X 
 
 A STUDY OF CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS 
 COMMUNITY 
 
 II 
 
 THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE 
 STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE MONTGOMERY 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 091 530 745 
 
 AN INVESTIGATION CARRIED ON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
 
 BOARD OF THE UNIVERSITV OF CHICAGO SETTLEMENT 
 
 AND THE CHICAGO ALUMNAE CLUB OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 ilr 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Martin P. Cathenvood Library 
 
 School of Industrial and Labor Relations 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE 
 STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OP CHICAGO PRESS 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 Agntta 
 THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LOKOON AND EDINBUBOH 
 
 THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
 
 TOKTO, OSAKA, KTOTO 
 
 KARL W. HIERSEMANN 
 
 LEIPZIQ 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
 
 NEW lOSK 
 
A STUDY OF CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS 
 COMMUNITY 
 
 II 
 
 THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE 
 STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE MONTGOMERY 
 
 AN INVESTIGATION CARRIED ON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
 
 BOARD -OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SETTLEMENT 
 
 AND THE CHICAGO ALUMNAE CLUB OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
COPYMGHT 1913 By 
 LomSE MONTGOUERY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Published August 19x3 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 Chicago, imnais. U.S.A. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACT 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Section I. The Educational Standards of the Community . . 2 
 
 1. The Attitude of the Majority 2 
 
 2. The Attitude of the Minority 6 
 
 3. The Prevailing Attitude in Regard to the Education of Girls . . 7 
 
 Section II. The Local Schools 8 
 
 1. Public and Parochial Schools 8 
 
 2. The Adaptation of the Public School to the Needs of the Girl 11 
 
 a) The Attitude of the Girl to the School 11 
 
 b) Continued Interest in Educational, Opportunities .... 13 
 
 c) The Extent of Retardation and Elimination 15 
 
 Section III. The Girl as a Wage-Earning Child 17 
 
 1. The Attitude of the Parents 17 
 
 2. The Method of Finding Work 18 
 
 3. Where the Compulsory Education Law Fails 20 
 
 4. The Family Need 21 
 
 5. Occupations Open to Girls under Sixteen Years of Age ... 23 
 
 6. The Relation of Wage and Occupation to Grade 25 
 
 7. Some Physical, Mental, and Moral Aspects of the Problem . . 28 
 
 8. The Attitude of the Employer 32 
 
 Section IV. The WoRKiNG-GiRi. 35 
 
 1. Records of Oas Hundred Girls Sixteen and Seventeen Years of 
 Age Who Did not Complete the Seventh Grade 35 
 
 2. Records of Fifty Girls Sixteen and Seventeen Years of Age Who 
 Completed Eight Grades 38 
 
 3. Records of One Hundred Girls from Eighteen to Twenty-four 
 Years of Age Who Did not Complete the Seventh Grade . . 42 
 
 4. Records of Fifty Girls from Eighteen to Twenty-four Years of 
 Age Who Completed Eight Grades 46 
 
 5. Probable Opportunities of the Working-Girl 50 
 
 6. Health in Relation to Occupation 55 
 
 7. The Girl and the Family 57 
 
 v 
 
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 FACE 
 
 Section V. Problems op Adjustment 6i 
 
 1. Summary 6i 
 
 2. Remedial Measures 62 
 
 o) The Reorganization of the School 63 
 
 b) A Revised Compulsory Education Law 64 
 
 c) A New Attitude to the Problem of Family Poverty . . .65 
 
 d) Preparation for a City-wide Vocational Guidance Program 66 
 
 e) Adequate Provision for, and Supervision of, Public Places of 
 Amusement and Recreation 68 
 
 Appendix 68 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the stockyards district, as in every other foreign industrial 
 comnninity, the American-born girl lives between two determining 
 influences, the unseen traditions of the Old World and the visible 
 customs of the New. The foreign parent and the American child 
 are under one roof, struggling with the misunderstandings common 
 to age and youth but intensified by the natural desire of the one 
 to cling to inherited standards and by the strong yoimg will of the 
 other to be a vital part of the present generation. It is the purpose 
 of this survey to consider some of the phases of this difficult environ- 
 ment and in dealing with them to reveal as far as possible the 
 mental attitudes of both parent and child as they affect the future 
 of the potential woman. 
 
 The 900 families who form the background of the study have 
 been known to the University of Chicago Settlement for a period 
 extending into the past from one to eight years. The recorded 
 facts are recent, having been secured between November i, 1911, 
 and September i, 1912. Their interpretation rests, not alone upon 
 the statistical evidence of a single investigation, but upon the 
 cumulative knowledge gained through eight years of daily contact 
 with the life of the neighborhood. Within this group of 900 
 families, 500 girls were selected from whom it was possible to 
 obtain with a fair degree of accuracy the information needed to 
 throw light upon the topics under consideration. No girl who at 
 any time has been recorded as defective or delinquent was included 
 in the number. Among the parents five foreign peoples pre- 
 dominate: Poles, Germans, Bohemians, Irish, and Slovaks. A 
 miscellaneous group includes Enghsh, Scotch, Dane, Swede, Dutch, 
 Lithuanians, and Russian Jews. Of the 500 girls, 458 were born 
 in Chicago in the stockyards district, 21 in neighboring states, and 
 21 in foreign countries. The 42 girls born outside of Chicago were 
 brought to their present homes at so early an age that the general' 
 conditions and opportimities of the stockyards commimity have 
 been practically the same for them. No attempt was made to 
 
2 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 draw final conclusions in regard to racial differences under a common 
 American environment. Without exception the group of 500 girls 
 represents a prevailing type apart from the historical background 
 of the parents— the first generation in America, struggling to keep 
 up with American standards and making every effort to avoid 
 being classed as "foreigners." The parents come to America with 
 a fixed sense of inherited class distinctions. In a district where 
 within a radius of ten blocks one may hear a babel of tongues, a 
 confusion arising from thef mingled voices of people from twelve 
 nations of Europe, there are necessarily different levels of popula- 
 tion, distinct social groups which may be either of the same or of 
 different racial composition. There are also other groups held 
 togetJier by a common feeling of attainment in the New World 
 regardless of the place of birth, for in America unification cannot 
 depend upon race. The bitter recollection of ancient wars may be 
 present. The conquered and the conquering peoples are side by 
 side, but the effort to sustain a continued sense of national separa- 
 tion is weakened by the daily recognition of an economic status 
 which, especially among the young, tends to obliterate the rigid 
 old-countiy standards, prejudices, and traditions, and to substitute 
 an unfixed determinant based on changing opportunities. These 
 invisible forces so vital in the life of such a commimity are not 
 easily given objective values in tables of statistics. 
 
 The principal topics of inquiry are presented in the following 
 order: (i) the educational standards of the community; (2) the 
 local schools and their adaptation to needs of the girl; (3) the girl 
 as a wage-earning child; (4) the working-girl, her present wage 
 and probable opportunities; (5) problems of adjustment. 
 
 SECTION I. THE EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS OF THE 
 COMMUNITY 
 
 I. THE ATTITXJDE OF THE MAJORITY 
 
 The dominant educational standard of the neighborhood is 
 the minimum legal requirement of the state, accepted with little 
 protest by the majority, for the people as a whole are essentially 
 a law-abiding people. By habit and tradition they bow before 
 the accepted order of things. In the absence of higher ideals 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 3 
 
 585, or 65 per cent,' of the 900 families take advantage of the 
 compulsory age law to fix the limit of the child's schooling. Within 
 this group it is possible to make a loose classification of the control- 
 ling influences among the parents who maintain this minimum 
 standard: (a) the peasant beUef that education is the privilege of 
 "the upper classes"; (6) the need of money and the ambition to 
 own property; (c) the failure of the school to meet the practical 
 demands of the working people; (d) the ecclesiastical ideal of edu- 
 cation which must permeate a community that is dominantly 
 Catholic. This classification is not given to represent exclusive 
 boundary lines. It is common to find families both consciously 
 and unconsciously governed by two or more or all of these influ- 
 ences united. 
 
 a) Among many hard-headed peasants there is the traditional 
 feeling that education is a luxury either for the well-to-do or for 
 those whom some mysterious power has placed above the common 
 people. "You are not a rich American. You need no education 
 beyond the law," was the answer of the Slovak mother to the 
 daughter who wished to remain in school until the end of her 
 course. "My children belong to the working class," said the 
 German father. "Education will spoil them for earning a hving 
 with the hands." Polish parents who owned a three-story tene- 
 ment from which they were collecting sixty dollars a month in 
 rentals placed their fourteen-year-old little girl in a factory at 
 three dollars a week, not because they were pressed for money, 
 but because in the natural order of things she was destined to 
 marry a Polish working-man and it would be very unwise to unfit 
 her for that position by giving her "the education of a Yankee." 
 In more than one-half of the 585 families this underlying sentiment 
 rises and falls, sometimes carrying all the weight of an authority 
 that has never been questioned, and again overpowered by a sudden 
 comprehension of the equal opporttuiities open to all classes through 
 the public schools. 
 
 b) A number much larger than that in the above group find an 
 actual need of the child's wages to supplement the earnings of the 
 
 ' The percentage is higher for the neighborhood as a whole. To secure material 
 for later comparisons in the wage-earning capacity of girls, a search was made for 
 families who had kept their girls in school to complete the elementary course. 
 
4 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 father. Broadly speaking, when the father's wage falls below two 
 dollars a day there is less hope for the extension of the girl's school- 
 ing beyond the compulsory age limit, although the neighborhood 
 furnishes heroic examples of parental sacrifices proving many excep- 
 tions to the rule. In this group of 585 families there are 125 
 women widowed, deserted, or with husbands incapacitated for work, 
 who are dependent wholly or in part on the wages of their children, 
 and the ivage of 297 men is steadily below two dollars a day. 
 
 The ambition of the immigrant to own property in America 
 is one of his most striking characteristics. For it he will make 
 almost unbelievable sacrifices both of his own comfort and of that 
 of his wife and children, since the heavily mortgaged house too 
 often calls for the united wage-earning power of the entire family. 
 "We are building without money," was the reply of the fourteen- 
 year-old girl when asked why she was leaving school before com- 
 pleting the sixth grade. The strength of this feeling is due in part 
 to the natural desire for a home which in the stockyards district 
 is intensified by a constant fear of reaching an early" old age in 
 helpless penury. The possession of a house from which one may 
 draw an income is the highest mark of prosperity, just as the 
 inability to pay one's rent is the lowest degree of poverty. The 
 sacrifice of little girls to this passionate determination to own 
 property may be found in any social group, from the undaunted 
 widow who takes in washing six days of the week and drives her 
 children to any task that will bring in money to meet the payments 
 on the four-room cottage, to the thriving saloon-keeper who is 
 landlord over a dozen tenants. Thirty-seven of the 125 women who 
 must live without the help of the wage-earning man, 138 of the 
 297 men who can never command two dollars a day, and 95 of the 
 remaining 163 are property-owners.^' 
 
 c) The failure of the elementary school to meet the practical 
 needs of an industrial community is recognized by many parents. 
 
 ' Before he is forty years of age the stockyards laborer begins to have a fear of 
 being laid off permanently and giving place to younger men. At forty-five he is in 
 the ranks of the old men, with a lowered vitality that lessens his chances of employ- 
 ment in any capacity. 
 
 ' The important subject of housing as it affects the family life has been purposely 
 omitted, as this subject will be considered in forthcoming papers. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 5 
 
 Although they cannot always define their dissatisfaction, their 
 ultimate demand is that educational processes shall be measured 
 in terms of economic advantage. With the vague notion that the 
 school should bear some relation to the future usefulness of the 
 child they often look for concrete results that shall bring immediate 
 returns. "Mary left school in the sixth grade and she can bring 
 home just as much money as Helen who made all that expense 
 for another year to finish the seventh grade," is a characteristic 
 comment given as conclusive proof that an added year in school 
 has no practical value. A German father who had spent fifteen 
 years as an unskilled laborer in the stockyards patiently and 
 laboriously pondered the relative value of different courses offered 
 in the elementary school and finally decided that even girls need 
 a steady job. "Work with the hands is good," he explained, "and 
 American education does not give it." A prosperous Bohemian 
 who owns three tenement houses has four daughters who bear 
 witness to the power of his authority by bringing home a weekly 
 wage from department store and factory. Each girl was sent out 
 to work at the age of fourteen years because the father firmly 
 believed that, in the absence of vocational training in the schools, 
 there is no other way of getting a mastery of any occupation. 
 In 123, or 21 per cent, of the 585 families the parents expressed a 
 desire for some definite training that should furnish either trade or 
 business opportunities for girls. This is a small number. More 
 than 50 per cent of these same families believe in trade and business 
 training for boys. The skilled workers from the older countries 
 lament the lack of opportunity to learn a trade-in the public schools 
 and willingly give their girls to tailors, dressmakers, and milliners 
 to work for a nominal wage that merely covers the street-car fare, 
 or even pay for places in the sewing trades because they do not 
 know that apprenticeship as they conceive of it does not exist in 
 America. Parents of this type are ready to make sacrifices for their 
 children and frankly say that the need of money or the desire for 
 larger gains would not stand in the way of continued schooling 
 "of the right kind," as they phrase it. 
 
 d) Among the 900 families 805 feel an obligation to send their 
 children to the parochial school for a part of their training. The 
 
6 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 feeling arises from a deep religious conviction that conquers even 
 those who recognize the greater practical value of the work of the 
 public school. In many families the confirmation of the child 
 is the triumphant end of his term of schooling, although this 
 religious ceremony may take place at the close of the fourth or 
 fifth grade. "She has finished school," is the simple reply to a 
 challenge of the idle fourteen-year-old girl, or to the suggestion 
 that more training would be advisable, but in the mind of both 
 parents and child this statement relates to the confirmation only. 
 An ideal is established therefore, based primarily on a religious 
 conception of education which enables the parents to hold a con- 
 sciousness of high achievement as the result of having met the 
 minimum educational requirement of the Catholic church. 
 
 2. THE ATTITUDE OF THE MINORITY 
 
 Apart from the group of parents who from one motive or 
 another accept the compulsory age limit as their educational 
 standard is another group made up of those who look beyond the 
 law. In 315 families one or more of the children had completed 
 the elementary public-school course and in a few there was an 
 ambition for high school or business college. Often fathers and 
 mothers had a vague notion of putting their children "beyond 
 their parents" and labored to that end with the patient hope that 
 schooling would do it. Just how this was going to be accomplished 
 they could not explain. As a Bohemian laborer of the stock- 
 yards expressed it, "People who have learned nothing do the dirty 
 work of the world. I want my children to have a chance at a clean 
 job. That's why I send them to school." At the birth of his first 
 child, a little girl, a Polish carpenter bought an English dictionary 
 and began paying for an encyclopedia on the instalment plan 
 because he meant to educate his children and he knew that "edu- 
 cated people always have books around." A strong conviction 
 that continued schooling would be best for the child sometimes 
 conquered extreme poverty. An Irish mother denied herself 
 sufficient food that, she might pay the cost of sending two children 
 to the high school, and it is not uncommon to find women taking 
 in washing to meet the tuition of a six months' course in a business 
 
THE AMERICAJM GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT ^ 
 
 college. We have seen that m the first group of 585 families, 
 422 are struggling with a poverty that makes the wage-earning 
 diild a probable necessity. Although the prosperous financial 
 condition of the family is by no means a guaranty of a higher 
 educational standard, broadly speaking again, when the father's 
 wage is above the two-doUar-a-day limit there is less haste in 
 Igetting the children into temporary occupations and a little more 
 intelhgent consideration of their future. In 180, or 57 per cent, 
 of the 315 families the wage or income of the father alone is steadily 
 above two dollars a day. For 92, or 51 per cent, of the 180 families 
 the father's income is above $825.00 a year; and $825.00 a year, 
 according to the standards of the neighborhood, is considered a very 
 comfortable living. This emphasis is laid upon the position of the 
 head of the family because in the majority of cases it is his earning 
 power, and not a temporary income from boarders, lodgers, rentals, 
 or the mother's work, that determines when the child shall leave 
 school. 
 
 3. THE PREVAILING ATTITUDE IN REGARD TO THE EDUCATION 
 
 OP GIRLS 
 
 The educational standards of the foreign home as outlined 
 above influence the future of both boys and girls, but in the stock- 
 yards district it is necessary to take into consideration a point of 
 view that affects girls as a separate class. The fimdamental idea 
 that the education of the girl is a matter of much less importance 
 than the education of the boy is accepted without question in all 
 of the 900 families. A well-to-do Polish landlord who doubted 
 the advisability of sending his fourteen-year-old daughter to the 
 high school told with pride of the plans he had in mind for the 
 iiniversity training of his son who was then playing in a kinder- 
 garten. A kindly and indulgent father, he had no reason for making 
 this distinction except his negative attitude toward the education 
 of women. "If a girl is very smart," said a Lithuanian mother, 
 "it is well to keep her in school, but when she is riot so she must 
 make money before the marriage time comes." That marriage 
 is the ultimate goal of the girl admits of no argument in the com- 
 mimity. This state requires no special schooling and it will come 
 
8 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 early in life. In the families hard pressed by poverty, the girl is 
 made to feel that she must earn money enough to make some cash 
 return for her bringing up. In the probable event of an early 
 marriage, prolonging her school time shortens the period of her life 
 when she is paying this debt. However, it does not follow that all 
 girls are neglected. There are subtle influences that may tem- 
 porarily obscure a fundamental ideal and give the girl a permanent 
 advantage. Among those who completed the elementary-school 
 course 40 possessed an unusual cleverness that enabled them to 
 finish before the age of fourteen. The only daughter or the 
 youngest girl in the family may be given the exceptional chance 
 to extend her school life a year or more into the high school, not 
 always from any definite conviction of the parents in regard to 
 the needs of the girl but rather as a matter of indulgence. Espe- 
 cially is this true in families where the income is sufficient, $825 . 00 
 a year or more, and there is a desire to protect the girl at home and 
 keep her from the limited field of industry which a few parents^ 
 now recognize is the only field open to the girl under sixteen years 
 of age. Still the fact remains that in a community of compara- 
 tively low educational standards there is an underlying thought 
 which both consciously and unconsciously assigns to the. girl a 
 position inferior to that of her brother. 
 
