For, although the labor at the machines in the laundry wash-rooms is done
by men, and all work in laundries consists largely of machine tending,
still women's part in the industry can be performed only by unusually
strong women.[33]
In the winter of 1907-1908 the National Consumers' League had received
from different parts of New York a series of letters filled with various
complaints against specified laundries in this city--complaints stating
that hours were long and irregular, wages unfair, the laundries dirty,
and the girls seldom allowed to sit down, and containing urgent pleas to
the women of the Consumers' League to help the women laundry workers.
After consulting some of the laundry women, the League determined to
secure through a special inquiry a well-ascertained statement of
conditions as a basis for State factory legislation for uniform
improvements. A few months before, the constitutionality of the present
New York legislation, as well as of almost all of the State legislation
concerning the hours of work of adult women in this country, had been
virtually determined by the decision of the Federal Supreme Court in
regard to the ten-hour law for women laundry workers in Oregon. The
opinion of the National Supreme Court, which practically confirmed the
passed New York laundry laws and made future laws for fair regulation for
the women workers seem practicable, will be given after the account of
women's work in laundries in New York.
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