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They become stenographers, typewriters, dressmakers, milliners, shirt waist makers, cash-girls, saleswomen, etc.; in fact any occupation where work is limited to a fixed number of hours a day and confined to six days a week, is considered more desirable than housework.
Miss Alice S. Woodbridge, the secretary of the Working-women's Society of New York, after a recent tour of investigation, sums up the result of her observations in the following words: "The wages paid to women average between four and four and one-half dollars per week, and are often reduced by unreasonable and excessive fines. The little cash-girls do not average two dollars a week.
In many fashionable houses the saleswomen are not allowed to leave the counter between the hours of eleven A. M. and three P. M., except for lunch, and if a saleswoman has a customer when the lunch-hour arrives, she is obliged to remain and wait on the customer, and the time so consumed is deducted from lunch-time. "If mistakes are made, they are charged to the saleswomen and cash-girls.
In dry-goods, with ten divisions of employment, cashiers, bundle-girls, saleswomen, floor-walkers, seamstresses, cloakmakers, cash-girls, stock-girls, milliners, and sewing-girls, the lowest sum per week is $1.50, paid to cash-girls, and the highest paid to floor-walkers, $16. On the east side of the city, shop girls receive often as low as $3 per week; in a few cases specified, $2.50 per week.
In one large house the average wages for saleswomen and cash-girls is two dollars and forty cents a week.
In these and many other trades work must be so closely watched that it brings on weakness of the eyes, so that many girls are under treatment for this. In bakeries the girls stand from ten to sixteen hours a day, and break down after a short time. Boots and shoes oblige being on the feet all day; and this is the case for saleswomen, cash-girls, and all factory-workers.
In which the minimum wages of cash-girls are two dollars per week, with the same conditions regarding weekly payments and fines. +Hours.+ In which a vacation of not less than one week is given with pay during the summer season. In which all over-time is compensated for. +Physical Conditions.+
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