 SECTION II. THE LOCAL SCHOOLS 
 I. PUBLIC AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The 900 families live within the district boundaries of three 
 public schools,' the Hamline, the Hedges, and the Seward. The 
 combined membership of these schools at the close of September, 
 1912, was 1,273 boys and 1,222 girls. They are subject to the 
 general course of study outlined for all of the elementary public 
 schools of the city. Cooking and sewing are the only occupational 
 subjects provided for girls and there are as yet no opportunities 
 
 ' The Hamline School contains an open-air room, a dental room, and provides 
 special instruction for subnormal children. The Seward School has two special rooms 
 set apart, one for subnormal children, and one for truants and other children who 
 need individual attention. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 
 
 Map Showing the Location of Public and Parochial Schools 
 
 1. Seward Public School. 
 
 2. Hedges Public School. 
 
 3. Hamline Public School. 
 
 4. Sacred Heart, Polish Catholic School. 
 
 5. St. Joseph, Polish Catholic School. 
 
 6. St. John of God, Polish Catholic School. 13. Lake Public High School. 
 
 7. St. Rose of Lima, Irish Catholic School. 
 
 8. St. Michael, Slovak Catholic School. 
 
 Q. Holy Cross, Lithuanian Catholic School, 
 lo. S. S. Cyrill and Methodius, Bohemian Catholic School, 
 ir. St. Augustine, German Catholic School. 
 XI. St. Martinni, German Lutheran School. 
 
lO CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 for vocational courses.' The Lake High School* offers the usual 
 studies with the exception that the course in household arts is 
 omitted owing to the lack of a sufficient number of girls to form 
 classes in subjects designed to equip the homemaker. At the 
 close of September, 191 2, the membership was 459 boys and 307 
 girls. The one evening school of the neighborhood, which is open 
 four evenings in the week for twenty weeks of the year, offers 
 optional classes in cooking and sewing for girls over fourteen years 
 of age and provides special instruction for foreigners who wish to 
 learn the English language. It also gives all pupils who did not 
 complete the eighth grade a chance to make up that loss. The 
 total enrolment for the season closing March 13, 1913, was 511 
 men and boys and 102 women and girls. 
 
 Within this same boimdary or closely adjacent to it there are 
 nine parochial schools (eight Catholic and one German Lutheran) 
 that draw pupils from the population of these public-school districts. 
 At the close of September, 1912, the total membership* was about 
 5,722. No adequate information is on record of the work of the 
 parish schools, of the relative amount of time spent in teaching 
 the English language nor of the number of subjects which the 
 pupils are required to accept in a foreign tongue. No study of the 
 parochial school child has been made. In the absence of an exact 
 card system which records the work of the pupil from the beginning 
 to the end of his school life we have no data from which to draw 
 conclusions. There is a constant movement between the public and 
 the parochial school, and the number of years any child spends in 
 each depends upon the family standards. Some ambitious parents 
 appreciate the loss involved in the change and give to the parochial 
 
 ' For the present the elementary industrial course for grades 6, 7, and 8 (adopted 
 June 29, 1911) is offered only on the special permission of the superintendent and in 
 districts where the demand is sufficient to call for four divisions of pupils. 
 
 " The Lake High School offers special vocational coiu-ses for over-age boys from 
 grades 6, 7, and 8 of the elementary schools. Eighty boys were transferred to these 
 courses in September, 191 z. No such provision is made for girls. They may be 
 admitted to the Lucy Flower Technical High School, but the distance which requires 
 car-fare makes this school prohibitive for those whose need is greatest. 
 
 3 The figures for seven of these schools are given in the official Catholic Directory 
 for 1912. Membership by sex is not given. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT II 
 
 school the minimum time required. To this group may be added 
 many who are too poor to carry the burden of continued tuition. 
 A large number are loyal to the parochial school as an institution 
 and send their children to the public school only after confirmation. 
 At present all that can be said in fairness is that in the problems 
 of retardation and elimination the parochial school plays a part 
 that has never been fully exanained. 
 
 2. THE ADAPTATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TO THE NEEDS 
 
 OF THE GIRL 
 
 The public-school teachers work imder a serious handicap. 
 In a community of low educational standards they are dealing 
 largely with children who either have begun or must end their formal 
 education in a parochial school, or at best are obliged to interrupt 
 the public-school course with a year of absence. However, there 
 are three legitimate methods of testing the success of the present 
 school system: (a) the attitude of the girl to the school; (b) her 
 continued interest ia educational opportunities; (c) the extent of 
 retardation and elimination. 
 
 a) The attitude of the girl to the school. — ^To what extent girls 
 would be able to rise above the level of the home under a different 
 school system cannot at present be estimated. That the school as 
 it stands today has. too little power in drawing their voluntary 
 attendance is the conclusion based on the combined testimony of 
 teachers, parents, and children. Of 300 girls who left school 
 before completing the elementary course, 195, or 65 per cent, were 
 below the seventh grade. Of the entire number only twelve went 
 unwillingly, forced to do so by the purely commercial attitude of 
 their parents. Two htmdred and eighty-eight, or 96 per cent, had 
 a more or less pronounced dislike of school, as shown by their trivial 
 reasons for leaving and by the eagerness with which they welcomed 
 the first opportunity to escape and go to work for a meager wage. 
 Since the possession of an eighth-grade certificate is a matter of 
 pride, it is not surprising to find a larger number among the so-caUed 
 "graduates" who expressed a cheerful or even an enthusiastic 
 attitude toward the school. There are certain types for whom the 
 everyday life of the school runs smoothly. They are bright and 
 
12 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 secure their promotions easily, they are sociable and find friends, 
 they are tractable and submit to the discipline of a routine which, 
 if sometimes irksome, is on the whole a part of a happy childhood. 
 Of the 200 girls who are now proud of having completed the ele- 
 mentary course, 102, or 51 per cent, hked school. Ninety-eight 
 disliked it and if they had been allowed to follow their own childish 
 inclinations would have left at the earUest opportunity. The 
 parents who compelled 98 girls to complete the eighth grade told 
 many a tale of tiieir trials. "Don't talk to me of high school," 
 said a father. " It's been all I'm worth to drive my children through 
 the first school." " My girls won't take education easily," explained 
 the mother of three daughters with unconscious irony, " because 
 they're all so strong they like something to do." 
 
 The girl's dislike of school is not grounded in any discriminating 
 analysis of the situation, and her feeling is often exaggerated' by 
 the natural restlessness of this period of youth which brings the 
 desire for new fields of endeavor more alluring because remote and 
 untried. To secure some understanding of the attitude of the 
 older girl who has had her chance to gratify this childish longing 
 the simple question, "What did you learn in school that has 
 helped you to earn a living?" was put to 200 working girls of 
 the first group and to 100 of the second group who are between 
 sixteen and twenty-four years of age. One-half of the first 
 group replied, "Nothing." The other half gave, in about equal 
 proportion, reading, writing, arithmetic, and "English when it 
 helps you to talk well." One thoughtfuF girl realized the gist 
 of the matter when she said, "Nothing helps me much because I 
 had so Uttle of it." The vague notion that training of some kind 
 might increase their earning capacity was revealed in a few answers. 
 As one girl sadly put it, "After we get out and try working a couple 
 of years we find we need something we haven't got. Maybe it's 
 education. Whatever it is, we don't know how to get it." The 
 100 girls of the second group, being eighth-grade graduates and 
 engaged largely in commercial work, gave the same list of studies 
 
 'One girl threatened to kill herself if she were forced to stay in school and cheer- 
 fully accepted the alternative of rising at six o'clock in the morning to be ready for a 
 position in a tailor-shop where she could earn three dollars a week. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 13 
 
 but emphasized the value of spelling and grammar. An effort 
 was also made to discover whether education meant greater 
 efficiency, joy in work, or any other satisfaction apart from money 
 values. The revelations were pathetic. For the girls who had 
 missed the benefit of the complete course the school was something 
 altogether remote. It had taught them the " fundamentals," read- 
 ing, writing, and figuring, which all agreed are a necessity in any 
 position. Beyond this service the school was in no way related to 
 the business of living as they had experienced it. The "graduates " 
 invariably gave some credit to school discipline and training regard- 
 less of their feelings at the time when they were a part of it. A few 
 had found pleasure in the mental activity of the high school or the 
 business college. For the greater number a longer period in school 
 meant an opportunity to enter that respectable form of occupation 
 known as " the office job." These positions are held in exaggerated 
 esteem throughout the entire neighborhood and, by giving a cer- 
 tain "upper class" quality to the girls who secure them, add to the 
 value of the conventional requirements of the school. 
 
 It is not possible to draw exact conclusions from evidence of 
 this character, yet it has a certain suggestive value. Judged by 
 the personal feelings of girls, there is too little joy in the present 
 formal processes of education. From the testimony of the older 
 girls, it is evident that the school leaves but slight impression upon 
 those who fail to receive the benefit of a complete elementary course. 
 
 b) Continued interest in educational opportunities. — It has been 
 a widely accepted notion in the past that pupils may take advantage 
 of the evening school to compensate in a measure for their failure 
 to secure the needed training of the eight grades. The principal 
 who has had ten years of experience in the evening school of the 
 neighborhood states that few girls care for what he calls "regular 
 class work." One wishes to make a shirt waist, another would like 
 to trim a hat, a third asks for the teacher's help in fitting a skirt, 
 and a few enjoy the sociability of a cooking class. The majority 
 are seeking a pleasant evening, the free use of a sewing-machine, 
 and some immediate practical returns for their time, but do not 
 take kindly to technical instruction in any subject. During the 
 past year two girls completed in the evening school the required 
 
14 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 studies of the elementary course and at the present writing are 
 candidates for the eighth-grade certificate. No other cases are 
 on record. In the first group of 300 girls there are 18 who attended 
 the evening sessions for one season. Only 15 have been willing to 
 spend their evenings at the Settlement in cooking, sewing, or millin- 
 ery classes. Two ambitious girls paid $50.00 and $60.00 respec- 
 tively for special courses in sewing, one to a private dressmaker 
 and the other to a "college of dressmaking." Of the three girls 
 who went to business college, two gave it up before the end of the 
 six months' course because of deficient preparation in English. The 
 third, after spending six months in the college, and three months 
 in searching for an opening, surrendered in bitter disappointment 
 and went into a bookbindery, though she innocently insisted that 
 she might have been a stenographer if anyone had been willing to 
 give her a position. This is the record of 38 girls who made the 
 effort to secure systematic training in some form after leaving school. 
 For the remaining 262, when the school granted the work certificate 
 it was eqmvalent to a dismissal from all active educational interests. 
 It is evident that even the American-born girl of the community 
 cannot make up for a deficient education by taking class instruction 
 after working-hours.' Yet these girls are not stupid. They are* 
 handicapped in many ways. Work from eight to ten hours a day 
 taxes their strength; neither their ambitions nor their special apti- 
 tudes and interests have been stimulated to the point of making 
 further attendance at school seem desirable. Moreover, the inde- 
 pendent effort expected of those who voluntarily attend special 
 classes is too often beyond their capacity because they have missed 
 the training and discipline they should have received at an earlier 
 age. 
 
 In the second group of 200 girls, 19 attended the Lake High 
 
 ' The new compulsory education law of Ohio, in efEect May, 1910, recognizes the 
 need of part-time day schools for working children between fourteen and sixteen years 
 of age who have not completed the eighth grade. Evening-school hours may not be 
 accepted as a substitute. 
 
 » In his study of the educational status of working boys, Mr. Ristine found that 
 "boys of the eighth grade were superior to those of the seventh, as were those of the 
 seventh superior to the sixth" (^4 report on Vocational Training in Chicago and in Other 
 Cities by a Committee of the City Club of Chicago, p. 277). As far as the writer knows, 
 ho similar tests have been given to girls. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 15 
 
 School for periods ranging from three months to three years. (One 
 remained three years, and six stayed two years.) Twenty-four 
 were in the high school at the time this investigation was in process. 
 Thirty-four went to business college for periods ranging from two 
 months to one year. Five are in business college at the present 
 writing. Five had given one winter to the evening school but not 
 one had attended the domestic classes at the Settlement. This 
 makes a total of 87 out of 200 in contrast to the 38 out of 300 who 
 tried to take advantage of educational opportunities open to them 
 after leaving the elementary school. This difiference in favor of the 
 eighth-grade graduate is due in part to a greater freedom from 
 financial pressure, but in a larger measure to the school training 
 that made a profitable continuation of any line of study possible. 
 
 c) The extent of retardation and elimination. — The recent con- ' 
 elusion that the instruction given in the eight grades of the ele- 
 mentary school is better fitted to. the needs of the girl than to the 
 nature of the boy is based upon Ayres's' investigation showing the 
 relative distribution of boys and girls in the grades, and the greater 
 percentage of retardation and elimination among boys. He finds 
 that "retardation among boys in elementary schools is 13 per cent 
 more prevalent than among girls"; also that "the proportion of 
 girls who remain to the final elementary grade is 17 per cent greater 
 than the proportion of boys who remain." Accepting the method 
 of computation used by Ayres, Mr. Wreidt,^ in his study of the pub- 
 lic schools of Chicago, finds that for the city as a whole there is 
 15 per cent more retardation among boys than among girls and 
 also that the percentage of girls in the first grade who remain to 
 enter the eighth is 15 per cent greater than the percentage of boys. 
 He accepts Ayres's conclusion that the present school system is 
 "better suited to the needs of the girls than to those of the boys." 
 
 This conclusion is not wholly true for the district under con- 
 sideration. The following tables present retardation and elimina- 
 tion figures* for three public schools. 
 
 ' Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools, p. 158. 
 
 " A Report on Vocational Training in Chicago and in Other Cities by a Committee of 
 the City Club of Chicago, pp. 31-32. 
 
 3 Based on the age and grade records of pupils at the time of their first enrohnent 
 during the school year 1910-11. The method of computation is that used by Ayres 
 
i6 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 TABLE I 
 
 Percentage of Retarded Pxjpils among Boys and among Girls in Three 
 
 Local Schools 
 
 School 
 
 Boys 
 
 Giib 
 
 Difference in Favor 
 of the Girls 
 
 
 33.6 
 26.6 
 34.6 
 
 23 
 21.9 
 
 32-8 
 
 10.6 
 
 Hedges 
 
 4.7 
 
 Seward . . . ; 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 
 Average of percentages. . . . 
 
 31.6 
 
 25-9 
 
 S-7 
 
 In each school there is more retardation among boys than among 
 girls. Since the average percentage of retardation is 31.6 among 
 boys and 25.9 among girls, taking the percentage of retardation 
 among girls as a basis, we find that retardation among boys is 22 
 per cent greater than among girls. 
 
 TABLE II 
 
 Percentage of Boys and Girls Retained to the Eighth Grade in Three 
 
 Local Schools 
 
 Schools 
 
 Percentage of Boys 
 Retained to the 
 Eighth Grade 
 
 Percentage of Girls 
 
 Retained to the 
 
 Eighth Grade 
 
 Difference in Favor 
 of the Boys 
 
 Hamline 
 
 Hedges 
 
 Seward 
 
 Averj^e of Percentages . . 
 
 30 
 
 3SS 
 
 32 
 
 27 
 
 28.1 
 
 234 
 
 32.5 
 
 26.2 
 
 3 
 
 7-4 
 
 8.6 
 
 6.3 
 
 In each school a greater percentage of boys than of girls is 
 retained to the eighth grade, the difference in favor of the boys 
 being 6.3 per cent. Taking the percentage of girls retained to the 
 
 in presenting the relative amounts of retardation and elimination among boys and 
 girls in fifteen cities. The results differ slightly from those obtained by securing the 
 percentage of retardation and elimination for the three schools together according to 
 the method of computation used above to obtain the percentage for each school sepa- 
 rately. The results obtained in computing retardation must vary according to the 
 method employed and the time in the school year at which the statistics are gathered. 
 Ayres has pointed out the difference between figures on record in September and 
 those on record in June even in the same city; also the difference between figures 
 gathered on the basis of total enrolment and those gathered at a given date in the 
 school year. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 17 
 
 eighth grade as a basis, we find that the proportion of boys who 
 remain in school to enter the eighth grade is 24 per cent greater 
 than the proportion of girls who remain. These figures show a 
 condition for the three local schools the reverse of that revealed in 
 other inviestigations in which a higher percentage of retardation is 
 naturally followed by a higher percentage of elimination. Not all 
 of the pupils retained to the eighth grade remain to complete the 
 course. A coimt was made of the number of children who received 
 eighth-grade certificates from the three schools during a period 
 of six years. From September, 1906, to July, 1912,' 249 boys and 
 213 girls are so recorded. Judged by the extent of retardation, 
 the tendency of the girls of the stockyards district is the same as 
 that of girls everywhere. They are meeting the demands of the 
 American public-school system more easily than their brothers. In 
 spite of this fact, the percentage of elimination among the girls is 
 greater than that found in Chicago as a whole and in other cities of 
 which we have similar records. 
 
