Women’s Work in “Behind the Scenes in a Restaurant”

Posted on March 28, 2019 by nyamhistory

By Carrie Levinson, Reference Services and Outreach Librarian

We tend to take labor laws for granted nowadays. There are limits in many jobs to how many hours one can work, minimum wage determinations, and other protections for those in the workforce. However, this was not always the case, particularly for certain kinds of workers. In the early twentieth century, for example, these laws had nothing to say about women in many professions, such as those working in restaurants. This resulted in long, grueling hours for many women, without respite or protection from exploitation.

Eight hours of work versus fifteen for restaurant workers

Fig. 1. Diagrams showing the normal working day versus a restaurant worker’s day. Consumers’ League of New York City (1916). Behind the scenes in a restaurant: A study of 1017 women restaurant employees. New York, NY: Author.

The Consumers’ League of New York City was alarmed by this, and decided to conduct a study, which turned into the pamphlet “Behind the Scenes in a Restaurant: A Study of 1017 Women Restaurant Employees.” The study had three aims: to find out the actual labor conditions in New York State restaurants; to determine whether these labor conditions led to a “wholesome, normal life” for the workers in these restaurants; and to see how these conditions impacted society as a whole (1916, pp. 3-4).

One thousand seventeen women were surveyed for this over the course of five months, in different locations such as their homes, their workplaces, and employment agencies. In New York City, all the interviews were given at the Occupational Clinic of the Board of Health (Consumers’ League of New York City, 1916, p. 3). The workers came from all types of restaurants, allowing the League to get a representative sample of participants. Women of all ages were asked, as well as women of different nationalities (though women of color were noticeably absent). The largest group interviewed here was “Austro-Hungarian” (39%), followed by “American” (presumably meaning non-immigrants) (33%), German (8%), Irish (7%), Russian (4%), “Other”, (4%), English & Canadian (3%), and Polish (3%). While there is clearly an effort to be inclusive, there is still racist/ethnicist ideology that creeps in:

The largest single group is made up of Austro-Hungarians. The demand for cheap, unskilled labor in this occupation calls for the kind of service which these girls and others of the European peasant class can give. The outdoor life in the fields of their native land fits them for the hard labor required in a restaurant kitchen (Consumers’ League of New York City, 1916, p. 8).

Despite this language, the League was extremely concerned over the exploitation of these workers, noting that many worked 15-hour days (Fig. 1). Seventy-eight percent of workers exceeded a 54-hour week (Fig. 2), which was prohibited for women who worked in stores and factories. One of the participants, a 20-year old woman, worked 122 hours a week (Consumers’ League of New York City, 1916, p. 13)!

Consumers_BehindtheScenesinaRestaurant_1916_diag5_watermark

Fig. 2. Weekly hours of labor of women employed in restaurants. Behind the scenes in a restaurant… (1916).

The long hours (Fig. 3) were not the only thing this report examined. Other issues included tipping, irregularity of work, and the low wages earned by many in the profession. Such practices prevented these women from having regular social or family lives and had deleterious effects on their health.

The Consumers’ League argued that because of these conditions, a regular working day for restaurant workers was “not only reasonable, but…essential to the best welfare of their people as a whole” (1916, p. 28). They recommended a legislative amendment under the already-existing Mercantile Law.

Consumers_BehindtheScenesinaRestaurant_1916_movie_watermark

Fig. 3. A movie of the restaurant worker. Behind the scenes in a restaurant… (1916).

Did restaurant workers in New York State get the protections they so desperately needed after this report was published? Not immediately. By 1933, a New York law limiting the amount of hours women could work was passed, but then it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1936. Women restaurant workers had to wait until the federal Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938 to have the right to a minimum wage and overtime (Hart, 1994).

Although it did not instantly better the situations of women working in restaurant positions, this report and others like it raised awareness of what it was like to be working in these conditions, and they remain as a testament to those who toiled for long hours to clean, prepare, and serve food to so many others.

This book and other recent acquisitions will be on display and available for “adoption” at the Celebration of the Library night, also featuring a lecture by New Yorker author John Colapinto. Join us on April 11th at the Academy!

References

Consumers’ League of New York City (1916). Behind the scenes in a restaurant: A study of 1017 women restaurant employees. New York, NY: Author.

Hart, V. (1994). Bound by our Constitution: Women, workers and the minimum wage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

More Than Medicine: Social Justice and Feminist Movements for Health

Posted on September 25, 2017 by nyamhistmed

Today’s guest post is written by Jennifer Nelson, Professor at University of Redlands, specializing in women’s history, the history of feminism in the United States, and medical histories associated with social justice movements. She is the author of More Than Medicine (NYUPress, 2015).

