vantages factory labor gave to women. But hand in hand with its advantages came the evils, evils that have persisted throughout the development of modern industry, until to-day they are recognized to be among the greatest of our social problems. Long hours, poor ventilation, dangerous machinery, the handling of poisonous substances, continuous standing, the nervous strain of speeding and other evils of factory labor have affected both men and women. But they have affected women to a greater degree than men, because women are physically weaker than men and because motherhood is the natural, unalterable portion of womanhood. When work, not adapted to a woman's strength, has a detrimental influence upon her health, it is not only an injury to her as an individual, it is also an even greater injury to her as a potential mother and to her unborn children. Every physician who has patients among factory workers knows from personal experience in how many respects factory labor is injurious to the maternal functions of women. It was even more injurious at a time when there was no protective legislation limiting the hours of work or regulating the conditions under which it was performed. Although these conditions were favorable at first, owing to the simple reason that the employers had to make them favorable in order to obtain a sufficient number of workers, they soon deteriorated when the supply of available labor power increased.
Many of the evils were manifest at an early date, while poets and economists still sang the praises of the young factory towns, and the working girls themselves were prone to dwell upon the sunny sides of factory life only. As I have stated in the previous chapter, the female operatives of the early mills were usually housed in company boarding houses. The original purpose of these boarding houses had been to offer an added inducement to girls from villages and farms, by surrounding them with a home-like atmosphere. But soon they became a means for exploitation. In most instances girls were compelled to live in them, whether they wished to or not. To make the houses pay they were over-crowded, and the food the workers received was of poor quality and often insufficient. One early account from an operatives' magazine describes the bedrooms of a
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