Women in the Printing Trades Part 3

SOME DETAILS OF ABOVE.

Total Total Male Female Male. Female. over 18. over 18.

_Paper-making._ 1895 Factories 21,263 11,008 18,271 8,935 1896 " 22,091 11,744 18,777 9,403 1897 " 22,174 11,309 19,086 9,138 1898-99(a) " 22,340 11,506 19,158 9,197

_Bookbinding._ 1895 Factories 11,791 16,098 9,304 10,802 1896 " 13,300 17,159 10,580 11,498 1897 " 14,661 20,877 11,705 13,985 1898-99(a) " 14,893 22,555 12,046 14,653

_Letter-press Printing._ 1895 Factories 104,162 19,974 80,232 12,699 1896 " 104,860 20,634 80,719 12,732 1897 " 100,629 14,473 79,124 8,725 1898-99(a) " 102,800 13,348 81,598 8,283

_Lithography, Engraving and Photography._ 1895 Factories 12,789 4,516 9,024 2,735 Workshops 2,226 1,425 1,494 943 1896 Factories 14,854 5,252 10,572 3,076 Workshops 3,116 2,146 2,224 1,437 1897 Factories 17,960 6,278 12,867 3,451 Workshops 2,794 2,115 2,076 1,477 1898-99(a) Factories 17,737 6,457 12,727 3,522

_Machine Ruling._ 1895 Factories 664 482 408 170 Workshops 233 134 97 45 1896 Factories 981 599 594 197 Workshops 269 168 135 59 1897 Factories 1,764 1,414 1,115 538 Workshops 322 166 163 57 1898-99(a) Factories 2,062 1,571 1,328 534

_Paper Staining, Colouring and Enamelling._ 1895 Factories 4,254 983 2,916 540 Workshops 102 28 74 16 1896 Factories 4,468 1,065 3,114 577 Workshops 138 70 111 42 1897 Factories 4,795 1,368 3,395 784 Workshops 40 66 33 38 1898-99(a) Factories 4,874 1,320 3,529 746

_Envelope Making._ 1897 Factories 1,203 4,156 8 96 2,865 Workshops 37 292 25 191 1898-99(a) Factories 1,405 4,996 1,030 3,313

(a) Factories only.

These figures must not be compared with the census returns as they relate only to those establishments making reports to the Factory Inspectors under the Factory and Workshop Law.

CHAPTER III.

_WOMEN'S WORK AND ORGANISATION._

[Sidenote: Women as Compositors. Historical.]

The subdivision of labour which has broken up the original printing "profession" into a score or so of different trades, each minutely subdivided in turn, has been the chief cause of the employment of women in this industry in modern times, although it appears that nuns were engaged as compositors at the Ripoli Monastery Press in Florence towards the end of the fifteenth century,[5] within half a century of the introduction of printing. Only very exceptional women could obtain a footing in a profession which embraced typefounding, ink-making, press-carpentry, composing, folding, and bookbinding. The United States, where, in so many respects, women have stepped in advance of European conditions, boasts of Jenny Hirsch, who carried on a printer's business in Boston about 1690, and during the next two centuries women printers were common in the thirteen States. It was a woman, Mary Catherine G.o.ddard, who printed the first issue of the "Declaration of Independence." The years of the French Revolution also seem to be marked by the number of women engaged in the printing trade, whether owing to the general emanc.i.p.ating impulses of the time or to the increased demand for compositors, is not quite clear. The amiable and eccentric Thomas Beddoes, moved by the interest he took in social affairs, and inspired by the emanc.i.p.atory movement of his time, had been struck with the opening which the printing trades seemed to offer to women, and gave his "Alexander's Expedition"[6] to a woman of his village, Madely, to set up. "I know not," he wrote in the Advertis.e.m.e.nt to the book, "if women be commonly engaged in printing, but their nimble and delicate fingers seem extremely well adapted to the office of compositor, and it will be readily granted that employment for females is amongst the greatest _desiderata_ of society." In England, however, the labour of women outside their homes continued to be extremely limited, and the printing trades were confined to men. During the eighteenth century women seem to have been employed in folding and sewing book and news sheets, but they did not come into the trade in any considerable numbers until the nineteenth century was half spent. This was very largely owing to the heavy nature of the work and the long apprenticeship necessary to master the varied details of the craft. The Provincial Typographical Society's first const.i.tution, issued in 1849, shows that at so recent a date the typographical apprentice had to learn "printing and bookbinding" or "printing and stationery."[7] The printing press used in 1800 was practically the same as that used by Gutenberg in 1450.