 It is not possible to push the logic of Ayres to the conclusion 
 that these local schools retain to the eighth grade and also 
 graduate a higher percentage of boys because the work offered is 
 better suited to their needs. The explanation seems to lie in the 
 educational standards of the community which, as we have seen, 
 regard the education of the boy as a matter of more consequence 
 than the education of the girl. 
 
 SECTION III. THE GIRL AS A WAGE-EARNING CHILD 
 I. THE ATTITUDE OF THE PARENTS 
 
 The political and religious conflicts of the older nations have had 
 little influence in determining either the character or the extent of 
 immigration to the stockyards district. With few exceptions, 
 these foreign people came to America with the hope of improving 
 their financial condition. Many brought with them the simple 
 
 ■ Diiring the same period 14 boys and 2 girls, who had previously graduated from 
 the Seward or the Hamline schools, completed a fotir-year course at the Lake High 
 School. One boy and one girl, both from the Hamline School, finished the 'two-year 
 business course. No boy or girl from the Hedges School has completed any course at 
 the Lake High School. No records were secured from the Catholic High School 
 located at Wallace and Forty-fifth streets. 
 
l8 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 conviction that in the New World there are vast spaces in which 
 may be found unlimited opportunities to work at relatively high 
 wages. It must be remembered also that there is no economic 
 surplus which makes the idle woman possible. From necessity 
 neither women nor children are exempt from labor of some kind and 
 there is no sentiment in the community that favors their existence 
 as an unproductive class. The ever-present thought of the girl's 
 early marriage renders the carefxil choice of an occupation imneces- 
 sary. As a natural result of this point of view, the immediate 
 money value of any position open to little girls is too often the first 
 consideration, in entire disregard of disastrous effects that may 
 follow in the physical, mental, or moral life of the child. Yet 
 the foreign mothers who appear to accept as a matter of course 
 demoralizing conditions of . employment for their daughters are 
 not necessarily- brutal in other relations with them. The women 
 are vigorous, hard headed, and practical, and to them belongs the 
 difficult task of making ends meet. Moreover, they are altogether 
 ignorant of the city outside of their very limited round, for the 
 majority who innocently send their little girls to look for work 
 "down town somewhere" have never done a day's shopping beyond 
 the two or three blopks on Ashland Avenue where the department 
 stores supply all of their needs. Fathers too often have no knowl- 
 edge of opportunities other than those of the packing industry 
 where they are employed. Many a father who persistently refuses 
 even in the face of poverty to secure a place for his daughter in 
 the "Yards" because he has some understanding of the conditions 
 there, will unwittingly expose her to greater dangers in remote 
 industries of which he knows nothing. Men and women are facing 
 unknown conditions, a strange language, and an unwonted freedom. 
 They look back to their own childhood of early hard labor in the 
 small village or the open field and justify the work of their children 
 in the city factory. It is a complex situation for simple minds, 
 and a confusion of standards is inevitable. 
 
 2. THE METHOD OF FINDING WORK 
 
 Since parents lack a constructive knowledge of the occupations 
 open to their daughters, the girls are throxyn upon their own limited 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 19 
 
 resources. The j5rst information often comes from a neighbor's 
 daughter who knows the wage of the beginner in the place where 
 she herself is working. With this one fact only as a guide the girl 
 may make an application in person with no thought of her fitness 
 for the place and no knowledge that a vacancy exists. Assistance 
 of this kind from friends or relatives can have no positive value 
 without a point of view which they do not possess. The best 
 empIojTnent offices do not care to handle child labor. Boys some- 
 times resort to them, but little girls, being less daring and more 
 economical, will not promise the first week's wages for the sake of a 
 position which others have found with no expense. The only 
 intelligent assistance has come from a few school teachers who have 
 voluntarily followed a limited number of children beyond the door of 
 the schoolhouse, and from the Settlement, which has always made 
 an effort to keep in touch with groups of yoimg people. However, 
 there is another factor to be reckoned with in the problem of super- 
 vision. The escape from the discipline of school often brings a 
 sudden recognition of an unaccustomed freedom that may be used 
 without question. Girls have been known to avoid the'Settlement 
 for fear of being advised to return to school, or of missing the chance 
 to go to the heart of the city. Untrained girls of this age and type 
 are essentially gregarious and they blindly follow this instinct. If 
 one finds a place in a factory on the West Side of the city, a dozen 
 others in her block will follow if possible in spite of the inconvenient 
 distance and an altogether undesirable occupation. The haphazard 
 way of finding work has its attractions and appears to offer wide 
 opportunities. Day after day groups of little girls go the round of 
 one factory after another, pitifully ignorant of a condition that 
 makes the field of industry into which they seek an entrance always 
 overcrowded with applicants of their kind, and feeling only a cer- 
 tain childish wonder and joy in the roar of a great city. Often they 
 spend weeks following the incomplete and misleading advertise- 
 ments of the newspapers, usually finding that the positions call for 
 girls beyond their years and abiUty, and it is not impossible to find 
 them walking up and down State Street, leaving a poorly written 
 application for work at the several department stores and even 
 stopping men and women with an eager request for "a job some- 
 
20 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 where." In all this there is a pleasurable excitement if it does not 
 last too long and a cheap position results from their wanderings. 
 
 In such a manner and with no preparation little girls go from the 
 comparative protection of the school and the home to gain their 
 first experiences as wage-earners. The opportunities for indis- 
 cretions and follies at the close of many such days of unguided 
 freedom in a large city must not be underestimated. 
 
 3. WHERE THE COMPULSORY EDUCATION LAW FAILS 
 
 The first group of 300' girls contains 185 who found immediate 
 occupation. (This does not mean steady employment.) Forty- 
 two were taken out of school by busy mothers who demanded the 
 sacrifice of the fourteen-year-old girl to the care of younger children. 
 The remaining 73 were idle for periods ranging from four months 
 to one year. Their record showed futile and imintelligent efforts to 
 find work, repeated to the point of discouragement and exhaustion 
 but relieved by weeks at home, for not one of the 73 girls thought of 
 returning to school and not one was compelled to do so. They had 
 taken out their " working papers," and so final is this legal possession 
 of the work certificate that in spite of the failure to secure employ- 
 ment few girls' return to school after this certificate has been granted. 
 Although the law calling for the alternative of school in the event 
 of unemployment may be enforced when boys are concerned, it 
 is practically a dead letter for the girls of the district because they 
 may always put forth the ofl&cially honored excuse of being "needed 
 at home," in spite of the fact that this usually means no positive 
 training and many hours of idleness on the street. Omitting the 
 185 who succeeded in obtaining some kind of temporary position 
 without loss of time after leaving school, there remain 115 for whom 
 the work certificate meant a license to be idle regardless of the fact 
 that they had failed to complete even the seventh grade of the 
 elementary school. The defect lies both in the law and in the lack 
 of machinery for enforcing it. As long as children are allowed the 
 
 ' One of the truant officers of wide experience says it is impossible to make a 
 successful court case of the girl after she is fourteen years of age. If the mother 
 appears and swears that she needs the child at home the judge accepts this as "being 
 employed." 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 21 
 
 independent possession of their working papers/ educational over- 
 sight in a large city is impossible. 
 
 4. THE FAMILY NEED 
 
 The customary method of considering the entire income of 
 the family at the time when the child leaves school in order to deter- 
 mine the extent to which the economic pressure is responsible 
 for his leaving is likely to be misleading when applied to the people 
 of the stockyards district. Many families will show for a period of 
 two or three years an abundant income due entirely to the wages 
 of several children. But it must be remembered that these same 
 children did not grow up with this plenty nor are they going to 
 remain long at home to add to the common purse. The older son 
 who may be earning ten dollars a week makes larger personal 
 demands as he nears his majority, and resents being asked to con- 
 tribute what he considers an undue share to the family for no other 
 reason than to prolong the education of a girl. The older daughter 
 who is more capable of such sacrifices finds it diQ&cult to surrender 
 her desire for social pleasures to a kind of training for the younger 
 children which she did not herself receive. The small sums a 
 mother may earn by taking in either washing or boarders are often 
 needed to meet some unusual drain upon the family like sickness 
 or burial expenses. The income derived from rentals is usually 
 applied on the mortgage and does not count in the apparent surplus, 
 for at all times the need of keeping up the pa)Tnents on a house 
 outweighs the need of keeping a child in school. The following 
 tables present the wage-earning power of the head of the family as 
 the important steady economic factor in the lives of the 500 girls 
 under consideration. For the men here represented there has been 
 little variation in wages during the past eight or ten years except 
 that due to the irregular emplojonent common to the neighborhood. 
 That is, the men who are now recorded at two dollars a day and 
 less have been steadily in the ranks of those who can never command 
 
 ' The Ohio law recognizes this fact effectively. In case the child is either dis- 
 missed or voluntarily withdraws, the ranployer is obliged to return the work certificate 
 to the superintendent of schools. The return of the certificate at once calls attention 
 to the fact that the child is not employed and must be followed by the truant or other 
 special officer. 
 
22 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 more even when opportunities to work are abundant, and who have 
 never had a year of "full time." Wage-earners above this level 
 include the more skilled workmen who have had fairly steady 
 emplo3Tnent. Those considered "successful" can depend upon an 
 income of $825 . 00 a year and more. This last group is made up of 
 skilled workmen, foremen, and small merchants (including saloon- 
 keepers) who have made financial gains since they came to the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 TABLE III 
 
 The Economic Position of the Heads' or Families Who Allowed Three 
 Hundred Girls to Leave School before Completing 
 THE Seventh Grade 
 
 Number of women" Wage 
 
 62 Irregular: $1 . 00 a day and less 
 
 Number of mea 
 
 112 Below $2.00 a day 
 
 24 $2 . 00 a day 
 
 47 $2.01 to $2.60 a day 
 
 21 Successful 
 
 TABLE IV 
 
 The Economic Position of the Heads' of Families Who Allowed 
 Two Hundred Girls to Complete Eight Grades 
 
 Number of women Wage 
 
 25 Irregular: $1.00 a day and less 
 
 Number of men 
 
 37 Below $2.00 a day 
 
 17 $2 . 00 a day 
 
 47 $2 . 01 to $2 . 60 a day 
 
 63 Successful 
 
 The contrast needs little comment. If it is necessary for the 
 head of the family to command with a fair degree of regularity over 
 
 ' There is not an exact correspondence between the number of head^ of families 
 and the number of girls, since some families furnished more than one girl. 
 
 Although no effort was made to study racial characteristics, the following figures 
 showing the nationality of the father given by the 300 girls are suggestive: Poles, 70; 
 Germans, 89; Irish, 51; Bohemians, 43; Miscellaneous, 27; Slovaks, 20. 
 
 ' The woman's wage is difficult to estimate. The figures do not mean that she 
 never earns above $1 .00 in a given day. When the woman is thrown upon her own 
 resources, her average earnings are usually between $s.oo and $6.00 a week. 
 
 s The following figures show the nationality of the father given by the 200 girls: 
 German, 61; Bohemians, 58; Irish, 48; Poles, 13; Miscellaneous, 20. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 23 
 
 $2 . 00 a day in order to keep the children in school, then less than 
 26 per cent of the first group should be expected to do it. That 
 this wage is one of the important determining factors seems evident 
 from the 58 per cent of the second group who are above the $2 . oc- 
 a-day limit. The remaining 42 per cent represent families where 
 ambition conquered poverty, where the mother took on the added 
 burden of a supplementary wage-earner,- or where the girl was able 
 to complete her course either below or close to the age of fourteen 
 years. 
 
 5. OCCUPATIONS OPEN TO GIRLS UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE 
 
 The little girls of the stockyards district are found in the 
 factory, the bookbindery, the department store, domestic service, 
 the sewing trades, typewriting and stenography, and occasionally 
 in the laundry. The factory positions are those in which the quick 
 and delicate touch of the girls' fingers are required. These include 
 wrapping or packing all small articles Like soap and toilet prepara- 
 tions, confectionery, chewing-gum, crackers, and chipped beef, or 
 tending some of the simpler machines similar to those of a box 
 factory. The bookbindery offers only mechanical work like sorting 
 and folding, or operating a simple machine. The laundry has a 
 few easy positions like shaking out clothes and marking them, but 
 the other hand work as well as the operation of the machines requires 
 the strength of the older girls. The department store stands next 
 to the factory in the list of occupations accessible and considered 
 desirable. Many little girls have a nervous dread of being near a 
 factory machine, and to them the work in the store seems easy and 
 attractive. Here there are places as cash girl, wrapper, assistant 
 in the stockroom, or inspector. The girl imder sixteen is seldom 
 found in the position of clerk, but she often looks with envy upon 
 the girl behind the coimter and clings to her poor little job with 
 the hope of advancement. Domestic service and the sewing trades 
 furnish the ideal opening according to the simpler standards of 
 foreign parents. From their point of view, the time-honored house- 
 hold occupations of women may be practiced outside of the home 
 with dignity and a fair remuneration. The American-bom girl 
 does not accept this standard. Although the parents sometimes 
 
24 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 prevail with the younger ones, the positions of the older girls 
 prove that there has been a general tendency to leave domestic 
 service and even the sewing trades to the immigrants. These 
 last occupations are usually regarded as the time-serving of the 
 apprentice who is learning a trade. A partial truth obscures the 
 real situation which does not admit of any positive training to the 
 child who is "minding a baby" and which often compels girls in a 
 dressmaking establishment to spend months in clipping and pulling 
 basting-threads or in delivering packages to customers.' The undue 
 importance attached to the office position has been mentioned. 
 This term may be used to dignify any kind of indoor routine in 
 mercantile and other business establishments from folding circulars 
 and addressing envelopes to typewriting. 
 
 It is difficult to classify the above positions either with reference 
 to the relative amount of skill they require or by their opportunities 
 for advancement. With the possible exception of stenography, 
 typewriting, and some requirements of the office position, they 
 represent what is by common consent looked upon as "girls' 
 work." The boy is not found in these positions for three reasons: 
 he scorns the low wage which the little girl endures as her birth- 
 right; by nature he cares less for details and will not do his work 
 with the same niceness and dexterity, and he seldom submits to the 
 "speeding-up process" of the piece-work system which is common in 
 factories and upon which the possibility of increased wages usually 
 depends. The greater docility of the girl added to her temporary- 
 attitude toward any employment renders her an easy victim. No 
 preparation is exacted for entrance into these occupations, little 
 time is required in learning the simple processes or duties involved, 
 and few of them lead to openings calling for skill beyond that of 
 speed or mechanical dexterity. There are always a limited number 
 who by strength of character, 'persistency, or the native possession 
 of some imusual ability may rise to positions of responsibility. To 
 what extent the above occupations open such opportunities will 
 be revealed in the records of the older girls. 
 
 ' A girl apprenticed to a milliner for one year spent her entire time in delivering 
 hats. A Polish woman gave a tailor S25 .00 to secure for her daughter a year's train- 
 ing in his shop. At the end of six months the girl was still pulling basting threads 
 as a preliminary to the instruction to be given later. 
 
: 1 
 
 
 :_ ■/ „ 1 _ ,^ 
 
 
 
 ig lii ' " ',. 1 
 
 ^S^'-'T 
 
 f« 
 
 
 
 ■■^i 
 
 1,., 
 
 /'-'*? 
 
 •1 
 
 ^Mi 
 
 
 AT WORK IN A CANDY FACTORY 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 BOX FACTORY GIRLS 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 25 
 6. THE RELATION OP WAGE AND OCCUPATION TO GRADE 
 
 Although the first position a girl secures is so often a matter of 
 acadent, the relation of wage and occupation to gra4e as revealed 
 in the following tables is suggestive. 
 
 TABLE V 
 
 GISLS BEGINNING WORK UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE 
 SEVENTH GRADE NOT COMPLETED 
 
 
 No. or 
 
 GlSLS 
 
 Beginning Weekly Wage by Occupation 
 
 
 * .50 
 
 fi.oo 
 
 $1.50 
 
 tl.75j$j.oo 
 
 $2.50 
 
 $3 00 
 
 ti.So 
 
 $4.00 
 
 t4.SO 
 
 $5-00 
 
 $6.00 
 
 Bindery 
 
 9 
 
 63 
 
 26 
 
 108 
 
 S 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 29 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 II 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 23 
 4 
 
 I 
 __ 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 ■ 2 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 45 
 
 2 
 12 
 
 I 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 II 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 38 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 7 
 3 
 
 7 
 2 
 
 
 Store' 
 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 I 
 
 Laundry 
 
 Millinery 
 
 
 Office 
 
 I 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 
 258 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 32 
 
 83 
 
 27 
 
 SI 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 
 2 
 
 ' There is an interesting story current in the neighborhood df -the morning when a little group of 
 cash girls who had been working for $i . 50 a week banded together and refused to contmue for less than 
 $2 .00 a week. This juvenile "strike" was settled by a compromise which pbced the wage in that store 
 at $1.75. 
 
 TABLE VI ' 
 
 GIRLS BEGINNING WORK UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE 
 EIGHTH GRADE COMPLETED 
 
 Kind op Woke 
 
 Bindery 
 
 Store 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 Hairdressing. . . . 
 Millinery. ...... 
 
 Office... 
 
