Women 
could sometimes do the same work as men, especially in the 
28a. Ibid. 
28b. Ibid. 
29 Whittlesey, Massachusetts Labor Legislation, etc., p. 12. 
so ibid, p. 13. 
3 1 Mass. Census Reports, 1860, 1865. 
32 Governor’s Address to the Legislature of Mass., Jan. 6, 1865. 
