t Only 160 of these were important enough to list by name and ad-
dress, while 468 were classed as "small factories." Ibid., p. 334.
In Brooklyn only six shops were listed by name (Ibid., p. 1^9), and
in the other three boroughs no milliner attained that distinction.
t Since our inquiry was completed, the 191 3 volume has been issued.
It shows smaller numbers in millinery than the preceding year.
There were in 191 3 in New York City 542 shops employing a total
shop force of 1 1,726, of whom 3,829 were men and 7,897 women. For
Manhattan the figures are 441 shops employing 10,601 workers, of
whom 3,444 were men and 7,157 women. The apparent decrease
since 1912 may be due to an incomplete census, another illustration
55
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
No State in the Union is without milliners but
none has as many as New York. Between Alaska
with six and New York state with more than
22,500, the variety in numbers is great.* New
York state's nearest competitor is Pennsylvania,
with nearly 12,500. Illinois has third place with
approximately 1 1,000. Of all the cities of 25,000
or more listed in the census,t none is without milli-
ners, J but New York City is in the lead with 14,500,
with Chicago second, employing about 6,500,
Philadelphia third, with 4,000, and St. Louis
fourth, with 2,300. The total number through-
out the country is approximately 1 34,000.! Thus
it will be seen that the concentration in any one
city is not marked, compared with other industries
which tend to grow especially in one locality.
A wide distribution would seem to imply local
consumption and, as a matter of fact, the local
milliner does undoubtedly serve her own com-
munity. She draws on the large cities, however,
both for models and for supplies, and New York
sells not only to New Yorkers but caters to a
market extending from Maine to Texas. The
of the difficulty of securing exact statistics about millinery. The
increase of men as compared with the decrease of women may be due
to the inclusion of more shops of the factory type in 1913 and fewer
shops where hand work predominated. (New York State Depart-
ment of Labor, Industrial Directory, 191 3. Table VI, p. 103.)
♦Thirteenth United States Census, 1910. Population, Vol. IV,
Occupation Statistics, pp. 96 ff. Includes "milliners and millinery
dealers" and half the number of ''dressmakers' and milliners' ap-
prentices." (See last footnote, p. 53.)
t Ibid., pp. 132-291. t Includes apprentices.
§ Ibid., pp. 91-92.
56
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
FACTS ABOUT THE TRADE
wider the market the more complicated its method
of organization. In millinery especially, the wide
separation between the designer and the probable
wearer of the hat introduces an element of chance
which contributes in no small degree to the ir-
regularity of the seasons. New York waits for
reports from distant states as to the demands of the
customers and the way a new fashion "takes,"
while the rest of the country looks to New York
for information on the newest styles. It is no
wonder that to trim hats in dull season to be sold
later seems to employers a wholly unnecessary
business risk.
For those who wish to see the seasons prolonged,
the possibility of a better organization of the proc-
ess of selling, which would imply a more even
distribution of orders throughout the year, is of
prime importance from this point of view. The
decentralized character of the trade is a discourag-
ing factor. Moreover, it is difficult to determine
whether the tendency is toward concentration in a
few large establishments or distribution in many
small shops. In machine processes the larger es-
tablishment has advantages. In hand-work vari-
ety and diversity in design are assets, and this fact
gives encouragement to many independent milli-
ners. On the other hand, reputation, which is im-
portant in getting one's designs accepted, is so
dependent upon fashionable location and resources
to pay large salaries to designers and to make fre-
quent pilgrimages to Paris, that even in the hand
57
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
processes which in themselves can be successfully
accomplished by one worker without assistants,
the firm with capital will acquire a larger and larger
share of orders. The small neighborhood shop
tends to become a distributing center for the
wholesale factories, performing the task of the
middleman, with one or two milliners to adapt the
style to the taste of individual customers. This
is significant, since the persistence of the small
shop may indicate not the probability that milli-
nery will continue to be thoroughly decentralized
and unorganized, but merely that the institution
of the middleman is flourishing in the industry.
