WOMEN IN INDUSTRY: BOOTS AND SHOES
359
the displacement of women operatives by men, and toward the substitution of immigrant for American labor.
In "boots and shoes," on the other hand, there has been an increase in the proportion of women employees, although not a sufficiently large increase to indicate any tendency toward the driving-out of the men operatives. Shoemaking remains a men's industry. The industry also remains predominantly American, with a large proportion of both men and women operatives native-born. A comparison of the data from the last census, showing the general nativity of the operatives of both industries, is of interest. Statistics are given for Massachusetts,^^ the state which historically has taken the lead in both industries.
Men
Women
Boots and Shoes
Cotton Mill Operatives
Boots and Shoes
Cotton Mill Operatives
Native- C Native parents . .
bom ( Foreign parents . .
Foreign-bom
20,512
13.941 14,016
1.925
8,849
28,092
«J,76i 8,208 3.181
2,045 10,024 25.843
Total
48,469
38,889
16,970
37.912
These data show very clearly that while the great majority of cotton mill employees, both men and women, are foreign- bom in the boot and shoe industry 72 per cent, of the men and" 81 per cent, of the women are native-born. There are perhaps two rather obvious reasons why immigrant labor has not been introduced to any great extent in the shoe factories. In spite of the fact that machinery has been applied to practi- cally every niinute process into which the making of shoes can be divided, the work continues to demand skilled and responsi- ble operatives, and the level of wages has been kept so high that the industry continues to attract the more intelligent native-bom working people. '^ The following wage statistics from the
"From Twelfth Census (1900), "Occupations."
" An operative from a Massachusetts town which contained both cotton mills and shoe factories in his testimony before the state bureau of labor, said with regard to the frequent changes in the working force of the cotton mills: "There is shoemaking in town for boys, and a great deal of stitching on ma-
