last summer's
struggle will achieve a permanent gain for the workers' industrial
future. This narrative of the industrial fortunes of the women cloak
makers in New York in the last year is given for its statement of the
effects of the struggle for the Preferential Union Shop on their trade
histories, and for its account of their gains as workers in the same
trade with men.

These cloak makers' gains were local. What national gains have American
working women been able to obtain? For an answer to this question we
turned to the results of the National Consumers' League inquiry
concerning the fortunes of women workers in laundries and its chronicle
of the decision of the Federal Supreme Court on the point of their hours
of labor.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: Printed statement of the Cloak, Skirt, and Suit
Manufacturers' Protective Association, July 11, 1910.]

[Footnote 24: Estimate of the Waverly Place Office of the International
Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, November 26 to 30.]

[Footnote 25: For this account of the position of different cloak
manufacturers the writers wish to acknowledge the kindness of Miss Mary
Brown Sumner of the _Survey_.]

[Footnote 26: These were the most important clauses of these early
settlements as regards women workers:--

I. The said firm hereby engages the Union to perform all the tailoring,
operating, pressing, finishing, cutting, and buttonhole-making work to be
done by the firm in the cloak and suit business during one year ... from
date; and the Union agrees to perform said work in a good and workmanlike
manner.

II. During the continuance of this agreement, operators shall be paid in
accordance with the annexed price list. The following is the scale of
wages for week hands: ... skirt makers, not less than $24 per week; skirt
basters, not less than $15 per week; skirt finishers, not less than $12
per week; buttonhole makers, not less than $1.10 per hundred buttonholes.

III. A working week shall consist of forty-eight hours in six
working-days.

IV. No overtime work shall be permitted between the fifteenth day of
November and the fifteenth day of January and during the months of June
and July. During the rest of the year employees may be required to work
overtime, provided all the employees of the firm, as well as all the
employees of the outside contractors of the firm, are engaged to the full
capacity of the factories. No overtime shall be permitted on Saturday nor
on a