Meanwhile, whatever the tendency may be, we
have to deal now with a diversified occupation in
which orders and, consequently, permanence of
employment are dependent upon a disorganized
system of buying and selling, with keen competi-
tion and elements of luck more powerful than any
present efforts to develop a scientific plan of meet-
ing market demands.
58
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
CHAPTER III
THE WORKERS
IT WOULD be untrae to characterize the
milliners of New York by any statements
which would imply that they are a homo-
geneous group. Differences in age, in nationality,
in qualifications, in economic status are marked,
and any common characteristics other than em-
ployment in the same occupation would be diffi-
cult to find. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any
other industry can show a greater variety econom-
ically and personally than exists in the millinery
trade. Our visits took us to the home of a de-
signer with earnings large enough to be subject to
the income tax, and to two tiny rooms where the
milliner's small earnings and the board paid by her
aunt were the only means of support for her sick
mother and herself. We talked with a married
woman whose husband owned two houses and a
saloon, but who preferred to work in a shop be-
cause she was lonely at home. We found two or
three instances of "pin-money workers," who so
described themselves; as, for example, the girl who
had been at home for nearly a year after learning
her trade in a retail shop, and who said that she
had not really been obliged to work and that now
59
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
her mother needed her at home. Her father and
three brothers were in the automobile business,
and their income was quite sufficient for the sup-
port of the family. In another case, a young
woman who also described herself as a "pin-money
worker" was earning 50 cents a week as an ap-
prentice in a Fifth Avenue shop, having chosen this
method of learning an occupation which she re-
garded as an accomplishment. Far more typical
was the family in which a high standard was main-
tained through the employment of the daughters as
well as the sons. The father was a mechanic, and
the three daughters, one a dressmaker, one a milli-
ner, and one in a novelty factory, were all at work.
The mother who, before the girls were old enough
to work, contributed to their income by dressmak-
ing and finishing clothing, now keeps house and
makes all the girls' clothes, including their coats
and suits. They are all alert and ambitious, and
it is in no dilettante spirit but in downright earnest-
ness that the girls are doing their share to maintain
the family standard. Equally typical, though much
less cheerful, was a family of five, consisting of the
mother, the father who did tailoring work at home,
a son employed in a clothing store, a daughter in
school, and the milliner, who earned only $6.00 a
week. "She cannot be idle even in dull season,"
said her mother. "She must work. My husband
is old and cannot work much and we have the
rent to pay. When it gets slack in one place she
must find another."
60
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
o
I-
o
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE WORKERS
It is certainly safe to say that, however much the
family stories may differ in detail, in the large
majority of households withdrawal of the milli-
ner's earnings means dispensing, perforce, with
some of the necessities of living. Further evidence
on this point belongs in the discussion of wages.
The important fact to note here is that the ama-
teurish worker who is a wage-earner, not through
necessity but through a superficial kind of choice,
does exist, but is merely an incident in the in-
dustry and not to be confused with the girl whose
home is comfortable but whose work is, neverthe-
less, necessary to maintain or to improve the tra-
ditional family standard. These standards may
differ widely, however, among milliners even in
the same shop, a fundamental fact which de-
serves further emphasis in the discussion of wage
rates.
The variety in family standards represented in
the trade is due in part to the diversity of condi-
tions already noted between shop and shop, but
more, perhaps, to the enviable position which
millinery holds among occupations, so that love
of the work as well as the need for earnings may be
a factor in a milliner's employment. The hope
of having one's own business some day lures on the
young worker who would otherwise be discouraged
by low pay and short seasons, and this prospect
is something for which we have found the family
also willing to make sacrifices. Furthermore, it
is, as one of the girls said, "an interesting trade.
6i
Digitized by VjOOQIC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
It cultivates your mind, makes you think, and
gives you new ideas." Others, less analytical,
merely described it as a trade with "a nice name,"
employing a "refined class of girls." It attracts
young girls just leaving school, who look upon
wage-earning as part of the natural course of
events, and it is likely to be selected also by
women of the so-called "leisure class" when they
are suddenly and unexpectedly forced to earn their
own living. Thus it draws together workers of
diverse social experiences.