 Dressmaking. . . . 
 Stenographer . . . 
 Typist 
 
 No. OP 
 GmLS 
 
 7 
 28 
 
 7 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 9 
 2 
 
 107 
 
 BEGiNNiNa Weekly Wage by Occupation 
 
 $1.00 
 
 $2.00 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 $2.50 
 
 $300 
 
 8 
 2 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 14 
 
 30 
 
 »3-SO 
 
 I 
 4 
 
 $4.00 
 
 2 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 *4.SO 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 Js.oo 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 $6.00 
 
 4 
 S 
 
 13 
 
 tS.oo 
 
26 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 Including the purely mechanical positions of the bindery and 
 the laundry under the head of factory work, among the girls who 
 did not complete the seventh grade the factory and the department 
 store claim 185, or 71 per cent of the whole number. Sixty-two, 
 or 50 per cent, of those included as factory workers began at a wage 
 below $4.00 a week. Fifty-five per cent of the department-store 
 girls began at less than $3 . cx> a week. The girls in the sewing trades 
 who could begin above $3.00 are exceptionally clever with the 
 needle. The ofl&ce position of this group does not mean either t3T)e- 
 writing or stenography. The alluring wage of $5.00 or $6.00 a 
 week is the highest point ever reached by the girl under sixteen in 
 work of this character. In the total of 258 girls, 178, or nearly 
 69 per cent, began at a wage below $4 . 00 a week. Only 1 1 per cent 
 were able to begin above that point. 
 
 The second table shows the marked tendency which is always 
 found in the eighth-grade girl to get away from factory work and 
 seek emplojnnent where she thinks she is holding a position of 
 higher social value. The factory and the department-store employ 
 only 38 per cent of the whole nimiber. Fifty-four per cent are in 
 the sewing trades or in office positions. The domestic helper is 
 also represented, due to the influence of the foreign home. In the 
 total of 107 girls, 55, or 51 per cent, began at a wage below I4.00 
 a week. Thirty-seven per cent began above that point. 
 
 These figures disclose the general trend. Judging solely from 
 the beginning wage, the eighth-grade girls can earn more money. 
 In so far as the apprenticeship and the office may lead to better 
 opportunities than the factory or the store, the greater number 
 have chosen their occupations with more insight. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the actual money value of the girl's 
 labor from beginnings only. The child's lack of judgment and love 
 of novelty lead to frequent changes, and many seasonal and tempo- 
 rary places are open to her. Naturally this child-labor is the first 
 to be dispensed with in the dull or slack season of any industry. 
 The small candy-packer may be required only seven or eight months 
 of the year, the sewing and the millinery apprentice in the fashion- 
 able shop gets her enforced summer vacation, and the important little 
 office girl in a mail-order house is often laid off for a month after 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 27 
 
 the advertising circulars have been sent out. Only the department- 
 store girls and the household helper seem to be in perpetual 
 demand. The following table shows the real money value of 100 of 
 the girls whose beginning wage is given in Table V. These girls 
 were selected from the group because it was possible to foUow their 
 ups and downs for a year with a fair degree of accuracy. Moreover, 
 they represent families who embrace the earliest opportunity to 
 send their children to work, and keep them employed. The weekly 
 wage is estimated on the basis of the actual amoimt earned by the 
 girl dmlng the first year after leaving school. To show more clearly 
 the exact contribution to the fanuly income the amount the girl 
 was obliged to spend each week in street-car fare was deducted. 
 
 TABLE VII 
 Average Weekly Contribution to the Family Income of One Hundred 
 
 Girls During a Working-Period of One Year. 
 Fare Is Subtracted 
 
 Street-Car 
 
 Age 
 
 Number 
 
 »i.SO 
 
 $I.Sl-$2.00 
 
 $2.0I-$2.50 
 
 $2.SI-»3.00 
 
 $3.01-13.50 
 
 14-15 
 
 15-16 
 
 91 
 9 
 
 II 
 
 32 
 8 
 
 32 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 5 
 
 
 100 
 
 II 
 
 40 
 
 33 
 
 II 
 
 5 
 
 Thirty-three of these children were driven before that family 
 specter, the mortgage on the house. 
 
 The suggestion that girls should be legally forbidden to go to 
 work under sixteen years of age brings out the old argimient of the 
 family need. It is put forth by thrifty parents and local politicians, 
 by employers who wish an excuse for accepting children, and by 
 charity workers struggling with the family problem of poverty. 
 The school' has accepted the argmnent without questioning its 
 real value and children have learned to make use of it. The law 
 determines the amount of the widow's pension on the supposition 
 that the fourteen-year-old child is a legitimate wage-earner. The 
 
 ' The Fifty-eighth Annual Report of the Board of Education, city of Chicago, for 
 the year ending June 30, 1912, voices the common sentiment and gives the need in 
 the home as a reason foi not recommending an amendment to the compulsory educa- 
 tion law forbidding the employment of children at fourteen years of age. 
 
28 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 ability of the child to add to the family income has been exaggerated 
 and overemphasized. For these paltry sums they have been forced 
 to exchange school time and play time, the natural rights of the 
 child. 
 
 7. SOME PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND MORAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 We have as yet no scientific knowledge of the physical effects of 
 child-labor. We have certain recognized standards with reference 
 to night work and the so-called "dangerous occupations" and a 
 widespread public opinion that up to the age of fourteen years 
 children should be allowed to develop their bodies in the freedom of 
 the play activities most natural to them. Of the exact relation 
 between the demands of the industries employing little girls and the 
 actual power of the growing child to meet them without physical 
 deterioration we know nothing with the certainty based upon 
 scientific study. That there are several untabulated bodily 
 injuries which result from their continuous emplp3rment in any one 
 of the present occupations open to little girls in the city of Chicago 
 no one who has observed girl-labor for any length of time can deny. 
 More than one-half of these children who have come under the 
 observation of the writer during the past eight years have been 
 nervous, troubled with headaches, and "tired most of the time." 
 This is a small number and is a record of confessions reluctantly 
 given, for it is a significant fact that until the working-girl has 
 suffered to the point where she can no longer conceal it, she will 
 seldom admit poor health. "I am always well. I never lose time 
 from sickness," are the persistent assertions of thin, anemic-looking 
 little girls. This is a natural attitude resulting from their employ- 
 ment in industries which are usually making heavier demands upon 
 the body than upon the brain, and every girl soon learns that the 
 one thing she must not confess is physical weakness of any kind. 
 That the very evident lack of vitality in many little girls was not 
 due to any serious organic trouble was proved by the number of 
 cases sent to a physician who merely prescribed " rest" or " a tonic," 
 and by the rapidity with which they recov^ed if they were so 
 fortunate as to be "laid off" for a few weeks, except in instances of 
 extreme poverty where the mental anxiety more than offset the 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 29 
 
 recuperative value of a period of leisure. However, there is con- 
 siderable evidence that the intermittent weeks of enforced idleness 
 are all that save the majority of these girls from an earlier and a 
 more complete physical deterioration than apparently takes place. 
 This group of girls furnishes no evidence that for them one form 
 of occupation had been better or worse than another as long as they 
 were employed "on steady. time," that is, receiving a fixed weekly 
 sum and not the uncertain wage of the pieceworker. The most 
 pernicious side of factory work is the "speeding-up" process which 
 strains every nerve and keeps the worker on a rack of anxiety. 
 Some little girls acquired a premature wisdom as a result of their 
 factory experiences and refused to go beyond a certain fairly com- 
 fortable speed limit which they established for themselves when the 
 nature of the occupation permitted it and they were not forced to 
 "keep up with a machine." Some of them found a pleasurable 
 excitement in discovering just how "comfortable" they could be 
 without losing their positions. Girls who held to a more even pace 
 and never revealed their utmost capacity have endured the piece- 
 work system with less injury than those who were eager to respond 
 to pressure. As there is often a difference of two or three dollars a 
 week between what she accepts as her limit and what she can do 
 "on a spurt," the temptation to earn more money may be accepted 
 at a frightful cost of nervous energy. Mothers frequently give an 
 additional incentive to increased speed by making their daughters* 
 spending money and even necessary clothing depend entirely upon 
 this extra sum. It is diflicult to reach fair conclusions on the sub- 
 ject of piecework. Employers say that girls "don't hurt them- 
 selves." Girls testify that they are always in danger of having a 
 cut in the rate of pa3anent for a certain output if the girls who 
 represent the highest speed begin to earn "too much money." 
 When a cut in the rate is made they are forced to increase their 
 speed or accept a lowered wage. Miss Goldmark concludes that 
 although the system is sound in theory and "works admirably in 
 highly organized trades where collective agreements assure the 
 workers fair, fixed rates, it fails among the most helpless workers 
 who most need to be protected from overpressure and the inroads of 
 fatigue. With them it almost inevitably breeds a spirit of perma- 
 
30 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 nent 'rush' in work, and to that extent it is physiologically 
 dangerous.'" It is this "rush" that the American temperament 
 cannot endure. Factories that use this system are obliged to draw 
 upon the more enduring vitality of the hardy immigrant. 
 
 The legal hours of labor are eight daily, but girls who seek the 
 downtown factories and stores must allow at least two hours in 
 addition for street-car rides. As they are obliged to go and return 
 when all cars to and from the stockyards district are overcrowded, 
 the fatigue of standing the greater part of the time must also be 
 included in the day's work. The fact that local department stores 
 can secure cash girls for $1.75 a week is due in part to the number 
 who cannot endure the nervous strain of getting down town and 
 back again. The daily walk and the warm noon meal at home are 
 all health-preserving factors, but as there are comparatively few 
 local opportunities,* for the majority this street-car ride on their 
 feet is inevitable. Of the 365 girls who began work under sixteen 
 years of age 310 were obliged to ride distances consuming from two 
 to two and one-half hours daily. 
 
 The non-educative character of all occupations open to these 
 children is not the only negative side of the problem. Here again 
 there is no proper basis for exact conclusions in regard to the mental 
 effect of the child's work under the modern conditions of industry. 
 Yet if the tendency is to an overstrain and fatigue detrimental to 
 physical growth, it is not unreasonable to conclude that disastrous 
 results both mental and moral may follow. Girls grow dull with a 
 routine that calls for no exercise of brain power, and the general 
 stupidity of which many employers complain is increased as the 
 months go by. Noise and confusion, the whirl of factory machines, 
 or the distractions of the department store make consecutive 
 thought-processes difl&cult, and the unconscious reaction from 
 monotonous labor is a desire for excitement in some novel form, the 
 moving-picture show, the forbidden saloon-hall dance, or late hours 
 with companions on the street after the diy's work is over. The 
 
 ' Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency, p. 84, 
 
 " Judging from the records at the office of the state factory inspector, the entire 
 packing industry seldom employs at any one time more than 100 girls under sixteen 
 years of age. These positions are usually filled by the foreign girls. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 31 
 
 fifteen-year-old factory girl who gave as her excuse for going to the 
 five-cent theater six nights in the week her need of "something to 
 make me feel rested" is not an exaggerated type but a painful 
 illustration of the lack of nervous balance which is all too common 
 among these children. Whether such an unstable condition is due 
 to purely physical or to mental causes it is often difficult to say, 
 since for many girls there is such a close connection between health 
 and mental attitude. Girls are held to one miserable distasteful 
 piece of work by fear, discouragement, timidity, or the lack of 
 knowledge of other opportunities. A few have confessed that they 
 thought all the factories down town made candy and there was 
 nothing else for little girls to do except wrapping and packing 
 confectionery. Some who had learned a single simple process in a 
 box factory were unable to adapt themselves to other positions when 
 laid off temporarily. One girl insisted that "pasting labels" was 
 her "trade" and refused to consider anything else. Another said 
 she could work only in the one department store in which she began. 
 She had tried others but they always made her feel "strange and 
 queer." Still another worked a full year in fear of the forewoman 
 who had an "evil eye" that held girls to their work. A different 
 tjqje of girl makes a continuous effort to break through the limita- 
 tions of her enforced occupation by changing as often as possible. 
 These changes are a means of stimulation which the girl's nature 
 demands. Three girls who were chmns and refused to be separated 
 had worked together in eleven different places during fifteen con- 
 secutive months. For them the mere thought of steady employ- 
 ment had grown distasteful. One girl flippantly remarked: "The 
 new boss may have red hair. Anything to change the scenery." 
 That the search for excitement as an antidote for fatigue and 
 monotonous labor may be attended by grave moral dangers no one 
 can doubt. Girls do not understand this abnormal craving. They 
 are caught in the meshes of feelings too complex for their untaught 
 minds to comprehend. Unfortimately both parents fail at this 
 point. Many endeavor to exercise a strict surveillance that would 
 keep the working girl at home in the evening "helping mother" as 
 the safest outlet for any extra energy she may have. The diverse 
 attitude on the part of parents and children in regard to the way 
 
32 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 the leisure time should be filled is one of the greatest causes of 
 family clashing. Here the girl usually conquers. Those who 
 faithfully hold to a difficult and uncongenial occupation, bringing 
 home the entire wage to the family and submitting to an almost 
 patriarchal control in other matters, will demand a freedom in the 
 use of their evening hours before which the foreign parents are 
 helpless. "She is a good girl," said the Polish mother. "She 
 brings home all her money, but — she goes out where she pleases 
 nights and Sundays and we can't follow." Ninety per cent of the 
 parents admitted that they had little control over their daughters 
 in this matter. Many fiercely condemned "the American life" 
 which made such insubordination possible. This unnatural 
 position of the little girl, carrying the premature responsibility of 
 the wage-earner and asserting her right to a feverish search for 
 evening pleasures, is forced upon her at the beginning of the period 
 njarked by physical changes, rapid growth, and the dawn of sex 
 consciousness when curious and misunderstood moods are dominant. 
 
 8. THE ATTITUDE OF THE EMPLOYER 
 
 Interviews with employers revealed two points of view: (i) the 
 labor of girls under sixteen years of age is of doubtful value to 
 the employer and is not necessary to the continuation of any 
 industry; (2) unless girls begin to work under sixteen years of age 
 they do not get the necessary training that leads to their advance- 
 ment and therefore the number of skilled workers among older girls 
 will be depleted. 
 
 The first point of view has four causes: the eight-hour day, the 
 general inefficiency of the girls who apply for work, the introduction 
 of new machinery, and a growing sentiment against the employment 
 of children. One of the common grievances which employers find 
 it difficult to adjust is the difference in hours which causes jealousies 
 and petty disturbances among girls not far below and just above the 
 age of sixteen years. The girl who was sixteen last week will work 
 out her full time cheerfully with seventeen-year-old companions 
 but will be restless and dissatisfied if associated with a group six 
 months yoimger having the advantage of an earlier dismissal. A 
 surprising amount of supervision is needed to prevent the fraudulent 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 33 
 
 record of the child's age for which the employer alone is held 
 responsible when the factory inspector appears. The inefficiency 
 of the untrained mass which is recruited from the ranks of children 
 who leave school below the seventh grade makes them a financial 
 loss to any business or industry during the period required for their 
 training. The amount of shifting adds to the work of the employ- 
 ment department. The superintendent in a large factory using 
 over 300 little girls stated that they expected to register five girls in 
 order to secure one who would feel any responsibility for reappear- 
 ing to take up the work she had applied for. Even the girls who 
 have finished the eighth grade are childish and cannot be given 
 places of responsibility which the office requires. The introduction 
 of machinery is displacing the need of many a small pair of hands. 
 The inventions for covering, glueing, and labeling in the box 
 factories are comparatively new and are pronounced satisfactory. 
 The machine-dipped chocolate drops look almost as well as those 
 covered by hand and are in greater demand. , The clever devices for 
 closing packages with the unfeeling points of a machine almost 
 human in its skiU are a monument to inventive genius. One of the 
 largest employers of child-labor in the city of Chicago said: "If we 
 could not by law employ the girl under sixteen years we should find 
 some way to make the machine do her work." 
 
 Finally, there appears to be a growing sentiment against the 
 emplojTment of children in spite of the evidence of the school census 
 taken May 2, 1912, which gives a total of 8,923 girls and 8,214 boys 
 under sixteen years of age either temporarily or permanently em- 
 ployed in the city of Chicago. A sentiment is a difficult thing to 
 measure in figures until it reaches a definite expression in legislation. 
 Yet the feeling exists, voiced all along the line by the head of the 
 firm, the superintendent, the business manager, and the foreman, 
 often in the face of the actual fact that the practical policy of the 
 business or the industry allowed the use of children. The proposi- 
 tion to exclude the girl from early employment met with a quick 
 response from employers who look at the boy from a different point 
 of view. The frankest words came from the president of a large 
 manufacturing establishment: "As an employer, I can and do 
 make money out of the work of little girls. As a man, I know it 
 
34 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 would be better for them and for the state if I were forbidden by 
 law to employ them." 
 
 The second point of view, that the girl must get her training for 
 business or industrial efiSciency by going to work at the earliest age 
 possible, is advanced by employers who find temporary help a con- 
 venience and by those who wish the speed and skill that come with 
 the repetition of a single highly specialized process. They are 
 looking for a very limited efficiency which may be acquired only by 
 practice in the business or industry calling for it and they know that 
 youth is the golden age of this kind of skill. They do not ask for a 
 longer period inschool or for any form of industrial education to fit 
 girls for their positions. " Give us girls who are quick, bright, and 
 healthy and we will do the training," is their demand. Their 
 further suggestion that the supply of skilled adult workers will be 
 lessened if girls do not receive this early training is without proof.' 
 