[Footnote 5: _Printers' Register_, August 6th, 1878, quoting _Journal fur Buchdruckerkunst_.]

[Footnote 6: Published in 1792.]

[Footnote 7: Typographical a.s.sociation: "Fifty Years' Record," p. 4.]

The enormous advance in the printing trades owing to the abolition of the stamp duties and the paper tax, together with the spread of education and improvement in the facilities for publishing, with their resulting large demand for printed matter, speedily revolutionised these trades and led to the introduction of the great machines. Pressmen became differentiated from compositors, "minders" from layers-on or takers-off, jobbers from book-hands, folders from makers-up; whilst bookbinding finally became a separate trade altogether. Some of these separate processes, needing but little skill and requiring no apprenticeship, involving no heavy labour and no responsibility, offered openings for women.

[Sidenote: Conflict between men and women.]

One of the earliest references to women made by the Typographical a.s.sociation occurs in 1860, when the Executive of the Union mentioned them in its half-yearly report. Printing houses were then closed to Union members on account of the employment of women. The Typographical Society's _Monthly Circular_ for August, 1865, for instance, states that a Bacup newspaper office was closed to members of the Typographical Union, owing to the employment of female labour. The exact form of employment is not given. Again, in the report for June, 1866, the Executive of the Union refers to having trouble with an employer who tried to employ female labour, but who had failed "to get suitable applicants of the gentle s.e.x." In 1886 it was agreed that women should be admitted to both the Typographical a.s.sociation and the London Society of Compositors on the same terms as men, but only one woman has availed herself of this resolution.[8]

[Footnote 8: She joined the London Society of Compositors on August 30th, 1892, but she has now ceased to be a member.]

[Sidenote: Printing Trades and the Women's Movement.]

At this point, the movement for the emanc.i.p.ation of women contributes an interesting chapter to the history of these trades.

The printing trades were regarded by a few of the leading spirits in the agitation for "Women's Rights" as being well adapted to women's skill and _physique_, and in 1860 Miss Emily Faithfull not only started the Victoria Press, in which women alone were to be employed, but directed the attention of women generally to the openings afforded them by this group of trades. "The compositor trades," the _Englishwoman's Journal_ (June, 1860) said, "should be in the hands of women only." Miss Faithfull's experiments produced some considerable flutter amongst men.

At first, the men looked down upon them with the contempt of traditional superiority; women compositors were "to die off like birds in winter"

(_cf._ _Printers' Journal_, August 5th, 1867, where a correspondent stated that "the day is far distant when such labour can hope to supersede our own"); but some trepidation was speedily caused when it was found that women's shops were undercutting men's, and an alarmist article in the _Printers' Register_ of February 6th, 1869, states that "the exertions of the advocates of female labour in the printing business have resulted in the establishment of a printing office where printing can be done on lower terms than those usually charged." That year Miss Faithfull was engaged in her libel action against Mr. Grant for calling her an atheist, and the _Publishers' Circular_ furiously attacked her work. By-and-by, however, the controversy died down. Miss Faithfull's several attempts[9] to establish permanently a printing establishment bore fruit in the still existing Women's Printing Society, started in 1874.

[Footnote 9: 1860, 1869, 1873; in 1869 another Women's Printing Office was started as a means of finding employment for educated ladies: _Printers' Register_, January 6th, 1869.]

As an industrial factor, however, the "Women's Movement" has been altogether secondary, and women have been induced to enter the trades under review mainly because the subdivision of labour and the application of mechanical power had created simple processes; because they were willing to accept low wages; and because, unlike the men, who were members of Unions, they made no efforts to interfere in the management of the works.

[Sidenote: The London experience.]

Partly owing to the nature of the work done and partly to the power of the London Society of Compositors, no systematic attempt seems to have been made generally to introduce women compositors into London houses since 1878, and it is of some significance to note that most of the London firms which employed women compositors between 1873 and 1878--the period when the attempt was most actively made--have since disappeared, owing to bad equipment and the inferior character of their trade.

But the opposition to women lingered on after the attempts to introduce them more generally had ceased. In 1879 the London Society of Compositors decided that none of their members should finish work set up by women, and the firm of Messrs. Smyth and Yerworth was struck by the men's Union.[10]

[Footnote 10: It is interesting to note that in these days also the women only set up the type and the men "made it up."]