On Thursday, October 5, Nelson will give her talk, “More Than Medicine: Social Justice and Feminist Movements for Health.” To read more about this lecture and to register, go HERE.

I begin my story of social justice and feminist movements for health with the Mound Bayou demonstration clinic—located in the Mississippi Delta. The clinic was founded by medical doctors who had been part of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). Most had come to Mississippi to volunteer during the 1964 Freedom Summer, although several others were locals active in the Delta Ministry, a Mississippi based Civil Rights organization.

Dr. H. Jack Geiger and the other founders of the Delta Health Center clinic worked with the Mound Bayou community to prioritize health needs. They quickly discovered that community members needed more than traditional medicine: they demanded food, jobs, and housing—linking these to the promotion of health. The clinic included a cooperative farm that grew vegetables for the community, since most of what was grown in the Delta was for commercial consumption. Click HERE to listen to Dr. Geiger talk about his experiences in Mississippi at the National Library of Medicine exhibit on the Delta Health Center.

Many historians of social movements have emphasized that the women’s liberation movement emerged from the Civil Rights movement. I also pay attention to this connection, but focus on the use of medicine to achieve social justice goals in both the Civil Rights and women’s liberation movements. In both of these contexts, activists expanded the meaning of medicine in the process.

In the 1980s women’s health movement feminists were also grappling with conversations about race and racism. Since the early 1970s, women of color had been demanding that feminists pay more attention to issues raised by women of color. In the 1970s much of the focus was on sterilization abuse. In the 1980s attention shifted to HIV transmission, safer sex, and AIDS. Dazon Dixon Diallo, one of the only women of color working at the Atlanta Feminist Women’s Health Center in the 1980s, focused on developing a program called the Women with AIDS Partnership Project.

Here is a clip from a talk given by Diallo about her organization SisterLove, which she formed when she left the Atlanta FWHC to more directly address HIV/AIDS:

Dazon Dixon Diallo. (Click image to watch video).

My book also focuses on Loretta Ross, one of the most important founders of the Reproductive Justice Movement, which sought to broaden the feminist discourse around “choice” to address the systemic problems associated with poverty and discrimination that prevented many women of color from simply choosing to have or not have children. Ross’s work connects back to the Civil Rights efforts in Mound Bayou among MCHR activists and local organizers with the Delta Health Center. Ross, by forging a reproductive justice framework, maintained that health promotion for poor women could not rest on medicine alone.

More Than Medicine: Social Justice and Feminist Movements for Health is the third event in the three part event series, Who Controls Women’s Health?: A Century of Struggle. The series examines key battles over women’s ability to control their bodies, health choices, and fertility. It is developed in collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York and supported by a grant from Humanities New York.

Women, Equality, and Justice

Posted on October 20, 2014 by nyamhistorymed

By Danielle Aloia, Special Projects Librarian

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, observed a month after the 20^th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA was drafted in 1990 by then-Senator Joe Biden, who understood the devastating effects of domestic violence on women and children and the need for legislation. Congress took four years to approve the act, which was subsequently reauthorized in 2000, 2005, and 2013.

In honor of VAWA’s 20th Anniversary, the White House published the report 1 is 2 Many: Twenty Years of Fighting Violence Against Women, reminding us that: “In the name of every survivor who has suffered, of every child who has watched that suffering, the battle goes on; much remains to be done.” This statement seems even more relevant after the high-profile domestic abuse cases in the media recently.

Until the 1990s, laws weren’t enforced or guaranteed to protect women from their male abusers. In the past, domestic violence was thought to be a personal matter between the concerned parties. The legal system was reluctant to impinge on such a personal affair and if it did the punishment was less severe than for the assault of a stranger. Even though child abuse reporting laws were established in the late 60s, laws against the abuse of women weren’t in effect until the mid-70s.¹

Several historical sources in our collection deal with domestic violence from long before the time of VAWA.

John Stuart Mill. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In 1861, John Stuart Mill wrote The Subjection of Women, but didn’t publish it until 1869 because he didn’t believe it would be well received.² He was a British philosopher and wrote very candidly about women’s equality. Today, he is seen as an inspiration for women’s liberation. Even though he touted equality for women, as in the quote below, he was still constrained by the times in which he lived. He wasn’t keen on women finding work outside of the home or having the same choices as men. But he did believe that women’s knowledge was just as important as a man’s.

