352 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
These resolutions were not only distributed in every shop in Lynn, but published in two of the leading newspapers as well. The "bosses" were afraid to carry on the contest in the face of such united action, and the shoestitchers won the day. Their wages were unmolested, and the obnoxious certificates were never issued.^®
Looking at the work done by women in the early 70's, after the application of machinery and the removal of the industry from the shops and homes to the factories, it appears that the division of labor between men and women was altered very little if at all by these revolutionary changes. Men still did the cut- ting, ^° earning about three dollars a day in Lynn, and they con- tinued to do the work of sewing uppers to soles, using the new McKay machines instead of the old laborious hand sewing or pegging. For operating the new machines, they received from twenty-five to forty dollars a week.^^ Women and girls were still almost exclusively engaged in fitting and sewing shoe uppers, earning at this time from seven to fourteen dollars a week. An employer from Stoughton reported that as fitters, "girls and women of all ages from thirteen up" were employed and paid from fifty cents to three dollars a day.
The work of these fitters, however, was only a part of the work which the old binders had done, for the "fitter," as the name indicates, merely fitted or pasted linings to uppers, and got the work ready to be stitched on the machine. "Lasting" in preparation for the sewing-together of soles and uppers by the McKay machine, was done by both men and women, the women earning from twelve to twenty dollars a week, the men from thirty-six to forty.^^ "Heeling" and "finishing" were done
"The account of this strike is given in the Third Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, pp. 434-36.
- " The following statements regarding work and wages are from Re Blake,
pp. 40-48. The quotations are all from Lynn and Stoughton.
- The caution should be repeated that quotations of wages from 1861-79
are on a "greenback" basis.
- Just how the work of men and women differed in this occupation, if there
was a difference, it has not been possible to discover.
