The Industrial Condition Of Women And Girls In Honolulu: A Social Study

The Industrial Condition OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN HONOLULU A Social Study

Note :—Volumes Nos. I. and II. now ready. Nos. III., IV., and V. will appear later....

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PREFACE

In preparing to submit the results of the five-months’ survey of Honolulu’s industrial conditions as they affect women and girls, the definition of a pessimist:—one who has just met an optimist,—has more than once floated warningly through my mind. In the face of such a warning it is perhaps with mixed feelings one confesses to a conviction that much may be done to solve the problems of the community. Workrooms are not overcrowded; the air and light are always good; there is no highspeed machine

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FOREWORD

There is a world movement in uplift work for women. Along with the rest of the world Hawaii is awaking to this call. In all lines of endeavor there must be a working plan. But first must be facts “writ large” and plain. In view of this interest and the desire to do a vital work for the wage-earning girls and women of Honolulu, the Trustees of Kaiulani Home secured the services of a trained investigator, Miss Frances E. Blascoer of New York City, to make a study of industrial conditions among the

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TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS

The Industrial Committee of the Social Survey is composed of the following members:— Its mission of inquiry into the condition of working girls and women in Honolulu has been conducted by three sub-committees, viz.— The first work done was in the way of inquiry into certain individual cases presented by Miss Blascoer; this brought helpful results. A seamstress inquiry was made by Mesdames Frear, Lowrey, Wilcox and Swanzy, in which 250 circulars were sent out. The various responses emphasize stro

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GENERAL STATEMENT

To the Board of Trustees of the Kaiulani Home, and Members of the Citizens’ Committee of the Honolulu Social Survey. In this crossroads community of Honolulu—a community where defying Kipling, not only the East and West, but also the North and South meet (and like one another) there are almost as many races and admixtures represented as a man has fingers and toes. A girl born of a mother whose blood is half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese, and of a Norwegian father, works side by side on the one hand

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MUSLIN UNDERWEAR FACTORY.

A factory for the manufacture of muslin underwear, sheets, pillow cases, mosquito nets, starting with not more than ten employes. A canvass of the five leading dry-goods shops showed that there is undoubtedly a market for a sufficient amount of underwear alone to keep a factory busy at least six months in the year. This is especially true since the pake shops making these articles are finding it difficult to obtain help, the Chinese boys preferring to go into the mercantile shops and factories.

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AN HAWAIIAN SHOP

A tour of the local curio and art shops discloses many choice articles typically Hawaiian in their manufacture or character. There are to be found everywhere quantities of tapas, lauhala mats, calabashes and leis, but in so heterogeneous a mass and so mixed with other things that their appeal is apt to miscarry. Tourists find it difficult to select mementos to carry away with them, and so much valuable patronage is lost. There are infinite possibilities in an establishment of this kind if manage

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PROPOSED TRADE SCHOOL

The investigation into the condition of working women and girls in Honolulu was made primarily with a view to establishing a trade school and special attention was therefore paid to community needs; for in organizing a school of this kind, it is of first importance to suit the course of training to those needs. The ideal of the present day vocational school is moreover not only to train a worker to become self-supporting in her environment, but to give her training in a sufficient variety of all

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VOCATIONAL AND EMPLOYMENT BUREAU

The establishment and intelligent conduct of a vocational employment bureau goes far to help a community secure a comprehensive grasp of its industrial situation. Such a bureau is most efficient when officially connected with the department of public instruction. It may, however, be conducted by an unofficial body, as in Cincinnati, where it is under the management of the Charlotte Schmidlapp Foundation, and in Boston, where it had its inception, and is still philanthropically managed. There mus

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PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS

The questionnaire sent to the public schools, asking how many pupils in the classes belong to clubs or other groups for recreational purposes, in the settlements and elsewhere, brings out the fact that, with only one school report missing, 597 children out of the 6,031 attending school in Honolulu this year are in such ways provided with socializing influence once a week. Of course many have home surroundings which make outside influence unnecessary. The public playground, however, has an attend

