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•38 WOMEN COMPOSITORS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
After Controversy ; The Arose Meeting . ...
It was once again urged that printing by women was an impossibility _; that the business requires the application of a mechanical
mind , and that the female mind is not mechanical ; that it is a fatiguing-, unhealthy tradeand that women , being physically
weaker than men , would sooner , sink under this fatigue and labor ; and to these objections an opinion was added , which it is the
principal object of this Paper to controvert , namely , that the result of the introduction of women into the printing trade will be the
reduction of the present rate of wages . With reference to the observations respecting the arduous nature
of printing , I am quite willing to admit that it is a trade requiring a . great deal of physical and mental labor . But with regard to the
second objection , I can only say , that either the female mind is mechanical , or that printing does not require a mechanical mind— *
for that women can print there is no doubt ; and I think every one will accept as a sufficient proof of thisthe fact that the Transactions
, of this Association at _Glasg-ow is among * the volumes printed hy the women compositors at the Victoria Press . Let this fact speak for
itself , together with another _eqLially important—namely , that the Victoria Press is already self-supportingwhich is as much as can
, generally be said of any business scarcely eighteen months old , and far more than could have been expected of a thoroughly new
experiment , conducted by one who had only visited a printing office on two occasions before the opening of the Victoria Press , and who
had therefore to buy experience at every step ; for although such experience is . the most available , it is not the least costly .
The argument that the wages of men will be reduced hy the introduction of women into the businesswas also urged against the
, introduction of machinery , a far more powerful invader of man ' s labor than women ' s hands , but this has fallen before the test of
experience . It must be remembered , as is well argued by the author of the " Industrial and Social Condition of Women , " that the
dreaded increase of competition is of a kind essentially different from _ilie increase of competition in the labor market arising froin
ordinary causes—such increase commonly arising from an increased population , either by birth or immigration , or a decrease in the
capital available for the laboring population . But in the case we are contemplating this will not occursince women already form
, part of the population . Kor will the wages capital be drawn on for the maintenance of a greater number of individuals than it now
supports . The real and only consequences will be , an increase of the productive power of the country , and a slight re-adjustment of
wages ; and while heads of families will be relieved of some of the burdens that now press on them so heavily , there is no ground
for the fear that the scale of remuneration earned by them , will _Tbe reallinjured—the percentage withdrawn will be so smallthat
y , the loss ' will be proportionably less than the "burden from which _,
they will be relieved , for as the percentage destined for the sup-
•38 Women Compositors.
• 38 WOMEN COMPOSITORS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1861, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091861/page/38/
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