“The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.”³

During this same time in the United States, Dr. Mary Walker was making news across the country for her activity in equal rights, especially in the Dress Reform Movement. She was the first woman to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for her medical work during the Civil War. She was later stripped of the title because of technicalities, but refused to give back the medal. The Honor was justly restored to her posthumously in 1977.⁴ She was seen as a rabble-rouser and was arrested on numerous occasions for wearing men’s clothing in public. She even designed a suit that would hinder the incidence of rape.

From: Lockwood, Allison. Pantsuited pioneer of women’s lib, Dr. Mary Walker. Smithsonian 1977;7(22):113-119.

In 1871 Dr. Walker wrote a book on women’s equality titled Hit. The title is a bit of an enigma and possibly has to do with her own unhappy marriage. This treatise asserts that women should be treated as equals under Constitutional law: “God has given to women just as defined and important rights of individuality, as HE has to man; and any man-made laws that deprive her of any rights or privileges, that are enjoyed by himself, are usurpations of power.”⁵

From: Lockwood, Allison. Pantsuited pioneer of women’s lib, Dr. Mary Walker. Smithsonian 1977;7(22):113-119

Hit discusses topics including love and marriage practices of various cultures, like Sicily, Syria, and Java; dress reform; divorce; and labor. Her chapter on tobacco is quite enlightening. She writes of the over-spending on tobacco products in New York City and the harm that smoke causes. “If all this $10,500,000 was expended in providing homes and food for the worthy poor, and unfortunately degraded women of New York, thousands of agonies would be relieved, and millions more prevented.” On alcohol consumption she boldly stated: “Every few weeks we read an account of a man killing his wife, or butchering his children while under the effects of the poison that our great Government derives such a large internal revenue.”⁶

From: Comstock, Elizabeth. Maude Glasgow, M.D. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association 1953;8(1):26.

Another pioneer in women’s rights was Maude Glasgow, MD. She was also a pioneer in preventive medicine and public health in New York City in the early 20^th century.⁷

Dr. Glasgow wrote the book Subjection of Women and Traditions of Men, which provides an historical perspective on the status of women throughout ages. Prehistoric times, she described, were considered the “Matriarchal Age” because women founded almost everything from tools to agriculture. The “Patriarchal State” that followed was “founded on property and physical force.” As women lost their sense of autonomy men gained and refused to relinquish control.⁸

“The literature of all ages is full of insults, diatribes and accusations against women, yet in spite of the prolific abuse he lavished on her, man apparently cannot stand even the most gentle censure no matter how well-founded, and tries to suppress everything drawing attention to any of his own shortcomings or blunders. His self-love and ideas of grandeur must be protected at all cost.”⁹

Domestic violence-related issues continue to loom large today. In a recent publication, the CDC reported that domestic violence is a serious public health problem with long-term consequences.¹⁰ Their prevention “strategy is focused on principles such as identifying ways to interrupt the development of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) perpetration; better understanding the factors that contribute to respectful relationships and protect against IPV; creating and evaluating new approaches to prevention; and building community capacity to implement strategies that are based on the best available evidence.

From: Breiding, M.J., Chen J., Black, M.C. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States -- 2010. 2014. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_ipv_report_2013_v17_single_a.pdf

From: Breiding, M.J., Chen J., Black, M.C. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States — 2010. 2014. Click to enlarge.

We have to do better in fostering a society of zero tolerance, holding offenders accountable, and not blaming the victim.

References

1. California Department of Health Services. History of Battered Women’s Movement. Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence; 1999. Available at: http://www.icadvinc.org/what-is-domestic-violence/history-of-battered-womens-movement/#dobash. Accessed September 26, 2014.

2. California Department of Health Services.

3. Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer; 1869. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27083/27083-h/27083-h.htm.

4. Lockwood, Allison. Pantsuited pioneer of women’s lib, Dr. Mary Walker. Smithsonian 1977;7(22):113-119.

5. Walker, Mary E. Hit. New York: The American News Company; 1871.

6. Walker, Mary E.

7. Maude Glasgow, MD. American Medical Women’s Association; 2014. Available at: https://www.amwa-doc.org/faces/maude-glasgow-md/. Accessed October 9, 2014.

8. Glasgow, Maude. The Subjection of Women and Traditions of Men. New York: M. I. Glasgow; 1940.

9. Glasgow, Maude.

10. Breiding, M.J., Chen J., Black, M.C. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States — 2010. 2014. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_ipv_report_2013_v17_single_a.pdf

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Tag Archives: women’s rights

Women’s Work in “Behind the Scenes in a Restaurant”

Women, Equality, and Justice