The Woman Who Toils | Page 2

a New York Mill Town 59
IV. Making Clothing in Chicago 99
V. The Meaning of It All 155
By MARIE VAN VORST

CHAPTER PAGE
VI. Introductory 165
VII. A Maker of Shoes at Lynn 169
VIII. The Southern Cotton Mills 215 The Mill Village The Mill
IX. The Child in the Southern Mills 275
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Miss Marie and Mrs. John Van Vorst in their factory costumes, Frontispiece FACING PAGE
"The streets are covered with snow, and over the snow the soot falls softly like a mantle of perpetual mourning," 12
"Waving arms of smoke and steam, a symbol of spent energy, of the lives consumed, and vanishing again," 58
"They trifle with love," 70
After Saturday night's shopping, 84
Sunday evening at Silver Lake, 96
"The breath of the black, sweet night reached them, fetid, heavy with the odour of death as it blew across the stockyards," 102
In a Chicago theatrical costume factory, 114
Chicago types, 128
The rear of a Chicago tenement, 144
A delicate type of beauty at work in a Lynn shoe factory, 172
One of the swells of the factory: a very expert "vamper," an Irish girl, earning from $10 to $14 a week, 172
"Learning" a new hand, 184
The window side of Miss K.'s parlour at Lynn, Mass., 196
"Fancy gumming," 210
An all-round, experienced hand, 210
"Mighty mill--pride of the architect and the commercial magnate," 220
"The Southern mill-hand's face is unique, a fearful type," 240

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THE WOMAN WHO TOILS

CHAPTER I
--INTRODUCTORY
BY
MRS. JOHN VAN VORST

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Any journey into the world, any research in literature, any study of society, demonstrates the existence of two distinct classes designated as the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortunate, the upper and the lower, the educated and the uneducated--and a further variety of opposing epithets. Few of us who belong to the former category have come into more than brief contact with the labourers who, in the factories or elsewhere, gain from day to day a livelihood frequently insufficient for their needs. Yet all of us are troubled by their struggle, all of us recognize the misery of their surroundings, the paucity of their moral and esthetic inspiration, their lack of opportunity for physical development. All of us have a longing, pronounced or latent, to help them, to alleviate their distress, to better their condition in some, in every way.
Now concerning this unknown class whose oppression we deplore we have two sources of information: the financiers who, for their own material advancement, use the labourer as a means, and the philanthropists who consider the poor as objects of charity, to be treated sentimentally, or as economic cases to be studied theoretically. It is not by economics nor by the distribution of bread alone that we can find a solution for the social problem. More important for the happiness of man is the hope we cherish of eventually bringing about a reign of justice and equality upon earth.
It is evident that, in order to render practical aid to this class, we must live among them, understand their needs, acquaint ourselves with their desires, their hopes, their aspirations, their fears. We must discover and adopt their point of view, put ourselves in their surroundings, assume their burdens, unite with them in their daily effort. In this way alone, and not by forcing upon them a preconceived ideal, can we do them real good, can we help them to find a moral, spiritual, esthetic standard suited to their condition of life. Such an undertaking is impossible for most. Sure of its utility, inspired by its practical importance, I determined to make the sacrifice it entailed and to learn by experience and observation what these could teach. I set out to surmount physical fatigue and revulsion, to place my intellect and sympathy in contact as a medium between the working girl who wants help and the more fortunately situated who wish to help her. In the papers which follow I have endeavoured to give a faithful picture of things as they exist, both in and out of the factory, and to suggest remedies that occurred to me as practical. My desire is to act as a mouthpiece for the woman labourer. I assumed her mode of existence with the hope that I might put into words her cry for help. It has been my purpose to find out what her capacity is for suffering and for joy as compared with ours; what tastes she has, what ambitions, what the equipment of woman is as compared to that of man: her equipment as determined,
1st. By nature, 2d. By family life, 3d. By social laws;
what her strength is and what her weaknesses are as compared with the woman of leisure; and finally, to discern the tendencies of a new society as manifested by its working girls.
After many weeks spent among them as one of