=348. Bleachers and Pressers.= I called in a place where I saw the pressing of bonnets and children's hats. The rims of the hats were pressed by a woman with a large iron, the crowns by a man with an iron attached to a lever fastened in a frame. It is all piecework, and some can earn from $4 to $5 a week. I have been told that Mrs. K., New York, employs women pressers. The iron is not so heavy for bonnet pressing as for hats, but requires too much strength for a woman. Shaping straw bonnets is done by women--that is, placing them on blocks and pinning them around the edge, after they have been bleached, until they acquire shape. A man pressing straw hats, told me he is paid 5 cents a hat, and can press sixty in ten hours. The time for learning either to sew or bleach, I find, is usually six weeks. Mrs. M. pays learners nothing for six weeks. Her busy seasons are from October to last of November, and from December to spring. It is all piecework, and her girls earn from $3 to $4. A bleacher of straw hats employs a lady at $5 per week to alter and wire bonnets, after they have been bleached, which is done by her own family. She works ten hours a day. The work is mostly confined to spring and fall. The bleaching process is very deleterious, owing to the sulphur used. It produces a loss of vitality and shortens life. A stout, healthy man, in the course of a year, becomes quite pale and thin. The bleaching does not require all the time of any one. The bonnets and hats are put into the bleaching room, and, when they have become white, are taken out.
=349. Braiders.= The following is from the New York _Tribune_, of 1845: "The Amazonia braid weavers--a large and ill-paid class of working females--begin work at seven in the morning, and continue until seven in the evening, with no intermission save to swallow a hasty morsel. They earn, when in full employment, $2 and $2.50 a week. Out of this, they must pay their board and washing (for they have no time to wash their own clothes), medical and other incidental expenses, and purchase their clothes--to say nothing of the total absence of all healthy recreation, and of all mental and moral culture, which such a condition necessarily implies. They have, many of them, no rooms of their own, but board with some poor family, sleeping anyhow, and anywhere. For these accommodations they pay $1.50 per week, some of the lowest and filthiest boarding houses charging as low as $1 per week. The living here must be imagined." At Foxboro', Franklin, Middleboro', and Nantucket, Mass., are straw manufactories. "In 1855, 6,000,000 straw hats and bonnets were made in Massachusetts, giving employment to ten thousand of her people." Rye straw is raised in all the New England States. It is cut, soaked in water (I think split), and then dried. It is sold by the pound--then braided by women and children for 10 or 12 cents a day. It is mostly done in farmers' families, who are at but little expense for living. In this state, it is mostly sold to merchants or agents, who sell it at manufactories, where it is trimmed by machinery, and then sewed. It is then shaped into bonnets, wired, pressed, and bleached, the crowns are lined with paper, and they are packed ready for exportation. The women earn on an average $5 a week. In England, wheat straw is raised, which is inferior to rye straw. N. says the largest straw-bonnet establishments of England are not as large as those of the United States. For making straw hats in Philadelphia, men receive $7.50 a week, and women $4.50. Philadelphia is said to spend $6,000,000 annually in the manufacture of straw goods. At H.'s, New York, they employ from fifty to one hundred hands. It is usual to have learners six weeks for nothing, and then pay full wages, if they prove competent. Work is given about ten months. They are paid by the piece, and can earn from $4 to $6 per week. In December, they begin to make up hats and bonnets for spring. A milliner told me she pays her braiders by the yard. Some earn $4 a week, and some even $5. They work at home. The summer season is over by September. H. writes: "In my opinion the best arranged industrial establishment is the Union Straw Works at Foxboro', Mass. High wages, cushioned arm-chairs, a literary society which carries on the lyceum lectures of the town, are all far above any of our factories. The proprietor would not call it a factory, to make it more attractive. Out of three hundred operatives, sometimes, seventy-five have been teachers."