1893 - State Library Information Center

84 STATISTICS OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES.In New Jersey the average number of hands engaged duringthe respective periods in manufacture was:Year. Men. Women. Children.1870 58,115 11,198 f*,2391880 , 80,787 27,099 1?,1521890 144,864 ?P,370 6,313The increase per cent, in the number of the respective classesof employes during these periods was :Periods. Men. Women. Children.1880overl870 50 112 1281890overl880 67 46 *57* Decrease; see above.This, if accurate, simply means that the number of adult maleworkers has increased faster than the adult female workers inour manufacturing and mechanical industries, but not in allgainful occupations, necessarily. Whether this has any relationto the decrease in the employment of children is an as yet unanswerablequery.During the progress c f the preparatic n for the Columbian Fairat Chicago, the Bureau received so many applications, fromnumerous sources, for information about the earnings and generalcondition of women employed in industrial pursuits inNew Jersey, that it was determined to make a special investigationof the subject, as extended as the means at the dipposal ofthe office warranted. To have investigated all the conditionssurrounding this large part of our industrial population wouldhave been impracticable. The inquiry was confined to the matterof wages and cost of living, principally. For this purpose,appropriate schedule blanks were placed in the hands of specialagents, who visited the homes of the workers and their places ofemployment, wherever access could be obtained or informationgathered. By this means returns from 3,877 individual womenand girls were collected. These comprise wage earners engagedin 80 general industries, approximating 400 specific occupationsor trade subdivisions. While this number of employes is not alarge portion of women wage earners in the State, or even of the