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IWILEI AND THE WORKERS

( Observations made at visits during the lunch hour and in the evening, to the stockades immediately adjoining the canneries, where the social evil has its generally recognized being in Honolulu. ) Up the long lane from the railroad station and past the penitentiary; then some tumbledown sheds in the last stages of decay but occupied by human beings; next a few cottages, reasonably well-kept and attractive, all of them rented for immoral purposes. Then the canneries themselves. But up this road,

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HAWAIIAN.

The wage-earning Hawaiian has, as the kindly French saying goes, the faults of his qualities. Naturally gay and pleasure-loving he has worked, fished, swam, sang and feasted his way through life as he listed, and it is only a generation since he took his rest with equal ease on the shores of his beloved ocean or beneath the boughs of the hau tree. Luaus and hulas were frequent and Hawaiian hospitality is still proverbial. He has never learned to say “no” to whomsoever may be the latest comer. Ea

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JAPANESE.

The kimonoed figures of the Japanese women and girls shambling gaily along form an attractive part of Honolulu’s street life. Here they enjoy a social liberty undreamed of in their native land, and the taste of it may be said to have gone to their heads. Few young women even of the economically independent families are held to the rigid regime which Japanese custom prescribes; and while here and there a girl comes through her school course with the same ideals of freedom which the American girl

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CHINESE.

Only since the breaking up of the old dynasty and the establishment of the republic—with its votes for women—have Chinese girls and women become wage-earners outside of the home. Their entrance into the occupations has been effected by a phalanx of women and girls of all ages, from the grandmother of fifty or more down to seven and eight year old children. The wives and daughters of the merchant class are still at home, many of them being “shut in” on reaching their fourteenth year until their m

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PORTUGUESE.

The Portuguese form quite a distinct element in the community. It is curious, in discussing races in Hawaii, to hear “Portuguese and White” written and spoken of. The fact that there are a number of families of the Cape Verde or black Portuguese type in Hawaii has tended to differentiate the Portuguese as a whole. Their presence here is wholly artificial, brought about by the assisted immigration program of the Sugar Planters’ Association; and they are the favorite workers on the best plantation

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TEACHERS.

Honolulu’s teaching force, like its population, includes representatives of the four corners of the earth: These are all first-grade certificate teachers, earning salaries of from $600 to $1,000 a year. Teachers are on duty five days in the week, from 9 a. m. until 2 p. m., and the school year is nine months, with a total of three months’ vacation. The salary schedule is substantially the same as in other communities of this size, but the school day is shorter by two hours than it is on the main

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NURSES.

There is a wide divergence of opinion in the community concerning the question of nurses and where the supply ought to come from. At present there are about thirty-five private nurses officially registered at the Sanitorium, who earn $25 and $30 a week. This number, I am told, fairly supplies the normal demand in Honolulu; but the nurses come and go, and not half a dozen have ties which make them an integral part of the community. Queen’s Hospital employs regularly sixteen nurses at $50 a month

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STENOGRAPHERS.

A circular letter sent to eighty-eight representative employers of stenographers in Honolulu, supplemented by further personal inquiry, indicates that there are about 100 women stenographers employed in the city at present, at salaries from the $40 or $60 a month usually paid to beginners, up to $100 and $150 paid those having experience from a year to eight, ten and twelve years. Over 50 per cent of the salaries range between $100 and $135 a month, and the average for all is $90 a month. As com

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SHOPS AND STORES

The five dry-goods shops employ an aggregate of about seventy-five saleswomen, made up of an equal number of Americans and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of Hawaiians and Germans. The rooms are large, no artificial light is used, and there are no basement salesrooms. The working day commences at 7:45 in the morning and closes at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. There is an hour’s allowance for lunch. Three of the shops close at noon on Saturday for four months of the year, and two at 1 o’clock during

