A Day's Work in Maine Study Guide

 

WOMEN'S WORK

 Women's lives have changed dramatically over the last two centuries. Exploring these topics should provide some interesting discussions for all students.

The Ayer, Houston hat factory in Portland in the 1890s employed as many as 250 people making both soft and stiff wool hats. Most of the hatmaking there was done by machine, but sandpapering, dusting, and installing the linings and hatbands were done by hand, mostly by women.
      In 1888, Flora Haines did a survey of working women between Biddeford and Bangor for the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. She found women working in the manufacture of boots, shoes, brushes, blank books, cotton sheetings, cotton bags, cotton bedspreads, cotton towels, cotton dress goods, candy, cigars, clothing, gum, hats, hose, matches, pickles,paper boxes, suspenders, shirts, silk dress goods, slippers, underwear, waterproof cloth, and wrappers. Women worked as bookkeepers, as bakers and dyers, as cashiers, clerks, or compositors, as cooks in boardinghouses, restaurants, and with families, as editorial writers, as folders in bleacheries and dye works, as herring cutters and packers, as ironers and washers, as librarians, milliners, polishers, as mounters and counters of photogravures, as portrait artists, as proofreaders, press-feeders, photograph retouchers, rag pickers, stenographers, saleswomen, tailoresses, telegraphers, telephone operators, typists, washerwomen, and wig-makers. Nurses, school teachers, music teachers, art teachers, and dressmakers numbered in the hundreds. There were three doctors, three ordained clergywomen, and one newspaper owner. Many women kept boardinghouses, raised poultry, kept bees, made butter and preserves to sell, and picked berries in season.
      What jobs do women do today that are missing from this list?

Hats were an important fashion statement before the 1960s. Both men and women were seldom seen in public without some type of hat. By the time this photo was taken, around 1890, factories produced men's hats, although many women's hats were still handmade by milliners, using buckram hat forms. Most men's hats were formed from wool as illustrated in this photo.

Discussion:
1. Why would hats be sandpapered?
2. Are hats still manufactured today?
3. What kind of hats do you wear? Why do you wear hats?

Activities:
1. Miniature hats can be produced using a mold, such as a spray can top or other "hat shape." Thoroughly saturate a piece of felt with a solution of white glue (such as Elmer's) which has been diluted with water. Stretch the wet felt tightly over the mold securing with elastics. When dry, remove from mold, trim edges, and finish. Try "sanding" to see what a different finish is produced. Note: Since this is not an easy task, and can get messy, the teacher should try it before hand to see if it would work with his/her students.
2. Take a survey to determine what types of hats people wear today. Report your finding in a graph.
3. Create a classroom hat museum. Talk to your family members and see what kinds of hats might be found in your closets, attics, etc.

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: B
SS/E: A, B, C
M: B, C
S&T: D, H, I, M
V&PA: A, B

The long list of women's work provided in the "Hat Factory" caption, clearly shows the kids of jobs that were open to women at the turn of the twentieth century.

Discussion:
1. How would you classify these jobs?
2. Are any of them management positions?
3. How many of these jobs are still available to women today?
4. How has women's work changed?

Activities:
1. Create a timeline of jobs for women as well as the political movements which influenced change (such as Seneca Falls, Women's Suffrage, etc.).
2. Invite women who are in "unusual" jobs (such as an undertaker, construction worker, electrician, plumber, CEO) to come to school and talk to the class about her job.
3. Research women in the work force. Each students should select a woman who has had a serious impact on history, industry, etc.
      Report the results in a class anthology, providing a copy for the school library. The National Women's History Project has a wealth of information and resources. Their catalog may be obtained online at www.nwhp.com.
4. Textiles have traditionally been women's work. What are some of the skills and products which result from women's work with textiles?
5. The class could make a scrap quilt and donate it to charity.

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D, E, F, H
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: B
SS/E: A, B, C, D
SS/C&G: A
M: B, C
S&T: D, H, I, M
V&PA: A, B

These women are sorting rags at the paper mill of the National Fiber Board Company in Kennebunk. An old papermaker's song was: "Rags make paper, paper makes money, money makes banks, banks make loans, loans make beggars, beggars make rags."
      Before the 1870s and the development of a papermaking process that used wood pulp, paper was made from rags. Rags were always in short supply, and large amounts were imported from Japan, India, Italy, Germany, and Egypt. A lot of the rags imported from Egypt were mummy wrappings! (In Egypt at the time, mummies were being recycled for locomotive fuel.) A paper manufacturer in Gardiner, I. Augustus Stanwood, was even said to have imported whole mummies, but that experiment ended when the mummies were blamed for an outbreak of cholera among mill workers.
      Sorting dusty, dirty rags must have been very unpleasant. These women cut off buttons and ripped seams and sorted the rags by type. Under the paper mill's law of "finder's keepers," one rag sorter at a Gardiner mill got to keep the diamond brooch she found sewn in the hem of a dress.