We were interested especially in the owners of
the small neighborhood shops and their careers.
We wanted to know how they had happened to be-
come independent milliners, and what had been
their preparation. A woman on Third Avenue
had started her business three years before, with
experience in buying but none in millinery. It was
her opinion that to know how to buy was more
important than to know how to trim, for unwise
buying can very soon bankrupt the business. An
Austrian woman on the lower East Side had her
store on the ground floor of the tenement in which
she lived. She had been in business for herself
for fourteen years, after only two years' experience
as a milliner in America. She had learned the
trade in Austria. "There it is for nice work," she
said. "Here it is all for hurry up." On upper
Broadway we found a newly organized shop whose
owner had been a designer earning $50 a week,
honored occasionally by being sent abroad to buy
62
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE WORKERS
models in Paris. She was confident that in an-
other year she would earn more working inde-
pendently than as a designer for someone else.
The owner of a forlorn little shop in a tenement on
Columbus Avenue had learned her trade in one of
the best of the Fifth Avenue shops, and had then
begun to acquire customers of her own by making
over their hats. She has succeeded well enough
to have been an independent milliner for four
years, but she has neither space nor capital for
a supply of hats trimmed in advance and can only
take orders, having the customers, if possible,
supply their own materials.
A more prosperous milliner had learned her
trade in a small Pennsylvania town, and after ex-
perience in a wholesale shop in New York and a
season in a western xity, she had opened her own
shop in New York ten years ago; she had moved
three times, each move representing an advance
in her status in the trade. She declared that it
was easier to be successful in one's own business in
New York than in a smaller place. In her opinion,
the one essential for success in New York is to be
able to pay rent in a fashionable location. In con-
trast, another milliner had moved farther away
from Fifth Avenue in order to be in a neighbor-
hood where cash is paid. Her Fifth Avenue charge
customers had been a cause of much anxiety. " If
a milliner has anything left for herself at the end
of the season, " she said, " she is doing well. Rent,
materials, and wages are all so expensive. No one
63
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
can get along on millinery alone. They are all
selling waists and dresses now. "
Of course, not all the shops which display a sign
with the name of "Lillian" or "Therese" really
belong to Therese or Lillian. They are controlled
by others, and the fiction of ownership by "mad-
am," who may in reality be only the head trimmer
or the manager, is a concession to the shopping
ladies who like to buy hats "from my little French
milliner who makes hats just to suit me, and has
her own shop just around the corner." It is not
without interest to note that many retail shops are
run in the names of women, but that practically
all the wholesale establishments display men's
names on their signs, whereas in both branches of
the trade it is very common for a husband and
wife to manage the business together. Where this
kind of family partnership does not exist, it seems
still necessary in the most successful enterprises
to have the work of management divided between
men and women.
The majority of the women workers in the trade
in New York are young, — ^younger than dress-
makers and about the same age as saleswomen, —
according to the United States census of 19 lo. Of
the milliners, 42 per cent were under twenty-one,
compared with 21 per cent of the dressmakers and
40 per cent of the saleswomen.* The data gather-
ered in connection with the payroll study for the
♦Thirteenth United States Census, 1910. Population, Vol. IV.
Occupation Statistics, p. 574.
64
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE WORKERS
Factory Investigating Commission showed about
the same proportion of young workers — ^40 per cent
under twenty-one. Only a little more than i
per cent were under sixteen, due partly, no doubt,
to the failure of some of the young people to make
a truthful statement, but chiefly to the fact that,
because of the law limiting the hours of work of
children to eight in a day, and because of some
rigid requirements with reference to work certifi-
cates, it is becoming the practice not to employ
any girls under sixteen.