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SEAMSTRESSES AND NEEDLEWOMEN

The seamstress investigation developed two interesting facts: i. e., that the supply of workers is not keeping pace with the demand; and that the seamstresses at present available are for the most part self-trained. A circular sent to 250 women who have households in Honolulu brought 110 replies, of which 8 stated that no seamstress was employed because of scarcity or inefficiency; 78 employed a seamstress regularly in periods varying from one week to eleven months, but for the most part from th

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LEI MAKING AND LAUHALA WEAVING

The makers of leis—the beautiful garlands of carnations, ilima, ginger or hydrangea interwoven with maile, forming the hat and neck-encircling masses of fragrance and color which speed departing friends, or bedeck luau and poi luncheon guests—enliven the street corners of the shopping district at all times, sitting in the shade of nearby buildings with their ti-leaf covered baskets by their sides, busily making the more durable leis of paper, shell or seeds, and almost invariably discussing suff

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COFFEE SORTING AND PACKING

Coffee sorting and packing employs between 60 and 70 women workers, the former occupation lasting from October to June, and the latter all the year round. A number of the cannery employes find work here after the close of the pineapple canning season. The work is sorting coffee beans of two grades, the better grade paying forty cents, the poorer grade fifty cents a hundred pounds. Some of the experienced workers earn as high as $7.00 a week, but the majority of credits on the time book are betwe

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LAUNDRIES

The 150 workers normally employed in Honolulu’s three steam laundries are exempt from all the minor and some of the major ills which commonly beset this class of wage-earners. The greatest gain is perhaps in the all-year-round opening of doors and windows, entirely obviating the collection of steam, gas fumes and other impurities. Then, too, the fact that two laundries conduct their work entirely on one floor removes the discomfort which ascending steam and heat brings when the wash-room is in a

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THE CANNERIES

The Fourth Report of the Department of Commerce and Labor on Hawaii (Bulletin No. 94, May, 1911) sums up the possibilities of industry in the islands as a whole as follows—(1) page 674: “The Territory possesses no mineral or fuel deposits, and this, together with the remoteness from markets, prevents diversified industries. A small amount of subsistence farming, followed principally by natives and orientals, and the production of staple export crops, like sugar, have hitherto been the principal

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COST OF LIVING

Inquiry into the cost at which it is possible for a woman or girl to live independently in Honolulu was based on two propositions: First. —That she live in the home family of a friend or relative, and pay her quota of expense. Second. —That she either board or room in the community. I have given first consideration to the proposition that she live in a family because experience has proven that to be the most desirable place for the average working girl. The Children’s Aid Society of Boston has s

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AN ACT

Section 1. The term “establishment” where used in this Act shall mean any place within this Territory other than where domestic or agricultural labor is employed; where men, women or children are engaged and paid a salary or wages by any person, firm or corporation, and where such men, women or children are employes in the general acceptance of that term. Section 2. No minor under the age of sixteen years, and no female shall be employed in any establishment for a longer period than sixty (60) h

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WAGES

As stated in the report of the Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards (page 8): “To obtain an accurate view of the condition of labor, so far as women and minors are concerned, it is especially of service to obtain, if possible, not only the wage schedules, but the actual weekly and annual variation of these earnings, with ages and experience, irregularity of employment, the economic status of the workers in so far as they are aided by other members of a family group, or by charity, or

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GLOSSARY OF HAWAIIAN TERMS

Aloha —Good will; friendship. Kona —South; hot. Kamaaina —Old settlers; long time residents. Popola —Wild spinach, valued as a food for its medicinal properties. Lei —A garland for the neck or hat made of flowers, shells, seeds, etc. Poi —Pounded root of the Taro plant—the staple native food. Tapa —A stencilled material made by the pounded fibre of a native tree; and formerly used for making the chief article of dress by the natives. Lauhala —A native shrub, growing ten to fifteen feet in height

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