Until wood chips became the primary source of pulp for papermaking, tons of rags were used by the papermaking industry. If rags were rejected by papermakers, it was because the fibers were not acceptable, not because of the dirt. The bleaching and caustic sodas used to break down the fibers took care of the dirt. However, it was critical to remove all metal — hooks, fasteners, and later, zippers, and any buttons, which were often made of bone, glass, shell, or metal, because of they could cause damage to the machinery and imperfections in the final paper product.
      Like many of the jobs open to men and women in the late 1800s, rag sorting was accomplished in less than ideal conditions, in poorly ventilated, ill-lit rooms. Many a button collection was started from the snippings of rag sorters. Rags were not only sorted at the factories, but sometimes women and children would sort and rescue buttons from rags at home. Young fingers were often occupied on rainy days stringing buttons into sets which were later recycled on homemade clothing.

Discussion:
1. What were/are some of the uses of paper beyond writing paper?
2. What does "rag content" of paper mean? Is "rag" paper still made?

Activities:
1. Write to a Maine paper company. Ask what paper making process they use. Does anyone in Maine still make paper from rags?
2. If you live within reasonable distance of a paper mill, request a tour of the facilities for the class.
3. What happens to old clothes today? Take a survey in your school or community and make a graph showing what happens to discarded clothing. Create a list of possibilities before making your graph. Did you miss any? (Suggestions: throw away, secondhand shop, swap with someone else, hand it down to a younger sibling or cousin or neighbor, recycle it.)How many people save the buttons or other fasteners?
4. Have a clothing drive. To whom could this clothing be sent?

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D, E, F, H
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: A, B
SS/E: A, B, C, D
SS/C&G: A
M: B, C
S&T: B, D, H, I, M

 

These machines at the Pepperell Mills are automatic looms, which Pepperell installed in 1902. With the old common loom, a weaver had to stop each loom in her charge every eight minutes to change an empty bobbin in the shuttle. These automatic looms changed the bobbins automatically, so fewer people were required to operate them. These new looms also had self-threading shuttles, which eliminated what was called the "kiss of death" as a weaver sucked a thread through the eye of the shuttle 500 to 1,000 times a day, inhaling lung-damaging dust and poisonous dye.
      Even with these improvements, loom rooms were hot, sweaty, dirty, cramped, and incredibly noisy. In 1908 a state agent wrote: "As you open the door to the weave room in a large mill a great wave of hot, moist air comes out to you, and a medley of sound as of innumerable railway trains greets your ears, while the floor appears to be swaying and trembling as if the "train" were rounding a curve."
      Weavers were paid by piecework, and damaged cloth was deducted from their pay.

In 1908 about 600 children under sixteen worked in Maine cotton mills and 150 more in woolen mills. Most worked in the spinning department, removing and carrying bobbins, sweeping up, and doing errands. Although it was illegal for children under fourteen to work in mills, some parents got around this by claiming not to know their children's exact ages.

 
Today manufacturers not only produce fabrics, but clothing which is ready to wear. We take the clothing available in a variety of marts and malls for granted. Just over a century ago, most clothing was sewed at home, even as "dry goods" or fabrics became more readily available. As the demand for manufactured goods and clothes increased, ingenious inventions increased productivity as well as replacing man/woman power with machines that became increasingly sophisticated.

Discussion:
1. What are the origin of some of the fibers used to make clothing?
      a. wool
      b. cotton
      c. silk
      d. synthetics
      e. linen
2. How does the manufacture of these fabrics differ?
3. Which invention has had the most impact on the clothing industry?

Activities:
1. Research the child labor laws in Maine.
2. Are there any fabric manufacturers still operating in Maine? Where have other companies relocated?
3. Write to the American Textile Museum, 491 Dutton Street, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854 (www.athm.org), for information on the history of the textile industry.
4. Read Lyddie by Katherine Paterson for a glimpse of what factory work was like for young women in the nineteenth century.
5. Invite a weaver to school (there are several excellent weavers listed in the Maine Arts Council "Artist in Residence" program).
6. Learn to weave a simple project. (Most art teachers can help with this.)
7. Visit a local mall (or your closet). List at least ten different labels and their place of manufacture. Where does the bulk of clothing seem to be manufactured?
8. Invite the owner or manager of a fabric shop to visit the school to talk about the products offered for sale.
9. Investigate sewing machines. How have they evolved over time? How did the sewing machine revolutionize the production of clothing?