 These advocates of child-labor could not fail to refer to the 
 family poverty that apparently can be relieved only by the work of 
 children. Three went so far as to say that they engaged girls under 
 sixteen solely because the families represented were in need. And 
 yet when it came to the final question, no employer would admit 
 that either liie business or the industry he represented rested upon 
 so slight a foundation as the labor of httle girls. One conclusion at 
 least seems permissible: the premature emplojrment of girls under 
 sixteen years of age is not necessary to the continuation of any 
 business or industry. 
 
 ' Considering the present seemingly unlimited supply of young unskilled immi- 
 grant labor, it is impossible to predict the effect upon the adult worker of the complete 
 elimination from all forms of industry of girls under sixteen. If the period these girls 
 now spend in idleness or in worse than unprofitable employment were utilized in learn- 
 ing a trade, acquiring some efficient knowledge of a business office, or even in the 
 so-called cultural studies (which it is the tendency of the moment to undervalue), 
 there is little doubt that the two years so spent would add to, their wage-earning 
 capacity, since there seems to be no oversupply of skilled labor in the trades and 
 occupations open to women today. It is not necessary to attempt a radical prophecy 
 on the economic side of the question. The main point is that no conununity can afford 
 to tolerate a system that means physical, mental, and moral deterioration to the 
 growing girl. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 3$ 
 
 SECTION IV. THE WORKING-GIRL 
 
 I. RECORDS OF ONE HUNDRED GIRLS SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN 
 YEARS OF AGE WHO DID NOT COMPLETE THE SEVENTH GRADE 
 
 In order to throw more light upon the situation outlined above 
 it is necessary to record the progress of the girl for a number of 
 years. The following tables give the facts concerning one hundred 
 girls who left school before completing the seventh grade. They 
 were either sixteen or seventeen years of age at the time of the last 
 interview. 
 
 TABLE VIII 
 
 The Fikst Position of One Hundred Gisls Sixteen and Seventeen Years 
 OF Age Who Did Not Complete the Seventh Grade 
 
 Kind of Work 
 
 NUUBEK 
 Oi GlKLS 
 
 Wage 
 
 »iSo 
 
 tl.7S 
 
 $2.00 
 
 $2-50 
 
 $3.00 
 
 »3-SO 
 
 I400 
 
 t4.SO 
 
 %S-oo 
 
 Bindery 
 
 3 
 29 
 
 4 
 
 40 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 3 
 2 
 
 I 
 9 
 
 'i 
 
 
 
 's 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 I 
 [ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 S 
 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 IX 
 
 1 
 S 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 Store 
 
 3 
 2 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 
 
 Laundry 
 
 OflSce 
 
 2 
 6 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 Tailor 
 
 2 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Yards 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 29 
 
 13 
 
 22 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 Sixty-one of these girls began work at fourteen, twenty-six at 
 fifteen, and thirteen (who had been helping at home) at sixteen 
 years of age. No sixteen-year-old girl received less than $4.00 a 
 week. One of them was able to qualify for the telephone service, 
 which does not accept girls under this age. Her wage of $5.00 
 represents the amount paid to the beginner while she is taking class 
 instruction. With this exception, the girls are found in the positions 
 previously discussed, the factory and the department store being the 
 only means of entrance to industry known to the majority. Fifty- 
 six per cent began at a wage of less than $4 . 00 a week. 
 
 Some indication of the amoimt of shifting that is common 
 to the untrained working-girl may be gained from Table IX. A 
 change of position does not always imply a change in the character 
 
36 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 
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THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 37 
 
 of the occupation, since there may be reasons for leaving one candy 
 factory in favor of another or for exchanging the store down town 
 for one near at hand. The three girls, each one of whom had 
 worked in eleven different places, represent one extreme, yet the 
 fact that only twenty-six had held to the first position secured is 
 proof of the restlessness and dissatisfaction which must result from 
 the accidental way of getting started. The figures just above the 
 broken diagonal line show the nimiber of girls still in their original 
 occupations regardless of the number of times they may have 
 changed employers. The three girls who began in a bindery are 
 now in the store, the factory, and the yards. Only thirteen of the 
 twenty-nine who began in the store are holding to it as a permanent 
 choice. The others found the factory, the laundry, the oflEice, the 
 sewing trade, the telejphone, and the yards more congenial places. 
 The four girls beginning as domestic helpers scattered to the 
 bindery, the store, the dressmaking shop, and the yards. Of the 
 forty girls who dropped into the factory for their first experience, 
 thirty have not changed occupation, although only seven have 
 remained in the original factory. Three factory girls have risen to 
 ofi&ce positions. One office girl found her first choice an impossible 
 one and was obliged to fall back to the factory. So the shifting goes 
 on with the hope and some possibility of better adaptation through 
 experimenting in different places. But the significant fact is that 
 although seventy-four changed position's, only thirty-nine succeeded 
 in changing the occupation, and among the latter some of the 
 migration, as from the yards to the factory and back again, should 
 not be regarded strictly as a change of occupation, since this may 
 mean only the difference between packing dried beef in a tin can 
 and putting peanut candy in a paper box. 
 
 Ninety-two of this group have a wage of $6 . 00 a week and less. 
 The most significant thing brought out by personal interviews was 
 the lack of hope for the future in these occupations. Eighty out 
 of the ninety-two said they could see little chance for advancement. 
 Two girls in the telephone service, three in the sewing trades, 
 six in stores, and one clever in the piece-work of a hammock 
 factory felt sure they could "work up to something." The eight 
 girls receiving above $6 . 00 a week also expected promotion. This 
 
38 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 makes a total of twenty out of one hundred girls who were working 
 with enthusiasm and some joy in the daily occupation. The 80 
 per cent accepted with var)dng degrees of patience and rebellion a 
 situation they could not control. Adding the positions in the 
 
 TABLE X 
 
 Present Wage and Present Occupation of One Hundred Girls Sixteen 
 
 AND Seventeen Years of Age Who Did Not Complete tbde 
 
 Seventh Grade 
 
 Kind oi Work 
 
 NOKBER 
 
 OF Girls 
 
 Waoe 
 
 $3.00 
 
 t4.oo 
 
 *4SO 
 
 JS-oo 
 
 ts-so 
 
 $6.00 
 
 $7.00 
 
 I7.50 
 
 tS.oo 
 
 Bindery 
 
 S 
 16 
 
 39 
 
 S 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 II 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 6 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 Store 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 Factory 
 
 Laundry 
 
 Office 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Yards 
 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 4 
 
 20 
 
 S 
 
 40 
 
 S 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 laundry, the yards, and the bindery to those of the factory, 67 per 
 cent are found in monotonous occupations, wrapping and packing 
 confectionery, butterine, soap, dried beef, and biscuits, or attending 
 the machine processes involved in the washing and ironing of clothes 
 or in the manufacture of books and boxes, hammocks, and cheap 
 ready-made clothing. 
 
 2. RECORDS OF FiriY GIRLS SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN YEARS OF 
 AGE WHO COMPLETED EIGHT GRADES 
 
 Thirteen of these girls (see Table XI) began work at fourteen, 
 fifteen at fifteen, twenty at sixteen, and two at seventeen years of 
 age. Only three of the twenty-two who had passed the sixteenth 
 birthday received less than $5 . 00 a week. Again the choice of the 
 eighth-grade girl is apparent. Sixty-two per cent are found in office 
 positions, in the sewing trades or with the Telephone Company. 
 Only 22 per cent began at a wage below $4.00 a week. 
 
 The lack either of adjustment or of ability to find the first choice 
 in occupations is less evident (see Table XII). Still there is some 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 39 
 
 shifting in this group. The domestic helper preferred the store and 
 the factory. Only two of the seven factory girls accepted their posi- 
 tions as permanent. Three who received their first experience in a 
 store turned to housework, factory, and office. Seven routine office 
 girls advanced tp the higher positions of the t3^ist and the stenog- 
 
 TABLE XI 
 
 The First Position of Fifty Gnas Sixteen and Seventeen Years of Age 
 Who Completed Eight Grades 
 
 Kind 01 Work 
 
 NOIBER 
 
 or GisLS 
 
 Wage 
 
 $1.50 
 
 $2.00 
 
 $3.00 
 
 $3-50 
 
 t4.00 
 
 is 00 
 
 $6.00 
 
 $S.oo 
 
 Bindery. . . . 
 
 Store 
 
 Domestic . . . 
 Factory. . . . 
 Millinery. . . 
 
 Office 
 
 Dressmaking 
 Stenography . 
 Telephone. . 
 
 3 
 7 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 IS 
 3 
 9 
 3 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 3 
 10 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 SO 
 
 rapher, and three, finding they could not hold their places, went into 
 the store, the factory, and the yards. Thirty changed positions 
 but only twenty-three changed occupations, and with three excep- 
 tions these changes were in line with the girl's choice and ambition. 
 Only twenty-one girls receive a present wage of $6 . 00 a week and 
 less (see Table XIII). All below $8 . 00, except the domestic helper, 
 feel that they are in line for promotion. The thirteen who can 
 earn from $8.00 to $10.00 are not sure of their ability to advance 
 beyond their present positions but they are fairly contented. It 
 is evident that the factory, domestic service, and the sewing trades 
 do not furnish the places considered desirable by the eighth-grade 
 girl after she is old enough to choose for herself. The common labor 
 of the stockyards is literally tabooed. The only girl employed there 
 "candles eggs," a work requiring some skill and offering a chance 
 for promotion. Sixty-two per cent are with business firms doing 
 some kind of office work, or in the service of the telephone 
 company. 
 
40 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
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 iClOISEJ 
 
 • M M N 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 lO 
 
 spssmoa 
 
 :-o| 
 
 
 
 
 Ht 
 
 ao^s 
 
 ■t 
 
 M • 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 VO 
 
 /trapuig 
 
 -1 
 
 t-t 
 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 en 
 
 S 
 U 
 
 £ 
 
 Pi 
 
 a 
 & 
 
 *o 
 
 
 
 • t-t • 
 
 
 « 
 
 lO 
 
 • M 
 
 HI H ■ 
 
 W • 
 
 ^ 
 
 -* 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 M ■ 
 
 « 
 
 « 
 
 « • Ht ■ 
 
 « • 
 
 CO ; 
 
 00 
 
 
 • CO M CO • 
 
 >0 M M . 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 M PC ■ *0 • 
 
 O M ro CO 
 
 g 
 
 S 
 
 r 
 
 eOt>*« t^M lOPOOvPO 
 
 o 
 
 
 2 
 
 < 
 1 
 
 
 If 
 
 PQt/j 
 
 '■fl 
 
 1 
 
 II 
 
 :i 
 So 
 
 1^ 
 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 41 
 
 PRESENT WAGE OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY GIRLS SIXTEEN 
 AND SEVENTEEN YEARS OF AGE 
 
 Weekly Wage 
 
 NiniBEE OS Girls 
 
 $S . 00 to f 10 . 00 inclusive . 
 
 $6.ao to $7.50 inclusive. 
 
 Below $6 .00 . 
 
 30 
 
 The so girls shown in the white sections completed the Eighth grade. 
 
 The 100 girls shown in the lined sections did not complete the Seventh grade. 
 
 It has been shown that a comparatively small number of girls complete the 
 eight grades. It was impossible to secure equal numbers for comparison and retain 
 the same neighborhood surroundings. 
 
42 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 TABLE XIII 
 
 Present Wage and Present Occcpation of Fifty Girls Sixteen and 
 
 Seventeen Years of Age Who Completed Eight Grades 
 
 
 NmiBER OI 
 GlHXS 
 
 Wage 
 
 
 t4.0O 
 
 tS-oo 
 
 S6!oo 
 
 $6.25 
 
 $7.00 
 
 ♦7.50 
 
 $8.00 
 
 $9.00 
 
 $10.00 
 
 Bindery 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 8 
 3 
 14 
 S 
 4 
 I 
 
 I 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 2 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 I 
 2 
 
 I 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 Store 
 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 
 Millinery 
 
 Office 
 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 Stenography 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Typist 
 
 S 
 
 Yards 
 
 
 
 
 
 5° 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 14 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 S 
 
 3. RECORDS OF ONE HUNDRED GIRLS FROM EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY- 
 FOUR YEARS OF AGE WHO DID NOT COMPLETE THE 
 SEVENTH GRADE 
 
 The records of the older girls were studied to see whether time 
 gave them a mastery over any occupation in spite of their lack of 
 schooling. 
 
 TABLE XIV 
 
 The First Position of One Hundred Girls from Eighteen to Twenty-foto 
 Years of Age Who Did Not Complete the Seventh Grade 
 
 Knn) OP WoBK 
 
 n™- 
 
 Wage 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Girls 
 
 $ .5° 
 
 $1.00 
 
 $1.50 
 
 $1.75 
 
 $2.00 
 
 $2.50 
 
 $3.00 
 
 $3-50 
 
 $4.00 
 
 $4-50 
 
 $5.00 
 
 $5.50 
 
 $6.00 
 
 $6.50 
 
 Bindery .... 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 ■ • 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Store 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Domestic . . . 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 ,S 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Factory 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Laundry . . . 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 Millinery . . . 
 
 .S 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Office 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tailor 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yards 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 24 
 
 7 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 43 
 
 > 
 X 
 
 n 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 o 
 
 S 
 o 
 
 M H 
 
 Is 
 
 O O 
 
 a 
 
 Q 
 
 ii 
 
 5< 
 
 o 
 
 1^ 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 sp«A 
 
 
 **»^ ^ 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 SSS11IBA1 
 
 
 M • 
 
 
 
 :o| : 
 
 H 
 
 sooqdspx 
 
 M 
 
 M • 
 
 
 
 •°l 
 
 
 CI 
 
 *>I!«i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 3izr)«inss3i(j 
 
 
 
 M • 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 ■£> 
 
 »3S0 
 
 
 M • H 
 
 ■i 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 'O 
 
 toniniK 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■* 
 
 Xjpaniri 
 
 
 ...I:: 
 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 iClOtDEJ 
 
 M 10-**OJ 
 
 • C4 
 
 
 
 
 vO 
 
 ? 
 
 opsamoQ; 
 
 11 H hI M 
 
 : : 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■* 
 
 MOJS 
 
 •H 
 
 1 t-t C« 
 
 H • 
 
 
 
 
 C« 
 
 00 
 
 Xapmq^ 
 
 ± 
 
 ■ W 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ov 
 
 « 
 
 S 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 
 • M • H ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 W) 
 
 CI 
 
 
 M ■ • 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 O 
 
 M 
 
 
 • « ■ 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 00 
 
 
 M • H 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 « 
 
 M « ■* • 
 
 • H 
 
 
 
 W 
 
 o 
 
 l-l 
 
 to 
 
 M CO « « 
 
 • • H • 
 
 
 eo 
 
 
 -* 
 
 ■ rOfO ^ 
 
 l-t ■ • M 
 
 
 M 
 
 to 
 
 to 
 
 « r* M • 
 
 M « . M 
 
 
 M 
 
 H 
 
 « 
 
 « r* ■ -^ w - « « M 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 <o 
 
 M 
 
 t-i ■^ . fO • « . M - 
 
 
 lO 
 
 
 !z;g3 
 
 «N M M H 
 
 8 
 
 
 si 
 °8. 
 
 
 S 
 
 c/: 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 Laundrv 
 
 %C 
 
 J 
 
 ] 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 J 
 1 
 
 
 
44 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 Eleven girls (see Table XIV) began work before they were four- 
 teen. Fifty-eight were just fourteen, nineteen were fifteen, and 
 twelve were sixteen years of age. Only five of the sixteen-year-old 
 girls began below $5.00 a week. , The department store, and the 
 factory type of occupation (including the bindery, the laundry, and 
 the yards) gave 68 per cent of this group their first experience as 
 wage-earners. For 60 per cent the beginning wage was less than 
 $4 . 00 a week. 
 
 The ten girls who have moved from eight to fifteen times and the 
 
 sixteen who held to the first position (see Table XV) represent the 
 
 opposite extremes in temperament. The same kind of shifting in 
 
 search of better adaptation or more congenial employment is marked 
 
 in this group. Only twelve of the twenty-eight who began in the 
 
 store found it the best final choice. Twelve of the thirteen domestic 
 
 helpers scattered to six different occupations. One each from the 
 
 bindery, the store, and the factory sought domestic service as a 
 
 relief from the nervous strain of their downtown work. Three of 
 
 the five girls ambitious for office positions were obliged to fall back 
 
 upon the bindery and the factory, and four from the store, the 
 
 factory, and the yards felt promoted when they secured places as 
 
 office girls. Eighty-four changed positions and fifty-four changed 
 
 occupations. 
 
 TABLE XVI 
 
 Present Wage and Present Occttpation Of One Hundred Girls from 
 
 Eighteen to Twenty-four Years of Age Who Did Not 
 
 Complete the Seventh Grade 
 
 ElDD 07 WOSK 
 
 Num- 
 bers 
 
 Wage 
 
 $3.00 
 
 «4.oo 
 
 *S-oo 
 
 is -so 
 
 $6.00 
 
 $6.50 
 
 $7.00 
 
 $8.00 
 
 IS.so 
 
 tg.oo 
 
 tio.oo 
 
 $11.00 
 
 $11.00 
 
 Bindery 
 
 Store 
 
 Domestic 
 
 Factory 
 
 Laundry 
 
 Millinery 
 
 Office 
 
 Dressmaking. . 
 