Commenting on this trouble, the _Standard_, in a leading article (October 8th, 1879) cynically remarked: "What women ask is not to be allowed to compete with men, which the more sensible among them know to be impossible, but to be allowed the chance of a small livelihood by doing the work of men a little cheaper than men care to do it. This is underselling of course, but it is difficult to see why, when all is said and done, men should object to be undersold by their own wives and daughters."

"_Capital and Labour_," as quoted by the _Victoria Magazine_,[11] put the case for the women thus: "This work is much more remunerative, and far less toilsome and irritating than the occupation of the average nursery governess, and we antic.i.p.ate that, with proper arrangements, there will be a large addition to the number of women compositors. The reasons a.s.signed against their employment in this capacity seem to be the outcome of pedantry, prejudice, and jealousy; and no trade rules can be permitted to interpose obstacles to the attainment of such a desirable object as furnishing occupation to a number of females who are qualified by deftness of hand and mental capacity to earn in it an honourable livelihood. What would one of the men, who chose to leave Messrs. Smyth and Yerworth at the behest of the Union, say, if having a daughter of his own to a.s.sist him in his occupations, she were to be compelled to sit idle while he was made to employ a male a.s.sistant at high wages? Yet these men, though intelligent, capable, and industrious, deliberately throw themselves out of work, and become for the time paupers of their Union, because it will not permit them to a.s.sist in perfecting any processes which have been begun by women. This is the way in which men run their heads against a brick wall."

[Footnote 11: November, 1879.]

In December, 1882, the _Printers' Register_ published the following notice: "In a West End office, objection having been made to the introduction of female labour, and an undue number of turnovers, a strike appeared imminent, but the Committee of the Society succeeded in settling the dispute to the satisfaction of both sides."

The question does not appear to have troubled the London Society again, but in 1886, a Conference of the Typographical Societies of the United Kingdom and Continent, held in London (October 21st-23rd), resolved:

"That while strongly of opinion that women are not physically capable of performing the duties of a compositor, this Conference recommends their admission to membership of the various Typographical Unions, upon the same conditions as journeymen, provided always the females are paid strictly in accordance with scale."

This resolution was subsequently adopted by the London Society of Compositors as noted above, and is at present in force, with the result that it is practically impossible for any woman to join the Society.[12]

[Footnote 12: A curious point in connection with the work being sent out of London is that except in the case of Edinburgh the greater cheapness of the work outside London is not due so much to cheaper labour as to lower rent, etc. Several firms out in the country in England where there is no question of a Union preventing them, have tried to introduce women, but with very little success. This is put down as lack of intelligence in the women. No doubt a girl who has had only a village elementary education is not the best material out of which to make a good compositor, and the wages offered are not high enough to tempt town bred girls to undergo the tedium of country life.]

[Sidenote: Provincial experience.]

The Scottish compositors are organised in the Scottish Typographical a.s.sociation, which has no women members. Women, particularly in Edinburgh and Perth, and to a smaller extent in Aberdeen, have been employed to defeat the ends of the Society.[13]

[Footnote 13: See p. 45.]

The few attempts made to organise women in the printing trades have failed. Women have been introduced into these trades at times of trouble with the men's Unions, and are consequently not likely to form organisations of their own. Their work has been so precarious and so largely confined to the mechanical and lower grades of labour,[14] that they have had no incentive to aspire to high standards of wages or other industrial conditions. The women employed in the actual printing processes do not seem to have regarded their work as their permanent means of livelihood to the same extent as folders, for instance, have done, and have been less interested, consequently, in improving their trade conditions; and, finally, the men's Societies, for various reasons, some well-founded and some groundless, have regarded women printers as a form of cheap labour--"undercutters"--and have looked upon them as dangerous intruders.

[Footnote 14: _Cf._ pp. 64-68.]

When, however, we turn to the organisation of women in the trades dealing with printed matter, especially folding and bookbinding, we find much greater collective activity and closer co-operation both amongst themselves and with the men. Their Trade Union record is still but scanty, nevertheless, the frequent and persistent efforts of women to act jointly, without establishing a permanent organisation, form one of the characteristic features of the trade. This apparently is almost entirely due to the fact that women's labour in bookbinding, _e.g._, in folding, was accepted by the men, and that in all workshop matters women were the fellow-workers and not the rivals of the men. This distinction between printing and bookbinding is most marked and requires to be emphasised.