Only a very small proportion, 5 per cent, were
married, 3 per cent were widowed or divorced, and
92 per cent were single, as one might naturally ex-
pect from the youth of the workers. It should be
recalled that this group was made up chiefly of
employes in the larger shops. Among the owners
of small enterprises the proportion of married
women would probably be larger.
Diversity in nationality is not surprising in any
industry in New York City. A handful of records
taken at random from the file showed, in succession,
an Italian who had been in New York since she was
eight years old, a Russian, a Roumanian, a New
Englander from a country town who works in the
city once a year to learn the new styles, a real
New Yorker of English parentage, the daughter of
an Austrian from Budapest, the American-born
daughter of a Frenchman, a woman bom in India
of French parents, a German who had been a
milliner in Baden, an Jrish girl who had learned
s 65
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
her trade in Dublin, and a Canadian who had
thought that New York offered better opportun-
ities to a milliner than she could find in her own
home. Of the 252 girls whom we interviewed at
home, as many as 26 had learned the trade in for-
eign lands, in Russia, England, Ireland, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Roumania, and
France. The proportion of foreign born differs
greatly, however, in the two main branches of the
trade, as Table 7 shows.
TABLE 7. — NATIVITY OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN RE-
TAIL AND WHOLESALE MILLINERY ESTABLISH-
MENTS, AS SHOWN BY CURRENT PAYROLL. I914
Women employed
in
All women
Country of birth
Whole-
sale
shops
Retail
shops
Number
Per cent
United States
374
417
791
58.6
Foreign countries.
95
464
559
41.4
Russia ....
<4
224
238
17.6
Austria-Hungary
5
79
84
6.2
Italy
6
44
50
3.7
Germany
19
26
45
3-3
Roumania
4
34
38
2.8
England
ID
16
26
1-9
France
14
10
24
1.8
Ireland
3
8
II
.8
Sweden
6
4
10
.8
Other countries a
»4
19
33
3.5
Total ....
469
881
1,350b
1 00.0
a Includes Canada, Belgium, Argentine Republic, Australia, Bul-
garia, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Palestine, Scotland, Spain,
Switzerland, and the West Indies.
hOf the 1,363 women who supplied personal records, 13 did not
state country of birth, although six of these indicated that they were
foreign bom.
66
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE WORKERS
About 59 per cent of the women who filled our
record cards were native bom. In wholesale
shops the proportion of foreign bom was 53 per
cent, and in retail only 20 per cent. The largest
single group were Russians, most of them Jews, of
whom many had come here because of persecution
at home. Twenty-one other countries were repre-
sented. In the smaller group, interviewed at
home, the number of native born exactly equalled
the foreigners and, as in the figures already quoted,
the natives predominated in retail establishments
and the foreigners in wholesale. Only about one
in nine of the native born, however, was of native
parentage. One, a daughter of a German, was
quite sure that the trouble with the trade was the
number of immigrants in it, and she favored ex-
clusion of foreigners. Another, with ideas on im-
migration, told us that her mother came from
Germany more than sixty years before on a sailing
vessel, and went to work in a shirt factory where
she used a sewing machine of the first type ever
made. Her hours were from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m.,
and her wages $2.00 a week. She had lived for
thirty-six years in the same street and had watched
the coming first of the Jews and then of the Italians
who finish clothing at home all day long. She
grieved over what seemed to her the deterioration
of the neighborhood.
As to the effect of the employment of foreigners
on the millinery trade, no satisfactory evidence
could be gathered. The fact is that so little co-
67
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY
hesion exists among milliners that no one group
can be said to have had any real influence except
by accident. Employers had ideas as to the com-
parative skill of workers of different nationalities.
We were told that the French are born with a
knowledge of millinery and that an American can
never equal them; that European girls have more
interest and talent, while "Americans care more
for work with the pen than with the needle"; that
the Italians are quiet and thorough, while the
Russians Jews are often ia disturbing element. It
was among the Russians that the movement to
organize a trade union* originated a few years ago,
and unsuccessful as were their efforts, the few em-
ployers who knew of their existence were still so
afraid of them that they looked askance at the
agents of the Factory Investigating Commission,
fearing lest an inquiry into conditions of labor
should encourage the Russian workers to renewed
agitation.