 Tailor 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Waitress 
 
 Yards 
 
 4 
 24 
 3 
 4 
 6 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 20 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 X 
 
 7 
 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 I 
 I 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 I - 
 2 
 
 -I 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ' 1 
 
 I 
 I 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 IS 
 
 I 
 
 27 
 
 . I 
 
 19 
 
 22 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 . I 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 45 
 
 Forty-five of tliis group receive a wage of $6.00 a week and less 
 in contrast to the ninety-two of the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old 
 group. It is evident that time may add something to the wage- 
 earning power of girls of this class especially among those who 
 possess physical strength and certain stable qualities that make 
 them desirable. Of the eleven girls who began work under fourteen 
 years, six now receive $8 . 00 a week and above. Of the twelve who 
 waited until sixteen to take the first position, only three receive 
 $8 . 00. The girls who began at fifteen are not ahead of the average 
 wage of those who began at fourteen. From the vantage point of 
 money only, there is apparently no gain for the girl who, leaving an 
 unfinished school course at the age of fourteen, spends a year or two 
 in idleness before entering any one of the occupations open to her. 
 The lack of hope for the future was voiced by the majority in this 
 group. Forty-one said they had little chance of getting beyond the 
 $6.00 a week limit. Seventeen girls at $7.00 a week, twenty-two 
 at $8 . 00, four at $9 . 00, four at $10 . 00, and one at $1 1 . 00 said they 
 had apparently reached the highest wage paid for the kind of work 
 they are doing. Of the remaining eleven who look for promotion, 
 two are with the Telephone Company, three are in the sewing 
 trades, three in stores, and one each in laundry, bindery, and office 
 work. It is an interesting fact that of the thirty-five girls who 
 receive $8 . 00 a week and above, twenty-seven held to the original 
 occupation chosen. The nineteen-year-old girl who is now worth 
 $10.00 a week the year round in a millinery shop began as an 
 apprentice at $1 . 00 a week. Having completed the fifth grade, she 
 left school on her fourteenth birthday with a fixed determination to 
 learn to trim hats. In the absence of school training, it is possible 
 for ambition, persistency, and manual skill to win recognition when 
 the child is so fortunate as to have some comprehension of her own 
 fitness or desire for a certain kind of work which is at the same time 
 within her reach. For the majority there is no such adaptation. 
 The forty-one who caimot rise above $6 . 00 a week and the seventeen 
 who came to a final stop at $7 . 00 lack any positive training to enable 
 them to take better positions, although they are not without native 
 capacity. Adding the work of the bindery, the laundry, and the 
 yards to that of the factory, 56 per cent are found in the monotonous 
 
46 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 occupations that have been considered. Remembering the 67 per 
 cent of the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls, we conclude that 
 there is a tendency to get away from the factory type of occupation 
 whenever it is possible. 
 
 4. RECORDS or FIFTY GIRLS FROM EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 
 YEARS OF AGE WHO COMPLETED EIGHT GRADES 
 
 TABLE XVn 
 
 The First Position of Fifty Gists from Eighteen to Twenty-four Years 
 OF Age Who Comfijeted Eight Grades 
 
 Enn> OF WoKX 
 
 NmiBER 
 
 or GntLS 
 
 Wage 
 
 $1.00 
 
 $1.50 
 
 $2.00 
 
 $2.50 
 
 $3 00 
 
 ts-so 
 
 »4.oo 
 
 *4-5o 
 
 »5.00 
 
 $6.00 
 
 $7 -co 
 
 Bindery 
 
 I 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 16 
 2 
 2 
 4 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 4 
 
 S 
 
 I 
 
 
 Store 
 
 
 Domestic 
 
 
 Millinery 
 
 Office 
 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 Stenography 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Typ St 
 
 
 
 
 
 5° 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 Only fourteen in this group began work at fourteen years of age. 
 Twenty-three were fifteen, ten were sixteen, and three were seven- 
 teen years old. The tendency of the eighth-grade girl is to extend 
 the period of her schooUng beyond the compulsory age limit. 
 Fifty-two per cent chose the office position, the sewing trades, or 
 the Telephone Company. Forty-four per cent were obliged to 
 accept a beginning wage of less than $4.00 a week. 
 
 Again there is a lack of adjustment between the girl and the first 
 position (see Table XVIII). Only seven of the girls who began in 
 the store accepted that occupation as the one best suited to them. 
 Three girls from the store, two from the factory, one from the 
 routine office, and one who wished to be a milliner sought the tele- 
 phone service and the two domestic helpers went to the store. One 
 who served her apprenticeship in a dressmaker's shop escaped to 
 find more rapid advancement in a factory. Thirty-six changed 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 47 
 
 
 g 
 
 O 
 H 
 
 m 
 I 
 
 I 
 W 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 
 9 
 
 I 
 
 'J 
 
 o < 
 O o 
 
 o 
 Pi 
 
 ?B!<Mx 
 
 9D0qd3iax 
 
 XqdcjSona^g 
 
 3Dp|«mEE3JQ 
 
 aaWO 
 
 Xj3ini|!ltl 
 
 jiopsj 
 
 oi^sinoQ 
 
 310JS 
 
 Xrapms 
 
 S 
 o 
 
 M |0CI 
 
 J 
 
 '\ 
 
 ZL 
 
 10 • HI ■ M 
 
 H I'i H ■ M ■<* t 
 
 . 00 - M ^ 
 
 MOOWtOMOMN^M 
 
48 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 positions and twenty-eight changed occupations. All except two 
 of these changes were in line with the girl's ambition and prefer- 
 
 ence. 
 
 TABLE xrx 
 
 Present Wage and Present Occupation of Fifty Gikls from Eighteen to 
 Twenty-four Years of Age Who Completed Eight Grades 
 
 
 NrauSER 
 07 Girls 
 
 Wage 
 
 Kind op Work 
 
 $6.oo 
 
 *7.oo 
 
 $8.oo 
 
 $g.oo 
 
 Sio.oo 
 
 $12 .OO 
 
 $".So 
 
 $13 OO 
 
 $iS.oo 
 
 Store 
 
 II 
 3 
 
 14 
 3 
 
 7 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 I 
 I 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 S 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 [ 
 
 Factory 
 
 
 Office 
 
 
 Dressmaking 
 
 Stenography 
 
 Telephone 
 
 Typist 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 SO 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 II 
 
 lO 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 Only one is receiving $6 . oo a week in contrast to the twenty-one 
 of the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old group at a wage of $6.oo and 
 less. The lowest wage is received by a girl who was sixteen years 
 old before beginning to work, but she had no training beyond that 
 of the eighth grade. Of the three girls representing the highest 
 wage of $15 . 00, one spent a year and a half in the high school, added 
 to this a six months' course in a business college, and was nearly 
 seventeen when she took her first place as a stenographer. The 
 second girl had no high-school training, but took six months in a 
 business college. The third waited imtil she was nearly sixteen 
 before beginning as a department-store cash girl at $3 . 00 a week 
 and rose rapidly to $15.00 through the plan of receiving a commis- 
 sion on sales. Of the twenty-one girls who are receiving $10 . 00 a 
 week and above, ten spent from six months to two years in some 
 additional training. Of the twenty-nine below $10.00, one took a 
 two-year course at the high school, one spent one year there, and 
 four had six months' courses at the business college. Conclusions 
 from so small a number are not final, but it is a significant fact that 
 ten out of the twenty-one girls earning $10.00 a week and above 
 have reached this point apparently through the help of some training 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 49 
 
 PRESENT WAGE OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY GIRLS EIGHTEEN 
 TO TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF AGE 
 
 Webklt Wage 
 
 $it.aota|i3.ao inclusive 
 
 $3.oota$io.oo inclusive 
 
 NmiBER or GiKLS 
 
 The 50 girls shown in the white sections completed the Eighth grade. 
 
 The 100 girls shown in the lined sections did not complete the Seventh grade; 
 
so CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 added to the work of the eighth grade. All who are receiving less 
 than $8.00 a week expect promotion. With the exception of the 
 eleven telephone girls who advance according to a regular schedule 
 based on length of service, and one stenographer at $9 . 00 who hopes 
 to reach $15.00, the others have probably reached their limit. 
 However, without an exception, the fifty girls have a sense of 
 satisfaction in their positions that can be appreciated only by 
 understanding certain neighborhood standards. The stockyards 
 wage of $6.00 a week for the common labor of women and girls 
 (this makes no allowance for the intermittent employment that 
 lowers the average or for the piecework that may add to it in busy 
 seasons) dominates the commimity to such an extent that any posi- 
 tion above $6.00 puts a girl a little above the common lot. 
 Positions from $8.00 to $15.00 are distinct personal triumphs. 
 The occupations also illustrate the ambition of the eighth-grade 
 girl. Sixty-six per cent are with business firms doing some kind of 
 office work or in the service of the Telephone Company. This is a 
 slight addition to the 62 per cent of the sixteen- and seventeen-year- 
 old eighth-grade girls who are engaged in occupations of the same 
 character. 
 
 5. PROBABLE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE WORKING-GIRL 
 
 The employer who is questioned with reference to the oppor- 
 tunities open to girls in the particular business or industry he 
 represents invariably replies, "It all depends upon the girl," and 
 points to his private secretary who rose from $5.00 a week to 
 $80. 00 a month, to his rapid piece-worker who commands $15 .00 a 
 week in the rush season, to the single forewoman who began as a 
 little candy-packer, or to the head clerk who was once a fourteen- 
 year-old cash girl. The element of truth in this point of view, 
 which is pre-eminently optimistic and American, obscures the real 
 facts of the industries that are constantly renewing their supply of 
 low-grade and unskilled labor. The 80 per cent in the sixteen- and 
 seventen-year-old group and the 41 per cent of the older group who 
 see little chance of getting beyond $6.00 a week represent a real 
 demand of our present methods of production and distribution. A 
 large number of girls must continue in monotonous, highly special- 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 51 
 
 ized occupations requiring no education and little intelligence. 
 The supply is constant from the untrained mass who are driven to 
 some temporary means of earning money, for although the girl in 
 industry may be a transient factor as an individual, each one who 
 leaves is at once followed by more than one successor entirely willing 
 to take the vacant place at the same wage. "The room at the top " 
 is made for those of special manual dexterity or some native ability 
 that makes oppprtxmity. The girls in the factory, the bindery, and 
 the yards who receive more than $6.00 a week attain the higher 
 wage only through the piecework system. Many girls are forced to 
 lessen the nervous strain attending piecework by changing factories, 
 and securing another kind of monotony in their daily labor. This 
 means beginning with a lowered wage and acquiring a new skill. 
 Others hold their places in rush seasons only and plan to be idle 
 three or four months of the year. By far the greater number, after 
 some experience, learn to set a pace they are able to keep without 
 excessive fatigue. The girls of this last class average from $7 . 00 to 
 $8.00 a week. In brief, the opportunity in the factory tj^e of 
 occupation depends upon the efficiency that means speed, and the 
 girl does not earn /or any length of time the high wage used by the 
 employer to illustrate the advantages of the system. Judging from 
 the positions of the two hundred girls, who fairly represent the 
 general situation, 61 per cent of the girls of the stockyards district 
 who leave school before completing the elementary course will find 
 their places in this factory t)rpe of occupation. The possibility of 
 securing one of the few executive positions open to girls should be 
 mentioned. Only one girl has been found who attempted to hold 
 the place of forewoman, and after a few weeks she fell back to her 
 familiar piecework. More than one employer testified to the 
 difficulty of finding competent forewomen among the rank and file 
 of workers whom they would wiUingly promote. The reasons are 
 obvious. The untrained mind which can easily grasp all the 
 requirements of the piecework system fails when it comes to meeting 
 the demands of even" a subordinate executive position. The daily 
 work offers no chance for mental development. Moreover, the 
 inferior rank assigned to the girl is not conducive to the ^owth of 
 initiative and self-assertion. 
 
52 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 Comparatively few of the American-born girls remain in the 
 sewing trades in spite of the fact that dressmaking and millinery are 
 among the largest industries at present open to women. This is 
 due chiefly to the methods in the shops which prolong the period of 
 apprenticeship and give small opportunity to the learner. The 
 dressmakers are calling for girls who have had some training at least 
 in plain sewing. The foreign girls come better prepared, but it is a 
 curious fact that the mothers, many of whom are capable of 
 beautiful needlework, do not succeed in teaching their American 
 daughters the same art. The schools have done comparatively little 
 and the result is the untrained girl who enters the shop for errand 
 work grows tired of it before she has had a chance to do much else, 
 and leaves for some position that seems to promise more rapid 
 promotion. As a rule it requires from two to three years to reach 
 a wage of $7.00 or $8.00 a week, and the girl must be a good 
 observer and quick to take casual suggestions, for she will get little 
 real teaching. Yet there are always good positions waiting for those 
 who persist through the beginner's time-serving and learn to be one 
 of the specialized workers. The same difficulties confront the girl 
 who wishes to be a milliner, and even those who felt attracted to 
 this trade and undoubtedly possessed enough ability to reach the 
 average wage of $10.00 or $12.00 a week have been turned aside 
 because they could not get a start. The girls in the tailor estab- 
 lishments were scheduled apart from the other sewing trades 
 because all who receive above $6.00 a week are a part of the piece- 
 work system possible in this industry through the minute sub- 
 division of all the processes involved. The opportunities in this 
 work, like those in the factory, depend upon the speed of the 
 worker. 
 
 Domestic service is by common consent the least desirable of all 
 the occupations. The eighth-grade girl will take any kind of factory- 
 work in preference, much as she dislikes the latter. Of the five girls 
 so employed, only one is contented. The other four were forced to 
 it after a period of overwork in store, bindery, and factory that 
 made a change a physical necessity. A full presentation of the 
 domestic-service situation is not possible here, but a few reasons 
 may be given to account for the prevailing attitude. There is no 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT S3 
 
 real preparation available for the majority of these girls. The 
 mothers cannot give any systematic tra,ining that would make their 
 daughters valuable in an American household and the bi-weekly 
 cooking-class for one school year offers the only bit of instruction 
 open to them. The fourteen- or fifteen-year-old child is of little 
 service to the employer who cannot accept her in her untrained state 
 and act as a teacher. It is little wonder that the girl who is placed 
 at a low wage to help with "light housework" or "mind a baby" 
 proves unsatisfactory in a position that requires more maturity and 
 good sense than the factory demands. Moreover, the early age of 
 her emplojrment makes it difficult for the girl to leave home and 
 accept the isolation of the average domestic helper. Since there is 
 little chance to begin under acceptable conditions, the logical result 
 is the adaptation to other occupations easily accessible, which allow 
 the child to live at home where she naturally belongs at her age. 
 The definite duties and fixed hours combined with the greater 
 sociability of every other occupation are more attractive to youth. 
 The years do not bring either opportunity or inclination to acquire 
 enough knowledge of household arts to enable these girls to hold 
 good positions. Finally, the American-born girl, so close to the 
 foreign home, holds tenaciously to her conviction that domestic 
 service is un-American, an inferior kind of work that must be left 
 to "foreigners." How far the employers of household labor are 
 responsible for the attitude of mind that makes this occupation so 
 universally undesirable may be left an open question. 
 
 The department store stands next to the factory as a low-gradq 
 entrance to employment, but more than half of those who begin in 
 the store refuse to remain there. The wages are low and oppor- 
 timities for advancement are few. Seventeen out of the one hundred 
 in the eighth-grade group and thirty-four from the two hundred of 
 the other group, or only 17 per cent of the total, are in stores, and 
 those who receive more than $7.00 a week are working on the 
 commission plan, wages estimated on the basis of the number of 
 sales. Again the girl must submit to the speeding-up process if she 
 wishes to get out of the low-wage class. 
 
 The office position holds little hope for the girl who has had less 
 than eight grades in school, and she seldom rises above $7 . 00 a week 
 
54 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 in simple routine work. The one exception to this which Table 
 XVI shows is but another illustration of the persistency and native 
 ability that may conquer many adverse conditions. For the girl 
 who completes the elementary-school course there are opportunities 
 commanding a wage varying from $8.00 to $12.00 or possibly 
 $13.00 a week. Much depends upon her accuracy and general 
 reliabihty and other characteristics that may make her a valuable 
 part of the routine. The clever stenographer may reach $15.00 a 
 week but is not likely to do so unless she is well qualified in English, 
 and the majority fail at this point without more training than they 
 acquire in the six months' course of the business college. The 
 possession of the eighth-grade certificate is not required to enter the 
 service of the Telephone Company, but comparatively few girls in 
 the district succeed in qualifying without it, although the telephone 
 girl stands next to the office girl in having achieved a position that 
 gives social distinction. After passing through the school, operators 
 formerly' began at the rate of eleven cents an hour for the first six 
 months. The new schedule gives twelve cents an hour for the first 
 month, with a more rapid rate of increase. It is also possible for 
 girls to reach supervisory positions but few will be able to do so. 
 Judging from the one hundred girls who fairly represent the 
 tendency of those who complete the eight grades, 64 per cent of the 
 girls in the neighborhood who are able to reach this group will find 
 places in some form of office work or with the Telephone Company. 
 In the sewing trades, the factory, the bindery, and the yards, a 
 girl is subject to seasonal employment. This is especially true of 
 the low-wage class, for even in seasonal occupations the skilled 
 workers may be retained or may find places by migrating from one 
 part of the city to another. 
 
