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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 13, 1909
Silk Mills of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region Investigated
From the Everett Labor Journal of February 11, 1909:
DISGUISED AS FACTORY GIRLS
That actual knowledge might be obtained of the conditions in the factories two graduates of Bryn Mawr College prominent in social circles in Philadelphia, Miss Fanny T. Cochran and Miss Florence L. Sanville, found employment in silk mills of the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.
In the itinerary of three weeks these college girls visited sixteen towns, and when the days’ work was done went home with the girls with whom they toiled and got glimpses into their life and the influences that surround them. The project was planned by Miss Cochran and Miss Sanville without consulting their friends.
This work was performed in the interest of the child labor bill, which has been prepared at the instance of the Consumers’ League, of which both young women are members and, of which Miss Sanville is executive secretary.
[Said Miss Cochran:]
What we wanted to get at was these four things: First, the workers; second, the wages paid; third, the hours of employment, and fourth, the environment of the girls in the factory. We visited twenty-eight factories, and in many of them the conditions were very bad.
About 60 per cent of the silk throwing mills are in the Pennsylvania anthracite region, and this is due to the cheap labor obtainable. I could not help being impressed by the youth of most of the girls. Most of them were under twenty years of age.