On both sides of the industrial bargain much
discontent was expressed. Employers complained
of the irresponsibility of the workers, their ten-
dency to give up jobs at inconvenient seasons for
no good reason, their lack of ambition or apprecia-
tion of small kindnesses on the part of their super-
ior officers. The girls complained that their em-
ployers showed them no consideration, saved
money whenever possible by laying them off with-
out warning, and made no effort to advance them
♦Seep. 134.
68
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE WORKERS
in work or wages unless the workers themselves
protested. One girl expressed a not uncommon
sentiment when she told how her employer dis-
covered that she had gobd taste and so sent her
out to buy the hat shapes, when experience in the
shop was what she wanted, and she added, " I tell
you, it does not pay to show too much what you
can do. They take advantage of you."
Each side, indeed, seems to be afraid that the
other will take some undue advantage, an attitude
which may be only human but which is certainly an
important factor in industrial relations in many
trades besides millinery. The discontent is individ-
ual, however; and although it is evident to an in-
vestigator that the workers have much in common
in experience and ideas, a sense of membership in a
group or conception of possible group action seems
absolutely lacking. As a woman prominent in
efforts to organize trade unions among women ex-
pressed it, "You might as well try to direct the
wind as to organize milliners. " Undoubtedly the
short seasons, the brief terms of employment in
any one shop, the changes in personnel each season,
as well as the youth of the workers, their diverse
social experiences and their varied inheritances
from many different nations, account for the char-
acteristic condition of an industry in which the
workers are a chance collection of individuals
rather than a group of fellow-employes with com-
mon aims and an explicitly recognized community
of interests.
69
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
CHAPTER IV
THE SEASONS
UNEMPLOYMENT is the most important
fact in the occupation of being a milliner.
Twice a year more than half the workers in
the trade are laid off because the short season is
over. In some years when a general industrial
depression affects millinery in common with all
other industries, the period of employment may be
shorter than usual or the number employed fewer,
even in the busy months. The milliner may also
lose time because of sickness, or because she is dis-
satisfied with wages or hours and thinks a change
would be desirable, or because she is unsatisfactory
to the trimmer, or because the weather has been
bad and the sale of hats less brisk, or because her
employer lacked capital or good business judgment
and consequently failed, or because the fashions
changed and the demand for hand-work was re-
duced in comparison with machine-made products.
The causes of irregularity are many, some of them
common to all industries, and others peculiar
to millinery. Whatever the cause, however, the
effect of loss of time on wages is serious, and a full
understanding of it is necessary to a comprehension
70
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
THE SEASONS
of the facts about wages, which were the center of
interest in this investigation.
What the girls told us about the great difficulty
of supporting themselves when work and income
were so irregular, and what the employers said of
the trials of running a business in which the
market was so fickle, were fully corroborated in
the payrolls. The investigators repeated the same
experience in shop after shop, finding the list of
names comparatively short in the first week in
January, noting gradual additions week by week
until all the vacant spaces were filled, and then a
rapid subtraction of one name after another until
a mere fraction of the force remained. That this
was not a mere impression in a few shops was
shown in the final count of the workers and the sum
of their wages week by week in all the establish-
ments* studied. The facts are pictured in the two
accompanying diagrams.
It will be recalled that some of the larger retail
shops have also some wholesale trade. These we
have classified in these diagrams and in some sub-
sequent tables as retail-wholesale. I n earlier tables
these retail-wholesale shops have been included in
the retail group. The diagram shows that the
peak of employment in these establishments pre-
cedes the maximum in other retail shops, that the
fluctuation is not quite so great, and that the pe-
* Some of the detailed statistics of irregular employment and wages
on which statements in this and the following chapter are based will
be found in the Supplementary Report, pp. 197 ff.
7>
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
A SEASONAL INDUSTRY