 The following 
 
 schi 
 
 edule was put into effect January 16, 1913 : 
 
 13 cents 
 
 an ; 
 
 hour for the first month 
 
 13 " 
 
 tt 
 
 a 
 
 ft ft 
 
 next two months 
 
 I* " 
 
 " 
 
 K 
 
 ft ft 
 
 " three months 
 
 IS " 
 
 
 ft 
 
 ft ft 
 
 " four months 
 
 16 " 
 
 
 ft 
 
 ft ft 
 
 " five months 
 
 I? « 
 
 
 ft 
 
 ft ft 
 
 • six months 
 
 18 " 
 
 
 ft 
 
 ft ft 
 
 " seven months 
 
 19 « 
 
 
 « 
 
 ft ft 
 
 " eight months 
 
 20 ' 
 
 
 ft 
 
 " « 
 
 " year 
 
 and so on up to 
 
 the maximum of 23 cents. 
 
o 
 
 O 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 55 
 6. HEALTH IN RELATION TO OCCUPATION 
 
 In the beginning of this investigation an effort was made to 
 secure records of the girl's physical condition in relation to her 
 home environment, her occupation, and the length of time she had 
 been employed. It was impossible to make the records complete 
 enough for any final conclusions. The average working-girl cannot 
 afford to confess to physical weaknesses, but the majority accept as 
 a matter of course "two or three colds every winter" or "frequent 
 nervous headaches" for which no physician is consulted, or the need 
 of the stimulation supplied by an excessive use of tea and coffee. 
 The question is extremely complex, since health is dependent upon 
 so many factors both psychic and physical. Overcrowding, lack of 
 proper food, worry, and friction, all work together to undermine 
 the health of a girl who might imder a more favorable environment 
 endure the stress of the occupation that appears to be the cause of 
 her breakdown. However, a few suggestive facts grew out of the 
 effort. The girls between eighteen and twenty years of age showed 
 the best average of general good health, regardless of their occupa- 
 tions. Those under eighteen and over twenty showed the greatest 
 number of minor ailments and nervous tendencies, also regardless of 
 the character of the occupations in which they had been engaged. 
 Girls who had changed occupation, when the new position meant 
 greater satisfaction in work or some added pleasure due to increased 
 wages, showed a better average of health than those working with a 
 sense of discontent or a desire for changes which they were unable 
 to bring about. Those twenty years of age and over who began at 
 fourteen admitted that they were "tired most of the time." The 
 late beginning, although it often meant no gain in wages over the 
 girl of the same age who began earlier, had served to postpone the 
 almost inevitable coming of weariness and aversion experienced by 
 so many girls after six years of continuous emplosonent. The head 
 of the employment department in a large manufacturing industry 
 using the piecework system is responsible for the statement that the 
 average "efficient life" of the rapid pieceworker seldom exceeds 
 three years. That is, few girls are able to endure for a longer period 
 the combination of monotony and speed required to earn the high 
 wage held out as an inducement at the beginning of their work. 
 
S6 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 These girls had been obliged to slacken the pace or change the 
 occupation to bring into use a different set of muscles in order to 
 avoid a nervous breakdown. The long rides, standing in crowded 
 street cars, which 80 per cent of the girls are obliged to take, add an 
 inconceivable amount to the burden of the day's work. A part of 
 the desire for office and telephone positions arises from the shorter 
 hours* required in these occupations. The unanimous testimony of 
 the thinking mothers is that "American-born girls grow up with 
 less physical vigor than their parents." 
 
 Exact information from employers was difficult to obtain, as no 
 records are kept of the number who drop out of any industry or for 
 what cause. The general impression of the managers of employ- 
 ment departments seems to be that girls leave to be married; that 
 this is the final occupation open to all of them; that the limited 
 period of their employment could not seriously afifect their health. 
 Many were able to point to their welfare work, restrooms, and 
 trained nurses in attendance, and all looked upon the general 
 appearance of those at the moment employed as a guaranty that the 
 specialized form of occupation they represented could not be 
 detrimental to health. One who visits any business or industry 
 calling for large numbers of women and girls, will be impressed by 
 the freshness and youth* of the mass. Yet it is obviously impossible 
 to arrive at any conclusion through the study of the survivors, 
 rather than the victims of modern industry. 
 
 The study of occupational diseases is not new. Miss Goldmark 
 draws a line sharply between the longer established interest in 
 special trade diseases and the recent physiological study of over- 
 work. Fatigue and nervous exhaustion, the subtle and hitherto 
 imrecognized effects of speed, monotony, noise, piecework, and the 
 
 ' The Telephone Company requires eight hours of actual work, but pays for eight 
 and one-half hours, a rest period of fifteen minutes being given each morning and after- 
 noon. The hours of office girls are not uniform, but vary from eight to nine and one- 
 half. Only two girls in the group were found working in a Union factory with a uni- 
 form eight-hour day. 
 
 '"Successive reports of the United States Census indicate that self-supporting 
 girls are increasing steadily in numbers each decade, until 59 per cent of all young 
 women in the Nation between the ages of 16 and 20, are engaged in some gainful 
 occupation." — Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, p. 56. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 57 
 
 Stress of rush seasons are the dangers that threaten the workers of 
 today. With the exception of the few domestic helpers, all of the 
 wage-earning girls are subject to some form of this "new strain in 
 industry." They are meeting it bravely, but blindly, driven by 
 forces beyond either their comprehension or their control. Judging 
 from studies in other' industrial communities, there is abundant 
 evidence that efl&cient girlhood in factory, shop, or store will mean 
 inefficient motherhood' visible in "a heightened infant mortality, a 
 lowered birth-rate, and an impaired second generation." What the 
 results wiU be no one dares to prophesy. Even now there are signs 
 of physical deterioration in this first generation frpm vigorous 
 foreign stock. 
 
 7. THE GIRL AND THE FAMILY 
 
 The girl begins her work in response to the family standard that 
 demands the wages of children, and she remains amaziagly docile in 
 supplying the family need. (From time immemorial the economic 
 value of the woman has been estimated in terms of the immediate 
 needs of the family.) The customary duties of wife and mother are 
 accepted as a matter of course and every girl is expected, after a 
 temporary season of wage-earning, to go from the home of her father 
 to that of her husband. " Economic independence " for the woman 
 in a sense conveyed by the modern use of these words is as yet 
 unknown and incomprehensible. It follows that what the girl 
 earns is easily appropriated by the parents and, broadly speaking, 
 obediently surrendered by the girl. Among the three hundred girls 
 between sixteen and twenty-four years of age, there are 290 who 
 have no independent control of their own wages. That is, what 
 they earn goes into the common family fund and they receive back 
 again from the mother what she decides they require for carfare, 
 lunches, amusements, and clothes. Girls sometimes complain that 
 they do npt have enough "returned" to them in spending money 
 and in "the kind of clothes other girls wear." If the mother is 
 
 ' This foreign district does not yet furnish enough children of the second genera- 
 tion in America to make possible a study of mothers who had been in the class of 
 working-girls here described. 
 
 ' Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency, pp. go-ioo. 
 
58 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 indulgent with her daughter's desire for evening pleasures and some 
 of the novelties and frivolities of fashion, there is little friction; if 
 she fails to recognize these legitimate demands of youth, the distance 
 between mother and daughter is widened, although among the five 
 hundred girls their instinctive devotion to the family claim has 
 been strong enough to keep them obedient. When the son begias 
 to feel that he should no longer surrender his entire wage to his 
 mother, this same dispute is promptly handled in a different manner. 
 A definite sum, usually from $3 . 00 to $5 . 00 a week, is exacted from 
 him, proportioned according to his wage and the amount the mother 
 thinks she can demand and still keep him loyal to the family. This 
 sum entitles him to board, lodging, and laundry. "Boys can run 
 away if you don't do the right thing by them," says the foreign 
 mother, "and of course you wouldn't treat boys the way you do 
 girls." Girls sometimes complain of the superior attitude of the 
 brother, but at the same time, they bow before it. Those who are 
 earning more than either the father or the son accept a position in 
 the household that forces them to coax, cry, or quarrel with the 
 mother whenever they wish independent spending-money. With 
 ten girls of this group, rebellion reached a climax. They demanded 
 and secured an equal right with the brother to pay a fixed sum 
 for board.' 
 
 Under these family conditions it is difficult to say what con- 
 stitutes "a living wage" for a girl. These girls are supplementary 
 wage-earners. They represent the class who furnish the "living at 
 home" excuse of the employer who is questioned about his low wage 
 scale. Parents and daughters alike accept with little protest a wage 
 that could not cover the cost of the most meager living apart from 
 the family. The woman who frets over the $6.00 a week of the 
 sixteen-year-old boy will regard the same wage complacently when 
 the seventeen-year-old girl receives it. Whether the wage proves 
 unsatisfactory from the older daughter depends entirely upon the 
 amount the girl must have returned to her. Mothers object 
 especially to the department-store positions that call for an undue 
 
 'In one family the matter was settled by accepting $5.00 a week from the 
 daughter, although only $4.00 a week was demanded from the son who could earn 
 the same amount as his sister. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 59 
 
 outlay in clothes in proportion to the wage received, and make a 
 point of encouraging the factory work which takes less account of 
 the girl's appearance. The cheap office position is open to the same 
 objection as the department store. The consensus of opinion 
 among the more inteUigent mothers is that considering the present 
 high cost of living any occupation in the pubUc eye requiring a girl 
 "to look well" calls for a minimum of $8.00 a week even when she 
 has the advantage of living at home. Strange as it may seem, the 
 fact that the wage sufficient only for carfare, lunches, and clothes 
 leaves a part of the girl's support to be met by the rest of the 
 family, is not regarded by the general run of parents as unjust. As 
 long as this attitude remains, the individual supplementary wage- 
 earner will continue to complicate the problem of wages. 
 
 Although the girl accepts the standards of the home that control 
 the extent of her schooling and demand her wages, the first experi- 
 ence as a wage-earner brings a slight change in her relation to the 
 other members of the family. The world is bigger than she knew 
 and there are other ways of living than those she has been taught to 
 accept. A new attitude toward life begins to develop, manifested 
 in a little more self-assertion and a desire "to do as other girls do." 
 Gradually she comes into her own world of hopes and ambitions in 
 which the parents have Httle part. Since there is no place for social 
 gatherings in the four-room flat, she meets chance companions on 
 the corner, often gets an invitation to the five-cent theater, and 
 "makes dates" for successive evenings. It must be remembered 
 that it is possible for a girl to do this and preserve an almost 
 incredible degree of innocence and childishness. As she grows 
 older, the public dance-hall furnishes a larger share of her evening 
 pleasures. Seventy-five per cent of the girls from sixteen to 
 twenty-four years of age attend public dances where there is 
 practically no supervision. Those who do not are among the 
 younger ones who are still obedient to parental authority. It is 
 common also for various social clubs to hire a hall, demand an 
 admission fee to cover the cost of rent and music, and take charge of 
 their own dance. Here there is no oversight beyond that exercised 
 by a "floor committee" of exuberant young fellows who may be 
 from eighteen to twenty-one years of age. Parents protest in vain. 
 
6o CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 The young people are making their own standards through the 
 natural law of imitation which leads them to break away from the 
 older ideals of the home and try to be a conspicuous part of some 
 prevailing custom,^ fashion or sentiment. The simple peasant 
 courtesies having their being in class distinctions not openly 
 recognized in America are despised. The mother does not under- 
 stand why she must not kiss the hand of one whom her Old World 
 instincts make her recognize as her "superior." In their own 
 country the Slavic women below the middle class do not wear hats 
 and among all other nations there is a tendency to make the head- 
 dress represent a distinction that stands for something vital and 
 unalterable. For this reason the American daughter places an 
 exaggerated importance upon the possession of a fashionable hat' 
 that brings girls of aU classes and all nations to one level. Both 
 father and mother cling to their native speech. Although the 
 daughter does not lose it entirely, she takes little pains to preserve 
 it. Dress and speech are the visible signs of the distance between 
 parents and child. A further cause of contention lies in the demand 
 of the children for a higher standard of living at home. Sons often 
 unite with the daughters in calling for a better grade of food, more 
 comfortable furnishings, or an additional room in the flat. It is a 
 significant fact that the rebellion against overcrowding comes from 
 the young people and not from the parents. This feeling even 
 hastens the marriage of both sons and daughters who find seven or 
 eight people in four rooms an unbearable condition. Although the 
 father is not an unimportant factor in these disputes, it is usually 
 the mothej: who manages the combined income of husband and 
 children. If she wishes to retain her firm hold on the family purse, 
 she is often forced to make compromises, and children on their part 
 are often obliged to conform to the stern authority of the parents. 
 
 ' At one of these club dances the writer remonstrated with a youth of nineteen 
 who was dancing in an unseemly fashion. In a straightforward and manly way he 
 assured his critic that he was in complete accord with "the latest thing in fashionable 
 society on the other side of the town." 
 
 ' A milliner of long e^erience in the neighborhood says she has witnessed many 
 a dispute between mother and daughter over the relative amount that should be spent 
 for the hat. The girl is wiUiig to practice economy in every other direction; the 
 mother is horrified at the cost of an unnecessary bit of finery. 
 
OLD COUNTRY MOTHERS 
 
 AMERICAN DAUGHTERS 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 6l 
 
 Sometimes the children permanently raise the standard of living in 
 the home; sometimes they sink under the burden of a daily life 
 wholly incompatible with their tastes and ambitions. In this 
 process of assimilation the American girl presents a strange mixture 
 of independence and helplessness, self-assertion and submission, 
 loyalty and rebellion, that confuse, anger, and grieve the foreign 
 parent; but neither understands the subtle and irresistible forces at 
 work to produce a situation so difficult for both father and mother 
 and so dangerous for the girl. 
 
 SECTION V. PROBLEMS OF ADJUSTMENT 
 I. SUMMARY 
 
 Before considering the possible methods of meeting some of the 
 problems outlined, the leading points in the discussion may be 
 summarized. 
 
 1. The immigrants of the stockyards district represent various 
 races and different levels of both social and financial attainment. 
 
 2. The dominant educational standard of the people is the 
 minimum legal requirement of the state, and by common consent 
 the education of the girl is a matter of less importance than the 
 education of the boy. 
 
 3. Eighty-nine per cent of the families feel an obligation to send 
 their children to the parochial school for a part of their training. 
 The constant movement between public and parochial schools 
 makes loss of time unavoidable and increases the amount of 
 retardation and consequent elimination that takes place before the 
 completion of the elementary-school course. 
 
 4. Retardation and elimination statistics show a condition in the 
 local public schools the reverse of that revealed in the investigations 
 of other communities; retardation among boys is 22 per cent 
 greater than retardation among girls, but owing to the inferior 
 position assigned to the girl, the proportion of boys who remain in 
 school to enter the eighth grade is 24 per cent greater than the 
 proportion of girls who remain. 
 
 5. The wage of the father is an important factor in determining 
 the extent of eUmination. 
 
62 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 6. The school is not meeting the needs of the majority of the 
 girls in the district, and makes but slight impression upon those 
 who fail to receive the benefit of a complete elementary course. 
 They do not successfully attend the evening school and cannot 
 make up for a deficient education by taking class instruction after 
 working-hours. 
 
 7. The girls who complete eight grades recognize a value in the 
 discipline of a complete course, and 43 per cent tried to take some 
 advantage of educational opportunities after leaving the elementary 
 school. 
 
 8. The compulsory education law that requires the alternative 
 of school in the event of failure to find work during the fourteen-to- 
 sixteen-year period is not enforced and cannot be as long as girls 
 are allowed the independent possession of their work certificates. 
 
 9. The employment of girls under sixteen years is not necessary 
 to the continuation of any business or industry. The occupations 
 open to them are non-educative and attended by grave physical 
 and moral dangers. The actual power of the girl to add to the 
 family income has been exaggerated and overestimated. 
 
 10. The records of older girls show that 61 per cent of those who 
 leave school before completing eight grades accept places in the 
 factories where the opportunity to earn more than $6.00 a week 
 must depend upon their skill as pieceworkers. Sixty-four per cent 
 of those who complete eight grades will find positions in some form 
 of office work or with the Telephone Company, where there is a 
 possibility of their earning from $8.00 to $15.00 a week. 
 
 11. Records of the relation between health and occupation are 
 not complete enough for final conclusions, but one general fact is 
 obvious: under the existing conditions of life and labor in the 
 stockyards district the first generation of American girls lack the 
 physical stamina of the foreign stock from which they come. 
 
 12. In the unavoidable conflict of standards, the gravest dan- 
 ger to the girl Hes in the freedom she has demanded to resort to 
 unregulated public places of amusement. 
 
 2. REMEDIAL MEASURES 
 
 ' The conditions summarized above call for remedial measures: 
 (a) the reorganization of the school; (b) a revised compulsory 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 63 
 
 education law; (c) a new attitude to the problem of family poverty; 
 (d) preparation for a city- wide vocational guidance program; (e) 
 adequate provision for, and supervision of, public places of amuse- 
 ment and recreation. 
 
 a) The reorganization of the school. — Chicago has recently been 
 made alive to the fact that "43 per cent of her school children who 
 enter the first grade do not reach the eighth grade at all, and 49 
 per cent do not complete the eighth grade.'" A careful analysis of 
 the present situation in the schools, a study of the need for industrial 
 and commercial training, together with recommendations as to the 
 form in which such training may be made a part of the public-school 
 system of the city, may be found in the comprehensive report of the 
 City Club of Chicago. Training of a preparatory trade character 
 to be introduced into the seventh and eighth grades, vocational 
 work and individual attention for overage pupils to enable them to 
 complete the work of the grades, a trade school that shall admit girls 
 of fourteen years who have completed six grades, the suggestion 
 that " the subject-matter of the academic studies should be closely 
 related to the handwork and to industrial needs," are among the 
 recommendations that will meet the more immediate requirements 
 of the girls of the stockyards district. The education of a girl offers 
 a complex and difficult problem, since it calls for the recognition of 
 her need of adequate preparation for earning a Uvelihood, and the 
 further more important preparation for life as a wife and mother. 
 The first half of the problem has beeii surrendered to the store, the 
 factory, the shop, and the business office; the second has been 
 forgotten. At present the lack of training in the household arts, 
 and the neglect of the teaching that will develop efficient mother- 
 hood threaten serious consequences to the future^ generation. To 
 
 ' A Report on Vocational Training in Chicago and in Other Cities by A Committee 
 of the City Club of Chicago, p. i. 
 
