chool. A son of five, like the rest of the children, is on a
diet of coffee,--milk costs too much. After the children have left for
school, the overworked mother again tries to sleep, though the small son
bothers her a great deal. Besides, she must clean the house, wash, iron,
mend, sew and prepare the midday meal. She tries to snatch a little
sleep in the afternoon, but explains: "When you got big family, all time
work. Night-time in mill drag so long, so long; day-time in home go so
quick." By five, this mother must get the family's supper ready, and
dress for the night's work, which begins at seven. The investigator
further reports: "The next day was a holiday, and for a diversion, Mrs.
N. thought she would go up to the cemetery: `I got some children up
there,' she explained, `and same time I get some air. No, I don't go
nowheres, just to the mill and then home."'

Here again, as in all reports on women in industry, we find the
prevalence of pregnant women working on night-shifts, often to the very
day of their delivery. "Oh, yes, plenty women, big bellies, work in the
night time," one of the toiling mothers volunteered. "Shame they go, but
what can do?" The abuse was general. Many mothers confessed that owing
to poverty they themselves worked up to the last week or even day before
the birth of their children. Births were even reported in one of
the mills during the night shift. A foreman told of permitting a
night-working woman to leave at 6.30 one morning, and of the birth of
her baby at 7.30. Several women told of leaving the day-shift because of
pregnancy and of securing places on the night-shift where their condition
was less conspicuous, and the bosses more tolerant. One mother defended
her right to stay at work, says the report, claiming that as long as she
could do her work, it was nobody's business. In a doorway sat a sickly
and bloodless woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Her first baby
had died of general debility. She had worked at night in the mill until
the very day of its birth. This time the boss had told her she could
stay if she wished, but reminded her of what had happened last time. So
she had stopped work, as the baby was expected any day.

Again and again we read the same story, which varied only in detail: the
mother in the three black rooms; the sagging porch overflowing with pale
and sickly children; the over-worked mother of seven, still nursing
her youngest, who is two or three months