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D, E, F, H
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: A, B
SS/E: A, B, C, D
SS/C&G: A
M: B, C, G
S&T: B, D, H, I, M
V&PA: A, B

For a farm wife in 1877, wash day was mostly devoted to a single job — doing the family's laundry. The tubs of water, the washboards for scrubbing, and the pounder for stubborn dirt are all a far cry from tossing the clothes into the Maytag — and we haven't even carried the water from the well yet, or heated it, or carried more water for rinsing!
      If you live in an old house, you have probably noticed that it doesn't have many closets, or that the ones it has are small. People used to own far fewer clothes than we do now. They wore more clothes at one time, and they washed them less often. Aprons got a lot of use.
      Before 1835 almost all of the textiles made in Maine — linen and woolens — were produced in the home. Women spent much of their lives spinning and weaving. Machinery was being used to producing textiles in England, but their laws prohibited selling the machinery to other countries. In the 1830s machinery for a cotton mill in York, Maine, was smuggled out of England in small pieces in boxes marked "Bibles." It was later copied, and mill-made cotton cloth became popular.

 
Wash day for most people in the United States has been replaced by not only automatic washers but dryers as well. The job that took all day now can be accomplished in a few hours. This photo does not include the tedious jobs of mending and ironing that were done after the wash was dry!
      Can you imagine wearing the same outfit for a week? Sunday best was worn only on Sunday and seldom washed before the season ended. Clothes was changed after church, into a clean outfit for the next week. Closets were few since most folks had one Sunday outfit, and few changes of "work" clothes. Woolens were "aired" rather than washed because scrubbing or hot water shrinks wool and dry cleaning wasn't available.
      Notice the equipment used for wash day. Wood again plays a role — barrels, buckets, pounder, scrub boards, etc. The basket that hold wash is another weaving skill.

Discussion:
1. Before detergents and manufactured soaps and powders, how was soap made?
2. What bleaching agents were available to keep whites white?
3. Besides the washing itself, what were some of the jobs that went with doing the washing?
4. How do you think the women in the photo heated water for washing clothes?

Activities:
1. Interview grandparents who might have washed clothing "by hand" or before washers and dryers were available. Write a story about wash day using this information.
2. Bring a scrub board to school. Dust a few desks with a dishtowel, then try to scrub the cloth clean using the scrub board.
3. Calculate: How heavy is a pail of water? Estimate how many pails would fill the wash tub. What is the most efficient way to empty the wash tub. Where would wash water be dumped? Why?
4. See if anyone in your family owns an apron. Why does it make sense to wear an apron when cooking, cleaning, etc. Why do you think aprons are no longer popular?
5. Calculate how many loads of wash your family does per week. How many old-fashioned wash days would you need to do your family's wash?

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D, E, F, H
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: A, B
SS/E: A, C
SS/C&G: A
M: B, C
S&T: B, D, F, H, I, M

Teacher Hattie Hoyt and her students are photographed from the roof of the one-room South Union district school in 1900. Teaching was mostly done by women. In many towns female teachers had to be single and those who married had to resign. The average salary for a female teacher was $4.81 a week. Men sometimes taught the winter term at school, because it was thought they could better control the older, rowdy boys who had been absent from school in the summer to farm or fish. Many teachers were afraid of the big boys, but not Minerva Bryant of Machias, who, although no bigger than a "quart Mason jar," had a temper as firey as a red pepper. Her cousin Ben remembered:
        "She brought into play heavy leather straps, hardwood ferrules, and birch rods to keep her sixty-two pupils in order...she could lay into a strap like a teamster. One day she caught me passing a note to a girl and she lit into me like an infuriated hen, grabbing me by the left ear and marching me to the platform where she laid on the ferrule.... One of the big boys laughed...and she snaked him out of his seat and belabored him with a strap until he howled.... After school she would go skating and bobsledding with us and was as sweet and nice as pie. And how that girl could skate!"

 
For many students, education took place when there was time off from farming or other work. Most schools had several classes, from grades one through eight. Discipline was done by the teacher who could use any means, including a stick or strap.
        Frequently the teacher was the only one with a book. Students copied off the blackboard onto smaller slates at their desks. Most learning was done by rote memorization. Students practiced writing by copying letters off the board. Many teachers had only eighth grade (or possibly high school) education themselves and learned a lesson the night before it was taught.

Discussion:
1. List several ways in which education has changed.
2. How do you think the teacher taught several grades of school at the same time?
3. Why do you think that reading, writing, and arithmetic were the only subjects? Why wasn't science or art taught?
4. How has discipline changed?
5. How has the law changed about school age? Attendance? Discipline?
6. How have the requirements for teacher education changed?

Activities:
1. Memorize a poem and recite it for the class.
2. Have a "times table" contest.
3. Hold a spelling bee.

Maine Learning Results Key:
ELA: B, C, D, E, F, H
SS/H: A, B, C
SS/G: B
SS/E: A, B
SS/C&G: A
S&T: D, M