 ' A young girl came to the Settlement recently from whom the following record 
 was secured: left school in the sixth grade at fourteen years; spent three years in 
 migrating from factory to factory wrapping soap or candy; met a young fellow at a 
 public dance-hall; married at the age of seventeen; after one week of married life 
 came to ask for a place in a factory. They had decided "to board with mother." 
 The American girl, slender, pale, inefficient m every direction save "wrapping," 
 returned with her husband to the old German mother who was still vigorous, a capable 
 mistress of all the homely arts, but helpless before conditions that had fashioned her 
 daughter. 
 
64 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 be effective in remedying this condition among people who are not 
 sufficiently conscious of what they lack, enlarged opportunities must 
 be brought to their very doors. The reorganization of the courses 
 in the local schools and the establishment of a trade school' within 
 reach without the expenditure of carfare, are the first requisites of 
 the voluntary attendance that will lead to a conscious awakening 
 without which no lasting reformation is possible. 
 
 b) A revised compulsory education law. — ^The reorganization of 
 the school will do much to arouse an interest that may induce 
 voluntary attendance, but in a neighborhood of low educational 
 standards and predominantly low wages, legislation to raise the 
 compulsory age limit to sixteen years is imperative. In no other 
 way will this new opportunity be opened to those whose need is 
 greatest. The ignorance and indifference of parents, the failure of 
 the present law as it relates to the fourteen-to-sixteen-year period, 
 the non-educative character of all city occupations open to little 
 girls, combined with the grave physical and moral dangers attend- 
 ing their employment, call for such legislation coincident with the 
 provision for vocational training in the school. To protect the 
 children of foreign parents from a mistaken sentiment that requires 
 them to receive the greater part of their education in their mother- 
 tongue, the law should demand that all candidates for work cer- 
 tificates be able to read and write the English language.^ At 
 best any standard minimum age as the chief requisite for beginning 
 work is open to serious objections, and in the evolution of child- 
 labor legislation' this arbitrary test will give way to a more intelli- 
 
 ' Continuous efforts have been made to induce girls to attend the Lucy L. Flower 
 Technical High School. Parents complain that "it is too far away and takes car- 
 fare." Since the opening of the school in September, 191 1, only six girls from this 
 district have taken advantage of this opportunity and only two are remaining for 
 their second year. 
 
 ' The present law demands that a child shall not be illiterate, but does not require 
 even a rudimentary knowledge of the English language. Girls come to the Settlement 
 who can neither read nor write the simple sentences of a First English Reader, but 
 they hold out their work certificates as proof of their fitness for entrance to industry. 
 The sentiment of the parents who wish their children to respect and use the mother- 
 tongue is not undervalued and at all times deserves consideration, but the experience 
 of the past years has proved that the children are too seriously handicapped by this 
 shortsighted policy. 
 
 3 Mrs. Florence Kelley has given a program for effective child labor legislation 
 and its enforcement in Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, pp. 91-99. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 65 
 
 gent consideration of the child's physical, mental, and moral fitness 
 for a given occupation regardless of the exact number of years 
 attained. Mr. Lovejoy, in reviewing the progress of the National 
 Child Labor Committee, says: "The chronological age test for 
 children seeking employment, which was general eight years ago, 
 has been supplemented in many states by requiring sufficient 
 physical examination to at least discover whether the child corre- 
 sponds to the norm for its age, and the public now generally 
 recognizes that educational and physical tests are essential to any 
 adequate dealing with the problem • of committing children to 
 industry." The more exact knowledge that wiU result from the 
 present movement for the vocational training, guidance, and super- 
 vision of working-children cannot fail to stimulate the needed 
 legislation in this direction. 
 
 c) A new attitude to the problem of family poverty — The new 
 compulsory education law will mean increased hardship in many 
 families where even the trifling wages of the child have an enlarged 
 value when added to the total family income. The results of 
 investigations in other commiuiities seem to prove that the early 
 leaving of school is not detennined by the family need. In the 
 stockyards district the economic situation will demand a new atti- 
 tude to the problem of the poverty that is increased by the neglect 
 of the children. "The most hopeless condition of the poor is 
 unfitness for work. Unfitness for work means low wages, low wages 
 mean insufficient food, insufficient food means unfitness for labor, 
 and so the vicious circle is complete.'" Poverty of this kind is a 
 social disease. It can never be an isolated fact, unrelated to the 
 progress and welfare of the city as a whole. An effective recognition 
 of the social rather than the individual aspect of poverty must lead 
 to some practical means that shall make it possible for parents to 
 accept the new law. Whatever the method, children must be 
 relieved of the need of becoming premature breadwinners, an 
 unnatural burden forced upon them by the ignorance, disability, or 
 low wage of the parents. Public and private charity may intervene 
 temporarily but the problem is ultimately one of wages. In her 
 discussion of Minimum- Wage Boards, Mrs. Kelley says: "Poverty 
 
 ' Rowntree, Poverty, p. 46. 
 
66 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 is the regular human by-product of certain industries without 
 standards, of certain socially subnormal industries. But it is 
 obvious that in any rational society, each industry must sustain the 
 people employed in it. An industry which supports its workers and 
 their families only in part, places an imdue burden upon charity 
 and is, itself, a parasite upon the community."' 
 
 Through this newer attitude to the problem of family poverty it 
 will be possible to establish the right of children to the normal 
 period of childhood and to adequate training for future usefulness 
 as citizens of an enlightened community. 
 
 d) Preparation for a city-wide vocational guidance program. — The 
 Board of Education has recently established a department of voca- 
 tional supervision.* The work of employment, supervision, 
 vocational guidance, and investigation of the industrial oppor- 
 tunities open to children who leave school to go to work has been 
 supported for two years by a number of private organizations under 
 the direction of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy 
 Department of Social Investigation. In different parts of the city 
 the necessarily limited experiments of private efforts have proved 
 both the need and the possibilities of this new movement, but its 
 ultimate success must depend upon a method that will leave no 
 community isolated and attempting to work out its own problems 
 apart from the rest of the city. The School has come to the point 
 of a severe testing of its efficiency, for it must attack the difficult 
 problem of bringing into a city-wide co-operation the home, the 
 school, and the world of industry, and of leading the way to new 
 legislation. Through this unification of social agencies the weak 
 points in each will be revealed. Vocational training must precede 
 the possibility of vocational guidance, but at present there is a lack 
 of sufficient information to enable the schools to make an intelligent 
 choice of the trades that should be taught, or of the kind of instruc- 
 tion demanded for a profitable entrance to different trades and 
 occupations. The proportion both of the skilled and of the 
 unskilled who suffer from seasonal employment is unknown. A 
 
 ' Mrs. Florence Kelley, "Minimum-Wage Boards,'' American Journal of Sociology, 
 November, 1911. 
 
 ' Circular of Announcement, Series III, No. 18, May i, 1913. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 67 
 
 Study of the relation between the demand and the supply of 
 unskilled labor' may reveal the extent to which, under the present 
 methods in business and industry, a large number of workers will be 
 found in the automatic occupations requiring no previous training. 
 It is obviously one of the first requisites of a city-wide program to 
 make provision for securing such Information'' and keeping it up to 
 date. With the best of knowledge at their command, it is a difficult 
 task for adult minds to understand and guide the young. To 
 further this aim the school should keep records of the child's 
 progress, aptitudes, personal tastes, and ambitions, together with 
 physical, mental, and moral characteristics. The child's transfer 
 from one school to another should not break the continuity of this 
 record. But it is not final to train children for the vocations to 
 which they are seemingly best adapted. Provision should be made 
 for a supervision of their employment durinjg the most trying years 
 of the adolescent period. A Uttle girl who commits some trifling 
 offense may become the ward of the Juvenile Court and may be 
 carefully guided in all of her activities until she is eighteen years of 
 age. The same careful supervision of all children will decrease the 
 nimiber recorded in the Juvenile Court. With the school as the 
 center of the vocatioual training, guidance, and supervision of all 
 children, it may be possible to prevent one of the great tragedies of 
 life — the vocational misfit. What the school may do to enrich the 
 lives of those whose daily work will be (according to present indica- 
 tions of the probable future of many industries) a mere deadly 
 routine is one of the problems for the future. The effort to solve it 
 may bring the employer to a recognition of the truth that business 
 and industry in all forms must serve in the training for citizenship 
 and the growth of democracy. 
 
 ' Two men who were looking for a desirable place to establish a new factory 
 recently came to the Settlement to ask for an estimate of the surplus labor available 
 among women and girls. The reputation of the stockyards district for cheap and 
 docile labor had reached them. It is not improbable that the future will see a spirit 
 of city-wide co-operation that will make such a proposition not only imethical but 
 wholly impracticable. 
 
 ' A beginning has been made by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy 
 Department of Social Investigation in their report on finding employment for.children 
 who leave the grade schools to go to work. 
 
68 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 e) Adequate provision for, and supervision of, public places of 
 amusement. — It was stated in the beginning that no delinquent girl 
 is included in the number who form the basis of this study. The 
 five himdred girls, living and growing under the trying conditions 
 imposed by conflicting standards, forced by the new methods of 
 industry to accept outside of their homes the nerve-wrecking and 
 non-stimulating occupations open to untrained girlhood, and 
 seeking in the five-cent theater and the dance-hall to satisfy their 
 youthful craving for excitement, are as yet among the large mass 
 of upright working-girls who are constructing their own code of 
 protective ethics. It is a dangerous experiment. Never before in 
 the world's history have women been considered as a class of 
 industrial workers. Never before have young girls been allowed 
 the freedom they indulge in today. As the city, through the 
 Board of Education, has decided to undertake the difficult task of 
 bringing together aU the agencies involved in the vocational 
 adjustment of youth, so it must ultimately through some effective 
 instrument make provision for recreation apart from the com- 
 mercial enterprise that profits from the juxtaposition of vice, 
 intemperance, and innocent amusements. The imiversal demand 
 of the workers today for shorter hours of labor is gaining a hearing. 
 The leisure they crave will be forthcoming, but to what eiid ? The 
 modern city has tried "this stupid experiment of organizing work 
 and failing to organize play,'" and the disastrous results are appar- 
 ent in the perversion of the normal instincts of youth. " The Right 
 to Leisure," the social cry of the present century, must be estab- 
 lished through municipal direction and control of all forms of public 
 recreation. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The following personal records are added because they represent 
 typical experiences and attitudes of American-born girls in this 
 district. 
 
 Case I. — ^Left school in the sixth grade at fourteen years. Began in a fig 
 and date factory at $3.50 a week; stayed five months; box factory for one 
 week at $3 . 00; biscuit factory one month at $3 . 50 a week; yards six months at 
 $S . 00 a week ; candy factory two weeks at $2 . 50 a week ; laundry two months 
 
 ' The final word on this subject has been given by Jane Addams in The Spirit of 
 Youth and the City Streets. 
 
THE AMERICAN GIRL IN THE STOCKYARDS DISTRICT 69 
 
 at $S-oo a week; candy factory on piecework for two weeks, but earned less 
 than the usual time wage; folded circulars in an ofiBce for three days and 
 received $1.35 for entire time; back to candy factory at $4.00 a week. Girl 
 was not sure of the exact order of her positions and thought she "might have 
 forgotten two or three of them." Could not understand why anybody who 
 had "seen so much of the city and had had so many experiences" should 
 always find such low wages. 
 
 Case 2. — ^Left school in the sixth grade on her fourteenth birthday. Went 
 into a soap factory; wiped and packed daily seventeen boxes,- each box holdmg 
 fifty bars of toUet soap; received $4.00 a week when she could keep up this pace. 
 At the end of the first year, hands were red and sore and head ached the last 
 half of the week. During the second year often stayed out on Thursday 
 because she could not endure the nervous strain without this interruption. 
 Occasionally reached a speed of twenty-two boxes daily and received $5 . 50 a 
 week. At the age of sixteen, wearied, disgusted, and rebellious, she came to the 
 Settlement to know "why girls have to work in nasty places," and to ask for a 
 book on "How Poor Girls Became Famous." She had heard there were books 
 like that and she had "got to do something quick." 
 
 Case 3. — Left school in the seventh grade at fourteen years. At home two 
 years. Piecework in different bookbinderies for five years. Never earned 
 more than $7 . 00 a week. So sick of the monotony that she must try something 
 new. Piecework in an upholstery factory for seven months. Ill for six months, 
 heart permanently weakened. Placed in a good position to do housework, 
 and rapidly improving. 
 
 Case 4. — ^Left school in the sixth grade at fourteen years. Factory piece- 
 worker for five years, earning from $8. 00 to $9.00 a week. Repeated inter- 
 ruptions due to illnesses of the fifth year. Nervous breakdown ascribed by 
 doctor to overstrain of piecework. Idle six months trying to recover. Forced 
 to accept an easy factory position at $5 . 00 a week. 
 
 Case 5. — Left school in the seventh grade at fifteen years. Tried house- 
 work for six months at $3 . 00 a week. Steady factory work at $7 . 00 to $8 . 00 
 a week. Tells experience of a " lightning worker " who once outdid herself and 
 made $4. 00 on the day's piecework. A cut on the rate followed at once which 
 reduced girls in her class to $5.00 and $6.00 a week. Two girls went to the 
 office and complained on behalf of the entire nimiber. They were discharged. 
 The other girls cried over their machines but nobody could lead a strike. 
 
 Case 6. — ^Left school at fourteen in the seventh grade. A department-store 
 girl for six years, advancing from $3.00 to present wage of $6.50 a week. 
 Tired and worn. Says she knows now that "the untrained girl without a trade 
 is not worth more than an average of $6.00 or $7.00 a week." 
 
 Case 7. — ^Left school in the fourth grade at fourteen years. Piecework for 
 seven years. Can earn from $13 . 00 to $1 s • 00 a week, but the average for the 
 year round is from $8 . 00 to $9 . 00. Says a factory means "incessant watching 
 and driving for speed." At fourteen an unusually strong, vigorous, solid girl 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY UBRARY 
 
 70 
 
 3 1924 091 530 745 
 
 CHICAGO'S STOCKYARDS COMMUNITY 
 
 ■with the steady German capacity for continuous work. At twenty-dne, forced 
 to "lay by," nervous, listless, "disgusted with everything." Lost ten pounds 
 of her weight between twentieth and twenty-first birthdays. 
 
 Case 8. — Left school at the close of the fourth grade when twelve years old. 
 Began at once in a department store at $i . 50 a week. Between eighteen and 
 twenty years of age at the height of her earning power, $10.00 a week. At 
 twenty began to weaken. Dropped to position at $8.00. Severe eye-strain 
 which glasses could not relieve. Finally went into a bindery "for a chance to 
 sit down." The change from constant standing to constant sitting improved 
 general health and relieved eye-strain. 
 
 Case g. — Eighth-grade girl began in a department store at $3 . 00 a week. 
 In eighteen months rose to $4.50. Tried the "commission on sales plan" 
 which averaged $15.00 a week. Lasted one year. Broken in health. At 
 home for one year. Returned to another store on steady wage of $6.00 a 
 week. 
 
 Case 10. — Left school in the fifth grade at fourteen years. Factory worker 
 for six years. Average of $8.00 a week for past four years. Says: "I have 
 earned money for the family and they could not live without my wages, but / 
 know nothing. Foreign people will not teach a girl anything because they 
 think she will marry Tjy eighteen years. I am considered old at twenty, but I 
 cannot marry a foreign man and live like my parents." 
 
 In the absence of more cases the extent to which the following 
 are typical of what the stockyards district will produce is an open 
 question. Miss Goldmark' quotes from English records of the 
 lowered birth-rate among women who have spent their girlhood 
 employed in stores. 
 
 Case I. — ^Left school in the fifth grade at fourteen years. Home two years. 
 Worked in a bookbindery nearly three years. Average wage $6.00 a week. 
 Has been married two years and seven months. No children. 
 
 Case 2. — Left school in the fifth grade at fourteen years. Reached average 
 of $9.00 a week in a department store. Has been married four years. No 
 children. 
 
 Case 3. — ^Left school in the fifth grade at fourteen years. Factory girl for 
 four years. Never could earn more than $7.00 a week. Has been married 
 four years. No children. 
 
 Case 4. — ^Left school in the seventh grade at fourteen years. Department 
 store for six years, rising from $3 . 00 to $10. 00 a week. Has been married five 
 years. No children. 
 
 Case s. — ^Left school in the seventh grade at thirteen years. Large and 
 vigorous and "passed for fifteen." Department-store girl for six years. Feet 
 swollen till she was unable to stand. Became an office girl for one year. Has 
 been married three years. No children. 
 
 ' Fatigue and Efficiency, p. 96.